employee’s skirts are too short, blessing the food at work event at my home, and more

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

1. Do we need a dress code because one employee’s skirts are too short?

I work in a small marketing office and am part of the leadership team. It shouldn’t matter for this, but I am a woman. We have no written dress code and it is pretty casual. To give you an idea, leggings and tracksuit bottoms are not that uncommon, nor are hoodies and shorts. But I’m not sure that means we have actually no rules. At the extreme end, swimwear and booty shorts would not be okay, nor would a t-shirt with swear words on it.

One staff member, Barbara, stands out a bit in how she dresses — think very short dresses (with tights underneath) and sometimes low-cut tops. I personally don’t care (and have always mentally marked this as a choice but not one that impacts my assessment of her work, which is good, or her character). Another member of staff, Lisa, has asked whether we need to consider tightening the dress code. (I think Barbara was doing something during a break that meant her dress had ridden up, and Lisa has raised it off the back of this.)

One option of course is to do nothing. And maybe that’s fine. But there is a line — no one should have to see their colleague’s underwear. Should we talk to Barbara about this? If we do, how can this be phrased in a way that isn’t awful? I don’t think we want to try to construct an entire dress code because of this either, especially if it were aimed solely at women or solely at “too short skirts.”

I know you don’t want to construct an entire dress code because one person isn’t following it, and you don’t have to — you could just talk to Barbara and let her know that at least one outfit recently exposed her underwear and ask her to ensure she’s wearing clothes to fully cover her undergarments.

But I’d argue that it’s a kindness to spell out more formally what isn’t okay. So far, everyone but Barbara has picked up on it, but given that your office does have some expectations around dress, it’s not ideal to rely on people figuring out those expectations on their own. You might be thinking, “Most people look around and figure it out” — but as you’re seeing, inevitably some of them will get it wrong. Since there is a playbook that you expect people to use (just an unwritten one), it’s kinder to everyone — and better management — to spell it out.

It doesn’t need to be any more proscriptive than the current expectations. It could simply spell out what you’ve spelled out here — no swimwear, booty shorts, or t-shirts with profanity, and clothes should provide enough coverage that undergarments aren’t exposed.

Someone still needs to talk to Barbara; you shouldn’t just roll out a new dress code without explaining to her what she needs to change. But ideally you’d do both.

Related:
our interns are clueless about our office dress code

2. Construction noise when you’re working from the office

I work in a hybrid environment, and our office is located in a multi-tenant building. For the past one to two months, another suite in the building has been undergoing a major retrofit for a new tenant. About a quarter to half of the time, this has involved very loud construction work (concrete boring rather than light drilling), and we occasionally feel vibrations as well. I’ve reduced my in-office days to the minimum required, and when I am on site, I rely heavily on noise-canceling headphones throughout the day. This has helped but I still notice the construction.

How much and for how long is it reasonable to expect office staff to work in conditions like this? Management seems sympathetic to the disruption but hasn’t suggested increasing our work from home days. Management did say they requested that the most disruptive building work be done outside of normal office hours. Is this enough? Should I be expecting more?

Are they actually doing the most disruptive work outside of normal office hours now? If so, that may be the most you can expect if your work really does require you be in the office X number of days this week. If it doesn’t really require that, then it’s reasonable to ask if you can increase your work-from-home days until the construction is done (or at least until the loudest phase of it is done). That request will be stronger if it’s based on “the noise is giving me headaches” or “I can’t hear people on the other end of my call” rather than just “I still notice the construction even with headphones.”

It’s also reasonable to ask about what the timeline is likely to look like, since it’s probably easier to tolerate if you know this is the final week versus if you know it’s going to be like this for months.

3. Blessing the food at an event with employees at my home

I supervise a team of about eight people across multiple offices, and recently, when everyone happened to be in town, I invited them all to my home for dinner. I was explicit that this was an optional, after-work event. I encouraged people not to bring anything (although a few brought desserts, as people will do). When it was time to eat, I offered a brief blessing on the food, a tradition in my faith (and something I think we’ve never skipped in our home, although I’m confident the deity I worship would get over it if we did for one meal).

