Ask a Manager

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

1. My company’s head of DEI outed me to 800 people

I’m a nonbinary trans person working in sales for a multinational company. I’m out-ish at work. I’ve told my direct team I’m nonbinary, I have they/them pronouns in my email signature, and I wear a mixed wardrobe. I’ve not told anyone I’m trans directly, but I wouldn’t deny it if it came up. That said, the industry is conservative. Most colleagues assume I’m a man regardless of what I wear and everyone still get my pronouns wrong, even those who’ve asked. I mention this to say that I’m open but cautious about declaring my status at work.

Our leadership has spoken up a lot about working on DEI in the last few years. Part of the plan to improve culture has been roundtables between senior leadership, the DEI team, and volunteer employees on their experiences with the company and where there have been struggles (think “improving the work environment for neurodivergent staff,” that sort of thing). I’d taken part in several of these before (as someone with ADHD) and found them a positive experience.

Because of this, I didn’t think anything of it when our head of DEI asked if I would be comfortable speaking with the DEI team on my experience as a trans person in the workplace. She knew I was trans as I’d spoken to her previously about problems with our benefit system (a whole other story, but if you’re in charge of benefits, maybe don’t assume all your staff are cis and lock your healthcare options accordingly?). I assumed this invitation was more of the same and accepted.

It was not more of the same. Four days later, I get an email invite to an all-staff Zoom panel for Pride Month. I’m named as one of the three speakers about “navigating changes to the industry while trans” and it explicitly outs me in the description. The Zoom panel is scheduled for the next day. The invite has gone out to all 800+ employees across the country. I immediately emailed the head of DEI, said this wasn’t what I expected and I didn’t appreciate being put on the spot this way, and pulled out of the panel.

Was this a huge error on her part or just a miscommunication? I was probably at least partly to blame for not checking what exactly she was asking of me, but her original email just said “speaking with the DEI team,” not “speaking with the DEI team in front of all of your colleagues.” But it’s weighed on my mind since and I can’t help but wonder if being outed this way has impacted my career opportunities. It’s definitely made me feel less safe speaking with HR.

It was absolutely a huge error on her part. This was different than what she had invited you to participate in previously, and she should have spelled out what she meant — and if the wording in your letter about how she approached you (“asked if I would be comfortable speaking with the DEI team on my experience”) is the wording she used with you, her wording wasn’t at all in sync with what the event actually was. This isn’t on you — it’s on her.

I’m curious how she handled it once you pointed out what had happened. Your company sounds like they’ve tried to invest in safety and inclusion, so unless she was profoundly apologetic and has talked to you about what will change as a result, you could consider speaking to someone above her about what happened.

Related:
a VP wants me to out myself at work and won’t take no for an answer

2. My coworker keeps interfering with my work

I am having problems with a coworker who repeatedly oversteps onto my tasks. She and I have the same role, me being three years her senior. We used to be on the same team but after a recent reorganization, she moved to another team under the same department. I have never been very fond of her working style: she is very diligent and proactive but tends to act first and ask later, causing unnecessary friction and sometimes overstepping onto other people’s work.

Since she changed teams, she has been “suggesting improvements” or inserting herself in tasks that are under my scope and outside of hers. She tends to bypass me and my team — she goes straight to the client to propose her solutions although I am the person who has to implement them, and I am either not interested or have already identified and documented the same solutions. I am getting more and more upset at this because I feel that, at the very least, she needs to communicate with my team before going to the client. I have explained this to her, her manager, and my manager. She just reacts to my messages with a thumbs-up, her manager promises to work with her to improve the miscommunication, and my manager sides with me. However, the situation is still the same and I am at my wits end. Is there anything else I can do to resolve this problem?

It sounds like you’ve just been messaging her about it (“she reacts to my messages with a thumbs-up”). Since that hasn’t solved the problem, it’s time to move to an in-person meeting with her about it (or Zoom, if you’re remote), ideally with your manager and her manager there, where you can lay out the pattern, why it’s a problem, and what you need her to do differently. As part of that conversation, ask why this keeps happening when you’ve asked her multiple times to stop — is something getting lost in translation? Is she getting conflicting direction from someone else? Does she think every instance is different and she needs to extrapolate “don’t do X” to a broader variety of situations? Sometimes this kind of meeting will surface that there really was some sort of misunderstanding or miscommunication. Other times, it’ll just drive home to the person that they need to take it more seriously, it’s a big deal if they don’t, and they can’t continue being cavalier about it.

If that doesn’t work, you need to escalate it to both your managers each time it happens. Be the squeaky wheel if necessary — but start with a real conversation with her, not just a message.

