I cried at work and my coworkers won’t stop asking if I’m OK, office renovation disaster, and more

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

1. I cried at work and my coworkers won’t stop asking if I’m okay

I work in a small office where there are some strong personalities and, though our manager is very nice and reasonable, there’s only so much you can do about people like that.

Yesterday, two of my coworkers (Mary and John) and I ended up having to do mediation with our manager over the pettiest shit imaginable. It’s so petty I can summarize the whole thing in one sentence: John walked in while Mary and I were prepping for a workshop, put a form whose processing is not my job on my desk, and when I asked him why he was giving it to me, snatched it back and walked out while ignoring Mary’s attempts to make small talk.

Later, John informed me that Mary and I had been bullying and harassing him and he had called our manager, Lisa, who would be having one-to-one talks with us about it.

I was so, so mad. Mary and John both use me as a screaming pillow when they want to vent or are angry about some new stupid policy and, since my workspace is by the front desk, I can’t just walk away since they block the exits. I end up smiling and nodding until they’re done. If I snapped a bit, then okay, but I deeply resent the fact that it became a huge issue worthy of calling the manager the one time I happened to sound anything less than perfectly pleasant and demure, when he’s allowed to be loud and shouty all the time.

The problem is that when I get really angry, I cry. Not just tearing up, but full-on sobbing to the point where I can’t speak. Despite my best efforts, during the talk with my manager (who wasn’t even grilling me or anything, just chatting with me to get my perspective), years of pent-up frustration with my coworkers broke the dam and I burst into tears. Lisa was very nice about it, but it was humiliating.

Since then, Mary and Lisa keep asking me if I’m alright despite me repeatedly saying that yes, I am. I just want them to forget they saw or heard anything and move on. I know they’re only asking because they care, and it feels really mean to just be like, “Stop asking me that.” Is this just something I have to wait out, or can I do something to convince them I really am okay and they don’t need to keep asking?

“I know it was a big reaction and you’re asking out of concern, but honestly, I’m embarrassed and would be really grateful if we could just move past it.” If you want, you could add, “I promise you I’m fine and, the faster it’s behind me, the better I will feel.”

That said … is there maybe an opening here to talk to Lisa about your frustrations with John shouting and trapping you at your desk to rant and so forth? I get it if you just don’t want to have to talk about it anymore, but it sounds like you have some legitimate frustrations that an effective manager could act on if she knew about them. (Of course, maybe she does. Maybe you’ve tried this enough in the past to no avail and that’s why you just want to be done talking about it, in which ignore this paragraph.)

2. How should I call out for a general strike?

What is the correct way to call out on Friday if one wants to participate in the general strike? I’m still trying to decide if it’s something I can/should do (I support the cause 100%, just unsure if it makes an impact for me to participate from another state while working for an unrelated local government agency), but I don’t know if using a sick day is the right way to do it or if I should use a vacation day. I’m unlikely to be questioned about using a sick day, for what it’s worth, though I could maaaybe be straight with my boss about the reason and use a vacation day.

First, for people who don’t know, a general strike is when people from multiple industries (ideally all or most) unite to withhold their labor. One is called for today (Friday) to protest violence by ICE, including the murders of Renee Good and Alex Petti; organizers are asking people to abstain from work, school, and shopping.

If your workplace isn’t unionized, then you probably don’t have the legal right to strike on your own with the risk of losing your job. A safer option if you want to participate is to call out sick. (Caveat: if a bunch of your coworkers call out sick without actually being sick, you do risk disciplinary action. That might not happen, but be aware that it could. In general, striking or participating in any form of collective action always carries possible risk.) Also, be safe and don’t use your company’s email or messaging systems to talk about this or to organize.

But if you don’t feel you can safely participate in a general strike, there are still lots of other ways you can help, such as contacting your legislators (contact them again, if you already have), donating to organizations doing work you support, volunteering, and getting involving in mutual aid work in your community.

3. I got stuck paying my own tab at a company party where they footed the bill

I work for a small company. Every year we vote on having our Christmas party catered or we going to a restaurant for a pre-fixed, set price menu, which is paid before. The company will not pay for any alcohol.

Every year, I vote for an in-office, catered party, as I previously worked in restaurants and saw too many fiascos at company parties. However, this year the vote was for at a nearby restaurant. The party went fine and my coworkers and I all had one or two drinks apiece. At the end of the meal, our branch manager (not the owner who had made the no-alcohol rule) generously went to the bar and paid the whole party’s bar tab.

