Ask a Manager

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

1. My boss is great in some ways but is he crossing lines?

I’m trying to figure out if my manager is interested in me as more than a coworker, or if the lines he crosses are just a part of his personality. I’ve been with my company as a general manager for eight months, hired into a lower position and immediately promoted by this man. He is always kind and funny with me. He calls me awesome, amazing, sunshine, tells me how funny I am, tells me I’m tough, and that he wants to make my life easier. And these are just the things he regularly says. He is never sexual, and mentions his wife casually in group conversation we are both involved in. He is very stern with other people, but still outgoing and friendly. He isn’t stern with me. He makes sure I’m set up for success in every situation he can.

Now to the parts that are a bit on the fence, so to speak. He often asks me to come and see things on his laptop at a hightop table; I’m 5’2” and he is about 6’4″ and he keeps the laptop in front of him, even if asking me to type something for him, which leads to very close contact. While we speak, he keeps non-broken full eye contact the entire time. He often stands so closely behind me that when he breathes deeply, I feel his chest as he inhales. Other people claim he is “different” with me.

He is an extremely extroverted person, who in my opinion is usually more openly friendly with others than with me. But he makes sure we speak every day, even if one or both of us is off. Flip side, he visits other locations more often than mine. He brags on others more openly than he does me. But something has gotten strange. Does this seem like normal extroverted behavior? Could I just seem like a child to him, paternal affection type stuff?

I just don’t know if maybe I’m misreading and it’s just that I have the best boss ever, not a potential issue.

You have alarm bells going off for a reason; don’t talk yourself out of it.

I don’t know exactly what’s up with your boss, but standing so close that you can feel his chest when he breathes is not normal behavior, and is in fact very creepy. The laptop thing could be simple lack of consideration or it could be pervy, I don’t know — but in combination with standing practically against you, it alarms me. In both these situations, you should feel free to create more physical separation between you. When he’s standing behind you practically touching you, move away! You can do that without announcing it, or it would also be fine to say, “Oh, let me move so we’re not so crowded.” With the laptop, you can say, “I can’t easily reach it from where I am, let me move it closer to me if I need to type” and then move it somewhere where you can access it without leaning into his lap (or whatever is going on in this configuration that he’s arranged).

I suppose it’s possible that you have an otherwise good boss who is remarkably oblivious about physical space issues, but I doubt it. Is he breathing all over male colleagues? If he does it to everyone, regardless of gender, perhaps he simply has no sense of physical boundaries. Otherwise, he knows what he’s doing, which moves him solidly out of “good boss” territory (and, frankly, into “not a good person” territory, too).

2. Coworker injecting medication at their desk

I work in a small office with about 15 people. One of my colleagues has diabetes and has to regularly monitor their blood sugars, which is of course of absolute importance. However, this colleague regularly pulls up their shirt to inject themselves in the stomach while sitting at their desk, and has once or twice done this in front of clients. I completely understand that this is a medical issue that they have to act on urgently, but part of me wonders whether it’s appropriate to ask them to do this in a private space. I’m not weirded out by injections, but some people can be, and I don’t necessarily want to see so much of my colleague’s skin on a regular basis. I have a feeling that this is a me problem and I should just ignore it, but any advice on how to appropriately support my colleague would be gratefully received. (To note, this is an early professional job for my colleague, who is still learning business norms, and helping them learn these is part of my role.)

I’d leave it alone. You’re right that people can be squeamish about needles but there’s no way for you as a colleague to know how urgent the situation might be and they need insulin to live. So it makes sense to err on the side of assuming that if they’re doing it at their desk, it’s because it needs to happen right then (and they might feel a public bathroom isn’t a particularly sanitary place to inject something into their body).

To be clear, if your coworker were the one writing to me, I’d tell them that if they’re able to avoid doing it in front of clients, that’s preferable (with the caveat that it might not always be optional). But as a colleague, I’d stay out of it.

3. Reference for an employee who didn’t perform well

I’m in a situation where I may have to respond to reference checks about a mediocre employee.

