It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My coworker is wearing jewelry that signifies a dominant/submissive relationship
I recently realized that one of my coworkers wears D/s jewelry every day. (Funny enough, I wouldn’t have recognized it had I not been a devout reader of your blog and read the letter from the person asking about wearing a collar to work!) Now that I’ve noticed the jewelry, I feel like I can’t un-notice it. I’m all for people living their own best lives, but overt sexuality at work makes me incredibly uncomfortable. (Can I blame my Catholic upbringing? Because I’d really like to blame my Catholic upbringing.) I work with this person regularly and am on friendly terms with them. We don’t discuss our personal lives with each other, so I would feel weird bringing up the issue of the jewelry. While we both work for a children-focused nonprofit, my coworker doesn’t interact with the public in any way. I think my concern is too petty and intrusive to bring to HR. Any tips on how to “get over“ the discomfort?
You’re right that it’s definitely not something you should bring up with HR or raise with your coworker.
I don’t know exactly what the piece of jewelry is, but there’s no guarantee that she’s wearing it to signify a dominant/submissive relationship! That stuff isn’t exclusively for D/s relationships, so it’s possible she just saw it and liked it. In fact, there were a bunch of commenters on that previous letter saying they owned similar jewelry with no symbolism attached.
So to get over your discomfort, why not decide that’s likely the case here? There’s a decent chance it really is and that your coworker would be horrified (or just amused) to find out how you’re interpreting it.
2. Employer wants to post photos of my kids online
I have a strict policy of my children’s images not being posted online. I learned, today, that my husband’s brand new employer is asking why he doesn’t have pictures of his children on his Facebook page, wants him to post pictures of his children online, and plans to take family pictures of us and post them on their website and Facebook page. I in no way want my husband to feel like the odd man out or to negatively impact their “family friendly” company marketing in any way. However, I don’t feel that I can compromise my children’s safety or happiness. Do you have any suggestions for how we navigate this?
My husband’s company is not one that relates to kids in any way. (Think roofers or similar.) They are a small, local company and are trying to show that they are all local families who are invested in the community so folks will choose them over some larger, multi-state company.
You’re completely entitled to keep photos of your kids offline!
Can he blame this on “family policy”? As in, “My wife and I have a strict family policy that we don’t post photos of our kids online.” He could add, “I’d be glad to appear in photos myself though” if he’s willing to do that.
It sounds like he might not have given them a clear “no, we’re not going to do this” yet, so hopefully once he does, they’ll back off. If for some reason they don’t, he can get firmer: “It’s just not an option for me. I share the company’s family-friendly values, and that means I can’t violate my family’s rules on this.”
3. I no-called/no-showed a shift for my sister’s mental health crisis and I’m panicking
I am a college senior who has read your blog since my senior year of high school. It has helped me land several internships during college, including the part time job where I’m working now. It’s a small business run by two amazing women who I want to emulate someday. I work at the front desk checking in clients and occasionally do the same for one-off workshops they run. I just started in September so while I have a good track record so far, it’s not a lengthy one.
Cut to yesterday afternoon, when I got a call from my mom saying my younger sister had attempted serious self-harm. She’s physically okay now, but since I go to school up the street from her, my mom wanted me to go and be with her until she and my dad could get there, which of course I did. I was scheduled to work a one-off shift that night, and in all the panic (we initially weren’t sure what hospital she was taken to or who took her there) I completely forgot about letting the owners know what was happening. As I was waiting with my sister in the ER, I noticed I had many missed calls … and that I had completely no call/no showed for the workshop. I felt terrible and called them back, giving them a very brief outline of what happened and apologizing profusely. It went to voicemail. The next day, I sent a longer email explaining what had happened and again apologizing.
They wrote back and told me that it was okay, that obviously this was an emergency. The exact quote was “Last night, the instructor and participants were all locked outside of the door, and we honestly just didn’t know you weren’t going to arrive. It sounds like today, the case was you were not able to call us, and time swept you away and you forgot, so thank you or explaining that to us. I am sure this is out of character for you as described, and we understand life can happen. So again, thank you for the email and please, lets just wipe the slate clean and move forward, as I know it was a unique circumstance. I hope you sister is okay — sending good wishes.”
