my coworker’s constant interruptions make us all dread team calls

A reader writes:

Our team of seven has been working from home since the beginning of Covid. To keep up-to-date on projects, we have two weekly calls with the entire team, and one mid-week call to update the rest of the company on projects.

Our manager runs the two team calls each week, while I run the mid-week call on projects. This is important to note.

On the team calls, there is a coworker, Andy, who frequently interrupts whoever is talking, regardless of the topic. He talks over everyone and has something to say about everything, even when he isn’t involved. Sometimes, even most times, these things are personal in nature and not about the project we’re working on. He also likes to command the conversation talking about his pets, his house, his home projects, and his friends.

Team calls are a drag on the day anyway, but crucial to staying on point and communicating with coworkers who have different roles in each project, rather than just emailing. I’m just really tired of having a conversation about, let’s say, packaging for a new product to be interrupted and talked over with, “Oh guys! Halloween is next week!”

Our manager is far too diplomatic to say anything, but I feel even she is getting annoyed with this. It isn’t social hour. It’s work. Lately after an outburst, there is an awkward silence where everyone waits to see if it’s okay to resume the conversation we had been having. No one really responds to his interruptions, so you’d think he’d get the hint.

Andy doesn’t have much to do in our department; his job is very seasonal in nature. I know it would not go over well to suggest he no longer be invited to these conversations unless he’s directly involved in a project, but I am going to have an outburst of my own soon if he doesn’t shut up.

It’s interesting to note that on the mid-week calls (the ones I run), he barely makes a peep unless spoken to, so I know it is possible for him to do.

Lately there’s been a text thread before each team call between my coworkers and I, saying things like “Get ready for the Andy show!” … “Wonder how Andy’s weekend was, I’m sure we’ll hear all about it when we’re trying to forecast for the next year.” … etc. He’s crowding out the team and alienating us all.

At the end of the calls, we usually take turns updating anything personal if we choose to share — the key being, take turns (our manger calls us by name and asks how certain things are going, etc). Even that has stopped because when someone else chooses to share, he crowds into their conversation by trying to relate or give advice, when it’s not his turn and no one wants to be talked over during personal share time. It’s affecting team morale.

What is a good way to bring this up to my boss? I had thought of spinning it positively, maybe asking if there is a way we can help Andy wait to share his thoughts until the end or asking him to mute while we’re having project conversations and personal conversations.

I don’t want to have to talk to him myself, although I did a few times already and it made me feel bad. Once I emailed him after a call and kinda let it be known that we missed a good chunk of the conversation because he was speaking. He apologized profusely and said he didn’t mean to do that. It made me feel terrible for being rude to him about it. Another time, on a video call, he was going on and on with unsolicited advice so I raised my hand in a “stop talking” gesture and told him I didn’t want or need his advice. He said, “Oh, okay.” I felt less bad that time because it was about something personal and I chose to share with the team, and I would have said that to anyone else that I knew — sometimes we share to vent, and I didn’t ask for advice.

Ugh, Andy, why?! Not only are the off-topic interjections and monologuing rude, but he’s making meetings take longer, which some day will be an established defense for murder.

Where is your manager in all this? You describe her as “too diplomatic” to speak up, but this isn’t about diplomacy — it’s about doing her job, which includes managing the meetings she’s running so that they’re not constantly veering off-track and stepping in when she sees toxic dynamics developing on your team.

Not only is your manager doing the whole team a disservice by not managing meetings more assertively, she’s also doing Andy a disservice — because she’s allowing him to obliviously go on annoying and alienating all his team members. She’d be doing him, along with everyone else, a favor by shutting this down.

Because you run the mid-week calls with the rest of the company, I’m wondering if that means you have a leadership-ish role in your department (either formally or informally). If so, that positions you especially well to point out to your boss that Andy regularly disrupts meetings and is alienating his coworkers. But even if you don’t have that kind of role, you still have standing to talk to her about it, because you’re a team member who’s affected by it.

I would say it this way: “Would it be possible to talk to Andy about limiting his interruptions on team calls? When he interrupts people, talks over them, and interjects with off-topic remarks, it makes it hard to stay focused on the topic and makes the meeting take longer, and I can tell by people’s comments that they’re getting increasingly frustrated and wanting to participate less.”

If your manager is passive to the point that you know she won’t handle it, another option is to be more assertive during the meetings yourself. For example, at the start of the next call you could say, “I’ve got a hard stop at 10:30 so could we hold anything unrelated to the agenda for the end so I can drop off then?” or, “We’ve been getting off-topic a lot lately, and I wondered what everyone thinks about setting some meeting norms on holding interruptions or anything outside the agenda until the end of the call?” (Your coworkers are likely to chime in enthusiastically on that suggestion.) And when Andy does interrupt with something off-topic, you can say, “I really wanted to hear what Jane was saying about X” or “can you hold that until the end so we don’t lose what Jane was saying about X?”

But it might be that a pointed conversation with your boss will nudge her to step in herself.

is my employee taking advantage of the flexibility I give her?

A reader asks:

I’m a manager of two employees, both of whom are salaried, not hourly. One of them — who’s younger, less experienced, more eager — rarely asks to adjust her work hours or work from home, and is generally happy to do anything I ask her to do.

