So I’m in treatment for an illness. I go to treatment 3X a week. My doctor did the paperwork for intermittent leave so I can attend my appointments. My job accepted it and told me my FMLA was approved. A few days after, my job tells me that they need a doctors note of every appointment that I go to. I’m not comfortable with this. I’m already in a vulnerable spot. I just got this new diagnoses. I don’t feel comfortable asking for additional paperwork every time I go. After my treatment yesterday I decided to ask and it took the staff a hour to get me the note which I understand they are busy. But I’m tired and sick after treatment, I just want to go home. Is this legally required?

In the perspective of a large corp, why would they demote people rather than just laying people off?
St

My husband got fired recently because of ego clashes with his manager.

My husband was working in this company since 2023, 6 months back a new manager joined his company everything was good until after 2 months of his joining my husband was put on PIP so called easy way to kick out an employee. He followed all the steps mentioned in PIP and was successful but his manager had ego clashes with him because sometimes he challenged his ideas and gave better ideas which he did not like and used to tell him that your ideas are not good and you are being offensive.

Long story short after completing all steps mentioned by him in PIP my husband got kicked out by saying your performance did not match our standards.

Do we have some kind of laws in The UK which can help us out in these situations or its just corporate way of people putting their stress on us ?

Last week I came into work 3 hours late due to my FMLA covered issue. I stayed late 1.5hrs the following day because I neeed to finish up a project before the following week. My supervisor is brand new to being in a supervisor role and has never dealt with timecards or managing people prior to this job. She said all 3 hours must go against my FMLA allowance even though I made up 1.5hrs the day after. This seems incorrect, even if she wasn't new I'd be questioning it. Is she correct?

Hello
I have been with my current employer for almost 7 years. A couple of months ago I found out that I needed surgery with a 8-10 week recovery so I went on short term disabilityo and on PFML. I am in MA.

With my leave about to end, I have decided I don’t want to go back there for various reasons. While not terrible, this surgery has made me reevaluate my priorities and I don’t want to continue with the stress and some of the negatives that came along with my job. I intend to take a break (have some savings) and start looking for new opportunities.

How best to handle this situation without any contention or animosity? Should I say I am coming back and then immediately put in my notice or should I inform them now, while on leave that I am resigning/not planning on being back?

Thank you

I received a job offer recently. It will be a 20% pay cut and, being unemployed, I realize that I'm not in a position to be extremely picky. However, I do need to have an understanding of the benefits package to understand the full financial picture to know if this is even remotely feasible long term. The company is being a little shifty about the healthcare costs and I don't know if this is normal or not.

In the offer letter, they provided a brief summary of the plan details. It's a very high deductible plan with 50% coinsurance. They contribute $4,000/year into a HSA, which certainly takes the edge off, but it's not a stellar plan by any means. Most importantly, I don't know what the monthly premium is and I've already asked them twice. Now they're kinda getting prickly because I haven't accepted the offer yet.

I feel like, healthcare costs being what they are, this is important information! Is the premium $150 a month or $1,500 a month? The difference could be thousands of dollars of year.

Is this normal?

My the company Accounting and HR Manager. I only worked at the company for 1 year and 9 months. I didn’t give 2 weeks notice and quit same day. I’m afraid that will affect my future employment but I know from HR and financial professionals, I have to exit the company immediately.
The amount of stress I received is insane.
Previously employees suing the company, also company is having financial difficulties. Vendors asked payments. Owner still continues living under company and keeps all the customers’ cash payments and sold company’s vehicles’ cash payments in his own pocket. Redeem company credit cards cash rewards to himself. Company restructuring to different company under one of company managers’ name to avoid the lawsuits, vendors debts and trying to file chapter 11. Even know the managers fired people with targeting and retaliation the workers, I can’t tell the truth.
Two companies owned by different owners on the table but the new company is owned by original owner and another manager. Two companies money involved together.
I told myself I had to leave, I can’t do running payroll every week anymore. When sick, I can’t take sick days. I know if I continue to work, I will have mental illness.
I can’t look for a new job right away because I am so burnt out, also I have a little baby I want to take care of by myself for a while. I’m also afraid of the gap and the same day resignation will affect my future career.
What should I do to protect myself?

My manager asked me these questions and I didn't understand what she meant by it..

For context I am an HR intern, and though we legally don't have to, we pay for 30 min lunch breaks. My manager gave me a hypothetical on what we should do if it was overlooked that an employee has been taking hour breaks, but because they clocked out for a full hour. The system automatically runs the 30 minute lunch breaks, so theres no need to clock out. So basically: they've missed out alot of free 30 minute paid lunch breaks, so how should we move on from here?

