my coworker was penalized for things I never said, junior employee keeps interrupting me, and more

by Alison Green on September 24, 2024

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

1. My coworker was penalized for feedback from me, but I never said those things

Recently, during my coworker Wendy’s performance review with her management team, she was denied a raise and demoted on paperwork to someone “still developing” instead of being listed as “meets/exceeds expectations.” The reasons for this were: a low customer loyalty score for our location (not an individual low score — and the other person in Wendy’s position was still given a raise and significant praise from management despite having the same score and Wendy having seniority), and because she’s been reported for “poor communication on Slack.”

When Wendy asked for specific examples of this, management couldn’t give her any, but included my name along with two others as the sources of this. I have never complained about Wendy to management, especially not in regard to Slack. The other two coworkers listed no longer work here, but I worked with one of them long enough to know she wouldn’t complain to management about something like this either. Our job is an in-person job in a small location, and I’ve noticed Slack is not the preferred mode of communication for many in Wendy’s position.

I feel extremely uncomfortable that my name was dragged into this. I want to escalate this in some way, to say I have never had a problem with Wendy and that I don’t appreciate being used in false accusations, but Wendy is apprehensive about potential retaliation. What should we do? What should I do?

You shouldn’t do anything without Wendy’s permission, but ideally you’d talk to your manager or hers and say, “I’m concerned there’s been miscommunication somewhere. Wendy spoke with me about concerns she thought I’d expressed about her communication over Slack but, as I told her, I’ve never raised concerns about her work or her communication and don’t have any. It sounds like someone misunderstood something somewhere. How can I get this cleared up so that she’s not wrongly penalized for feedback I haven’t given?”

But also — what’s going on in your workplace? Are they disorganized enough that feedback gets warped like this? Are they targeting Wendy for some reason? If this is at all part of a pattern rather than a one-time mistake that gets quickly fixed, I’d be concerned about what’s going on there.

2. My junior coworker constantly interrupts me in meetings

My junior report (who was moved to another manager last year) constantly interrupts me in meetings. I’ve tried multiple approaches to get her to stop. She’s white and mid 40s, I’m Asian and mid 30s. I’ve noticed she only does this to me and I’ve even had other members on our team say they’ve noticed it too.

The approaches I’ve tried:
– Speak over her and keep going when she tries to interrupt. This works sometimes but sometimes it doesn’t.
– Stop her and tell her I’m not finished yet. This has worked a couple of times but not always.

Other approaches I’ve considered:
– Talk directly to her and ask her to be mindful of the interruptions.
– Talk to her manager and ask him to talk with her about this behavior.

Talk to her one-on-one and name what’s happening and what she needs to do differently. For example: “I’m guessing you don’t realize it, but you frequently interrupt me in meetings. I haven’t seen you do this to other team members, but it’s frequent when I’m speaking. Please wait for me to finish speaking before you start talking.”

If that doesn’t work, then yes, flag it for her manager. It’s a big deal to regularly be interrupting a colleague, especially a senior one, and especially after she’s been spoken to about it and told to stop.

And going forward, every time she interrupts you from now on, hold up your hand in a “stop” motion and say, “Please stop interrupting me and wait until I’m finished.” It will get pretty awkward pretty quickly for her if you’re consistent about doing it.

3. Can I ask to be fired sooner?

After 18 years at a company, I was recently surprised at my mid-year review with a rating that I’m not meeting expectations. It was followed with a 60-day PIP. Originally, I told my boss that despite feeling surprised, I’m 100% committed to making changes. Since then, I have realized that I no longer want to work there but need to be able to collect unemployment in the interim while I’m looking for another job so I can’t just resign.

I have a hard time pretending to do a bad job but my mental health is taking a toll. Is there a script for me to discuss with my boss ending the PIP earlier so that I can be let go sooner and then start collecting unemployment while looking for a new job?

In some cases you could say something like: “I appreciate you being candid with me about your concerns. I want to be candid in return that I’m not confident about my ability to meet your expectations and I don’t want either of us to invest further time in the process if it’s unlikely to work out. Would you be open to wrapping up the process earlier and letting me go with an agreement not to contest my unemployment benefits?”

