Ask a Manager

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

1. Can I skip my office’s day at the beach?

I’ve been in my office for about seven months now and I recently learned that every year, the team goes on a summer outing. It’s not necessarily a team-building outing. It’s just a day away from the office enjoying each other’s company.

This year the team voted on spending the day at the beach (other options were kayaking, laser tag, and going to the movies). I really don’t want to attend this outing for multiple reasons. I don’t really like going to the beach and even though I like my colleagues just fine, I don’t necessarily want to spend an entire day just socializing with them. Part of me wishes we picked one of the other activity that didn’t require being away for the entire day and that also involved an activity.

Do I have to suck it up and go to this? Is there any way to graciously ask to sit this out?

You should go, be sick that day, or have a scheduling conflict. I would not ask to sit it out on grounds of just not wanting to go, or you’ll come across as Not Interested in Being Part of the Team. That’s silly — you shouldn’t have to spend a day at the beach if you don’t want to — but that tends to be how this stuff goes.

2. I shared an employee’s paycheck on a private Facebook group

I have an employee who couldn’t understand how the pay periods starts and ends since I would give them their paychecks earlier than the paycheck is signed for. So when she asked why she wasn’t getting her paycheck early, I posted her previous paycheck (just the front of the paycheck) on a private group on Facebook. Basically I shared with the other employees to show them the time periods on the check and when the check was written and dated. She got very upset that I posted her paycheck. Are there any laws that I wasn’t supposed to discuss or show the paycheck to anyone else? 

Laws? No. But assuming that it showed the amount of the payment, then yes, you violated her privacy. She’s entitled to be pissed off, and you should profusely apologize and rethink how you’re protecting your employees’ confidential information.

(And yes, there are certainly employers with total salary transparency, where everyone knows what everyone else makes, or government agencies where salary is public record — but I’m assuming that’s not the case here. And even if it were, she’s still entitled to prefer not to have her paycheck splashed all over the place.)

3. My manager keeps rotating through contract workers

I have a question regarding a situation that my fairly new manager is in. Our team had a couple of full-time employees quit, and our manager has brought in a couple of contract workers to fill the positions as temp-to-hire. Two of them haven’t worked out (so far), one for clear performance issues and one for more general fitting-in-with-the-culture issues.

Our manager is trying to find someone who fits the role really perfectly, but I wonder whether it is better to keep rotating through contract workers until she finds that person, or is it better to work with someone to help them fit in with the company? I really don’t know myself – it seems like each approach takes a fair amount of effort, and both a bad fit and a rotating roster are not great for building a cohesive team. I’m not really asking for advice for myself, since there’s not really much I can do about this, but was just curious about what you recommend in case I wind up in a similar position later in my career.

Neither! She should be hiring better. It sounds like she needs to put in more time on the front-end for screening, interviewing, and testing candidates. I wonder if she’s allowing herself to see the temp-to-hire set-up as one that gives her time to do all that once someone is already in place, since she hasn’t committed fully to them yet and can still get rid of them. She’d save herself (and probably the rest of you, not to mention the temp hires) a lot of time if she’d instead make sure she’s hiring the right person to begin with.

No hiring process is perfect, of course, and you’ll still always end up with some proportion of hires who just don’t work out, but you can do a lot during the hiring process to steer some of that away.

4. People keep interrupting my work to ask for directions

I am a prospect researcher for a large university. I sit at my computer and do research and compile reports all day long in a cubicle very close to the front of our office’s door. I’m on the 11th floor, where our Development headquarters’ mail room is, but our Donor Services department is on the 10th floor.

My problem is, despite all of the signs in the world, people still come up to me in my obviously high walled cubicle and ask me, “Hey, is so-and-so here today?” or “Where is person X’s office?” Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to help, but that’s not my job here and it is so frequent that it affects my work. I would just put headphones in and ignore people, but we have donors, parents, and colleagues come in, and I don’t want them to assume I’m front desk and am just rude and then get a bad taste for our department without my even knowing.

We do have signs up with the names of all the administration that have visitors or get packages the most and arrows to show where they are. People just seem to ignore them.

How do I politely display that I am RESEARCH, not front desk, so that people understand my priorities when they come in? Or how do I propose to my supervisor changing my desk so that this isn’t an issue?