My direct report was with us for about nine months. In that time, I quickly discovered some of her basic skills were not as good as her resume or her small test had revealed. I invested a solid chunk of time in training her, and I saw a trajectory of improvement that was slower than I’d have liked, but still reasonable.

However, she recently made a few egregious mistakes. I gave her very serious feedback in the moment and also discussed the situation with my manager and HR. We decided a formal PIP was needed to more formally codify what she needed to fix and improve, and how soon. We all agreed that she had the potential to get there, and this was not a performative PIP where you go through the motions because you want to fire a person. We had not finished drafting this plan and communicating it to her when, for entirely unrelated reasons, many people on our team, including her, were laid off. I was not involved in the decision-making, but it made sense to me given the circumstances of our organization.

She has mentioned that in her job search, she’ll be asking me to be a reference. I don’t feel like I can recommend her without reservations. She has potential, but it was a lot more work to bring her along and train her than I expected or think should have been necessary. If I receive a reference call, how do I respond? Despite my feedback in the moment, I’m not sure she’s fully aware of the pattern of errors she was making, because I was expecting to emphasize that during our PIP discussion that never happened.

Do I talk with her about this? Refuse to be a reference? Act as a reference but be up-front about her strengths and weaknesses? She’s a good person, and I don’t want to be careless and damage her chance at a new job. But I don’t want to give a great recommendation that makes people doubt my judgment, either.

Talk to her and let her know so she can decide whether she wants to offer you as a reference or not. I’d frame it this way: “I want to be transparent that the reference I’d give would be mixed because of what happened with X and Y. The layoffs cut off our discussion about those issues, but otherwise we would have needed to move a formal improvement plan because those concerns were such serious ones. In a reference I’d be able to share that I saw A and B as strengths, but would need to be honest that I wasn’t seeing what I needed in C and D. I want to be up-front with you about that so you can decide whether it makes sense to share my name as a reference or not.”

On my first read of your letter, I was going to add that it’s really important to be giving feedback all along so that the person isn’t blindsided by something like this if it comes up later. But in this case, the way things unfolded made it more understandable that you didn’t: you thought she was coming along, just more slowly than you’d expected, and then when things became more dire you were preparing to address it, but then the layoffs cut you off just as you were about to. It’s not ideal but it sounds like that’s largely a consequence of the layoff timing, not a mistake on your end.

4. Are the federal layoffs causing layoffs at private companies?

I was discussing the federal layoffs with a coworker and she said her in-laws who work at (a) a big private financial services company and (b) the Bezos space company have all seen layoffs recently. Is this in reaction to the federal layoffs? I had thought my and my husband’s jobs in the private sector were safe for now, but now I’m worried.

I can’t speak to the layoffs at those specific companies, but in general, yes, there will be layoffs at private companies as a response to the federal government cuts. Loads of private companies have contracts with the government and so will be affected by the cuts there. And then it’s likely to trickle down further; heavy job losses in any large sector will start affecting other businesses because people will begin restricting their spending (either out of necessity because their households have less or no income or out of caution at what’s happening around them and uncertainty about what’s to come). It’s all intertwined, so what’s happening federally is likely to affect a lot of people in the private sector as well.

5. Alternative to Facebook for discussion groups

I am hoping you can put this out to the readers of AAM for some solutions. I work in payroll for the movies and run a couple of Facebook groups for people doing payroll for both film and television. Not to get too political, I would like to move my group off of Facebook, but I have no idea what other options are out there. I’m Gen-X so comfortable with computers but not so much with social media that isn’t mainstream.

Could someone direct me to a site where a group can have discussions, share files/documents, and limit access to members only? Basically, FB without the political ramifications.

I’m happy to throw it out to suggestions from readers, but take a look at Discord.

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

1. People complain that I don’t want to be at work social events

I’m in a senior leadership role, and have been for the last six years. I keep running into the same problem and I’d love your advice.

I don’t enjoy social activities at work (Christmas parties, picnics, etc.), and I also don’t like corporate retreats. I’d rather do my tasks, as I’m very busy. I’m very much in the minority.

I always encourage my staff to participate. I do attend, but it’s out of obligation. People notice and then complain to my boss, who keeps talking to me about my participation.

