Ask a Manager

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

1. My boss ignores me at social events

I’ve been at my job for several years and am part of my company’s senior management team. I work very closely with my boss (think, he’s director and I’m assistant director, or he’s CEO and I’m CFO). We work great together and I’ve been promoted several times and get consistent positive feedback from him. He is in his mid-to-late 50s and married with several adult children, and I’m female in my mid-thirties, unmarried, no kids.

Our company has occasional work social events, such as holiday parties, happy hours etc. Typically these occur only a few times a year. At these gatherings, my boss, who is very extroverted, makes a point to circulate and spend at least a few minutes each talking to pretty much everyone.

Everyone that is except me. Like ever. Not even for a minute or two. I can’t tell if I’m just being paranoid/over-sensitive, but we’ve had enough events now and it happens literally every time, to the point where it feels to me kind of deliberate. I don’t think he has any bad intent, but I can’t figure out why he’s doing this. I can be socially awkward, but so are lots of our employees (who he knows much less well than he knows me; plus I manage to socialize with others there just fine so I don’t think I’m that bad!). I think I’m one of the few people on staff who is unmarried/without a long-term partner. Is he pulling a Mike Pence and thinks it’s inappropriate to be seen “socializing” with a single woman?

I’m definitely not planning to say anything to him about it as it wouldn’t be worth it. But it does bother me, mainly because I already feel so much social stigma at times as one of the increasingly few people my age who is unmarried and without kids. It’s hurtful to think that someone who knows me and otherwise values me as an individual at work sees me as just another single person in social settings. I guess I’m wondering if there is a way I can frame it for myself that might make it sting less, or whether it maybe is just in my head or something else I might be doing that’s causing it? It’s to the point where, at future events I don’t think I would be comfortable approaching him to chat since it feels so obvious to me that he is uncomfortable talking with me in that environment.

I don’t think it’s all in your head, and I doubt that you’re doing anything that’s causing it. I’d bet it’s one of two things: either (1) yes, it’s a Pence situation, or (2) he uses these events as a chance to talk to people who he doesn’t get to talk with much the rest of the time, and that’s not you.

At the next event, pay attention to who he does/doesn’t talk to. If there are other unattached women, see whether he avoids them too. If there are other people he works with as closely as he does you, see whether he steers clear of them as well. That’ll probably point you in the right direction.

Related:
my boss will not physically acknowledge me in social settings

2. Employer is illegally asking for salary history before they’ll interview me

I am a senior corporate financial executive currently pursuing new opportunities. It has been an unfortunate surprise to find that a number of organizations, particularly the nonprofits, are still asking for salary history when setting up interviews. This is happening even when their headquarters are located in a state that outlaws this practice, in addition to it being clear on my resume that I reside in a state that also makes this practice illegal.

I believe this is happening due a lack of awareness by the person initially sending out interview requests. They are often executive assistants to the CEO, or in another administrative role not normally associated with HR.

Per your past advice, I have skirted the question by providing the salary range that I am pursuing.

However, there is one EA who is refusing to set the interview with the CEO until this information is provided. Her overall tone in the few messages I’ve received indicates that she may be on a bit of a power trip – I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for other red flags to see if this is the culture or just one individual. However, I am currently struggling with language to respond that does not sound too cranky (this royally pisses me off!). I know I am preaching to the choir, but this is how wage gaps between genders, races, etc. are perpetuated and I have no problem declining to interview if needed. (My particular case is the opposite – I am pursuing roles that I know pay a little less than my previous employers since I have been in a notoriously risky industry that normally has to pay a premium to attract high quality talent.)

Any thoughts on how to respond without sounding too annoyed? I truly wonder if the CEO is aware, and I do plan to bring up my experience later in the process (if we get that far). I’m willing to give it one final shot with this EA, but will then decline to interview if she still holds firm on requiring my historical salary information.

Have you told her directly that asking for salary history is illegal in your state/her state?

Assuming not, say this: “StateName has made it illegal for employers to request salary history from candidates, but I can share the range I’m looking for, which is ___.”

If you have told her that and she’s insisting you answer anyway, I hope you’ll forward the whole exchange to whatever agency enforces the law in your state. (You might do that regardless, actually.)

3. Job rejection with a request to meet up informally

I’m in the middle of a grueling job search and I was just sent a job rejection after two interviews as they wanted to move forward with someone else. I was disappointed, but it’s just the way it goes sometimes. However, the HR representative also said that one of the interviewers was interested in meeting “informally” in person next week as they enjoyed our discussion in the interview and they might be expanding their comms department in the future. During the interview process, it sounded like they wouldn’t be able to do that for a couple of years at least and the role would be a more junior one.

