HR person secretly helped her mom get hired, coworker is identifying herself as a psychologist when she’s not, and more

by Alison Green on January 15, 2025

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

1. Our HR person helped her mom get hired in secret

I work for a small company of 12 people, led by two partners. In the hierarchy of the company, I am the next tier down from the partners. We are not large enough to have an HR department, so our accountant, “Jan,” operates as the HR person as well as office manager.

We have been looking to hire an executive assistant for the company’s partners and Jan has been in charge of placing the ads, screening the resumes, and doing initial interviews. Jan also attended the interviews with the partners and candidates. An interview was set up with a candidate, but Jan was unable to attend as she was out sick. About a week later, we received an email that this candidate had been hired. We later found out through the rumor mill that this new employee is Jan’s mother and that partners did not know about it until after the offer was made. So far, nothing official regarding their relationship has been shared with the office. Neither Jan nor her mother mentioned at any point in the process that they are mother and daughter. I do know that Partner 1 was not pleased that this information was kept from him, but has the mindset that they need someone in the position, so they are just going to go with it and said that if it doesn’t work out, it’s going to be awkward when Jan has to let her mother go.

There are so many things wrong with this, I don’t know where to begin! I won’t be working directly with Jan’s mother so it probably won’t affect me much one way or another, but part of the job is to help out with accounting, so Jan could potentially be supervising her own mother in some capacity. Our employee handbook does have a small section on employing family members, saying they can’t supervise each other. To me, this brings up serious questions about nepotism and ethics and what appears to be a conscious effort from both of them to conceal this information from the partners.

I have some standing to let both partners know that the optics surrounding this look pretty bad and I worry that this blatant display of poor judgement does not bode well for the future. I guess I know this is really bad, and am interested in your take on the situation.

Yeah, that’s a massive problem. It would be a bad idea to hire someone’s mom to work closely with them under most circumstances, and doubly so if the daughter is the HR person*. (Is she really going to handle complaints about her mom impartially? And even if she is, are people likely to believe they can safely raise complaints about her mom?) But the fact that they both went out of their way to hide the relationship — and it’s not believable that in a small office where Jan was involved with the hiring she wouldn’t think to mention that one of the interviewees was her mom — makes it much, much worse; it shows that they’re willing to to subvert professional norms and transparency in order to advance their own agenda, which is the exact opposite of what you’d need if you have two relatives working together.

By all means, let the partners know that the secrecy and nepotism look terrible (from anyone, but especially from your HR person). But it sounds like this is going forward regardless, so I’d brace for the dumpster fire.

* In an office of 12, “accountant who handles HR on the side because someone has to” usually means things like benefits administration, not substantive employee relations work (including things like investigations of things like discrimination or harassment) … but your mention that Jan is the one who would end up firing her mom indicates that Jan’s HR role may be bigger than is typical with this set-up, which makes this worse.

2. Coworker is identifying herself as a psychologist when she’s not

I work at an outpatient mental health clinic as a case manager. My coworkers and I are all on a team of case managers that don’t require any degrees or certifications. If you want to move up to become a therapist or clinical supervisor, you need your masters in counseling, clinical psych, or a PH.D.

When I was collecting mail for my clients, I started noticing an influx of mail for my coworker, which I found strange. The mail was coming from several different banks and I started noticing it showed her full name, along with the title “clinical psychologist” and business owner.

I looked into it and saw that she is advertising herself online as a business owner as a clinical psychologist and takes client appointments at our address. Most of the mail is coming from several different banks so I am thinking (although unsure) that she may be receiving business loans or something of the sort identifying herself as a clinical psychologist who runs her own business. The other thing is I also found her on several websites advertising herself as a “mental health counselor” and either a Psy.D, PH.D, or clinical therapist on yellow pages, white pages, and for one insurance company with her name and our business address. It shows our address on one and on another it shows her as a psychologist for her previous job.

Do I submit all of this to HR? Do I let it go and mind my own business?

Are you sure she’s not a clinical psychologist? It’s possible she has credentials you don’t know about.

Otherwise, though, the potential for harm to patients and your clinic’s reputation is high enough that yes, flag it for HR and let them decide if there’s any action they need to take. You can frame it as, “There may be an explanation for this that I’m not privy to, but it alarmed me enough that I wanted to bring it to your attention in case it’s something you’d want to know.”

3. Handshakes and sweaty palms

I’ve had abnormally sweaty hands my whole life. I don’t know exactly when or how the excess sweat will start or what triggers it; sometimes it happens when I’m nervous, but sometimes I am merely existing. It does not seem to be correlated to temperature or how many layers I am wearing.

Usually this doesn’t cause me more than some minor inconveniences, but I had a situation the other day that I’m afraid will repeat itself, especially as I get older and more into the workforce. I was meeting a professor for the first time, and as I was leaving, she held out her hand for me to shake. Not knowing how to decline, I shook it, even though my hands were sweaty. She immediately wiped her hand on her pant leg, and I realized what I’d done. In the future, how would you recommend I deal with this situation? Sometimes when people try to high-five me and my hands are sweaty, I fist-bump them instead, but it seems inappropriate to offer a fist-bump when someone offers me a handshake.

Can you discreetly wipe your hands on your pants first, especially when you’re in a situation where you know a handshake might be coming (like any time you’re meeting someone new)? If you’re worried it’s noticeable that you’re patting your pants, say, “Sorry, my hand is damp!” (That could mean you just washed them, for all anyone knows.) There’s also the option of just confidently and cheerfully saying, “I’ve switched to fist bumps since Covid!” You won’t be the only one.

There are also medical treatments available if it’s something that really bothers you and you want to go that route.

4. I don’t know how to respond to this job rejection feedback

I’m a mid-career professional in tech who got laid off a few months ago. I’ve been applying and interviewing for similar roles ever since, but a couple of recent rejections have somehow gotten me really depressed and demoralized.

Both positions seemed like a good fit, and I was able to develop a good rapport with the hiring managers during each respective interview. However, the feedback I received was:

1. I didn’t have enough experience with a specific kind of document that’s relevant to my industry but not readily shared unless you need access for a specific reason, as it contains quite a bit of confidential client data (none of the projects I worked on required me to access that level of data, so I never had access to this document).

2. A well-liked former employee expressed interest in the position after I’d been scheduled for an interview, so the company went with them.

I know these are relatively normal things to hear when interviewing (and it’s not the first time I’ve heard them either), but I don’t know how I can make myself a better candidate for these kinds of roles with this kind of feedback. At least if it had been something like a lack of technical skill, that would still be something actionable that I can work on.

I have more interviews in the pipeline, but I find myself anticipating rejection for similar reasons as I’m preparing, and I’m starting if it’s time to just quit this industry altogether and pivot to a different career/industry. Do you have any advice on how to stay motivated during a slump like this?

Not all feedback is actionable, or needs to be. Sometimes it’s just an explanation or context.

It you’re regularly hearing that you need experience with the kind of document from #1, that could be a sign that you’ve got to find a way to get that experience in order to be a serious contender for these jobs. But if you have no reason to believe it’s a widespread requirement (like hearing that from multiple interviewers or seeing it in most of the ads you’re interested in), there’s nothing much you have to conclude here (other than if you do get the opportunity to work with that document in the future, you should take it).

The second item — they hired someone already well-known to them — is just a thing that happens, and not anything you need to respond differently to.

For what it’s worth, you won’t always get useful feedback, or any feedback, when you’re job-searching, and it’s not a sign of failure if don’t. You’re much more likely to get useful feedback from mentors and people working in the field you’re applying in.

5. Employees aren’t paid for short bathroom or coffee breaks

This happened last year, and has nothing to do with me, but it struck me as odd, so I thought I’d ask for your take on it.

I work in the legal field. In the course of an online conversation about billing, someone commented that the staff at their firm are W2 employees, but don’t clock in/out and they only get paid for the time they bill. They clarified that any time spent not working on a case, such as lunch or bathroom visits, is unpaid.

I’ve worked at various law firms, but I’ve never heard of anything like this. Admittedly, I’m no expert on employment law, but this sounds like they’re being paid per project (i.e., they spend four hours working on the John Doe case, so they get paid for four hours of work, but the 10 minutes they take to run to the restroom or get a cup of water before starting the next project isn’t paid), which does not seem very W2-ish. Is this a common practice that I’ve just never encountered before, or is this as weird as it seems?

Surprise! It’s yet another law firm violating employment laws. If they’re W2 employees, not independent contractors, they’re legally required to be paid for all the time they’re expected to be at work, even if that includes down time in between projects (it’s called “engaged to wait”). Moreover, federal law requires that short breaks of 20 minutes or less be treated as paid time.

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{ 420 comments }

{ 420 comments… read them below }

    1. Techie Boss*

      I would be VERY concerned that Jan, who is primarily an accountant, would be willing to push through this ethically shady hire. There are so many things that can go wrong with an accountant who has questionable integrity without even getting into the HR questions. If this is allowed to go on without Jan being fired, there should be some significant oversight over both her HR and accounting responsibilities.

      1. Zelda*

        This! The letter, and therefore the answer, is mainly focused on the conflict of interest in having a close relative of the HR person on staff. But before that, the HR person was the one “screening the resumes, and doing initial interviews”!! She had every opportunity to eliminate anyone who would have been competition for her mother before the partners ever knew about them. An honest person should have recused herself entirely from the process if her mother was to be a candidate.

        1. KateM*

          Oh, I somehow totally missed that part. Indeed, Jan probably took care that anybody better suited than her mom would not pass to next interviews!

          1. Salty Caramel*

            Even if she was capable of being totally objective about her mom’s qualifications (can anyone be really objective about their mother?), it’s always going to look that way, and that’s a bad look, no matter what size the company.

        2. ferrina*

          Yeah, this is where my mind leapt to. She could have easily screened out qualified candidates and pushed her mother to the front of the pile with a bunch of weaker candidates so her mother was a shoein.

          Side note for job seekers and LW4- sometimes the reason why you don’t get the job you were perfectly qualified for is wild reasons like this. It happens.

      2. MissM*

        Particularly since this EA role will be assisting with accounting duties. Their collusion (which they’ve already demonstrated that they are ready to engage in) could subvert existing internal controls and result in embezzlement

        1. Totally Minnie*

          If the LW wants to bring this up to the partners, THIS is the part of it they should bring up. The company is opening themselves up for some serious financial risk by continuing to employ an accountant who has proven herself willing to engage in underhanded and secretive processes.

          1. Leo McGarry*

            Beyond all the bad in the letter, this is exactly what stood out to me as the worst and most problematic detail. An audit would absolutely flag this as highly inappropriate. Bad enough to have a family member supervising another family member in accounting matters. It is far worse that this detail wasn’t shared proactively.

          2. Sloanicota*

            I agree, this may be an angle the partners haven’t thought of and it’s worth raising. At very least, there should be safeguards in place to prevent these two people from colluding financially.

          3. Pastor Petty Labelle*

            My second thought — after of course, Jan made sure her mom’s resume made it into the stack to be interviewed — was this. Is Mom going to be doing accounting while Jan is on vacation? The whole point of sending an accountant on vacation is so any shady dealings would pop up. But if Mom is colluding, they have the perfect cover to keep it going.

            The fact Mom didn’t say oh btw, my daughter is your accountant shows she is as shady as her daughter.

            Even if the totally innocent explanation was Mom was about to be homeless and she really needs this job, you all liked her enough to hire so it was just desperation shows really poor judgment on both their parts.

          4. Slow Gin Lizz*

            Yes, this, 100%. My first thought was that Jan and her mother wanted to use plausible deniability here, so that when the partners confronted them about their relationship they could say, “Hey, you hired Mom fair and square, she was obviously the best candidate for the job, so what does it matter that she’s Jan’s mom?” which of course doesn’t excuse them at all, but I missed the detail about Jan being the one who screened the resumes. So they don’t even have that plausible deniability going for them.

            I would definitely emphasize that this calls into question their honesty and integrity and *that* is definitely problematic for employees who deal with money.

      3. IHaveKittens*

        I also find it very suspicious that Jan was “out sick” on the day her mother had the interview. That seems shady as hell. Jan screened the resumes – which means she could cherry pick them and make sure that her mom’s was the best of the bunch. She was mysteriously out on the day of the interview, so she could make innocent googoo eyes and say she didn’t influence the process at all! Whatever are you implying??

        Yeah, the whole thing reeks.

        1. Tio*

          Exactly. That wasn’t an accident. She wanted to pretend like she could claim she didn’t influence it – but she either didn’t think of the implications of her doing the initial screening or was hoping that LW and partners wouldn’t.

          This is very bad and they should both be fired.

      4. iglwif*

        Yes!! The HR stuff is very bad, but kinda squishy and subjective-looking. Accounting stuff has the potential to get very objectively and quantifiably bad, very quickly.

      5. Kay*

        This was my first thought too! If you have an accountant willing to lie about something like this, what other ethically questionable things are they willing to do? My guess, more than I’m comfortable with, lots more!

    2. Artemesia*

      This. That partners are apparently ‘going with this’ is appalling. This was a sneaky move that shows both to be hopelessly untrustworthy. They need to go.

        1. On Fire*

          Possibly, but it’s also possible they just haven’t thought through all the potential ramifications.

          1. ferrina*

            Or they are conflict-averse and would rather not take decisive action (I’ve worked with ‘leaders’ like this)

    3. bamcheeks*

      Yes, I’d also consider reporting Jan to her professional board if she’s chartered/certified/licensed. This is exactly the kind of dubious ethics that certification is supposed to protect against.

    4. sagewhiz*

      Yes. And dollars to donuts that Jan being out sick (supposedly) on the day of her mother’s interview was only to CHA so she wouldn’t slip and use “mom” at some point.

      1. Sloanicota*

        I was a bit confused by that point. I also interpreted it to mean Jan was not part of interviewing her mom. That is actually good (although it doesn’t matter overall), in that her mom at least sort of got the job on her own merits, although it seems safe to assume Jan “prepped” her for the interview pretty significantly.

        1. Meri*

          Jan screened the resumes. Also conducted “initial interviews” which I would presume included her mom’s initial interview.

      2. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        Yep, how convenient that the one day Mom is interviewing daughter is out sick so no one can notice any resemblance, accidently be too familiar, etc.

        Sure Mom got the job on the merits, but the fact she didn’t reveal it either means she got the judge based on an assessment of her judgment that was incomplete.

        1. Zombeyonce*

          We don’t really know if she got the job on her merits, Jan could have easily made sure while screening resumes that no one more qualified than her mother made it from her initial screening to the hiring committee.

    5. RIP Pillowfort*

      I think the phrase “If they’re going to cover up this, what else would they do” needs to be said to the partners. Both of them are literally going to work with the books. If you can’t trust your accountant to behave ethically, you need a new one ASAP.

      1. Zombeyonce*

        If they’re interested in embezzlement, Jan could cover up her mother’s bad deeds when she goes on vacation and vice versa. This situation is ripe with conflicts of interest and should not be allowed to go forward.

    6. CityMouse*

      I worked for a government organization where the (non appointee) boss was fired for manipulating the hiring system to hire a family member.

    7. Good luck*

      Dealing with a version of this. The relationship is an “in-law” so different last names.

      The place is so small and toxic, the only thing that has been done is other employees stay away. The favouritism has been hard to miss. Even those who don’t know the relationship notice it.

    10. Princess Sparklepony*

      You mean Jan didn’t just forget that the applicant was her mom? It just totally slipped her mind. Someone should have reminded her of the fact!

      Yup, that sounds totally plausible.

      I wonder what Jan and her mom are up to….

  2. RLC*

    LW2, does your state/province/country have a publicly accessible database of professional licenses and certifications? That could help you determine if your coworker has the credentials or license they are claiming.

    1. New Jack Karyn*

      If I did that credential search and it came up empty, I would not mention that search when I flagged it to HR. Or the other searches that OP has already done. Just report that you saw mail addressing her as a clinical psychologist, struck you as odd.

      Saying that they’ve done these searches might tag OP as being overly nosy, which is not a door they want opened. Keep the focus on the possible shenanigans from the coworker.

