employer wants to see my family tree, coworker hawks up snot in the kitchen every day, and more by Alison Green on October 24, 2024 It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Should my employee provide any explanation for her repeated last-minute time off? One of my employees, Ciera, has been regularly requesting her PTO at the last minute over the past few months. For example, she’ll submit a request over the weekend to have Monday off once or twice per month. Our request form has an optional comment box where Ciera can include a note to me, but she always leaves it empty. I don’t need a specific reason for why she’s requesting the day off, but given the repeated last-minute notice, is it unreasonable of me to want some kind of ballpark explanation for why it’s coming in so late (i.e., her waitlist for an appointment came through, she thought she put in the request earlier and forgot, a family emergency came up, etc.)? While I can typically accommodate the request, it can sometimes strain our workload when we can’t plan in advance. Without any kind of explanation, these continual last-minute requests are starting to make me question her reliability in a way that I probably wouldn’t if I had some context. Am I off-base feeling this way? I don’t want to appear to be prying into her private life (I don’t need to know what the appointment is for or what the family emergency is), but I would like to come up with a solution that would allow her to request her PTO earlier if possible or at least get a heads up that she has A Thing going on that means these last-minute requests will probably continue and we need to put a plan in place to help us better prep for unexpected absences. I don’t think you’re off-base. In jobs where coverage is needed or where an unexpected absence will cause a strain on other people, PTO normally comes with some expectation of advance notice unless the person is sick or has an emergency. In many jobs, last-minute requests can still be accommodated, but when it’s happening a lot with no context, it’s reasonable to wonder what’s going on and to want to make sure that you’re both on the same page about how time off is managed. It’s also reasonable that you’d be more willing to shoulder whatever burden the last-minute requests cause if you understand that they are necessary rather than Ciera just, for example, feeling on Sunday that she’d rather not come in the next day. The right next step is to talk to her and let her know it puts a strain on the team to accommodate frequent last-minute time-off and ask if she’s able to give you more advance notice. Include something like, “Unless you’re sick or have an unanticipated emergency, it’s easier on the team if we can get more advance notice. Thinking back to your recent time-off requests, does that seem like something you’d be able to do more often?” She may not realize it matters either way, and just having this conversation might change how she approaches it. Related: my staff keeps requesting time off at the last minute, even though I keep asking for advance notice how should I handle last-minute schedule change requests without being a jerk? 2. Coworker hawks up snot in the kitchen every day Warning: if the headline didn’t alert you, this is gross. About six months ago, we returned to the office three days a week. The building is new and there are pretty nice kitchens on each floor with sinks and fridges and places to eat lunch. I eat my lunch earlier than most of my coworkers so I’m often the only person in there. Often, while I’m sitting and reading and eating my lunch, a person from another group whose name I don’t know comes in and performs what I can only describe as the most thorough evacuation of all the mucus in her sinuses and lungs I have ever had the misfortune to observe. For at least five minutes she cycles between deep, liquid throat-clearing and coughing, rich snorty snot-inhaling and sinus-clearing, and spitting the results into the sink or into napkins, which she then throws into the trash. She does this over the counter, next to the coffee mugs and tea, near the office fruit box and snack dispensers, right in there with food and utensils and everything. It’s one of the most astonishingly disgusting experiences I’ve ever had at work, and I’ve worked at a university where the campus food service catered our meetings. What can I even do about this? I don’t want to confront her, although she clearly has no self-awareness and isn’t self-conscious about it or she’d go in the bathrooms or outside or something instead of doing her stuff in the kitchen. Also, I’m a tallish man and she is a shortish woman, and I’m not sure how that would look, Should I take this to HR? Put up a passive-aggressive sign? It’s incredibly gross and she does it almost every time I’m in there eating lunch. Maybe she does it more than once a day, even. Whatever, a shared kitchen isn’t the place to be clearing out ridiculous quantities of snot. Any advice you can offer would be welcome. I didn’t really want to go back to the office in the first place, but this makes it much much worse than I’d anticipated. From what infernal pit of hell did your coworker ascend? Is there any chance you’re on a reality show and being punked? Because this is disgusting. The next time it happens, you could just say to her, “Would you mind doing that in the bathroom?” Feel free to add, “There’s food and clean dishes right near you.” I hear you on feeling weird about the gender dynamics, but she’s doing something truly gross and you’re allowed to ask her to take it to a more appropriate location. I don’t think it rises to the level of HR … although I also don’t think it would be wildly out of line to ask them to handle it if you really don’t want to speak up yourself, given how unsanitary it is, which affects more people than just the lone unfortunate witness. (This is the kind of thing that makes HR people question their life choices, but that’s not your problem.) Don’t do the sign though, as much I enjoy imaging what it might say; this is something where someone needs to just have a direct conversation with this reprobate. 