3. We have to choose between a building with no heat or a building without equipment

Where I work, we have two buildings about one mile apart from each other. I have worked out of the original building (#1) most of my time with this company. In 2020, we all transitioned to WFH. Two years ago, we went to one day in the office as a group as mandated from above. However, this entire time we were all coming into the office more often; our group has always done better than most at closing profitable projects, mainly because of our constant contact.

This past spring, my group was relocated to a new area in the new building (#2). Both buildings removed our large desks and replaced them with small desks. All these desks were to be used for hot-desking and were supposed to have dual monitors with keyboards and mice at each one. The original space in building #1 did not get set up for a long time, and there are many desks without anything on them because they ran out of monitors and keyboards and are not getting more in from, what we are told.

We now have a mandate from above that we must be in the office three days a week and, according to rumors, it can be grounds for termination if not followed. However, the new office area in building #2 is without heat due to a problem with the heating system and it will be for several more weeks (months?). We are in the mid-Atlantic area and it gets below 0 at times. The coldest I saw it in the office was 60 degrees one day (it was below 0 outside). 60 doesn’t sound that cold but it is if all you are doing is sitting at a computer. Our manager has said he will not enforce the mandatory three days a week, but I am worried because our big boss demanded it. Should we continue to go to our new office and freeze, go to the old office and suffer low productivity due to not having a proper computer setup, or continue to work from home and only come in as needed and risk repercussions from upper management?

That’s ridiculous. OSHA doesn’t require specific temperatures, but they do recommend temperatures of 68-76° F.

Your manager needs to go to his management and explain that until either (a) the heat is fixed or (b) building #1 is given enough equipment, your team can’t come in three days a week — that you’ll be happy to as soon as one of those is remedied, but until then there’s no feasible way to meet the mandate. It’s absurd to expect you to work without heat in the middle of winter or without monitors and keyboards. But your manager needs to spell that out to someone above him (and you should ask him to do that if he hasn’t yet).

4. New employee is billing more time than he works

I am a project manager and oversee a team of five. One of my direct reports, “Marty,” was hired in October and has proven to be a quick learner and generally a good employee. However, there’s a recurring issue with his timekeeping.

Marty has been routinely not working a full eight hours but is still billing for all eight. He typically arrives around 8:15 am, leaves at 4:30 pm, and takes an hour for lunch, effectively billing about 45 extra minutes each day. While I was deciding how best to address this, another team member, “Hamilton,” who can be a bit nosy but means well, stopped by my office to point out the discrepancy with Marty’s timesheet.

I spoke to Marty, explaining that while it’s okay to work outside the standard 8-5 hours, he needs to inform me beforehand. I also asked if this was a workload issue, which he assured me it was not. I thought the conversation went well and he seemed to understand. Cue post holidays and Marty has pinged me every day this week at 4:30 pm, notifying me he is signing off, even though he continues to arrive after 8 am.

Given that the job requires billing clients in 15-minute increments, transparency about hours worked is crucial. I am also concerned about potential animosity among team members who might feel that Marty is receiving special treatment. How should I handle this situation to ensure fairness and maintain team morale?

It sounds like when you talked to him, you just told him to let you know if he works non-standard hours — but that’s not what the real issue is. The real issue is that he’s billing more hours than he’s working, so you need to go back to him now and clarify that. Since the message somehow got muddled the first time, be very, very clear now: “You have been working less than eight hours a day but billing for eight. We need to make sure your billing matches your hours worked exactly, because ____.”

There are some workplaces that tell exempt employees to just bill a straight eight hours per day, regardless of the exact hours they actually worked (typically when it’s for internal purposes and not client billing) and it’s possible he came from one of those. Or maybe he’s sloppy or deliberately deceptive, who knows. But the first step is to tell him clearly what he needs to do differently. If that doesn’t solve it, you’d need a more serious conversation — but so far it doesn’t sound like you’ve clearly told him what needs to change.

5. I’m worried clients think I’m a nepo baby, but I’m not!

I have a fairly common last name, and I recently started working at a small company where my boss has the same name as my dad. We are not related at all. I would be less worried if it was a bigger company, but since it’s so small (and if anyone were to look at socials, they would see my dad has the same name), it feels like people might assume a familial connection instead of a coincidence. It’s been fine so far, but I’m starting to shift to a more client-facing role, so I’ve been thinking about how I’m being perceived and how to build my reputation in our field. Is there a chance of my reputation being harmed if people think I got my job through nepotism, or is this something where it’s weirder to address it?

Since it’s a common last name, I wouldn’t worry — people will know it’s a common last name, and they’re unlikely to know what your dad’s first name is. That said, if you want to be extra sure, you can always introduce yourself by saying, “Tangerina Murphy (no relation to Percival on our team).”