      1. WS*

        +1, do the search. If she’s listed, then you know you don’t have to do anything. If she’s not, then take the mail issue (not the search) to HR. It’s a criminal offense in many countries to hold yourself out as a registered practitioner when you’re not, and this could cause serious trouble for your workplace.

        A different department at my workplace (healthcare) had a part-time employee who had been suspended while a serious issue at a different workplace was investigated. The employee managed to work for three weeks unregistered before the relevant board got in touch with the workplace by phone to ask why they hadn’t sent back their acknowledgement form about the person being suspended. We still don’t know if they were stealing mail or if it was just a weird coincidence, but they were legally required to not practice while suspended.

        1. Mgguy*

          Little side note on this-

          My wife is a nurse(RN), but while in college-before nursing school-worked in a local pediatrician’s office as a receptionist.

          At one point the pediatrician had let her license lapse-no wrong-doing, she’s just scatter-brained and hadn’t renewed it.

          During the 2 weeks the doctor wasn’t licensed, she didn’t see patients BUT her NP continued to see them. Some states now allow NPs to solo-practice, but they can’t in our state, then or now. They must practice under supervision of a licensed physician, and in this particular instance there was not a licensed physician employed in the office for 2 weeks.

          My wife said then that she thought it was fishy, but they told her it was fine. Now, if my wife were to go back to that office, in this particular situation HER license would have been in jeopardy for knowing about the situation and not reporting it.

          Incidentally, that doctor remains a family friend, but our child does NOT go there. Part of the reason is just being too close, but the main reason is that my wife has seen too much of what goes on inside the office that’s not right(mostly from the office manager, who is an LPN but regularly does things that only RNs and higher are licensed to do)

          1. Irish Teacher.*

            An Irish soap actually recently had a storyline on this very issue. A nurse let her registration lapse (honestly, I wasn’t convinced by how this happened; a housemate tidied away the letter notifying her and somehow she neither realised it was due nor did either her employers or the licencing board send her a reminder), but the show really emphasised how she could lose her licence or even go to jail even though she was genuinely unaware at the time that she was practicing without a licence.

            1. Strive to Excel*

              My professional license just hit its renewal period – I have 6 months to do the paperwork to renew. The licensing organization sent me one email, and no paper mail as fae as I’m aware. Just the one email.

              I can totally see someone forgetting about their license deadline, especially if the renewal period isn’t as long.

              1. Kjinsea*

                Yep. My state sends one paper notice and that is it. But our renewal date is our birthday so at least that helps you remember.

                1. Tio*

                  My professional license renews triennially and I build like 17 reminders in for myself because 1. I get one email reminder from the govt and that’s basically it and 2. I WILL forget without those reminders.

              2. Mgguy*

                My poor wife has to keep track of two of them.

                We live on the border between two states, and we don’t live in the state where she works.

                The main one of course to worry about is the state where she works, but she’s kept her one for our home state alive partially because she’s taken occasional PRN jobs over the years, and partially because our home state apparently makes it a royal pain to renew a lapsed license.

                Unfortunately too, the state where she works recognizes compact licenses, but our home state doesn’t. She opts to get the cheaper one specific to the state where she works rather than the more expensive compact since, at least for now, it wouldn’t offer her any advantage.

                If our home state ever went to compact licenses, I’m sure she’d do it, but it’s pretty unlikely to happen. Our state recognizes few if any out of state or general professional licenses-officially because they “can’t vouch for the quality of the license”, unofficially we suspect because professional licenses are a big line item in the state budget and something like a nursing compact license would make a big dent in that. Quite literally every bordering state to us recognizes compact licenses, and we have several metro areas that span two states so there would be a lot of people would would get one.

            2. AnonyNurse*

              I’m an RN. My license lapsed — I am usually quite on top of those things, but missed this one. I’ve been a bit distracted (being treated for cancer), but I am 100% certain I did not get an email notification of any kind. There is a chance I got a piece of snail-mail and missed it/tossed it, as it would have been around the time I was finishing chemo and undergoing surgery.

              BUT, the upside for me, is that I don’t actually practice nursing in my job. I don’t work in a clinical setting, and don’t use my license. I was able to reinstate it from submission to acceptance in 4 days, which included getting re-fingerprinted (required of everyone). They did not actually ask if I had been practicing nursing in the reinstatement paperwork, but I did state it outright to make it clear. Not sure what would have happened had I been in clinical practice.

              Was it my responsibility to keep track? Yes. Is it baffling that a gov agency that sends me regular emails about webinars and activities vaguely related to nursing did not send out any emails saying “hey, your license is about to expire?” Yes. But thankfully, there were no consequences, and there would have been had I been in other places where I’ve lived and practiced. And yes, I have a calendar reminder for two years from now, when it expires again. :)

    2. Chocolate License Required*

      Honestly, if the coworker is saying that she has a professional license, and the letter writer finds out that she doesn’t – the coworker should be reported to the licensing committee. I have a professional license (in another type of healthcare) and it is illegal for someone to say they have my type of license if they don’t. I think that is true of all kinds of licensed professionals.

      1. Polaris*

        Confirming that at least in my state, “architect” would be another example of this. Doesn’t matter what your background is, you cannot call yourself an architect unless you have passed the licensing exam and have registered.

        1. RussianInTexas*

          My sister got caught in it! She graduated from the architecture school 4 years ago and is working for an architecture firm and studying towards the exams. She has never called herself an architech.
          However, she called herself an “architectural designer” on LinkedIn and got a nastygram from the board. And she had to reply to them within 30 days or face a fine of $3000.

      2. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

        This was my thinking also. If the co-worker is not licensed to provide counseling, she should be reported to the licensing authority.

      3. ThatGuy*

        I’m a licensed psychologist and agree with this comment. If the letter writer is in the US or Canada, a provider can only call themself a psychologist if they have a PhD level degree (either PhD or PsyD) in psychology and are licensed to practice psychology in a state or province. The letter writer should report this to the board that licenses psychologists in their state so that the board can investigate. If the letter writer is concerned about backlash from their employer, they can report anonymously. If it’s all a misunderstanding and the coworker really is a psychologist, the worst case scenario here is that she just provides proof of licensure to the board and they close the case with a record of no wrongdoing.

        It’s possible there is some weird scenario like the coworker is actually a licensed psychologist in another state but hasn’t been able to transfer her credential yet and accepted a job that doesn’t require a license in order to have income while she waits on the licensing paperwork. Regardless, the ethical thing is to report. Separately, I’d also report the mail to HR and state my concerns that the coworker seems to be operating her own business out of the office.

    3. Ellekat*

      Or is it out of the question to just ask her, even in a roundabout way? “Where’d you do grad school?” or something like that. If she is advertising herself publicly as a psychologist, it would be totally plausible that coworkers see it. If she shrinks from those questions, there’s your answer.

    4. Snow Globe*

      Even if she has the certification, it sounds like she is advertising herself as the owner of a business operating out of the particular address that is actually the company that employs the LW and the coworker. I would think that alone would alarm the owners of the actual company. Is she claiming (to banks?) that she is the owner of the company that employs the LW? This sounds like a big mess.

      1. Doreen*

        IMO, that’s the issue for the OP-apparently using the employer’s address for an unrelated business. As far as licenses/ degrees, I had two social work adjacent jobs . Lots of my co-workers were licensed social workers but since it wasn’t required for their jobs ,many people didn’t know.

        1. Sloanicota*

          yes I recently learned an MSW (Masters of Social Work) is sufficient to provide counseling on apps like betterhealth, or at least it was at one point.

          1. Former psych professor*

            This is true of in person therapy in most US states too. A lot of the “person I talk to about my issues” providers are licensed clinical social workers with an MSW or have a masters in Counseling Psychology. (And in fact, I’d regularly advice undergrads who wanted this kind of jobs that those were the programs to seek.) PsyD and PhD clinical psychologists can provide that kind of supportive therapy but also can do assessments (diagnosis, basically). BUT you can only call yourself a “psychologist” if you’re in fact a licensed PhD/PsyD (LCSW and Counselling MA are “counselors” or “therapists”), so if she’s using that word it’s definitely something to report to the state licensing board. [I’m only familiar with the US system, obviously different rules apply elsewhere.]

          2. ThatGirl*

            yes, you can become a licensed counselor with either an MSW or an MA in Counseling Psychology/Clinical Mental Health Counseling/similar programs.

      2. londonedit*

        The whole thing is so weird. If she’s seeing clients, when is she seeing them? Is she somehow booking them in for appointments after working hours? Or are people coming in during the day? How has no one noticed any of this? Is she actually doing the job she’s meant to be doing (i.e. the same job as the OP)?

        1. Silver Robin*

          I had the same questions! and because it seemed absurd that she could actually be running client appointments through the workplace and that most of the mail was from banks my next thought was a convoluted scam to get free money through business loans. But I am not well versed or clever enough to figure out how that would work

      3. ScruffyInternHerder*

        This is what I was wondering too – isn’t the bigger issue that she’s apparently using the business address for her day job as the business address for her side hustle?

      4. Awesome Sauce*

        Yeah this pinged my radar too. Is she running her own business out of the company office and on company time??

    5. RIP Pillowfort*

      Honestly- the pressing issue is that the co-worker is using a legitimate mental health clinic as her business address and she wasn’t hired to treat patients by them. Any clinic would desperately want to know if someone was taking patients using their address- let alone an insurance company thinking she works there treating patients! This is yikes on bikes levels of problems.

      OP isn’t responsible for solving whether she can even legitimately treat patients. That’s missing the forest for the tress. This is something that needs to be reported ASAP before it harms the clinic’s ability to treat patients. Honestly the clinic may report them to the board once they find out.

      1. agreed*

        this was my thought. there are two separate issues – one – is she licensed (I am and have held positions where it’s not required though agree about checking the state website) and two – using the office and address for her own business purposes. even if she has a license, the using the office for her own business is an issue

        1. Elizabeth West*

          Absolutely — even if there wasn’t a professional licensure issue, I can’t imagine a business not objecting to this kind of thing. I wonder if it could potentially cause problems with their insurance, too.

      2. learnedthehardway*

        Agreed. I would bring the issue to HR and/or the owner of the business, and point out that I don’t know what the arrangement is but that this looked odd to me.

    6. AlsoADHD*

      The other possibility I thought of for LW2 is that the coworker is getting their credential (I have gotten mail with my new credentials on them from business solicitors while siding with no request from me)? You would see patients during that process (supervised but not literally in the room usually). But that or a prior unknown credential are both likely enough. You certainly could bring it up, but I might just mention the mail to the coworker first (not like an accusation, just like “you seem to be getting a lot of junk mail with this on it” or asking if they have any interest in being a psychologist in passing somehow. But it depends on the relationship too — didn’t seem like mentioning the mail would be that odd and might save some trouble.

    7. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

      Came here to say this. The licensing body in the LW’s area quite possibly has a public listing (it’s basically guaranteed where I live and in nearby countries, but I don’t know about where the LW is). Here, it’s actually illegal to present yourself as a “psychologist” if you’re not registered with the college and you could get a substantial fine. I have a PhD in psychology and am not allowed to call myself a psychologist because I’m not registered. (This is because I did research in social psychology and did not train as a clinician). Though there’s an exception here that allows university professors to call themselves psychologists.

      1. CareerChanger*

        Also, I have never heard of anyone having both a PhD and PsyD. You technically could but it’s exceedingly unlikely. The fact that this person used them interchangeably tells me they don’t have either one.

    8. FoggyTreeTop*

      This is an huge issue. Even if she is a psychologist, she needs to be officially approved by the organization to practice there. Usually that info is readily available to other employees. She’s a huge liability to patients and to the larger organization and this should be reported immediately to HR/leaders. There are cases of people pretending to be mental health providers and they are just as dangerous as someone pretending to be a Doctor or nurse. There are more issues here, but the best guidance is: report *in writing* immediately through sanctioned channels.

    9. Csethiro Ceredin*

      Where I live, to call yourself a psychologist you need to be a member of a specific professional organization, which requires a specified number of hours doing approved training/learning every year. I have colleagues who have the degrees and 30 years of experience but cannot refer to themselves as psychologists because they don’t keep up their membership.

      This may vary by where you are (I’m in BC, Canada) but here it would certainly be a big deal as membership in these professional organizations is tied to accountability – you can report someone who is behaving unethically and there are consequences.

    10. Coverage Associate*

      Whether to tell HR this person didn’t show up on a license search depends on the reliability of the online database. Here in California, they vary in ease of use and therefore reliability, especially if the practitioner goes by a middle name or nickname or has changed their name since getting licensed. It’s hard to conclude someone is definitely not licensed unless you have information beyond just a name.

      OP also needs to be clear that at least some of the fishy writings were written by the person herself. Websites can aggregate information incorrectly.

      Businesses can add honorifics improperly. My favorite is my law school addressing me as “esq” before my bar results came down.

      Businesses can also have all sorts of mess ups regarding names. Maybe the mail was meant for someone else who is licensed? Or maybe she checked a box that she worked in psychology, and that got entered as being a psychologist. So if it were just the mail coming in, I would assume that the sender made the error, rather than the co worker telling the sender to send it that way, even if it’s multiple senders.

      But if it’s a website OP knows that this person set up with wrong information, or there is use of business premises for purposes management doesn’t know about, those are problems.

  3. Alice*

    I don’t see the big deal with Jan’s mom getting hired as long as she wasn’t the one making the final choice. And she’s not the direct supervisor rating her mom’s work.

    Lots of family run businesses don’t have an independent HR. HR is related to someone else.

    They just need to have someone step in and do the HR bit if necessary to layoff Jan’s mom, or if there are complaints, etc.

    1. A*

      If you’re actively involved in a job search process and one of the applicants is a close relative and you don’t disclose it, that’s a big deal and a conflict of interest. It’s covered by every “business ethics” training I’ve had to take for work—if a job applicant or vendor or whatever is a close friend or relative, DISCLOSE IT and withdraw from the decision making process

      I got my job because of a referral from a friend but he said “hey this person is a personal friend not a professional contact” and so he was asked to stay out of the decision making to make sure it was all above board.

      It’s up to the hiring team to decide if it’s a big deal or not, but hiding it is a huge red flag that neither of them has good judgement or ethics

      1. Ellie*

        It’s incredibly shady that Jane found a way to be absent during her mother’s interview as well, where it would so obviously have come up. If they’d declared it, it would still be a problem, but potentially workable and not that unusual at a small company. But they deliberately lied about their relationship to everyone involved in the hiring process. That’s completely unacceptable in a head of HR.

        1. Agent Diane*

          Yes the mystery illness on the day of the interview changes it from “Jan is clueless about HR stuff because she’s not a professional HR person” to “Jan knew damn well this is a shady conflict of interest”.

          1. Love me, love my cat*

            Have to wonder if the whole thing isn’t a scam from the get-go. Mother-daughter crime duo sets out to loot business. But maybe I watch too much TV.:)

        2. CityMouse*

          I’ve participated in interview panels where we’ve interviewed someone’s family member. When someone’s spouse was in the pool, they didn’t participate at all. For a cousin or friend, the person would say “I’m conflicted out of this one” and leave before the interview and was not permitted to ask any questions about how it went.

          This was pool hiring (multiple people hired) so it’s less possible to manipulate it to hire a specific person.

      2. Aww, coffee, no*

        This!
        Years ago I was asked to take notes regarding a grievance brought by an employee which tangentially involved someone I was friends with. Literally the first thing I said was “I’m actually friends with x person, am I the right person to take notes?”
        They found someone else to take notes – not because they didn’t trust me (my job relies on me having serious professional discretion) but because the optics were so bad.
        If Jan had said up front that applicant was her Mom and stepped out of the process then that would be fine; it’s the not disclosing that causes the problem.

        1. HonorBox*

          Yep. Ideally, if Jan found out her mom was applying, she’d have disclosed this at the outset and wouldn’t have had any involvement with the process. She could have passed along resumes but shouldn’t have been reviewing ANY of them. What information was she able to pass along to mom after reviewing resumes that may have bolstered mom’s chances?