3. My employer wants to see my family tree I work for my local county in the Human Resources department. Our county attorney is rewriting some polices, including nepotism, which will be retroactive once approved by the board. For background, I live rurally and my family was an original settler of the area in the 1800’s. The county is the largest employer in our area with over 500 employees. My family on both sides is quite large and the majority of us all still live locally. I have two family members who work for the county. Both are distant cousins, a father and son in different departments. I didn’t know they were employed by the county when I applied or was hired. Of course, as soon I found out, I disclosed this to my manager. There was no problem mentioned at that time. Now, a year later, the new polices are being developed, and I’m being asked to submit a family tree to show exactly how distant the relationship is. It’s not only distant on the tree, it’s emotionally distant as well. I haven’t spent any real time with these people since I was a small child in the 1990’s. Others in my department seem to not have been asked for a family tree even though they have family employed by the county as well, which is made very clear and openly appear as a very close family relationship. They often discuss weekend plans together, family dinners, etc. When I’ve asked how family is being defined, my manager isn’t able to give me a straight answer. I’m curious if you’ve heard of this before? How do I navigate potentially being asked to leave my job based on a policy that didn’t exist when I was hired (but I’ve been told will be retroactive, thus affecting my job directly) and doesn’t seem to affect others in my department? It’s not unreasonable for them to want clarification on the exact relationship, but it’s unreasonable to only require it of you and not of others. Are you sure other people aren’t being asked similar questions? If they’re not, is there anything that could explain the difference in treatment, like that you’re in a position of authority or influence that they’re not in? Or that those relationships are already clear and don’t require more info? Also, has anyone actually said you could be asked to leave your job over this, as opposed to simply wanting the info so they can put in place any necessary safeguards against conflicts of interest? I would assume it’s likely to be the latter unless something specific has made you think it’s the former. If you do end up being asked to leave your job over a policy that isn’t applied to others who are similarly situated, you should push back on that — with a union if you have one, or with an attorney if you don’t. That said, government employers are normally fairly risk-averse about applying clear-cut policies to one person and not to others so, again, unless you have reason to think that will happen, there’s a good chance that’s not where this is going. 4. What should I do in meetings with someone on an improvement plan who’s not improving? I have an employee with performance issues who is basically on an informal PIP because we don’t have enough documentation of the issues to put her on a formal PIP. I’ve clearly laid out my expectations for what she needs to do and by when, and she’s indicated that she understands. I’ve also told her that the consequences of not meeting these goals are that she will be put on a formal PIP. We’ve previously discussed her personal issues that may be contributing, and I’ve repeatedly offered her FMLA, accommodations, and the EAP, which she has not to my knowledge taken advantage of. What do I do during my weekly check-in meetings with her? There are occasionally things where I need to ask her “did you do X?” but most of the time I am already aware of whether she has completed her tasks or not. Some weeks she’s doing well and meeting the goals, some weeks she’s not, so there’s no sustained improvement yet. It feels weird to go into that meeting like “you didn’t do the thing. Do the thing,” for the 20th time. HR said we should document her performance and my communication with her through the end of the year in order to have enough info to get a PIP approved. What do I do in weekly meetings for the next three months where we both already know the status? If you’re not seeing the sustained improvement you told her was needed and you’re having to repeatedly remind her to do things she’s not doing, you should tell HR you’ve seen enough to be ready to move to the formal PIP now rather than dragging this out. But meanwhile, use the check-in meetings to give feedback on what you’re seeing and to flag that you’re not seeing the needed improvements: “I’m concerned that you haven’t done XYZ. This is an example of what we’ve discussed needed to improve. What happened?” It sounds like you’ll be repeating that a lot, and there’s no way around that. 5. How do I set goals at a job I don’t like? Last fall, I was laid off from a job I really loved. Earlier this year, I started