how to decide whether to let someone work remotely

by Alison Green on April 9, 2015

Managers are increasingly hearing requests from their employees to work remotely, either once a week or as much as full-time. If you’re a manager, how should you evaluate these requests and decide if it makes sense to say yes?

Here are six ways to assess whether telecommuting could work for your team members.

  • Assess what you know about the person. How long have you worked with the person who’s making the request? Are they new and untested, or someone who’s proven their work ethic and conscientiousness? Speaking of their work ethic, what do you know about it? Are they easily distracted? How much oversight do they require to work at a high level?
  • Assess what you know about the role. Some roles lend themselves to working from home more than others. Some roles canbe done from home, but it means the rest of the team will pick up a greater burden (for instance, fielding more of the tasks that require an in-office presence). Other roles can be done from home with minimal inconvenience to anyone else.
  • Assess what you know about your team. Some teams rely on in-person collaboration and someone out of sight will be out of mind. Other teams are great about including people who aren’t physically on-site. How does your team operate in that regard?
  • Try telecommuting as a limited-time experiment and see how it goes. If you agree to try it and revisit the question after a month or three months, you won’t be locked in, and it will be easier to say “this isn’t working out” if you need to (as opposed to revoking a longer-term arrangement someone was counting on). This also gives employees a chance to prove to you that they can make it work if you’re skeptical, rather than you just saying no without at least giving it a chance.
  • Set clear boundaries up front. Think about what could go wrong and figure out how to head that off. For example, you might have requirements around how accessible people need to be or what appropriate responsiveness looks like, and you should make it clear that telecommuting can’t be used a substitute for child care.
  • Realize that you might be setting a precedent, whether you intend to or not. You don’t have to treat everyone the same, but you should be prepared to be asked why others can’t work from home if Jane gets to. (Reasonable answers to that might be about the nature of Jane’s work, or the fact that’s she’s the guinea pig to figure out if a broader program makes sense, or that her tenure and high performance have earned it for her.)

I originally published this at Intuit QuickBase’s blog.

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ask the readers: tell us about your successful salary negotiations

by Alison Green on April 9, 2015

So many people are terrified about negotiating salary that they don’t even ask — and many times end up leaving money on the table as a result.

So. Let’s demystify the process. Share your stories here of successfully negotiating for more money. What did you say (be as specific if you can!), how did the conversation go, and what did you end up with?

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employer altered my LinkedIn profile, gifts for Admin Professionals Day, and more

by Alison Green on April 9, 2015

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

1. My old employer altered my LinkedIn profile without my permission

I recently left my job as a recruitment consultant on (what I thought were) very good terms with my employer.

In our field, many employers acquire the license to a tool called LinkedIn Recruiter that works alongside a LinkedIn personal profile to achieve better search insights. Being both a personal and professional account, I was asked to change my primary LinkedIn email to my company address, which I completely understand.

A week after resigning, during a work interview with a new employer, the interviewer confronted me about contradicting dates and statements in my CV vs LinkedIn profile. He accused me of deliberately being misleading and dismissed me from the process. Confused and upset, I left the interview and checked my LinkedIn account. Sure enough, my work dates and previous job description had been altered and some of my skill endorsements deleted – endorsements I have collected over a decade-long career.

I got in touch with the office manager at my old job. She eventually confirmed that she’d been asked to change my password and that our director had modified my LinkedIn profile. The reason, I suspect, was to make use of the LinkedIn Recruiter license which was still active on my account and which the company was paying for. I can’t think of any other plausible reason for this. Regardless of the reason, is this behavior legal?

I don’t think it violates any laws, but it probably violates LinkedIn’s terms of service. But that’s not really the right next move here — shutting down their ability to do this again is. Re-take control of the account (contacting LinkedIn for help if you need to) and ensure they don’t have access to your profile anymore.