      3. Totally Minnie*

        It also sounds like Jan was the only person who participated in the initial resume review and preliminary screenings to decide who would be interviewed, so there’s no way for anyone else to know if she eliminated candidates who may have been a better fit than her mother in order to improve her chances at the interview stage. It’s a really big problem.

        1. Smurfette*

          Exactly! She could screened out all the viable candidates so that even if the partners made the final call, Jan’s Mom would be the only possible option.

      4. Baunilha*

        Even if Jane had disclosed it, the optics still are not great.
        At a former job, an external candidate who was married to one of the VPs was hired for a position that had a few internal candidates. Even though we knew about the relationship, we all wondered whether that person would’ve been hired if she weren’t married to a higher-up. (Or rather, if she was held to the same standards as the other candidates during the interview process)
        This actually caused a bit of a turmoil, and the wife ended up quitting after three months.

      5. ferrina*

        100%
        I’ve been a part of several hiring processes where there were personal connections to the person being hired.

        In every case where the people hid their relationship, there ended up being blatant favoritism.
        When the relationship was explained up front, the two people were much more likely to be professional and not have favoritism. It also allowed a second set of eyes to be in the process to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, which gave the new hire a better experience (it was clear they were hired for their skills, not their relationship)

      6. Pointy's in the North Tower*

        I was on an interview panel and one of the applicants was a coworker’s ex that I had met twice briefly and wouldn’t have recognized if said coworker hadn’t told me he was interviewing. (Coworker and ex broke up several years prior to the interview.) I disclosed that specifically to avoid any perception of favoritism and to avoid bad optics.

        Professional ethics are extremely important to me. Jan and her mom, it’s not a good look.

      1. Not Australian*

        Yup. Any time the expression ‘in secret’ gets used – assuming it’s not for a surprise party or whatever – there is something very wrong.

      2. Cj*

        yep. at my last job a partners mother-in-law was hired as our office manager, and she was awesomeat it. the thing is, it wasn’t hidden from anyone.

      3. Falling Diphthong*

        This. If the background was “We’d been hunting for someone for a while, and Jan finally said ‘Look, my mom has this experience and she’s started looking: Should we consider her?'” then at least everyone knows going in what sort of problems they would need to structure around.

      4. AlsoADHD*

        That plus the smallness of the office! It would be very different in a large setting to not mention it (if they weren’t working directly, etc) but even then companies usually ask for disclosure.

    3. Alz*

      I don’t think it is unworkable that her mum was hired (not ideal but yeah, things like that happen in small businesses/ small towns). The thing that is odd and uncomfortable is that neither of them said anything about the potential conflict of interest- LW says Jan was in the other interviews so she could have been sabotaging the other cantates- insisting that they really need someone with experience X when actually X is only a nice-to-have but her Mum happens to have it.

      Particularly worrying that someone who isn’t aware of conflict of interest is in accounts and HR- both of those jobs need to be above reproach and transparent.

      1. Artemesia*

        I worked in. a program where the AA fed exam questions to her daughter who was a doctoral student in the program. Everyone suspected, so when she had my class, I copied my own exams and didn’t run them as usual through the Admin who relentless hounded me about ‘getting those exams ready for your class.’ I just gray rocked and then said ‘Oh that is taken care of.’ Oddly her daughter did much worse on those exams than others. It is difficult to get the evidence you need in a case like this to fire someone.

        But in the OP’s case, the evidence speaks for itself. She participated in the process and kept secret her mother’s relationship to her.

      2. Alice*

        Nothing in the letter states that Jan made comments encouraging the decision. And attending the interviews could have been just listening, or it could have been more active. I don’t see just listening as problematic.

        1. Alz*

          Even if it was just listening the interviewer might say something like “I like that candidate but I would prefer someone with more X”- if Jan feeds that back to her mum then her mum gets an unfair advantage. The purpose of an interview is to get the best candidate and being spoon fed answers can make it look like someone is much better than they are.

          But it isn’t unforgiveable that Jan is involved- the problem is that she didn’t tell anyone! It may be malicious like is being suggested in a lot of the comments or it may be ignorance where Jan wanted her mum to be hired on her merits and thought it wasn’t a big deal. It has potential to be bad though even with an innocent explanation and, if it is malicious, very bad.

          For me it would depend on where Jan is in her career- I would be a lot more forgiving of a 20 something new to the workforce than I would to a HR manager with 20 years experience. The first is someone you can give a stern talking to and move on, the second is someone who should know better and it makes me question their judgement on everything

        2. Ellie*

          I do. She could have been discussing the answers that other candidates had given with her mother, in order to improve her chances. And you have no way of knowing if she did that or not, considering she lied about having the relationship entirely. You can’t trust her to be honest.

          I think there’s more cause here to fire Jane than there is her mother.

            1. Jennifer Strange*

              It absolutely is when you omit something specifically because acknowledging it won’t get you what you want.

            3. Slow Gin Lizz*

              Um, yes it is. Lying by omission is literally a phrase people use all the time.

              From the Wikipedia entry on “lie”:

              Lying by omission, also known as a continuing misrepresentation or quote mining, occurs when an important fact is left out in order to foster a misconception. Lying by omission includes the failure to correct pre-existing misconceptions. For example, when the seller of a car declares it has been serviced regularly, but does not mention that a fault was reported during the last service, the seller lies by omission. It may be compared to dissimulation. An omission is when a person tells most of the truth, but leaves out a few key facts that therefore, completely obscures the truth.

            4. Totally Minnie*

              Omission isn’t *always* lying, but sometimes it is. In this particular case, it seems obvious that Jan didn’t just forget to mention one of the candidates was her mom, she deliberately withheld the information from the people who needed it to make an informed decision. That’s lying.

            5. Curious*

              While you may be correct as a matter of technical language, giving a mistaken impression by omitting a material fact is deceitful. Different words, but same moral value.

            7. Pointy's in the North Tower*

              Withholding information required for others to make an informed decision is an extremely unethical thing to do.

            8. iglwif*

              Not always, but definitely in this situation! This isn’t forgetting to mention something trivial, it’s deliberately concealing something important.

        3. Thinking*

          As pointed out above, Jan screened all the resumes. Better candidates could have been rejected while Mom was passed through. Jan needs to be fired.

            1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

              Is there any evidence it didn’t? When something like this happens, you can’t give the person the benefit of the doubt. Now if she had disclosed, hey my mom applied, I didn’t know she would, but her resume does compare well to the others I’ve included, that would be one thing. But to not disclose, makes the whole thing suspicious.

              this is an office, not a court of law, you don’t need probable cause to investigate, you don’t need beyond a reasonable doubt to act.

              1. KateM*

                If she had disclosed that hey my mom applied, she also should have said “maybe someone else could do the resume comparison”. If there hadn’t been the conflict of interest in the first place.

            2. Leenie*

              People joke about it all the time, but I have never before sincerely wondered if an anonymous commenter was actually one of the principals in a letter, until this conversation. Are you somehow involved here?

            3. Kay*

              The fact that Jan failed to behave in a manner consistent long standing accepted ethical standards of business, I would say it lends to a yes.

              Being as you seem to like to advocate for all the ethically questionable paths, that you Jan??

            4. Kevin Sours*

              Doesn’t matter. We don’t know. It’s impossible to know because so much of that screening is judgement calls. Hell it’s possible that Jan doesn’t know — unconscious bias is at thing. This is why “conflict of interest” is a thing. Jan needed to disclose the relationship and she didn’t. That failure of judgement and ethics alone supports firing.

            5. Smurfette*

              Alice, you’re being weirdly defensive of Jan’s behaviour. I’m starting to wonder if you ARE Jan. Or her mom. I don’t know why else you would be so insistent that Jan didn’t do anything wrong.

              Alternatively you maybe have very limited experience of working in an office environment, because what OP has described would not fly in any company I’ve worked for in the last 35 years.

        4. Insert Clever Name Here*

          It’s shady because she never said “btw, Susanna is my mother.” Since she never brought it up, it makes every other action taken by Jan look shady.

          Her mom could actually be the best candidate. Jan could have performed this search and review of candidates in the exact same way she performs every other search. Jan could have come down with a stomach bug on the day of her mom’s interview.

          But she didn’t disclose that one of the candidates put forward for the interview was her mom. Yes, having family members work together is something that happens in small companies, but it being a surprise? No ma’am, absolutely that is shady.

        5. HonorBox*

          It seems as though Jan placed the ads, reviewed resumes and did initial screenings, though. Who got screened out to give mom a better chance at landing the role? What information from other applicants was passed along to mom to bolster her chances? Jan wasn’t just sitting in on interviews. She was the one who led everything up until the interviews started.

        6. Artemesia*

          She was in a position to undercut the other applicants and to feed her mother information for her to look better on interview. AND they are both involved with the books. If they don’t fire her, they deserve to discover in a year that vast sums have quietly vanished through embezzlement.

        7. fhqwhgads*

          She’s obligated to disclose the relationship. Both of them are. Both said nothing. That’s problematic.

      3. Sloanicota*

        Yeah, even if it was actually all on the up-and-up, the *optics* are terrible, something someone doing HR type work should know dang well matters. It looks like Jan manipulated the process to get her mom a job whether or no she did. It’s going to look like favoritism to others and discourage them from raising concerns about mom whether or not there is actual favoritism going on.

    4. coffee*

      “[…] part of the job is to help out with accounting, so Jan could potentially be supervising her own mother in some capacity.”

      This increases the risk of fraud considerably. First, because you’re removing a checkpoint from the process – if one is committing fraud then the other would have a motive to cover it up. And second, because if they were to commit fraud by working together, it would be even harder to detect.

      LW1, if you take your concerns to the partners, I would point this out as an additional concern for the business.

      1. Snow Globe*

        This!!! The risk of financial fraud with two employees who have already shown themselves to have questionable ethics and are working together on financial matters, is pretty significant here.

      2. Auditor*

        This. I’m an auditor and my office sometimes has to refer cases to our state’s attorney general for prosecution. Almost all of the conspiracy cases we refer involve people who are part of the same family, be that parent/child, siblings, or romantic partners. The behavior the LW noted in the letter is one of the red flags that would cause my office to dig. They’ve already conspired to get mom hired, and it increases the likelihood that they’d be willing to conspire about other things in the future that could be more consequential.

        1. HonorBox*

          I had a forensic auditor tell a story about a payroll person putting her husband as a ghost employee on payroll one time. She put him on at a pay rate that was just under what would have required a second signature on the paycheck. It went on for years and it was only discovered when she left for another job and the husband filed for unemployment.

          The second point of his story (and several others) was that often this kind of fraud isn’t discovered until someone does something stupid… like filing for unemployment from your fake job.

        2. Slow Gin Lizz*

          Oooof, this is a really excellent point for the OP, from an actual expert in fraud. And this is why OP needs to say something asap to the partners about why this situation is shady AF.

        3. Auditor*

          Possibly not, but when you pair their family connection with the unethical behavior that already took place during the hiring process (failure to disclose a conflict of interest and conducting the resume screenings on her own without another set of eyes to verify that she was in fact screening methodically and not removing people from consideration for unrelated reasons), this is a red flag and as an auditor I would look into it.

      3. Sloanicota*

        Sooo many ways this could go wrong. Maybe Jan really does need a second signature on things in order to divert funds, and deliberately recruited her mom as a partner – or maybe either Jan or her mom will commit theft in future knowing the other one isn’t going to rat them out.

    5. Ellis Bell*

      I think you’re comparing this to a family business, but the big difference with family businesses is they own it, everyone knows who’s related to who, what they’re getting into, and the perks to relatives are at least transparent. Here, Jan and her mother hid it deliberately and tried to snow the owners because there’s explicit rules against this. Even if Jan managers her mother fairly and she’s a good hire (debatable), this kind of lie is a huge deal in anyone, but especially in someone who handles the finances and HR!

      1. iglwif*

        And in addition to that, in a family business, everyone knows who is related to whom.

        Like, this is in NO way the same.

    7. Percysowner*

      The big deal is the secrecy behind the hiring. Jan screened applicants before the hiring committee saw them, allowing her to make her mother the best candidate. She hid the relationship from the committee. She had sat in on other interviews and knew what kind of questions they asked and could prepare her mother for them. She will have some supervisory duties over her mother. The hiring committee had the absolute right to know about the relationship and decide if Jan’s mother was the best candidate for the position or if there was enough conflict of interest that they needed to go a different way.

      I worked in a field where relatives got hired into small businesses and worked together with no problem. The difference is everyone went in knowing that Kathy was hiring her brother Ralph to be her coworker.

    8. HonorBox*

      There is a conflict of interest whether or not Jan is the one with final say in the process. She had duty to disclose that candidate 3 was a relative. Also, she’s supervising her mother in accounting matters. Maybe she doesn’t have say in overall ratings, but she and mom have opportunity to manipulate numbers and potentially cost this company dearly.

      If Jan just “didn’t see the issue” that’s an issue simply because your accounting and HR person didn’t see the glaring issue. If there was active deception, that’s also a problem because your HR and accounting person cannot be trusted to do the right thing.

    9. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      Yes but family run businesses know they are hiring family members. In this case, Jan an employee not related to the actual owners slipped in a family member. Completely different scenario.

      Also you cannot have family members running the books together. A well run family business will have an outside accountant for just this reason.

    10. learnedthehardway*

      It’s not that Jan was hired. It’s that the HR person did not disclose her relationship with Jan during the hiring process.

      I worked for a recruitment firm where one of the consultants put his significant other forward for a role without mentioning their relationship. He was fired.

    11. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      The problem is they didn’t disclose they were family. It would be very different if they had. Also, it bring into question of Jan had skewed the candidate pool to make her mom look like the best choice.

      Also, we’ve seen problems from small companies where HR or boss is a family member of a problem employee which causes issues for others.

    12. iglwif*

      The problem here is not
      – that the business does not have an independent HR
      – that Jan’s mom got hired
      – who made the final hiring choice
      – whether Jan is “the direct supervisor rating her mom’s work”

      The problem here is that
      – the business has a policy on this that Jan ignored
      – Jan screened the applications for this job, which means she had control over which applications other interviewers saw
      – neither Jan nor her mom mentioned their relationship during the process, which means (a) the final decision was made without complete information, (b) they both show a troubling lack of transparency, integrity, and good judgement, and (c)
      – Jan will be supervising her mom’s accounting work, which means we now have two people with a proven lack of integrity handling the business’s books and money — an area where most businesses are especially concerned with employees’ honesty and integrity
      – there is at least one senior person at this company who does not understand why any of this is a problem, which means their judgement and integrity are also pretty questionable

      All of this is really incredibly sketchy! If Jan’s mom was truly the best, or even a really strong, candidate for the role, why not be transparent about the relationship? If they both have good and kosher intentions, why not be transparent about the relationship? There are many good reasons to be honest and no good reasons not to be.

      1. iglwif*

        I forgot to finish typing (c) above, which is:

        it seems highly likely that they talked about this ahead of time and agreed not to mention it (mentioning it would be very natural!), which is further evidence of not-good intentions

    13. Kay*

      If you don’t see a big deal with anything done in this letter I think you may want to take a long hard look at how you move about the business world (and perhaps your life in general) and how this thinking might be damaging you in your own career. Perhaps take a class on ethics? There are some very unscrupulous things going on and not being able to see that is really concerning.

  4. Trust Me On This*

    LW1, my hobby is collecting the news stories of the female office manager/bookkeeper who embezzles from the business by circumventing GAP principles and basic business principles. Your tale tingled my spider sense: willing to lie to have her mother hired and her mother will be helping her with the business accounting. If Jan isn’t embezzling from the company already and needed to hire her mother to help cover it up, the two of them will conspire to start. When is the last time the business had a third party audit?

    1. Artemesia*

      good catch. Maybe not, but I’d sure let this trigger an audit. I have known of several cases of embezzlement in organizations and it is always the trusted employee. This is ripe for that sort of abuse.

