manager says I have to come in despite a doctor’s note, boss interrupted me in the bathroom, and more

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

1. Manager says I have to come in even though my doctor says to stay home

My company has just increased the number of days we’re expected to be in office. We were fully remote for two years during the pandemic, so the shift to hybrid work has been a big adjustment, as is the new increase to our in-office days.

If you miss an in-office day and don’t make it up in the same week, you get a strike. After three strikes in a six month period, you may be subject to disciplinary action / it may impact your performance review and standing.

Today, I’m working from home with a horrendous cough and fever. My doctor has advised that I should work from home all week to avoid getting my coworkers sick (and gave me a note that I submitted to work). My manager has advised that I should come in later this week as long as my fever is gone so that my performance review doesn’t suffer. I’ve been advised to mask up and to find a meeting room where I can set up camp for the day, so I can isolate while checking the attendance box.

Is there any world in which this is reasonable? I think that if a medical professional has said I shouldn’t be around other people, I shouldn’t come into the office. And asking me to contradict a doctor’s guidance is pretty wild. (For what it’s worth, we live in a large city so coming in will mean being next to strangers on public transit or spending $50+ each way on an Uber.)

No, there’s no world in which that’s reasonable, unless you’re, I don’t know, engaged in some kind of life and death work where you are the only person who can carry out your portion of an incredibly important mission that will result in loss of life or limb if you’re not there. Any chance that’s the case?

Assuming not, your manager is being wildly unreasonable. Maybe that’s because she is wildly unreasonable, or maybe it’s because she’s under extreme pressure from above to make people comply with the new in-office policy and doesn’t have the savvy to know there are times when you still need to push back, who knows.

You can try spelling it out for her: “Are you saying my performance review could suffer because I’m following a doctor’s advice to stay home for a full week? That doesn’t seem right and I wonder if it’s something we can check with HR.”

Otherwise, she’s telling you to return as long as your fever is gone, so it sounds like your fever won’t be gone this week.

Related:
does an employer have to act on a doctor’s note?

2. My boss asked me to take a call while I was in the bathroom

I was sitting at my desk this morning when I suddenly needed to go “number two.” I hate to do this because I work in a converted townhouse where the bathrooms are just one toilet and sink, like in a house. But this was a serious situation!

I was sitting there and I heard my boss outside the bathroom door:
“Molly, are you in there?”
“Um, yes. Yes, I am.”
“Mr. Smith is on the phone.”
Well, I certainly can’t take a phone call NOW, you boob! But I said, “Could you ask him to call back?”
“How long are you going to be in there?”
A very personal question, sir! “As long as it takes, I guess.”

Then another coworker walked by and he started discussing something with her, right outside the door. It was like a staff meeting, except one person was trying to poop. This whole experience left me discombobulated! Should I complain to him about it, or talk to HR?

Eh, hopefully it was one awkward/thoughtless moment and not the start of a pattern. He was in the wrong, but it’s not something you need to do anything about unless it keeps happening. If it does happen again, you could say to him (not through the bathroom door, but when you’re in more of a position to talk), “When I’m in the bathroom, I’m indisposed and can’t take calls. Can you please let the person know I’m away from my desk and will call them back if that happens?”

This isn’t an HR issue unless it’s happening a lot and he’s, like, banging on the door while you’re in there.

Also, a white noise machine inside the bathroom or right outside of it might make this set-up a lot more comfortable.

3. My employee asked me for a reference … for a job I’m also applying to

I’m a mid-level manager at a company who is happy with my job but open to other opportunities. One of my employees, Sansa, is looking for other work openly, because we can’t offer competitive compensation or the hours that she would prefer. I love Sansa — she’s great at her job and I absolutely understand why she would be looking for other employment. She asked me to be a reference and I happily agreed. All has been well, and I have provided a reference for her that resulted in a job offer that didn’t end up working out. Yesterday, she mentioned a job that I also applied to. Eeek!

This job would be a step back in responsibility for me but would offer more pay, better benefits, and more time off. It would be a step forward for her, and probably a great fit. If they called me for a reference, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her. But in the back of my mind, I worry about all eventual scenarios. What if we’re in the final round, and they ask for references? What if I get the job and haven’t told her that I applied? Will she feel lied to? Backstabbed? What if she gets the job and finds out after I also applied but lost out to her … will our professional relationship be awkward afterward? Should I tell her now before we’ve even gotten to interviews? We are in a niche field so are bound to continue running into each other. But more importantly, we get along really well as coworkers and generally have a lot of department camaraderie that I wouldn’t want to color with a negative experience at the end of our working relationship. I have a lot of respect for her. I always tell my staff that it’s a job, not a family, and they should put themselves first, but I’m having trouble navigating the lines between what’s professional courtesy and what’s divulging information that’s unnecessary for them to know.