I’d actually take this as a flag that there’s a need for a better system for directing visitors. If people are asking you and you’re the wrong person, there’s a hole in the system that needs to be fixed — maybe by something as simple as better signage than what’s currently up. So I’d start by talking about the problem with whoever’s actually responsible for managing the visitor flow to that area and brainstorming solutions.

If that doesn’t work, talk to your manager about what’s going on and the impact it’s having on your work. It’s okay to directly say, “This happens enough that I’m finding that this is impacting my workflow and making it hard to focus. Would it be possible to move my desk to a different location?” (You could also go straight to this step if you want to, but your manager might ask if you’ve already tried to resolve it with the person responsible for that area.)

5. Can I work more reasonable hours during my last two weeks?

I have given notice at my job a few weeks ago now, and my last day is in two weeks. My primary reason is that I’m moving to be with my fiancé, but a large contributing factor is that they have had me working 12-14 hour days with no signs of it getting better, and we don’t get overtime. Can I reasonably go back to working 8-10-hour days?

My coworkers have approached the boss about the hours and he told them that’s what they signed up for and they should get over it because Saturdays are going to start soon. When I signed on, I was told my working hours would be 7-4 Monday-Friday, but typically I get to the office before 6 am and don’t leave until at least 7pm, and it’s been that way since about a week after I started. Sowing up after 6 am gets you a 6:15 phone call from the boss demanding to know where you are, and leaving before 6 gets you the same thing. I like what I do so I have put up with it, but now I’m burned out and can see the end. Can I take my sanity back or do I have to tough it out?

Probably, but with a boss that awful, there are no guarantees. Theoretically you should absolutely be able to say, “For my remaining two weeks, I need to stick to the schedule we agreed to when I was hired — 7-4.” That’s reasonable and most employers would have no problem with that. But with this awful dude, who knows.

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

1. I’m worried my boss is going to ask if I’m applying for a similar position at another organization

I have been the development director at Organization A for a year. I have a terrible, manipulative boss (our executive director) and the entire culture of the agency is founded on backstabbing and mediocrity. I’m doing my best to get out as quickly as possible. Recently, my mentor, who is an extremely successful development director for Organization B, told me that she is likely to be promoted to executive director, and encouraged me to apply for their development director job when it is posted.

My boss knows my mentor and knows that she may be promoted (it’s a small community). My fear is that if and when that happens, my boss will see the posting for the at Organization B and ask me point-blank if I’m applying. My boss is well-known for giving bad references to people just to sabotage them, and I know she’d see my departure after only a year or so of working for her as ungrateful. What do I say if she asks me? If I were to lie but then ultimately get the job, that seems unprofessional. If I tell the truth, she’ll treat me terribly and make my life a living hell. I’m wracked with anxiety over this (and over the inevitability of her finding out I’m seriously job-hunting). How do you suggest people navigate situations like this?

You say no, because it’s an unreasonable question to ask you. If you end up getting the job, you tell her that you weren’t actively looking when she asked.

If you prefer, you can say something like, “I’m pretty happy where I am, but if I’m ever thinking seriously about leaving, I’ll let you know.” (With a boss like this, “thinking seriously about leaving” can mean “when I have an offer.”)

People who demand information that’s none of their business aren’t entitled to candid answers, especially when you know they’ll handle the truth badly.

(To be clear, I’m a fan of being transparent with your manager when you’re ready to move on when your manager makes it possible to do that safely, but that’s clearly not the case here.)

2. How can I word a sign telling employees that personal conversations aren’t allowed?

I would like to post something in our plant saying “Personal conversation with coworkers during work hours is not permitted.” However, my plant is unionized and anything we post is always felt to be wrong. I don’t want it to sound like they are in prison (which they are not), but there are a few people who come to work to socialize instead of working. How can I word this differently without making it sound too harsh?

You can’t. A rule forbidding personal conversation during work is pretty draconian. Other workplaces manage to allow personal conversation without letting it get completely out of control, and you can too.

The managers of the people who aren’t spending their time productively need to, you know, manage them, which in this case means talking to them directly about the problem, telling them what standards of productivity they need to meet, and holding them to those standards. You absolutely do not want a blanket rule like this, unless you want to be known as a terribly dehumanizing place to work.

