People Ask For Feedback In These "Am I The Jerk?" Stories

“I(M31) work as a manager to a small lab that does some material testing, my team consists of 4 people: Amy, Sarah, John, and Mike all of them are between 25-30 years old.

I don’t have much experience in management and was chosen because of my technical and budgeting abilities so I was thrilled that my team was a small one. I’ve been working in this company for the last 8 years but only 3 as a manager.

Since I’ve had the same crew for 3 years we’ve become close and in general, we had a very chill environment up until last May when the bathroom problems began.

Our lab only had 2 non-gendered bathrooms to share between us 5, still, eventually, the bathrooms became unofficially gendered meaning there were no labels on them but one was only used by the female members and the other by males.

Back in May John really needed to go but the “men’s bathroom” was occupied so he used the “woman’s bathroom” I noticed but didn’t think much of it since it really seems an emergency and in reality anyone could use them, however, Amy and Sarah got angry and asked for the bathroom to become officially separated, we talked as a team and agreed to do so, John apologized and we moved on, a few weeks later John used the bathroom again, the woman took notice and issued a complaint, John’s defense was that he had been having stomach problems and was recently discovering he could no longer tolerate certain food and the male’s bathroom was busy so he had no choice.

Amy and Sarah were not taking it and demanded I write him up, I tried to convince them that maybe a warning was enough since it was the first incident since the bathroom policy changed, they were not happy and sent an email to corporate who then proceeded to scold me and asked me to take this kind of stuff seriously so I had to write John up.

This completely changed the work environment as if an invisible wall had been lifted between men and women and between employees and management (me), when I told my wife she told me to not become like Michael from the office and to not forget that at the end of the day this is a workplace.

A few weeks passed and for some reason now the situation was reversed, and Amy had to use the bathroom but since it was occupied she had to use the men’s room and it was a déjà vu with roles inverted, I talked with the guys saying it was a first offense so we could do with just a warning but no, they wanted revenge and I didn’t want to be scolded again so I wrote Amy up and now work environment sucks.

After 3 years of great site performance and work environment, a bathroom incident brought us down.

A few friends told me since I’m the manager I should have done better and found a better solution than to write Amy up and therefore I’m the jerk.

I admit I’m a novice manager so it might be the case so, am I the jerk?”

Another User Comments:

“YTJ.

You didn’t handle the situation properly from the get-go.

2 single person bathrooms for 5 people being expressly gendered is a recipe for stuff like this. You should have recognized this, and simply told your crew that they need to stop being infantile about the whole situation.

It is important to let the voices of those under you be heard, but at the end of the day, it is YOU that has to make the best decision after weighing the facts, risks, and benefits.

At this point, you either need to stick to the trashy bed you’ve had or make the unilateral choice to revert the bathrooms to unisex and communicate that you expect everyone to be an adult about it.

Or, going forward, you will have to issue write-ups for every misstep here and everyone needs to deal with that. Good luck OP.

Leadership and management are tricky and require a fine line of being decisive and letting your employees know that you care and that their concerns are being taken into consideration.

When you make your unilateral announcement make sure you articulate the reasons why you’re doing what you’re doing. Something along the lines of:

‘The bathrooms have been a particular point of conflict recently, one which is having detrimental career impacts on multiple people.

I realize that the idea of separately gendered bathrooms is appealing, but it is simply not feasible given the limitations of availability and the number of people that need them to keep going as we have.

The added detriment on people’s careers makes this switch all the more necessary. I expect all of you to be mature about this, cleanly maintain the bathrooms, and be polite and respectful with your coworkers’.

At the end of the day, you aren’t there to be their friend but to facilitate the job getting done. When able, definitely work with them, listen, and make them feel valued and listened to.

But don’t compromise or divest your leadership responsibilities unless absolutely needed, otherwise, you end up with weird situations like this.” AlmightyLeprechaun

Another User Comments:

“NTJ, but you need to work on your management skills.

When Amy and Sarah demanded you write John up, you were right to push back and say a warning would suffice. Amy and Sarah have no authority to tell you how to do your job!

At that point, you should have told them that it’s NOT up for discussion and that non-gendered was reverted immediately. That conversation would’ve been followed up with an email to the team clearly stating that the bathrooms are non-gendered, end of discussion.

Amy and Sarah going to corporate obviously threw a wrench in things; however, if you had done the above, you could’ve told corporate ‘I have handled it, I reverted the unofficial policy and communicated to everyone that lab bathrooms are non-gendered so this should no longer be an issue.’

Ideally if corporate has any sense, that should have ended it. No writing up for John or Amy, and keeps the bathrooms free for everyone.

Employees thrive best when they know where the line is.

Setting clear expectations across the board is key, and writing up is for when they break rules or in this case, try to impose bathrooms rules after those clear expectations have been laid out.

Unofficial department agreements do not count here.” shathereal

Another User Comments:

“Treating the women the same way you treat the men is a requirement, both morally and legally, and not really a question of a****e or not.

If you wrote up person A for ‘infraction’ X then you need to write up person B for ‘infraction’ X too. It’s either the plan or it isn’t.

So you’re N-T-J for writing up person B.

BUT – still – YTJ. The problem isn’t writing up person B, the problem was actually writing up person A. You can’t let the ‘plan’ be if one bathroom is taken, the person gets to wait or dumps themselves.

You should’ve had the discussion with everyone that the team should be flexible enough to make incredibly reasonable accommodations to each other.” ElJamoquio

Another User Comments:

“I’ll caveat this with the fact that I’m US based and am not sure where you are – if, outside the US, there may be different norms or cultural differences.

I don’t know what – if any – managerial training you’ve had but you’re losing your team. It never should have gotten to this point. If there are only two restrooms and one is in use, it doesn’t matter if they’ve been segregated – an emergency overrides that.

That should have been explained to all employees when they were officially segregated. What did the women expect him to do – have an accident in his pants? Someone with a digestive issue will not have the ability to hold it until the other one frees up.

When they complained to corporate, you should have explained to them the situation and that it was an emergency.

As I said, you’re losing your team. If it were me I’d have a meeting with your team and – calmly but firmly – address this.

Explain that while the restrooms are designated male/female, in the event of an emergency and the designated restroom is in use, they can use the other restroom. Firmly specify that if this is the case, the person who uses the ‘wrong’ restroom MUST make sure any and all mess (if any) is cleaned, leaving the restroom in pristine condition.

I would get some cans of air freshener to put in each to mask any odor from an incident.

It’s not too late to fix the damage with your team but you’re going to have to work at it and you’re likely going to have to be more firm than you have in the past. Remember, your first priority is the manager/employee relationship, not a friendly one.” g-rocklobster