Diet Coke as a religious accommodation, coworker loves shoplifting, 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.

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

1. An industry colleague is lying to me about a dispute we had years ago

Oh boy do I have an update. Buckle up!

I took your advice and filed the interaction as “intel about Elsa.” The coffee got cancelled because her kids were sick, we never rescheduled it, and I never heard anything more about the case study. While I dreamed of doing a “mic drop” moment, I decided to be the bigger person here.

And then … my organization got restructured, and while my job is safe, I have been seconded to a different organization in the same industry. It’s a great development opportunity and I’m mostly enjoying it. Except…

For the last few months, I have been working with Elsa on a joint application for federal funding for the program I work for. The whole way through, she and Sven were very clear that they wanted to partner with us. I would have preferred we didn’t, given Elsa and Sven’s past behavior, but it was already in train when I arrived so it was a case of sucking it up.

The day after the deadline for funding applications closed, I got an email from the funder asking for clarification about the two applications. At which point, my brain exploded.

Sven and Elsa have put in a separate funding application for the same project. They took the information we shared in good faith, undercut the partnership, and made it sound like the partnership was submitted under duress, when we have emails and texts to the contrary.

My CEO saw red and contacted their board, who had no idea that Sven had put the application in. In fact, they’d just congratulated Sven on his efforts to collaborate with us! When cornered, Sven apparently said he was “covering his bases, and it’s not personal.”

So now the future of our funding (and my job) is in jeopardy, I spend half my day screenshotting emails and writing file notes for every interaction with Sven and Elsa, and I’ve come to the conclusion that they missed their callings as Shakespearian-level actors. It’s a crazy world…

2. Coworker says she loves shoplifting

Our young shoplifting friend has been a source of chaos and positive change, so I thought I would send a tiny update.

The self-described shoplifter, “Alice,” was seen rummaging through Security Guy’s drawers looking for his keys to a locked cabinet. He got mad at her (even vented about getting her fired, but considering that neither of us has that power, I think he was just blowing off steam) and I gather he was pretty harsh.

At our next all-staff, Alice began crying as she described how upset she was about being chastised for this faux pas. The locked cabinet contains items like beanies, metallic blankets, and water bottles for use in one-on-one conversations with our most vulnerable patrons, and she was trying to help someone in a way that was 100% in line with her job. Security Guy gruffly offered to unlock the cabinet in the morning and relock it when he leaves so that those items are freely available to the front desk staff during the day. (Even though the cabinet is in a locked staff area, stuff gets stolen overnight.)

So not a huge update but I thought people might enjoy that her anarchic energy does some good in the workplace! There was a very informative discussion in the comments about shoplifting. Apparently, for a lot of people it’s a pretty normal part of growing up and young adulthood that those of us who didn’t/don’t participate just have no idea about.

Separately, I listened to a podcast episode about the book Who Moved My Cheese? and realized that lingering trauma from a very mean boss that I had when I was fresh out of college is probably part of why I am so solicitous about the young people in my workplace, but that’s neither here nor there.

3. I got chastised for intervening with a friend’s hiring efforts (#2 at the link)

You were right on the money. I apologized to Ben the next week (it was the earliest we had a chance to talk privately) and his response was more or less to forget about it — he accepted my apology and said quote “that’s last week’s problem.” It hasn’t come up again since.

It turns out that the reason they were being canny about hiring was because they already had someone in the pipeline — a returning employee who has since started and is fantastic. She is doing a great job and I can see why they would worry about anything that jeopardized her ability to join us. I think my biggest mistake was not trusting Ben, et al to make a good call here.

There don’t seem to have been any long-term ramifications. We are expanding my part of the organization and I have been tapped as the subject-area lead (think most senior non-management person) on a new team we are now forming. The role is not a promotion in itself, but it’s high-importance/high-visibility and opens up a clear avenue for promotion in the next year or two that I didn’t have before. Abe (my manager) and I did a sort of mini-performance review in preparation for my transition to that and absolutely nothing about this issue was mentioned; I am still considered a top performer. (It still could come up in my “real” yearly review, I guess, but I don’t know that I expect it to at this point.)

I want to thank you and the commenters for the advice and discussion. It was fascinating to see such divided opinions — some people were like “why is this a problem at all?” and some people were like “this was even worse than you thought and a borderline fireable offense.” As best I can tell, it boils down to organizational culture, and I was over the line for my particular org.

4. Employee is demanding Diet Coke as a religious accommodation

My friend and I read through your answer together, which was helpful for us to get a conversation started about what to do, and then talked through a few possible scenarios. We are both managers and I had never encountered a situation like this before so it was very interesting to discuss how to ensure that someone’s religious accommodation is met and that they feel included in an event, while also aligning with the mission of the organization.

My friend ended up telling Jane that Diet Coke would not be served at the event, and that that was non-negotiable, and then asked her if she would like to be involved in picking the mocktail options. As I understand it, she did push back a bit, but eventually decided that she wanted to help pick non-alcoholic drinks to ensure there would be something she liked. Ultimately this seemed to go over well, and the fundraiser was successful.