Ask a Manager

I’m off for a few days. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. My coworkers won’t help me cut expenses

A few months ago we received an email from the Big Boss (head of our business unit) that we are entering a “cost cutting” exercise due to business needs and they need everyone to make efforts to ensure our costs/expenses are “as close to zero as possible.”

I’m in an internal role that doesn’t deal with contracts, purchases, software licensing, travel, etc. so there’s only a limited amount I can contribute to that cost cutting. But I’ve done what I can — e.g. I walked five miles with heavy equipment rather than take public transport which the others did. I “forgot” to claim for overtime payments that I should/could have claimed (not in U.S. so those laws don’t apply), didn’t claim mileage for driving two hours out of my way multiple times, etc. It’s galling every month the department admin sends out the emails asking for “overtime forms” and “travel expenses” and I know I have a lot I could claim and don’t.

We have to work late a couple of times a month due to client deadlines (the company usually orders food in) and I’ve gone on “hunger strike” conspicuously refusing to eat or order, and working through while others eat the company-paid pizzas, etc. (we know in advance when we’ll have to stay late – why didn’t they bring their own food?!) because I don’t believe that’s a legit business expense. I’ve tried to convince the others but without success.

I’ve now asked to reduce my retirement contributions (matched by the company) which will save them thousands a year. I’ve indicated to HR that I want to opt out of the healthcare insurance at the next renewal date.

I’ve done pretty much everything I can at this point other than asking for a pay cut (which I could — I’m senior, single and have enough money but I realize this could affect my prospects in the future) but I’m becoming more and more resentful of coworkers who haven’t even considered the things I’ve done. They still submit overtime, travel expenses, etc. At some point we all have to pull together but I feel like I’m the only one pulling.

Whoa, you are making way too many sacrifices here. You should not be walking five miles with heavy equipment or not getting paid for time you worked, and conspicuously not having a slice of pizza isn’t going to make any practical difference. As for reducing your retirement contributions and opting out of health insurance (!!) — NO. Is it too late to undo that?

“Help us cut costs” means “watch for extraneous spending and be frugal with business expenses.” It does not mean “take on great personal sacrifice for the benefit of a company someone else owns.” What you are doing is way beyond the realm of anything that would be expected, some of it won’t even matter (the hunger strike), and the rest of it is so extreme as to be entering the realm of the absurd unless this is your own personal business and you get all the profits.

You should of course respect requests to watch expenses, but it’s actually not helpful to do what you’re doing because it creates a false idea of what various projects cost. It’s also going to look incredibly weird to your coworkers, especially when you pressure them to join you, to the point that it could reflect on your judgment long after this is over.

Leave your retirement account and your health care alone. Submit for the money that you’re owed. Quit the hunger strikes. Be responsible with expenses, and leave it there.

– 2019

Read an update to this letter here.

2. Inviting all coworkers except one to a personal party

I’m the manager of a small retail team, there are nine of us including myself, and we mostly get on really well. Recently we were struggling as we were understaffed and couldn’t find anyone suitable, so I took on the best candidate that had applied, let’s call her Sam. Even though she was far from ideal, we were really that desperate.

Although Sam’s performance hasn’t been great and she hasn’t integrated into the team at all, that’s not why I’m writing. Another of my team, Cat, has recently got engaged and is throwing an engagement party with her fiancé. Cat is excellent at her job, is well liked by everyone, and would like to invite the team, except for the fact that she cannot stand Sam and doesn’t want her there. I have a feeling I already know the answer, but is there a way to invite all but one of the team? (This isn’t a work event. It’s a personal event, but she’ll probably give out the invites when she sees us at work.)

Because it’s Cat’s own personal event outside of work, you can’t dictate who she does and doesn’t invite. But inviting everyone but one person is a pretty unkind act, and it has the potential to be a toxic act, by making Sam feel clearly excluded and making others feel that excluding Sam is now a thing that happens.

While Cat can invite anyone she wants to her private event and you can’t control that, you do have standing to point out the problem to her and ask her to consider handling it differently. You could, for example, say something to her like, “Inviting the entire team except one person is exclusionary and is the sort of thing that could impact the team dynamics here in a negative way. It will look like you deliberately singled out Sam, and that’s unkind, even if you don’t intend it that way. I’d ask you to take that into account when deciding how to handle your invitations.” And certainly if she proceeds with her plan, you can tell her she needs to keep it out of the office.

– 2018

3. My rude coworker owes me money and won’t pay me back

A coworker owes me a not insignificant sum of money and won’t pay me back. I realize it’s not wise to lend money to your coworkers but our situation was a little different in that I haven’t technically given her anything directly. Let me explain.

