Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/09/i-feel-guilty-that-my-coworker-got-fired-for-accidentally-sending-me-a-graphic-email.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32685

A reader writes:

A while back, I was working on a matter with a colleague, and he replied to an email I’d sent. However, instead of answering my question, he copy/pasted what seemed to be a response to an ad offering adult services for money, which he had intended to send to someone else. There were some things in there that would make even a fairly sexually liberated person a bit uncomfortable reading.

I wasn’t sure what to do, so I forwarded it to my boss, the head of the legal department, for advice. She took the matter over from there and alerted our information security department, as well as HR. There was an investigation and it became clear that him copying that text to me was a complete accident. Apparently he felt terrible and he offered to apologize to me directly, but I declined (I was embarrassed and really just wanted to forget the whole thing).

It was a small company, and the CEO asked me directly what I thought they should do and whether I would feel more comfortable if he was fired. It almost felt like he wanted me to tell him that I couldn’t go on working with this guy anymore so that he could justify firing him. However, I said that I could get past it and continue working with the guy, and I didn’t think he should be fired because it was a mistake.

However, after several weeks of back and forth, the CEO decided to fire him, saying it was a violation of our information security policy to use a company laptop for the purposes of soliciting sex online (fair enough). However, our CEO was a very conservative person and part of me always thought that it was the same-sex and graphic content of the email that really drove the nail into the coffin.

I have carried around guilt over “getting this guy fired” since then. I know I couldn’t have kept the email to myself, and I was too junior to know what to do in such a situation. Do you think the company was right to let him go? How should it have been handled?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

The post I feel guilty that my coworker got fired for accidentally sending me a graphic email appeared first on Ask a Manager.

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https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32685

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/09/my-coworker-floods-me-with-social-messages-all-day-every-day.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32929

A reader writes:

My coworker, Kara, and I are on the same team at work. We’re remote, and I’ve been on this team since 2020. We’re similar in age, have a lot of the same interests, and our values align. We didn’t really start talking until about a year ago, and it was awesome! I was happy to finally have someone I really got along with on my team. We’ve hung out together once outside of work, and it was great spending time with her!

But Kara has become… a lot. I like being friendly with my coworkers, but I do not want to be best friends with a coworker. Every single day we’re both working, she talks to me all day, through the work chat. It is a rare occurrence that I’m not getting 10+ messages from her per day. The most frequent topics are complaints about basic work responsibilities, and long-winded descriptions of podcasts she’s listening to. Throughout nearly every single day. But then, she is also constantly asking questions about my life, and wants updates on everything I have ever told her about.

She tells me she wants pictures of my pets, because I have a lot. I’ve told her that if I get particularly cute ones, of course I’ll share. But then she’ll let me know I haven’t sent her pictures of X pet in a while. Or Y pet. Or how is Z pet doing? She acts almost annoyed that I’m not taking time out of my day to remember to send her pictures.

If I’m not talkative, she’ll comment on it, and I’ll give a very normal reason like “just tired today.” Some time later, she’ll always ask for an update on the situation — “Are you feeling less tired today/this week? Have the dogs calmed down since a few days ago? Did you ever figure out that legal situation with your aunt you mentioned 2 months ago? How are repairs on the house going?” And these “check-ups” are on top of the constant questions like, “Any plans for the weekend? Do anything last weekend? How is (animal)? Have you named (new pet/foster) yet? Here’s a bunch of suggestions you didn’t ask for! Remember I asked for pics!!” The other day, she said as what I assumed was just a friendly send-off, to “boop the animals for me!” I said I would. A couple days later, she asked rather seriously if I had actually “booped” my animals for her, as requested.

If I ever come in late, I’m asked about it. If I’m okay. Slept in? Alarm didn’t go off? Not feeling well? Dogs do something? If I work on a day I’m normally off, even for like two hours, (my work lets me move time around sometimes), I get a message. “Flexing time today?” She is always watching to see if I’m online, or not, and needs to know why if it’s outside the norm.