I resent this. To me, attending even though I don’t want to is my way of being a good leader and teammate. But apparently that isn’t enough; I’m supposed to like the activity itself. I’m told I should want to do the thing.

My job isn’t at risk. But it’s causing my boss stress I don’t think is fair. I also can’t abide the idea that I would be inauthentic by being overly enthusiastic. I’ve asked to be told when something is mandatory, but it’s been made clear to me that I shouldn’t need to, and should go to everything.

If people are able to tell that you don’t want to be there to the point that they’re complaining to your boss about it … yeah, you’re in the wrong. Particularly as a senior leader, it’s rude to make it so obvious that you don’t want to be there that people around you can tell (which I’m guessing is what’s happening, because otherwise there would be nothing for people to pick up on, let alone take to your boss). If you didn’t enjoy the activities but went out of obligation and behaved graciously while you were there, this would be fine. You don’t need to be “overly enthusiastic”; you just need to not be obviously unenthusiastic.

Part of being in senior leadership is that you not only show up for this stuff, you do it graciously.

For what it’s worth, there’s plenty else about being in senior leadership that’s “inauthentic” but is still part of the job, like not rolling your eyes when a colleague says something absurd, or implementing a decision that was made above you and isn’t what you would have picked, and on and on.

2. How can we create a schedule that’s fair to people with and without kids?

I work in a small department that has strict customer-facing hours from morning through evening; the team is me and two coworkers.

Our manager used to ask for our scheduling preferences each quarter and would try to make sure everyone was pretty equal (one closing, one opening per week per person, no weird shifts that make taking a lunch impossible). She retired and hasn’t yet been replaced. Big Boss has been having us work out the schedule amongst ourselves, and we’re running into trouble.

We’re trying to collaboratively create a schedule that covers all the hours and works well enough for everyone. But both my coworkers are coming to the table with very limited hours. Both have children and need to come in and leave at very specific times to do dropoff/pickup, but this is leaving difficult gaps of time to fill. I find that my colleagues aren’t being particularly flexible and I understand that they have children, but I don’t want to work every late afternoon or evening, work every day while they get 1-2 days completely off customer-facing work, or have a really irregular schedule (close one night, open the next morning, split shifts) while theirs are more consistent.

How can I approach this? I have no “need” to leave work early or refuse these shifts, and saying I just don’t want to work all the bad shifts doesn’t seem to carry as much weight as family obligations. Are there any solutions? I’m hoping not to bring it to Big Boss if I don’t have to.

Your framing is wrong! It doesn’t matter what your reasons are for not wanting to have the short end of the stick every day, or even the majority of the time. You get to say your time off is important too, and you’re presumably not being paid any kind of extra premium for taking on more scheduling hassle than your coworkers are.

It’s enough to simply say, “I don’t want to work late every afternoon or evening or have a really irregular schedule while everyone else’s is consistent. That won’t work for me, and I propose we handle it the way OldManager used to — for example, (fill in specific proposal).” If they reply with, “Well, I can’t because X,” then you should say, “I can’t either, and I’d like to schedule the way we did under OldManager, which everyone seemed to be able to accommodate then.”

And if an agreement can’t be reached relatively quickly, then do bring in Big Boss — that’s part of what they’re there for, and it’s more likely to solve the problem than having to convince people who have already demonstrated they’re not willing to be fair to you. Sometimes you need someone in authority to step in and resolve things.

Related:
I’m getting stuck with extra work because I don’t have kids

3. I have to log my work on the days I work from home

I’m a third-year attorney, and I started a new, non-private-sector job three months ago. I’ve had some frustrations and trouble adjusting to this place, but I did appreciate that it had a hybrid work option. Today, though, I found out that there’s been an existing requirement (which my supervisor only informed me about today) to send a log every week summarizing the work we did on the days we worked from home. It’s a company requirement, not from my supervisor. She explained that she’s waived the requirement for senior attorneys, but the junior attorneys still need to do it — in other words, I read it as not for billing purposes, but to “prove” that we’re doing work on days we work from home.

