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

1. My coworker was fired for an inflammatory Facebook post

I started working at my first job after college seven months ago. One of my coworkers was just fired over something that happened in his personal life. This coworker is engaged to someone he met through a pen pal program for individuals serving life without parole in our state prisons. What happened was that he posted about his upcoming wedding to her on Facebook, and in the post he called the family members of his fiancée’s victim’s family “victim’s rights scum.” Someone took a screenshot and shared it with the local press and on social media. My coworker was identified as an employee here and after that happened he was fired and escorted out by security.

Our work has nothing to do with anything that could be affected by this (prisoners, crime victims, vulnerable persons such as children, personal or financial information, etc). He was only fired because the company didn’t want to look bad in the press or with the public. He’s had to move out of his apartment because his neighbors protested him living there and he didn’t feel safe anymore. No one knew about his relationship and lots of his family and friends are mad at him now. I don’t agree with what he said and think it was wrong. But I don’t think he should have been fired for something in his personal life that has no bearing on work. Can people really get fired for what they do in their personal lives if it doesn’t hurt anyone, isn’t illegal, and doesn’t affect their work? Should I be speaking up or advocating for him if I don’t think his firing was just? I’m really upset for him, it seems like an encroachment on people’s personal rights.

People can indeed get fired for this kind of thing, and sometimes do when companies are concerned that being affiliated with someone will harm their own reputation. I can certainly see why they might not want to be known as the employer of someone who attacked the family of someone who I’m guessing was killed in a violent crime (based on the life sentence without parole). If you’re being horrible to people publicly, your employer is allowed to be concerned that you’ll drive away business and cause problems internally as well, and to decide they don’t want to be associated with you.

Often when this comes up, people ask whether that means it’s also okay for an employer to fire someone for other types of speech they don’t like — for example, someone speaking out for gay rights or racial equity. I’d argue that publicly attacking family members of the person your fiance killed is different than normal political discourse, and it’s reasonable to treat it differently.

2. Restricting access to a kosher kitchen

We are a family-owned business with 20-25 employees in our main office. The principals of the company and seven other employees keep kosher. We have a common area kitchen and a kosher kitchen. Due to the growth of our company over the past few years, we have many more people working here who do not keep kosher. While we keep the kitchen unlocked, we do have a sign on the door that states “Stop Do NOT Enter. Kosher Access to Authorized Kosher Coworkers Only.”

Is it against the law to put a lock on the kosher kitchen and further restrict access by only giving the code to employees that keep kosher?

It’s fine to require the kitchen itself to stay kosher and thus require that any food that’s brought into it must be kosher, but you’re on shaky ground not letting non-kosher people enter it at all. It would be better to make the policy about food, not people.

Updated to add: I’m not convinced that this arrangement here wouldn’t be legal, since there’s second kitchen. It’s possible the kosher kitchen would be considered a reasonable accommodation for kosher staff, and it’s not a separate perk that others don’t get since everyone in this scenario does have access to another kitchen. This is complicated, and you should talk to a lawyer who specializes in this area.

3. What should I call my mom when she starts working in my office?

I’m a senior-level employee in a small-ish community human services organization (and in my 40’s, if it matters at all). My mother was the former director of another organization in our community for many years and recently retired. She’s very well known here and was absolutely brilliant at what she did. After her retirement, my boss offered my mom a part-time position in our office working directly with her on some special projects where her expertise and network of contacts will be really valuable.

She’ll be starting at our office soon and I just realized I’m in a bit of a quandry about what to call her when she’s here. It feels really weird to me to call her “mom” at work — but it feels equally weird to call her by her first name! Given the work she’s done in our community over the years, a lot of people know we’re related even though we have different last names. All of my colleagues know she’s my mom so it isn’t that. And my boss and I have made sure to be thoughtful about when and where our work overlaps, which won’t be much. She won’t report to me, and most of her day-to-day stuff will overlap more with my boss and another department, but given my role in the organization we will interact regularly. And really, our office is just pretty small so we’re going to see and talk to each other when she’s here.

Am I over thinking this? Is there some kind of office etiquette around how to handle this kind of situation? I don’t want things to be unnecessarily weird, but I don’t want to be unprofessional either. What do you think the smartest option is here?

There is indeed office etiquette around this! You should call her by her first name — both when addressing her directly and when referring to her to others. You’re probably going to feel incredibly weird doing it in the beginning, but that weirdness will fade, and it will be nothing compared to the weirdness other people would feel if you called her “mom.” Look at it this way: In the office, you’re relating to her as a colleague, not as your mom — and you want the way you speak to and about her to reflect that.

4. Helping to hire my replacement

I am the only employee at a very small, volunteer-run organization. When I handed in my notice, I told them that I would be happy to train their new hire, recognizing that there would most likely be a gap in between my leaving and my replacement starting. Also, since my board is not at all technologically savvy, I offered to post the job listing on several sites, which were then linked to my account.

Initially, all I was doing was forwarding resumes to my supervisor, since I felt that I had no business commenting on applicants. However, as the resumes came in, my supervisor started asking me for feedback on them – essentially asking me to verify that his instincts on applicants qualifications were correct. Since I know the field, and he doesn’t, I offered my opinions, which was verging on the limit of what I felt comfortable with.

Now that he’s picked applicants to interview, he wants me to sit in on the interviews! And not just observe – he wants me as one of the interviewers! I obviously want him to pick a good candidate who has knowledge of the field, but I feel slightly skeevy interviewing candidates to be my replacement. If nothing else, I feel that it would be hard for me to be unbiased, since they’d be taking over my work.

What should I do? Am I worrying over nothing, or should I recuse myself from the interviews? If it helps, there’s no one else with my knowledge of the field in our organization, and I don’t want to burn any bridges.

It’s not weird or unethical to help interview for your replacement; that is pretty common. So if you want to do it, go ahead and do it! But if you don’t have the time or just don’t want to be involved to that degree, it’s perfectly fine to explain that you don’t have the time to do that. In fact, you can set any boundaries here you want — which means that if you don’t really want to be giving input on candidates at all, it’s fine to explain that you don’t have time to keep doing that either. Basically, you can have as much or as little involvement here as you want.

5. Interviewing with the same company for a lower title than they’d interviewed me for previously

I have recently been scheduled for an interview with a group that I have already interviewed with four months ago. I was very close to getting the offer four months back and the hiring manager said I would hear back from HR soon on the background checks. Unfortunately I never heard back, even after one thank-you/follow-up email and it was a dream role and title for me. Now, I have been called for an interview with the same group for one level down (in title and salary). I am going to attend the interview to give them the opportunity to speak more about the role.

However, due to the title I am feeling a bit demotivated. I was wondering if it is a good idea to bring this up in the upcoming interview. If yes, I was going to say something along the lines of “I had interviewed with so-and-so group and was in discussion for this title as it speaks closely with my expertise and the direction I would like my career to go with. Is there anything I can do to help you understand how I qualify for that level?” Is this fair to ask in an interview?

It’s a bad idea. They’re not interviewing you for that role; they’re interviewing you for a different one, so they’re not going to be enthused about hearing you talk about why they should consider you for another job instead. If they offer you a job, at that point you can certainly ask about coming in at a higher-level title if you think you have a good case for it.

But if you’re too annoyed to feel good about the job you’re interviewing for, you’re probably better off declining the interview. I’d only move forward if you’re genuinely interested in the job they want to discuss, and if you could imagine taking that job without resenting it.