My first instinct is not to do it: if they are assessing my suitability for a role, I feel like that should happen within the context of an interview process. And if not (which seems to be the case as they aren’t currently in a position to hire more comms people), then I’m not sure what the benefit of the meeting would be. It’s nice that they enjoyed talking to me, I guess, but I already spent time and effort applying and interviewing for a role that actually exists, so I don’t know if I want to put in additional time with no possibility of a job offer in the next year. I’m also not looking for junior roles. However, friends and colleagues suggested that I go anyway and part of me thinks it might be a good networking opportunity. Is this normal? I haven’t really come across this situation before.

This can indeed be normal! If there’s any part of you that’s willing to go, you should go. You don’t have enough info to know for sure that they won’t be hiring in the next year or that any new role would be a junior one; things can be happening behind the scenes that they wouldn’t share with a job candidate.. For all we know, someone in a position you’d like is leaving but it’s not public yet and that’s why they’re not saying it. As for thinking any assessment should happen in the context of a formal interview: that’s just not how this stuff goes some of the time — they may know their colleague is looking for someone with your skills and suggested that person meet with you informally since they’ve already gone through a formal process with you. Or none of this could be true — maybe it’s purely networking, with no concrete plans for anything. Even then, though, it’s still worth your time; employers don’t typically suggest this unless they consider you a very viable candidate. This is the most qualified of qualified leads.

In the middle of what you described as a grueling job search, here’s an employer that seems interested in working with you. I’d go.

4. Should I be paid more for being the automated drive-thru voice?

I work at fast food chain. My voice is the automated drive-thru voice, and it’s been my voice for over a year. I’ve been here for over three years and get paid other people’s starting rates. Should I be getting paid every time my voice is played?

No, it doesn’t work like that. You’re thinking of something like actors’ residuals, where an actor might be paid every time their show appears in syndication, but those are negotiated by actors’ unions or individual agents; they’re not typical outside of a performance context, and they’re definitely not used in a drive-thru context. You also wouldn’t be paid separately for being, say, the voice on the business voicemail.

You should ask for a raise based on being paid a starting rate despite having years more experience, but being the automated drive-thru voice isn’t a reason to use.

5. Should a manager speak to an employee about small mistakes?

All employees will make a mistake at some point. It’s clear that if the mistake is large in impact or shows an error in professional judgment, the manager should speak to the employee. But what about infrequent small mistakes (e.g., an employee of nine years misses a single meeting without notification, an internal deadline is missed by a day one time, etc.)? In my organization, some managers speak to an employee at a single infraction (and note it as an “area for improvement” on written annual reviews) whereas others are much more lenient. What is your opinion on how to handle these small transgressions?

It really, really depends on context. Missing a single meeting without notification is generally just normal human error; if it’s not part of a pattern, it might not require a response at all, unless their absence created a problem. If it did create a problem — like if they were supposed to be running the meeting or a client was counting on them being there — I’d approach it as a “what happened / is everything okay?” type of conversation, not as “we must discuss your serious misstep.” Same thing with missing a single deadline — the nature of your response should depend on how much it mattered.

Generally, though, what you want to pay attention to are patterns. All humans will mess up now and then because we are human. When someone makes mistakes repeatedly, that’s when you need to get involved: naming the pattern, asking what’s going on, and ensuring there’s a plan in place (either from them, you, or the two of you jointly) to stop it.

A single small mistake should not show up on someone’s annual review unless it had significant repercussions.

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

1. I want my employee to say “we” not “I”

We have a very productive employee who is enthusiastic about her position and enjoys working with the public. I appreciate her and most everything she brings to the table. However, when speaking with patients, she refers to the business as though it is her own. For example, when scheduling a patient for an exam she will say, “I have an opening at 10 on Friday, November 3rd.” I would like for her approach to be, “OUR next availability is on Friday, November 3rd at 10 am.”

How can I approach this employee without killing her enthusiasm? I want her to understand that and address the business as a whole using the terminology of “our” and “we” rather than “I.” Do you have any solid advice for me?

You should let this go! There’s nothing wrong with the wording she’s using; it’s very standard language in that context. She’s not implying she owns the business, nor will patients assume she does. (For what it’s worth, I kind of like it when a scheduler uses that wording; it makes me feel like they’re invested in their work and so I’ll be taken care of.)

If you ask her to change such a minor thing, you’re likely to come across as overly controlling and, yes, will risk killing some of her enthusiasm.