      1. HonorBox*

        Specifically a forensic audit. A regular audit may uncover something, but it also might not. Especially if Jan is a good accountant.

      2. Fangtooth*

        I was let go from what I thought was my next career step job that I would be at for a while (on a team of 2.5) and was in the city I had wanted to move to for a while. Was doing great at my job (as informed by some board members, external colleagues and investors as I was lifting the reputation and work output of my organization and consistently covered for my boss), I get fired with no warning alarms on my end on random Friday and a few months later I am informed by a close colleague that my boss was finally let go after multiple decades of building up this organization in their hometown. She was embezzling for years and had found ways to cover it when it was just her. When I came on board it became more difficult and she took away my commission in my final year to cover it and was finally found out. I was fired so she could save herself. She also hadn’t done an audit in a while, and accountants would look at it and not take it on because of liability.

      2. Ellis Bell*

        Lying to get a pair of second (related) hands on the finances? It’s more of a step than a leap.

      3. Emmy Noether*

        Usually having two people doing the finances works as a fraud prevention measure. Moving to circumvent that (by having the two be related), plus the secrecy from both of them adds up to a red flag.

        I’m not saying there’s sure to be fraud (possibly the only aim was to get mom a job), but my mind sure jumped there as soon as I read “help with the finances”. There’s an increased risk.

      4. HonorBox*

        While it wasn’t my first thought, it was certainly a quick second thought. I think a lot of us have heard stories about fraud and this kind of setup, with this kind of deception (or lack of disclosure, if you want to soften) makes it far too easy for something to go very wrong.

        1. Alice*

          It’s also easy to shoplift, but you don’t assume if a teenager walks into the store that they’re going to shoplift.

          1. Slow Gin Lizz*

            Plenty of people do, though. See also: stores who have employees follow around Black customers.

          2. samwise*

            No, but this is not teenage shoplifts office supplies or fast fashion.

            This is, accountant for the business. It’s just smart business to get additional eyes on the books when the accountant deliberately does not tell anyone her mom is interviewing for the job and then hires her mom. Lies or omissions or obfuscation from the person in charge of finances? Yeah, it doesn’t guarantee Jan is embezzling, but at the very least it indicates extremely poor judgment and a willingness to engage in unethical behavior.

            Any accountant might embezzle from them, but here’s someone waving gigantic red flags. They have to check it out.

            1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

              Gets her mom hired WHO WILL BE HELPING HER WITH ACCOUNTING.

              This is a damn red flag parade down red square.

          3. former teenaged shopper*

            My experience as a teenager, and even a car-free adult who routinely carries tote bags, suggests retail staff often assume teenagers / someone with bags is going to shoplift. The endless “Can I help you?”s… sometimes they drove me to leave.

          4. Venus*

            I don’t assume that a teenager is going to shoplift, but if I have a security camera and the teenager keeps looking at the cameras and then going to another part of the store to loiter, then I’m going to worry that they are likely to shoplift.

            I won’t assume that all accountants will embezzle, but I’d be worried about an accountant that is ignoring and working around the regular safeguards.

            1. Zombeyonce*

              Exactly. Alice is implying that these comments think all accountants embezzle, while they’re only implying that accountants who show a lack of ethics in some areas like Jan has are more likely to embezzle and should be watched.

          5. Selina Luna*

            Enough stores do assume that teenagers are going to shoplift that many convenience stores near schools have safeguards in place. The one near my school wouldn’t allow teenagers to carry in a backpack (they had a holding pen for backpacks next to the cashier, who was by the front door). The consignment shop down the way put alarm tags on the clothes popular with teenagers.
            Many businesses that deal with large quantities of cash or have finances that one trusted person has access to also have regular audits of that person and their bookkeeping.
            I’m also in favor of trust until trust is lost, but it’s not unusual for businesses to decline to trust from the outset.

            1. Zombeyonce*

              Jan deserved trust until she tried (and succeeded) to go around the system for a family member. Now she’s in “audit her immediately” territory.

          6. Ellis Bell*

            People trying to distract/fool staff or who are busier looking at cameras than the goods, are the ones who shoplift. Not teenagers. Signs of dishonesty, like in this example.

      5. Strive to Excel*

        Accountant here – like, 7/10s of our training revolves around stuff that was put in to detect fraud and/or GAAP principals that were put in place after someone cheated the system. Any other position doing this would be sus, but if someone with full access to the financials of a company does it you basically have to be suspicious. Whether or not Jan meant it, she’s now in a position where it would be incredibly easy to cause mischief. And errors can be just as damaging as deliberate fraud, and in a situation where you’ve got a lot of interpersonal relations people will often bypass controls in order to get stuff done faster.

        I wouldn’t necessarily test Jan as a fraudster out of the gate, but I would go into this knowing that my worst case scenario is really bad news. The average small business fraud by the bookkeeper is in the millions.

        1. Macropodidae*

          I work for a small business where the former office manager was embezzling. The owner’s new girlfriend thought it was ridiculous that they weren’t using Quickbooks and offered to set it up and discovered the woman had just been handwriting herself checks. That woman is still paying restitution 15 YEARS later.

      6. Artemesia*

        Because it is a giant red flag for financial dishonesty. The person who handles the books hides that they are hiring their mother to work with them on handling the books. The embezzler is often the ‘friend’ who is trusted and works in the small business or the long term paid employee of the professional association which is run by an ever changing group of elected officers who trust that employee. I know of a business and a professional association that were nearly destroyed by exactly that embezzlement. And several local charities in my city have been embezzled with disastrous consequences because people were trusted and there were not sufficient controls in place. It is VERY common.

        Someone who manages the books and has demonstrated they are dishonest is a prime candidate. She needs to be fired and a forensic audit done before the new accounts manager takes over.

      7. Kevin Sours*

        When your accountant shows a serious lack of ethics it’s best to start asking questions. Particularly when it involves bringing on somebody to help with the accounting. Note that one of common ways embezzlement gets caught is when somebody is one vacation and an unexpected call comes in a partner/vendor/client starts saying things that don’t quite make sense and the backup starts digging. Who is going to cover for the accountant when she is out in this scenario?

    3. bamcheeks*

      I agree that there is a risk here, but I am not willing to trust you on any of this cos I can’t make any sense of it at all.

    5. Auditor*

      I’m not the person you asked, but I’m an auditor who has had to look into cases of suspected embezzlement. There are different patterns and markers in the ways that women embezzle compared to the way men embezzle. Women are more likely to play the long game and go for smaller amounts over a longer period of time, and they’re likely to go unnoticed for longer because of the “but she’s such a nice lady” impression. I can see why somebody whose preferred true crime genre is the long con would be more interested in women who embezzle than men.

      1. Lilia Calderu*

        This is so interesting! Reminds me of research regarding how women tend to commit murder vs how men tend to.

    6. Strive to Excel*

      A disproportionate amount of small business bookkeepers and accountants are women. Small businesses are statistically both more likely to get hit by internal fraud and hit for larger amounts than big companies, sadly.

      The flipside is that financial statement frauds are far more often perpetrated by men.

    8. Commenter 505*

      I have the same hobby! There’s something so engaging about the psychology of small-group (as opposed to corporate) embezzlement. I can’t get enough of it.

    9. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

      > news stories of the female office manager/bookkeeper

      Is the female part significant? (This isn’t me being snarky; this is me genuinely wondering because this is not my personal area of recreational reading.)

      1. Doreen*

        I think the female part is significant only because those particular positions ( office manager and bookkeeper) are more likely to be filled by women than by men. More than half of those convicted of embezzling are women , almost certainly because women are more likely to have the jobs that involve collecting payments.

  5. Steve for Work Purposes*

    Well TIL I’ve had jobs in the past that broke the law – as a teenager/in college I had more than one W2 job that made us clock in/out to use the bathroom. Glad my current job doesn’t have to deal with that at least, but annoying that this thing still happens.

    1. I forgot my user name again*

      I just came across what I believe is a national chain, if not a very large regional chain, that not only has their employees clock out for 10 minute breaks, but also requires them to leave the premices.

    2. River*

      The W2 is a red herring.
      The distinction is between hourly and usually* non-exempt, where you can be required to clock out, and salaried and usually* exempt, where you still might have a time card if you have different projects but where you usually* do not have set breaks either paid or unpaid.

      *Note all the caveats. A full description of the hourly, salaried, exempt, and non-exempt quartet is beyond the scope of this comment

    3. JMC*

      When are companies going to leave people alone when it comes to bodily functions? And stop punishing them for having them?

  6. MK*

    Apart for the legal aspect in #5, there is also the practical one: people will need to monitor and note how many bathroom breaks they took and how long they lasted. That sounds like a lovely work environment.

    1. Malarkey01*

      If you’re in an industry where you bill your time, usually in 6 minute increments, you get very used to tracking exactly what you’re doing every minute of the day. Sounds like they are already doing this and using the billing records for payroll. Not okay, but billing time in law is VERY common (and sometimes unpleasant)

      1. Bast*

        IIAL and bill in 6 minute increments. The general consensus in most of the firms that I’ve worked in that bill time (since some were flat fees for a specific service or percentages of a settlement, depending on what I was doing at the time) is that while we do track, we are not billing “every second of every day.” It is not quite as precise as people think. If you get up and stretch for a minute or two, you are not expect to stop the clock and start it again. If you get up and pee, you are not expected to stop and start the clock. The general consensus is that if it’s anything beyond a .1/6 mins then you stop the clock. We also are not tracking every minute of every day besides that, as not everything is billable nor is it expected to be. Office meetings, discussions with partners regarding cases, various administrative tasks (we still have paper files, so it isn’t unheard of to spend 15 minutes searching for a vanished file) all are not billable time, yet my salary remains more or less the same. I’m sure some firms function differently, but none have been punitive and deducted my pay or refused to consider the time I spent doing things like using the restroom.

        1. Consonance*

          When I’ve spoken with my Dad about his own billing/tracking (white shoe law firm), he was very clear that bathroom breaks are not only paid, they’re billable. His stance (as an employment lawyer) is that you pay not just for productive time but also reasonable amounts of time that support productive time. It’s entirely reasonable to need to use the bathroom. You can’t just…not. So, small bathroom breaks are part of billable time. Same went for pouring himself a cup of coffee, standing up and stretching, etc. They also had an expectation at the firm for the number of hours billed per week, and it certainly wasn’t forty. I forget the exact number, but I recall something like 20 billable hours per week (and they were obviously in the office a lot more than that). He’s still proud of the day he was traveling to Asia and managed to bill more than 24 hours in a single day, lol.

          2. L.H. Puttgrass*

            I’m guessing your dad, like mine, is of a previous generation of lawyers. A billable hours target of 20 hours per week works out to about 1,000 billable hours per year. Most biglaw firms now expect twice that number—as the minimum.

            1. Consonance*

              That certainly may be the case, although double that number would mean that *all* of their hours are billable, which is not possible. He worked much more in the first ten years of practice than later in his career, which he grants is just the way law works. In his later years, he was incredibly careful with work and time boundaries, and always took all of his PTO. He was really angry with his colleagues who forced their associates to work unreasonably long hours or forego vacation, and saw it as a major workplace problem. I entirely agree that most others don’t follow his example, and he made career sacrifices because of his choices, but I’m glad I have his example!

              1. Consonance*

                I’ll add that I genuinely don’t remember the billable hours target. It may have been 30. It was definitely less than 40.

              2. L.H. Puttgrass*

                “That certainly may be the case, although double that number would mean that *all* of their hours are billable, which is not possible.”

                You’re assuming a 40-hour workweek, which is very much not the case in biglaw these days. Plug “The Truth About the Billable Hour” into your favorite search engine and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

      2. George McGeorge*

        A fair few in the legal industry even have two sets of billing software to track time in order to cover this situation. One for the daily/breaks/hours and PTO, the other for the billable work. It can be annoying for both entry and reconciliation, but helps cover non-billable tasks like general meetings, All-Hands, paid breaks for hourly staff, etc.

    2. MCMonkeybean*

      It seems like the opposite actually–I think if they were doing things legally you would usually have to keep track of things like that but at this company they are only tracking billed time and not taking anything else into account at all.

    1. Myrin*

      I have, and I knew from the start who was a family member and who wasn’t – nobody was sneaky about it and tried to hide it from non-family members.

    2. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

      You totally misread the letter. It is NOT a family business. It is a small business. And the LW specifically said they have a policy against letting relatives supervise each other.

      And if it’s all okay, why did Jan lie? If it’s cool, as you keep implying, then no need to hide anything.

      1. DeliCat*

        It’s also difficult not to read Jan’s absence from her Mum’s interview as tactical. She just happened to be out sick on the day she was supposed to interview her own Mother? Whom she’d failed to disclose was interviewing?

        Yeah, this has nothing to do with ‘family businesses’. What they did was sneaky and everyone is right to be annoyed by it.

        1. Miette*

          I have to agree. The partners should be having serious reservations about Jan’s trustworthiness here. It’s a very bad look for her to have hidden this. Like a poster above said, I’d also consider an audit of the company books pronto.

        2. Consonance*

          Yeah, when I’ve had any kind of relationship with someone outside of the work I’m interviewing them for, I disclose it directly to the hiring manager, let them know about the exact nature of the relationship, and recuse myself from the process. This has even happened when I referred an employee to work for a publication I also work with. Since we had an external (working) relationship, I disclosed it and recused myself from the interview. It protects both of us in both of our jobs. I can’t even imagine referring (even casually encouraging her to apply) my mom without disclosing the relationship.

          1. Space Needlepoint*

            that’s exactly what Jan should have done. That she was involved at all is unethical. That she was screening the resumes was so far out of line it’s not on this planet.

        1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

          You never heard of a lie by omission. Deliberating concealing revelant information is lying.

            3. juliebulie*

              Agreed… I don’t know why Alice is defending these strangers when the company policy explicitly prohibits supervising relatives. There is zero defense.

        2. HonorBox*

          Withholding the truth isn’t lying?

          Lying is the act of intentionally making a false statement to deceive. It an also be defined as expressing something that is false or conveying a false impression.

          Jan and mom not disclosing that they’re related is conveying the false impression that they are not related.

          1. rebelwithmouseyhair*

            Yeah, we talk about the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Omission is definitely covered there, right bang in the middle.

        3. ferrina*

          lol! This isn’t how it works. When you deliberately hide something that you know would make a significant difference to the other person, yeah, we can categorize that as lying.

          Alice, by your logic:
          -your spouse didn’t say they weren’t sleeping with that coworker, so they weren’t lying!
          -your friend didn’t say they were going to pay for their share when you went out to eat, therefor it’s reasonable that you need to pay the whole thing! (especially when the friend conveniently forgot their wallet)
          -you told your boss you were too busy for a new project, but you didn’t mention that you were busy working on a passion project. That’s not lying, so your boss can’t be mad that you didn’t bring it up!
          -your friend asked if you were interested in going to a concert with them, and you said you were interested. Your friend asked if they should get the tickets, and you said yes. Your friend got the tickets and is now mad you aren’t going to the concert, but it’s not your fault you didn’t tell the friend you were going to be out of town! You just answered the questions that your friend asked- not your fault the friend asked the wrong questions!

      3. Alice*

        She didn’t lie, just omitted saying it was her mom. Maybe, because she knew her mom wouldn’t have a fair chance at the job if she said anything.

        1. Jennifer Strange*

          Her mom shouldn’t have had a fair chance at the job based on the company’s own rules, so by omitting that fact she was knowingly dishonest.

          1. Alice*

            The company’s rules say the supervisor can’t be related. She isn’t the supervisor. The LW says that maybe there’s an element of supervision a small percent of the time. Well guess what, I do work with and for a lot of people, but only one of them’s really my supervisor.

            1. Jennifer Strange*

              If she’s supervising her mom, she is a supervisor of her mom (even if she isn’t THE supervisor). But please, continue to split those hairs further.

            2. Pastor Petty Labelle*

              She’s literally supervising her mom on accounting tasks. It says so right in the letter. Which supervising her on fixing the coffee would be bad enough* but supervising her mom on the money is a huge gigant red flag you can see from space.