4. We’re switching to unlimited PTO and I feel cheated

My company allows up to five vacation days to roll over each year.

We recently underwent a compensation study and one of the results is that we will now have “open PTO.” No more separating of sick days, vacation days, personal time, or floating holidays. This will begin when our 2025 fiscal year begins.

The issue that many of my colleagues and I have is that they told us this with three weeks until the fiscal year begins. I was going to roll over 36 hours — between my already scheduled vacation days and the vacation days of my coworker (one of us has to be in our office at all times), there is not enough time for both of us to use all the time we were going to roll over. There is no compensation offered for our leftover time. HR claims that because the rollover time is the first time that gets used up and now we are unlimited, we will use it in FY25. My objection is that it is FY24 compensation that I am not receiving. Could this have been handled better?

Yes. They could have given you more notice of the change — at least six months, not three weeks.

The thing is, when you have a specific amount of accrued time off (rolled over or not), there’s no debate about whether you’ve earned that time: it’s there, it’s yours, you can take it. (That’s an oversimplification, since of course it’s subject to workload, coverage, etc. — but no one disputes that you have the time on the books.) When you just have unlimited PTO, there can be more of a question around it. For example, if you get four weeks off per year, and this year you have those four weeks plus a week that rolled over from last year … well, you’ve definitely got five weeks on the books. But when you switch to unlimited PTO, it may be harder to justify taking five weeks in a single year.

You and your coworkers should press for a longer notice period before the change is made.

5. What does this email from a recruiter mean?

I’ve been in a painstakingly long interview process with a well respected organization in my field for a senior level position. I’ve done a phone screen, hiring manager interview, and panel interview (all virtual). It was posted in early June and I applied right away.

I just received a baffling email from the recruiter and I honestly can’t decide what to make of it: “Thank you for your patience. Our team decided to move two candidates forward that have more X experience to the next rounds for now. You remain a strong candidate and still under consideration. I can provide another update in the next couple of weeks.”

What gives? The job would be a huge step up for me, an almost $70k/year raise at minimum so it’s not shocking (although I’m disappointed) that I’m not a finalist, but why not just reject me? The dangling / stringing along at this point is an huge bummer. Appreciate any insight or if this is a common practice with more senior roles?

That message means: “You’re not currently one of our finalists, but you’re strong enough that we’ll come back to you if neither of the two people we’re currently talking to pan out.” It’s actually very transparent! It’s not stringing you along; it’s letting you know pretty candidly exactly what’s going on.

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{ 33 comments }

{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }

  2. Sally*

    OP1, this stuck out for me: “…and the other person in Wendy’s position was still given a raise and significant praise from management despite having the same score and Wendy having seniority”. So having the same score but Wendy being senior can be read to mean that Wendy is operating at a level below her rank, thus justifying her harsher review. Maybe the comment with Slack was about her not responding to messages from colleagues including you, something management observed from the outside. Maybe management did not say that this complaint came from you. Are you getting all this information from Wendy? If so, are you sure she is telling you everything?

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    1. KateM*

      Hm, or maybe if she is the most senior person in that place, she is more responsible for the low scores? As in, if there is a team of several employees and a manager, and some employees are scaring away previously loyal customers and manager is not shutting it down, then the manager is not doing her job of managing while one of the lower employees may still be doing their best?

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    2. Aggretsuko*

      Wendy could also being targeted for her age/seniority, and when you start getting slammed in reviews like this and written up for petty shit and lies are being made up–they probably want her gone.

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    3. Bilateralrope*

      I read that as saying that both Wendy and the other individual have the same position, but Wendy has been working there longer. Nothing about them having different duties.

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      1. Myrin*

        Yeah, that was my read as well – I have to admit I’m unclear where the “operating at a level below her rank” is coming from because that sentence seemed entirely clear to me in the letter; Wendy and coworker do the same work, got the same score (since it isn’t individual to begin with), and Wendy has been there longer (“seniority”), and yet one person got a raise and the other got demoted.