The other is a little older, has less of a teamwork attitude (“is this technically one of my job responsibilities?”) and frequently asks to work from home or leave early to take her daughter to appointments, etc. In other words, she enjoys a lot of flexibility and independence while generally defending her own job boundaries. She does seem to know she always needs to ask, and sometimes will even ask, “Am I asking too much?”

I’m trying to find a good balance when it comes to my managing style. I have no problem with either of them taking time to live their lives, as long as they get their work done, I don’t have to constantly keep track of whether or not they’re on top of things, they take initiative, and, most importantly, I feel like they actually show up and care.

But I can’t help feeling like always saying yes is a bad idea. I spent years under unreasonable managers and know how frustrating it can be to feel chained to your desk or unable to prioritize certain things outside of work, and as a manager, I don’t want to say no just to say no. That said, I feel like there are reasonable boundaries I should set to let them both know that while I’m generally accommodating, they should not take advantage of me and there are limitations to what they can and should ask for, regardless of whether or not their work has been done for the day. What’s your advice?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

is my girlfriend’s CEO hitting on her?

A reader writes:

I previously have asked you a question about whether my girlfriend’s CEO was overstepping (#2 at the link). You very kindly answered my question and I followed your advice and happily let it go as I believed the CEO wasn’t overstepping his professional boundaries. At least not until recently when I read the following interaction between them on a Monday morning at 6 am:

CEO: I’ll see you in the office. At least I have that to look forward to!!!
Girlfriend: See you there!

My mind might be tainted by my previous suspicion, but reading the interaction between them I immediately felt that their level of communication was beyond what I think is “professional corporate level” communication. Or am I completely wrong and see spooks everywhere?

I should mention that I have no access to my girlfriend’s work phone or iPad. Her iPad was on our kitchen counter while she was in the bathroom and the CEO’s text message popped up on the screen, followed by my girlfriend’s immediate answer. The iPad was locked so it wasn’t a matter of me snooping around, just to clarify that!

That is more familiar than I’d recommend to a manager, although it doesn’t necessarily mean anything inappropriate is happening. I can see why it gave you pause, but it’s very far from indicating he’s actually being inappropriate. It could mean he sees their relationship as more friends than boss/employee, but that’s a different thing than what you’re worried about.

And your girlfriend’s reply was as neutral as you can get when responding to a somewhat-too-familiar boss.

I think it would help to hone in on exactly what you’re worried about. Are you concerned that your girlfriend might be cheating or that her manager is just overly familiar (and maybe would like to make a move if given the opportunity)? If it’s the latter, there’s really nothing for you to do here, other than to support your girlfriend (in trusting her own instincts if she starts to feel uncomfortable, and in setting and enforcing boundaries that she is comfortable with) — assuming you trust her. After all, there will always be other people who might hit on her and you can’t wrap her in bubble wrap to prevent that from happening. If you trust her, you have to trust her to navigate that part of life appropriately.

On the other hand, if you’re worried that she’s cheating on you, or would cheat if given the opportunity, that’s an issue independent of whatever is or isn’t happening with her boss. The good news about that would be that you wouldn’t really need to “solve” this if that’s the case; if you don’t trust her, things are broken regardless.

Or is it more of a middle ground, where you’re worried the boss is inappropriate and she’s not going to see it until she’s suddenly in a bad situation? If that’s the case, the right move is to ask her how she feels about their dynamics, and really listen to what she says. Ultimately this is hers to navigate and you have to respect her agency in that, but if you’re worried there’s something she’s not seeing, you can certainly open that conversation and both hear each other out. (But like I said in my original response, you can’t bring it up over and over; you raise it, you listen to each other, and you each figure out what you’re comfortable with from there.)

last year’s Christmas party was a disaster, what does “parking is provided” really mean, and more

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

1. Do I have to go to more company social events when last year’s Christmas party went badly?

Last year, I started a new job the week of Thanksgiving. Three weeks later, my office had a Christmas sweater day (we normally wear jeans and hoodies) and a company Christmas party that night. For the party, I got the Outlook invite with the time and address, and nothing else included.

I showed up to the party still in jeans and my Christmas sweater, and it ended up being a cocktail party with everyone in suits and dresses. My new boss saw me immediately and called me over with my new director. They were both like, “Oh yeah, I guess the dress code wasn’t communicated, huh?” and told me not to worry about being so underdressed since I was clearly uncomfortable. I figured I would stick to the few people I already met, and then leave.

Well, unfortunately for me, the company director decided to assign random seats at tables so we would talk to people we wouldn’t normally sit with. So I was going to meet my new coworkers for the first time in jeans at a cocktail party. I went over to my table and it was already full. I was put as the ninth person at an eight-person table. So I was just standing around lost in jeans, and my new director came over and said, “You can have my seat.” So I ended up sitting at a table meeting all the directors and top level people while still in jeans. I made it through dinner, barely, and just ran out while my boss and the director were distracted.

The worst part? This happened in previous years to other people, and no one has figured out how to advertise the dress code!

