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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.