3. Coworker might have shingles in an office with immunocompromised people

I learned this morning that one of our partners “thinks he has shingles.” He stated this to one of our staff members and she reported it to me. At first I didn’t think anything of it, other than how uncomfortable he must feel. Then word spread among our small office of 12 people (through the one person he told, not by me) and chaos ensued. I have two employees with compromised immune systems and one self-proclaimed “germaphobe” who also happens to have her first grandbaby due, literally, any day now. She has not had chickenpox and has quarantined herself in her office, requesting that he be sent home or not go in her office until after his doctor appointment (scheduled for tomorrow) when we will know for sure what the diagnosis is. She also suggested I let everyone else in the office know what’s going on, specifically the two with immune system concerns.

I explained to her that I couldn’t require him to leave the office without a confirmed diagnosis from his doctor. I also explained that I can’t discuss someone else’s medical issues with other employees, nor could I force him to talk to other employees about his own health issues. He plans to work here at the office for the rest of today and tomorrow morning until his appointment. Am I handling this correctly?

Why not go talk to the guy? You say that word has spread and chaos is ensuing, so it would be reasonable to (a) ask him how he’s doing and (b) point out that exposure to shingles could be disastrous for some of the people in your office and that it might make sense for him to work from home until he finds out what’s going on.

4. How much notice should you get when you’ll need to travel out of town for work?

How far in advance should an employer notify you of an out-of-town internal meeting? We have always had our annual meeting I can plan for, but now several additional 3-day trainings are being scheduled with a few weeks or a month prior notice. It’s hard to enroll my son in summer programs, buy event tickets, or make advanced plans when I may have to fly out of town. Should I tell them or just suck it up?

P.S. I always accommodate last-minute travel for customers, but I feel like my company should plan and schedule routine internal meetings annually and give us all the dates at the beginning of the year or at least 3 months notice.

Yes, more notice is obviously better when it’s possible — but it’s not always possible. I don’t know what the context is here, or whether they could have let people know earlier (for example, it’s possible they didn’t find out about the trainings earlier, or funding them wasn’t approved, or space in the classes just opened up — who knows), but I wouldn’t assume more notice was necessarily possible. And there’s no one standard on this; in general, it’s wise to let employees know about travel once you know — but in lots of jobs, it doesn’t become known until a few days or a week ahead of time, and that’s sometimes just how it works. It varies.

Regardless, I don’t think a few weeks to a month is outrageous if it was unavoidable — but certainly if it’s going to cause problems for you if it keeps happening, you should speak up. Explain to your manager that it’s causing difficulty, and ask if it’s possible to get more notice in the future. (However, it sounds like this might be limited to just these few trainings and isn’t going to become a constant thing, in which case you might just suck it up and know that it’s going to resolve itself shortly.)

5. Should I ask an interviewer about a lawsuit against the company?

I’m in touch with the owner of a company who is interested in making me a departmental manager. In the process of learning even more about them and their work from various websites and clients, I discovered that they have an ongoing lawsuit as a defendant. It turns out, according to the plaintiff, my prospective company had hired the plaintiff company to perform work on their behalf and then didn’t pay them enough as per the terms of the contract. Is this something that would be appropriate for me to ask about? Also, just wondering if any of your readers might know if this would open me up to any liability as a result of the court case, even if I wasn’t working for the company at the time the contractual issue arose? It would be in Nova Scotia.

I can’t tell you about Nova Scotia, but in in the U.S. wouldn’t be liable for something that happens before you were employed there. You almost certainly wouldn’t be personally liable even if it happened while you worked there. Work-related lawsuits rarely create personal liability for staff (with some rare exceptions, which don’t include this kind of contract dispute), and employers have insurance for this kind of thing. (And I can’t imagine Nova Scotia handles something this straightforward any differently.)

But bringing it up in an interview? I think that would come across as really weird. This is a contract dispute with a vendor. It’s not about employee issues, and it doesn’t sound like something huge that could threaten the future of the company. In other words, it’s not really relevant to you. If it were, say, a class-action suit from previous employees about wages or working conditions or harassment, then yes, it would be your business. A contract dispute with a vendor isn’t (unless your job would be do their legal work or managing their vendor contracts).