I realize a lot of this was my own nerves, but it was a terrible way to meet my new coworkers and I doubt I made a good first impression. My dad said I should tell them, “I want to be a team player and attend events, but I can’t when expectations aren’t communicated.” My friends said I just should not have shown up the next Monday and ghosted the job. I continued to show up and haven’t mentioned it. No one else did either.

Our company has had several more social events, and I didn’t go to the majority. I went to a baseball game, but there were three other events that I made excuses to avoid.

Now the Christmas party is coming again. We were acquired, so it’s supposedly more casual this year. However, I still have no interest in going, now or ever again. Am I obligated to go to these when they are so poorly planned and communicated? Should I mention something about clearly stating the dress code and making sure everyone has a seat to save other new hires from my fate?

This is not the big deal it’s become to you, and everyone advising you is overreacting! Yes, it’s uncomfortable to be underdressed (especially as the new person who doesn’t know anyone) and yes, it was thoughtless of your manager not to ensure you knew the dress code and had seating, but it was your manager who should have been embarrassed about that, not you! You didn’t do anything wrong. (And the fact that it has happened to other people, while ridiculous, makes it all the more likely everyone else completely understood why you were in jeans.) This was a mildly awkward thing, but it’s not something that should make you swear off company events forever.

Your dad’s advice treated this as far weightier than it needs to be. Your friends’ advice to ghost the job because of this was preposterous; don’t listen to those friends on anything work-related for at least five years.

You’re not obligated to go to this year’s party, but I think your reasons for wanting to skip it aren’t well-founded. (Plus, making an appearance at an annual work event, even if just an hour or two, can be good for your career, and going might help override the last one in your mind, where it’s currently taking up too much space.) And yes, remind the organizers to make sure everyone knows the dress code and has a seat this year; you can cite your experience last year as a reason for that if you want, but don’t make it a bigger deal than that.

2. What does “parking is provided” really mean?

I know this is very low-stakes, but this is something that drove me bonkers at a previous job, so I want to understand if I was being oversensitive. I got a job at a company where “parking is provided” was one of the benefits they touted. What that meant, however, was that they’d give you a permit that allows you to park on the street in this particular busy, urban neighborhood. However, everything beyond that was up to you. You had to find a spot, which in this case meant you could easily be driving around for 20+ minutes, looking. And you still had to follow the posted signs, which meant moving your car every 2-4 hours.

After one infuriating bout of circling in a multiblock radius with no spots available, I laughingly said to a colleague, “Yeah, parking is provided. The same way they’ve also provided oxygen for us to breathe.” She looked at me like I was nuts, and reiterated, “Parking is provided.”

So what say you? Was parking provided?

“Parking is provided” means parking will be available to you, and this was not that. They should have said, “Street parking passes are provided.”

In fact, your oxygen analogy was too generous, unless the oxygen was within an underground mine where you had to compete with other people to access it.

3. What to do with stuff from a previous job in my personal Google Drive

I was in an internship a while back and (stupidly) used my personal Google Docs for all the copywriting for blog posts that my previous employer used. They were shared to a group file (and as far as I know, published to the company blog). I would like to clean out my old documents and delete things because I am running out of space on my Google Drive, but I’m curious what I should do regarding these.

Put them all in a Google Drive folder and share it with your contact at the old internship. Say something like, “I’m not sure if you have copies of these or if you need them. I’m planning to remove them from my Google Drive on (date) so wanted to make sure you can download them before then if you do need copies.” Make the date a month from now so they have time to deal with it.

4. Companies that let you buy and sell PTO

It’s open enrollment season and one of the great benefits my employer offers is a program to buy or sell a portion of your PTO (buy being take a pay reduction in return for more PTO and sell being get paid more for having fewer days of PTO). I think this is a great idea! I’m in a season of my life where I’d like more PTO available (doesn’t rise to FMLA stuff, just general life stuff) and I know some folks don’t want as much time (there’s a limit to what you can sell back so no one is working with no time off all year). It gives people flexibility while keeping a standard (and not veering into the nebulous world of “unlimited” PTO) and not costing the company. Why don’t more companies do this? I have occasionally looked at other jobs, but this particular benefit seems rare (or at least not widely advertised).

My guess is that more companies don’t do it because typically when you design the workload for a full-time job, you need to be able to assume that someone will be working in it X weeks of the year; in a lot of jobs, having someone decide to add additional weeks off can cause real workflow issues. Conversely, good managers really do want people to disconnect and go away for a certain amount of time every year, so that they can recharge and not burn out, and also so that your team can spot holes that are sometimes only seen when someone is away. I know you said you’re required to keep a minimum amount of time, but the bare minimum doesn’t serve that purpose as well.

You’re not wrong that this set-up can be great for individual people in certain situations — and there are some companies where the nature of the work allows them to offer it across the board — but it can be tricky when you’re dealing with the broad variety of roles that many companies have.

5. Can employer pay me less because my health insurance costs more?

Landed a new job after a layoff (woo hoo!). My now boss made a comment that got me thinking.