But as we were leaving, the waiter chased me down and said I needed to pay my bar tab. I was confused, but I know mistakes happen and since my boss was not nearby me, I paid the $84, plus tip, and figured I would just mention it to my boss the next day. Hindsight being 20/20, I understand now that I should have questioned it at the time. But we were literally heading out and I thought it might embarrass my boss to put her on the spot.

The next morning, I mentioned it to my boss and she said that she had paid the whole bill and had the receipt listing every item ordered. She called the restaurant and they had no explanation, so I was still confused as to what I was charged for.

However, in her retelling to me of the conversation, she said something I didn’t fully register at the time. Which is that she didn’t tip on the bar tab, which might mean the waiter approached me to get payment for the gratuity. I’m still not sure, to be honest I don’t feel like the numbers add up, but if it my boss really didn’t tip then I’d rather just leave it, as I would hate for that to be true. But I’m also pretty frustrated because I feel I got put in a situation I wanted to avoid from the start and am now paying $100 more than my colleagues who voted for this option.

My boss is now furious about how I was treated (why did the waiter single me out, when she was the host?) and wants to go to the restaurant in person for an explanation. If the explanation is that it’s the missing gratuity, I’d rather just leave it, but I’m pretty sure it would offend my boss to say that. But it’s also possible that’s not even true. What do I do?

Let your boss go to the restaurant and sort it out. As the host of the event, it’s reasonable that she’s upset about an employee being charged for something they weren’t supposed to be charged for, and it’s reasonable for her to take responsibility for sorting it out. If that leads to the restaurant explaining that no tip was left, then so be it — if she’s offended by that, you won’t be the one explaining it. And there’s some value in her hearing that it’s not okay not to tip (and this gets it done without you having to be the one to tell her). 

That said, I’m not sure this is about the tip — at least in my area, unless the restaurant has a policy of adding it to the bill for large parties, they couldn’t just hand you a bill for it. (And if they did have that policy, presumably it would have been on the original bill … although maybe it was and she ignored it, and that’s what happened?) Anyway, let her sort it out.

4. Office renovation disaster has led to more disasters

I work for a large company on-site at a manufacturing plant, with 2,700 employees at my location. I am an assistant manager in purchasing, so not directly tied to production. A few offices in the plant were recently renovated, but someone miscounted the number of desks needed. We wound up being about 50 desks short for our office of about 150 (oops). Because fewer desks were purchased, they ordered bigger desks, and some conference rooms were built to take up the extra space. We were making do with only 100 desks until work-from-home policies changed, which means we now need all 150 of those desks and do not have space for them in our office (double oops).

To account for this, multiple departments have been shuffled around the plant, majority being flip flopped between two offices. Office A has prime real estate: right next to the cafeteria and restrooms, elevators nearby, etc. Office B is halfway across the plant and walking through the plant on a “catwalk,” or pathway above the manufacturing floor. Office staff usually get the worst parking spots, so it’s almost a half mile walk to Office B. In addition, to get to Office B, associates must walk up two flights of stairs (an elevator is available), down a flight of stairs (no elevator), then back up a flight of stairs (no elevator). There are no restrooms or water fountains on that floor, so they have to go up and down 1-2 flights of stairs (no elevator) every time they need to use the bathroom. On top of this, each bathroom is closed for cleaning at different times every day, so some unlucky associates may be stuck doing a second 1-2 flights of stairs (no elevator) if the first is closed. Of course, our department was one of the departments that moved from Office A to Office B.

All 150 of us who moved offices had to pack up everything from our desks and carry it across the plant/catwalk (including monitors and standing desks), as we did not have movers in the budget. We did have temporary access to a freight elevator for the standing desks/monitors, but everything else had to be carried up/down stairs by our office staff.

Since we moved, a few associates had medical conditions pop up and can’t get to Office B with the stairs/walking through the plant. That means people either have to work in Office A away from their team, or work from home until they are able to resume stairs/walking through the plant.

This is weird, right? I imagine a day will come where an associate cannot walk to our office due to illness/age/medical situation, then what? I feel like I’m in the middle of a TV show and would love some validation that this isn’t normal?!

Correct, this is weird and not normal. From the original desk-counting mistake not being corrected once it was discovered, to expecting people to take such a circuitous journey multiple times a day, to being responsible for hauling your own monitors and standing desks across a catwalk (!), this is all absurd.

To your question about what will happen if someone physically can’t get to your office because of their physical condition, I imagine they’ll handle it like they’re handling temporary medical conditions now: people will be given an accommodation in the form of working from home or from Office A. So they’re complying with the law. But it is indeed bananapants.

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