Inappropriate Questions to Ask Coworkers
Twenty questions that cause trouble at work, with what each one costs the person being asked. Useful if you want to know where the line sits, and useful if one of these has just been put to you and you are working out how to answer it.
The questions
Open any question for the note
So what do they pay you?
Why ask it
In many places your colleague has a protected right to discuss pay, so the problem is not legality but position: asking first puts their number on the table while yours stays hidden. If you genuinely want the comparison, offer yours before asking for theirs.
Can I add you on Instagram?
Why ask it
The trouble is that no is expensive. Someone who would rather you did not see their weekend has to invent a reason or let you in, and refusing a manager costs more than refusing a peer. Let them find you instead.
Have you lost weight?
Why ask it
Meant as a compliment, heard as surveillance, because it tells the person their body is being tracked at work. It also lands badly around illness, medication changes and eating disorders, and you will not know which one you are standing in.
Are you married, or seeing anyone?
Why ask it
Sounds like small talk, but it is the standard opener to a run of follow-ups the person cannot refuse without looking difficult. It also outs people who are not out at work, or who are separating and have told nobody yet.
How old are you?
Why ask it
Age is a protected characteristic in most employment law, so the question can turn up in a complaint later regardless of what you meant by it. It also invites the person to work out why you wanted to know.
Are you planning on having kids?
Why ask it
The answer cannot help you and can badly hurt them, particularly during fertility treatment or after a recent loss. Coming from anyone with input into assignments or promotion, it stops being small talk and becomes evidence.
Where are you really from?
Why ask it
The word really is the problem: it tells the person their first answer was rejected. What you probably want is heritage, and people offer that themselves once the conversation is actually about family or food.
Are you a citizen, or here on a visa?
Why ask it
Immigration status belongs with HR and nowhere else. Asked colleague to colleague, it forces a choice between disclosing something with legal consequences and refusing you outright.
Do you go to church anywhere?
Why ask it
Faith and the absence of it are both protected, and the question usually arrives with an implied correct answer. If you are trying to find out whether they are free on Saturday, ask about Saturday.
Who did you vote for?
Why ask it
No version of this improves a working relationship. If they agree with you, you have gained nothing. If they do not, you have added something to every meeting for the next year.
What's wrong with your hand?
Why ask it
Frames a person as a thing requiring explanation. Disabled colleagues field this constantly and owe you no answer. If it touches the work, the only relevant question is whether anything should change.
Why were you out all last week?
Why ask it
You are entitled to know they were absent, not why. The person now chooses between sharing a diagnosis and giving a vague answer that sounds evasive, and the vague answer is what gets repeated.
Are you on something for that?
Why ask it
Medication and mental health treatment are private and, in many jurisdictions, specifically protected. Asked even kindly, it tells the person their functioning is being assessed rather than assumed.
Are you and Sam a thing?
Why ask it
True or not, you become the person who was asking, and that detail travels. If there is a real conflict of interest, it belongs with a manager rather than with the two people concerned.
How do you afford to live around here?
Why ask it
Reads as an audit. The honest answers are usually family money, debt or a partner's salary, none of which anyone wants to explain standing next to a desk.
What did HR say when you complained?
Why ask it
An open complaint is kept confidential to protect the person who raised it, and drawing details out can compromise the process. Ask whether they need anything and let them decide what to share.
What did you get in your review?
Why ask it
Ratings are handed out under an unwritten assumption of privacy, and comparing them mostly manufactures resentment. The workable version is asking what feedback they found useful, which people answer freely.
Between us, what do you actually think of our manager?
Why ask it
There is no safe answer and they know it. Candour exposes them, caution looks like disloyalty to you. Put to a junior colleague by a senior one, it is a trap whether or not you meant it as one.
Do you think you'll be able to keep up once the baby comes?
Why ask it
Presumes a decline nobody has evidence for, and pregnancy discrimination claims often rest on remarks worded exactly like this. If you are worried about cover, ask about the handover plan.
You're not taking the full leave though, are you?
Why ask it
Phrased as a question, heard as an instruction, especially from anyone senior. Statutory leave is an entitlement, and steering someone away from taking it is the behavior investigators look for.
Where the line sits, and what to do either side of it
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
What to ask instead
- Instead of their salary: "How did you land on this level?" Or share your own band first, if the comparison is what you actually want.
- Instead of family plans: "Is there anything in your schedule I should work around?"
- Instead of a medical absence: "Anything you want me to pick up while you catch up?"
- Instead of politics: "What is the most interesting thing you have read this month?"
- Instead of a review rating: "Was any of the feedback actually useful?"
- Instead of asking to follow them: nothing at all. Leave the first move to them.
If you have already asked
Apologize once, briefly
"That was not my business, sorry" is enough. A long account of what you really meant makes the other person manage your discomfort on top of their own.
Do not try again in a softer form
Rephrasing the same question next week reads as persistence, and persistence is what turns a single awkward moment into a pattern someone starts writing down.
Let them reopen it if they want
Some people will come back and tell you anyway once the pressure is off. That is their decision to make, and it is not an invitation to ask the rest of the questions.
If you are the one being asked
- "I'd rather keep that off the table" is a complete answer. You do not owe a reason for it.
- Redirect: answer some harmless nearby question instead and keep moving. Most people take the hint on the first pass.
- Note the date, the wording and who else heard it. Single incidents are deniable, patterns are not.
- If it comes from someone with power over your work, raise it earlier than feels proportionate. The first report is what establishes the timeline.
Common pitfalls
Assuming a friendly tone makes it fine
Warmth does not change what was asked. It mostly makes declining harder, because now refusing looks like rejecting the person rather than the question.
Asking in front of other people
A question that is awkward one to one becomes coercive with an audience, because declining turns into a performance everyone watches.
Treating one disclosure as an opening
Someone telling you something once does not license follow-ups next month. Wait for them to raise it again themselves.
Mistaking lawful for safe
Several of these are perfectly legal and still damaging. The practical test is whether the person can say no without it costing them anything.