If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t be a reference
Little of that common wisdom encourages employers to embrace multi-generational workplaces. It’s unfair and I wish you had more resources. I hope you find a great new employer that embraces everything you bring to an organization.
High school never really ends
A few years ago, a co-worker whom I considered a friend, though not a particularly close one, invited me to their house for dinner. What I thought was a fun social evening turned out to be a setup to pry information out of me that was immediately shared without my consent.
Our relationship has been chilly ever since. My co-worker’s attempts to exclude me from social gatherings and make sure I know I’m being left out have recently escalated to high school absurdity. It’s things like consistently scheduling events on dates when I said I couldn’t come, stage whispers to other colleagues about upcoming plans when I get there, among other little things. I’m starting to feel quite isolated in a workplace that I thought was very congenial. Any advice?
I think this colleague will probably leave for another position in a few years, so I’m inclined to sit this out as I don’t see how responding to these provocations will have a positive outcome.
– Anonymously
It’s amazing how many people deal with petty harassments in the workplace. It shouldn’t surprise me given that I work in academia, a bastion of pettiness, but still… This is a strange, unfortunate situation. You don’t say the nature of the information they plucked from you or if something caused such a dramatic change in behavior from a friendly co-worker, so it’s hard to know what’s going on here.
Waiting two to three years is probably the most realistic and frictionless way forward, but that’s a long time to feel isolated at work. Why do your other colleagues go along with that? I have more questions than answers, but you need to stand up for yourself! Point out that your co-worker is scheduling appointments even though you’ve made it clear that you’re not available. Make your own plans with colleagues. Meet absurd with absurd if you have to.
Company theft
I work for a non-profit organization with over 800 employees. Salaries are not high, but we get a 2-to-1 match on our contributions to the retirement plan, which is significant. The organization was restructured last year and our pension manager has changed. We couldn’t make any contributions for a month, so we didn’t get a match.
We were told that if we came up with the amount for that month, we would get the match at the end of the year. It is now over a year later and no one has received the match. HR blames the company that manages our pension plan and says it is working on a solution. I feel like paying more than a year late for our retirement plans is payroll theft! People have left the organization and I assume they will never get the match. Is this worth getting upset about, even if it’s just a few hundred dollars that I won’t even be able to use in decades?
– Anonymously
This is certainly a form of theft, however unintentional. A few hundred dollars is important to most people, especially when that money accrues interest over time. Unless they’re chasing that payment, your former co-workers will never see that money, which I’m sure the organization knows.
Those of you still working there should keep pushing the issue. You owe the money and if the situation were reversed and you owed the organization, best believe that management would do anything to collect it.
You have to calibrate how angry you get about this and how much you escalate the problem with how much you care. This probably isn’t something that requires a scorched earth approach, but you can ask HR for specifics on how the company is working on it and a timeline for resolution. Stay on this until you get the money you owe.
Write to Roxane Gay workfriend@nytimes.com.