One of our office mates (we share an office with four other people) was celebrating a major professional accomplishment and invited us all over to her house. The Rude Coworker suggested we all spring for a nice gift for her and suggested a sum each of us should pay. I won’t give you the dollar amount since we’re not in the U.S., but it was about a week’s worth of groceries per person. It was quite a lot for my budget but I wanted to be a good friend to my friend, the celebrating coworker, and so I agreed. So the four of us agreed on a gift, and it so happened that it was available in an online store I have an account with, so I was the one who ended up ordering it. The other two coworkers paid me back immediately but the Rude Coworker didn’t. I asked her twice about it. The first time she said she didn’t have any money. I suggested she could pay me back with her next paycheck but we have since been paid, and still nothing. I asked her a second time and she said she didn’t have the money, in a bored and dismissive tone of voice. For context, she is well paid, wearing designer clothes and going on fancy vacations. She also buys takeout coffee every day. We are peers but because she’s so abrasive and at times bully-ish that most of our colleagues walk on tiptoes around her.

How do I get my money back? We do not really have a manager — we are all professionals who technically report to a coordinator but are left alone to do our work 99% of the time. I could really use the money right now, and it makes me really angry to essentially have to beg her to do the right thing.

Ugh, she’s being horrible. It’s possible that you may not get your money back because there’s no way to force her to pay you, but you can up your chances by being even more direct. Instead of just asking her for the money, say something like this: “Jane, that money was a week’s worth of groceries for me. I need you to pay me back as you agreed. Can you Venmo me right now?” If she says she can’t, then say, “I really need the money paid back; I have bills I need to pay. Can you pay it tomorrow?” And then you have this conversation with her every single day until she pays you back. There’s a decent chance that she’ll get sick enough of having to talk about it that she will, in fact, pay you back. (Right now, I think you’re using too light of a touch for the situation. You need to follow up on it every day; make it uncomfortable for her not to pay you back.)

If that doesn’t work, you can also try enlisting your other coworkers in shaming her. If all three of you sit down with her and say, “We agreed to each pay $X for a group gift, and Jane, we still need your contribution — it’s really unfair to stick to Miranda with the bill for your share,” she may be sufficiently shamed to actually pay you.

Jane sucks.

Read an update to this letter here.

– 2018

4. Explaining religious Plain Dress in a job interview

I have a question about interviews and my unusual clothing. I’m a member of a church that practices Plain Dress (think Amish or Old Order Mennonites). However, I’m interviewing for jobs where my clothing stands out. Most people have only seen Plain Dress during the obligatory Amish episode of their favorite TV series, and have a lot of wildly inaccurate ideas regarding people who dress like me.

Because of my beliefs, I won’t be showing up in traditional interview clothing, but my clothing is still businesslike. I’m worried that some will think I’m just dressed down. I also wear a hat, which I don’t remove. Do you have any suggestions for diffusing the situation without coming across as a “religious nutter”?

I’m actually not so concerned about you needing to explain your clothing, which still reads as fairly conservative. It’s the hat that I think you might need to explain, since it will stay on during the interview. For that, I think you could simply say, “I leave my hat on for religious reasons,” and that should be enough. Even if people aren’t familiar with Plain Dress in particular, they’re probably familiar with the idea of religious head coverings, and I think you should be fine from there.

And I don’t think you have to worry about the “religious nutter” thing. People will usually take their cues from you, and if you’re low-key and matter-of-fact about it, it shouldn’t be a big deal.

Read an update to this letter here.

– 2017

I’m off for a few days. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. One of our bosses got invited to our rowdy beach weekend

I am good friends with three of my coworkers, let’s call them Billy, Goat, and Gruff. The four of us are distributed across three different teams, but we work together a lot on various projects and also hang out with some regularity outside of work. As such, we are planning a big beach weekend getaway in August. We’ve all invited various friends, booked a giant house for the weekend, and have been making plans for a super fun, rowdy weekend of drunken shenanigans (as beach excursions tend to be).

Billy is also friends with Goat and Gruff’s boss, Gabby. Like us, Gabby is in her 30s, friendly, fun, lively, and would logically be friends with all of us if she weren’t Goat and Gruff’s boss. She has been to dinner and drinks with us, and on one occasion the whole group went back to Billy’s house to drink more beer and eventually play a well-known boundary-pushing party card game. We all had fun, but Goat and Gruff both left early-ish, and didn’t drink much (as you’d expect).

This is where it starts to go sideways. Billy, in a fit of generosity, invited Gabby to the beach weekend. Since then, Gabby has asked me for additional details and if there’s room for her to join. My hostess/planner self is screaming that Gabby really, truly cannot come. That there’s a world of difference between the equivalent of a rowdy happy hour with coworkers and a whole weekend of road-tripping, mostly-naked (swimsuits!) heavy-drinking shenanigans, communal living, and collective reckoning with rampant hangovers and sunburn. Regardless, what was a smooth-sailing fun weekend is now embroiled in office hierarchy drama.

It seems to me like my options here are a) ask Billy to tell Gabby not to come, and run the risk that he’ll blame it on Goat and Gruff for being spoilsports, b) be the bad guy myself and tell Gabby that she can’t come, blaming it on my delicate/old-fashioned sensibilities about mixing work dynamics (possibly damaging our relationship in the process), c) pray that she won’t attend, either because her schedule will prohibit or because her sense of decorum kicks in and she decides to bow out, or d) be a terrible hostess, stew in my own stress, and let things play out as they may. I could use some help figuring out how to approach this.