I’m furious. The pandemic started during my time in law school, so I’ve had hybrid or remote work since even before I passed the bar. I’ve never had this requirement at any place I’ve worked as an attorney or law clerk — not firms, nonprofits, or the federal judiciary. In law, if you weren’t actually working on your days you worked from home, it would show in your total work product (i.e., not drafting enough briefs or filing enough cases). So this requirement makes me feel that my job doesn’t trust me to manage my time, even though I’ve already done extensive work during the short time I’ve been here and gone far over the 40 hours a week (not due to my speed, but due to the amount of work). Every time I go to fill out the form, I’m furious, even though it only requires a summary for each day. Two questions: (1) am I overthinking this, and (2) regardless, how do I get over this enough to do the log?

Well, first: yes, it’s a bad requirement. And yes, effective managers are able to spot it if people aren’t being productive on their work-from-home days.

But “furious” seems excessive, particularly if you otherwise like the job. Since the requirement is coming from above your manager, it’s likely that this is a firm that wasn’t fully comfortable with remote work (as many aren’t) and this is key to them allowing it. Find it eye-rolly, by all means, but anger is an overreaction. See the log as an investment in keeping hybrid work available to you and others there.

Also, though … is other stuff going on that’s making you unhappy with this job? This is the kind of thing that will grate far more if you’re already not happy for other reasons.

4. Can I ask my old job to take my name off their website?

I left my last job about four months ago after almost six years there. It’s a small business and, for context, there were two other people doing the same job as me, although there should have been four. We’d been looking for another person for at least six months with no results. About two months after I left, one of the two remaining people also left so they now just have one person doing this job and no real leads for anyone else.

Both of us who left are still listed on the business website “meet the team.” I don’t know if this is deliberate in order to make it look like they are still fully staffed, or just the manager not doing her job. Unfortunately, I didn’t leave on the best of terms with my manager — she was a very nice person but did absolutely no actual managing. If you wanted to sit around all day on your phone, no one would say anything. This was made worse when she hired her daughter to be an “assistant.” Anyway, I don’t want to be associated with this business anymore, and I would like my name off the website. Would it be inappropriate for me to email my former manager and ask her to take me off?

It’s not inappropriate to request that. You can’t force them to do it, but you can absolutely ask them to. I would frame it this way: “I noticed the website still lists me as an active employee. Would you please remove my name so that anywhere I apply in the future doesn’t mistakenly think I am still there? Thank you, and I hope you’re doing well.”

5. How do I tell my former boss to stop digging into how I am?

The full context for this situation goes back a couple of years. My department was going through a reorg right as I was going out on parental leave, and I went from having one report to being one of two newly promoted team leads. I came back from leave to a company that had gone through significant change and to a job in which I didn’t really know what was expected from me. Additionally, we went through a serious lull in work and I had no real projects. My counterpart had been leading both teams while I was gone, so I really floundered. I also was dealing with becoming a parent, so I spent my energy trying on that rather than work. Somewhere in there, the powers that be decided they wanted one person in charge of revenue for our area rather than two. I was still trying to get my feet under me and told my boss that I didn’t want that responsibility, so it went to the other lead, but I still had multiple people reporting to me and some other responsibilities.

Fast forward to now and there is another reorg, in part to make more of a triangle reporting structure. The outcome of this is that I have essentially been demoted. I now report to my previous peer, some of the people who were reporting to me now report to him, and all of my higher-level responsibilities are gone. I tried to make a case for moving into a different reporting structure with some different higher level responsibilities but was told no.

I am angry and humiliated. No one in my reporting structure ever said to me that this sucks and isn’t a reflection of my performance. There keep being little reminders of what was taken away that turn the screw a little more (like someone asking me about a standing meeting that I am no longer a part of). Being at work is miserable.

