my coworker takes his family everywhere, my desk is really far away from my team, and more

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

1. My male coworker takes his family everywhere, and it makes him late for work events

I am a woman in STEM and have a coworker, Fergus, who has a stay-at-home-wife and a toddler. They currently live out-of-state with his in-laws, and when he travels — whether it’s to a conference, work event, or just an in-office event — he always brings his wife and kid.

This leads him to often not arriving to these events that start at 8 or 9 am until 11 or 12 because he went to brunch with the fam. My (male) boss finds it endearing, despite it often leaving the rest of us idle for hours waiting on him and often seems to overlook women in the office with children for projects.

This is weird, right? If I as a woman were to do it, it would seem distracting to the job and frowned upon, right? I am not being unreasonable here?

Yes, it’s weird. Not necessarily that he brings his wife and kid with him — some people find it easier to do that when they travel — but that he allows it to affect his availability for work during these trips, particularly during normal business hours, and it’s even odder that your boss is apparently fine with it. It’s particularly problematic that your boss seems to discriminate against women with kids, while having a different standard for a man with kids who is actively letting them affect his availability during work hours.

Any chance the rest of you want to speak up and say, “Could we ask Fergus to be here at 8 so we’re not waiting on him like has happened a lot previously?”

2. Is it normal for my desk to be really far away from the rest of my team?

I’m in my mid 30s and have been working full-time for over a decade, but after working in the arts for my whole career, I recently changed industries to something that’s more formal office-type work. When I was interviewing for this job, I made sure to ask as much as I could about office culture, but I didn’t think to ask where my desk would be, and I’m regretting that now.

My office is in the very back corner of the building, far away from everyone else. You basically have to have a map and answer three riddles to get to my office. I feel lucky that I have space to work (and even a window!), but I absolutely hate that I sit alone in my office all day. Is this normal? In my previous roles in arts organizations, even when my job was mostly desk-based, I never felt physically separated from the rest of my team like this. This was usually because there wasn’t enough space for everyone, but even if my office was around a corner, there were constantly reasons to be getting up and talking to my colleagues. On the (rare) occasions that I had an office to myself, everyone else was always close by.

Are people in office jobs really out here just sitting alone at a desk working all day? I feel so disconnected from my colleagues and my work, and I’ve never felt less motivated to do work. Is office/desk location worth asking about when interviewing? I know there are people who love working remotely, but I’ve always struggled with it because it felt isolating to me. But if most office jobs are sitting alone at a computer for most of the day anyway, then I certainly have a new appreciation for being remote, where I can at least hang out with my cat. But I’m seriously considering leaving, and while there are other significant reasons that this job isn’t working for me, the geography of where I’m working is definitely a major factor, so I want to be sure that where I go next doesn’t have the same issues. Is this the norm that I should be expecting? Should I ask about it in any interviews that I get?

It’s not the norm to be seated far away from the rest of your team (which is probably confirmed even in your own office by the fact that the rest of your team seems to be seated closer to each other). But there are certainly workplaces where it happens, often due to a shortage of space where they’d prefer to put you.

Have you talked to your manager about it and asked if there’s a way to sit closer to the rest of the team? You could explain that you feel isolated and would prefer to be in closer contact with people you work with. Who knows, maybe there are alternatives, especially if you’re willing to give up things like a window. It’s worth at least asking.

Otherwise, though, yes, you can ask what the office set-up is like when you’re interviewing. It’s something to save for closer for the end of the interview process, not in an initial phone screen, but you could certainly say something like, “I had a job where I sat really far away from the rest of my team, and I found that made it harder to collaborate. Can you tell me a little about what the office set-up is like for this team, and for this role in particular?”

3. We’re expected to donate a lot of money for gifts throughout the year

I need a gut check on gift giving on my team. We are a team of eight, including our manager. We typically each pitch in $5 for a gift card for everyone’s birthday, which costs around $35 each year. We also do a Christmas present for each team member, which is around $50 total. And then when someone is going through a hard time, like if their pet dies or they have an unexpected medical issue, we will pool another $5-$10 each to help out. So it costs about $100-$120 a year to be on our team.

Contributions are “voluntary,” but they are organized through our online chat platform so everyone can see if you’ve contributed or not. Some of us can definitely afford the cost, but there are people on the team who make a lower hourly wage, and none of us are getting raises this year. Also, I have a very rocky relationship with our manager and had to get HR involved to avoid retaliation around her birthday last year. And I still had to contribute $5 for her gift card and sign a card wishing her a happy birthday.

I am trying to make it work with my manager but she gets really enthusiastic about the gift giving and I find it off-putting. I’m not sure if that’s because of my past issues with her or because I’m starting to think that it costs too much to be on my team. Thoughts?