I’m being completely serious when I say that no one else in my life talks to me this much. Not a single person. Not any of my friends, not my only sister, no one I’ve ever known has talked to me this much on such a constant basis. Not even significant others. And it’s been, like, a year of knowing her better. I am socially exhausted, and it feels like I am the only person on earth she ever speaks to.

I’ve tried dropping hints. I’ve tried directly telling her, “I don’t want to hear so many complaints/negativity about work,” “I don’t want to hear about podcasts constantly,” etc. etc. Going silent leads to passive-aggressive comments and more questions. Once, I told her very blatantly that I was burned out, and did not want to socialize at work for the foreseeable future. Two days later my Teams pinged — “Feeling rested enough to chat yet?”

I consider myself an extroverted person who loves to socialize. I am very talkative. In social settings. As I said, I like being friendly with my coworkers, and even making friends occasionally. I do not want to get messages for 10 straight hours, four days a week, from the same person about the same topics. It’s gotten to the point where even if she doesn’t talk to me for a day or two, the second I get a message from her, I feel exhausted and annoyed all over again.

I try to stick to my guns when I don’t want to socialize. And maybe once every two weeks, I’m the one who is particularly chatty, because work is slow or whatever. But I’m struggling of thinking of a way to tell her, “You are talking to me WAY too much, and I don’t dislike you at all, but it is exhausting to interact with one person this much when I am AT WORK” without upsetting her or sounding awful. How should I deal with this?

First and foremost, can you mute Kara on the work chat so her messages aren’t constantly popping up throughout the day? It’s actually a blessing that this is happening through messages and not in-person, so take full advantage of that!

Beyond that, one option is simply to respond to her at the cadence you want, not the cadence she wants. Maybe that means you respond to one or two messages at a day, at a time that’s convenient for you to do it. Maybe it means a few times a week. You can decide how often you’re up for chatting and just stick to that. You don’t need to answer every single message, either. Answer what you feel like engaging with and ignore the rest.

If she demands answers she’s not entitled to, like why you weren’t online earlier, you can just … ignore that. If she sends passive-aggressive comments about where you’ve gone, you don’t need to change anything on your side. You don’t need to respond to those or address them in any way. At most you could say, “Sorry, just busy and can’t respond so frequently.”

Alternately, or in addition, you can address it head-on: “You’ve commented a couple of times that I don’t seem talkative, and the truth is that I just can’t chat this frequently at work. I can trade a few social messages a week, but that’s my limit — and when I’m very busy, it might be less than that. I really need to focus on work.”

You did a version of that when you told her were burned out and didn’t want to chat for the foreseeable future — which was good — but when she pinged you two days later to ask if you were ready to socialize again, ideally you would have said, “No, I’ll let you know” or “No, really busy” or even not responded — which might feel rude, but given the context it’s really not.

In fact, I suspect a lot of this struggle is because you feel rude maintaining boundaries in the face of her barrage of messages. In a normal social situation where someone picks up on and respects your boundaries, you generally don’t need to say things that sound rude — so most of us don’t get much practice doing it. But when the other person is flagrantly ignoring the clear boundaries you’ve laid out, you sometimes do need to say things that are so blunt that you’ll feel rude about them. You’re not the one being rude, though; she’s forcing you to spell out very explicitly something that you don’t normally need to hammer someone over the head with.

The other thing here is, Kara may be someone who needs very clear boundaries that you never deviate from. Most of the time, it’s entirely possible to have a work friend who you might not interact with for days and then you have a lengthy chat one random Thursday, and the person doesn’t assume that means you will be having lengthy chats every day from then on. (Or if they do think that, it’s usually easy to clear that up just being less available.) But in Kara’s case, if you’re particularly chatty with her on a slow day every couple of weeks, you’re probably undoing all the boundary-setting you’ve done up until then; she’s just not someone you can have a particularly chatty day with or she’s going to think you welcome it the rest of the time.