During negotiations, two things came up. First, I wanted immediate access to the 401K and more PTO. The CEO was okay with that, but mentioned they’d have to offer it to the other employee (there’s a total of three of us on staff, including the CEO). That was fine by me, and since I got it, I’m assuming the other employee will get the same, though I don’t actually know — we’re totally remote and mostly async.

The second was health insurance. He mentioned that the cost to insure me is about $10,000 but closer to $6,000 total for him and the other employee. I’m assuming that’s because I’m over 50 and they … aren’t.

The CEO said he didn’t want to “discriminate,” but since my health insurance costs more, he couldn’t come up on salary. However, between the health insurance costs and salary, total compensation is X, which is about the total dollar figure I was looking for in salary.

What I’m wondering is can an employer pay someone less salary if their total compensation is equal to other employees’ total compensation? To be clear, he was transparent about the salary throughout the process, so I don’t feel like this was a bait and switch and I did get the posted max.

Yes, health insurance premiums are based on age, so what he’s saying is that your health insurance costs more because you’re older and therefore he can’t offer the salary bump he’d otherwise be open to … which is a really legally iffy thing to say! You noted that the overall compensation costs even out, but while you’d need an employment lawyer to tell you for sure if that changes anything, as a general rule you can’t base salary on age.

That said, because this is a three-person company, it might be moot. The federal law that prohibits age discrimination in employment only applies to employers with 20 employees or more. Some states have a lower threshold, though, so you’d need to check if your state is among them to know for sure.

job application is fixated on high school academic performance

A reader writes:

What do you make of employers asking job applicants about their high school performance? Besides the fact that I barely remember SAT or other score results from high school or college, is this even a real way to see how someone would perform at work? It feels infantalizing and not the best way to get a sense of someone is “smart” or whatever they’re looking for. Is this a red flag?

For reference, this is a general administrative position, exact questions below:

How did you perform in mathematics in high school? (dropdown menu of choices)
How did you perform in your native language in high school? (dropdown menu of choices)
Please share your rationale or evidence for the high school performance selections above. Make reference to provincial, state, or nationwide scoring systems, rankings, or recognition awards, or to competitive or selective college entrance results such as SAT or ACT scores, JAMB, matriculation results, IB results, etc. We recognize every system is different but we will ask you to justify your selections above.
What was your bachelor’s university degree result, or expected result if you have not yet graduated? Please include the grading system to help us understand your result, e.g. “85 out of 100,” “2.1 (grading system: first class, 2:1, 2:2, third class),” or “GPA score of 3.8/4.0 (predicted).” We have hired outstanding individuals who did not attend or complete university. If this describes you, please continue with your application and enter “no degree.”
Universities around the world score degrees in different ways. Please indicate your result, or expected result if you are close to graduation, along with information about the grading system.

It’s a flag for something, all right.

It’s one thing to ask for GPA when candidates are right out of school and don’t have much of a work history to point to. In that case, it’s a rough — and extremely imperfect — stand-in for “smarts and accomplishments” for candidates who don’t have a track record at work. But (a) it stops being relevant as soon as people have a bit of work experience under their belts and you can look at actual accomplishments instead, and (b) even for candidates who are right out of school with little work experience (which will not be all of them), this is still an excessive focus on academics, particularly for an admin role.

GPA and other test scores are a horribly inaccurate gauge for how someone will do in a job. Lots of people with high test scores end up doing mediocre work, and lots of people with middling test scores end up excelling professionally. Raw “intelligence” or “knowledge” doesn’t always correlate with achievement … plus, it’s pretty well established that tests that purport to measure intelligence often correlate with demographic and socioeconomic background more than anything else.

And going all the way back to high school, not just college, amplifies how weird this is. Just as college tests stop being relevant once you’re in the work world, high school tests stop being relevant once you’re in college (or otherwise out of high school).

You almost have to wonder if this is an attempt to screen out older workers, or at least signal that that’s not who’s envisioned for this job.

I saw colleagues’ private messages mocking my weight

A reader writes:

I recently hosted a Zoom call for my work team. At the end of the call, I was sent the transcript for the meeting’s group chat, as it contained important notes. I was also accidentally sent the transcript for a private chat between my coworkers “Lisa” and “Natalie.” I thought we were on good terms. But during that brief chat, Lisa told Natalie that if she ever weighed as much as I did, she’d kill herself. Natalie replied with laughing emojis.

While I’m not sensitive about my weight, this gutted me. I feel humiliated and wish I’d never seen it. I don’t think either of them realizes I saw it. I’m hesitant to contact HR because a) I dread other people seeing the transcript, b) I hate conflict and disruption, and c) I don’t want Lisa and Natalie to lose their jobs. But I don’t know how to move forward without addressing this.

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

  • Should managers not set their online status to “busy”?
  • Is it unethical to start a business competing with a former employer?

I’m frustrated that my coworkers with kids work less than me, but I don’t want to cut back

A reader writes:

I’m 25 and working in a passion career. I love it! I’m not burned out, and I don’t want to work less. My manager gives us all flexibility and grace. And yet … it still bothers me when my parenting peers work a fraction of my hours for the same (or more) pay.

