when an employee doesn’t want to make a formal complaint, can I act anyway?

by Alison Green on March 24, 2025

A reader writes:

I’ve got an employee who had a weird encounter with another employee. It wasn’t harassment but it’s made her feel uncomfortable whenever he’s around. She doesn’t want to make a complaint though. Is there anything we can do if there’s no complaint made?

I answer this question — and three others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

  • Telling employees to stop taking guidance from coworkers with bad advice
  • How to test job candidates on their ability to recall info
  • My boss was abruptly fired — should I reach out?
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{ 107 comments }

{ 107 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. juliebulie*

    #3 is this a job interview or a neurological exam?

    Uh, seriously though, if my interviewer quizzed me on things that she’d told me earlier, I’d wonder if she was full of herself.

    Do I get to quiz her on my resume?

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    2. CzechMate*

      Yeah, I was thinking it’s odd that they’re interested in “recall,” not, say, “Ability to take useful notes” or “Attention to detail” more broadly. I feel like someone in that situation needs to think about why they need it and whether “memory” is really part of it.

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      1. Kendall^Sq*

        Exactly this.

        I have a mediocre memory for a lot of things, but set up systems so it’s easy to find the details I need months or years later.

        Also, that recalling a story/interviewer background later feels almost exactly like a task I do as part of a longitudinal Alzheimer’s study (by Alzheimers Disease Neuroimaging Initiative).

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        1. bamcheeks*

          Conversely, I have a very good memory and am terrible at taking notes. I’m 46 and keep having a vague, “I should really get better at taking notes before menopause hits”.

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        2. Baunilha*

          I have a very good long-term memory. I can acurately remember facts and details that happened years ago, and even quote entire conversations word by word.
          I also have a terrible short-term memory. So, I’ll remember today is someone’s birthday and think that I have to call them later, then two weeks go by before I remember I was supposed to call them. I’m actually very good at taking notes and keeping my calendar up to date because I know I will otherwise forget everything and only remember them when it’s too late.

          During an interview, when I’m going to be nervous and trying to remember my own questions to ask, I’ll definitely forget everything the interviewer said in passing.

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        3. Wendy Darling*

          I have an incredibly good memory but I also have ADHD so which pieces of information actually get stored can be… chaotic. I have all manner of systems set up so I remember the important things, but none of them will work if I don’t know what the important things are because, say, an interviewer springs a pop quiz on me.

          I am in fact uniquely unlikely to remember factoids from someone’s intro because I’m also very socially anxious and in fact have an ongoing problem with my brain stalling out during introductions because it’s going “OH GOD STRANGER DANGER!!!”

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          1. Heck, darn, and other salty expressions*

            Me too. My ADHD brain traps an eclectic assortment of information, which makes me great at trivia and lousy at remembering if I wrote an important appointment in my calendar. If I have a computer in front of me I can document and take notes like nobody’s business, but if you start spitting out important information at me during a chance hallway encounter I’m going to call you when I’m back at my desk to repeat the whole thing (or I’ll ask you next week because someone else will stop me in the hallway and I’ll totally forget our conversation even happened until something triggers my memory!)

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            1. JustaTech*

              The way my ADHD works with my memory is basically I have an enormous hard drive, but like 256K of RAM – meaning if I manage to remember something long enough for it to get to long term memory, it’s there forever, but things regularly get booted out before making it that far – especially things that fall into the category of “to do” or “in the middle of a conversation”.

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      2. duinath*

        Absolutely. Whether or not you can do something without the tools you actually will have in the position is kind of beside the point, it’s whether you can do it with all the tools available, and how effectively you can use those tools.

        That aside… Honestly the timing on this is so different from the actual use you need that I would find a standard interview more useful, personally.

        Do you xyz, can you give me some examples of when you xyz in your previous/current position.

        Not to say tests can’t be useful, obviously they can, but in this case the parameters are so off I just don’t see it.

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        1. Jackalope*

          Exactly. I can remember a lot of details relating to work, including sometimes details from a few jobs ago that were important enough that they stuck. I can also come up with systems for locating stuff later that I need to remember, once I’m in the job and know what kind of details matter. But random chatting at the beginning of an interview when I’m trying to remember other stuff (details I’ve looked up about the company, or relevant info from my resume, etc.)? Let alone the kind of info that is normally not needed to recall because it’s just smoothing out the beginning of the conversation, which I’m probably nervous about anyway? Not gonna stick.

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      3. turquoisecow*

        I probably won’t remember details from a meeting six months ago, but if i took notes, I don’t have to. I just need to remember where I saved my notes.

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      4. Smithy*

        I could see the recall piece being uniquely relevant if this job is in a context where taking notes isn’t an option. I’m thinking of positions with a large amount of networking, conference booth presentations, etc.

        I don’t think it’s a huge amount of jobs that necessarily require recall, but I do think there are some where useful notes and attention to detail wouldn’t quite cut it. I both work and staff a number of these large professional networking environments, and prepping notes for those is hard – because they need to be notes you can read once a few hours or a day before and hold onto enough relevant info for the different types of conversations you’re having.