Oooh, yeah, if you feel like you can safely share with her that you’ve applied for that job yourself, with risking repercussions in your current organization, I would. Otherwise, if you end up getting the job and that’s the first time she learns of it, she’s likely to wonder if you only applied because she told you about it (not that people have dibs on job openings, but no one wants to feel their reference swiped an opening out from under them) or if you gave her a less-than-glowing reference in order to get the job yourself.

You can avoid all that if you tell her now. Say that you want to be up-front with her that you had already applied for the position and you are still happy to give her a glowing reference if she wants, but you wanted to be transparent with her in case she’d rather use someone else.

Related:
my reference applied for the job I wanted, after I told her about it

4. Is it better to be interviewed first or last?

Is it better to go early or late in the interviewing process?

I usually choose the first interview time available to (1) show I’m excited about the position and (2) set the standard for everyone else (and to knock out the competition if I’m lucky). But that means I’m waiting on tenterhooks while the employer figures out what they’re trying to do and out of sight, out of mind. Would it be better to go as close to last as possible because it, in theory, shortens my wait time and my meeting is fresh in the mind?

Basically, I need a damn job and I’m willing to try any voodoo that might help.

It really doesn’t matter that much.

There is research showing people remember the first and last in a series better than those in the middle, but if you’re a strong candidate your’e very unlikely to be forgotten just because you were interviewed in the middle. Plus, if you go first, you might set the bar for everyone else — or your interviewer might think, “She was good but we’re so early in the process” and not put any special weight on you.

Moreover, you don’t have enough context on the list of slots they’re offering. For all you know, someone else has already taken an earlier slot or a later slot and you’re just hearing about the remaining ones. Plus, things change all the time — you could have what you think is their last slot and then a great candidate emerges and they need to wait until that person can be scheduled, which drags out the process for everyone, or things get delayed for other reasons. There’s just really no way to game this. Take the slot that’s convenient for you and don’t put more thought into it than that.

To the extent that any voodoo is available, it’s in preparing really well for the interview, not in where your interview falls.

5. My title is different in different places — which one do I use?

In part thanks to your resume advice, I have managed to leave my old, hated industry and entered a new one! There’s a whole new set of industry norms to maneuver, however, and one is perplexing me. On internal documents, I have one title — think llama farmer relationship manager II” — but on outside-facing or public documents I am styled simply “operations specialist.” Which one do I use — on credit card applications, on my voter registration, on future resumes? When my parents ask?

In cases where someone is likely to check the title (like a background check), you should use the title that your company will confirm, which might be the internal one … but might be either of them, depending on how your company does things. For everything else, you can use whichever of the two you prefer, since they’re both accurate.

And for the first category, where you need to make sure it’ll match up with what the company will say, ask your boss! You don’t need to say it’s for future reference checks; you can say you want to make sure you’re using the right title on things like credit card applications.

{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }

    1. Caramel & Cheddar*

      Or taking actual sick days when you’re sick, even if you are allowed to work from home. LW your boss or someone up your reporting chain sucks, obviously, and I don’t know if that gave added pressure to work through a fever and cough, but if you’re sick enough to warrant a doctor’s note, you’re sick enough to at least take a sick day on the day you have a fever. If you don’t have sick days, there’s a lot wrong going on here.

      Reply
      1. Miko*

        Yeah, #1 sounds like a white collar office job, but unless I’m misreading the letter, they don’t get sick time… at all? If you’re out you’re supposed to make it up later in the week. What if you’re actually… sick? For an entire week?

        Reply
        1. Daria grace*

          A previous dysfunctional workplace of mine expected days in office to be caught up if you were working from home because you were too sick to be in the office but not sick enough to need sick leave

          Reply
      2. Elsa*

        Yes, I also don’t understand why LW1 isn’t taking sick leave. And if she is choosing to work from home instead of taking sick leave (in order to save up sick leave for something else??), then it’s perfectly legitimate for the manager to insist that the days be taken as sick leave once LW1 is not able to fulfill the requirement of coming in to the office.

        Reply
      3. Keyboard Cowboy*

        Yeah, that was my take too. Policies like this probably have exceptions for actual OOO. So if you have the sick time to spare, use that instead of dinging your in office counts. If they wanted your work when you’re sick, they would have made an allowance in the policy for this incredibly common situation.

        Reply
      4. Roland*

        Yes! We regressed so badly in this with WFH. Just because you won’t get anyone sick doesn’t mean you should be working.

        Reply
  1. Priscilla Tells It Like It Is*

    Number 1, you are so sad you can’t come in because you wake up over and over with the fever this week. Heartbreaking!