My unit consists of three coworkers—all parents—and me. My manager prides himself on being flexible around parenting, so the disparity in workload can be extreme. I work 9am-5pm. My coworkers work 10am-4pm. I am on call in the early morning and on weekends. My coworkers aren’t. I am expected to attend the events we (I) plan. One of my coworkers bails often with no repercussions. We share a job description, but my closest coworker makes $30,000 more than me because she advocated for a raise to pay for her child’s expenses. (My organization does not offer raises. My boss lobbied for my coworker anyway because of the kid thing.)

I hate that I feel this way, but I’m so demoralized. I feel especially for my closest coworker — she’s parenting alone and in debt. I adore her interpersonally, and I want her to get the support she needs. But I’m struggling to stem my own resentment.

In the past, you’ve focused your answers to childfree people on how to avoid picking up an excess amount of slack. I actually don’t have a problem with my workload, and I don’t want to work less. If I needed flexibility, I think my manager would grant it to me. I just want … company, I guess? For someone else to do the work with me? Our work is supposed to be collaborative, and it functions better that way. It feels silly to type, but I feel almost lonely. How can I reframe this situation for myself? Should I talk to my manager, and if yes, how? I really want to be reasonable and kind, and I worry that this emotion I’m having is neither.

It’s not silly to feel lonely when you are quite literally working alone a good chunk of the time.

And it’s absolutely unfair for someone to make $30,000 (!) more than you for the same work because she has a child and you don’t … and even more so if you’re doing more work than she is.

However, normally when people see parents treated differently than non-parents, the frustration is that non-parents aren’t offered the same flexibility for their own needs — they’re not permitted to come in late or leave early with the same frequency or ease, or it’s a much bigger battle for them to be able to miss an event.

In your case, it sounds like you could have similar flexibility if you wanted it, but you don’t want it.

So I think it would help to think about what would feel like a satisfying solution to you. Do you want your coworkers with kids to have less flexibility? (I’m guessing you don’t.) Do you want them to work more hours? (I suspect this may be yes.) Do you just want to feel like you’re not the only one who’s always there? (I suspect this is yes too.)

If any of this is genuinely causing work issues — like if you can’t ever come in late without specifically arranging coverage because someone needs to be on-site during business hours and everyone assumes that will always be you, or if you’re not able to get answers from colleagues when you need them, or if it’s just become a strain to be the only person reliably at events — those are things you can raise with your manager. If you don’t want to be on-call outside of work hours anymore, you can raise that to her, too. All of that would be reasonable and fair to bring up, and to ask to see change.

If it’s none of that and it’s just that it feels unfair but you don’t want to pull back on your side to better match everyone else’s level, then you should ask to be compensated for your higher level of contribution. At a minimum, you should point out that you’re the only person who’s on-call in early mornings and weekends and the only one reliably staffing events, and you should ask for a raise or a bonus that reflects that.

In other words, think about what can change on your side to make this more fair, rather than focusing on changing theirs. Since you don’t want more flexibility or less work, ask for more money instead. You’re earning that.

But that might or might not get at the crux of your loneliness, which is that you’re more focused on the team’s work than your coworkers are. If money wouldn’t fix your feelings about that part, it’s something that you can probably only change by going elsewhere.

boss wants to dumb down my writing, telling a job-hunting relative he stinks, and more

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

1. My manager wants to dumb down my writing

After a long stint in academia, I took a position with a state workforce agency two years ago. While I still teach adjunct at the university and maintain a “collegiate vocabulary,” I am far from inaccessible when it comes to communication and linguistic style choices. My main role in government focuses on writing grant applications, contracts, policy, and codified law.

However, a chief complaint of my direct manager (it’s even on my formal “improvement plan”) is to use plain English, as large words intimidate and confuse her. Recently, when tasked to write a brief for our governor (!!!) she said she wanted to run it through Chat GPT or AI to “dumb it down for them.” This is only one of many times she’s noted needing to run my writing through an AI tool to “reword it” for clarity. I pride myself on clear writing, have ghostwritten for published authors, and pride myself on my written communication skills. Am I off-base to be offended? Is academia-level written communication out of touch? Is use of an AI tool at the state government level an insult to me and my understanding of “voice” and interpretation of “audience”? Or is this the new standard and I need to make my peace with it?

Yes, academic writing is often out-of-sync with writing for other professional contexts.

I can’t speak to your writing specifically, but I can tell you that a lot of people from academia write in a much denser way than is suitable for other contexts, and it can be a real slog to read them, let alone edit them. When your manager talks about “dumbing things down,” she doesn’t necessarily mean that she thinks you should speak to your audience as if they are dumb; it’s shorthand for, “Write in plainer, simpler language because it’s faster and more pleasant for most people to read” and also, “You are not writing in our organization’s voice, and you need to.” That’s very reasonable feedback, and if that’s what she means it wouldn’t be about large words intimidating or confusing her; it would be her telling you that your writing doesn’t meet the standards needed to do your job successfully.

There’s no point in being insulted by that; different jobs require different writing approaches, and academic writing won’t be right for most contexts outside of academia. Especially if you’re on a formal improvement plan that mentions this, you should take that feedback very seriously.

2. Am I obligated to tell my job-hunting relative that he stinks?

I think I know the answer here, but it is a sensitive situation. My spouse and I spend a lot of time with their brother, and we both have noticed that he has really strong body odor.