a new job I’ve always disliked. While the job is technically in the industry and field I want to be in, I’m not using the skills or knowledge I’ve worked hard to amass. I’m passionate about consumers, but we are firmly B2B. My boss isn’t particularly kind, and we’ve butted heads on lots of issues. I’ve continued looking for a new job since day 3, but I’m still here many months later. Over the summer, my boss was supposed to conduct a mid-year performance review, but he never did. This would have included setting goals for the rest of the year, so those goals have never been set. He mentioned last week that soon, we’d start working on setting goals for 2025. But I can’t for the life of me figure out what good goals are for this job when my goal is to find a different job and get out of here. What are generic professional goals I could be working towards in this position? Or how can I think about the goals differently to come up with things I’d like to work on? Don’t think of this as being about goals for you personally; think of it as being about goals for the position, regardless of who’s in it. In other words, it’s about what needs to be done for the work; if you were replaced tomorrow, what would a successful 2025 look like for the person who took over? For example, if you work in online media, you might have goals around increasing click-through rate or adding email subscribers. If you work in finance, it might be about having a clean audit and lowering overhead costs by X%. If you work in IT, it might be implementing a new CMS and resolving the database errors that have been plaguing your team. And so on — they’re goals that anyone could inherit if you leave, and they describe what successful work or progress would look like for the position, not a specific person who happens to be in it. You may also like:my coworker sent a snotty message about me on a Zoom callI was rejected because I told my interviewer I never make mistakesan overly cheerful executive keeps ordering me to feel great { 24 comments }
Daria grace* October 24, 2024 at 12:11 am #5, another option here is broad goals related to tools that will be useful in any job in your field. Eg I’d like to improve my skills at creating reports from excel data or learn basic python programming or take a public speaking class Reply ↓
Nodramalama* October 24, 2024 at 12:12 am I’m slightly focused by the situation in LW3, but if LW has disclosed that they have distant cousins working and the other people have closer relationships, isn’t it possible that those people haven’t been asked to show a family tree because it’s obvious what their relationship is? There’s no need for a family tree if the other person is their first cousin or sister-in-law. But a “distant” cousin could be anything. Reply ↓
TheBunny* October 24, 2024 at 12:23 am This was my take. I don’t need an explanation to understand someone is a nephew. But cousin twice removed on the side of my mother’s brother’s wife? I’m going to need a tree, a diagram, and 20 uninterrupted minutes. Reply ↓
Cmdrshprd* October 24, 2024 at 12:41 am “When I’ve asked how family is being defined, my manager isn’t able to give me a straight answer.” Further I wonder if OP is being asked for a family tree so the policy can be written in a way that makes OP and the cousins in the clear. e.g. they are OPs third cousins, so they will write the policy to count family/nepotism as 2nd cousins or less/closer, leaving OP and cousins in the clear. or they are 2nd cousins and they write it as family means 1st cousins and less/closer means family for sake of nepotism policy. I have a big family and get introduced to “new” second/third cousins /aunts/uncles at certain gatherings, often I just take people at their word, because I would need. a diagram to figure it out. Reply ↓
Nodramalama* October 24, 2024 at 1:48 am It might also be that they don’t HAVE a definition of family that would be useful. Especially if it’s to do with managing conflicts of interest and nepotism, saying “family is first cousins but not second cousins once removed” isn’t useful if someone’s second cousin once removed is also the person’s neighbour and works to them Reply ↓
Emmy Noether* October 24, 2024 at 2:47 am I don’t think there can be a useful and fair definition beyond direct-line relationships (those may be estranged, but they’re seldom neutral). Cousins of any degree may be best friends having grown up together like siblings, or they may be functionally strangers. And you can also have family that isn’t technically legally related. Like is your dad’s long-term-live-in-but-now-separated girlfriend that you still see weekly family? There’s no possible definition that will accurately reflect all that. Reply ↓
nnn* October 24, 2024 at 12:30 am I’m not clear in #3 whether they’re being asked to map out their relationship to these distant cousins via the medium of family tree (i.e. draw a diagram that shows that it’s their mother’s father’s brother’s daughter’s son’s wife’s son) or whether they’re being asked to submit a comprehensive family tree because they’re related to other county employees. The first one you could sketch out with pencil and paper, the second one might take extensive research. Reply ↓
RPOhno* October 24, 2024 at 12:46 am LW5, you could also go with my favorite kind of goal: thing you have to do anyway that is readily quantified. For me that’s frequently developing procedures or implementing new training requirements, but there are likely things you have to do anyway that fit into a SMART goal template. Reply ↓
