we have one bathroom key for 18 women, coworker makes bigoted remarks about his own religion, and more

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

1. We have one bathroom key for 18 women

My workplace is moving offices next week, and our bathroom situation is changing dramatically. We’re going from five unlocked unisex bathrooms to two gendered restrooms of two cubicles each, shared with other tenants of the floor. Those bathrooms will be locked, and for our entire 25 person staff, there is one key for each gender. (I am given to understand the matter of additional keys would cost management extra, and they are … skinflints.)

The trouble comes in a couple factors. One, my office is predominantly female, so we’re going to have a lot more demand for our key than the gentlemen. Two, some of my coworkers take, frankly, for-e-ver, which is fine, I don’t know what’s going on and that’s their business, but … three, there are times when my bathroom needs can be sudden and urgent. I don’t want to have to hope the key is up front if I suddenly need it, and then suffer if it’s not.

We had a town hall about the move yesterday and I expressed my concerns in a non-specific way, and they were brushed off. Other women on the staff feel the same way, and we’re looking for a way forward. What are our options here? Being female doesn’t necessarily qualify under something like ADA, I can’t just “forget” the key in my bag one day and take it to Home Depot and use the key machine (not that I ever would, of course) because there’s only one copy, and at this point the only thing I can think of is getting an accommodation letter from my doctor to force management’s hand, but that only helps me, and not the other 17 women on staff.

This is a terrible set-up! One key for 18 people? Bathroom needs aren’t by appointment; they happen when they happen, and all kinds of problems could result from someone needing the key when it’s not available (not to mention that at some point someone is going to lose the lone key, and then what?). It’s absurd that they’re not getting at least as many keys as there are stalls, plus a backup. (Or better yet, if the bathrooms need to be locked, why not lock them with a keypad and give you all the code? They might not have control over that since it sounds like they’re renting space in multi-tenant building, but they can absolutely pay for more keys.)

Meanwhile, though, you and your other concerned coworkers should push back as a group. The framing to use is a pretty flat and insistent, “This won’t work for us.” Point out that with two stalls for women, two women are supposed to be able to use the bathrooms at once, and the keys need to reflect that.

2. My coworker makes bigoted remarks about his own religion

I am very happy with my company’s culture and compensation, but I have a concern regarding a coworker. One of my colleagues frequently makes stereotypical remarks about his own culture/religion as a form of self-deprecation. Because our workplace is not very diverse and many of my younger coworkers are not worldly, they have begun to repeat these bigoted comments back to him or even initiate them themselves.

While our supervisor is often occupied with meetings and likely hasn’t witnessed this, I am concerned that the behavior is creating a hostile environment. I also worry about customers overhearing these remarks.

How do I effectively complain about discriminatory comments when they are being initiated or encouraged by an employee from the culture/religion being insulted, especially to a supervisor who may not recognize the behavior as problematic?

There’s no “except if you’re from the group you’re using a slur about” exception in the laws about discrimination and harassment at work; people can’t say bigoted things at work even if they’re talking about their own race, religion, ethnicity, etc. In fact, a court case on exactly this last year found that using racial or religious slurs is not protected activity, and employers can enforce rules against discriminatory language regardless so whether or not the speaker belongs to the group they’re speaking pejoratively of (as long as they enforce those rules consistently).

If you want to ask for it to be addressed, I’d frame it as, “I don’t think it’s okay for anyone to use this language at work, and they don’t know who around them might also belong to the same group.” You should also mention that other coworkers are now starting to use the same language themselves, which is additionally not okay.

3. My coworker asks questions that I answered in the email he is replying to

When I have discussions with a specific coworker, he will typically ask a follow-up question that was answered in the previous email. I am increasingly frustrated because I feel like he isn’t actually reading the email and is only skimming it. We are swamped with work, and I am losing patience but I don’t want to be rude. I simply want him to put in the effort prior to asking a question.

“That’s addressed in my email below — take a look there and that should answer it, but let me know if there’s a different aspect you’re wondering about.”

If he keeps doing it after you’ve replied that way a few times, you can just start copying and pasting the piece of the earlier email with a line saying, “Answered below, copying it here.” (If this coworker is your boss, you need to soften that a little but could still say, “I answered that below so I’m copying it up here for your convenience.”)

4. Can I ask for a retroactive raise when a temporary role becomes permanent?

On the surface this is probably an easy yes/no question, but as someone who only a few years ago negotiated my salary for the first time ever (thanks to your advice and potential scripts I got $5,000 more!) at age 45, thinking about it has me riddled with anxiety.

When offered a permanent role for something you’ve been doing on a temporary basis for several months, can you ask to have the pay be retroactive to your start date in the temporary role?

Not generally. You agreed to a rate of pay for the job for that time period, and now you’re negotiating a different one going forward. It’s also possible that they didn’t give you the same level of responsibilities or accountability in the temporary role as they’re going to be giving you in the permanent one (when they figured that you might not be doing the work for longer than a few months).

5. A report from someone interviewing Gen Z candidates

I’ll preface this by saying: I’m not always 100% perfect at never complaining about “the youths” of today and their really tall socks, and I hear a lot from random colleagues about how terrible working with Gen Z is. I haven’t had much professional interaction with interns or juniors in the last few years myself.

I put up a posting to take interns for the summer, and I did interviews over the last two weeks. I have been 10/10 impressed. Everyone who applied was in their early to mid-20s.

• I gave a choice of Zoom or in-person; every single one chose an in-person interview (I was fine with either, but I thought it was nice that they wanted to come in).
• My office is on the 22nd floor of a huge building with many elevators (I warned them and provided instructions, but people often still get lost); every single one showed up in the right place, and on time (NOT 30 minutes early, which I hate, and not late).
• Everyone wore something reasonable.
• They all had great questions for me ready to go.
• One of them got a (better) job at a bigger firm and wrote a thoughtful message withdrawing and thanking me for the interview.

This has not always been my experience since I started hiring interns ~10 years ago. The only bad part is that I have to pick someone now and say no to the rest!

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