I’d also send your old employer an email letting them that you’ve removed their access to your account and that it appears someone on their staff made changes to your profile, which is obviously unacceptable, and that you wanted to give them a heads-up because you’re sure that they’ll agree that that’s a pretty serious and inappropriate thing to do and that you’re sure they’ll want to figure out what happened so that it doesn’t happen again. That’s polite code for you “you were wildly out of line and I’m doing you the favor of being civil about this, but WTF?”

2. Who should give a gift on Administrative Professionals Day?

On Administrative Professionals Day, who is supposed to give the gift to the administrative assistant? Would it not be her boss or do all employees give? Our admin does not work for all the employees. She does, however, order us supplies if we need them, but this is her job. Each year, for this day and Christmas, we are all asked to give her money and if we don’t give her money we cannot sign the card. I really do not think this should be done. I feel if an employee wants to give her something, let them do it on their own and let her boss be the one to give her the gift and/or money. Another good idea would be to let the company send her flowers. What are your thoughts?

I tend to think the whole thing is a bit contrived and that you should appreciate people who support your work all the time and it doesn’t require a card once a year, but some people like it. But it certainly doesn’t require cash — at most a card or flowers or taking the person out to lunch. Cash should come from her employer, via her salary.

In your case, this is someone who doesn’t even support the whole office, so I’m hard pressed to argue that what you’re describing makes sense. Her boss should handle this on her own, without hitting the rest of you up for cash. And the whole “you can’t sign the card if you don’t contribute money” thing is tacky.

3. An interviewer reached out to a former coworker of mine without clearing it with me

I just started my job search last week, and I reached out to various people on LinkedIn to see if they knew of any open positions. One of those people was an old coworker, and he had me get in touch with the CEO of the small company he currently works for. I emailed the CEO my resume, and he set up a call for Monday. He then flaked on the call, but replied to my follow-up email with apologies to reschedule the next day. We have this call as scheduled. The interview is mostly fine, other than he seemed to harp on why I wanted to leave my current company. (I’m not happy with compensation or the culture, but I wasn’t going to say bad things about my current position.) Towards the end, he mentions that he spoke with his employee about me (as expected), and that he spoke with another ex-coworker who left the company more recently. I never mentioned the other ex-coworker’s name, and I don’t believe his employee mentioned him either. Fortunately, both said nice, positive things.

Is this a common practice? Or is this a huge red flag? To tell you the truth, it made me really uncomfortable. It was someone that I would’ve never asked for reference from as I don’t like his work ethic. I’m getting a sinking feeling that this CEO likes to check up on you behind your back. And finally, should I address it with the CEO?

Yep, it’s very common. If I get an application from a candidate and realize that I know people who know her, I’m likely to check with them to get their impressions of the person — because they might tell me things that will prompt me to fast-track the person, or reject them outright, or probe more deeply into specific areas than I otherwise might. And I trust their opinions, and I want to hear them. (I wouldn’t do this if they were currently working with the candidate, but otherwise most people consider it perfectly fair to do.)

This is one reason that reputation matters so much: You don’t always get to pick your references. Employers may reach out to them directly, especially if they know each other.

4. My manager wants to send me home when I walk with a cane

I’m an admin for a medium-sized company, and I’ve been in the position for under a year. After I was hired, I disclosed a serious health condition to my general manager, who responded well. However, when I eventually had a flare-up, things went less swimmingly. I missed a few days of work and reported back after treatment with a doctor’s note — and a cane, which I used for two weeks. My general manager immediately began to say things like “I don’t want you to get out of your desk for anything– you make me too nervous” and “If you insist on walking around, I will send you home.” The last was said as I made my way to the bathroom.

I’m having another flare-up, and I’ll be using my cane again, but now I’m terrified of being sent home from work when I really am able to work, according to myself and my doctor. I honestly need the money. Am I being overly sensitive about this? If confronted again, should I say something to the general manager, or to the HR manager,? Should I just ignore it? Can I really be sent home for needing a cane?