              *fixing coffee is important, I am not belitting the job.

        3. Socks*

          “But maybe they only hid something because they wouldn’t get what they wanted otherwise” isn’t the winning argument you seem to think it is.

        4. learnedthehardway*

          The HR person had a duty to the company to disclose any information that was pertinent to the decision about hiring the candidate. The relationship was pertinent information, esp. given company policies.

          The HR person should AT LEAST have given the partners the information that she was related to one of the applicants, and should have asked them if they wanted to know which one. It’s possible that the partners would have said, “Let’s interview them without knowing, and see if anyone stands out as well qualified.” But they should have had the information and choice to make that decision.

        6. Wilbur*

          Once she found out her mom had applied, she should have told them and someone else should have screened the resumes. The EA probably files expense reports, you can’t have your daughter approve your expense reports. If there was someone else that could handle any expense related work that the EA would do, they probably could’ve made it work but that’s just not possible at a 12 person company. The mom not being able to do the job due to ethical considerations is a feature, not a bug.

        7. Coffee Protein Drink*

          Her mom didn’t have a fair chance at the job because someone biased in her favor did the resume screenings. She had a leg up that she didn’t deserve.

    3. Yougp*

      But there is no evidence this is a family business — the two founders are not relatives, and neither is a relative of LW or the accountant who did the hiring.

    4. WS*

      Yeah, but it’s all out in the open. There’s a mother/daughter pair at my workplace (not a family business) but that’s the reality of small towns. They don’t supervise each other.

      1. Pointy's in the North Tower*

        This happens in my state agency. The smaller offices located in rural areas often have family members or spouses working in the same office. It’s never a secret that these people are related, AND they never have supervisory/any authority over each other.

        We even do some odd supervisor setups to avoid conflicts of interest with family members/spouses. We had a counselor/tech couple working in two different offices with the same bigger boss. (Bigger boss normally was the supervisor for all counselors and techs in the offices she supervised.) Supervisory duties over the tech spouse were given to a counselor not in the same office as the counselor spouse so there’d be an extra layer of management between the tech and the bigger boss to avoid any ethical issues and to avoid bad optics.

    5. Emmy Noether*

      I have, and while, in my experience, they are often less reluctant to hire relatives of employees, or to consider personal recommendations from trusted employees, the secrecy would not have gone over well at all.

    6. Ash*

      First, OP did not say the business was family-run, just small. Jan is not an owner of the company. But actually, many of us have worked for family businesses, and there are many reasons why we are wary of them–nepotism being one of the first.

    7. hbc*

      Worked in a family business, had to deal with the fact that no one could complain about the abusive sales manager to HR because they were father/daughter, and they would regularly have “business” lunches on the company dime. Had to figure out how to fire a terrible performer without losing his excellent performer cousin. Had a guy who would disregard his manager in favor of a manager in a different department because otherwise Sunday dinner with his in-laws was awful.

      Yeah, I would definitely *not* be happy I didn’t get a chance to figure out if a new hire was promising enough to worth risking going through all that.

    8. Falling Diphthong*

      This one wasn’t a family business until the person setting up interviews arranged to have their secret family member be the best option.

      Though that is an interesting tactic: Find a small firm, get yourself into a position where you can scotch any hiring not to your liking, put your relatives secretly forward as the only viable candidates willing to take the job, and eventually your family outnumbers the rest and you declare it a family business via fiat.

      1. bamcheeks*

        I want this to be a Netflix drama, shot in the style of a glossy “rich people being terrible” and probably starring Jennifer Coolidge, but the business to be something totally mundane like domestic plumbing or roofing.

        1. Peanut Hamper*

          As someone with more than a passing familiarity with the plumbing business, I would totally watch the hell out of a show about a small family-run plumbing business with Jennifer Coolidge in it! I can just imagine a Dallas-style melodrama with her as the owner of a plumbing supply business saying “Nobody shits in this town without me knowing about it.”

          Anyway, off to Hollywood to start my career as a producer.

      2. Kim*

        Hi all,
        I’m LW 1 and I appreciate all the feedback. As was clarified in the comments, this is not a family run business, just a very small one. I don’t think I, or my co-workers that I have talked to, would necessarily have an issue with it being her mother, expect for the fact that she failed to disclose that information. For what reason would you keep that secret? We also believe that she was aware of what the Partners were willing to pay and probably conveyed that information to her mother, and as others have pointed out, may have not pushed through other resumes that could have been a good match. Also to note, Jan has been problematic in the office in the past, a general negative attitude, unneccessary defensiveness, unhelpful when it does come to handling HR things (pregnant employees had to handle their own paperwork because she messed it up), potentially abusing PTO – she is out sick, or leaves early a lot, etc. Some of these issues have been brought to the partners attention, but they intervene minimally. So this latest “scheme” is just the most brazen thing she’s done and combined with her history she really should be let go, but I doubt that’s going to happen.

        1. Falling Diphthong*

          Okay, so: You’re right that this is shady. (The sort that could be raw and naive incompetence, and could be shadiness so badly disguised that people think “Well surely they wouldn’t be so brazen.”) The partners have been clear that this has not reached the level of personal pain for themselves that would cause them to actually do something.

          This is going to continue as is until either one of the parties leaves (you, Jan, Jan’s mom, any partner who’s been particularly opposed to the effort of doing anything) or a new broom partner comes in.

          1. JB (not in Houston)*

            It’s weird that you keep saying this when there’s absolutely nothing in the letter to support it, and even if that’s why she did it, it’s still not ok.

            It’s also concerning that you think lying by omission isn’t a thing. Plenty of people have wound up with judgments against them for fraud for doing exactly that. Is this something you regularly do? Do the people you work with and have in your personal life know that you regularly intentionally withhold information that you know would affect their decision-making?

            1. Zona the Great*

              Dishonesty is lying and omissions are dishonest. I can only assume this commenter is less than honest if she’s defending this crap.

          2. Falling Diphthong*

            One of the red flag aspects here is that she and mom are setting up to be the hands through which communications and financial transactions flow. That’s really ideal for shenanigans.

            (I think it’s possible this is just clumsiness, and some sort of “To avoid nepotism I didn’t tell them about my mom, she didn’t tell them about me, and I made sure to not be in the interview so I wouldn’t bias things” extreme naiveté. Sometimes people are just incompetent. But as an outsider, it probably shouldn’t be your first assumption that the thing that looks like a set-up for embezzling is surely just incompetence–many a successful embezzler wove the red flags into that “Surely not Sam” cloak.)

            1. bamcheeks*

              I would be really interested to know whether this is “accountant” as in, “handles payroll and the accounts, has some clerical/bookkeeping qualifications” or Accountant as in CPA. Because if Jane is a certified/chartered/licensed accountant, there is absolutely no way she should be able to claim ignorance/incompetence as a defence.

          3. Pastor Petty Labelle*

            If her mom wouldn’t have had a chance at the job otherwise, then she shouldn’t have been hired. You know eligible candidates and all. If she wouldn’t have had a chance then she wasn’t eligible.

          4. Chidi Anagonye*

            Ethics class meets Tuesday and Fridays, from 11-1 at Eleanor’s. It’s your turn to bring donuts, Alice.

          5. Strive to Excel*

            Yes, because she’s *not supposed to be eligible*. Jan is supervising this job. Family members cannot supervise each other. Ergo, Jan’s family members are automatically ineligible.

            This is actively how frauds start.

        3. Pastor Petty Labelle*

          Oh she wanted Mommy in the job to cover for her.

          OP, the bigger problem is that the bosses seem little interested in actually managing. There’s more to a business than whatever product/service you are selling. It’s also all the boring administrative tasks like performance reviews and making sure you have good employees that don’t cause problems. You need to look realistically if you want to stay at a place where someone like Jan is tolerated rather than fired.

          1. Slow Gin Lizz*

            Yeah, this. I’d say that how the partners handle this situation should be a flag for your next personal career move. If they realize what a terrible situation it is and fire Jan and rescind Mom’s offer, then it’s all good, but if they just say, Eh, not ideal but we were having so much trouble finding someone, and we can’t lose Jan because she knows how to do the job [note: except she doesn’t] and it’d be too hard to find and train a new accountant, then you probably need to look for a new workplace, unfortunately.

            OP, I’d suggest looking at some of the old AAM posts about why a company can’t be held hostage by a bad employee. I know you don’t have hiring/firing power, but if you have the ear of the partners at your firm, some of what AAM wrote on those posts would be helpful when having that discussion.

            And please update us! We are all hoping the partners do the right thing (well, except for the comment troll who seems to think it’s totally fine to leave out relevant details with regards to ethics).

    9. Irish Teacher.*

      I doubt it’s normal in family businesses for an employee to hide their relationship with a job candidate from the owners.

    10. Totally Minnie*

      Alice, with all due respect and kindness, I think you need to take a step back on this one.

      You’re taking this very personally, when none of the things anyone is saying are about you or your situation. No one is insulting family businesses. No one is accusing you of anything. You don’t need to go so hard about this.

    11. Leenie*

      Your passionate defense of Jan and Alice’s deception throughout the comments this morning is a little odd.

      1. Leenie*

        Sorry – I inadvertently conflated your user name with someone in the letter. It really was unintentional, not passive-aggressive or snarky. I should have just said, “Your defense of Jan’s deception…”

  8. Matt*

    #3: I really had hoped that shaking hands would disappear forever by 2020. Unfortunately I was wrong, it seems to be back for good.

    1. Ellis Bell*

      I think if I were OP, I’d put a warm hand on the arm, or gesture towards the door in a “walk with me” way while saying “Oh, I don’t shake hands”. Just any kind of friendly body language while politely declining the gesture like you’d decline the salt at the table. If OP feels compelled to offer an explanation “Oh I have an issue with my hand, so I don’t shake hands but let me show you out”. That could be anything from a sprain, to having just put lotion on.

      2. Mrs. Pommeroy*

        I like the general idea of friendly body language and a polite decline á la “Oh, since Covid I don’t shake hands”.
        But since the LW seems to be at the beginning of their career, I can totally see that being hard to do what with social expectations around these things (people being expected to have a “nice firm handshake” and stuff like that). I would advise LW3 to practice their polite but friendly decline in front of a mirror or a trusted person for a while.

        1. quercus*

          Politician Bob Dole couldn’t shake hands (with his right hand) due to a war wound, so he made sure to always have a pen in his right hand, so nobody would try to shake it without a chance for him to explain.

    2. WS*

      My sister-in-law has hyperhydrosis, and she was going to have botox treatment in 2020 but obviously that didn’t happen (she has since, but not in her hands). She hasn’t shaken hands since and she says the same thing: it was fine for a while, but the expectation is well and truly back now.

      1. Sparrow*

        I also have hyperhirdosis. I have taken glycopyrrolate daily for two years. It has done wonders for me! I spoke to my dermatologist and she suggested the treatment option.

    3. Thinking*

      I no longer shake. I’ve encountered zero people who won’t first bump. Not a scientific study.

      1. Caramel & Cheddar*

        I do it because it’s better than the alternative, but every time I’m asked to a piece of me dies because to me it feels like something you do between friends, not professional acquaintances.

    4. Peanut Hamper*

      One thing covid taught me is that we really need to stop saying “avoid it like the plague” because we are not, in fact, actually good at taking very simple steps to avoid the plague.

      I also detest hand-shaking.

    5. JMC*

      hell no. I am never shaking hands again. Pandemic is still active, there are other diseases going around. No. Not doing it. I don’t give a damn how it looks either. I’m already chronically ill and I am not going to try to add to it.

    6. Simple White Hankie*

      Oof yeah. I’ve never liked handshakes because I just hate touching strangers, but it’s been worse since a guy friend warned me about typical male bathroom hygiene. I was hoping handshakes would at least drop to becoming nonstandard after 2020, but it seems like we as a society have learned literally nothing about preventing disease transmission. Or keeping our hands to ourselves.

    7. tangerineRose*

      I also hoped that shaking hands would be dropped as a custom. How about if we just wave at each other?

  9. Skytext*

    For Letter 2, I don’t see that it matters even if she really is a clinical psychologist or PHD or whatever. The issue is that she is using the clinic’s address as her own business address! She’s claiming to be a business owner, booking client appointments and getting insurance using the clinic’s address. She may have her own one-woman business, but it isn’t the outpatient clinic! But she sure seems to be representing that the clinic is her business. I think that would be some kind of fraud, especially using it for insurance.

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Billing insurance for visits you don’t have the credentials to perform is outright fraud.

      Using someone else’s address to do so is stupid and will probably cause issues with them, but not to the level of insurance fraud, per se, if you can legitimately get mail at said address and it isn’t across state lines from the actual location of your practice.

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        I should say, billing ANYBODY for services you don’t have the credentials to legally perform is outright fraud.

        1. atalanta0jess*

          In fact, performing health care services you aren’t credentialed to perform, even if you do them for free, is no good.

          I’d recommend reporting to the compliance officer in addition to or in place of HR, they’ll have a better sense of the legal issues involved with licensing and such.

      1. Green great dragon*

        Yes. And she takes client appointments at the address. Does that mean she’s using her employer’s premises for her own business? Is she doing this during hours she’s meant to be working for her employer? LW doesn’t need to settle the qualification issue to bring this to their employer.

    3. Firefighter (Metaphorical)*

      This whole situation is honestly shocking to me. I have read AAM for many years and consider myself to have a pretty high bar for shock, but this one made me GASP. I think it’s the combination of (1) lying about credentials in general, (2) lying about being a medical professional in specific, (3) misrepresenting your relationship to the place where you’re employed, and (4) getting mail sent to the address of people who will immediately know you are doing (1) (2) and (3) just from the outside of the envelopes?!

      1. KateM*

        About (1) and (2), I don’t know if the title of that story is what OP write in but in the text there is absolutely no claim by OP2 that this coworker is not a psychologist. That’s the very first thing Alison asks, in fact. Remember the OP who laughed and said “Whatever would Nancy know about fossils? That’s not her background.”?

      2. Falling Diphthong*

        Yes, but consider the inconvenience of picking up your mail once/week from one of those PO box places that you list as “817 Main St Suite 602.” Surely (4) is then the best option.

      3. Slow Gin Lizz*

        I learned wayyyyyyy back in grad school* that there are people out there who literally don’t care if they get caught lying. It’s beyond bizarre to me, but there you go.

        * Where I met my first pathological liar. Poor guy was a total joke in my program and everyone would just roll their eyes at every new story he told about himself. Alas, his name is a common one so there’s no way to know what he’s up to now.

        1. Irish Teacher.*

          I had a boss once like that. She got called out on lying (telling somebody another person had made an allegation of bullying against them, when there was no no bullying and no allegation) and when the person pointedc out how much trouble she could have caused, she just laughed and said, “I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

          I don’t think she’d do something like this because it would require more commitment than she usually made to her lies. She’d tell you two different, contradictory stories in two days. But yeah, some people don’t seem to care if they get caught lying.

          1. Slow Gin Lizz*

            Oof, yeah, that’s a lot worse. Grad school guy was pretty harmless in that his lies (the ones I heard, anyway) were just about himself and his personal life. Like, we were in a master’s program in the performing arts but did you know he also has a PhD in some kind of science and works part time for a big pharmaceutical company? And that he lived on a kibbutz in Israel for two years? And that he was going to go to nursing school after he finished our program?

            All of this is possible, of course, but exceptionally unlikely, especially given that he was not old enough to have accomplished all of this unless he was Doogie Howser.

            1. Elizabeth West*

              I met someone like this in grad school too. Everyone thought he was great, and I did too at first — he was very charming — but as time went on, I became suspicious. Among other things:

              -He published a novel (which I could not find)
              -He started a successful energy business with his dad (it had a website but there was almost no info on it)
              -He was an actor (I looked up his name and there was only one actor by that name, who was Black– this guy was decidedly not Black)

              I called him out on it one night after class by innocently asking if I could read his book, and he immediately bailed. Never talked to me again, hahaha.