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        1. umami*

          I think what bothers me about this proposed assessment method is the pop-quiz nature of it – if you haven’t told the interviewee that they are expected to recall this information, it isn’t likely to stick, and it doesn’t accurately judge how they would approach their job.

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          1. Smithy*

            The method mentioned by the OP is completely wrong – but to determine that a certain job genuinely requires more recall and has a desire to assess or screen it isn’t ill placed.

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          2. Heck, darn, and other salty expressions*

            Although it would be a great test to tell me I wouldn’t want to work for this guy!

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      5. Funko Pops Day*

        I also feel like emphasizing recall memory must open up some ADA issues unless there really is a job-related reason why an employee couldn’t use note taking as a reasonable accommodation. (I get a lot of “you’re so organized/have a great memory” when it’s really because I have extremely good systems for NOT being naturally organized.)

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        1. Wendy Darling*

          People assume I’m just inherently very organized but actually I just have terrible ADHD that wasn’t diagnosed or treated until I was in my 40s, so I developed an elaborate system of strategies to compensate for my inability to decide what to pay attention to.

          This isn’t natural organization, it’s decades of desperately figuring out how to not flunk out of school/get fired.

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    3. turquoisecow*

      All due respect, the interviewer’s background is probably the least interesting or important part of the interview process for most people. I mean yes I’d like to know my future boss (assuming the person interviewing is whom I will be reporting to), but it’s a lot less important to me that you were an interpretive dancer in Scotland or have 12 degrees in llama herding and more important that my job duties will include X, Y, Z, I’ll be working with A, B, & C programs, we get 15 holidays a year and have 401(k) matching and can work from home every Tuesday and Thursday but never Wednesdays.

      THAT is the stuff I’m going to remember, not some random details about the interviewer. But if the interviewer then asks such a question at the end, I’ll feel like a complete jerk for not paying attention to what they said, even though there usually isn’t and shouldn’t be such an expectation!

      Like, if it’s a date, yes, pay attention to what I said and maybe remember it instead of asking me several times if I have siblings even though I’ve already mentioned a brother and sister in various anecdotes. But in a job interview? No.

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    4. LifebeforeCorona*

      Also, people remember things in different ways. Ask me if the February reports had been issued yet. No, because I hadn’t seen any green folders. Monthly reports are in green folders.

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    5. I Have RBF*

      Seriously.

      My grey matter recall is hit or miss, and affected by my stress level. But my notes recall game is on point. IE, if it’s important, I write it down. Even before I had the health issue that tanked my medium term memory, I was so busy that I wrote down what I did and for whom as I did it in my work log. Someone needs that data six months later? I would never expect to recall it with my grey matter, but I regularly pulled out my work log and read things off. People were really thrilled with that. Turns out that contemporaneous logs are great for audits.

      If I had someone tell me I needed to recall stuff from months ago with my grey matter only, I’d nope out of the interview. I’m someone for whom “if it isn’t written down, it may as well not exist.”

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  2. TechWorker*

    Do not test recall by asking them to remember random facts about your background! I have good (maybe even go as far to say great?) recall about job details, I remember loads of technical details of things that happened multiple years ago. My brain also completely filters out things that are not obviously relevant (so I am the last person you want on a pub quiz team because I know… nothing…). (Asking people to remember a bit about individuals in order to be a good colleague and make small talk, fine, asking them to remember specific details – weird).

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    1. Richard Hershberger*

      This. Expecting candidates to be able to regurgitate idle chit chat is ridiculous. I suppose it might identify someone with the eidetic memory. Is this the job requirement? Then just say so, and expect to be disappointed in your hiring process.

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      1. MassMatt*

        Part of having good memory skills is knowing what information is important and what can be discarded. People with eidetic (aka photographic) memory often struggle with summarizing information or discerning the most important points. This is a potential pitfall when every piece of info is given equal weight in your head.
        I’ve only known two people with this kind of memory and they both suffered from this problem to a greater or lesser degree.

        I remember there was a news story years ago about a university in Hawaii with a unique trust/funding structure. The board of trustees seemed to have very little oversight and were answerable only to themselves. They were quite full of themselves, and one requirement they had for students receiving scholarships was that they recite the names of the trustees from memory.

        Asking someone to prioritize remembering your years in interpretive dance (I realize this is an example for letter purposes) strikes me as exactly the kind of info most people would assign low prioity.

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        1. Lisa Simpson*

          I had a teacher in high school who gave an exam like this (English, included hundreds of questions like “What color was the female protagonist’s sock on page 6?”) and a professor in college who also gave an exam like this. We had to memorize thousands of useless details from course texts that had nothing to do with broader understanding of the subject matter and was some sort of combination of a power trip and a “gotcha!” assignment.

          For the high school teacher, basically everyone failed the test, which just proved that we were somehow layabouts; for the college professor, one of the graduate TAs decided it was bullcrap and gave the exam out in advance “don’t tell Dr. Undiagnosedprocessingdisorder, study these topics, you’ll all be fine.”