The post my coworker floods me with social messages all day every day appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/09/my-coworker-floods-me-with-social-messages-all-day-every-day.html

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Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/09/i-found-our-new-hire-napping-in-my-office-company-wont-handle-fridge-clean-outs-anymore-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32981

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

1. I found our new hire napping in my office

I recently took a day of PTO but ended up having to stop by the office mid-afternoon to pick something up I’d left behind. I have a large private office with a couch, but I do not keep it locked when I am out, in case others need to access something there, which is the standard practice in my office.

I walked into my office to find my coworker asleep on my couch. He woke up and said, “I only meant to sleep for 20 minutes, I’m sorry!” I was in a rush and taken aback, so I just told him it was fine and moved on.

I approve staff’s timesheets, so I know he was not clocked out for a break and actually went into about 20 minutes of overtime that day. I’m not his manager, but I am in more of a leadership role than he is. He is also new to our team, having only been employed here for about a month. I don’t want to be a snitch, and I’m aware of the privilege of having a private office when he doesn’t. But this feels like a problem to be napping on the clock, and I don’t love that he used my office to do it when I was out. Should I bring it to our manager now, address it with him myself, or wait to see if it’s a pattern and bring it to our manager then?

I don’t think it’s necessarily a big deal that he borrowed your couch for a nap — maybe he was feeling sick and figured that was an available space where he’d be out of the way, or who knows what. But it is a bigger deal that he was napping without clocking out, and especially since he’s new I’d give your boss a heads-up. Maybe it’s a simple matter of him just having forgotten to correct his timesheet and something that can be easily remedied, or maybe it’s part of a pattern. Your manager will be better positioned than you to know, and also to keep an eye on future indicators of any pattern.

You don’t need to frame it as “Cecil did this horrifying thing.” You can be pretty low-key about it — “seemed off to me, though for all I know there could be a perfectly good reason for it, but I thought I should mention it in case it’s something you want to know about.”

2. Company won’t handle fridge clean-outs anymore

I work at a Fortune 500 company that has a huge corporate campus with at least 75 communal areas (fridges, freezers, microwaves, sinks, trash, couches, seating areas, etc.) I’ve worked here for almost 10 years and in that time those areas have always been upkept by the cleaning company we use, including the fridges. Every other week, on Sundays, the fridges were cleaned out and there would be signs reminding employees to take anything out by that day or it would be thrown away. Each fridge is used by about 170 people any given day for both personal lunch items and different culture events, so you never really know what belongs to who, and everyone’s very respectful about not touching things that don’t belong to them.

Recently the company announced the fridges will no longer be cleaned at all in an effort to save money. Is a shared refrigerator that’s not being cleaned by the company ever legal? What if it gets moldy and we don’t realize it because it’s so big and holds so many things? Do we wait until it’s something gross happens for them to realize this was a bad decision? Help.

It’s legal for them not to handle the fridge cleaning. I suppose it’s possible that mold and mildew could grow so out of control in there that it could conceivably become an OSHA issue … but it’s unlikely. There are quite a few companies that don’t provide fridge cleaning, and the vast majority of the time gross stuff eventually gets thrown away by someone who gets fed and up and tosses things, or a group of annoyed employees tries to organize a cleaning rotation (generally with varying degrees of success). Sometimes that does indeed result in moldy items hanging out in the fridge for weeks, but there are no legal regulations around this as long as the company isn’t a food service establishment and as long as toxic chemicals aren’t being stored in the same area.

That said … the amount of money saved by cutting fridge cleaning is small at best, so if they’re resorting to that it might be a harbinger of more significant problems to come.

Related:
I’m in charge of our disgusting office kitchen
our coworker has filled the office fridge with old, moldy food and refuses to toss it

3. I don’t want to talk about my pregnancy at work

I work for a faith-based private school that is very family-oriented. People regularly talk about their kids, share about their personal lives, etc. Normally, this is fine. However, I am very unexpectedly pregnant with twins and am struggling with it a great deal mentally and emotionally.

