boss is always scratching his chest, drinking non-alcoholic beer at work, and more

by Alison Green on November 6, 2024

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

1. Manager is always scratching his chest inside his shirt

I am a recent transfer to my current office, 10 years with my company, and I have an issue with a manager. “Mark” wears his shirt with the top three buttons undone and he is rarely seen without his hand inside the shirt, scratching his chest. Am I wrong to be grossed out by this?

Mark is my direct manager, over my immediate supervisor. I have talked to my supervisor about my feelings and I was told that if I felt like this was a serious concern, I should take it up with HR.
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What can I do? Short of reporting this to HR or trying to ignore him, which is hard to do since he will stand right in front of you and scratch his chest while he talks to you.

You’re not wrong to be grossed out; someone regularly having their hand inside their clothes is odd, and three unbuttoned buttons is more skin than you see in most offices.

That said, your supervisor is correct that unless you think it’s a big enough deal to take to HR (and I agree that it’s not), there’s nothing you can do about it. Mark’s scratching his chest; he’s not fondling his man parts or otherwise crossing glaring lines. The behavior is uncouth, but it’s not obscene.

At most, the next time he does it you could say, “Are you okay? You keep scratching yourself” — which could make him realize he’s doing something noticeable enough to be remarked on — but if that doesn’t work, then realistically you probably just need to accept the dude is a bit boorish (or very itchy).

2. Is it OK to drink non-alcoholic beer at work?

In your opinion, would it be okay for an employee to drink non-alcoholic beer in the office? Since it contains no alcohol, they wouldn’t be getting drunk and negatively impacting performance. But maybe it falls under the category of “not work appropriate.”

In most offices it would seem pretty weird. It’s an optics issue, not something strictly logical. Partly it’s that people won’t necessarily know it’s non-alcoholic at first glance; a lot of non-alcoholic beers look exactly like regular beer, and it’s not a great move to look like you’re swigging a beer at your desk, whether or not you actually are. Many people won’t stop to check and will just assume they’ve witnessed you drinking at work. But mainly it’s just going to come across as a weird choice in an office — like you’re trying too hard to be provocative, or not sensible enough to know that it will come across strangely, or just too invested in the choice in some way.

If you want to debate whether it should be okay to drink non-alcoholic beer at work, that’s a different question. But realistically, in most offices the optics are going to be bad.

3. My employee won’t take any time off for an injury

I work for a mid-sized city and was recently promoted to the division manager (leading eight staff overall). Our work group is tight and hardworking, and we are all super passionate about our work. As is often the case in the public sector, there is always more work that can be done.

One of my coworkers, Faye, has always worked long hours. She works late and nearly every weekend, and almost never takes time off. Even when she goes on vacation, she usually works part days throughout. She is extremely smart, dedicated, conscientious, and hardworking. Faye is now my direct report, but we worked for years as colleagues running parallel programs. I consider her a work friend, but she is older than me and we are figuring out what our new work relationship is.

When we were peers, how she took time off was none of my business. Now that I am her supervisor, I’m running into an issue because Faye is dealing with a really bad back injury. We are going into the third week of her working through extreme pain. She has been continuing to work through it from home, since she says it doesn’t make a difference if she’s working or not. She’s been working slightly fewer hours, but mostly just pushing through, working through pain and pain-induced insomnia.

I know it’s not appropriate to manage her time off, but I am starting to be concerned because I strongly believe in taking time away from work, unplugged, to heal and recuperate. I also don’t like the expectation it sets for the rest of the team. We get generous time off, with interchangeable vacation and sick time that rolls over into the next year. Faye has about 10 weeks of time saved up, in addition to access to paid medical leave through our state. Our workplace also has a donated leave program.

What is my role here? Is there anything I could/should do, beyond letting her know we can cover if she needs to take time off? I did encourage her to turn on her out-of-office message so she feels she can step away from email, which she did. And I’m covering any in-person duties (which are pretty minimal).

I agree with your philosophy about real time away, unplugged … but I also believe in letting adults make their own choices in that regard until and unless it’s affecting your team.

Reasons to tell Faye she needs to disconnect would be:
* if you’re seeing signs that other team members feel pressured to mirror her behavior
* if “working through pain and pain-induced insomnia” is affecting her work quality or output (hard to think it wouldn’t, but who knows)
* if you have reason to think she’s burning out
* if you need her at her well-rested best for something more important in the near future
* if her never being away means you have no chance to spot weak points or cross-training needs on your team (or fraud, for that matter — there’s a reason many financial jobs require people to fully disconnect for two weeks each year)
* if your sense is that she’s doing this because she truly feels there are no options to cover important work (in which case you’d need to work to find some)

I suspect at least a few of these are in play. But if they’re not, you can urge her to take real time off and emphasize that things will be covered in her absence, but otherwise should leave it to her to decide.