2. Should I pass along dress code feedback I don’t agree with?

A high level manager, Pearl, shared questionable feedback/concerns with me regarding a junior employee, Ruby. Pearl has concerns around Ruby’s personal appearance (clothing/makeup/hair) not being pulled together enough for our office and industry.

Context:
• Pearl and Ruby have different chains of command. However, Pearl has a decent amount of influence beyond her chain of command.
• It would be natural for Pearl to assume our conversation was confidential and private.
• We are a “dress for your day” office where anything from sweatpants to full suits may be seen around the office. The majority of team members wear jeans with sweaters/collared shirts/plain t-shirts/blouses.
• We work in a creative industry.
• Ruby has a relaxed style with minimal/no makeup. I think she dresses within the norm for our office, but she is on the more casual side of that norm.
• Ruby is plus-sized (I share this because I do think plus-sized women’s fashion choices are scrutinized more).

I don’t plan to say anything for a combination of reasons, primarily that I think the concerns are way off-base and possibly sizest. But I didn’t know if this is a situation where I would be doing Ruby a favor by sharing this info so that she can decide if she wants to take action.

If you don’t agree with the feedback, don’t pass it on to Ruby — otherwise you’ll just be putting it in her head for no reason. (And here’s what that can feel like from Ruby’s side.) What you should do, though, is to go back to Pearl and say you made a point of watching Ruby’s work appearance after your conversation and she is within the norms for your office so you don’t intend to raise it (assuming you hadn’t already said this when it first came up).

The exception to this advice would be if Pearl has the power and the inclination to make this A Problem for Ruby, and if you don’t have enough standing to insulate Ruby from any effects of that. In that case, it could be a kindness to give her a heads-up, but framed as “I don’t agree with Pearl and have pushed back but she has a bee in her bonnet about it and may turn into it a thing / I have your back if you don’t want to change anything, but realistically she has enough influence that it didn’t seem fair not to tell you she’s talking about this.”

3. “The new Bob”

I’m a little more than a month into a new job, and there’s a weird snag. I took a role that was vacated when someone was promoted to a different department. It’s a running joke that this person was “stolen” from my boss and everyone misses them.

I am really happy to be here and have been able to contribute more than I even anticipated. My officemates have said that it seems like I’ve been here much longer (in a good way!), they feel comfortable and happy with me, I fit right in, etc. etc. etc. It feels really nice.

What feels less nice is that every time my boss publicly introduces me, as recently as last week (four weeks into my job), my boss begins with a long monologue about how much we all miss the previous person and we didn’t think they could ever be replaced, and then I’m introduced with, “But it turns out, she is great!”

The additional layer to all of this is that the previous employee had a minor public scandal several years ago when they were arrested for (more than one case of) public indecency/exposing oneself. They had to resign their high-profile job in our city but seem to have landed just fine, and everyone at my workplace really loves them. I have chatted with them on a few occasions and they seem perfectly friendly and very good at their job, but I can’t not feel an ick factor. So when my boss spends more than half of my introduction talking about the incredible person whose position I’ve assumed, I feel extra weird.

Is this worth addressing? I don’t know if there will be more opportunities for public introduction now, so it may resolve itself, and I know I’m well liked and doing great work. I don’t know if I want to ruffle feathers, but I also am a whole person who was not expecting this kind of welcome.

Being introduced as “the new Bob” is pretty common when you start a new job — it’s an easy shorthand to explain your role. I can see why being referred to as “the new (name of person arrested for public exposure)” would rankle, but it sounds like your coworkers all like Bob and they’re just hearing “this is the person taking over the X work,” where X definitely doesn’t involve being pantsless in public. (I know you know that! But I think it’ll help if you lodge that in your mind.)

It’s also likely to resolve itself pretty soon because you’ll stop needing to be introduced all the time.

4. When you open the mail and it’s a calendar of naked men

This happened over seven years ago, but I’ve always wondered if I did the right thing. I was the operations manager at a small nonprofit, and I was in charge of opening and processing the mail. I was still in my 20s and not well-versed in what a functional office environment was supposed to be like.

We received donations and grant payments, and they would usually come in Fedex envelopes. One afternoon we received a Fedex envelope, so I took it to my office to open. It was addressed to one of the directors, but I just assumed a donor had addressed a grant payment to him so I opened the envelope. Inside was a black and white calendar, where each month depicted a tasteful yet fully naked man wearing vaguely S&M style straps.

The director it was addressed to was an out gay man, so I assumed he had ordered this calendar for himself. Whether he meant to send it to his work address has always been a question for me. The return address was the calendar company. I don’t think someone else sent it to him as a joke or a gift, but that could have been possible.