          2. ferrina*

            I knew someone who would cycle through stories until he found the one that got him the reaction that he wanted. He claimed it was because he was so socially awkward/had such low confidence/knew that you would be mad if he told the truth/whatever got you to just move on with his lie.

    4. Hroethvitnir*

      I feel the fact this person is claiming to be a clinical psychologist and apparently selling people therapy without any training is clearly the worst part here.

      Having things sent to the office is just. Really stupid.

      1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

        we do not know if they have qualifications or not. The OP is just guessing. It would be SO EASY to find out. All states have an open registry for counselors, psychologists, etc. You just need their name to look them up. I really wish the OP would do this.

        1. Hroethvitnir*

          I certainly agree with that! The most reasonable suggestion I’ve seen upthread is that she might be at the supervised therapy point in training, which would make sense.

          Not knowing your coworker is an licenced clinical psychologist just sounds incredibly implausible to me, though not impossible.

          Misrepresentation of the business side is definitely bizarre and potentially concerning for the business. I’m just super uncomfortable with focusing on that over the incredible harm of someone lying about credentials to provide therapy.

          Some of the truly horrifying experiences people I know have had have been licensed clinical psychologists (sucks how traumatised people don’t really feel capable of reporting anyone), but a lot have been underqualified, over-confident “counsellors” (not all non-doctorate-holding therapists suck, of course!). If she is doing what the LW suspects, incompetent therapy is *dangerous*.

    5. Insert Clever Name Here*

      No it for sure matters if she’s representing herself as a clinical psychologist when she isn’t. The use of the address is a dumb detail, but misrepresenting herself to people and treating them is absolutely appalling.

    6. londonedit*

      I find the whole thing completely bizarre. The simplest solution would be that she is a clinical psychologist and she’s working as a clinical psychologist and that’s all fine, and the OP just didn’t realise that’s what her role was, and instead for some reason thought she was another case manager. But that would be bizarre. How would the OP not know?

      The other solution is that she is indeed meant to be working as a case manager, but she’s also/instead seeing clients as a clinical psychologist. And if that’s the case, how is she doing that without anyone realising? Is she seeing clients after work hours? Is she making out to everyone she works with that she’s seeing clients as a case manager, but she’s telling those clients she’s a clinical psychologist? Is she actually also doing the case manager work? What does her boss think she’s doing?

      I just can’t get my head around it all.

      1. Lexi Vipond*

        There might be a kind of bait and switch going on, where she’s using the official-sounding clinic address to advertise, and then saying ‘actually, the (out-of-hours?) treatment address is…’. I feel like that’s come up recently in UK cases of people paying for dodgy treatments. But how did she not expect the CLINIC to notice?

        1. Sloanicota*

          Yeah that’s also a possibility, as there are some “coaching” roles that don’t require any degree, like life coach or wellness coach or something. There’s sober companions etc too. Still, OP says she’s using a specific title that includes certifications she doesn’t have.

        2. PropJoe*

          How did she not expect the clinic to notice?

          A lot of people are arrogant or convinced of their own infallibility (or both). I suspect this person falls into one of those categories.

      2. Sloanicota*

        My guess was she’s providing counseling to one of those app-based services. I have a friend who’s a social worker and she says it’s big in that field as a side hustle.

        1. Elizabeth West*

          But she shouldn’t be using the clinic’s address, right? Especially if they don’t know about it — although I don’t see how they wouldn’t if she’s getting mail there.

          I don’t know how that kind of thing works — would they allow it? Could she be doing it for them through the app, and OP just didn’t know?

          1. Jane Anonsten*

            I use one of these and my counselor is just my counselor. I’m not meeting “Mary from Longbourne Mental Health Professionals” when I schedule a session with her, I’m meeting just Mary. Now, there is a profile you can look at where people can give more details and maybe the coworker is saying she works at “Mental Health Professionals” or whatever. My counselor’s specifies that she’s a LCSW and mentions her day job’s field.

    7. KatieP*

      To me, the bigger issue is that she’s advertising medical/psychological services that she’s (most likely) not qualified to perform. Yes, she’s possibly done damage to her employer, but she’s also probably done damage to anyone she treated as a patient.

      In addition to all of the above, surely wherever LW2 lives there is some kind of licensing/credentialing board for these services. I would check to see if this person is licensed, and if not, report them there, in addition to mentioning it to HR.

    8. Jamjari*

      This is how I would frame it to whoever I told since it may be that the person does have the necessarily credentials – but she’s still using the business address for non-business related business. Let HR or boss investigate from there.

  10. Yellow lab*

    #2, if you determine she doesn’t have a degree AND is seeing clients for consultations, you need to report this to the appropriate professional board. This is potentially putting vulnerable people in danger.

  11. Mrs. Pommeroy*

    The potential for fraud in the first letter seems really high!
    Jan hiding her relationship to one of the interviewees is obviously the worst part of this situation and to me indicates something nefarious might be going on. But even if she had been vocal about it from the start, I don’t see how having the accountant and the executive assistant to the company’s partners being closely related is ever a good idea in a non-family business! Both positions give insight into really sensitive information and the potential for collusion is soo high if the people in them are that closely related! And really hard to proof because them meeting up outside of work is completely unsuspicious but offers so many chances to swap sensitive information and to help eachother cover things up.
    LW1, I think you definitely have standing to talk to the partners about your concerns and the high risk for fraud would be the angle I would take with them.

    1. HonorBox*

      Fraud is the key point. Secondarily, the collusion aspect is another solid point. If the office manager/accountant/HR person and the EA are THAT close, what influence are you giving them over the business? Thirdly, you have your office manager/accountant/HR person doing something that is not truthful. How do you trust her going forward?

  13. Irish Teacher.*

    LW4, the message I would take from the second message is that it’s quite likely they would have been willing to employ you had that person not turned up. I think that feedback should give you some confidence that you aren’t doing anything wrong and that it’s just a matter of time and applying for a number of jobs until you find one with a genuine vacancy.

    Sometimes the reality is that there isn’t really anything you could do to improve (well, there probably is because one can always improve but I mean nothing that would have greatly increased your chances). Sometimes you are a perfectly suitable candidate but there is just one or two or five more people who are even more suitable, usually in ways you have no control over, like in the example you gave where they knew one of the candidates or somebody just happens to have recent experience on a project similar to a major one the company is working on or something like that. A certain amount is luck and in the next interview, you might be the person who just happens to have the experience or qualification or connection that they want.

    The reality is a lot of jobs have dozens or even hundreds of applicants. Often the reason you don’t get a job is unrelated to anything you are doing wrong and doesn’t mean anything about your chances for other jobs in the industry. It’s just that…well, only one candidate can be the best for the role (and that is assuming they pick the best candidate; there are a lot of bad interviewers who hire the wrong person or who hire based on things like who seems like a good person to hang out with or who let biases influence them).

    1. Sloanicota*

      That said, if experience with this specific form is a barrier for you, it’d be worth brainstorming ways to get some experience with those forms. Is there a brief certification program on those forms where they can walk you through a dummy version? Can someone you know from work, or a prior job, do you the great kindness of showing you an old one from a prior year (perhaps if you take them for a nice thank you coffee or something?). Anything?

      1. bamcheeks*

        Or get a friend to talk through the advice they give someone using that document for the first time. “I did an informational interview with a colleague who works on that, and she talked me through some of the extra security features and some of the typical data quality issues they experience, so, obviously, whilst I don’t have direct experience of it, I have a overview of how it differs from a standard TPS report and …” is a great way to give someone confidence that you are ready and able to learn quickly.

      2. ferrina*

        I read that more as “most roles in this field don’t need experience with this form, but it was a weird sticking point for this job.” That can happen- sometimes a specific role or organization has a weird need for a specific skill. Or maybe the last person they hired struggled mightily with this form, and even though it wouldn’t be an issue for most people, they are haunted by their last hire so they made that a focal point.

        I didn’t see it as anywhere where LW should have done anything different. In general, I think that if you only get feedback once, sometimes it’s not a reflection on you at all. Not all feedback is accurate. If it feels weird, you can take it with some grains of salt and wait to see if anyone else ever seems to think it’s an issue.

        1. Sloanicota*

          Or even if it is accurate, it may not be particularly actionable, or you may not wish to take action based on it. I usually don’t come out of interviews when I’m the hiring manager thinking “they blew it by doing X instead of Y” – I think “this other person is a better fit for the role.” Frustrating but true.

        2. Retired lawyer*

          It could also be a statement about the applicant pool for the job, rather than OP4. As in, the company wasn’t necessarily looking for experience in this form — maybe they were thinking they would have to train the successful person. But then, their candidate pool ended up with other candidates (or even only one other candidate, depending on how unusual it is for people to work with this form) who did have that experience. So they went with someone they wouldn’t have to train. It’s even possible that they latched onto that explanation because otherwise it was difficult to choose between OP4 and the successful candidate.

          Of course, that’s all speculation, but the point is that there are a lot of ways to parse this feedback that do not reflect badly on OP4. As such, this isn’t something for OP4 to feel they should have acted differently — unless it does come up more than this one time.

  14. VP of Monitoring Employees' LinkedIn Profiles*

    For #1…

    What is the point of having an employee handbook if Official Policy is to do the opposite?

    1. Kisa*

      OMG this is every workplace I have ever worked at! :D

      One time we were supposed to do some changes in our process. The person in cahrge of the change asked us to check some material about the process. I innosently asked: should we reference to the manual or how things are actually done.

    2. ecnaseener*

      I’m guessing the handbook only bars family members formally supervising/managing each other, which isn’t technically going to be happening with Jan and her mom.

      What should be in the handbook is that family members can’t be involved in hiring decisions about each other (including getting to screen out the competition!)

        1. ecnaseener*

          Right, I’m saying that probably isn’t a formal manager/report relationship barred by the handbook.

      2. Mockingjay*

        Employee handbooks can’t cover every possible circumstance or transgression. So you write one that covers the big stuff and hope/assume that employees will extrapolate good behaviors for other unforeseen circumstances.

        HR exists partly because employees can be like the smart-aleck kid who refutes mischief by saying, ” well you didn’t specify I couldn’t do X. You only told me about A and B.” And in this case, the smart-aleck kid is HR.

        OP 1, is this situation indicative of how the company functions overall? I’d take a careful look at how the business truly operates. Because this is bananapants.

        1. ecnaseener*

          I don’t disagree, I’m just responding to VP’s question of why the handbook isn’t being followed. I’m guessing it is, technically, being followed in this case.

    3. Peanut Hamper*

      “The employee handbook is more what you call, guidelines, than actual rules.”

      Aargh, me mateys!

    4. Elsewise*

      At an extremely toxic old workplace, I once pointed out to my boss that something he’d told me was contradicted in the employee handbook. He responded “we’ve never had an employee handbook!”

      (His second in command had written the handbook and he had approved it but ignored what he was approving, and he hadn’t onboarded me and instead asked his wife, who didn’t work for the company, to do it, so she had been the one who sent it to me. He was really more the “face” of the company, but had no idea or interest what was going on with the day to day operations. Unfortunately his number two had quit, so it was really his wife running the company without pay until the board figured it out and fired him.)

    5. Smurfette*

      The Handbook is useful for people like Jan – it tells them what they need to conceal or lie about.

  15. Beth Jacobs*

    # 5: This is kinda how it worked at the law firm I was part-time at as a student, but we could also charge a limited amount of time to non-billable codes (know-how, admin). I think the limit was about 15 hours a month.
    I made sure to always get paid for the entire amount of time I was on-site.
    Fulltime employees got paid a salary though.

  16. Boss Scaggs*

    For #1, even if they’re not up to anything nefarious it’s still way out of bounds.. If the two partners don’t care though, not sure there’s much you can do.

    1. Daughter of Ada and Grace*

      At best, it feels like what would be considered “an appearance of conflict of interest” – basically, you aren’t doing anything untoward, but someone external who doesn’t know the details could reasonably assume you are.

      I know when my dad (retired) held a professional license (engineering), he had to turn down at least one volunteer opportunity at their church where he was asked to volunteer because of his professional expertise, and my mom was a church employee. Just the appearance of a conflict of interest would have been enough to earn him anything from a formal reprimand from the board to losing his license entirely.

      1. Kevin Sours*

        It’s not just an appearance. It is a conflict of interest even if nobody is doing anything untoward. Some conflicts of interest can be managed and accepted but above all that requires transparency.

        1. Strive to Excel*

          You’re not wrong, but if engineering is like accounting “Appearance of Conflict of Interest” is actually its own concept that you have to watch out for.

          The licensing board I have states that members must avoid the appearance conflicts of interest as well as actual conflicts of interest. For instance – Daughter’s dad above might have known full well that the mom had no decision making power whatsoever; maybe her job consisted of managing the children’s program, and had no power over approving engineering designs. Under the framework, that’s not an ‘actual’ conflict of interest. However, to an outsider, the appearance of “we’re soliciting work from the spouse of a church employee” is strong enough to the point it would also be disallowed.

  17. WhoseBusinessIsIt*

    Other folks are commenting on the licensure issue for LW2, but even if she’s licensed there’s still a major issue – she’s using the business’s address as the address for her own independent business. She has placed ads using it. She has business mail coming to it. This is a massive problem putting aside the potential licensure issues. It’s even worse because the business is related to the business of the real company. If the side business foes something that annoys patients or worse, they’re going to blame the real company there. They could sue it. Further, it might legitimately be considered liable.

    Not only would this be a firing offense at every single place I’ve ever worked, they would de facto own the side business, any of its IP, and any of its profits.

    This is not even a close call. It has to be shut down immediately.

    1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      I had similar thought. If they are in the US it’s super easy to look up if someone is licensed. You just need their name! The bigger problem is does this coworker have permission to use the company address as their business address. And what should they do about the mail, so that theres not confusion about what is supposed to go where.

    2. ThatGirl*

      True, but the thing for me is that a PsyD and a PhD are both doctorates but they are different kinds — almost nobody has both. Claiming to have one and then the other is a screaming red flag.

      1. Hroethvitnir*

        1000% this. If she is competent and just making bad choices outside of therapy, that would be (comparatively) great.

        But people don’t typically get their own qualifications confused. (And you *really* wouldn’t want therapy from a psychology research PhD holder.)

      2. LL*

        But a PsyD and a PhD in clinical psychology are both qualifications for becoming clinical psychologists. Nobody has both because it would be redundant, not to mention expensive. But just because someone has a PhD doesn’t mean they aren’t qualified to be a clinical psychologist.

        1. ThatGirl*

          That’s what I’m saying though, nobody would get both, so her claiming to have both (at different times) is a big red flag.

          And actually, clinical psychologist is a pretty specific term – you can be a clinician without a doctorate, but a “psychologist” has one of those degrees typically.

  18. W2ContractorBreaks*

    Re #5 I guess contracting agencies regularly break employment law. Most folks working for them are w-2 employees of the agency and each agency has their own rules about how to track time. While you’re allowed to get up and get a drink from a nearby kitchen or similar at most, you absolutely would be expected to clock off for any type of break that’s longer than that nearly everywhere. Of the dozen or so such companies I’ve worked for (including most of the large nationals), only one had a structure which allowed for some breaks under 14 minutes to be on the clock (not one of the nationals). None of them would accommodate 20 minute paid breaks.

    1. Cat Tree*

      Yep, it’s unfortunately common for some companies in certain industries to break this law. It’s still illegal though.

    2. Doreen*

      I’m not 100% sure what you mean by not accommodating 20 minute paid breaks. Do you mean they allow 15- 20 minute unpaid breaks or that they don’t allow any breaks between the couple of minutes it takes to run to the restroom or getting a drink of water and a 30 minute unpaid break ? Because the second one is very likely legal.

  19. Emily (not a bot)*

    #5: The way you (legally) connect compensation to hours-billed for salaried workers is with bonus structures tied to the number of hours you bill. It’s not an obscure practice, and it gets you to the same general place!

  20. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

    3. I don’t shake hands at all due to arthritis and when people extend their hands for a shake I put mine behind my back and slightly bow. Never had any complaints about it! Might be worth a go?