Coverage Associate* October 24, 2024 at 1:12 am It’s a partial family tree, just to show the relationships at issue, not like your whole family tree on both your mother’s and father’s sides? If you want to comply, or explore what complying might look like, the first thing I would do is google “table of consanguinity.” This is the “family tree” form that lawyers use. It has 2 advantages here. First, sometimes it’s useful to have a form to fill in rather than just starting with a blank piece of paper. Second, you can easily fill in just enough to explain the relationships at issue, rather than a full family tree. Oh, and it will give you the proper terminology for the relationships (eg, second cousin or first cousin once removed). Really, having the relationships defined or properly named should be enough for the employer, rather than a chart. Oh oh, unlike how I was taught to do family trees in school or how I have seen them in museums’ information, the tables of consanguinity don’t mark for children born to married parents v not. In fact, they only have space for one parent for each person in the chart, so again just the bare minimum information to explain the relationships. (Again, even for yourself, if one relative was from your father’s side and one from your mother’s, you would have to fill out 2, but because they’re father and son, their relationship to each other and you will be clear on the table.) If you do want to consult a lawyer, or maybe just get a little more advice, some laws about collecting medical and genetic histories by employers have been applied to family history information at least adjacent to what’s being asked for here, so that could be something to explore as another reason the ask is improper. Reply ↓
Mark* October 24, 2024 at 1:15 am #LW3. Do they really want a family tree or just it written down for them to file away? Just simply stating in writing that Bob in accounts is my mothers first cousins husband and that Bobbie Junior in IT is his son should be sufficient. Ask your other work colleagues what was required of them, if they got a form to fill in, and then just do the same. Usually companies just want this stuff on file. If you feel you are being treated differently just ask. “I asked Miranda my cube neighbour what she did as her husband works in the parks dept and she filled out this form so here is my copy. She was not asked for a family tree so why am I being asked for something different?” Maybe you will find out that they were excited to hear you were from an original founding family and wanted to promote that in some way or they know that Lucinda in the canteen said you were her step sister and they want to figure out if there is some deep family secret you know nothing about? If you do feel you may be fired it does seem a very drastic step to single you out about so Alison’s advice is spot on Reply ↓
Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd* October 24, 2024 at 1:19 am OP3 (family tree request) – I expect all the relationships are being documented as part of this compliance initiative, but they don’t all require a family tree e.g. “father” or “sister in law” etc are obvious without a family tree. As for why it needs to be documented in such detail for a distant cousin – I expect this is the typical “over-enforcement” that new initiatives often seem to get (you see this with many types of new policy). It doesn’t matter that you aren’t in close contact with them for the purposes of this policy – it just needs to get on the record that they are your grandparent’s sister’s son’s sister in law or whatever. I doubt you are in danger of losing your job over this although I can understand the anxiety. Reply ↓
Myrin* October 24, 2024 at 1:20 am #2, this sounds absolutely terrible but I have to say that as an entirely uninvolved outsider, “It’s one of the most astonishingly disgusting experiences I’ve ever had at work” has me in stitches at shortly past 7 AM right now. You clearly have a way with words! I was just about to say that that doesn’t help you at all but actually, now that I think about it, it might actually help you for real – I reckon Alison’s proposed phrasing is excellent and I’m sure you can use it in a way that feels natural. Good luck! Reply ↓
Formerly Ella Vader* October 24, 2024 at 2:24 am and the contextual placement of “and I’ve worked at a university where the campus food service catered our meetings.” makes it even better. Reply ↓
Artistic Impulses* October 24, 2024 at 1:25 am LW #2, you must speak to the phlegm clearer immediately! I don’t care if you are 6’7″ and she is 5’1″, this really cannot go on. Not only is it totally disgusting, it is probably also a threat to the health of office at large. If you really cannot bring yourself to speak to her when she is doing it, please take Alison’s advice and go to HR. Run, don’t walk! Someone this clueless of the most basic office etiquette needs to be clued in ASAP. I am shaking my head at how appalling this is. What a mess, pun intended! Reply ↓
RLC* October 24, 2024 at 1:29 am LW2’s coworker would have made quite a pair with a former colleague who 1) unrolled yards of toilet roll from bathroom 2) blew nose along length of paper 3) draped it on a makeshift drying line (piece of twine strung over his desk) to dry and reuse. Boss politely asked him to remove it, throw in bin; employee balked and accused boss of “asking him to waste resources”. Boss held firm and employee relented, whining about being told to waste paper. Some people can be so, so gross in their habits. Reply ↓