I have worked with my (previous) boss for a long time and have told her quite plainly that I am not happy about this. And every time we meet, she keeps asking how I am. I say I’m fine, but she pushes and I end up crying in front of her. At this point, I just want to be left alone to do the job I am left with. I have a lot of feelings about how this ended up happening, some of which are directed toward my company, some of which are directed inward toward my own decisions, and some of which are directed at the universe toward the horrible timing of the promotion and baby coming together. None of these feelings are my old boss’ business. As far as I know, there are no issues with my performance since the change, and I’m sure my old boss is coming from a good place, but how do I tell her to leave me alone with this? And is it possible to do it without crying in front of her again?

(Yes, I am job searching but my industry is in a tough spot with recent layoffs affecting a lot of candidates I am competing with, so I anticipate it being a long search.)

“I appreciate you checking in on how I’m doing, but it ends up stirring things up that I’m trying to put to rest. In the interests of my being able to move forward with the situation as it stands, I’d be grateful if we can just take it as read that I’m doing okay and talk about about other things instead!”

And then if she does it anyway, be prepared with a subject change to push the conversation to something else.

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

1. My coworker masturbates in the men’s bathroom

There is a guy in my office who will go into one of the stalls in the men’s bathroom for 20-30 minutes at a time. I have had the bad luck of entering a stall next to him and hearing audible masturbation noises. I think he does this every day we work in-office because I swear it’s happened 5-6 times. A coworker I’m close with has confirmed hearing it as well, so I know I am not going crazy. I have also seen this guy come out of the bathroom with headphones on, looking at something on his phone, so after repeated incidents, I’m pretty sure he just doesn’t know how loud he is.

Not sure how to handle this one. He is more or less doing it “in private” and I feel like HR would escalate things too much. We also were recently acquired by an international company and no longer have in-house HR. I don’t really want to tell someone halfway across the continent about a coworker’s bathroom habits. On the other hand, I would feel uncomfortable going up to him and saying, “Hey, I hear you jerking it every time we’re in the office, can you knock it off?”

Asking HR to intervene would not be escalating it too much. Far from it! This guy is not in private; he’s using a shared bathroom where coworkers are hearing him (and he’s apparently not even bothering to be discreet or to stop when someone is in a stall a couple of feet away from him). You don’t owe him privacy here; he owes you the ability to use the bathroom at work without being exposed to the sound of someone jerking off. “Not hearing someone masturbating” is pretty much a bare minimum expectation you should be able to have at work.

Talk to HR. Say you’ve heard others report the same thing, it’s gross, and you don’t want to be exposed to it.

2. My employee doesn’t solve problems on her own

I manage a department of three employees, and I’m struggling with how to supervise one of them.

We’re a high-performing team with various responsibilities, so everyone has a lot on their plate. All three employees have been with the company for about the same amount of time, so I expect them to have similar levels of knowledge. Betty and Sally are both friendly, approachable, take initiative, and are solid problem-solvers. Velma is quieter, takes little initiative, and often relies on me for answers or guidance. I don’t mind questions, but it’s become a regular occurrence, and many of these issues she should be able to resolve herself with a little effort, basic reasoning, or research.

This was understandable when she was first hired, but after more than two years, it’s become problematic. In previous one-on-one meetings, I’ve asked Velma to take more ownership of her problem-solving and attempt to find solutions on her own before asking me for feedback. I even listed this as a goal on her last annual review, but there’s been little improvement over the last year. Her responses often included that she wasn’t sure and knew I could find the answer faster, or that she didn’t have all the necessary information, even though I don’t always have it either and often end up taking a few minutes to figure it out myself.

I’m getting frustrated with the situation, and am frankly tired of giving the same feedback every few months. We’ve all had to learn this skill, and none of us needed this much hand-holding. Velma is a fine employee and does good work, but she’s not a star performer like her colleagues. I try not to compare them, but I’m aware it’s probably affecting my perspective. I know I need to start addressing this more directly in the moment, but I’m not sure how to do it without coming across as annoyed.

You need to escalate the seriousness with which you’re treating it. Sit down with her and name the pattern and what she needs to do differently: “We’ve talked about this in the past and it was a formal goal on your last review, but I’m not seeing the progress I need. Now that you’re two years into the job, I need you to take more responsibility for problem-solving and look for solutions on your own before coming to me. That’s true even if you think I can find the answer faster than you, because you won’t develop this skill without practicing it. So going forward, when you ask for helping solving a problem, I’d like you to include everything you’ve tried so far — whether it’s checking our documentation, looking through similar past projects, or XYZ (fill in here with specific things she should try in your context). If you haven’t tried solve it yourself first, I’m going to ask you to do that before I step in.”

