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agonyaunt2021-07-20 12:03 pm
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2021-07-20 12:03 pm
Entry tags:
Ask a Manager: I Had a Meltdown at my Welcome Back Party
[cw: ableism, infuriatingly so]
I’m a 24-year-old woman and have worked for three years with a firm right out of college. The office is set up in different pods by team and pretty open within groups, but it’s still a maze of desks, MacBooks, and cubicles. It’s in a gutted old building in a downtown area. Everyone is around the same age and close knit, and work life has become pretty tied up with my social life. Pretty much my current close friends are the people I work with.
On top of the last year of shit, I was in a serious car accident in May 2020 and suffered a spinal injury. I am paraplegic (T12 complete) and need a wheelchair. The transition has not been easy, but work has been amazing throughout. They sent gifts, included me in remote events, and gave me an easy timeline to start back working remote when I got home (another nightmare). However, I really just want to get back to normal with life and work and not lose the closeness I had with my coworkers.
So back in March, the office opened back up for everyone to come back and pretty much my whole team did. My manager requested that I remain remote, saying that they were controlling numbers for social distancing and we would be rotated around. It was finally my turn this past week.
I showed up on Tuesday and there was an enormous banner and ribbon cutting for a new wheelchair ramp at the front of the building (there is already one in the back). I had my own parking spot (the handicap sign turned into a cartoon of me). The idea was sweet, but I was incredibly caught off-guard at the fanfare. Going inside, my desk has been moved away from my team (which is in the back of the building through a maze of cubicles but not impossible to get to) and now there’s whole pod cleared out for me next to a new family bathroom that is totally accessible (this was also new). They had balloons and cake and everything there.
I lost it. I started crying and left. My boss made me come aside, and I told her how embarrassed and hurt I felt. I did say things I regret, such as them making a performance and me being singled out and away from where the actual work is. I’ve been included in team meetings via Webex but have not really “hung out” with anyone since I left last year. I called my mom to pick me up and put in for PTO for the rest of last week.
My manager was very clearly offended, as apparently they had to spend a bunch of facility money to renovate. I get the idea and it was nice, but at no point did anyone tell me they were throwing me a f-ing cripple party and taking me away from my team. I am torn because I should be grateful but just feel embarrassed. My manager is visibly annoyed and condescendingly walking on eggshells with me. I’m back to remote at my request.
I have a new calendar invite for an HR meeting (at their request). I’m pretty nervous about the HR meeting and worried I damaged my reputation and place in our culture. I’d like to just get back to normal with everyone as it was a great place to work. What should I do?
I’m sorry you’ve been through all this!
They meant one thing and it landed a completely different way. They thought they were welcoming you back, and you felt singled out as Other. You wanted to rejoin your team, and you’ve been put in a separate pod far away from them. You’d been excited to get back to normal, and found a cartoon avatar of yourself in the parking lot. You wanted normalcy and you got hoopla and attention on exactly the stuff you’re trying not to center.
On their side, they probably thought they were showing you how happy they were to have you back and the work they’d done to make things comfortable and easy for you. Maybe what they did would have been welcome in a different set of circumstances or for a different person. Maybe they should have known from knowing you that this isn’t what you’d want. Who knows.
If they are as invested in you as their efforts to welcome you back make them seem, they’re going to understand that you’ve been through trauma and stress and your first day back at the office was no doubt highly emotionally loaded, and you lost it for understandable reasons.
But I do think you have to talk to your manager about what happened. Are you comfortable saying you appreciate the effort and expense they went through to welcome you back, but what you’d really been looking forward to was a return to normalcy — and all the hoopla and being moved away from your team was the opposite of that and hit you hard? And that it’s obviously been a terrible year and a hard adjustment and you just … lost it? And that you appreciate the intentions, but what you’d like most is to be part of the conversation about what accommodations you need, because you might not need or want everything they’d planned for? (Of course, if that doesn’t quite capture the way you feel, adjust as needed.)
