u/pommefreak

Can anyone share their experience of requesting accommodations for fragrance sensitivities?

TLDR: I’m being moved to an open office, but have fragrance sensitivity and want to keep my current, private office to avoid issues. I’m being told I must move, regardless of the issues. Can the ADA office help?

I have always had issues with fragrances. I get severe migraines, eye irritation, and sometimes nausea due to artificial fragrances, perfumes, certain flowers, chemical/cleaning supplies, laundry detergents, etc. My reaction depends on the product, but almost always it leads to a migraine and I’m unable to focus. I started working at my job about a year ago and have my own office. The change has been great. I’ve had very little issue, except for the occasional passing scent in shared spaces but I’m always able to retreat to my office, open a window, dim lights, etc., to deal with the aftermath.

Recently, my role has slightly changed. Essentially, I have almost the same job duties, but will be working under a different supervisor with a new team. The department is the same and I will still be collaborating frequently with my old team. I didn’t expect the change to affect my work station, but I was recently told I would be moving buildings (neighboring buildings) to be with the new team. Unfortunately, this space is an open office with cubicles. I requested to keep my current office or be given an enclosed office in the new space to accommodate my fragrance issues, but was told I was expected to move and the new building doesn’t have a closed office available for me. I was assured that they would “limit my exposure” to fragrance and accommodate my needs. Realistically, that is impossible to police and it’s always been an issue in my other workplaces. There are also other professional reasons I shared with my supervisor about why I need my own space like work style, frequent need to meet/train others, etc., which requires a private space. But foremost, I’m concerned about the health aspect.

I’m really frustrated at this point because my entire office was remote until recently. While most of us are grouped by team, there are still people in collaborative roles that work remotely and people that go to different buildings to work with different parts of their team. Additionally, I’m not taking up an office. My current building has least one vacant office that is not in use and multiple open work stations. Considering the proximity of the two buildings in question and everything else, it just seems silly to have me move over and have to find alternative solutions/accommodations when the solution already exists.

I got a final email back today saying the decision was that I will need to move by next week. My original request was through my supervisor, but now I’m considering going through the ADA office, but I’ve never done this before so I’m not sure what drama could come of it. I’m also just wondering what the actual likelihood of keeping my office would be going through that channel.

I really want to avoid tension and build a good relationship with my new boss, but I’ve had trouble in the past voicing these issues to be a good team player and suffered because of it.

Anyone have a similar experience or advice?

I started a new job earlier this year. My department is absolutely wonderful and I can see myself having a long career there. However, my specific team is victim to a very toxic work environment due to our manager’s narcissistic behavior. She’s very rude and condescending. She bullies different people on our team (I was actually warned about this from my coworker), gate keeps information, and keeps us very siloed from each other, as well as the greater department. In addition to this, my probation was extended due to needing more training (my manager hasn’t made time to properly train me in certain areas or pair me up with someone who can.) Upper management has stepped in and plans to restructure my role and move me under different leadership with a team that is more aligned with the goals of the program I manage in the next month or two.

I’ve been told by others in the department that my manager is a known problem and has had issues with many employees and clients. I was also told that mgmt is rallying for me and know that I am a great and needed addition to the dept. I’ve been trying to be patient, but my anxiety has been through the roof these last few weeks.

I recently had a one-on-one meeting with my manager. I want to note that this weekly meeting is my only opportunity to speak her directly, as she is very unavailable and keeps her door closed. Sometimes I mention things via Teams or email, but don’t always get responses and/or can’t get in depth until our weekly. On top of this, the weekly meetings are pretty tight and follow her agenda so there isn’t always room to discuss other items (I recently addressed this).

During our meeting, I was revisiting an idea I briefly touched on. As I’m going into detail about my thoughts and proposed changes, she just cut me off and start raising her voice at me. Saying that we have already discussed this (no we haven’t) and started to pull out a document that the my predecessor was working on (none of this information or documentation was previously shared with me) that somewhat aligns with my ideas. She berates me, telling me I’m not inventing anything new, and criticizes my approach, even though at this point she hasn’t let me explain what that is, my action plan, etc., and is just assuming she knows my plans. I was also getting the feeling that she thought I was criticizing the last person because I pointed out some discrepancies with the documentation I was provided. I kept trying to speak but she was going on and on with the tirade. I could feel the tears coming on and turned off my camera to try to calm down. When she asked if I was still there, I hung up and sent a message saying I needed to excuse myself. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep myself together.

I wanted to speak to our head HR liaison about it because I wasn’t sure where to move from there. I don’t want to escalate it to our actual HR dept, but I wanted speak to someone to cover myself and make sure there is a path forward. I feel like it needs to addressed and I don’t want my manager to try to twist the situation or use it to retaliate against me later or try to terminate me.

Unfortunately, our liaison wasn’t there so I ended up speaking to my manager’s boss, who is the one working on rescuing me from my current situation. I thought she would be a good person to speak to but unfortunately, the second I sat down in her office, I started crying again. I went in there to get some more information about where we were with the restructure and then pivot to the incident, but I just jumped into talking about what happened and then sort of blacked out and just rambled about how I don’t know what I should even be prioritizing anymore because of conflicting feedback from my manager, tension between us, lack of space to talk about my ideas and address concerns, etc. I was given advice on how to move forward with priorities, etc, told to trust the process, but the actual incident wasn’t addressed. I’m not sure if I should still talk to our HR liaison or address the situation with my manager directly on Monday. I wanted to go back to review the recording of the meeting (my boss records everything) to see if I overreacted and/or find a solution but she removed my permission from seeing it which feels very shady.