It sounds like she’s expressing concern about your welfare without realizing the impact of what she’s actually saying — as well as not realizing that she may be violating disability laws. I’d go and talk to HR preemptively; they’re going to be much more up on their legal obligations here than your manager apparently is. Explain what happened last time, and that you’re concerned that when you come in with a cane again, your manager will try to prevent you from working or moving about the office freely. Ask if they can help you to navigate this and to ensure that your manager won’t prevent you from working.

And then if your manager makes any comments like that again (which she probably won’t, after HR educates her about disability accommodations), say this: “I appreciate your concern, but it’s actually much easier for me if you treat me just like you did when I wasn’t using a cane.” And if it persists after that, involve HR again.

5. How honest should I be in an interview?

I’m a student in the UK currently applying for graduate roles. My question involves how honest I should be during an interview in response to questions like “Why do you want to work for us over our rival?”

The honest answer is that if the rival company offered me the same graduate scheme in the same location for the same salary, I would bite their hand off. However, the coaching I’ve received at university has suggested this is a time to espouse the virtues of the company I’m interviewing at, but I feel as though just recycling some facts I learned on the companies website is disingenuous. Is honesty the best policy?

No, not if honesty is “I’d rather work somewhere else.” Employers want to hire people who are enthusiastic about working for them.

Find a reason you’d be excited to work for the place you’re interviewing at, and focus on that.

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government-run career centers are terrible

by Alison Green on April 8, 2015

A reader writes:

I need a bit of advice when it comes to writing a resume. I’ve been going to a government career center for advice on resume and interview skills, and recently, my coach told me that I should be writing a job title in the center of my resume, right after my address. At first, she told me to write the position title of the job that I would be applying to. When I met her again, she told me to instead write “Administrative Professional” as my title. Both times that she has suggested this, I have told her that I didn’t like the idea and didn’t want to write it. I also told her that I would be uncomfortable writing Administrative Professional because I had zero administrative skills (which she knew). However, she was adamant that I write this, and told me to just change it to “Customer Service Professional.” She also told me to put Customer Service Professional on business cards and hand it out to recruiters.

To be honest, I haven’t followed any of her advice because I found it too obnoxious to call myself a professional in anything when I’m a recent graduate from university. As of right now, I’ve just been sending her a different version of my resume that has her specifications, and keeping my own resume that I will use to apply to employers.

Is her advice correct and am I wrong to be not listening to it? I am emailing to ask this not only for myself, but for a friend who is in a similar boat as mine: just now, her coach from a different career center told her to write a title for herself, and she too is uncomfortable doing such a thing.

A little background about me: I’m from Canada, and I graduated with a bachelors degree in the sciences. I’m currently working in retail, and am looking for another job to make ends meet. I have very little experience actually working (regrettably, I believed my parents advice that getting a degree would instantly get me a job, and now I’m doing damage control). The coach told me to write Administrative Professional because I was going to apply for a bank teller position.

Thank you for any advice that you can offer! And sorry if this is a really stupid/simple question that was asked. I’ve been really confused about what to write on resumes and what to say during interviews because a lot of career centers have been saying contradicting statements or telling me to do things that I’m uncomfortable doing (such as doing a functional or video resume, making a website with just a resume and putting the url on the printed resume, or not asking employers questions like what qualities they’re looking for in a candidate… just to name a few).

Never listen to any advice from a government career center. They are notoriously terrible.

Really terrible.

I’m sure there must some good ones out there, but the vast majority are horrible. So unless you know yours to be fantastic, you’ve got to default to ignoring them, because the chances are high that they’re awful.

No, you should not make up a title and slap it on the top of your resume. I mean, no one is going to reject you solely for doing that, but it looks a little weird and generally isn’t going to help. It looks little cheesy and a little gimmicky.

