coworkers don’t know I’m married, tiny lunches, and more — Ask a Manager

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.

1. How do I tell coworkers I’m married when they don’t think I am? (#2 at the link)

Your advice was indeed very helpful. I ended up telling a few coworkers I was closer to by casually mentioned my husband here and there when an opportunity naturally arose. Everyone took it in stride and didn’t seem fazed at all, like the comments said it would be. How I ended up telling my workplace at large was another story!

What happened ended up being pretty interesting. I work in public service and a customer started harassing me by repeatedly asking me out and bringing me gifts. I was growing increasingly frustrated by the situation (which was well addressed by my employer!) and vented about the customer to my coworkers.

My one coworker suggested wearing a fake ring to deter the customer and I said I didn’t need to wear a fake one — I was married for real! There was a brief moment where everyone sort of paused and then the coworker said, “Well, there you go!”

After that, I started wearing my ring to work and slowly worked my way up to mentioning my husband here and there. My husband and I are doing great and recently went on a trip to Europe.

Overall, no one was weird except me and I learned how to bite my tongue at work. I was definitely a chronic over sharer in the past. I also moved into a supervisory role recently and have been more private in general as I set some boundaries between myself and my direct reports, and I find myself enjoying the separation between my work life and private life.

Thanks for all of the advice and reassurance from you and your readers!

2. Eating tiny lunches in a group (#2 at the link)

The advice was really helpful. I also appreciated the perspective shift, as you (and readers) were correct about my coworkers simply being concerned I wasn’t eating enough, or that I hated the venue. I ended up following a combination of advice depending on the situation.

For the casual work lunches, after a few months, everyone mostly got used to it. I became known as the “light eater” and only need to endure some light ribbing about it now. I also discovered if I claimed I was “intermittent fasting,” instead of “not being hungry,” my portions were much more accepted, and were even praised as being healthy! Truly, marketing is a terrifying tool.

For the more formal work dinners and lunches, my first line of defense is to ask my neighboring coworkers if they’d like to split a huge shared meal, like a pizza. No one tends to notice when I only eat 1 or 2 slices slowly, and the rest kind of evaporates over the course of the meal. My backup strategy is to find a fancy “jumbo appetiser” that I can nibble at, like a cheese board, oysters, or salad. Since these are quite pricey and extravagant, everyone feels like I’m happier with my meal, especially since they tend to come out looking like more food than they are. You don’t tend to eat the oyster shells, for example.

Thanks again to you and your readers for the excellent advice!

3. Employee gave lots of notice, but now we have someone who could replace him (#2 at the link)

So. This took a turn … but I’ll get to that.

In terms of your advice, I went back to my boss with it and it made a huge difference. He took some time to really reflect on how the long notice periods serve him and his employees well. He went back to Lance and let him know what was going on, and that he would need to check back with him later on. Lance later got a different job, but my boss says that if Lance is looking again he knows to come back to us, and Lance has a really good impression of our company.

Gary continued working as usual, generally a good-natured hard worker while being fairly new to the employment world (in his early 20s). One day, a couple weeks before his last day, I got news that he had assaulted a coworker (Steve) on a job site by hitting him in the chest with a long pole-like tool they use as part of their work. Steve had the wind knocked out of him, and immediately called paramedics because he thought he was dying — having never had it happen before. Police also came to the site due to the nature of the injury, and Gary was arrested and taken into custody for assault with a deadly weapon. Consequently, he was let go from his position at our company.

Steve is OK! He was checked out medically and cleared to come back to work right away but my boss gave him some time off anyway. Last I knew about Gary he had moved out of state, though still has court date(s) in the future. It was all very sad, because Gary was lovely to be around and well liked, and we were all shocked that he would do that! He and Steve were arguing on site and Gary lost his temper and hit him — immediately apologizing and trying to help him. We later learned that he grew up in an environment where lots of friends and family get into fights, I guess? And this wasn’t out of the ordinary for him, as much as it was a shock to all of us.

So there’s your update! I’ll be sure to let you know if we hire Lance in the future.

4. Can I ask an employee if they need an eye exam? (#3 at the link)

I took your advice and jumped straight to showing what tools I used to a) see blurriness b) correct the issue. The zoom function is definitely our friend when looking at communications deliverables. We haven’t had a problem (with this issue) since!