updates: the unhealthy snacks, the coworker who won’t share her calendar, 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 five updates from past letter-writers.

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

1. My employee wants us to stop ordering “unhealthy snacks”

After I wrote in and read your advice, I decided that if the employee were to make any of his comments about others’ food choices in my presence, I would address it with him and explain how it’s not appropriate and used the language you suggested. However. I never really had the opportunity and he never broached the topic with me or my employee again.

Also, to clarify, I am not his manager. However, my manager had a meeting with me and another coworker to discuss his request and how we would respond to him. I used the points you made about how he should not be commenting on what others eat and that we would always be happy to accept suggestions for other healthy snacks that we could order, but we would not stop purchasing other snacks that could be considered unhealthy. I don’t know exactly what was said to him, but since then honestly I don’t think he’s done it again. I have made an effort to change up the variety of fruit we bring in and try to keep it a good balance for everyone, but we definitely still have chips and cookies.

I know some felt that he was not meaning well, but I genuinely think he was. He’s also young, so it could be that he wasn’t aware that what he was saying could trigger someone or make them feel judged! I think he believed he was helping others. However, if he ever does start up again or starts commenting on what others are eating, I know how to handle it.

2. A man at our events makes other attendees uncomfortable

After you printed the letter, the other planners and I sat down and decided we wouldn’t allow Alex to attend, which we had been leaning towards. It ended up being moot, as he didn’t try to register. He no longer engages with this fandom as far as we can tell.

Our event went really well earlier this year. We had a code of conduct that included a rule about levels of socialization, and we had pins for badges to indicate how much someone would like to be talked to.

We got so much wonderful feedback from people, and many people said they appreciated the steps we took to be inclusive. Thanks again for the advice!

3. I accidentally let a contact think my dad is still alive

Thank you for your advice. It made me feel a lot less worried about this ultimately quite funny situation! The next couple of times I saw my Narnian contact I made a point of saying, “Oh, my dad would have loved X!” or things like that, and seems to have cleared up the confusion.

I also wanted to say thank you to the commenters who reassured me that they have also made this kind of past/present-tense slip when talking about people they’ve lost. I think that what I was really worried about was the idea that I might have given people the idea that I’d somehow forgotten about my lovely dad, who was very precious to me and a huge influence on the person I am now, and it was really comforting to know that other people do the same thing. I’m choosing to think of it as him continuing to make his presence felt!

4. My coworker refuses to share her calendar and says she’ll quit if she’s ordered to

As many of your readers pointed out in the comments (which I read voraciously), the real issue was not so much the private calendar, but more the lack of available time to schedule on the calendar. Our boss/CEO spoke to her about this issue and it has gotten better. She has more usable time on her calendar, so it is less of a bottleneck to put meetings on, and the onus of scheduling has been put back on her – if she can’t make a specific time work, but refuses to let something happen without her, then she has to solve it.

Overall, it’s better. It still bucks the trend of the office, she is the only one with a private calendar, so it can come up as an issue that rankles others – but a lot of the drama has died down.

5. Do I need to rush to buy a new car for my job?

My boss transported project stuff and I also attempted to use a Big Name package pickup company to make some deliveries, but the package pickup company was unreliable.

After a while, I did end up getting a car when my local dealership got a car I couldn’t pass on!

Ultimately, having a car does make my job a lot easier. I wish my workplace provided some type of additional compensation for myself and my colleagues who regularly use our cars while working. Thank you to everyone who reassured me that I was not obligated to buy a new car for work!

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