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

1. Boss doesn’t care that new office isn’t accessible

I work in a director-level position for a center of a large university. We have experienced significant reductions in staffing following budget cuts and project terminations. Several staff also work remotely. We have a large leased office space off-campus, but now that we only have about 20 people who work in the office regularly (down from over 100), the university has decided that we need to move. This all seems reasonable to me.

However, the space the university has proposed is a converted rowhome with steep concrete steps into the front door, a very narrow and steep staircase up to the second floor with no landings, and a bathroom with a low-sitting toilet and no stability bars. There is a back door to an alley that does not have any stairs, but it is currently exit-only. When I toured the new space with the executive director (my boss) and another director, I raised concerns about accessibility and noted that it did not appear to comply with the American Disabilities Act. This space would not be open to the public, and we do not currently have any staff who use a wheelchair, but there are staff who might have difficulty navigating the stairs and bathrooms. I also expressed concern that anyone could easily fall down the very steep stairs and be injured. The other director shared my concerns and noted feeling a bit uncomfortable herself on the stairs.

I suggested several next steps, including: a list of questions for the Facilities team about the accessibility and requests for accommodations, such as stability bars in the bathroom, a portable/storable ramp for the front entrance, and granting entry access to the back door with an automatic opener; a list of questions for HR regarding how to approach accessibility concerns with staff, such as whether to ask staff to self-identify if they think they would have trouble with the stairs so we can try to accommodate a first floor office or advocate harder for a different office space; proactively reaching out to the Office of Institutional Equity, which handles disability accommodations, for guidance; and contacting to the Office of Occupational Safety and Health to document our concerns about the safety of the staircase.

My boss has largely shrugged this off and seems excited about moving to the new space. They seem to think this is a done deal and we have no room to negotiate. I have reason to believe this is untrue, but even if it is, I think that we should make more of an effort to document our concerns and advocate for our staff. I’d rather not go over my boss’s head, but I am troubled by the new office set up, the lack of my boss’s care, and the stark misalignment of this move with our own stated values of equity and inclusion. Do you have advice for what more I can do? Am I off-base in my concern, or is this something I should keep pushing on?

You’re not off-base. I’d say this: “I’m worried we’re setting ourselves up for legal and logistical headaches if we don’t address some of this before we move in, and it’ll be much less disruptive to do it now than after we’re already in the space. I’m happy to take the lead on it so it stays off your plate! Unless you object, I’d like to contact Facilities and the Institutional Equity office this week to make sure we stay in compliance.” If your boss responds that there’s nothing that can be changed, you could say, “I think to cover ourselves from a liability standpoint we need to at least alert them to what we’ve noticed so it’s clear we didn’t just ignore it. Can I move forward on that myself?”

2. I took a step back and feel like I’m failing

I recently left a job that I loved and was good at after a decade, due to moral injury (I worked in social services and under the current regime, things are … really not good in a way I could not handle being a part of). At the time I left, I was making very good money for my field.

In the two months since then, I have applied to everything within my field that’s available up to a 90-minute commute away. Due to needing to pay bills and anxiety over the current state of job-searching, I ended up accepting a position that I’m not honestly that happy with. While the work is similar to what I was doing and is in an interesting city, it is a title drop (coordinator down to project assistant) and a significant drop in pay.

For some reason, I cannot get over the feeling that I have failed and am now “regressing” professionally. I literally cried the whole drive to do the hiring paperwork because I just kept thinking of how stupid and under-qualified I must be, to not be able to secure a position of similar title or pay after over a decade of experience. Was my previous job just a fluke, and I wasn’t qualified to be working there either? Am I doomed to be an assistant making less than $40,000 a year once I’m 40, 50, and 60?

I know logically there are a lot of other factors at play, but I don’t know how to get over this feeling that I should be better than this by now. I can’t go back in time and join another industry or go to college for something else, and I don’t regret leaving my previous position with the situation that’s unfolding. But how do I shift my thinking away from this negative feeling of shame?

You got a job in a terrible job market where lots of people are spending exponentially more months job-searching. That’s not failure; that’s making a practical decision in a difficult situation, and doing better than a lot of your competition is!

You aren’t going to be stuck in this job forever. You took it because it made sense for you in the circumstances you’re in right now. At some point those circumstances will change, and you’ll move to a different place on your professional path.