4. My manager won’t take any responsibility for us dropping a ball

Last week, my boss messaged me, “So, how’s project A going?” and I had no answer because I had done … nothing! This is a project that usually requires over a month of preparation and coordination between multiple teams at the company. However, I never knew it was my responsibility! I replied that I didn’t know it was my responsibility and I thought another team had it handled. He mentioned a meeting we had with the other team a few months ago where we had apparently agreed to handle the entire thing. But it didn’t come up in any documentation, meeting notes, my monthly goals, our yearly goals, and he hadn’t checked in until today, a week before the project was supposed to be completed!

In my work life (eight years) and under this manager (1.5 years), this has never happened to me before, and certainly not on an assignment that requires so much preparation. I have always gotten really good feedback on my ability to juggle multiple projects, prioritize, and communicate effectively, so this really rocked me. I feel like my manager dropped the ball on this, but he refuses to take any responsibility for it.

I did work like crazy to get everything figured out in less than one week so we are still on schedule, but it was one of the worst weeks I have ever had at work. We had a follow-up conversation where I mentioned the lack of communication or documentation, but he seemed completely nonplussed at the situation (and definitely not apologetic). I apologized for any miscommunication and really tried to give him the benefit of the doubt … but I can’t help feeling that I shouldered the entire situation and he has walked away oblivious to how big of a problem it was. How do I get across to him how much this affected me? And how do I prevent this kind of thing in the future?

If he’s normally a good manager who communicates well, one option is to leave it where it is now, since you’ve already had a follow-up conversation where you mentioned your concerns. I see why you’re thrown by his response to that (or lack of response, really) but if it’s not part of a pattern, you could just figure it’s been addressed, you see it differently for whatever reason, and it’s now settled enough — as long as it doesn’t keep happening.

But the other option is to go back and say something like, “I know we talked about it a bit, but I’m pretty rattled that I was unaware of such a major project for so long, and I hoped we could figure out where we miscommunicated so I can make sure it doesn’t happen again. If your sense is that I dropped the ball somewhere, can we dig into what happened so I’m better prepared next time? Or if your sense is that something else caused it, can we figure that out too?” There is a danger here that if your boss feels it’s already been discussed and handled, it could be annoying to reopen it, so you should factor in your sense of that, and also how open he’s historically been to acknowledging when he has messed up. If he’s not one to admit fault, there may be no point in revisiting it — not because he doesn’t necessarily need to hear it, but because in that case his previous non-response is probably as good as it’s going to get.

Also: he mentioned a meeting you were a few months ago where your team agreed to handle the project. Unless you have reason to doubt that’s correct, one takeaway might be that you need to be more proactive about following up with your boss on those types of commitments yourself, rather than assuming he’ll check in with you about them.

5. Submitting a reference from a job not listed on your resume (because you were fired from it)

My partner, Linda, was recently fired without cause after a month at a new job. She was still within her probationary period, the job was not a good fit, and the training was extremely lacking, which is why her performance suffered.

At this job, Linda worked closely with Tracy. Tracy was in a tenured position but not in Linda’s chain of command. Tracy was very pleased with Linda’s performance and was definitely one of her cheerleaders during her time there. Now that Linda is back in job-search mode, Tracy reached out and offered to be a reference.

However, Linda was only at this job for a month and, due to the nature of her departure, she is not including this position on her resume. Is it appropriate for her to list Tracy as a reference? If so, how would she note that Tracy is a reference from a job not listed, and with such a short length of employment? I’m concerned that a hiring manager will see yellow flags at best if Linda includes Tracy as a reference. Linda has other options for references, but they are from a position that ended in June.

I wouldn’t use Tracy as a reference, unfortunately. It’s more likely to cause concerns than it is to strengthen her candidacy (because of the firing, but also because one month of working with someone generally isn’t enough to produce sufficiently strong and nuanced feedback to outweigh the firing, or even to count for all that much on its own).

The exception would be if Tracy is personally connected to someone Linda is applying with; in that case, it could change that calculus (in part because Tracy would be able to talk more candidly about what happened and her assessment of Linda would carry additional weight).

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{ 24 comments }

{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. earlthesachem*

    Why do I get the feeling the LW in #2 should probably get himself to an AA meeting, pronto?

    Years ago I worked for an internet company that provided free beer on Fridays, after 4:00PM. It was not unheard of to crack one open with the owner of the company, but it was for a couple hours at the end of the work week, and there was an understanding that you stopped at one or two. I almost miss the early 2000s dot-com days.

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    1. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

      Seems like they’d prefer beer with alcohol in it, in your scenario.