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    3. Antilles*

      Especially since small talk, done effectively, usually isn’t about memorizing every little detail so you can pass a quiz later.
      Instead, the way to effectively chit-chat is to find shared points of interest to talk about, maybe some things you can joke about back and forth, identify a couple items that seem particularly important to them that you can follow up on in future conversations, etc.

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    4. Reality.Bites*

      A place I worked went from about 40 people to 140 people over the span of a year, so they decided that on one day as a get-to-know-you exercise that people would wear a name tag telling something about themselves as a conversation starter.

      One person was wearing a tag saying “My dog’s name is Szhu-szhu.” So naturally, having a dog myself, I asked what kind of dog it was. He replied, “Oh, I don’t have a dog. I just wanted to put something odd.”

      It didn’t work well as a conversation starter – I really had nowhere to go from there – but on the other hand, 35 years later, his is the only tag I remember, including my own.

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    5. Wendy Darling*

      I have absurdly good recall for what my brain decides is relevant. Unfortunately my brain’s ideas on what is relevant are…. eccentric. Chaotic. (Apparently the name, location, and rough description of every dog I’ve ever met is vital info but THE NAMES OF THEIR OWNERS is not?)

      I take a lot of notes and make a lot of lists to supplement.

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      1. Freya*

        One of my neighbours was “Lucy’s human” to me for years, and one set of neighbours is still “Ezra’s humans”. To be fair, I see the dogs much more often than the humans!

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        1. JustaTech*

          I am *far* more likely to remember a dog’s name than their human’s name – maybe it’s because dogs are more likely to have interesting/unusual names?

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    6. Dark Macadamia*

      I had a teacher who did this to make sure we read the syllabus thoroughly. We had a syllabus quiz that included questions about like, her middle name and favorite color. Even as a kid I was like “this is stupid, if I forget her grading policy I can just LOOK AT THE SYLLABUS, why do I need to memorize any of it?” Shockingly this was not her only poor choice as a teacher lol

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  3. A Book about Metals*

    One company where I used to work at when hiring for sales roles would have the candidate do a sample “pitch”, then the interviewer would give some suggestions and ask the candidate to do it again. The goal was to see if the candidate picked up on the suggestions and incorporated them into the second pitch.

    It didn’t test recall so much as “coachability”, but they claimed it was good barometer of success.

    Not sure if a version of that would work in this case

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    1. juliebulie*

      That’s a great idea!
      I’ve worked with quite a few people who would nod enthusiastically at feedback as if they were taking it to heart, and then they totally ignored it. You’d expect good behavior at an interview, of course, but once someone has shown that they can act on feedback, you can consider it a reasonable expectation to hold them to.

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      1. Reality.Bites*

        You’ll also encounter this when trying to persuade people about… almost anything they don’t want to be persuaded about.

        I came to this realization when talking to a co-worker about evolution – he considered himself open-minded on whether or not it was true. I realized I could frustrate myself or drop it, so I dropped it.

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    2. Spooz*

      I would be wanting to mimic as closely as possible the KIND of recall the employees need to have, and to EXPLICITLY SAY to the candidate what I am testing on.

      For example, are you hiring tour guides for a stately home, where you have to be able to give the full tour and answer questions without any notes? Give the candidates five minutes before the interview to study the facts on one room, telling them that at the end of the interview you’ll ask them to give a short presentation on that room without notes.

      Do you have to meet a lot of people and remember what their background is? Tell the candidate that, give them the summary of your interpretive dance career, and have them recall it at the end.

      It’s fine to test them, but you have to tell them what you’re testing, not make them read your mind.

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    3. Liz Bender*

      Maybe testing recall is a second interview kind of skill? You give them some job details during the first interview, and ask recall questions in the second? That would better test the longer term recall the interviewer wants to test for. Just make sure to give the candidates a primer early in the first interview, so it’s not a different flavor of pop quiz.

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  4. Another Fed*

    The LW did not indicate why or how people are supposed to have good recall. I write everything down, I take notes like crazy. And I have a spreadsheet and add the pertinent notes to the spreadsheet. Without that, no recall; with that, pretty good recall.

    I’m curious what kind of job requires people to have detail recall on the spot with no prep or review months later.

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    1. Heidi*

      I’m imagining that this is like Anne Hathaway’s job in The Devil Wears Prada, where they meet a lot of famous people and she needs to remind the boss of all their partner’s names and where they work and who they’re having affairs with.

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      2. Antilles*

        Even in these cases, the assistant would typically keep some sets of notes about the VIP’s appointments to help keep it all straight.
        Someone who went to my school ended up as Chief of Staff for a senior state politician. To hear her tell it, somewhere around 50% of her job is built around managing the schedule and providing reminders of “your next appointment is Bob Jones, you met him last fall at the Iowa/Wisconsin football game, he’s here to discuss the farm bill, and he’s a new father so congratulate him on that”.

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        1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

          Robert Heinlein talks about this in his book “Double Star”. The main character is assisted by “Farley Files”, and the Wikipedia article ends with “A predecessor may be Ancient Rome’s nomenclator, ‘a slave who attended his master during canvassing and on similar occasions, for the purpose of telling him the names of those he met in the street.'”