In fact, there’s a ton of room to move from project assistant to coordinator jobs (and from there, beyond). It’s an incredibly common path for people to take! If you do well and become known as someone who’s conscientious and good at the work, it’s highly likely that you’ll be able to move up from here. (And this isn’t needing to jump from assistant to VP to get back where you were; you’re talking about a much easier move.)

3. Director tried to force us to donate to a birthday gift and was furious when we wouldn’t

I work in a government agency (outside the U.S.) with thousands of employees in different branches. My branch has 40-50 people working here, with two managers, the director, and the assistant manager.

Recently, the assistant manager hit pension age, 65, and invited everyone at our branch and around 200 other people to her birthday party, outside work hours. We don’t celebrate birthdays at our branch, as it has caused numerous hurt feelings when someone is celebrated more or less than others. Despite this, the director insisted that we all contribute to a gift for the assistant manager, with a minimum donation of $30 per person. This caused a huge argument, as for a lot of people (myself included!) this was a huge chunk out of our weekly budgets. (Over half the office are living paycheck to paycheck.) The director was challenged on this by multiple people. Conversing with some of my teammates, we all agreed that we could afford up to $20, but $30 was pushing us past a comfortable level.

The director, seeing how little was coming in, started to send first passive-aggressive, and then full-on aggressive, emails about not contributing. They started out with little threats like “Those not contributing will not be able to sign the card” up to “Nothing you could buy personally will be under $30, so don’t even try” and then escalated to lectures in weekly meetings about budgeting and threatening to send staff to the same budget advice service we direct our clients to. She personally caught me one day to advise how much money I must be saving as I don’t have children and “no costs”! I briefly rebutted this – I have student loans, rent, debt, and bills like everyone else! (And you understand how expensive cats are to feed.)

I ended up not contributing, and the gift ended up being over $1,000, surprising the assistant manager who had no idea about the gift situation.

The whole thing left myself and half the team feeling quite bitter. About 20 people didn’t end up contributing and we were persona non grata for about a month with the director. This isn’t normal, is it?

No, it’s not normal! Nothing about it is normal — from the compulsory donation amount (as opposed to a “suggested” amount, which is still problematic because it’s still pressuring people, but less so than making it compulsory), to the threats and lectures, to the implication that your life must be free since you don’t have kids, to the ultimate (and ridiculous) amount of $1,000 (!), to the freezing out of people who didn’t contribute. It’s all wildly inappropriate and wrong. It would be wildly inappropriate and wrong in a social situation; it’s triply so in a work situation, as well as an abuse of power by your director. Any chance you have HR that would care?

Something is deeply wrong with your director, and I’m betting this isn’t the only thing they mishandle.

Related: I’m being pressured to contribute to gifts for resigning coworkers — and it’s increasingly obnoxious

4. Can my employer make me update my accommodation paperwork?

I have a permanent disability that never goes away (PTSD). I put in a request for accommodations and submitted a note from my therapist from my original diagnosis over a decade ago. My accommodations are very basic — just being able to work from home around the anniversary of the events that caused my PTSD. I already have some flexibility as a faculty member, but I know the importance of having formal protections in place.

The HR rep emailed me to say that they couldn’t identify anything in the documents that “suggests the conditions and need for accommodation are permanent or will extend past 2023.” However, my therapist and doctor’s notes from back then clearly diagnosed me with PTSD, which can get better, but is a permanent condition.

Am I right to think that the department is not allowed to get into the business of diagnosing me? That these medical documents should be enough to move forward? I am currently working to get additional documentation (moving means my doctors are out of network, so I’m finding new providers), but I was very surprised by the email back with this particular language. Is there anything I should be aware of and do? I checked the ADA website, but it wasn’t super clear what they are allowed to ask questions about when I provided verification of my diagnosis.

They’re not diagnosing you; they’re saying that the paperwork you submitted is over a decade old and they need something more recent indicating that the need for accommodations still exists currently. That’s allowed under the ADA, and it’s not unreasonable.

The law does say that you don’t need to do this if it’s obvious that the disability still exists, such as if you were blind or missing a limb. But while PTSD can be permanent, it isn’t always — and when we’re talking about a note that’s more than 10 years old, it’s reasonable for them to request updated documentation since disabilities and needs can change over time. (Here’s what the Job Accommodation Network says about this.)