The Prettiest Curse* October 24, 2024 at 2:01 am This letter, plus this comment, should make the LW from a few weeks back who was unhappy that their colleague was blowing their nose while in their office and throwing it into that LW’s bin feel a bit less aggrieved. I’m very grateful that all the phlegm-y coughers I’ve ever worked with have kept their hacking out of the kitchen, because ewwwwwwww. Reply ↓
Hanna* October 24, 2024 at 1:31 am OP2, as a person with frequent horrific phlegmy coughs (allergies, irritable airways, a poorly-shaped skull; it generates a lot of concern from others, but I’m really just Like This and there’s nothing to do about it) I have some thoughts: 1. Horking up phlegm is BATHROOM ACTIVITY, and you are well within your rights to request that she do that elsewhere. A plain old, “Elsa, could I please ask you to do that in the bathroom? Thanks,” is fine. 2. Entering a kitchen solely to cough is a strange and inconsiderate choice. Even though most of my coughing is not contagious (the occasional virus notwithstanding,) it still freaks people out and it’s best practice to shield other people from one’s bodily experiences even if you’re sure that you’re not contagious. So again, you’re well within your rights to ask her to be somewhere else. If the situation was different–if she was eating her lunch and happened to have a bad cough and took care to cough into her elbow and made a polite comment to reassure others that it’s not contagious–then yeah, sometimes bodies are just kind of gross and you have to accept it. But that is SO NOT the situation you’re in. Say your request in a calm, even tone of voice, from a seated position so that you’re not looming over her, and it should be fine. Reply ↓
Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd* October 24, 2024 at 1:38 am OP4 (informal PIP) – get documenting! Contrary to the answer, I don’t think OP should push for the PIP yet with HR, as they will likely just get rebuffed with “not enough documentation”. So start documenting these conversations. Yes, that means asking questions you already know the answer to like “what’s the status of the x project”. Ask how the employee thinks they have done against the expectation and why. Do you think she knows that she isn’t making a sustained improvement? Is it “good enough” in her mind? It does need to be made explicit if not already. You can use a variation of the “STAR” interview technique as a framework for this. What is the context (situation), what is the specific task/expectation, what actually happened, and what the impact is of that. Reply ↓
Tzz4lfe* October 24, 2024 at 2:17 am LW1, did you ever ask her why she was requesting time off or ask her to fill in the comments field on the request form? In our time keeping system, we also have a comment field, but to my knowledge no one uses it and I’m not event sure if my manager would even read it. If you want something from your employees, ask them directly. Do not just expect them to take the hint. Reply ↓
Irish Teacher.* October 24, 2024 at 2:37 am LW5, I don’t think work goals are really about what you want to achieve so much as what the plan is for the job. It’s more about what you think needs to be completed in the next year in order to do the job well rather than what you’d like to see yourself doing in the next year. Reply ↓
AskingForTimeOff* October 24, 2024 at 2:52 am OP1, I’ve never worked in a job that needs coverage in the sense of X staff working each shift or similar and I’ve never had a job where it would be okay to request random time off (i.e. not illness or death in the family or similar unpredictable event) the day before, let alone over a weekend for that Monday off. Pre- pandemic I would ask for a week or so off with only a week or so advance notice once every 1-1.5 years because my dad couldn’t sort out his schedule to visit with more advance notice (sometimes I’d be able to give my boss a heads up I might be asking for the time off in the next few weeks). I assumed you were going to be complaining about something like this, as some folks were unhappy about only a week if so of advance notice. Requesting it over the weekend for Monday is crazy. At my current job I tentatively ask for a day or two off at a time, sometimes a week or so and sometimes a bit more in advance, and sometimes adjust to meet demands that pop up after the request. I just asked for a few extra days off in November, for example, and likely will do the same for December as we get closer. Do you ever say no to any time off requests? Because bosses do say no for a variety of reasons (mostly workload) at most of the places I’ve worked. It’s one of the reasons I’m opposed to so-called unlimited PTO – it too easily turns into no time off. If you never turn fine requests, though, I could see people getting lax and seeing it as a formality rather than a requirement. I would reiterate the necessity of requesting time off and remind people it’s not official unless/until it’s accepted, then put in some guidelines for expected time off (request at least 3 business days in advance or 1 week or whatever) and make exceptions as deemed appropriate. Reply ↓
AskingForTimeOff* October 24, 2024 at 2:54 am that should be never turn down requests in the last paragraph. hate autocomplete… Reply ↓
KateM* October 24, 2024 at 3:05 am I was also wondering of OP approved the time-off requests even when it strained their workload. A couple times not approving saying that it would strain their workload too much when they can’t play in advance seems like something that could be a wake-up call. Reply ↓