As for the meeting with HR, you can say the same things. You can also say that what you want now is to get back to normal with everyone, and you’d appreciate their help in figuring out how to do that. There’s a very high likelihood that they’ll be relieved to hear that, because they probably set up the meeting to figure out what’s going on, not to take you to task.
I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough time! Let people know what’s going on with you and what you do want them to do (since clearly their instincts aren’t guiding them correctly) and I think you’ll be able to move forward from here.
I’m a 24-year-old woman and have worked for three years with a firm right out of college. The office is set up in different pods by team and pretty open within groups, but it’s still a maze of desks, MacBooks, and cubicles. It’s in a gutted old building in a downtown area. Everyone is around the same age and close knit, and work life has become pretty tied up with my social life. Pretty much my current close friends are the people I work with.
On top of the last year of shit, I was in a serious car accident in May 2020 and suffered a spinal injury. I am paraplegic (T12 complete) and need a wheelchair. The transition has not been easy, but work has been amazing throughout. They sent gifts, included me in remote events, and gave me an easy timeline to start back working remote when I got home (another nightmare). However, I really just want to get back to normal with life and work and not lose the closeness I had with my coworkers.
So back in March, the office opened back up for everyone to come back and pretty much my whole team did. My manager requested that I remain remote, saying that they were controlling numbers for social distancing and we would be rotated around. It was finally my turn this past week.
I showed up on Tuesday and there was an enormous banner and ribbon cutting for a new wheelchair ramp at the front of the building (there is already one in the back). I had my own parking spot (the handicap sign turned into a cartoon of me). The idea was sweet, but I was incredibly caught off-guard at the fanfare. Going inside, my desk has been moved away from my team (which is in the back of the building through a maze of cubicles but not impossible to get to) and now there’s whole pod cleared out for me next to a new family bathroom that is totally accessible (this was also new). They had balloons and cake and everything there.
I lost it. I started crying and left. My boss made me come aside, and I told her how embarrassed and hurt I felt. I did say things I regret, such as them making a performance and me being singled out and away from where the actual work is. I’ve been included in team meetings via Webex but have not really “hung out” with anyone since I left last year. I called my mom to pick me up and put in for PTO for the rest of last week.
My manager was very clearly offended, as apparently they had to spend a bunch of facility money to renovate. I get the idea and it was nice, but at no point did anyone tell me they were throwing me a f-ing cripple party and taking me away from my team. I am torn because I should be grateful but just feel embarrassed. My manager is visibly annoyed and condescendingly walking on eggshells with me. I’m back to remote at my request.
I have a new calendar invite for an HR meeting (at their request). I’m pretty nervous about the HR meeting and worried I damaged my reputation and place in our culture. I’d like to just get back to normal with everyone as it was a great place to work. What should I do?
I’m sorry you’ve been through all this!
They meant one thing and it landed a completely different way. They thought they were welcoming you back, and you felt singled out as Other. You wanted to rejoin your team, and you’ve been put in a separate pod far away from them. You’d been excited to get back to normal, and found a cartoon avatar of yourself in the parking lot. You wanted normalcy and you got hoopla and attention on exactly the stuff you’re trying not to center.
On their side, they probably thought they were showing you how happy they were to have you back and the work they’d done to make things comfortable and easy for you. Maybe what they did would have been welcome in a different set of circumstances or for a different person. Maybe they should have known from knowing you that this isn’t what you’d want. Who knows.
If they are as invested in you as their efforts to welcome you back make them seem, they’re going to understand that you’ve been through trauma and stress and your first day back at the office was no doubt highly emotionally loaded, and you lost it for understandable reasons.
But I do think you have to talk to your manager about what happened. Are you comfortable saying you appreciate the effort and expense they went through to welcome you back, but what you’d really been looking forward to was a return to normalcy — and all the hoopla and being moved away from your team was the opposite of that and hit you hard? And that it’s obviously been a terrible year and a hard adjustment and you just … lost it? And that you appreciate the intentions, but what you’d like most is to be part of the conversation about what accommodations you need, because you might not need or want everything they’d planned for? (Of course, if that doesn’t quite capture the way you feel, adjust as needed.)
