I’ll say this too – I imagine if other arrangements were possible she would have already made them. Perhaps her attitude is not so much rights as it is despair. Another way to look at this is to ask yourself what you would hope for if the situation were reversed. How would you like your colleague to help you? If you’re feeling generous, I suggest you talk to this coworker and find out why she has to leave early so you have a choice rather than an obligation that isn’t yours at all.
The importance of being on vacation
I notice that out of office messages now generally have a subject line of “out of office” or “away from email”. I think it’s important to normalize vacation – and actually not work on vacation, so I’ve used that as my subject line when I go on vacation (e.g. “on vacation; back on DATE”). Using the “non-vacation” language has some benefits, as it doesn’t make it clear when people are likely to be absent due to sick or family leave, and I want people to be able to keep that private and not ask me why I’m out of the office if I don’t tell them. I wonder if I should rethink my one-man campaign to make holidays visible.
— Deborah, Berkeley, California.
You don’t need to review your campaign. If people want to be vague about being absent, for whatever reason, they can and will. For those of us looking to normalize vacations, something absolutely everyone deserves, here’s a way to take a small but important stance. There is more to life than work. It’s also an incredibly healthy border to say you’re not working and won’t be doing any work during your free time. More people should take vacations that really are vacations and more people should have the resources to do so. May your next vacation be as restful and restorative as you need it to be.
Mandatory donation
I work for a small company made up entirely of women in their twenties and thirties, except for our founder and CEO, a man in his late forties. Every year, the directors of our team ask for contributions to buy a birthday present and a Christmas present for our CEO. The contributions they propose for each gift are small ($10/person), they are technically optional, and the directors make up the rest of their own pockets.
But something about this still pisses me off. The message around these gifts is always that we thank him for everything he does for us, but frankly, he’s a somewhat distant leader. We do not buy corporate gifts for anyone else. He probably makes quite a bit more money than the rest of us. Am I overthinking this? If not, should I talk to my boss about it, or should I just let it go since the contributions are supposedly optional and it’s only $20 a year? I’m not sure if my colleagues at the company feel the same way and I’ve been too scared to bring it up or else I would be perceived as unfriendly.
– Anonymously
I like giving gifts. As cheesy as it sounds, gift giving is my love language. But I never want to feel obligated to give gifts, especially to people I don’t have a personal relationship with. That is why it is not incurable not to want to give the CEO of your company as a gift. The power imbalance between you and your CEO is significant. The income difference is also significant. He is not your friend. He won’t love you because you and your coworkers give him gifts twice a year.
I understand why your team is doing this, but the implied obligation would bother me. You can casually ask your peers what they think of this gift to help you decide how to proceed, if you are already doing so. These kinds of things are so hard because if you resist such a mandatory “voluntary” gift, you’re not a team player and you don’t fit in with the culture and so on. Those are pretty hard labels to shake off, so I understand your reluctance to say anything. This may be one of those things that you just have to tolerate, but it sure is ridiculous that people have to play these kinds of games in the workplace.
Roxane Gay is the author, most recently, of “Hunger” and a contributing opinion writer. Write her down workfriend@CBNewz†