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        1. KateM*

          I’m not sure that “demoted” in the letter isn’t misleading – it seems that her score was “demoted” from “meets/exceeds expectations” to “still developing” not that she lost a job title.

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        2. MK*

          However, “meets/exceeds expectations” likely looks very different depending on seniority; a score that might be considered good, even unexpectedly good, for a employee of one year can be considered unacceptable for an employee of 10 years, especially if they used to perform much better and there has been a drop in the quality of their work.

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    4. Melissa*

      Yes, my question also is, Are you getting all this from Wendy? Because if you are, I might seriously choose to stay out of it. Who among us is *really* fully honest and transparent when we are kvetching to someone about our poor performance review? I definitely wouldn’t take her account as gospel.

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      1. Sally*

        Especially that Wendy does not want to escalate it. She might have been venting and telling you how unfair her treatment was, but it’s possible there is information she isn’t telling you, that makes her claim look flimsy. If so she wouldn’t be the first person to make herself look better to colleagues. I’d only do something if Wendy is on board.

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    5. Cj*

      I agree with the part that if this is only coming from Wendy, she might not be telling the OP the whole story. but if Wendy is telling the truth / whole story, the fact that management could give her any examples leads me to believe that it’s just the case of her not performing up to her level of seniority.

      and like others have said, it sounds like she’s just been there longest, not that her duties or responsibilities or any different than her co-workers.

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  3. Thankfully no longer a manager*

    I am not a fan of unlimited PTO. At an old job, after working my way up to a healthy vacation annual accrual, we became unlimited. It’s so great! But reality was, our company president was limiting us to two weeks a year without clarifying that to anyone. Making it fuzzy for supervisors know how to approve vacations. Aside from losing the bank, upon separation there is nothing to cash out. Which kinda sucks on a whole different level, either if you are waiting for a new pay period to sync up or you end up with a gap between jobs. I get it from an employer standpoint, less risk out there and overall less time being taken off because no one wants to be the one to be seen as abusing the system. But as an employee- no thank you.

    Reply ↓
    1. Cj*

      and their second paragraph, they call it open PTO, and talk about all types of leave being combined, but in the last paragraph they say unlimited PTO.

      for all the reasons Alison mentions, I’m not a fan of unlimited PTO either. but the way they describe the whole thing confuses me. why do they need to use up the hours they were going to carry over if they have unlimited PTO starting in 3 weeks?

      I know some companies don’t really mean unlimited even though they call it unlimited, but the way I understood it is at HR is telling them that they will be able to take all the vacation days they had planned to take if they hadn’t changed it. but I find the way that that is worded confusing also.

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    2. Ellis Bell*

      I’ve never worked in an unlimited PTO system, but I don’t understand how you can be told you can have it, and then it just gets turned down without cause. Like, if I have 25 days holiday to take, and I’ve only taken 20, then I don’t have to take the five days on the exact same week everyone else has off – so okay, I’lltake it the week after. What I don’t understand is how these refusals are being phrases in this system. In a typical system it’s “we don’t have coverage” or “you’ve used up your allowance”. Im imagining a lot of “not in the near future, try again later?” Also, it sounds like you’d need to do a lot of communication as a group to figure out the boss is only allowing two weeks off, but then surely the numbers speak for themselves?

      Reply ↓
  4. Scottish Beanie*

    One thing I absolutely hate is when I’m answering a question or addressing someone, and a colleague says “what she’s trying to say is…“. That drives me up the wall and it’s like nails on a chalkboard. Coworkers out there, please don’t try to finish your colleagues sentences or disrupt them mid-sentence. It is rude beyond belief and does not reflect well at all, especially when it’s someone of a marginalized identity constantly experiencing it at the hands of a white woman.

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  5. Sally*

    OP3: I thought you cannot get unemployment benefit if you get fired for cause. Doesn’t refusing to go through with the PIP potentially put you in danger of this?

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    2. allathian*

      That’s why the agreement not to contest unemployment benefits is so important. Employers can pay unemployment benefits even in cases where they aren’t strictly speaking required to do so by law, or at least that’s my understanding of how the system works in the US.