    (Or if you’re in IT and can do it a vulcan salute works)

    1. Ms. Murchison*

      Ha, I saw that bowing approach on “The Diplomat” and wondered if it worked in real life! Thanks for confirmation.

  21. HonorBox*

    There is so much wrong with Letter 1. I’ll say from the outset, though, that maybe this never becomes a problem. Maybe. But the fact that the relationship was actively hidden from the outset doesn’t lead me to believe there won’t ever be problems. As a Peloton instructor says, if you just sweep something under the rug, all you are going to have is a lumpy ass rug. And there are a lot of lumps here that the business may trip over.

    Jan, especially, needed to do the right thing and disclose. I’m left wondering if she was sick on the day of her mom’s interview or if she was “sick” because there would be potential for disclosure. She actively swept the relationship under the rug. Lump one.

    While again there is possibility that everything is great going forward, having worked with teams that are around this size my entire career, the relationship could certainly change the dynamics of the business. On a team of 12, where two are now closely related, there could be some power shifting. Everyone else, including the partners, have to consider this alignment in decisions they make. Lump two.

    Regardless of the specifics of the role, having someone supervise their mother, even in a small percentage of her work, could also be problematic. What if mom makes a bunch of mistakes? Will Jan be willing to manage mom the same way that she would if it was someone who wasn’t related? Will Jan cover for mom if one of the partners or another employee bring up some issues? Lump three.

    More specifically, though, there is so much potential for financial impropriety. If Jan handles accounting and mom is doing some accounting work that Jan ultimately supervises, you’ve lost some internal control. I don’t know what kind of business this is, but every audit I’ve ever been part of highlights internal control, and this sort of setup would certainly raise red flags for an audit… if there is one. This could lead to a huge financial problem for the company. Lump four.

    Maybe there will never be problems. But, OP, I think you need to have a very specific conversation with the partners and highlight the facts above. Ask them this: If Jan (and mom) had done the right thing and disclosed the relationship from the outset, how would they have proceeded? Maybe they still would have hired mom. They probably would have at least designed the role a little differently, though. And maybe they wouldn’t have hired mom… that’s what I’d hope. So knowing the lumps under the rug and knowing that Jan and her mom did not disclose the relationship – even going so far as to have Jan take the day of the interview off – what’s the best path forward. I don’t think I’d want the person tasked with my accounting and HR doing this sort of thing because if she’s willing to hide a detail this important, what other important rules might she overlook?

    1. Alice*

      That’s exactly it – her mom wouldn’t have had a chance at the job otherwise. So Jan knew disclosing meant she wouldn’t get the job. If your mom wanted a job, and you knew saying something would make sure she didn’t get it, would you feel that bad about not saying something?

      1. Myrin*

        1. We don’t know the mum wouldn’t have had a chance at the job otherwise. Maybe it would’ve been totally fine had this been disclosed from the get-go!
        2. I personally wouldn’t even be in that situation because I 100% would say something – this is about integrity, fairness, and morals, and absent a literal life-or-death situation, I’m not going to compromise those even for my (very beloved) mum.

        1. Space Needlepoint*

          Really, the situation shouldn’t exist! If the job consisted of any interaction with Jan, mom should not have applied in the first place.

      2. Jennifer Strange*

        Jan’s mom is not entitled to the job. If disclosing it was her mother meant the mom didn’t get the job, that’s an indication of how the owners want to run their business. And I wouldn’t feel bad if disclosing my relationship with mom meant she didn’t get a job at my company, especially since NOT doing so would only make both of us look bad after the truth came out, and potentially get us both fired.

      3. Jane Anonsten*

        If by virtue of being my mom she was ineligible for a job at my workplace? Yup, I absolutely would have disclosed she was my mom. Actually, I wouldn’t have even had to disclose it because even if my mom applied and I was responsible for reviewing resumes and doing initial interview I would not have put forward her resume and she would not have interviewed if I knew she was ineligible. I actually value my integrity, and interestingly, so does my mom — it’s how she raised me.

      4. Heidi*

        If Mom were being excluded from hiring for arbitrary reasons, I’d call them out for being arbitrary. However, it sounds like relatives would be excluded from hire in this situation for sound financial and ethical reasons, so I’d feel worse about withholding that information than disclosing it even if it meant my mother wouldn’t get the job. My mother would also not want everyone at work to think that I’m dishonest, which is what’s happening to Jan.

      5. This isn't wonderland, Alice*

        Boy, Alice, you are REALLY keen to push this very tenuous narrative you have dreamed up, aren’tcha? So, who did you lie to, cheat and scheme around to get your family member a job they weren’t entitled to, huh? C’mon, you can share!

      6. January Gym Rat*

        Is your argument really “people don’t need to act ethically if it means they wouldn’t get what they want”?

        1. Sparkles McFadden*

          This is the position taken by every ethically-challenged person I’ve ever met. There’s always an explanation, an excuse, a story, and it all boils down to “I wanted something so I said what I had to say to get it.” That’s usually followed by “Everybody does this” or “It’s not a big deal.” You cannot get through to such people.

        2. Ellis Bell*

          Yup. Most people don’t lie and scheme in order to get their mother a job; good grief. My mother is the person who taught me not to do that shit.

      7. metadata minion*

        If my mom wouldn’t have a chance at the job because it’s against the office policy — which it sounds like it’s at least close to in this case — then disguising the relationship to get her a job would have a strong chance of ending up with both of us getting fired. How is that a good idea? In a small office, hiding the fact that we’re so closely related for ages sounds stressful (and in my particular case, basically impossible since we have the same last name and look extremely related).

      8. bighairnoheart*

        No? Because it’s not my responsibility as a daughter to get my mom a job! There’s lots of jobs out there in the world, and if the fact that she’s my mom meant she couldn’t work at my workplace, then that’s just how it is. I wouldn’t obscure the truth of our relationship and jeopardize my own job security if that ever came to light. I’d lean on my professional network to get the word out about my mom’s job search. Or help her fix up her resume since I’d been looking at a lot of other similar ones recently and knew what good ones look like for someone with her skill set. Or any of the other significantly more ethically sound ways of helping with my mom’s job search. Not this!

      9. Pointy's in the North Tower*

        Considering that I’m no contact with my mother, no, I wouldn’t feel bad about it all. I also wouldn’t feel bad because I’m doing something shady that will jeopardize *my* employment.

        1. Pointy's in the North Tower*

          *Not doing something shady.

          I like my job. More importantly, I need my job because it provides the means by which I live. I will not risk that for anyone.

      10. Pizza Rat*

        If I was anywhere in the process where a friend or relative was applying for a job at my company I’d disclose the relationship and recuse myself like an ethical person.

      11. Kit*

        My mom has flat-out told me I’d be great at a job working under her… but she’s in banking and that would be, obviously, turbo-illegal. Wanting something is not sufficient reason to break the law or company policy, and Jan could have jeopardized her own employment as well as her mom’s with this stunt. The fact that she didn’t is more down to the owners being hands-off than any credit to Jan.

      12. Former Admin Turned PM*

        If my mom wanted a job and I knew that being transparent and honest meant that she would not get the job, then she would not be pursuing that job.

        I used to work in the same organization with my mom. We fully disclosed our relationship before I even applied for my initial position, and by the time I got my job as an accounting clerk (she was in our client accounting department), I had already proven myself to be independent of her and our job functions never overlapped even though we reported to the same director of finance.

        Years later, my sister recommended for a support position in her department. We were not in the same reporting line except that we reported to the same department head (I was the admin and she supervised another program that reported to him). We both proved our integrity and the separation of sibling relationship vs. professional. Neither of us has ever applied for a position that would require any actual or dotted line supervisory relationship. We’ve made it work for 25 years, although I’m in a totally different division that she is now, so it’s more of a moot point.

        Jan was deliberately misleading the partners by hiding that she had a relationship with an applicant for whom she could not reasonably claim impartiality. Your final sentence is just a prime illustration of “conflict of interest.”

    2. Aggretsuko*

      What I’m wondering about is, do the partners even *care* about this? If they don’t, then they don’t, and they so far don’t mind Jan’s general work shittiness…

      Looking forward to the update.

  22. SweatCity*

    #3, I have sweaty hands too, and I used to get nightmares about people touching my hands and recoiling. Two things have helped me: 1) My hand sweat have fortunately slowed down as I grow up (late 20s). I think it’s hormonal? And 2) I decided to just not care that my hands are sweaty sometimes. I’ll still wipe them on my pants before I have to shake hands and stuff like that (holding important papers in a folder and not my hands is another trick), but I’ve chosen to stop worrying about what others think. If they make a face or something, I might say, ‘sorry, I have naturally sweaty palms,’ but more often than not I just choose to ignore any comment or expression they make. If they choose to judge me, that’s their problem.

  23. Boss Scaggs*

    Fist bumps are a good idea to avoid the handshake.. I also like a gentle forearm bash a la the Oakland A’s of the late 1980s.

    2. PropJoe*

      RIP Oakland Athletics. I don’t blame Sacramento or Las Vegas. I blame ownership for not being willing to work with Oakland & Alameda County in good faith.

  24. Delta Delta*

    #2 – I’d start by asking her about it. As others have pointed out, maybe she does have licensure that OP doesn’t know about. It’s possible she has that licensure in another state (that doesn’t mean she can practice unlicensed, it just means maybe she really does have the credentials). Second, as soon as I registered an LLC I started getting all sorts of mail addressed to “business owner” and “primary partner” and all sorts of weird stuff. If the mail she’s getting doesn’t look like junk mail there might be an issue. If she’s getting rafts of credit card, bank and other types of offer mail, it means someone bought her information and is sending junk mail. I get a ton of it. (The other day I got a USAA solicitation addressed to my mom. who has never lived at my address. and was never in the military.)

    #5 – Lawyers are good at being lawyers. We are absolute shit at running businesses. Zero about this letter surprises me. The only other thing that it lacks to make it perfectly stupid is that people are paid based on hours billed, not based on receipts, so the firm is not only underpaying people, but probably needs a line of credit to do it.

    1. OldHat*

      I’m glad someone else wondered about the increase in mail. It would be one thing if the coworker was newer and mail was catching up, but this sounds like a new thing.

      A lot of systems want a physical address and do not accept a PO Box. It’s possible that coworker has a side business of doing telehealth calls and no office. she may not want to use her home address for the paperwork and panicked. Or didn’t want to pay for a PO box when she couldn’t use it for a system.

      Not good, but maybe talking to the coworker can help spell out why using the business address is not acceptable. And escalate it if she blows you off.

    2. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      You know, we always get a lot of junk faxes for business loans for the director (and former director) at the counseling center i work at. We’re a public university counseling center so we cannot and do not take out those types of loans. Its gone down a lot from covid but we used to get 2- 3 faxes per day! I wonder if that’s whats happened. Maybe the coworker just got their license in the state or just relicensed and the business address is what these spam companies are finding.

    3. Meep*

      I mean technically, you don’t even have to ask. The medical field is pretty heavily regulated. You can look up to see who has their license and in what state pretty easily and I feel like OP should know how.

      But you are probably right on the junk mail. My grandfather and uncle were/are doctors (with the same first and last name – uncle goes by his middle name) and I have gotten mail for Dr. Meep [Last Name] on occasion.

    4. Coverage Associate*

      In 2001, I had my bank send letters to my grandparents’ address for 2 weeks because I was starting college nearby and didn’t know how the college wanted mail to be addressed to students. My uncle now lives there and says I still get junk mail at that address.

      I once used a commercial database I used for work to look up addresses associated with my parents. I wasn’t getting the work related results I needed, so I used my parents to test the accuracy and completeness of the database and software. (I didn’t have the homeowner history I was testing or I would have searched for myself.) The database returned an address in a state that they never lived. I’m not even sure they have visited, maybe 30 years prior to this search.

      My spouse and I get mail addressed to “Mr and Mrs [spouse name]. I open it, and inside it uses first names, my spouse’s correct name, and a totally different first name for Mrs. We joke my spouse is having an affair or was mailed before, but really we know that the database returned aggregators, both the ones meeting the legal definition and the informal ones like alumni offices doing google searches make mistakes.

      I would never hold the junk mail someone gets against them professionally.

      Ooh! Another example. I have never purchased tobacco but recently received a cigar catalog. I assume it’s because my address came up in a list of addresses associated with my traditionally male profession or my former social conservative political affiliations, emphasis on former.

  25. Elizling*

    #1 – A business local to me had a mother push to have her son hired at the company. She was also the accountant. The result was that they colluded to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is a HUGE red flag.

    1. juliebulie*

      And that mom blatantly pushed. Jan was completely sneaky about it – which brings her motives into question.

    2. GreenDoor*

      Came here to point out the same. THIS is the red flag to point out to your Execs. If one is the secretary that gets all the bills and invoices and the other is the accountant that processes money, it is *incredibly* easy for them to collude to commit fraud.

  26. samwise*

    OP #3

    That professor was rude and unkind to wipe her hands immediately after shaking your hand. She should have waited til you left so that you wouldn’t be embarrassed. Especially since she is a prof and you are (I assume) a student, but really in any setting.

    Alison’s advice is good. But also, you learned something about that professor.

  27. Hola Playa*

    #2 – It’s definitely good to check state licensing boards as folks above have recommended and take action with your employer if necessary. But – big but – if she’s started a business, even something completely irrelevant to being a psychologist, the way gross, spammy data-scraping and info sharing seems to work, these mail pieces could all just be a business equivalent of extending car warranty. Online databases find her info across multiple separate sources and put it together as if it were factual. The amount of mail from sketch loan companies, presumably fake website developers, and more randomness since I started my company is mind boggling! Over the years it has shown up at co-working space, home, and even a client office – none of which have ever been my official biz address on any records. Incorrect and vague titles, too.

    1. Smurfette*

      Although OP says that “she is advertising herself online as a business owner as a clinical psychologist and takes client appointments at our address”…

  28. Box of Rain*

    Lats week, I received a decline email from a recruiter with the line “I’m sorry I don’t have any actionable feedback to provide” since I’d not actually interviewed. My immediate thought was: “Someone reads AAM!” lol

    1. River*

      Or maybe professional norms and language are common, and AG is not the only person who knows how to act.

  29. CTA*

    #5

    It never surprises me how some employers try to short employees on pay. At one hourly, part-time job, I mentioned to a co-worker that I wasn’t paid for one of my breaks. Co-worker says that didn’t sound right and I should be paid since it was a break that my employer gave to me. What made things worse is that sometimes I couldn’t even take all of my scheduled breaks because of short staffing.

    Even when I contacted my state’s labor department, an employee there told me the unpaid break was legal. I guess that person wasn’t informed or had some sort of chip on their shoulder. Luckily, I filed a complaint with my state’s labor department just before the deadline for when the violation occurred. I did get back my wages.

    I was definitely worried about the impact on my co-workers. Would this mean my employer would take away some breaks? I don’t know if there were consequences because I had left the role by the time the complaint was filed and resolved. Regardless, if some breaks were taken away, I’m sure my co-workers just took a break anyway because people need to go to the bathroom or get water.

  30. I'm just here for the cats!!*

    #2 If you are in the US you can look up your states licensing board to see if this person has a license with the state. Just google your state and counseling license lookup and you can find out.

    I do think that the OP could bring up that the coworker is getting business mail at work. It might be a problem as she may have not asked permission to use the office for her business. It could also cause some confusion if 2 businesses are listed at the same location.

    I do also want to put out there (as someone who works with counselors and psychologists) that in some countries you can be called psychologist but only have a masters, where as in the US you have to have a PhD to be a psychologist. This came up a few times with coworkers who got their training in other countries (Don’t remember the countries but they were south America and Europe). So if you ever come across someone who says they are psychologists, but are not from the US, don’t think they are lying.

  32. Adipose*

    LW4: I’ve had a potential employer choose someone they already knew, which was really disappointing because the interview was amazing! In my case it worked out to my advantage — the hiring manager enthusiastically recommended me to someone else a free months later, and I ended up taking that job, which was a bit of a (needed at that time) stretch for my skills. So you really never know … hopefully you’ll end up with a similar story to tell!