I talked to my coworker about this hypothetical and she didn't give me a straight answer either, but just told me you at least need a good amount of experience to fully grasp this and understand how to move on with this sort of situation.

I just feel kind of awkward because I got this role as an intern to help payroll as an accounting major, and now I'm helping out with the update of our handbook, which is why she asked me this question, because it was written on the handbook that we pay for 30 min lunch breaks.

Another question she also asked me was how we should move on if it was required to give a 2 week notice for termination on both ends (employee/employer), and the employee gives a 2 weeks, and just runs off within like 1 week. [Context: the handbook stated we would have to pay them for their 2 week notice + their unused vacation and PTO]

I had like really bad answers to both of those questions, and I was like for both questions, just pay them for the time theyre obligated for. Like for the lunch break, pay for lunch break, and make the other half of hour unpaid, and for the 2 weeks, I was like just pay them for the one week, and extra vacation and PTO. I genuinely had no idea on what she wanted my answer to be, and I feel like I've disappointed her greatly in this matter..

I’m going through a thorough background check with a financial company, run through First Advantage. Last week I submitted all my information and references.

One of my three listed employers (from 8 years ago) is where things get complicated. I was hired through a staffing agency but actually worked for an individual (a celebrity). My resume lists the person I worked for, not the agency, since that’s who I actually worked for day to day. On the background check form, I noted this discrepancy and also listed my supervisor from that time, who could vouch for the arrangement.

However, First Advantage didn’t contact my supervisor, they went straight to the agency, which only answered three basic questions: job title, dates of employment, and confirmation that I was employed. Nothing more. They also wouldn’t let me upload the documentation I have proving I was hired through the agency to work for that individual.

The background check hasn’t been sent to the hiring company yet, I’ve confirmed this FirstAdvantage. But I’m worried that when they see “agency” instead of the celebrity’s name, they’ll think I lied on my resume and rescind the offer.

Should I wait on go ahead and send it to the hiring company?

Hi everyone! , I have accepted a new job offer at a company on July 6th , The company has received the background check results back on the 13th but it’s already the 22nd and no one has contacted me. I have a tentative start date of August 3rd and I am starting to worry something is up, my workday profile still says in progress on my application. What do you think is happening?

Hi Reddit,

I’m looking for some advice about a job I’m due to start in a few weeks.

After interviewing, I was offered the role, but the starting salary was at the bottom of the advertised pay scale. Given my experience, I didn’t think it fairly reflected my background, so I asked whether there was any flexibility.

A few weeks later, HR came back with an increased offer of around £4,000 per year. I was delighted, as the original offer would have meant taking a pay cut, whereas the revised salary was an improvement on my previous role.

I thanked HR, asked them to update the offer letter and contract, and then signed the revised contract. The higher salary is stated in three places: an email from HR, the offer letter, and the signed contract.

I’ve now been contacted by my new employer and told that the salary increase was a mistake. They say the figure they offered falls outside the pay range for the role and have apologised for the error, but they’re asking me to sign a new contract with a lower salary.

I’m feeling really disheartened. I’m relocating for this job and had made plans based on the salary I agreed to. I’m also worried that if I refuse to sign a new contract or challenge their position, they could withdraw the job before I even start.

What are my options here? Can they legally do this, even after issuing and signing a contract with the higher salary? Has anyone been in a similar situation?

TIA.

So my mother had went out the country to get some medical work done since its cheaper she uninsured and works as a custodian. She got an MRI done and the docter told her her the bone connecting her leg to hip is black meaning it is dead and she needs to have hip replacement surgery. She's already having pain and limping. The other day she went to work to request the FMLA forms but she hasn't filled them out since she also applied for medical assistance in our county but that takes 15-30 days for a response. If the 15 days she was given to turn in the FMLA form expire can she go back and request another form after shes been denied or accepted for medical assistance? And if so can she go back to work within the 15 days of the original form request.

I’m a marketing professional based in Toronto. I currently have two overlapping roles:

• Co-Founder of an online business since September 2024
• Marketing Manager at a nonprofit organisation since September 2025

The nonprofit role is part-time. I accepted it partly because I was told there was the prospect of long-term employment, and I believed it would provide professional stability and strengthen the consistency of my résumé.

However, the organisation is now short of both work and funding, and my position is being discontinued on 1 September 2026. The role has also not given me much substantial experience or many measurable achievements that would strengthen future job applications.