Then, when she brings you a problem she should be able to solve herself, ask what she’s tried so far. And rather than jumping in to figure it out yourself, think about how you’d figure it out yourself and then ask her to take those steps instead of you. (Here’s some advice on how to do that.)

If after a few months of this you’re not seeing much improvement, this may be an ability she’s not likely to develop with the amount of coaching it’s reasonable to expect you to invest … at which point you’d need to decide what that means for her tenure in the job. In some jobs it would be prohibitive; in others it might just mean that she can’t advance or won’t be compensated in the same way as Betty and Sally are.

3. Do I have to keep working late now that I’ve resigned?

I recently resigned from my hectic 9-5 job to go back to school in May, giving two months notice instead of the usual two weeks.

The job is typically 9-5, but it is a busy time and in the past month I was added to two new accounts that are making me work late. I’ve been putting in about three extra hours of work per work day, and I don’t want to anymore. Will I be remembered poorly if I leave closer to 5 pm, or is there a tacit expectation that people aren’t going to go above and beyond when they’ve quit?

You should return to your regular hours. You generously gave them two months of notice instead of two weeks; you don’t also need to give them 15 extra hours of work a week! Frame it this way: “I won’t be able to handle these two new accounts on top of my regular workload — I have time to do X and Y but not Z, or I could do about half of each of them, but I can’t do everything that’s currently on my plate within a normal workweek. Can you tell me how you’d like me to prioritize, knowing that not all of it can get done? Or alternately, would it make more sense to reassign the two new accounts?”

If you hear you should just find a way to get it all done, you should say, “There’s not enough time in the work week to get it all done. I’ll do as much as I can, but I need to let you know that it won’t all get done.”

And then leave on time.

Related:
since I gave notice at work, my boss has tripled my workload

4. References when you haven’t had many jobs

I have been helping my daughter with her resume and applications for full-time employment (thanks to your column, we have great info), but there are many applications that are asking for three business references. She’s only had two part-time jobs, one in college and one she’s been at since graduation. Some of these are online where they won’t let her past the question without filling in all three. How do we navigate this? Each job has had only one supervisor/manager, so there aren’t even two levels of bosses she could add.

In a situation like this, it’s okay if all the references aren’t managers. Is there a coworker she could add, someone who worked closely enough with her to be able to speak to her work with some nuance? Ideally it would be a coworker who was senior to her, but if no one like that is available, she could list a peer.

5. Can you use FMLA for clinical trials?

I have a moderately-serious, life-shortening chronic condition (I have decades, not months, left, and I use a wheelchair outside my home) for which there is no treatment. About a year ago, I got the chance to do clinical trial for a new drug that was in development. It required a month-long in-patient stay in a treatment center.

I asked my work’s EAP if I’d be able to use FMLA for that, but they told me “you can’t use FMLA if it’s voluntary.” That seems wrong to me? After all, most medical treatments are technically voluntary, in that you could choose not to do them — sometimes with the devastating medical consequences, but you have the option.

I ended up working remotely during the trial, judiciously using PTO on days when I had a lot of procedures, but I still sometimes had to be on Zoom meetings while getting blood drawn.

Anyway, I’m interested in getting your take on that decision. Should it have been covered? What are the actual rules? I might do other trials in the future, and I’d like to be sure of my options.

Whoa, no, your work was 100% wrong. The law is clear that you can use FMLA for a clinical trial when it’s part of a serious health condition. The fact that clinical trials are considered “voluntary or elective” is not a factor. Your EAP may have been thinking of elective procedures for cosmetic treatments (like plastic surgery), which don’t qualify for FMLA — but they were fully wrong on the application here. In fact, the U.S. Department of Labor issued an opinion letter last year, affirming that employees may use FMLA for clinical trials.