Right now, only a couple of people at work know (my boss and one colleague who I trust). Soon, however, I will have to at least share with the rest of my team (for maternity leave planning purposes), and it will become very obvious to everyone else. I know I can’t control people, but I really don’t want anyone to ask how I’m doing or bring it up outside of when it’s strictly necessary (i.e., planning for maternity leave). What’s the best way to shut down any conversation without offending anyone? I’m not anti-child or family by any means (I have two older kids myself), but given the circumstances I just can’t be happy about this pregnancy and would prefer it to be ignored as much as possible.

How about this: “This is a stressful pregnancy and it’s a lot easier on me not to talk about it at work, thank you so much for understanding.” People may assume that means medically risky, and it’s fine for them to assume that; they’re not entitled to the details.

4. I’m being docked PTO days for a suspension, despite not doing anything wrong

A few weeks ago, I came into the office on a Tuesday and was told that I was suspended. I had to go home and HR would contact me. Later that day, I got an email from HR saying they were investigating a complaint against me and I would remain suspended until it was resolved. On Wednesday afternoon, I got a call from HR. They said the investigation was ongoing but they partially lifted my suspension. I was allowed to come back to the office the next day with some irrelevant restrictions (things like no business travel to a customer, no high-level meetings unless specifically approved, etc., none of which made any difference for my work). They refused to tell me what the complaint was about.

The next week, I got another email from HR telling me the investigation was concluded. No wrongdoing on my part was found, and the partial suspension was lifted. No details were provided. However, they informed me that they have to deduct three PTO days: two for the days I was suspended and a third to account for the partial suspension. I called HR and asked again what happened. They refused to give me any information at all.

Is it normal to get no information about an investigation against me at all? I can imagine that they might not want to disclose the person who complained or that an investigation is ongoing against someone else. But getting nothing? And is it normal to subtract PTO for suspensions? I can understand this somehow for the two days I was at home, but the third day seems just like a punishment as I did my normal job on those days. Losing the three days means that I have to change plans for a short vacation later this year.

Employers can make you used PTO to cover a suspension, but it absolutely shouldn’t cover the day you were back in the office doing your job. That makes no sense; you were working as usual. Legally they can probably do it (unless you’re in a state like California with very clear rules around PTO, and even then it might be allowed) but it’s nonsensical and crappy (in all cases, but especially when they eventually cleared you of any wrongdoing). But you could certainly ask them to better explain exactly why you’re being docked PTO for a day when you were on-site and working, and why you’re losing any considering that they found you didn’t do anything wrong.

The lack of information about what the investigation was about is frustrating but not totally abnormal, and it could be because there’s an ongoing investigation that they need confidentiality around. It was reasonable for you to ask, but it sounds like you’re not going to be informed. At this point I’d stick with trying to reclaim at least one of those vacation days, but preferably all three.

5. Providing feedback on my manager when the required questions aren’t applicable to me

My company gives us the opportunity to provide upward feedback to our managers. The form is framed through three specific areas: forward-thinking, collaboration, and team-building.

However, my manager is a result of office location, not job duties. They are a communications executive and office leader, and I’m the (only) office admin. Most of the questions in the feedback form ask about things I don’t see from my manager — not because they aren’t doing them, but because of my lack of visibility into their daily work.

I’d still really like the chance to provide feedback anonymously, but there’s no N/A option for the (mandatory) feedback questions. To get to the more general short answer sections, I’d have to answer the questions based on assumption, which doesn’t seem honest or helpful as part of a formal review. Do you have any suggestions?

Can you point that out to whoever’s managing the survey and ask if they can make those questions options, or add a “n/a” option, or just give you a different way to submit free-form feedback anonymously? (That said, be aware that “anonymous” feedback isn’t always anonymous, and it might become even less so after you request this!)

The post I found our new hire napping in my office, company won’t handle fridge clean-outs anymore, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/09/i-found-our-new-hire-napping-in-my-office-company-wont-handle-fridge-clean-outs-anymore-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32981