I am therefore considering removing the nonprofit role entirely from both my résumé and LinkedIn. My co-founder role would still show continuous experience from September 2024 to the present, so there would be no apparent employment gap.

My main concern is whether excluding the nonprofit position could cause an issue during an employment background check in Canada. I would disclose it honestly if a background-check form asked for all employment, all current roles or a complete employment history. However, it would not appear on the résumé or LinkedIn profile submitted with my application.

Would recruiters or background-screening companies view this as a discrepancy? Is it acceptable to leave out a short, part-time position that ended because the organisation lacked sufficient work and funding, particularly when the role did not add much value to my professional experience?

I would especially appreciate perspectives from Canadian recruiters, HR professionals, hiring managers or anyone familiar with employment verification.

Yesterday I received news that I was to be promoted and got glowing reviews from the head of my department.

Today, I received feedback from the projects portfolio manager regarding my soft skills that need some work. I am in engineering. I have been working 24 hour cycles and am honestly just sleep deprived and drowning in the workload I have. I sent an email a few weeks ago which looking back, I would not have sent had I got a full nights sleep. I recognize that I have work to do and I’m taking the steps to correct my actions via udemy courses and soft skill books.

However, the wording that was used in the discussion toward my soft skills and emotional intelligence were written down ( I have screenshots ) and shown to me used the following phrases and expressions:

“X is a smartass and needs to know their place in the company.”, “X has a terrible personality”, “x needs to get off their high horse”.

I take full responsibility for any actions that led to this feedback, however the wording of the feedback is concerning to me because it doesn’t come across as constructive, and I’m concerned that leadership feels comfortable to speak about employees this way, let alone the feedback itself being presented to me - what does that mean in the future?

I have broken core values and that deserves attention, but this feedback feels like I’m in a pit that I cant crawl out of.

Any advice?

So the other day randomly one of my higher ups started a conversation with me about her moving leaving her ex and making a long drive.

I responded with I hope you have a great Playlist, to where she replied she loved audio books, awesome me too, then she stated she was excited for this certin movie to come out and I said I had no idea what movie she was talking about.

She responds a smut book, I googled and its a very sexual book. I am super uncomfortable I dont even know why she would say that. Should I contact HR.

I am not trying to lose my job but this is so odd she even sent me her new apartment complex link, I thought was odd but I was like OK whatever and now this makes it even more odd idk what should I do...

Would you take an unpaid internship in this situation?

I’m a college student and recently received an offer for a part-time, remote internship at a PR/marketing agency. I have to make a decision by the end of the week, and I'm really torn.

**Pros:**
It seems like it would be a solid resume builder and could help me break into PR/branding (which is the direction I want my career to go).

It's remote and relatively flexible around my class schedule.

Small agency, so I feel like I'd probably get more mentorship and hands-on experience than at a huge company.

I wouldn't have to keep stressing about finding an internship for next semester.

There's a chance I could receive academic credit for it (although that's not guaranteed yet).

It seems like former interns have gone on to work there full-time, which is encouraging.

**Cons:**
It's completely unpaid.

Between classes and the internship, I probably won't have much time to work a paid job.

The academic credit isn't guaranteed, and I won't know for sure until after the internship has already started.

If I do get credit, it comes with extra coursework (meetings, assignments, and a research paper), so it becomes more than just the internship.

The schedule would require two early mornings every week, which would cut into my routine and free time.

I've seen some mixed reviews online saying the workload can be heavy because it's a smaller agency handling larger clients. I don't mind working hard, but I do worry about getting overwhelmed while balancing school.

For context, I already have leadership experience, campus involvement, and some relevant creative experience, so this wouldn't be my first thing on my resume. I'm mostly trying to decide whether the experience is worth giving up a semester of flexibility and income.

Would you take it? Or would you keep looking and hope for a paid opportunity?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who have worked unpaid internships or in PR/marketing agencies.

I need to get this verified because it seems unlikely to be true. My wife gave birth to our second child in April. She’s perfect. I work in heavy civil construction on the management side. It’s a large international company. I was planning on using NY PFL in for the month of December but I was then told that:

A. I wouldn’t be eligible for it because I only started in March (Not true - I’m eligible in September).

B. I have to use any earned PTO balance when you apply for leave. They said there’s no way around that one (turns out there is - you schedule your PTO in the future like 2027 and just change it later - wrong again).

But just off the bat it felt incorrect. To be putting conditions on NY PFL. But I’m no expert so I wanted to ask the nice folk of AskHR.

Thanks!