So far, we have opted to ignore this fact. He’s going through a rough transition personally, and is a very considerate person, and I think would be bothered to hear about his smell. At the same time, we both wonder, how can he NOT know?

He is currently job-hunting, and I worry that when he gets to the in-person interview stage, the fact that he stinks will certainly hurt his chances of getting the job. Should one of us say something? And if so, how would you suggest broaching the subject?

Please say something. It’s very likely to hurt his chances and while it may be momentarily embarrassing to hear that he smells, he’s far better off hearing it from someone who loves him and wants to help than to remain oblivious. (This assumes you think he is oblivious, of course, and it’s not a medical thing he can’t help.)

It should probably come from your spouse since they’re the relative — although if you’re closer to the brother than your spouse is, that could mean you’re a better choice; it just really depends on the dynamics of each relationship. So does what to say — in some sibling relationships, a casual “bro, you smell — you need to hit the shower or do some laundry or something” would be completely fine and even easier to hear than a more delicate approach. Other people would be mortified by that and would prefer something more tactful and framed as, “I feel awkward mentioning this but I’d want you to tell me.” Because these are personal relationships and not work ones, it’s so, so relationship-dependent. (If it were my sister, I’d just be like “hey, you smell weird” — bluntness is a family value for us — but if I were worried it was tied to depression or similar, I’d frame it more sensitively.)

One tip though —sometimes odor really is a laundry issue (they’re not washing their clothes enough or they’re not fully drying them so they’re getting mildewed) and that can be a less embarrassing framework to use, whether or not it’s the actual explanation for what’s happening.

Related:
how to talk to an employee about body odor (and the update)
my coworker told me I smell

3. Accommodations for defiance at work

Years ago, I taught a student who had a 504 plan for Oppositional Defiance Disorder. This was the only time I’ve seen that diagnosis for a student at the public high school I teach at. The vast majority of the time, 504 plans are for students with ADHD or an anxiety disorder and include the directives for their accommodations, like extended time taking a test.

This student, “Mary,” had the accommodation to take a pause and regroup before choosing whether or not she wanted to complete the task given. In practice, this meant that Mary ignored me anytime I gave the class instructions. She refused to take part in group activities and projects. She spent 90% of class with headphones on, watching YouTube videos of cooking shows on her laptop. I was frustrated for most of the year with Mary until finally leaving her alone and not even trying to engage. In the end, Mary scored a 4 on the AP exam in my class.

I don’t know if Mary went on to college, but she’s at the age now where she would be likely graduating. My question is, how in the world can someone with ODD have any sort of reasonable accommodation in the workplace? I am so curious how anyone with certain types of behavior disorders can function in a workplace. Do they just have to work for themselves? I cannot imagine a boss allowing their employee to ignore them and decide not to do work without getting fired.

To be clear, I fully support the right/importance for accommodations for those with the need for it. I just think of Mary every once in a while and am truly wondering how one exists within our societal workplace norms with a disorder that means you have a pattern of uncooperative, defiant, and hostile behavior.

The types of accommodations that are reasonable in school aren’t always the same as the accommodations that are reasonable at work. At school, accommodations are geared toward allowing students to participate and learn. At work, accommodations are about helping them perform the essential functions of the position, and if they can’t do that even with accommodations employers aren’t required to hire or keep them on.

Ignoring instructions, refusing to take part in projects, and watching YouTube 90% of the day wouldn’t be considered reasonable accommodations for a job. So yes, people who struggle with oppositional defiance often do have trouble holding down jobs.

For what it’s worth, though, ODD is a controversial diagnosis and is often criticized as pathologizing normal child/adolescent behavior and/or trauma responses. You see it a lot in foster care, where kids’ response to traumatic circumstances is pathologized and they get slapped with that (extremely stigmatizing) label.

4. How to contact someone’s boss in an emergency

I was recently in a work meeting where I found out that a few years ago, one of my coworkers went into a coma for a month!

It got me thinking … I know in past letters, you’ve made it very clear that the only time a parent, spouse, etc. should contact someone’s boss on their behalf is in emergency situations where the employee would not be able to do so on their own. But how would that even work? It’s not as though I have my husband’s manager’s contact information (or even know their full name) and have no idea how I would get in touch with them to let them know if there was a medical emergency. In my coworker’s case, how on earth did my company learn what had happened?!

Sharing my manager’s contact info with my husband “just in case” feels like overkill. But on the other hand, there is no other way for him to know how to contact my manager. Am I overthinking this?

I don’t know why this question has stuck in my brain, but I’m curious to know how these things actually play out and what you’d recommend.

It’s not overkill to give your manager’s contact info to your spouse! It could save time and hassle if you’re ever in a situation where you need him to contact your employer.

In cases where people haven’t done that and the spouse can’t get the info from the incapacitated partner, usually they’re stuck calling the company’s main number and trying to track down the right person to talk to. At big companies that can be a major undertaking, and it’s much easier if they just have direct contact info.

