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Dear Work Friend,
I’m a practicing Buddhist working at a university, with a desk next to a difficult co-worker.
One recent afternoon, while a colleague and a student were talking about a campus event, she loudly wondered whether they’d be “serving Kool-Aid.” The next morning, I found a piece of paper with “the cult” on it taped to her otherwise bare desk, hanging toward my work space.
With H.R.’s blessing, I calmly asked her what the sign meant. She told me to keep her name out of my mouth, mocked my “Karen voice,” and insisted that “the cult is a band!” Since then, she has mimicked my typing, drummed on her desk whenever I stop typing, and moved the sign so it now faces only me.
I reported everything in writing to H.R., which responded that because this co-worker has a pending lawsuit against the university, they can’t take action against her right now, since it could look like retaliation. Their solution was for me to move my desk, but there is no other space.
I don’t want to sue my employer. I just want to come to work without being mocked for my faith. I’m exhausted from managing this on my own while the person causing it faces no consequences.
What can I do when H.R.’s hands seem tied? And how do I keep working next to someone who clearly wants me to feel unwelcome?
Anonymous
Most people are obligated at some point in their careers to work directly adjacent to an unpleasant person. This is frustrating, because “my neighbor sucks as a person” is generally not enough reason to change desks or offices, at least as far as management is usually concerned.
Your bad neighbor, however, has crossed the line into harassment, and done you the favor of giving you leverage. If you’ve made your employers aware that you’re subject to workplace harassment based on your religious practice — as you have — and they’ve done nothing about it — as they have not — you have grounds for a Title VII complaint.
Your H.R. representatives should know this, and if they don’t, your university probably has an equal-opportunity or equity office that can remind their colleagues of their duties. And if it comes to it, I suspect there are a lot of employment lawyers who would be eager to explain to a deep-pocketed university the nuances of Title VII and its obligations to its employees.
The point is that your H.R. reps hands are not tied here. The decision to move you rather than to address the harassment directly is a decision based on legal considerations only insofar as they have determined you are much less likely to sue the university than your co-worker’s lawyer is to file a new motion in her lawsuit. That they reached that decision and still didn’t move you suggests to me that they really, really don’t think you’re going to do anything about it.
I respect that you don’t want to sue your employer. But I don’t think you need to. You just need to make the administration think you might for them to start taking your concerns seriously. Start with a formal letter to your boss, with H.R. CC’ed, including your documentation of the harassment and asking how the university is going to meet its obligations to you.
It doesn’t need to be a threatening letter — but don’t be afraid of escalating to the equal-opportunity or equity office, or of consulting an employment lawyer who might help you draft the kind of letter they’d take seriously. I bet you’d find that all kinds of new office desks will open up to you, ideally with neighbors less interested in English post-punk bands of the 1980s.
Two weeks ago, we published a letter from a woman seeking advice about returning to office work, in her 50s, after two decades of working for herself. We asked Work Friend readers what they would suggest as advice. Across the hundreds of responses, a few clear themes stood out:
Learn to love, or live with, new tech …
By far the most consistent thread among all responses was that workplace tech is entirely unrecognizable, and you’ll need to get up to speed. It’s not just the software you use for your job, but the whole infrastructure of W2 work: “Expect to enroll in benefits, review policies, and sign contracts through payroll and H.R. platforms,” Polly Bangs writes from Portland, Ore. Ron Katz, who returned to office work in his early 60s, advises: “Make friends with the IT and support teams, not just your colleagues. They will save you more quickly than a co-worker who resents or is wary of the new person on the team.”
… especially Slack, Zoom, and GIFs.
New communications software comes with both a learning curve and a new set of expectations. “Don’t expect voice-mail messages to be responded to in a timely manner, if at all,” one writer cautions. Instead, get used to chaotic video conferences. “Remember that guy who went viral in 2017 because his toddler intruded on a BBC interview? That’s how we all work now,” explains another. For style points, “work on your GIF game,” C.A. writes. “People now communicate in GIFs over Slack or Teams.”
Adjust to a new, more casual and more flexible culture …
After technology shock, the second most-mentioned development in the workplace was the rise of more casual dress codes: “It is totally normal to wear tennis shoes on a client call, and I haven’t worn high heels since before Covid,” one reader wrote. The end of suits and ties is accompanied by a broader cultural shift, which one commenter summed up by saying, “Overall, the employment relationship has become less hierarchical and more collaborative.” What sometimes seems like laziness on the part of younger colleagues is often just different habits. Another person writes that his younger colleagues’ flexible hours “doesn’t mean they’re lazy or work less — in my experience, quite the opposite is often true.”
… and be thoughtful in how you communicate.
I’m wording this topline summary carefully, because the advice around this tended to fall into two broad camps: People who believe that young workers today are humorless scolds (“Never make a joke at work” was a common refrain), and people who believe that they’ve struck a blow for better workplaces. (“As a Gen Xer, I give all credit to much-maligned millennials for making the workplace significantly more respectful,” one correspondent writes. On behalf of millennials: Thank you.) Either way, our commenters agreed that caution and thoughtfulness is warranted. “Absolutely everything you say or do at, or even not at, work can be recorded and saved for posterity,” one person wrote.
Be curious and outgoing …
Many people wrote that workplaces are less social than they used to be, and older workers will have to make the first move in establishing relationships. “Moderating my expectations for work friends (haha) was necessary to mitigate my disappointment,” one of our correspondents admitted. But younger workers often appreciate your input, and your curiosity: “If you’re working with a lot of millennials, I’d say lean in. Ask questions, be curious, and share your experience too,” another writer suggests.
… but set boundaries for yourself.
All that new communications tech means it’s harder to leave the workplace. “It’s harder to justify taking a day off when you’re sick because most people can just work from home now,” one person writes. “There’s no such thing as snow days anymore.” For this reason, another commenter advises, “establish early on that you will not be answering work-related calls or emails when off duty.”
Be prepared for a long hiring process …
Many, many readers responded not so much with “workplace advice” as with “job-seeking advice.” “Ageism is very real,” one commenter writes. “Applying for an open position with no connections has very low odds of success.” One 53-year-old woman said she “stopped putting the dates for when I earned my bachelor’s and master’s degrees on my resume and got more responses.”
… and the difficult transition of having a boss again …
Others suggested that the biggest difficulty might be learning how to have a boss again after two decades of working for yourself: “Adjusting to someone else’s processes and priorities may be your biggest challenge,” Melanie Taplett writes. Though there are also some good things: “Relish in not having to do everything yourself,” Ron Katz suggests.
… in fact, maybe don’t do it at all?
A small minority of readers even advised our advice-seeker to avoid returning at all: “‘What advice would you give to someone returning to the office from self-employment?’ Don’t.”
But if you do, there are helpful supplemental materials.
A career counselor in Gainesville had a very specific piece of advice: “Your assignment for today is to rent ‘The Intern’ with Robert De Niro as a traditional worker returning to an office full of young people.”
The post My Co-Worker Is Losing It Over My Religion appeared first on New York Times.