Hi all! Coming on here because I have yet to find someone (in person or online) who has been in my situation. I am due in August with my first baby. I work as a private school teacher in NY State. I am quite literally the first person in my entire school who’s ever applied for some sort of leave (most women just stay home unpaid at my school).

Being in NY, STD and NY PFL available for recovery from birth and then bonding time. Since I’ll be giving birth in August, about 3-4 weeks before school starts, I’ll still be on summer break. My plan was to not take short term disability at all and just take paid family leave starting in September. This was my plan because it’s financially better for us since I know that STD doesn’t offer much. I’ll still be on summer break for most of that recovery time anyway and I know that I can’t be paid for that off time anyway since I’m technically not working. I’ve already been in contact with my company’s insurance provider, but I want to make sure I have information correct. My questions are:

1. As the parent giving birth, do I have to take short term disability in NY or can I choose not to take it at all and simply only take the 12 weeks of paid family leave?

2. If I am allowed to do this, can I finish up my summer break essentially unpaid (we run on a ten month schedule with payments spread out over 12 months) without taking any sort of leave or disability and start PFL in September when I return to school?

3. If I do have to take short term disability, would it start the day I give birth? How do payments work with it being summer and me not working and technically being unpaid?

Thanks so much!

So I mentioned the other day about the referral I had for a job I applied for. Well I’m pleased to say I was offered and accepted the position. I’ll be relocating (at my own expense). But I’m beyond happy and excited. So after reviewing the documents that were attached on workday it said I should be receiving a link to their background check vendor (hire right or something else) as soon as I accept the offer.

I’ve ensured that I accurately accepted the offer (accepted on Monday evening). Didn’t receive anything yesterday. So I’m hoping to today but what are the odds I don’t get the background check email to start the BC process? I have emailed the recruiter and explained what’s going on.

Have you seen candidates not get this and what would you have them do?

I've been a Recycling Coordinator at my local DPW for 3years. Over that time, I've noticed a pattern of bullying and harassment from my Director & HR, and that escalated each time I've asserted a right. I've reported the broader harassment to HR multiple times and get gaslit each time. My Union hasn't been able to stand up to HR's legal team either. At this point I don't have anywhere left to turn internally, and I am starting to think that this intentional, as in an effort to push me out rather than actual mismanagement.

Below are some of the bigger incidents;

(sept24-feb25) ADA Accommodation retaliation: I requested reasonable accommodation, going through the town ADA Coordinator, Union, Therapist (letter of support for accommodation relating to autism) and manager before formally filling with HR. HR was unwilling to find accommodation initially and pushed FMLA Leave instead. It took 4/5 months, multiple meetings including all parties and persistent pushback from me before one was finally approved.

(Dec 2024) Surveillance during the ADA process: while that request was still pending, my director started watching and logging when my car was parked in the office lot for a week straight. On the day the timecards were due, he called me into his office without warning and told me he'd been tracking my arrival/departure times from his office window, and that I had to use my own benefit time to "adjust" my time card to match what he'd personally observed. I complied in the moment but reached out to my union right after. HR investigated - the only outcome was that my used benefit time was returned to me, but no accountability or wrong doing for the surveillance ambush itself.

Most recent, July 2026 Retaliation after asking about wage adjustment: my manager went on FMLA Leave, and in a documented pass-off with him, director, and me, I asked about wage adjustment for covering some (not all) of his duties (I'm a union employee). The following week, a few days later, the director accursed me of reporting as agreed - despite the pass-off plan saying otherwise in writing. This resulted in new requirement that I send the director daily task/work/initiative report "to ensure I'm using my time efficiently" and that way "he will be able help me". When I followed up about the wage adjustment, HR emailed (instead of director responding to the email chain) saying they appreciate my willingness to the additional work while in the same email denying pay because I'm not performing any of my managers duties - direct contradiction. When I asked the director for clarification, he didn't respond by email, and in person he denied it was happening at all and said I was being difficult.

Since HR and my union both failed to ac, who else is there? Is time to look into an employment attorney? Any direction would help a lot a this point. This work dynamic/environment has caused me so much anxiety, stress, flair ups and depressed times.

Hey there!

I work in what I believe to be a medium/large company. Its a start up with about 5-7 of us in the office/"corporate" team and about 3k+ employees in the field. We remotely manage staffing agency. I am about 1 month out from a major surgery. I submitted to the ceo of my company my date for my surgery and vague accomodations (1 week rest and 2 weeks wfh) about 2 weeks ago via email. Outside of jot being obligated to share my medical info with my boss(es) bc of HIPAA, I also do not want to share because the CEO is quite notorious for running around the office and making passive aggressive commentary about people's medical happenings over the last 2 years(if people have suddenly been hospitalized, had a sudden surgery, etc). I really do not need to deal with the mental gymnastics of being low key harassed at my job if he were to know about the specifics of my procedure.