I am growing more concerned, but I’m also so embarrassed and want to avoid any drama or tension. I’m also worried about being perceived as problem employee. I really love this job and I work for a very large employer in my city. If I can’t maintain good standing here, it will hurt my job prospects. Reddit, please give me advice!

I was hired at my current job earlier this year. My first few months went great and I received a glowing evaluation during my first quarter. I really love my job and the people I work with but as I’ve spent more time there, I’ve realized my direct supervisor is going to end up being a long-term hindrance to progress and my professional growth. After talking to other leadership I trusted, I decided I would approach upper management after the probationary period to see what could be done. But things went a little unplanned…

I was hired to manage a digital platform. Part of what my job is improving platform growth, providing support, and increasing engagement. Everytime I work toward trying to make changes or improvements, I met with unnecessary barrier after barrier from my boss. Most of the time it feels like a control thing, but other times my boss either disagrees with the value of the idea or projects get put on the back burner because other projects the team are working on take priority. I am simultaneously being micromanaged, while also expected to lead these efforts without support or trust. For context, changes require contributions from different specialists on the team to fully implement. I am also not looped in or communicated about things related to the platform I’m managing, which makes it so I’m having to put out fires or just look uninformed. Everytime I push, it creates hostility. One time I had to advocate really hard to just be included in a meeting that, without a doubt should have been involved in, and was told to stay quiet the whole time. That is just a taste of the overall shit show I’m dealing with.

In addition to this, I was hired at a crazy time which required my to immediately jump into certain aspects of my role. My supervisor told me we would revisit training for the other areas. A pivotal part of my training was postponed at least four times and had not been complete by the six month mark due to my boss not being able to make time. The other areas were basically ignored and I started training myself using some written directions that were left behind by the previous person.

Regardless of the above, I still feel like I was making good progress and upper management has expressed to me directly and to others on the sidelines of how happy they are with what I’ve been doing and that they are so glad I’m on the team. For context, this role has historically had very closed-off and abrasive people in it, and the department as a whole as been eager to hire someone with fresh ideas and a more open, collaborative spirit (aka me).

Fast forward to six months, I was expecting a positive to neutral evaluation. Instead, I was told my probation was being extended to “allow for more time for training”…I wasn’t given this feedback beforehand, as is what is usually done so I was completely blindsided. The training areas that were highlighted were the ones I was not trained on or areas that were very, very small percent of my job role. I initially felt it was unfair to extend my probation for something my supervisor failed to train me on. There was nothing negative in my evaluation, just suggestions to improve training in certain areas.

I spent several days overthinking and confided to one of my coworkers who told me another person on our team was on probation for a very long time. That person is now very valued so I thought maybe this was just my supervisor’s management style. I decided I would keep my head down, focus on the areas that were mentioned and get out of probation hell. Once I would get past that point, I could talk to upper management about the big issues.

Going back to leadership, I know I am valued by them and I get along with everyone I work with. While it’s not been directly said, there are very clear implications that my boss has been a problem in the past and is not the easiest to work with. Before I even started the job, I got a warning about my supervisor from someone who works in the industry I’m in. I’ve confided in a couple of coworkers (in leadership) that I completely trust and have really good rapport with. They both, separately, told me I should definitely talk to our director (their supervisor) and both were upset because of the way I was being treated.

Fast forward again, I’ve been thinking a lot at my desk about all of this. Then BAM, our dept HR director approaches me for a chat. They go on to say they know about evaluation, our team loves me and wants to reassure me that the want to keep me on board, and apparently my supervisor and other leadership are in talks about what to do next with my role and if I have an ideas or areas of interest to let the know. HR could not go into specifics about what that meant. I got a crumb from another person that I might be moving to another team, which I asked. Was told “we don’t know yet.” But in a nutshell, I’m not sure what to present. It was so vague that I’m not sure if it was an invitation to outline what needs to change with the role, how I see it working, or if they’re literally just trying to find some place to stick me.

My biggest thing in all of this is I want our director to know what’s happening and I don’t want my character or work ethic to be misrepresented based on my supervisor’s bullshit evaluation. There are also fundamental problems with the way the role is currently structured. It may require bringing in an additional person or a different framework of operating and I think my director may not be aware of the extent of it. I also actually love my job and would like to continue doing that but under other leadership. I’ve never dealt with this before so I’m trying to be careful. I work for a very big employer and burning a bridge here would make it difficult to find decent work in my city. I also don’t want to sour my relationship with my current supervisor because even if I end up under someone else, I will still need to collaborate with them. What should I do????

I’ll be visiting Billings, MT, from out of state for a work thing. Montana has always been a bucket list state for me. Even though most of my days will be eaten by work stuff, I’ll have a rental car, some downtime and almost a whole day to myself. I was planning to stop in Red Lodge and/or drive the Beartooth highway on the free day. I’ll have another day that will end in afternoon so I’m willing to go on a mini adventure (2-3 hours). I’m just not sure what the best options are.

I’m mainly interested in seeing wondrous natural views, like mountains, canyons, wildlife, etc. but nothing too rugged because I’m alone and out of my element. I also really love food, beer/wine, and culture am also open to evening activities in or around Billings, but numero one priority is seeing mountains and being awed my the natural world around me.

I’m a solo female traveler so I would also appreciate any any safety tips, as well as tips about driving in the mountains, safety, dress, planning, etc. I’m a solo female and I’m not from these parts. I’ve also never drive in high altitude places or in snow. TIA!!!