But my anxiety over it is making me ill. I’ve NEVER done anything like this at a job and I’m scared they’ll hold it against me in the future for shifts or when I need a job recommendation this spring as a new graduate. So I guess my question is in two parts: 1. Did I handle this correctly? 2. How do I move forward? I’m so mortified and I have no idea how to act or what to say at my next shift.
You handled it correctly. Calling as soon as you realized what had happened and then sending a more detailed email the next day were both the right moves, as was apologizing.
I would take them at their word that they know life happens (it does!) and that they believe this is out of character for you. That last part is the thing that really matters — if you’d already had a track record of unreliability, this might be different, but if they know you to generally be reliable and responsible, it should be pretty easy for them to understand what happened and not think this is the start of a pattern of you not showing up. Something very serious happened in your family, and they get that. Let them give you that grace!
If you want to address it again in person, you could say, “I want to thank you for being so understanding about last week. I was horrified when I realized I’d missed my shift — I’m really grateful that you know that’s out of character for me, and I’ll make sure that never happens again.” But then, it’s okay to move on. Be careful about being highly reliable the rest of the time you work there, and it shouldn’t be an issue moving forward.
4. My coworkers are pressuring me to bring a date to the office Christmas party
I am currently single and a lot of my coworkers are married or in relationships. We have an upcoming Christmas party. Everyone keeps wondering why I would want to go by myself. They say, “Why would you want to go alone?” “Don’t you want to have someone to talk to at the party?” It’s a party, I go to socialize with other people. When I’ve had a significant other, I don’t spend the entire party just talking to them, I talk to the other party goers. And what is wrong with going alone? One of the people who keeps bothering me about this went alone last year because she and her husband were fighting. Am I missing something? When did it become bad to go to a work party alone?
They are being weird, and frankly kind of rude. It’s not at all strange to attend a work party without a date. (And really, subjecting a date to an office holiday party is not typically an awesome time for the date.)
5. Can I ask for feedback as a freelancer?
I have a question about professional development as a freelancer in a creative role. I’ve worked with a major client of mine for several years, and generally get enthusiastic feedback from them on my work. The company culture is effusive in general, so I take feedback like “Amazing!” and “You’re a genius!” to mean that they’re very happy with what I’ve produced for them. If something isn’t quite right or needs changes, they give clear notes so I can make adjustments. I have a great rapport with my contacts at this company and would very much like to keep working with them as long as I can.
That said, I know there’s always room for improvement. I regularly look over my recent work and their feedback on it to suss out ways I can grow (especially since the work I do for them has to reflect their brand’s style, which has recently evolved), but like everyone, I’m limited to my own perspective and can’t see every issue.
I don’t expect my client to give me any kind of performance review, but I sometimes wonder if there’s an appropriate way to initiate a short conversation about their level of satisfaction overall and give them an easy opportunity to bring up any big-picture issues that I could resolve. I thought about soliciting feedback from folks in similar roles who work elsewhere, and while this would definitely be helpful, it won’t give me insight into my client’s point of view.
I’m hesitant because (1) I don’t know if this is inappropriate — would I just be giving my busy contact another task on their to-do list, one that I should be handling on my own time? (2) They keep hiring me, so they must be getting what they need out of my work, right?
What do you think? Should I try to have this conversation, in the hope that I’ll learn whether there’s something I’m missing (or get assurance that I’m on track)? Or is this just my low-grade impostor syndrome rearing its head, certain that there must be *something* wrong?
You’re right that it wouldn’t be appropriate to expect a performance review from a client, but you can definitely say something like, “I’d love to talk about how things are going overall and whether there’s anything I could do differently that would make my work stronger for you.” You might just hear “No, everything’s great,” in which case there’s not a lot of room to push for more — in that case you’re likely dealing with someone who’s (a) busy, since thinking through useful feedback can take real time and effort and (b) is happy enough with your work that this isn’t eliciting an immediate “Well, since you asked…”
But it’s definitely fine to broach the subject and express interest in hearing feedback if any comes to mind for them.
There are also vendors who do annual surveys inquiring about how things are going and where they could do better, and that’s an option too — but a lot of people ignore those and you might get better results from going the direct conversation route.
coworker is wearing BDSM jewelry, employers wants to post photos of my kids, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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