Gabby can’t come. It’s crossing too many professional boundaries for a manager to attend a “rowdy weekend of drunken shenanigans” with two people who report to her. Presumably, Goat and Gruff are going to have to be on guard if she’s there, and it’s just not the weekend you planned. Ideally you’d do choice A — have Billy tell Gabby he didn’t think it through and since it’s going to be a rowdy weekend, he shouldn’t have invited two of the organizers’ boss. If you don’t trust him to do that without blaming Goat and Gruff (despite your explicit instructions), then you need to move to choice B — deliver that message yourself. Do not just hope she won’t attend or suffer in silence.

But really, Billy messed this up and he should fix it.

Read an update to this letter here.

– 2019

2. My coworker is visibly uncomfortable around my service dog

I recently started bringing my service dog to work with me. I went through all the required processes with my supervisor and HR, and found out that one of my neighboring coworkers (I’ll call her Carol) is very scared of dogs. I said I was willing to move desks, but they said it would not be necessary. However, Carol avoids me and my dog, and even refuses to walk within a few feet of my dog. If we’re walking in a hallway towards each other, I have to duck behind a wall or Carol gets visibly scared. I would like to help her be more comfortable around my dog, but don’t want her to feel pressured or coerced. Do you or your readers have any suggestions?

For context, my dog is about 65 pounds and tall. So she doesn’t exactly blend in. I keep her well groomed to make sure she doesn’t smell or shed excessively. She’s very quiet and doesn’t make any fuss.

I don’t know that it’s your place to try to help Carol be more comfortable around dogs unless she expresses an interest in that on her own (although I certainly understand the impulse to want to!). But you could tell her that you’ve noticed she’s uncomfortable around your dog and ask if there’s anything you could do differently to make her more comfortable, or if there are any questions you can answer about your dog that might help put her more at ease.

You could also mention that you’d offered to move to a different desk but HR didn’t think it was necessary — but that you’d be willing to bring it up again if she’d like you to.

– 2018

Read an update to this letter here.

3. My coworker has panic attacks, and it’s affecting my work

I share an office with my coworker. She has panic attacks. When she has one, I have to leave the office until the attack passes. If I’m there or she isn’t alone, the attack won’t stop. We work with financial information and can only do work with the computer inside our offices. When I have to leave, I can’t do work because my computer is in the office (we all work in offices with doors and there is no way for anyone to ever bring work outside of their offices), and when she is having an attack she can’t do any work. We are always behind on work because she has an attack every two or three days.

Our boss says if we don’t start delivering more work on time, he’ll put us both on a PIP. My coworker asked me not to tell anyone about her attacks. I don’t want to out her but I don’t want to end up on a PIP. There aren’t any empty offices for me to move to and there isn’t room anywhere else because everyone, including my boss, is already sharing. The last thing I want is to out my coworker. No one else here knows about her anxiety or panic attacks and she feels bad about disrupting our work. I don’t want to make it worse. But I also don’t want to keep getting in trouble or ending up on a PIP. I can’t think of any way to get my boss to understand without outing her.

Yeah, you’re going to have to out her. It’s not reasonable for her to insist that you leave your work space like this, and one of you needs to let your boss know what’s going on.

I’d say this to your coworker: “Because this is now affecting my performance and is at the point where I could lose my job over it, I need to talk to Bob about another solution for our office space. To do that, I’ll need to explain to him what’s going on. Would you prefer to talk with him yourself first? I’m planning to talk with him tomorrow, so I wanted to give you a chance to speak with him first about your panic attacks if you’d like to.”

But then you do need to disclose to your manager what’s happening, and quickly (because the longer you let this go on, the more it’s affecting your work and the harder this may be to come back from). This isn’t gossiping about someone’s private health information. This is letting your manager know about a major reason for your slipping work performance. It sounds like your choices are to do that or risk getting fired for low performance, and it’s not reasonable for your coworker to expect you to do the latter.

– 2018

Read an update to this letter here.

4. Interviewer insisted I was uninterested in the job

A friend got me an interview with his company. It was going well until I met the senior manager; towards the end of the interview, he dismissed one of my questions about the work by saying “I don’t think you’re actually interested in this, I think you just want a job.” I didn’t respond very well, as I sat there in stunned silence while he gave me “job-hunting tips.” Should I have argued back with him? I’m in a field where getting in someone’s face is an acceptable negotiating tactic, but it felt out of place at an interview.

There are three possibilities here: (1) You really were coming across as if you weren’t that interested, and this guy was candid in response; (2) he’s just a jerk, or (3) he wanted to test you to see how you’d react (which is jerky if there was no reason for it but potentially not so jerky if the field really does require the ability to stay cool under hostile questioning, and if you don’t yet have a professional track record proving you can do that). You might be able to get a sense from your friend of which category this guy might fall into.

I don’t think you should have “argued back,” but I do think you should have calmly asked, “What makes you say that?” and then responded calmly to whatever he said.

– 2011