      I’m in Finland, and we have single-payer unemployment benefits. Both employers and employees pay a percentage of salary to a fund from which unemployment benefits are paid out, and employers have no say in whether a particular employee gets benefits or not. You can get benefits regardless of the reason for losing your job, although the mandatory waiting period is longer if you’re fired for cause than if you’re laid off/furloughed.

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    3. Cj*

      you are eligible for unemployment if you are fired because you are not good at your job. you aren’t eligible if you are fired for misconduct, insubordination, etc.

      in the letter writer’s case though, I would want it in writing that they want contest their unemployment because it could be considered quitting your job if you are leaving it before your PIP time is over. plus you could pass your PIP, and wouldn’t get fired.

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    4. Sally*

      Also, has OP considered that it might be much harder to find a new job if officially ‘fired’? I think it would be better to find a new job while on a PIP, though I understand it is very stressful. I don’t think you have to disclose in a job interview if you are currently on a PIP, but you are often asked directly if you have been fired.

      Reply ↓
  7. Testing*

    Does ”open PTO” actually mean unlimited PTO, though? The letter just says that different kinds of time off aren’t separated, not that the pot is theoretically unlimited.

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  8. Bilateralrope*

    LW1: Managements refusal to give specific examples, then lying about the people complaints came from, makes me think that they are unable to give examples because the poor communication never happened.

    I also note that the gender of the other person in Wendy’s position was not stated in your letter. Which makes me wonder if that’s relevant.

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    1. Your Former Password Resetter*

      Vague complaints with no concrete examples or feedback definitely seems to be a common smokescreen for more underhanded motivations.

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    2. soontoberetired*

      I know managers who have taken feedback and warped it to fit a view they wanted. I gave what was postive feedback once, telling the manager the person was capable of doing more than what the kept getting assigned, so please assign the more complicated stuff, we aren’t using the person to their full potential. It got turned into the person was a slacker. Some managers just suck.

      Reply ↓
  9. Clementine*

    For the person on a PIP, I’d suggest consulting with a lawyer before making any moves to negotiate. You might be in an at-will state (sounds pretty likely), but there are other factors to consider in any event.

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    1. Cj*

      what difference does it make if they are in an at will or not? I’m curious as all, not meaning to argue with you that it doesn’t make a difference.

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  10. Nodramalama*

    For LW3, in the U.S is it likely that jobs will ask if you have ever been fired? It’s quite a common question in Australia so if possible I think I’d rather try find a new job, as stressful as it is, while I still have my current one.

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  11. UnlimitedPTO*

    I don’t fully understand the answer to #4. From the description I don’t think this is what I work but it could be as they’ve also recently made the same decision. To me it feels like getting agreement with your manager that you will ‘take’ the rolled over PTO (eg they won’t penalise you if you end up taking more weeks ‘than normal’ in the first year) would be a lot more likely than one or two people complaining meaning the rollout is delayed.

    If the company is large then the rollout date impacts HR tooling & financial reporting, and asking for more notice has zero chance of success and would look pretty naive.

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  12. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

    OP1 – unfortunate, apparently the manager is attempting a “divide and conquer” strategy here (turning you against Wendy).

    Unfortunate again, because rarely will a manager redo or expunge an unfair employee review. The worst career move a manager can do is to appear indecisive or, “wishy-washy”. The general procedure for a manager to work around it – if the affected employee decides to bail, and the employee is critical, often a “new review” is written, the employee has suddenly “turned it around”.

    In my 47 year career, I have only had a bad review re-written (once) and one, effectively expunged when I refused to sign it. That gave the manager an opportunity to undo the damage it would have caused, not just for me, but for him if I had to respond to it.

    There had been a major incident where the director AND manager pulled a “nasty” on me (long story) and regretted it ….and caused a temporary attitude problem — and they didn’t want HR to find out what they had done.

    So they backed away from it – insomuch that they wanted to go forward there as much as I did, they expunged the review. The situation created an aroma, and HR somehow got wind of it. The director breathed a sigh of relief when I wouldn’t discuss the issue when HR pressed it in a three-way meeting with HR, him, and me.

    Yeah I won that battle but it was one I would have rather avoided.

    Reply ↓

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