    Reply
    1. Software Engineer*

      #1 sounds like my former employer during the pandemic. They forced people to come in sick and isolate in private offices… to participate in Microsoft Team meetings.

      Reply
  2. Nodramalama*

    Huh, interesting answer about LW4 interview times. I don’t know if it’s because government interviews are highly regimented with rubrics and specific questions that need to be answered, but honestly, if I’m interviewing 8-9 people a day, by the 7th the interviewees tend to blend into one, and it can be hard to keep track. There are only so many ways to tell a STAR example of when you had to take initiative in a task.

    Although I don’t really understand this idea that interviewing early in the day means you’re waiting longer. I’ve never seen a hiring decision made the day of the interview so you’d be waiting either way.

    I would personally avoid interview slots late in the day or just before lunch.

    Reply
    1. Decidedly Me*

      I don’t think this is necessarily about interview slots that are all on the same day. When I last interviewed, I had choices ranging from the next day to the end of the following week. As it turns out, I was one of the first people interviewed, so I definitely had a longer wait between interview rounds. However, I wouldn’t have picked a later time just to reduce those wait times.

      Reply
      1. Nodramalama*

        Ohhh yes tht is a good point. I was envisaging it across one or two days because thats how most of the recruitments I’m familiar with is run.

        Reply
  3. Not your typical admin*

    Number two is crazy! I can’t imagine asking someone to take a call in that situation. I think my response would have been “I’m sorry, but I’m indisposed at the moment”, and then just kept repeating that until they stopped/went away.

    Reply
  4. Certaintroublemaker*

    LW5, my institution has done a great job of creating job families and hierarchy to ensure common job duties and pay levels across the whole organization. Those are the job titles that show up in the org phonebook and what HR would confirm. But a sysadmin III who is team lead for Microsoft Outlook is different from a sysadmin III who operates the high performance computing data center, which is what a more direct reference would confirm. I use the generic, public title on regular forms like taxes, and use the descriptive title in places like my resume.

    If you think an interviewer might call a reference and central HR, you could have both:

    Big Ag Corp.
    2022-present
    Llama Farmer Relationship Manager II
    Operations Specialist responsible for …

    (Or if the job you’re looking for isn’t llama based, switch the placement of the titles and emphasize the way your skill set can work for their needs.)

    Reply
    1. Disappointed Australien*

      Where I work it’s even worse. We have Directors, Engineers and Factory Staff. And an Admin. That’s it. Although we may be changing to have Senior Engineers as well, because we have graduate engineers who’ve been here too long to still be called graduates. I want to be an “Elderly Engineer” but the person making up the org chart is being difficult.

      I get the impression the USA puts more weight on job titles and qualifications, though. Australia tends to be laid back, employers are more interested in how well your CV matches their requirements.

      Reply
  5. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

    OP4 (interview timing strategy) – as an interviewer, I don’t think the order in which I’ve spoken to people has had any impact or significance in itself – once the interviews are scheduled, generally we will see them through rather than get a candidate earlier who is so obviously right for us that we just cancel the rest of the interviews (although I guess it can happen)

    As an interviewee – if you’re a much stronger candidate than you think most other people will be, I think it would be an advantage to go later – because the interviewers would have already spoken to other people, thought “hmm none of these really seem like the right choice” and then they have something to compare you to!

    Reply
  6. Thepuppiesareok*

    OP #1 simplist solution is you have a fever the entire week. If you’ve never had a fever last that long let me assure you it happens. The correct response to this is concern on how you’re doing. After you’re well enough I’d circle back to HR or your manager (whoever would be more receptive) and say you were concerned you were advised to go against medical advice despite being able to work from home and avoid an office break out. Can we clarify the policy on in office days when you have a note saying to stay home? I have no patience for employers that prioritize butts in seats over people’s health after COVID. Both myself and one person I live with are in high risk groups. The other person is immunocompromised and will be recovering for 3-4 weeks if she gets something like the flu or COVID. No job is worth risking my and my family’s health for.

    Reply
  7. Bilateralrope*

    #1 I’d advise you to keep that doctors note. That way you can show it to whoever you complain to should your performance review suffer from you following doctors orders.

    Also, start job hunting. Your boss will try the same thing on your coworkers and one of them will probably come into the office to infect everyone.

    Reply
    1. Bird names*

      Oof, I hadn’t considered your last point. Let’s hope that at least one person up the chain sees sense. Otherwise I wish LW a successful and short job-hunt, should they decide to go that route.

      Reply
  8. Neptunesmoon*

    LW1 – Do you not have sick days? If you’re sick enough to go to the doctor, it seems that warrants at least one or two sick days. Maybe part of the problem is powering through, giving the false impression that you’re not that sick.

    Reply

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