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        2. Wendy Darling*

          I am absolutely not those people but I always assumed people in those jobs just had some kind of really intense contact database in which they took copious notes, and they would then review the notes on whoever they knew was on the invite list for a given event.

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      3. Baunilha*

        While I was reading the letter, I thought of Devil Wears Prada immediately!
        But even Andy and Emily had notes to rely on, even if they had to memorize them.

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    2. Distracted Librarian*

      Same. I have an awful memory, but I’m very organized and take detailed notes. I may not know something off the top of my head, but I can look it up in less than 5 minutes.

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      1. Recovering Librarian*

        Librarian adage: “I don’t know everything, but I know how to find it.”

        This is probably my most useful, and often underappreciated, transferrable skill.

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          1. I Have RBF*

            In my field, this is actually good advice. Memorize the basics of what you are using, know where to look up the minutia, and get on with doing the work.

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    3. Spreadsheet Queen*

      If good auditory recall is not part of the job, there’s no reason to “test” for it in an interview. And if there was, you’d want to use job-related type information, not personal information. And do it in a way that didn’t feel like a “gotcha”.
      My attention to detail is excellent. My recall of things I’ve seen in writing is pretty good. My auditory processing is…not great. (And honestly, if it’s not well-organized and/or it’s fast moving or if people presenting don’t use a nice crisp “stage voice”, it gets worse if I try to write things down, because I’ll not even be able to hear the next thing.) I’d fail this in an interview. Which, fine, if that type of processing and retention is a key part of the job. But if you just want someone to ace their spreadsheets and meet their deadlines, that’s not even related.

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    4. Llamas attack*

      Yeah on my team the shear amount of things to remember across several departments would make it impossible to remember everything unless that person was LTCDR Data. It sounds like the company setting things up for failure if there are no documentation processss in place. This goes even beyond attention to detail. What if the person who took that info months ago leaves or gets jumped by a pack of enraged llamas and put in a coma? How would boss handle that?

      I’ll have someone say “remember a few months ago when you helped me?” Like no disrespect but if it was a routine fix I am probably not gonna remember it.

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    5. cncx*

      I feel like this is one of those questions where an employer got burned on a previous employee not recalling basic points to their job and is really touchy about making sure the new candidate “remembers stuff” and that this is just their reactive way of going about it

      Reply ↓
  5. Former Retail Lifer*

    #4: I was fired from my last job (abruptly, unexpectedly, and over something so arbitrary). I had lots of people call and text me and I appreciated it. Even when it was raw (like, ten minutes after I got home), it did feel good to vent to my co-worker who called me immediately. My company didn’t appreciate me, but it felt so good to know my former staff did,

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    1. GrooveBat*

      Yes! After I got laid off from my last job, those notes and calls from my team meant the world to me. Not because I got to vent to them, but because they made me feel like I had mattered to them and to their careers.

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    2. NoIWontFixYourComputer*

      When I was laid off, it was a surprise to me. Apparently, the company sent out a standard “NoIWontFixYourComputer and the company have parted ways” email, with no details.

      I had two people email me and ask how I was and what happened. Oddly, one of them was someone I didn’t feel particularly close with when I worked with him. I felt like that was a really kind gesture.

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      1. iglwif*

        When I was laid off last year, only my immediate team was actually told about it — I had time to tell a few other folks I had worked closely with, but from the perspective of the rest of the company, I just disappeared (or word filtered out gradually from people who were told).

        People reaching out to say they were sad or mad or sympathetic meant SO MUCH to me.

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    3. Judge Judy and Executioner*

      I am still touched by a LinkedIn message a former direct report sent me when my role was eliminated. He was a quiet person who didn’t always say a lot, but the fact that he went out of his way to reach out warmed my heart. Sending a note takes only a few minutes and can make a big impact.

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    4. The Bureaucrat*

      I was once also fired abruptly over something arbitrary, and I really appreciated hearing from the people who reached out. It is like having a death in the family in that people often feel so awkward about saying the wrong thing that they don’t say anything at all. I would rather hear from people who care about me than to think no cares that I am gone from that job.

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    5. Elizabeth West*

      One person reached out to me after I was laid off last year. She was on vacation when I left, and she connected to me on LinkedIn. It was nice. No one else did, though I did get a chance to say goodbye to people before I left.

      I had my team lead’s phone number; when I texted her, she agreed to be a reference for me. They laid off someone else on our team right after, too. I hope they’re missing me. >:)

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  6. I should really pick a name*

    For #2, I feel like the issue should be dealt with at the source.

    I think the solution is to talk to the bad advice givers about the problems they’re causing.

    Telling new hires not to listen to Stephanie and Bob is going to come across as pretty weird.

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    1. nnn*

      There’s nothing to indicate the LW manages Stephanie and Bob and has the power to do that. I mean, yes, they should talk to the bad advice givers, but I’ve been in situations where I’ve done that, I haven’t gotten through and the best I can do is to warn the people I do manage.