5. Should I tell job candidates I’m going on maternity leave right after they start?

I manage a team at a small (100-person) company in the U.S. We’re lucky to have a generous parental leave policy (four months) and family friendly environment: lots of parents work at the company, including my own boss and two of my six teammates. I’m actively looking to hire for my team, and I have a couple great people in the pipeline. I’m also six months pregnant, and will be going on leave in about three months.

When giving a candidate an offer, should I let them know that the manager of the team they’re joining will be taking parental leave soon? Selfishly, I want them to join regardless, and I’ll be back! But from their side, would it be frustrating or feel like a bait-and-switch to learn about your manager being gone for a few months so soon after you start? We have a coverage plan in place, so they’ll have another manager during my leave, and I don’t think it’s legally required, but what’s your general advice for doing right by candidates?

Yes, let them know. Very few people will turn down an offer over that, but a lot of people would feel blindsided if they didn’t learn about it until after they started. You don’t have to let them know ahead of time, but most people will appreciate it as a courtesy.

Ideally you’d also let them know how it will affect them — who’d they be reporting to and what the plan will be for supporting them while you’re away.

the Rolodex hoarder, the used tea bags, and other stories of territorial behavior at work

Last week we discussed territorial behavior at work and here are 12 of my favorite stories you shared.

1. The Rolodex

I worked with a manager that kept customer information in a Rolodex to prevent any one else from making calls to them. And I mean a classic Rolodex, the big spinning thing that had index cards with hand written notes. It was kept in a locked drawer, so if the manager was sick or on vacation, then no calls were made and no money was made.

She completely refused to enter the information into the CRM, or to allow anyone to else to enter the information. She even tried to walk out with the Rolodex on her last day.

2. The teabags

I worked at a company that provided free filtered water and coffee. Teabags, however, were kept by the office manager in his desk, and you were required to show your used teabag to get a new one.

I am not a tea drinker, so I never found out how, say, a new employee could get their first teabag.

3. The copiers

When I first started out in my industry 20-something years ago, it was a small tech department of three. I, as an mid-20s female, was grateful to have two kind 50s/60s gentlemen as my mentors. One was our boss, and the other was our network guy. About a year into my tenure, I noticed that a consistent issue we kept having was that no one knew what the name of their nearest copier was when they tried to print. I proposed we changed the names of the copiers from “Copier 289729” to “BldgX-Room123-Copier” in our weekly meeting.

Suddenly the network guy was furious. He hated this idea. It meant that each time we moved the copiers, we would have to update the name. (We moved five or six of them a year.) Boss agreed with me and I implemented the change. It was a resounding success with the employees, and we got a lot of praise for making this change.

But the network guy kept bringing it up … first weekly for a while, then monthly, and settled on 2-3 times a year . He still hated it and thought it was a terrible idea. It didn’t affect him at all, mind you. I managed the copiers. He set up the original system 15 years ago, but my predecessor and then I had been managing them for the last 5+ years when I proposed the change.

Three years after we changed the copier names, our boss retired. I was the interim while they slowly and unsuccessfully looked for a replacement, and then after two years I was hired as the replacement. The department expanded. Any time we hired a new person, he pulled them aside and — without naming names or detailing the history — would “pop quiz” the new hires by saying, “If you had the choice, what would you name the copiers? ‘Copier 289729’ or ‘BldgX-Room23-Copier’?” He was not happy that they all agreed with me.

Come to find out, he didn’t limit his quizzing to our department. He had also shaken down all the department managers, including any new managers hired over the years, and asked them the same question. When I left that org to go to greener pastures, he also sprung it on my replacement. It had been 15 years since we changed the copier names and he never let it go.

What made it more bizarre was that otherwise he was a very friendly and helpful guy.

4. The bathroom

I worked at a family company that took up the whole floor of an office building. For some reason, there were no bathrooms in the office. All 60 employees had to walk to another floor to use a public restroom.

Well, I eventually learned that there were “executive bathrooms” only for The Family. It was the wildest power play. Four guys took the mens and womens bathrooms and converted them into a giant, glamorous bathroom for their own personal use. All us plebians were told that there just wasn’t a bathroom on the whole floor due to some bizarre building design flaw and we had to take the stairs to the public use bathrooms in the lobby.

5. The contacts

I had a boss one time who made me set up a LinkedIn and then insisted that I run by any contact with her before I accepted any connection. Which was absolutely no one. I couldn’t make any connections in industry or she would accuse me of job searching and freak out.

When I finally wised up to her abuse, the first thing I did was add/accepted a bunch of people as “take back my identity” moment.

6. The traffic cone

Years ago, I worked with a traffic cone hoarder. We did not have assigned parking, but we had a parking lot that was appropriate for the amount of people in the building. Yet, we had one woman who kept one of those large cones in her car. When I say cone, it was a filthy, beat up orange cone that she confiscated from a construction site.

She was one of the earliest arrivers so naturally she would get one of the coveted front row spaces. When she would leave for an errand or for lunch, she would put the cone in the space preventing anyone from getting that choice spot.

It drove everyone crazy with the entitlement, yet the CEO wouldn’t put his foot down because this woman was a toxic shrew and he didn’t want to deal with it. I eventually left for a lot of reasons that were a result of weak leadership. The cone situation was just one of the symptoms.

