updates: my office is infested with wasps, telling clients not to bring in sick kids, and more

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

1. My office is infested with wasps

Here’s an update to the wasp infestation in my office: it is still ongoing. The wasps are still there.

I forcefully invoked my rights under the law and was finally allowed to work from home until the wasps are gone, but I am under the impression that nothing particularly has been done about the infestation. I fully expect the wasps to return next year unless my employer and landlord take further measures, and at this point I can’t afford the optimism of assuming something will happen. I was also required to pay out of pocket for all sorts of medical documentation of my wasp allergy because they insisted it might have changed or gotten better! Believe me, if there’s a cure I will happily take it.

My doctor was horrified when I reached out. For those who aren’t familiar with wasp sting allergies: this is an anaphylactic allergy, where you can die before you receive medical help, and I was grateful that most of the commenters seemed to understand that.

I wish I had better news to share, but I do want to thank you and everyone in the comments for recommending that I continue to stand up for myself. I don’t know what it was that caused them to listen this time, but at least for now they are letting me work from safety.

2. Can I tell clients not to bring in sick kids?

Thank you again for your advice and posting my question! I did take your advice about letting people know and putting my foot down when someone does come in sick. I rarely charge people no-show fees as is, so my statement about charging a no-show fee if someone wastes my time was mostly out of frustration.

One commenter said it best: “The stylist is being pretty reasonable — if you could have canceled and chose not to, then showed up in a condition where the stylist could not provide you service, that’s the same as being a no-show. You had the stylist hold time that you would not use, so the stylist was not able to make money by scheduling another customer. It sounds like the stylist is even a reasonable enough person that if you didn’t know the policy and apologized profusely, they’d probably waive the fee. But if you know the policy and choose not to follow it, well, consequences of your action. In my industry, we call that a PITA tax.”

It also seems that parents are being more considerate and reasonable this year, which is great! I do try to be vocal about how I feel about people coming in sick if it comes up in conversation, and when someone cancels because they’re sick, I always emphasize that I prefer them to stay home. It’s still early on in the sick season so we’ll see how things go around and after the holidays.

I also did end up finally leaving the nest and moving out on my own, but I would hate to visit my grandpa to find out later I was sick. At the end of the day, I know the owner of my shop will always have my back and respect any call I make on whether to provide a service someone or not.

3. Sharing a hotel room on a work trip — but I have panic attacks (#2 at the link)

Thanks for publishing my letter and for the advice. It was excellent. I ended up not needing to ask about whether we were sharing a room because we eventually were told that we each had our own hotel room! Relief! I did have a few panic attacks while traveling, but they weren’t too disruptive of my trip.

Overall, the trip was wonderful, the conference professionally informative, and I got to know my awesome colleagues better. I’m deep into the teaching semester and this job couldn’t be a better fit, professionally and personally. I love my students and my coworkers. Fitting in with a culture is so important and I’m so glad I’ve found my niche.

4. My boss’s constant self-deprecation and oversharing make me uncomfortable

I decided against direct confrontation, or talking to my skip. My strategy now is to preemptively replace negative with positive – to start meetings by asking her about her hobbies, life, family, pets. If she starts to get negative, I cut in and redirect to something happy about myself. It works really well!

If it’s a long enough story where I can’t change the subject without seeming callous (and the subject matter is distressing) I don’t respond verbally – I let her talk it out, let my face show empathy, but then let the silence stretch. She has started to self-correct!

Looking back, I think the spiraling happened more when I was trying to get guidance on, or info about, my work projects. She would seem paralyzed and unable to think things through, would spiral and self-flagellate, would promise to get back to me later, wouldn’t get back to me later, wouldn’t see my messages, I’d bring work stuff up again in another meeting … lather, rinse, repeat.

Now I just … do things, and send updates about them async. I meet with the same stakeholders she talks to, get my own answers, do what needs to be done, and only loop her in (async!) if I need to cover my butt. Yes, it means that our 1-1s are now just fluff. But I’ve kind of given up on having productive managerial guidance, and her talking about happy things is a lot better than her talking about upsetting things. I think she just wants to connect.

I am looking for a new job (for this and other reasons) but the situation is workable for now!

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