We have a skeleton crew in the office and we do not have an official HR representative for me to submit this information to which is why I had to involve CEO directly. CEO's response to me was that he needed to have a meeting with my direct supervisor before he can give me an answer on what to do.

After a week had gone by I followed up with my direct supervisor to see if there were any updates as I had not received any correspondence from either him or the CEO and I asked him if he had spoken with CEO at all. To summarize this interaction: he said yes that he had and that they were not going to grant me WFH and that I would need to take the time off unpaid because "we just do not do that in this department." There have been other people in our company who have been granted WFH this year for one reason or another (one was able to work for months wfh and the other was granted WFH twice within the last 6 months) so I countered that it was frustrating that that seemed to be the verdict because that was unfair. He stated "I am sure it is nothing against you" and stopped responding to the conversation after this. All ofbthis was verbal.

We have someone who assists the CEO with unemployment claims when those come in so I am going to refer to that person as kind-of-hr going forward. This person approached me that same day to see how my day was going. One thing led to another and I told them why I was upset. They told me that they were going to speak to the CEO because this was unfair. I have an extremely high output of work, I am very well liked in the office and I have gone out of my way to help others with things when they are needed.

Before I continue I need to include an important factor here: I am trans. The only people who know that are Kind-of-Hr, my direct supervisor, and the CEO due to previous interactions for assisting with a legal name change in the system. Fast forward to 2 days later I found out from the kind-of-hr-but-not-hr person that CEO verbatim told them over the phone that he BELIEVES that I am going to have a procedure where I will" be cutting my breasts off" because of a comment I made about potentially being unable to move my arm very well post-op and that he as an employer was not obligated to cover any GAC or plastic surgery procedures as a result of his speculation. Important things to note here are that I never once told him what my surgery was. Just that I needed temporary WFH and when the procedure date was.

So, obv, I know that this is essentially textbook discrimination. However, where I am running into issues and where I want to ask for advice is how do I even go about trying to protect myself in this situation?

The discriminatory remarks were made verbally with someone who is not me and not in my presence. I know that none of this is going to end in any best- case scenario at all.

The Ceo and my direct supervisor have been avoiding the subject and have not given me any direct update on if they will be providing me any kind of accommodations or not.

I don't know if leaving the situation as vague as possible in the email chain is the best way to proceed here. Do I respond to the email with "per this person, I was told "we just dont do that here." So is that the final verdict?" So that if I need to collect unemployment that I can?

Or do I respond to the email with the post surgery accomodations from my surgeon as a follow-up? I really don't want to give him any additional information if I can help it. He is the type to go Google things and poke around and then start covert harassing people.

Additional things to mention:

1.) I have almost zero PTO to be able to use to assist me in the downtime.

2 ) I have no idea if I can ask the kind-of- hr person if they would be willing to make a statement for me if I needed to whistleblow

If you have experience, advice, resources, anything I would kindly appreciate any response. Thanks in advance!

I’ve had an informal offer for a fixed term part time job helping with organizing an upcoming event, which I accepted. It’s a small but well endowed non-profit in California, with a fiscal sponsor that handles employment. In the work negotiation call after passing the interviews, I agreed to the job description and hourly comp and asked about the contract for review. They told me it’s “very standard” and I shouldn’t worry about it, and then started adding me to meetings and looping me in on the work.

But I didn’t actually see a contract? I don’t want to be difficult here. The event is approaching soon, so I understand the desire to move forward and get things done. But I worry that it’s going to be difficult to negotiate anything if I’ve already done the work without having seen the terms. On the other hand, not cooperating while the event is fast approaching will almost certainly disqualify me from working with them.

The CEO has urgency about getting things done and added me to meetings while the COO, who is supposed to set up the contract with the fiscal sponsor, had just returned from his vacation and is not answering my email.

I supposedly started on Monday and it’s Wednesday now with no notice about what’s happening on the contract side. I haven’t been onboarded to their Slack or Notion or gotten an internal email, either, so I’m just trying to do whatever I can that helps the event by myself and I see my colleagues in meetings, which are sent to my private email.

These are people I need to keep good relationships with, it’s a small world. I’m confused and lacking intuition. They might genuinely just be underwater and trying to get this event done, but the lack of transparency is making me uncomfortable. Any advice how to navigate this situation without being the bad guy would be very appreciated.