It’s more than off-putting; it’s unethical. It still happens with a surprising amount of regularity, but people shouldn’t be pressured to contribute their own personal money to have a job, or to be seen a full member of their team.

Whether it’s politically smart to do anything about it is a different issue. There might be room for a bunch of you to speak up and ask that the practice be curtailed — but since you have a rocky relationship with your manager and she apparently retaliated about something birthday-related last year, you probably shouldn’t be the one leading it.

4. We’re not paid for mandatory lunch meetings

We have a mandatory monthly staff meeting with lunch provided. Sometimes the meetings are more than an hour. Our meeting last week was less than 45 minutes. The purpose of the meetings varies. In theory, we are allowed some time to eat lunch before the staff meeting portion starts; however, last week, our boss started the meeting immediately. This meeting consisted mostly of us going around the room to introduce ourselves to a new employee. So, we all sat there for most of this time telling one person information that we already know about each other.

When we have these lunch meetings, for hourly employees like me, HR deducts 30 minutes from our paid work time as “lunch.” If hourly staff are short of 40 hours for the week, we are generally expected to use enough PTO to equal 40 hours.

I typically don’t take a lunch break, so my workdays are a straight eight hours. Yesterday, I double-checked my time for last week, and damn if I’m not 30 minutes short now because HR deducted 30 minutes for this lunch meeting. I would not otherwise be short. I will have to submit a request for 30 minutes of PTO if I want to be paid my full 40 hours. My alternative would have been to stay at work 30 minutes longer that day to make up the time deducted for this lunch meeting, which I would have done, but they waited until yesterday to deduct the time. Now I’m stuck using PTO for something I didn’t have a choice to do. If I had stayed later and they hadn’t deducted the time, I’d have overtime, and they don’t want that either.

Is it fair, reasonable, or legal to require hourly staff to attend a lunch meeting and then not pay them for that time? It seems petty at best to take this 30 minute deduction for hourly staff when the handful of salaried staff don’t have to worry about it. In addition, I have serious health issues that force me to be very mindful of my PTO, so losing 30 minutes for something like this makes life more difficult for me. I just can’t believe there isn’t a more reasonable option here.

Because the meetings are mandatory, it’s illegal for them to deduct that time from your paycheck. If they were truly optional, they could do it this way — but they’re mandatory and they’re about work, so you need to be paid for being there. Federal law, and probably your state laws too, make this very clear.

You could say this to your HR: “I recently learned that we can’t legally deduct lunch meetings from our hours if the meeting is mandatory. My understanding has always been that we’re required to attend, so can you fix the previous deductions from my check?”

This is going to be a big mess for them to fix retroactively — because adding back in that time means they’re also going to owe you overtime for any weeks where that will take you over 40 hours for the week — but legally they do need to fix it. That said, if you decide that’s more trouble to you than it’s worth, you could just ask them to fix the last one and anything going forward. But you’d be on solid legal ground in expecting them to fix it all.

Also, if your state is one that requires a lunch break after a certain number of hours (not all do; google the name of your state and “lunch break” to see if yours does), they need to give you one that’s separate from these mandatory meetings.

5. Interviewing while trans — when I previously met with the hiring manager before transitioning

I recently, very suddenly and unexpectedly, was laid off. I was not prepared at all for this as leadership had reassured us only two weeks before that the team would not be impacted. So I’m back on the job market after five years.

I’m finding a lot of the jobs I can apply to are at the same companies I interviewed with five years ago before I got my current role. Different positions, but with the same hiring managers listed and in the same divisions. Normally, if I’ve met with someone before in an interview, I will note it in my cover letter, especially with multiple rounds of interviews. Maybe they will remember, maybe they won’t, but if they liked me enough to bring me in three or four times, I want them to remember it.

But here’s the issue — I’m trans, and in the last five years I changed my name and began to transition. I currently look just like a butch lesbian, and my chosen name is plausibly gender neutral. I also use she/her pronouns in customer-facing roles because I’d rather not constantly correct people. But the name change and my obviously more masculine presentation is going to be noticeable — especially the name change, as it’s rare to change one’s first name like I did. Think changing your name from Katie to Ryan.

How would you recommend I handle this in cover letters and interviews? Should I not mention it at all and let them assume I’m a different person? Mention I met with them before and have since changed my name but not clarify details? My name change is not a secret — my resume lists a patent under my deadname with (under a prior name) next to it and I will tell a hiring manager it to use when verifying references — but I also don’t want to be “the transgender applicant” before they even read my resume.

If it matters in your answer, I live in Massachusetts and wouldn’t want to work for a transphobic company anyway. I’m less worried about not being hired because I’m trans, and more about when and how it is appropriate to mention this information.

In your cover letter, say something like this: “I interviewed with you in 2021 for the X position (I was Katie LastName then) and really enjoyed talking with you about ____.” That’s it!

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