As for the meeting with HR, you can say the same things. You can also say that what you want now is to get back to normal with everyone, and you’d appreciate their help in figuring out how to do that. There’s a very high likelihood that they’ll be relieved to hear that, because they probably set up the meeting to figure out what’s going on, not to take you to task.
I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough time! Let people know what’s going on with you and what you do want them to do (since clearly their instincts aren’t guiding them correctly) and I think you’ll be able to move forward from here.
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Also the number of people in the comments who 1) encouraged LW to apologize and/or 2) want to think the problem is that the company put in accomodations RATHER than the one-two punch of not CONSULTING with the LW about the accomodations but instead giving her this big fraught surprise party -- omg, flames on the side of my face.
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It's hard to say from what's in the letter, and you could very well be right, but I would be just as worried if HR *wasn't* checking in at this point, because HR ought to be doing something about this, and they need to start by talking to her.
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Yeah, honestly, agreed. Unfortunately HR presumably signed off on the ramp and move and new signage without consulting with the LW, which means HR is possibly also going to handle this wrong. I wish I could give the LW the name of some excellent lawyers, because it would be super nice to have that in her back pocket, and I wish AAM had spent 30 second reading up on the ADA violation inherent in this entire kerfuffle (assuming LW is in the US).
Seriously, this is not hard to find on the EEOC website:
I get that the company "meant well", for some definition of "meant well" that allows the employer to find it sensible to cut the employee out of the accommodations discussion. But every part of that brouhaha is an illegal violation of the LW's confidentiality. The number of times AAM has been shockingly ignorant of a company's legal responsibilities under the ADA is overwhelming and she has really got to learn to look this stuff up.
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But I hope that even if HR did approve it advance, they have now looked back over it and gone "oh crap we fucked up". But I am a pollyanna, and I've been lucky enough to have non-toxic (if sometimes too well-meaning) HR here. It's possible they are going to reprimand her. Probably a passive-aggressive apology is more likely than either. But I don't think the mere fact they want to talk to her is signaling much either way.
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I don't think the mere fact they want to talk to her is signaling much either way.
1000% agreed. For all LW knows, HR was under the impression LW had requested these accommodations and the meeting is a clarification. Or it's a run-of-the-mill "now you're back do you need accommodations and excuse me your manager did what?" meeting.
Agreed about the ramp and the bathroom. Even the party could be justified as just a welcome-back-after-an-accident party, although surprise parties are always a bad idea in a workplace, in my opinion. The parts that are over the line are the cartoony parking sign (which HR may well not have signed off upon), which is a clear violation of her privacy; and the unrequested accommodations such as moving her from her team, which can be considered punishment or retaliation for becoming disabled.
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This is why "nothing about us without us" is a THING, damnit.
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THIS.
Also, making a possibly recognizable cartoon of a disabled person on a dedicated parking spot is a privacy violation so great it can be seen from space. Also it's potentially both dangerous (to the LW) and illegal (for the company), and I'm shocked HR signed off on it.
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I do suspect HR is going to try and scold, but LW can totally turn that on it's head by (if you're petty as hell like me) gushing about how it was lovely but all at once and so much especially after this last year and you know, putting it on them that they fucked the landing and then maybe after the metaphorical cup of tea, some discussion about getting her pod back near her because oh gosh, one of the things I love so much is my team, etc.
Only really works if you're petty as hell and like doing it.
Otherwise? Jiminy cricket guys, I totally get needing to be accessible (why didn't you already have a wheelchair ramp, that's not just handy for wheelchairs, people with other mobility aids appreciate it), but you kinda went overboard at once.
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But it's of a piece with Administrative Professionals Day (no need to ask your support staff what they'd like, or to ask your female engineers if they'd like to be included in support staff celebrations because of their sex, because We Know What Makes The Little Ladies Feel Special) and stuff like that.
I think fundamentally there's something about these situations that makes people stop thinking of business manners and start using private-life manners instead. In private life, a gift often means more if it's a surprise. In business, when you want to accommodate or compensate someone, you ask what they would value.
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