7. The fridges

My old department had a staff room for two distinct teams, one larger general one and a smaller specialist one. There was one fridge, but the smaller team felt there wasn’t enough space for them so they, between themselves, personally saved up money to buy a second fridge just for them.

Using the Grey Fridge and Not The Black One is a key point in induction tours for new staff members in the other team, as putting your milk in the black fridge is a guaranteed way to have your stuff thrown away. If someone is found to be using the wrong fridge, they are lectured and then ignored by the entire specialist team for the rest of their time in the department.

8. The van

Two departments shared a pair of work vans for driving to program sites. Before I was hired, apparently problems with Mr. O (from the other department) always having the van led to the creation of a sign-out calendar.

Mr. O would sign out one van for every day on the calendar, regardless of programming duties. So everyone else would sign out the other one, and if it wasn’t available would go to Mr. O and ask if it was okay to use “his” van (to, ya know, do actually work tasks). He was a retired teacher who had come out of retirement to do this job, very mild and “generous.” His answer was always, “Oh sure, baby, that’s fine.”

Years later, I talked with some people who had worked in his department. He insisted on driving one colleague to her programs and picking her up, so he could keep the van. And apparently every morning he would drive to work in his own vehicle, then get in the work van to drive to get himself coffee, then drive back. WTH?

9. The parking spots

I once worked in a longish building with entrances on either end. People tended to park by the door they used. But only one end of the parking lot had trees, so during the summer people who might usually use the west door would park on the east side of the lot so they could park in the shade. People who were officed on the east end were *furious.* Those were their trees. How dare you park under them and steal the shade that rightfully belonged to them?

10. The pods

My first job out of college had cubicles set up in sets of four where you’d have low walls within your pod and high walls outside of that pod. My boss, who worked a few pods over, decided that whenever someone moved out, he should move in. Whenever anyone else left, he put desktoys on it to claim it, and whoever allocated desks (maybe him?) assumed those were already taken (there was stuff on them after all) and put new people elsewhere.

By the time I got there, he’d claimed an entire four-desk pod for his own megadesk covered in stuff. I don’t know if he used any of them, but they were great for displaying his many tchotchkes.

11. The facility rentals

I worked with someone who used to manage facility rentals – weddings, bridal showers, and conferences – at my museum. These responsibilities were taken away from him because he had no interest in them and had so much work he couldn’t manage them if he wanted to. They were assigned to me.

He kept those responsibilities on his LinkedIn. Not only did board members who followed his account thought that our rental program success was due to his efforts, but he frequently used his account to promote our rental program. Which would have been lovely if he had actually forwarded the inquiries to me or responded to them at all.

I asked if he could edit his LinkedIn because it was legitimately creating hardship, but he refused and said it was illegal for the organization to monitor his social media activity, and our board believed him.

So for the duration of my time there, I just had to accept the fact that we’d get these horribly negative reviews because he would not change his LinkedIn.

12. The reagent

Someone in a lab I once worked in had a sign above their lab bench: “One of these reagents is not what it says on the label.” It stopped the stealing.

a federal judge has blocked the new overtime rule

A federal judge in Texas has blocked a new rule that would have expanded access to overtime pay to millions more salaried workers.

And not only that — the court also struck down the increase that already took effect on July 1 of this year.

The background: In the U.S., all workers are classified as exempt or non-exempt. Non-exempt workers must be paid overtime (time and a half) for any hours over 40 they work in a single week. Exempt workers are exempt from overtime requirements. To be exempt, you must earn a certain dollar amount or higher and perform relatively high-level work as your primary duties. (There are some exceptions to this, including teachers, doctors, and lawyers, who are always exempt.)

On July 1, the salary level that makes you exempt from overtime pay increased to $43,888 — meaning that anyone making under that was due overtime pay (unless they were one of the exceptions named above). The threshold was set to increase again on January 1, to $58,656.

On Friday, a U.S. District judge ruled that the Labor Department exceeded its authority with the new rule.

So now, the previous threshold of $35,568 — which was set in 2019 — is set to go back into effect.

It’s not yet clear if the Labor Department will appeal the decision. If they do, it’s possible that an appeals court could quickly reverse this ruling … but if the appeal is still pending when the new administration takes over on January 20, they’re unlikely to continue that appeal. (Something similar happened in 2016, when a court halted a similar rule just days before the hike was supposed to take effect, and then permanently blocked it a few months later.)

Notably, the judge this time cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year to throw out the Chevron doctrine, which for decades had required courts to defer to “permissible” agency interpretations of the statutes they administer, “even when a reviewing court reads the statute differently.”

So, two questions that a lot of employers now face:

  • If they raised your salary to meet the July 1 threshold of $43,888, are they going to leave it a the higher level or lower it back? Most probably won’t lower salaries because of the morale hit it would cause, but some might.
  • If they were planning to raise salaries to meet the January 1 bump to $58,656, will they reverse course or stick with those plans? If they had planned a bump but hadn’t announced it, they’ll probably quietly cancel it. If they had already announced they planned to bump salaries then, they’ll face employee pressure to stick with that.