No one seemed uncomfortable, but after the fact, I wondered whether that was an overstep. On the one hand, members of the team are of different faiths (or no faith at all), and I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable. I’d never bring up religious issues in the workplace, and I have no desire to proselytize to my supervisees. On the other hand, this was an event in our home and we were (briefly) observing our usual customs. In future, what would you advise?

Yeah, ideally you’d avoid it when it’s a work gathering, even though it was at your house. But how overtly religious was the blessing? If it was an “in Jesus’s name we pray” type blessing, that’s much more likely to make someone uncomfortable (and be inappropriate for a work gathering) than if it was a fairly general appreciation for the food without any mention of specific sacred figures or texts.

4. I keep missing a morning meeting because of a medication side effect

I work on a team of three. Until a year ago, my team all worked mostly or completely remote. My boss, Rachel, still does, as she lives in a totally different time zone. The third member of our team, Phoebe, and I would do separate check-ins weekly with Rachel. But our company moved to a new location and started requiring all employees within a certain radius of the office to come in on a hybrid basis. Employees outside that radius are allowed to stay fully remote. Phoebe and I are hybrid, and Rachel is remote.

We started doing team check-ins, with Phoebe and me in a conference room and Rachel calling in. Except Phoebe and Rachel are both morning people, starting work at 7 am my time (Rachel is often online even earlier because she is in a time zone ahead). I am … not. I tend to arrive to work closer to 9:30–10, with 10 being the latest allowed by the company. We compromised on a check-in time of 9:30.

Fast forward a few months, and I am on a medication that has a side effect of fatigue, which has hit me badly. I’m still in the office by 10, so I am within the bounds of company rules, but there have been multiple occasions where I have fallen back asleep in the mornings or overslept and missed the 9:30 call. I have explained several times it’s a medication side effect and apologized profusely. But I can tell Rachel is annoyed, even though she always says it’s okay.

I missed the call again today. Phoebe is on a sabbatical right now, so it is just me and Rachel. Rachel’s temporary solution is to have me take the call from home at 9:30, then come to the office, but we’ll need to figure out a more permanent solution when Phoebe returns in a couple months. Rachel has noted she and Phoebe prefer early check-ins, and it doesn’t really make sense to return to separate ones since Phoebe and I will be in the office together.

I know I am the problem here. I am the one who keeps missing the call. And I feel like a child every time I have to say I overslept or missed an alarm again. But I have talked to my doctor and there isn’t much she can do without putting me on a different medication that runs the risk of even worse side effects. I feel like I’m not being heard that this is something that has a very easy solution. If we moved the call an hour later, this would not be an issue. How can I lay this out and make it clearer I need a later check-in time? At least until I figure out a solution that helps me get out of bed in the mornings.

Approach it as a medical accommodation: “I am as frustrated as you that this keeps happening and because it’s medical, at this point I want to ask if we can move our meetings to 10:30 as a medical accommodation, or a later time if you prefer it? I can talk to HR about a formal accommodation if you think I should, but I thought I’d check with you first in case you don’t think going that route is necessary.”

5. Working a full-time job and a part-job for the same employer

My organization allows full-time employees to hold a part-time position within the same organization. I don’t understand how the organization does not get in trouble for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) with regards to non-exempt full-time employees.

If I work 40 hours this week at my full-time job, how is it allowed that I could then come back and work another 12 hours on the weekends as a part-time position doing something completely different and not accrue 12 hours of overtime pay? It is the same company, and the same pot of money that pays each person. Am I missing some crazy loophole?

Nope, that’s illegal.

If an employee is non-exempt (meaning not exempt from overtime) their employer must pay overtime (time and a half) for all hours over 40 in the week, even if the employee is working two completely different jobs for the same employer. That’s true even if the part-time job on its own would be exempt; if their “main” job is non-exempt, then the additional work gets treated as non-exempt too. (The only exception to this in the law is for government employees, and only if the part-time job is only occasional or sporadic.)

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