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    2. Dinwar*

      I’ve been in situations where Bob was a really good source for SOME information, but really bad at others. Like, one person did really, really well at coordinating for llamas to be groomed, but the accounting was a hot mess. Another knew every trick to grooming llamas, but also had a bunch of tricks to look like he was doing his job, and a lot of his methods were outdated at the turn of the century.

      And frankly some people are good at their jobs, but not good at explaining things. If you ask them to do X, Y, and Z, they’ll do amazing work. If you ask for advice on X, Y, and Z, they’ll give you utter garbage. Most of us have internalized a series of steps for our day-to-day work to the point where it’s difficult to remember that outsiders don’t know this (xkcd had a comic about this, “It’s hard to remember that most people only have 4-5 silicate chemical formulas memorized” or something along those lines). And some people have a harder time accounting for that in their discussions than others.

      Sometimes it really is worth having someone who’s bad at a tangential aspect of their job, if they’re really, really good at their main job.

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    3. MrSquid*

      I have been in a similar situation as 2, and sometimes the “source” isn’t something you can really deal with. In my case, my team had made some updates to our process and some other teams decided to just ignore the updates. Even when we pushed back, it devolved into re-litigating the changes.
      It was an easier solve as we maintained pretty detailed procedures and I could give new hires I was training a blanket “always go by procedures, if something looks off alert the team leads to review” guideline. Depending on role, it might be useful for #2 to write up some policy guidelines or reference materials for new hires so that Stephanie and Bob don’t need to be consulted.

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    4. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      I think if Stephanie and Bob are giving bad information about work topics that affect LW’s team, LW has standing to say to them “Please don’t tell new people how to rebalance the royal costumers’ accounts. We have a system that works that is different from what you’re telling them, and I keep having to correct the same mistakes.”

      Reply ↓
  7. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

    I don’t understand how any job other than astronaut or brain surgeon requires instant recall of details from months ago. As opposed to, you know, writing things down and then referring to them?

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    1. I didn't say banana*

      Being a psychologist does. When clients are telling me things, it’s not good for rapport if I’m constantly taking notes. Even after the session, I don’t have time to write a detailed account of everything they told me, and I couldn’t review detailed notes before the next session. Many months later, they might say “I finally talked to my dad” and I need to recall what they were planning to talk to their dad about. Or I need to remember the name of their partner/child/boss etc. I may see 30 clients a week and have to recall the details about each of these people correctly.

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      2. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

        I was on the receiving end of a recall failure once — a therapist started to discuss my deep-seated need to have children, and what that meant in the context of my current single state. Except I never wanted children, and had not ever expressed a desire to do so. So she was confusing me with some other patient. Not a good experience.

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      3. GC*

        I am a general counsel. I once hired a law firm in a litigation matter and spent three days in meetings explaining the facts of the case to the outside lawyers (who could take notes).

        One day before the settlement conference it emerged that the entire team of external lawyers claimed ignorance of one of the key facts in the case, despite the fact that I repeatedly highlighted that fact during the meetings. I was livid and will never use that firm again.

        Don’t tell me memory is unimportant.

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        1. Ha2*

          In your case, though, memory could have (and should have been!) supplemented by note-taking. Somebody who is good at that job can get by with good memory OR with a good organizational system (and honestly, I would guess the latter is more important? Stuff like “The key facts about the case” should probably be written down, not just relying on memory?)

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    2. Dust Bunny*

      I have pretty good recall because even though we document stuff extensively (archives) sometimes it’s still faster to just remember it. But I have to know that I might need to remember it! I don’t just remember random stuff that it doesn’t seem likely I’ll need to use again.

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    3. Formerly Ella Vader*

      Unlike the clinical psychologist, in my job I’m frequently taking notes in a logbook and I’m comfortable asking people to pause til I catch up. Most people don’t take notes, but I’m confident that it won’t make me look bad that I do.

      When I am an interview candidate, I mostly don’t take notes, because I have the impression that I’d be judged – that many interviewers would be watching me to see me make eye contact and engage with them and speak without referring to notes. I’m just barely comfortable with jotting down the names/roles of the people I’m meeting and doing a few notes to plan my response to a question, and while I might be carrying a printout of the job description and my submission, I would hesitate to look at it.

      But this question is now making me wonder whether I’d make a better impression if I behaved in an interview, in a way closer to what I do as an effective employee. Like, instead of smiling and nodding when they explain the various branches of their company, maybe I sketch an org chart, which might lead me to realize they haven’t explained how something important fits in so I could ask about it …

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      1. DJ Abbott*

        When I interviewed for my current job, I took notes and mentioned that I like taking notes so I can remember procedures and steps later. I think it made a good impression on them.

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      2. Sara K*

        One of the standard things we tell candidates on an interview is that we (interview panel) will be taking notes and that we may not always be able to make eye contact but that we will definitely be listening to them. I would struggle to make a fair assessment of a candidate if I couldn’t take notes during an interview so I can review their whole performance during the interview and not just remember they way they answered the last question (freshest in my memory).

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        1. Sara K*

          Meant to add, we also tell candidates that they can take notes or consult with notes as well if it helps them to answer the questions.

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  8. Zona the Great*

    Something I’ve learned in my personal life and professional life is to never test someone without their knowledge unless you want to be disappointed.

