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askamanager_feed) wrote2025-09-08 04:03 am
I found our new hire napping in my office, company won’t handle fridge clean-outs anymore, and more
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!)
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