ravan

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/06/coworker-doesnt-get-vaccinated-and-drinks-raw-milk-employer-wants-to-give-me-less-time-off-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=38054

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My coworker doesn’t get vaccinated and drinks raw milk

I work in a public library and recently found out that one of our librarians (who, frankly, hardly anyone can stand as he’s very lazy and is starting into serious incel behavior) drinks raw milk and doesn’t keep up to date on his vaccines. The diseases he can contract from raw milk like scarlet fever and avian flu can be passed on to others, and of course there’s the refusal to update his vaccines. Besides staff, he’s putting patrons at risk, including children too young for vaccines, pregnant people, elderly people, and the immunocompromised. Would you say this is worth an anonymous report to HR for since he’s putting people’s lives in danger with this? (I wouldn’t want to go public as he would retaliate.)

Your HR is highly, highly unlikely to tell him that he can’t drink raw milk; that’s just well beyond the boundaries of what employers will generally do (and rightly so, in my view — we don’t want to open ourselves up to employers telling us what we can and can’t eat and drink). They probably also won’t get involved in his vaccinations, unless you work somewhere that requires proof of vaccination — but if you did, they’d already be aware of this.

Your coworker sounds like he sucks, but there’s nothing reportable here.

2. My employer wants to reduce the vacation time I was promised when I was hired

When I was hired into a senior leadership role at my current organization, my offer letter specified the different types and amounts of PTO I would receive. A year in, with a new executive director at the helm, HR has realized that the vacation time I was promised and have been accruing exceeds the upper limit noted in the employee handbook (a document not shared with me until my first day on the job). The same situation applies to a few other senior-level colleagues hired around the same time as me.

Based on vague comments about “upcoming changes to rebalance accrual rates and restore equity,” we expect that our new director is going to try to reduce our vacation allotment to align with the maximum level stated in the handbook. This is compensation we were promised upon hiring, so none of us is willing to let those days go without a fight. If any one of us were to leave and cite this as the reason, it would be likely to cause major problems for our executive director with their own higher-ups.

I find it difficult to use all my vacation time as it is, so the actual time away does not matter to me as much as its dollar value and the principle of not letting an employer renege on what was promised. I plan to offer to exchange this PTO for an equivalent increase in annual salary moving forward, which strikes me as the most reasonable solution — but am I off-base about that? Or do you have any other suggestions for me or my colleagues?

You can try that but they may or may not be receptive (particularly if it would put you out of sync with others doing comparable work, which could open them up to legal issues if it meant they were paying, for example, men and women differently for the same work). You might have better luck asking for a one-time bonus in acknowledgement of what happened. That doesn’t fully solve the issue that after that’s received, you’ll be working for less compensation than you were promised when you were hired, but it might be something to try if they don’t go for the first suggestion.

Ultimately, employers are permitted to change how much PTO they offer you, so they don’t have to do anything to make this right — but they should want to, because it’s going to be a morale issue (and if the difference is substantial, like removing a week of annual vacation, they risk losing people over it).

Whatever you do, I’d recommend all of you who are affected push back as a group, not individually.

3. Low-cost, low-effort DEI initiatives

I lead a broad, regional DEI committee that tries to connect local DEI committees from a number of different local institutes in the same STEM field. I do find this topic very important, but it was never my passion project and I am by no means an expert. I was more or less “voluntold” to head this committee.

I am struggling to find a way to make this endeavor meaningful and useful for the community. Our purpose is not very well defined, but everyone agrees that having a regional DEI committee is essential. As a regional committee, we don’t really have any power to instill change at local institutes. In our field, people at all levels are generally supportive of DEI initiatives, but everyone lacks time and resources. We have been trying to focus on small, practical things we can do to improve the lives of people in our community. I am wondering if you or your readers have any ideas for relatively low-effort, low-cost initiatives that support DEI efforts and / or well being.