      I don’t care for sweet beverages, so once it’s too late in the day for caffeine (I drink black coffee in the morning), my choices tend to be water, milk, and beer. The optics of my job mean that I’m definitely not going to drink even 0% beer at work, but I much prefer the flavor profile of beer to soda and would probably choose NA beer over milk for a little afternoon treat sometimes if not for the optics involved. (In reality, once I’m done with coffee for the day I switch to water or the occasional glass of milk, because I’m in a field where any perception that I’m drinking on the job would be a big issue.)

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      1. Testing*

        There’s always tea-type drinks like rooibos that have no caffeine. But yeah, I drink those in the winter and but prefer something cold in the summer.

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    2. Testing*

      You’re projecting pretty wildly there.

      I, and many others, drink non-alcoholic beer all the time. We always have some in the fridge at home (where we rarely have regular beer). It’s a great, non-sweet and non-sugary refreshing drink that has more taste than water does. I’m not trying to lose weight, but I remember reading about a study where people lost weight when drinking non-alcoholic beer every day (I guess since it fills you up, again in a way water doesn’t). I like the taste of some brands a lot more than I like the taste of regular beer.

      It’s weirdly puritanical to think that there is somehow something suspect or bad about this particular refreshment. While I agree that swigging cans at work is a bit weird (only because it may look similar to beer with alcohol—lots of people drink soda or energy drinks out of cans at work), this is the perfect use for those coffee thermos mugs with lids!

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      1. Archi-detect*

        whereas I have never heard of anyone drinking non-alcoholic beer outside of recovery of some kind. Personally I don’t like the taste of beer enough to want to drink it outside of wanting the alcohol

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    3. Ellis Bell*

      My mind went to alcoholism too, but not because I think the OP is alcoholic. My concern would be that anyone in recovery who happens to look around will see what appears to be drinking going on. Even if they realise the beer is not alcoholic, on some level it will feel like an environment with alcohol. It also makes it easier to drink alcohol surreptitiously once it becomes established that “beer” is okay in the office and people are trusted on the contents in spite of appearances.

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  2. Dahlia*

    I had a really bad back injury a few years ago (I broke my spine) and I was on too much morphine to work in any capacity, but had I not been, I would have been fine to work and it would have probably been nice, honestly.

    I spent a lot of time very isolated (February 2020 is a bad time to have a major injury) and with that little to do, you start to lose it. Doing nothing but being in pain messes with your mental health severely.

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  3. WorkingInPain*

    While Faye clearly doesn’t take time off generally so this may not apply, let me give you an alternate perspective from someone with serious back issues who’s always in pain:

    Working helps, as long as I can do it from home with minimal need to move. 99% of the time work distracts me from the pain and I don’t feel it as much. Conversely, if I’m not working I’m sitting there in extreme pain without something engaging my brain to distract it. Note that I’m still in pain while working and it might be noticeable to coworkers at times, it’s just pushed to the back of my brain because my brain is busy with other stuff.

    In those rare cases when I try to start working and it doesn’t help and I can’t be productive I stop and take a sick day.

    So I wouldn’t automatically assume taking time off will help Faye deal with her back. That said, I don’t know if any of this applies to Faye as everyone is different.

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  4. Jenesis*

    I am less concerned about the way that Faye is powering through this specific incident (as earlier comments said, sometimes “resting” is not actually relaxing or recuperating) and more about the fact that she has 10(!!) weeks of leave saved up and apparently no plans to actually use it.

    Only LW#3 can tell us if this is a work culture problem or a Faye-specific problem, but their comment “I also don’t like the expectation it sets for the rest of the team.” suggests that the rest of the office isn’t as much of a workaholic as Faye. LW#3, would it be possible to set some team-wide expectations to mitigate this, such as “Employees should not be responding to work emails while on vacation” or “Employees should not be working [more than X hours] every weekend”?

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  5. AnotherSarah*

    I’m also curious about the meeting LW4 wrote about. Was it a meeting the boss and others at the same level attended, and the boss said “my team will handle that” but never told the team? Or was it a meeting that the team was also in, where everyone nodded and said “oh yes, we can handle that,” but there wasn’t a point person to oversee it and delegate, and the Boston didn’t step in to fill that role? It does seem that the time immediately after that meeting was where things began to get off track, and that might be a place that your boss would want to troubleshoot.

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    2. Emmy Noether*

      This is exactly what I was wondering.

      There’s a third option, which is that LW was assigned this project, but misunderstood or forgot. Possibly it was just floated as an idea, without a firm assignment (“LW maybe will have the time to do it. Let’s discuss next time!” And then they never did.), which is also how it didn’t end up in the meeting notes.