No one saw me open the envelope, but I panicked a little bit. I didn’t want to put it on his desk opened, because then he would know that I saw the calendar. I didn’t want to leave it in the office in case someone found it, so I took it home. (My husband always thinks it’s hilarious that I took it home.) The next day I went to the FedEx store, got a plain envelope, carefully unstuck the label from the original packaging and stuck it on the new envelope, put the calendar inside the new envelope, and sealed it. I then left the new sealed envelope on the director’s desk. That was that.

Was it incorrect of me to open this piece of mail? It was my job to process the mail and deposit the checks, so isn’t it assumed that I would open all mail unless marked “private”? Should I have left the envelope opened on his desk? Should I have talked to him about it? It was inappropriate to have that kind of material sent to the office. Although looking back, a lot of inappropriate things were said and done at that office that I didn’t know should have been “serious topics of discussion.”

You didn’t do anything wrong; your job was to process the mail, and it’s common for one person to be charged with opening everything that comes to the office, regardless of whose name is on it, unless it’s clearly personal. (And indeed, postal regulations say that mail delivered to an organization, even if addressed to a specific person, is delivered to the organization itself, and the organization can decide how to distribute it from there.)

Sometimes that does mean you’ll end up accidentally opening something you weren’t supposed to see, and part of being in that sort of job is that you just discreetly turn it over to whoever it was meant for, and then all involved maintain the polite fiction that you didn’t see whatever it was.

Who knows if your coworker intentionally had the calendar sent to him at work, or meant to use his home address and mistakenly didn’t, or if someone else sent it to him. All you really needed to do was to leave it wherever you’d normally put his mail. Taking it home and buying a new envelope for it was definitely overkill! But it’s totally understandable that you weren’t sure at the time.

There’s of course a whole thing here about how you shouldn’t have to see photos of naked men at work — you shouldn’t! — and certainly if this kept happening, you’d have standing to tell the person to make different arrangements or to have your boss address it with them. But it sounds like a one-time mistake that never repeated. (I’d advise you differently if it happened against a backdrop of other problems — like if this guy was sexually harassing you and then this calendar just happened to show up, that would feel like a pattern worth addressing. But this doesn’t sound like that.)

P.S. It must be shared that the subject line of your email to me was “packages in a package.”

5. Time zone confusion when scheduling interviews

I work for a small, seasonal organization with no formal HR department (think small summer resort). We hire many people from all over the world each year. When we are conducting interviews via Zoom, who do you think is responsible for ensuring that everyone clearly understands what time the interview is occurring at? Is it enough to specify we are in EST when sending the zoom link and expect the interviewee to ensure they have figured out what time that is?

I am sitting in a Zoom right now waiting for a candidate who said they were available at 11 am. We sent them a invitation clearly stating 11 am our time, but I am starting to suspect they meant 11 am their time (which would actually be 1 pm for me).

I think it is our responsibility to ensure everyone is on the same page (which isn’t that hard to do). My colleagues think the burden should be on the candidate to figure it out and be on time. Many of the candidates we are dealing with are young people who have little experience with interviews, and who are, I imagine, oblivious to the fact that we live in a different time zone.

I think the thing that matters most is that you don’t waste your time waiting for someone who got the time wrong, and so it would be wise to include language in all your interview invitations saying, “Please note this time is Eastern Standard Time.” If you really want to promote understanding, link them to a time zone converter! Turn it into a text shortcut so you don’t have to type the whole thing out every time.

Yes, in theory candidates should pay attention to time zone differences, but especially with the daylight savings time changes right now, it’s just going to be more efficient to spell it out. The exception to this would be if you’re hiring for someone who will need to do a lot of scheduling across time zones and their ability to do it well is relevant.

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

1. Can my parents contact my employer if they haven’t heard from me?

I live far from my parents in another country (the U.S.). If my parents can’t reach me by phone for, say, two days and are worried, can they ask HR or my manager to check on me to make sure I am safe? (So that if my company can’t make contact with me either, HR could call the police to do a welfare check or go to my home?)

Two days would be much too early for your parents to contact your employer; that would be imposing on your employer in a way that isn’t reasonable unless there were highly unusual, extenuating circumstances — like you always call them at 7 pm on the dot and you missed two nights of calling and you had told them you feared for your safety because of a mountain lion prowling your backyard (I had a hard time coming up with an example that would work here, as you can see). Otherwise, since lots of people go much longer without talking to their family, contacting your employer after two days would be a prohibitively unusual burden to place on your company.