  34. RagingADHD*

    For #5, I wonder whether this was a miscommunication, because this makes no sense as an absolute. There’s a lot of work required to keep a business running that can’t be billed to a client. I’m sure the payroll department is getting paid, for example!

    All staff members normally use an “admin” or “office” cost code to track time spent on non-client-specific work, like reporting their own time, managing the law library, or internal policy meetings. I guarantee the legal secretaries were not sorting mail unpaid, and the CEO’s executive assistant was not arranging and taking notes on the executive committee’s meetings unpaid. This “admin” code is still often referred to as “billing”, even though it isn’t billed out.

    Also, every law firm I have ever worked for or heard about broke down time tracking into specific increments, usually tenths of an hour but sometimes 15 minutes. If you stepped away from your work (such as to use the bathroom or grab water) for less than an increment, you just rolled that into whatever you were working on. If you were “engaged to wait” with nothing specific to do, that’s billed as admin time. Taking a break longer than an increment (such as stepping out to get lunch), you tracked that as unpaid break time.

    I’m guessing the speaker was speaking in generalities and wasn’t clear about what they meant by “billing time”, and/or the hearer didn’t understand this standard practice.

    1. Kevin Sours*

      I’m guessing it’s a legal sweatshop that has an ironclad belief that all time should be billable and admin time is a moral failing.

      1. RagingADHD*

        But then what about admin / support staff? You somehow have to pay your secretary, bookkeeper, HR, etc, or they just won’t show up.

        1. LL*

          This is just for the lawyers or whoever else has billable hours. I’m sure the staff that don’t have to bill hours get paid the normal way.

  35. Velawciraptor*

    I never cease to be amazed at how bad law firms seem to be at labor law. And I say this as a lawyer who has sued her employer over violations of labor law she repeatedly brought to her employer’s attention before being pushed to that action. It’s a stunning (and consistent) example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

    1. Not Australian*

      IMHO they think that because they ‘know’ the law they can weasel round it. On my first day working for a lawyer (many years ago) I was asked to do something I knew was unethical, and although I worked for various others over the years they were all doing things they definitely shouldn’t have. They just thought it didn’t matter. (N.B. I later sued one of them, and won.)

    2. LL*

      It’s so weird to me that lawyers think they can get away with this stuff with other lawyers. Maybe sometimes they can because of the power differential, but also lawyers know the law! and they know how to sue!

  36. RussianInTexas*

    I work for a family owned company of about 50. The owner is the CEO, his wife is the CFO, his son is the day to day manager, his daughter in law is the operations manager, his sister in law runs accounting, and at least two more family members are involved in the operations and accounting.
    Is it good? Not really. Is it a way of life in family companies? Yes it is.

    2. A. Lab Rabbit*

      Except that the letter in #1 isn’t about a “family-owned” business, it’s about a small business. Different kettle of fish.

      And the thing about a family-owned business is that you generally know where all the connections are. Jan is being duplicitous in her actions here, which is just the tip of the massive number of problems here.

      1. RussianInTexas*

        I know it isn’t, but I fully expect such shenanigans from a small company. Of any kind of type. In the case of this LW, if partners don’t care much and won’t do anything, there is nothing they can do, regardless of how shady it looks, how against the rule book it goes, etc.
        In a small company like that official rules only matter if they are used to fire someone.

    3. RagingADHD*

      Jan’s not family with the partners, though. They didn’t even know about the relationship.

      Huge difference.

      1. RussianInTexas*

        It’s shady, but to me, expected. If the partners won’t do anything, that’s the end of the matter.

  37. Jo*

    #3 if avoidance isn’t an option, can you wear pants with pockets and always carry a cloth handkerchief in your right front pocket? There are usually a few seconds leading up to an introduction. It would be easy to slip your hand inside your right pocket and rub extra moisture on the handkerchief without looking awkward.

    One caution – I wouldn’t pull the handkerchief out where it’s visible as that may seem like you are using it because your ill. (Which might be another way of avoiding, but I’d still go for discreet”.)

  38. CubeFarmer*

    LW#3: how often do you wash your hands? I’ve found that my palms get sweaty after I put on lotion if I don’t wash the palms of my hands.

    1. Hroethvitnir*

      Heh, I work in a lab so wash my hands thoroughly a *lot* (use moisturiser on breaks). It does not stop me getting so sweaty I can’t change gloves without going up a size if it’s even remotely warm. Sigh.

      I feel weird about putting antiperspirant on my hands, but maybe I should try it.

  39. Meep*

    My out-of-there speculation for LW#2 – She has one of those families who constantly out compete each other and is creating this online identity just to get them off her back. I will take no notes at this time.

  40. greenfordanger*

    Canadian here. I’ve spent a lifetime complaining about our employment standards and labour codes and I know that no country is perfect ( mine definitely is no utopia!) but I have to say that this column – which I love – makes me appreciate our legal regime around empoyment. From W2(?) to employees who are or are not “exempt” to minimal maternity and holiday leaves to the difficulty in organizing for collective bargaining, I am wondering why there is no revolution in the streets. My American friends I feel for you. Everyone deserves a decent working environment

    1. Hlao-roo*

      I am wondering why there is no revolution in the streets

      I think the easiest way to explain why there’s no big worker uprising in the US is with the example of vacation time/holiday leave. There is no minimum of vacation time set by the US government, the way other countries have legal minimums for holiday time. So that allows some employers in the US to offer full-time jobs with no vacation time, or very little vacation time (only 5 days, for example). But most employers in the US offer full-time jobs with 10, 15, or even 25 days of vacation time (in addition to some fixed holidays). Because most workers in the US are in jobs with adequate vacation time, there’s no incentive to protest in the streets for more.

      The same is true for W2 vs 1099 workers (basically, W2 workers are on a company’s payroll and 1099 workers are independent contractors). There are some bad actors who try to mis-classify workers (usually saying that people who should be W2 employees are 1099 workers), but most workers in the US are correctly classified.

      Also, there are many Americans who are working to improve working conditions either at the state level or the federal level. They’re just (generally) not using “revolution in the streets” to do their work–they’re more likely contacted their elected representatives, supporting specific pieces of legislation, etc.

      1. metadata minion*

        ” But most employers in the US offer full-time jobs with 10, 15, or even 25 days of vacation time (in addition to some fixed holidays). Because most workers in the US are in jobs with adequate vacation time, there’s no incentive to protest in the streets for more.”

        Is that actually true? There are a heck of a lot of minimum-wage employees out there with little or no paid time off.

        1. metadata minion*

          Ok, I was curious and looked it up — according to a report by Forbes, 31% of employees have no paid time off at all. The average US worker gets 11 paid vacation days, 8 days of sick leave, and just over 7 fixed holidays. That’s…not nothing, but it’s pathetic. Only 17% of companies offer paid parental leave.

        2. Hlao-roo*

          I realize my wording is a bit unclear. I meant “most full-time jobs in the US include 10 or more vacation days.”

          I just checked with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and here’s what I was able to find (all 2024 numbers). In the US, the (estimated) percentage of full-time workers who have “access to both vacation and holidays” is:
          Civilian workers: 85%
          Private industry workers: 88%
          State and local government workers: 63%

          The median number of paid vacation days after 1 year of service for full-time employees is:
          Civilian workers: 10 days
          Private industry workers: 10 days
          State and local government workers: 12 days

          The median number of paid vacation days after 5 years of service for full-time employees is:
          Civilian workers: 15 days
          Private industry workers: 15 days
          State and local government workers: 15 days

          The median number of paid vacation days after 10 years of service for full-time employees is:
          Civilian workers: 19 days
          Private industry workers: 20 days
          State and local government workers: 18 days

          I’ll link the BLS page in a follow-up comment if you’re interested in taking a look at the data yourself.

          1. Hlao-roo*

            https://www.bls.gov/ebs/publications/employee-benefits-in-the-united-states-march-2024.htm

            I downloaded the “2010 – 2024 historical Excel dataset” and played around in Excel. I used the following filters:
            Datatype: 50th percentile – median
            Provision: Paid vacation: median number of days after [1 year/5 years/10 years] of service
            Characteristic: Full-time
            Year: 2024

            Also, I will admit that my view of the US labor market/general situation is probably rosier than average because most of the people in my social and professional circles are white-collar workers with salaries/time off packages that are anywhere from “decent” to “great.”

      2. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

        Also, a lot of us have never worked in a country with vastly better benefits, so we have lower expectations. I know some countries have mandated 6+ weeks of vacation, 6+ months of sick time, etc., but I never had it, so I’m glad to have 4 weeks of vacation and 3 weeks of sick time. I’m sure it’s super frustrating for people who moved here, or moved back, from countries with robust benefits and were horrified by what they could get.

        None of this is to say that our system is awesome or that it shouldn’t change. Just that our expectations are different.

    2. LL*

      W-2 is just the form you get from your employer so they can fill out your taxes each year. It’s shorthand to mean that someone is an employee and not a contractor.

  41. Unreasonable Doubt*

    #5: This is a rare case where I disagree with Alison’s take. We do not have enough information – and it doesn’t sound like the LW has enough information – to actually state whether this is an illegal practice. Alison is answering this question with a very standard approach: the employees are being treated as non-exempt (hourly), but they are not being paid for ALL time spent working, which is illegal. That’s logical because we think of exempt employees as only being salaried – it’s typically a requirement of the exemption.

    But in law (and medicine) there is a very, very quirky exception to the various exempt classifications. You can be exempt and NOT salaried. In other words, you are exempt from all the overtime/working hours/paid small breaks/minimum wage laws, AND you do not have be paid as a salaried employee. Which means you can be paid… by the task or the project or the billable hour. And that means there is time you may spend either in actual work tasks (such as admin/paperwork/charts) or non-working tasks (bathroom breaks) where you are not “getting paid” – your payment for the task/billable hour is seen as cover for all your work. Typically this happens because you are making what amounts to be a percentage of fees. Doctors get paid $x per consult, for example, and if they spend 15 minutes with you or 3 hours, the fee is the same. Lawyers can be paid for the billable hour because they are essentially being paid a percentage of the fees that the client is paying for that time. Perfectly, completely legal: non-salaried exempt.

    The caveat is that it does NOT apply to “staff” – admin, paralegals. It’s the professional exemption only, which in law would only be the lawyers. The LW referred to staff in the message, but billable hours would not apply to assistants. If the work is done by paralegals, it’s illegal to treat them as exempt and Alison’s answer is correct. But if the work is being done by lawyers, there is a very good chance this is absolutely legal. (The debate about whether you are billing for time spent going to the bathroom is a completely different issue.)

    Law firms are frequently poorly run, and lawyers have terrible records with employment. But this does not sound like it is a strong example of that.

    1. Mad Scientist*

      Fascinating! I don’t fall under the exception you’ve described, but in the past I’ve managed my time similarly to how it was described in the letter. I’ve always recorded my time spent on different projects each day, and any time spent on non-project-specific tasks gets divided evenly between whatever projects I was working on that day (except for training and performance reviews and things like that, which I basically treat as their own “projects”). Quick bathroom breaks get divided up evenly too… because (a) they’re necessary and (b) I’m usually still thinking about whatever I’m working on while I’m in the bathroom. I have never, ever been paid for lunch breaks, and I really didn’t think that was common practice anymore, let alone legally required. If the employees aren’t clocking in and out anyway, then I think it’s pretty likely that the quick breaks are being absorbed into the billed hours and only the longer breaks are actually “unpaid”.

    2. Adele*

      As a non-lawyer who gets paid a percentage of billables, I basically agree with this. I get paid way, way more with this scheme than if I just got my base salary, and that fills in all the cracks of the time I spend sorting through email or reading AAM when I need a break. I’m also not a lawyer (I have a technical degree and a government license to do limited work in our field), but I’m not staff either. No (admin) staff at our law firm is paid this way, which is why the letter seems a bit off to me.

  42. DVM*

    Re LW 2: if you are dying to know whether or not she has credentials, it’s public info. You should be able to find it online through the state she is credentialed through. I’d just bring it straight to management because I would want to stay as far away from that situation as possible.

  43. Simple White Hankie*

    LW#3 with sweaty hands: Try keeping a handkerchief in your pocket and develop a habit of tucking your hands in your pockets. Then hopefully you can discreetly wipe of your palms when they’re getting sweaty, or when concluding a meeting (when someone might reach for a shake). It’s more subtle than wiping your hand on your pants, which looks a little hinky hygiene-wise, and unprofessional, in my opinion.
    It can be a bit challenging to find handkerchiefs these days, but I’ve seen big box stores like Fred Meyer carry them.

    1. Simple White Hankie*

      Dang, somehow I missed Jo’s reply above, even though I searched for “handkerchief” before posting. Anyway, good luck LW3!

  44. Drought*

    #4 The fact that you are getting interviews at all is a great sign. It’s a terrible market right now and is only getting worse. It’s especially hard for mid-senior professionals and college-level graduates from what I have read. I know a lot of people who got laid off in January. I think the threat of Doge and promos of importing keep highly skilled labor is having wide ranging negative impacts on the economy already.

  45. Accidental Nepo Baby*

    I was once Jan’s Mom… without realizing it!

    Someone in my spouse’s family had been trying to fill a role at their job for a while. They convinced me to apply — I had reservations about the company but I badly needed a job. This in-law told me not to mention how they knew me when I applied; they wanted the boss to review my application and resume first, and then they’d tell the boss how they knew me (we did not share a last name, so the relationship wasn’t obvious).

    So I got the job, and the exact relationship I had with in-law never came up, but boss knew we knew each other, so I assumed he knew our relationship, because my in-law said they would tell him.

    Fast forward to a year or so later, in-law and I are both “back home” for a big family visit, and boss mentions how funny it is that we’re both visiting the same place at the same time! So in-law had never told him, and never told me they didn’t tell him!

    I also didn’t tell him, because he was a terrible, scary boss and I was in constant fear of getting fired. But I also was a lot more cautious about trusting in-law since she misled me about what she was going to tell the boss about our relationship.

  46. AtLeastSayBooPlease*

    #4: At least you are getting feedback and not just ghosted. Out of the 60+ applications I’ve submitted in the last 10 months, I’ve had 3 interviews, and 2/3 ghosted me after the interview. Not even a rejection email, just straight up ghosting. And the 3rd wanted experience in something that they listed as preferred but not required in the job description.

  47. mkl*

    #3 Sweaty Palms, there are creams for sweaty hands and feet that are incredibly effective. My derm uses them as her first go to in treating excessive palm and foot sweat. One brand is Carpe but I believe that there are others.

  48. TeapotsRus*

    Wiping your hands on your pants is kind of gross? Tacky?

    Is it possible to carry a handkerchief in your pocket and use that to wipe your hands before shaking? It will take a second, which may seem awkward at first, but I think the person whose hand you’re shaking will appreciate it.

  49. Raida*

    3. Handshakes and sweaty palms

    I’d say get a diagnosis.
    Not to treat it, I’m not saying “OMG you walk around with sweaty palms?! gross! Get surgery weirdo!”

    So that you can, when someone offers a handshake:
    Say “hold on,” ~wipe hand on pant leg~ ~shake hand~ “Persimmons Syndrome” ~wry smile and shrug~

    And if they don’t know what that is and ask you (you treating it like it’s the most normal thing in the world is a good thing btw because you don’t want it to be a big deal) you just say “Well the cliff notes is palm perspiration. Not a big deal but I certainly don’t shake hands without giving them a quick dry.” ~mime shaking and say *squish*~

    It normalises you wiping your hand before shaking, it tells them it’s a medical thing and not a sweaty-palms-I’m-fckn-nervous thing or a haven’t-washed-my-hands thing, and it tells them you care about their comfort.

    Win-win mate.

  50. Mad Scientist*

    Re #5, the potentially illegal part would only be unpaid bathroom breaks, right? No one actually gets paid for lunch breaks these days… do they?

Comments are closed.