I’m sorry for what’s going to be a discouraging answer, but giving it short shrift like this — low-effort, low-cost, no real power, undefined purpose — is likely to be a recipe in frustration for everyone on the committee as well as anyone in your field who’d like to see real work done in this area. If you talk to people who work on DEI, one of the biggest themes is that you can’t do this work at an organizational level without real resources subject matter experts and dedication from the top.

Who’s pushing the initiative and who voluntold you to participate? If they’re not willing to put more resources into it, it’s just lip service for them to look good.

4. Interviewing on your own team when you already know the job well

You recently answered a question about interviewing for a position on another team in the same organization. However, I’m looking at interviewing on my own team. When I originally applied to work with my current organization, I applied for an open lead position. I ended up not getting it but they hired internally, opening up a spot on the team that I was then quickly hired into. My supervisor even noted it was a very hard decision to choose between us.

Well, that lead is leaving now, and I’m still interested in the lead position. I think it’s highly likely that I would get it, from multiple ways my supervisor has phrased things, but I don’t want to treat it like it’s a done deal and instead give it the respect of any other interview. But … what am I supposed to do? I don’t have questions: I obviously know the organization. I’ve worked closely with the lead and my supervisor, so I know how the role works. I asked any questions about measuring success and similar in my original interview. And my supervisor has absolutely seen my work, so I know she’s familiar with what I can offer. The only question I can think of is asking if she has any reservations about me in the role, and I’m thinking that I can emphasize my commitment to the organization with specifics about what has made this a good fit for me. But I feel like I don’t have the same material to bring to the interview because so much is already known on both sides, and so it just feels … awkward. Any advice on approaching it?

As a bananapants story about interviewing internally, at a previous (dysfunctional) job, one coworker was basically promised a new role they were creating. He talked to them about it for months, getting to know all about it. Then the interviews came, and they made the final decision, and they hired someone else. The reason they gave him? He didn’t ask enough questions in the interview. Because apparently getting his questions answered over the past five months wasn’t enough to show his commitment. Not something I’m worried about here, but it’s a story I thought your readers might enjoy.

That is bananapants, but if he didn’t ask any questions — well, it wouldn’t make me disqualify someone for a job I’d already mostly decided on them for, but I’d also think it was a little off. (But also, something went wrong there if they were basically promising it to him for months, when that was apparently premature.)

Anyway! There are lots of questions you can ask in your situation. First and foremost, just because you asked about measuring success, etc. in your original interview doesn’t mean you can’t ask about those again now; this is a different job. You can also ask what previous people in the job have found to be the biggest challenges, what they think the secrets to success are for the role, if there’s anything about the work they think you might not be aware of from outside the position, and the difference between doing an okay job in the position and doing a really great job at it.

For some of those, you might think you already know from working closely with the past lead, but they’re still worth asking. You can’t assume that your impressions will match up to how your manager answers, and you might hear something you didn’t expect. But even if you don’t, these are reasonable questions to ask.

5. Asking for a raise when my job isn’t easily measured

I work as a paralegal (and have for the last 20 years) and have no concrete metrics by which to measure the success of my job. I’ve been here three years at my current firm and haven’t gotten a raise.

I need to ask for one but am not sure how when my job is not easily measured.

You don’t need quantitative metrics to show that your performance is good and that you’re performing at a higher level than when you started three years ago. Not all jobs have quantitative metrics, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a difference between doing a great job or doing an okay job or doing a bad job. So: what kind of feedback do you get? Do you receive annual evaluations? What’s your sense of how happy your manager and your team are with your work? How is your work different with you performing it versus what it would look like if someone mediocre were in the role instead? If you were asked what makes you great at your job, what would you say? There’s more on talking about qualitative, rather than quantitative, evidence of your work here and here.

But frankly, you don’t even necessarily need to do that! Sometimes it’s enough to simply say, “It’s been three years since I started at my current salary level. I think things have been going well, and I’d like to request an increase.”

The post coworker doesn’t get vaccinated and drinks raw milk, employer wants to give me less time off, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/06/coworker-doesnt-get-vaccinated-and-drinks-raw-milk-employer-wants-to-give-me-less-time-off-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=38054