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    1. ReallyBadPerson*

      Or to make them feel manipulated. This seems so gross to me. I wouldn’t want to work for/be friends with/date anyone who felt the need to test me.

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      1. Bananaphone*

        Be friends with or date, sure. But work for? Testing on all sorts of skills is completely normal in hiring, even if the LW’s idea isn’t a good way to go about it.

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        1. Zona the Great*

          Generally it is known by the tester and testee first. I was talking about testing without knowing you’re being tested.

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        2. Yankees fans are awesome!*

          Yes, this exactly. A person’s background doesn’t seem like a particularly effective test, but I’m a bit surprised at the “It doesn’t work for me, so it’s unworkable” logic.

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  9. HA2*

    The attention to detail – my guess is that it would be best to evaluate it in a work context. My guess – not knowing the job, of course – is that what is important is remembering RELEVANT details, not just generic “attention to random stuff”. You need this person to remember details of a project, you don’t need them to remember bar trivia. An inherent part of that skill is prioritization – quickly and on the fly determining what details might be important later and which ones aren’t. Just giving a bunch of trivia about yourself and expecting a candidate to recall that likely doesn’t test that well.

    In addition, a common thing is for people to be able to remember things better when they understand them and have context for them. If you describe your own background and expect them to remember it, you’re going to pretty directly select for people who can relate to that background! Another Scottish immigrant who was formerly an interpretive dancer is going to 100% remember that you were one as well; someone who’s only lived in one country and who doesn’t know what interpretive dance is is likely going to have a much harder time remembering those details. And you certainly don’t want your interview to hinge on “I want to give an advantage to people with the same cultural background as me.”

    A better way would be to give a work-like question. Early in the interview, describe a project, ask the person some questions about what they would do or how they would approach it (however is relevant for this role). Then take a break, then later in the interview come back to the example project and keep discussing it – see if they have appropriately internalized the stuff they need to.

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    1. Skytext*

      Ooooh, good point about using personal details as the test would inadvertently create “just like me” bias in favor of some candidates, and against candidates of a very different background.

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  10. Twinklefae*

    I also would like to encourage reaching out to a fired coworker. I was fired from a position and had a client reach out to find out if I was all right, and it meant the world to me at the time.

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    1. juliebulie*

      Same.
      I was pretty stunned one time when I was laid off. I didn’t hear from any of my immediate colleagues, but a SME I didn’t always get along with wrote me a supportive email. I now have better memories of that SME than I do for my former team.

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    2. learnedthehardway*

      Agreed – I was let go from a job once. One of my internal clients reached out – they were mad that I had “quit without notice”. Once they found out that I’d actually been let go by the new manager of the department (who I found out later was notorious for decimating teams so they could bring in their own people), they were very supportive, offered to be a reference, and then went and tore a strip off the new manager and the director for both firing me and for lying about the reasons. Apparently, they could be heard from well down the hallway.

      I really appreciated that they had reached out – even if it was just that the record got set straight with the people I had been supporting.

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      1. London Calling*

        I was fired for something that turned out to be the fault of someone else (ironically one of those people who like to be incredibly helpful and act as if they have more knowledge and authority than they do – which this man certainly didn’t, he just sounded extremely plausible). An exmanager not only offered to take responsibility and resign (I’d been working for him when the issue happened) but called me up to tell me what had ACTUALLY occurred – which was very helpful guy doing something he had no business doing. In his words – ‘I’m calling to tell you this because none of those bastards will.’

        Still remember that gratefully, SH. Not the best manager I’ve ever had but a good human being.

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  11. A Book about Metals*

    Maybe this goes without saying, but in the second question I would also try and make sure all the employees know what they are doing! Just avoiding their advice is fine for the newbies but hopefully they can be trained up

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  12. Reality.Bites*

    At a call centre where I was working back in 1990, an employee they’d long wanted to be rid of (but who had an influential father with some kind of connection to upper management or ownership) as a “prank” threw some kind of firecracker on another employee’s desk. (I forget what it was called, but it was something that doesn’t get lit, but pops on impact).

    The other employee complained (naturally) and the “pranker” was immediately fired. Some other employees were grousing about the victim complaining, and I pointed out that his complaint made no difference – the company would clearly have taken action regardless.

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  13. CityMouse*

    At my work it’s mandatory to report any harassment that you have knowledge of, it’s not dependent on the victim to make the complaint.

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  14. Yes And*

    LW3: The most toxic boss I ever had had a habit of shouting for me from down the hall and then peppering me with detailed questions the second I walked into her office, and then getting mad when I didn’t have the answers at my fingertips. (This was far from the most obnoxious thing she did, but it was on the list.) There wasn’t any real business need for the urgency of her questions, she just wanted to scream and get what she wanted. I was finally able to convince her that if she gave me a five-minute warning, I would be able to produce any information she needed, and things would go much better for both of us.

    I freely acknowledge that my own bad experience with this kind of memory-testing makes me more skeptical of LW’s position than I otherwise might be. But I have to wonder… is unaided recall really a requirement of the job? If the person has systems to store and quickly produce accurate information, is it really that essential that they hold it all in their head?