Even in those unusual circumstances, though, they’d be better off calling the police in your area to do a welfare check rather than your employer. Your employer would have the benefit of knowing if you’d been at work or not, but they won’t necessarily give that info to a non-employee who calls to ask. (And consider that some people are estranged from their family, don’t want contact with an abusive ex, simply don’t want that info shared, etc.) You could give your employer explicit permission, but even then if your family did contact HR, your parents would need to see it as a one-time thing only.

If your parents are likely to be anxious and wanting this kind of reassurance more than in a once-in-a-blue-moon true emergency, you’re better off coming up with a different system — like that you’ll always check in by Thursday each week and so there’s a problem if they haven’t heard from you by Friday, or whatever works for you.

I should note that my read of your question is that if my answer had been “yes, it’s fine for your parents to do that,” that would be okay with you. But if, instead, you don’t want your parents to do this and are worried they will anyway, you can warn HR and your boss that it might happen and let them know it’s fine to explain they can’t give that information out.

2. How much time should a manager spend on people stuff vs driving actual work?

I’m a manager of an analyst team. I report directly to our C-suite leader because of a somewhat strange org structure; most other managers in this department report to a VP. He is very focused on us executing on strategic work, but I find myself spending most of my time with my reports dealing with their interpersonal problems, or lack of motivation, or what they want for professional development, etc. We’re also entirely remote so I feel like I need to make an extra effort to focus on this since I can’t observe them at the office.

My feeling is that they won’t be able to focus on the important work if these things aren’t addressed but my boss doesn’t seem to agree on how I split my effort. It sort of makes sense that someone at his level isn’t worried about the individual people doing the work and it needs to be my job to do so. What do you think?

If you’re really spending most of your time with your staff talking about those things rather than the actual work, your boss is right that the balance is way off.

A couple of those items set off alarm bells for me too: if you’re spending significant time discussing someone’s lack of motivation, that’s a pretty big performance issue and I’d question whether you have the right people in the job. It’s of course important to create the conditions in which good hires will feel motivated (by doing things like giving them meaningful roles with real responsibility, ensuring they see the bigger picture of what their work adds up to, etc.) and you need to avoid demotivating staff by things like yelling, but beyond that if you’re spending significant time on someone’s lack of motivation, that’s not a good use of your time or energy. That amount of time on interpersonal problems worries me too; of course those will come up from time to time, but if you’re regularly focused on that with people to the extent that it’s overshadowing the actual work, that’s a sign of bigger problems too.

I’m with your boss on this one.

3. I don’t want to do a team snacks rotation

One of my colleagues has suggested to our 12-person unit that we introduce a weekly cake/snack rota where we each take turns bringing snacks to the office for the unit. I really don’t want to participate in this. First, I think office cake culture is pretty terrible for our health and diet outside of people celebrating a personal event. Second, I am a single parent to two-year old twins and I just don’t want to add to my existing chores to spend time and effort on something I disagree to begin with — even if it is only four times a year. However, I know some people in our unit love this sort of thing and can get a bit offended by those not equally willing to participate. How do I opt out in a non-offensive manner?

In theory you should just be able to say “no thanks!” and have that be respected, but since that sounds like it’s not the case, you could try one of these:

* “Oh, I’m really picky about snacks so I’ll opt out — thanks for inviting me though.”

* “I’m juggling two toddlers at home by myself and will literally burst into flames if I add any additional stuff to my list! Thanks for inviting me though.”

* “For a bunch of boring reasons, I’m not going to participate, but have fun doing it!”

Note: if your coworkers get offended by reasonable actions, there’s no magic language that will prevent that. But these are reasonable things to say. Say them cheerfully and as if of course that’ll be the end of it, hold firm if there’s any pushback (“nope, I really can’t!”), and figure that any Feelings they have about it are on them to manage.

4. I can’t reach HR about medical accommodations

I have been trying to reach out to our human resources team with no success to get accommodations. I’ve emailed twice, and my boss has emailed as well. Do you have a script that might help? I don’t want to be too forceful. I was in the hospital for two weeks. I emailed them late September and then was in the hospital part of October. I just emailed them again recently but still no reply. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Is it an option to call? If so, do that! Whenever one method of communication isn’t working and it’s something important, you should try a different method, since sometimes that will get you better results.

But if you can only email, then try again and put this in your subject line: “Official request for accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act.” And then the body of your email should open with, “This is an official — and time-sensitive — request for accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. I originally made this request over a month ago and have not heard back.”

Also, if there’s a way to go over the head of the person you’ve been contacting (or for your boss to), do that since a month is an unacceptably long response time. If you still don’t hear back, a lawyer may have better luck.