      Anyway, this is why Action Points circulating after a meeting are a Thing. If it’s not in the AP, it didn’t happen. If there were AP and this wasn’t on the list, I would be very clear that it’s not my fault for “forgetting”. If there were no AP, maybe it’s time to start doing them.

      I bet the boss also forgot until last week, when something prompted him (maybe a question from the other team?).

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      1. bamcheeks*

        Yes, I’ve suggested below that LW approach this with her manager from a “what do we need to change about our processes to make sure this doesn’t happen again” and having some kind of written actions or follow-up from that meeting sounds essential. It shouldn’t have just been a verbal agreement that “our team” would take care of it: a significant project changing ownership should be minuted or noted somewhere and the next action (“LW to coordinate with [team]”) should have been noted!

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      2. Disappointed Australien*

        There are programs for this, in software we have both calendar-type staff allocation tools and issue tracking ones and use either or both. Post-meeting emails are often just lists of links to the relevant issues once the meeting leader has turned meeting notes into actionable items. Issue trackers also help managing upwards, both in reminding everyone of what’s in progress and what’s on the wish list, and also the quantity in each list (and retroactively listing all the stuff that got done or cancelled).

        It also helps me remember what I’m doing, both in meetings and when I finish a task. Rather that staring blankly into space I look at the issue tracker :)

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  6. Viki*

    LW1 my father has had eczema my entire life. His skin itches so badly that if he cannot scratch it, he is unable to focus. (For the internet, yes he has a doctor and dermatologist regimented medical plan he goes through—it still itches and drives him insane)

    He knows it’s not proper/polite/etc but sometimes it’s all he can do for the situation. Work and life doesn’t let you have itch breaks in the middle of a meeting. And there’s also no real good accommodation, for this. Excuse himself every fifteen-20 minutes in the spring when it gets incredible bad?

    All that to say, I do understand it’s not something anyone wants to see—but sometimes, it’s like sneezing/coughing. You just can’t stop it.

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    1. KateM*

      So either your father is unable to focus, or the person he is talking to is unable to focus plus is grossed out. Seems like it’s not worth to have that conversation at all (at least not face-to-face) if both persons can’t be focused on it anyway.

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  7. Kamala*

    “scratching his man parts”. I wonder what the TQWERTY brigade will make of that one! But thanks for confirming reality.

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    1. Jopestus*

      Am i missing something US-specific or is this comment just incomprehensible? This finnish dude has no clue what you are trying to say even though I usually understand english pretty well.

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      1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

        As a native Brit, I also occasionally learn some American English here :)
        I think in the US that “lady parts” and “man parts” mean their respective genitals, but – note for ESL speakers – these terms are not used in serious conversations because they sound whimsical.

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        1. Eli*

          It‘s the TQWERTY but I didn’t understand but the commenter is evidently transphobic and on reflection I think TQWERTY must be intended as a dig at LGBTQ+ (I‘m not American either).

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  8. bamcheeks*

    LW4, aaaargh, I am having anxiety just thinking about this! What if there is another project you’re supposed to be doing that was mentioned in passing several months ago! I couldn’t relax or trust my boss ever!

    I think I would approach it from that point of view— not trying to get your boss to admit he dropped a ball, but something like, “this has really shaken my confidence, and I’m trying to figure out what I can do to make sure if doesn’t happen again. Can we make sure we do a quick but exhaustive check through of everything you think I’m working on at the end of our one-to-ones, just so I know there’s nothing that I’m not aware of?”

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    1. Ellis Bell*

      Oh my god, same. I’d be constantly waiting for the next bomb to drop after this one; he’s not the one who’s going to have to scramble to respond, so his lack of concern is maddening. As well as having that big picture conversation, I would start doing proactive status reports here and there: “This is everything I’m working on this week, X is the priority unless you’d rather I focus on Y”. I had a boss who had historically been great, go through a very off base period where he was off base in this way. We had very unusual shift patterns, which provides essential coverage, and he used to communicate them in writing and post them on the wall and to our email. Then he went through this distracted period where he was all “Oh, I’ll just tell you verbally”. I was aghast, because I have ADHD and I would never trust my memory of a verbal conversation like that, so I had my diary out to make notes of what he was saying. Except he started drive by-ing me and telling me “you’re on earlies next week” before I could get a pen out, before I could check back and repeat to him. Sure enough, I come in and I’ve got it wrong “I told you late shifts”. He has confidence in his (usually) great memory. I start emailing him well in advance to double check any shifts and to get it in writing, as well as walking over witnesses to the drive bys; turns out he was making mistakes after all

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    2. Banana Pyjamas*

      I like this approach. I would do it via email or summarize it in email afterwards asking for confirmation, just to have it in writing.

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