    Even if the answer to that is “yes,” I still agree that you’re going about it the wrong way. But first I’d step back and look at what the job really needs.

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  15. Safely Retired*

    #2, I’m thinking that the bad advice may well extend beyond work. From bad financial advice to bad advice about relationships, about life choices. Some people will have an opinions on everything, and “share” them at every opportunity, especially if it contradicts what others have said. (Everyone is wrong but them.) Some don’t even need any basis at all for what they say, but they can still sound convincing.

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    1. Reality.Bites*

      I was recently reading in another advice column about a newcomer to an activity-based social group having an existing member adopt a welcoming stance and slowly realizing that this person had pretty much burned their bridges with the rest of the group and that’s why they adopt newbies.

      I think it’s probably a good idea in most situations to be wary of self-appointed mentors, welcoming committees, etc. – and it goes double in places with actual rules and procedures, like workplaces.

      But it’s not the new employees seeking advice, so I really don’t have much advice for OP that’s as good as they’re getting.

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  16. Tesuji*

    #1: I feel like this is on the manager for giving their employees unrealistic expectations.

    First, if you come to your boss with something, you *have* made an official complaint, and in many cases (e.g., harassment), whether or not it gets reported to HR is now completely out of your hands.

    Second, if you just want to vent to someone, talk to your friends after work. There’s no such thing as a Schrodinger’s complaint, where it’s an actual complaint you would like your boss to fix, but also you somehow never actually made a complaint.

    (The only possible exception to all of this is a situation that *doesn’t* actually rise to a level where any action is needed, where it’s just a “Hey, there’s absolutely nothing that needs to be done about this, but I just wanted to note that X happened, to give you a heads up in case this happens again” kind of conversation.)

    In this case? If someone came to me and said that a co-worker made them feel uncomfortable (and I’m assuming this means ‘uncomfortable’ in a ‘could maybe be a hostile work environment’ kind of uncomfortable), it would be a potential firing offense for me *not* to report it to HR, as I’m opening the company up to lawsuit risks by failing to do so.

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  17. NotITbutITish*

    I had an incident at a place I used to work. Told a friend how awkward it was. Was harassed by her and several other people including the head of a department to get me to file a complaint against this person. I didn’t understand why they were pushing me so hard! Come to find out, this person was a serial harasser and people had quit, moved departments, and been let go behind his shenanigans. They were pinning their hopes on me to file the complaint that they thought would get him ousted.

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    1. Abie*

      The takeaway from letter 1 is this: only go to HR about anything if you want HR to act on the matter. HR acts for the company, not the employee. HR maidens are the police, not your friend.

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  18. A. Lab Rabbit*

    #2 is also partly about how you ask the question. I train new people at my job and I always encourage them not to ask “How do I do this?” but to ask things like “Can you walk me through the SOP for this?” or “I’m confused about this point in the SOP. Can you explain it to me?” so that the employee they are asking has to refer to a written procedure.

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  19. Crencestre*

    #3: Are you by any chance Gilderoy Lockhart?

    Because this is NOT a great way to start off an interview – it makes you look eccentrically self-centered. Remember that an interview a two-way process; the candidate is also interviewing YOU to see if that job is the best fit for THEM!

    Talking about yourself and then demanding that they recall your mini-biography is not the best way to present your company as a great place to work. It suggests that one’s success in that job depends on their buttering up supervisors by remembering trivia about them. And the best candidates for those jobs will head for the door if you give them that impression.

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  20. PokemonGoToThePolls*

    Anybody else feel like #1 is connected to last week’s “My friend accidently swiped right on a coworker on a dating app and had to talk to HR”?

    Reply ↓
    1. Hroethvitnir*

      No, because that letter is a re-run from years ago. I remember it, but can’t be bothered searching, sorry. That’s just the format of these Inc. articles – they’re never new letters.

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  21. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

    LW3: With that chatty introduction in a job interview, I’m likely to remember that Barry is chief llama herder, because that’s the part that seems relevant. I might also remember that Barry still has day-to-day responsibility for the llamas, because again that might be relevant to what the job I’m interviewing for is like.

    The rest, probably not. And a candidate shouldn’t focus on the “previous life” in Scotland, because it’s a distraction from the questions they expect to be asked about their experience, or their questions about work/life balance. I might ask something like “you said you’re responsible for the llamas’ bedtime, how does that affect working hours in this job?” but not “you were an interpretive dancer, how does that affect…?”

    This letter-writer is talking about attention to detail, but a different interviewer might think “easily distracted” or “focuses on the wrong things.”

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  22. DramaQ*

    Lw#3 I would be so screwed on that type of test. I can remember the entire layout of my animal facility room but will forgot somebody’s name five minutes after I learned it.

    My ability to remember your name likely has next to nothing to do with the job itself so I would be screened out even if my resume showed I am exactly what you need.

    Ask me about how I organize and keep track of a project and I can give you an extract breakdown of how I kept track of hundreds of cages full of animals on a regular basis.

    I would think a more important skill would be instead of regurgitating factoids would be what someone does if they don’t recall the information off the top of their heads.

    There are lots of things I have memorized but there are also things I just don’t do every day that my brain isn’t going to devote to having front and center. That is why in my type of job SOPs exist so I know where to find the information I am having trouble recalling and be able to communicate it to whoever I need to or complete the process.

    It is considered incredibly irresponsible in my field to depend solely on memorization alone. We are supposed to take notes, use timers, outlook calendars, ask each other questions, review our lab notebook etc. We are encouraged to say “I am not sure but I know where to find the answer”.

    We don’t want someone who can recite pages upon pages of stuff from memory. We want people who can think critically and recognize there is just no way a human brain can hold EVERYTHING we need to know for our jobs. You need to be able to problem solve and sometimes problem solve on a dime. Waiting for Joe to spit out the facts isn’t going to work. Knowing where the SOP is kept does.

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  23. Mark This Confidential And Leave It Laying Around*

    I interviewed for a job where the exec wanted certain things memorized. I can do that! But I asked questions about why she wanted this skillset and it was so she could yell from her desk or wherever “who’s X, when is the Z meeting, where di I leave B, what is A’s title at the C company?” I realized I woukd hate her by the end of week one and turned down the job. Thru the grapevine I hear how she berates her staff (who she uses as Live Google). I would be SO turned off by this interview trick.

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  24. Maxouillet*

    #1 Yes, we can take action even if an employee does not file a formal complaint who réservé sanction . ( but this always a complaint)

    Even in my case, although it was less serious, I have a story related to this (name changed).

    When I was still working at my sheltered workshop and assigned to reception, we often witnessed a regular situation.

    Bernard was a coworker who only worked in the afternoons but ate lunch at our sheltered workshop’s cafeteria. Although the cafeteria didn’t open until 12:00, he would wait in the corridor from 11:30. This wasn’t a problem—he wasn’t complaining about the cafeteria opening time; he was simply waiting.

    Unfortunately, every day, Gloria would scold him for arriving early, telling him he shouldn’t be there before 12:00. However, she had no authority over him, and there was nothing wrong with arriving early.

    Lukas, a coworker from the logistics department, and I asked Bernard if he wanted us to take action

    He hesitated. Yes, this happened regularly, but while Gloria was rude, she didn’t yell, insult, or use physical violence. However, Bernard admitted that he was losing patience.

    Lukas consulted his supervisor, Ruth, for advice.

    She had an idea but first needed to check with the director of the sheltered workshop to see if it was feasible.

    Once we confirmed that it was possible, I created a written record of the situation. As stated in the guidelines, this document alone wasn’t enough to impose sanctions, but it could be useful if Gloria’s behavior worsened.

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  25. MassMatt*

    #2 It’s worth asking why people are approaching fellow staff members that don’t know the answers instead of supervisors or other designated people.

    Are they being trained appropriately? Do they have support they need to answer questions? Are the people that are supposed to be supporting them 1–aware of this, 2–able to do this, 3–given the TIME to do this, or is it another damned low-priority task added to their lengthy list, and 4–Do they have the right temperament to do this/are they approachable?

    I say all this because I worked somewhere (a call center ) where senior reps and managers were mostly either overworked, disinterested, lacking knowledge, and/or just plain unapproachable and nasty. Those that could help could not take time off the phone without penalizing themselves, many of those off the phone considered themselves too important to help mere low on the totem pole peons.

    I was not a manager or senior or anything, but I knew my stuff and would answer questions when I could, hopefully with more accuracy than in this letter.

    After a while the managers of the center asked me to stop doing this because it was affecting my #calls answered etc. I said it’s odd that none of you are considering WHY people are lining up to ask me questions instead of their seniors or managers. And to my knowledge they never seemed to grapple with that question. Cognitive dissonance.

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  26. JustaTech*

    The funny thing about #3 is that it is literally a plot point in the Jasper Fforde book “Early Riser” – where the main character gets a (desperately needed) job because they happen to remember something the interviewer said in a speech a few hours before.

    But you shouldn’t be taking interview methods from sci-fi books with zombies and deadly winters!

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  27. JustaTech*

    Related to question 1 – how do I encourage folks to say *anything* to *anyone* about another staff person who is making them uncomfortable?

    Recently our contract IT person was let go because they touched a coworker inappropriately (not to the level of assault, but absolutely in a “don’t touch coworkers there” way). Talking about it around the office it turns out that this IT person had done this to *most* people (but not me, for whatever reason), as well as saying things that were described as “hey, IT guy, you can’t say that word”.

    None of this surprises me, and I knew the IT person was incompetent at their job (and I reported it to their boss), but I’m kind of amazed how long everyone let the incompetence, touching, and “unfiltered” talk go without saying anything to anyone.
    Like, if I had known about the inter-personal stuff I would have absolutely run that up the management chain because I am happy to be a squeaky wheel about that kind of stuff for folks who are too shy to say anything.

    So, how do I let people know that 1) they don’t have to put up with any of that, and 2) I am happy to report it up for them if they don’t want to lodge a formal complaint?

    Reply ↓

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