And the fact that the person at the career center was so adamant that you do this is ridiculous. I mean, even if it were a mildly helpful thing to do (which it’s not), she should be capable of exercising some independent judgment and recognizing that it’s not going to make or break your resume. But government career centers’ adamancy about stuff that doesn’t matter or is outright wrong is one of their hallmarks.

Once you get a job, I hope you’ll get back in touch with whoever manages that place and tell them how unhelpful their advice was and how out of touch it is with actual hiring norms.

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how to tell an employee to dress more professionally

by Alison Green on April 8, 2015

A reader writes:

I’m having a problem with one of my staff members, let’s call her Jane. Jane is a staff assistant and a hard worker who wants to stay in the office and move up the ladder.

Jane does good work, but some people in the office don’t take her seriously. Part of this is that she’s not assertive enough, which I’ve talked to her about. The other part is her appearance. This is an office where how you present yourself matters, and you need to cater to that to get ahead. Jane is the first person you see when you enter our office, and her clothes are overly casual and often don’t fit quite right, she doesn’t wear make up, and her hair is kind of a mess. She’s young, and I’m sure some of this is inexperience. I’ve hinted to her that it would help if she looked more professional, but it hasn’t really changed anything.

I really like Jane and want her to move ahead. My concern with coming out and saying “You need better clothes, to wear makeup, and get a new haircut” is that Jane will get offended. Do you have any advice on how to address this?

You can read my answer to this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago.

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employee asked to be reimbursed for babysitting costs after he worked late one night

by Alison Green on April 8, 2015

A reader writes:

I have a salaried, exempt employee who worked until 8 p.m. one evening. He is our media manager; there was some breaking news happening and they were excited to get a story out. This situation is extremely rare.

He came in the next day requesting reimbursement for the extra babysitting costs he incurred.

How do you think we should handle his request? Our first instinct was no, but he claims many organizations practice reimbursing for extra babysitting costs.

Uh, yeah, no.

Exempt employees have to stay late sometimes; that’s part of the gig. It’s not at all typical for employers to reimburse for child care when that happens, and it’s particularly absurd for him to think he can submit that expense after that fact … as opposed to asking for it ahead of time — where “no” would still be a reasonable answer, but at least he would have asked, rather than assuming.

Explain to him that no, this isn’t an expense that you reimburse, and that the nature of his job does require that he stay late on occasion, although it won’t be a regular thing.

I’d also take this as a flag to look at his overall approach to his role. A media relations manager who doesn’t get that sometimes the job will require staying late and that that simply comes with the gig is one who I’d be concerned is out of touch with what you need in other ways. I could be wrong about that, but when someone is this out of touch with business norms, there are often other issues going on too.

And if you don’t already have a clear policy laying out what expenses you do and don’t reimburse, this might be a useful flag that you need one.

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I don’t want my manager to email my team when I’m out, my coworker has a drug charge, and more

by Alison Green on April 8, 2015

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

1. I don’t want my manager to email my team when I’m out

I work in the accounting department, and I called out sick because my kids were sick. I came into work the next day and saw an email that was sent out by my boss to the whole accounting team with the subject line “Jane Smith will not be in today.” I was just wondering if that is really anyone’s business but my own and obviously the person to whom I called out (in this case being my direct boss). Every manager in my department sends out emails like this, but when a manager is out, I have noticed that no email is sent out.

I would think that putting an “out of office” reply to my email would be enough to notify people that I am out. Also, if it’s someone in the same office that is looking for me, if they notice that my computer is not on and it looks like I’m out, they should just be able to go to my boss directly if they needed something. I have heard people make comments about others who have been out, and I know other coworkers like to “track” that stuff, but in the end, I feel like it’s really no one’s business. The only person who should know if I’m out is my direct manager. And I also think that if an email has to be sent out, then it should be for everyone, not just a certain department, or a certain “level” of employee.

What your manager is doing is very, very normal. There’s no real expectation of privacy that your coworkers won’t be alerted when you’re out; to the contrary, many offices like to proactively inform people so that they’re not left guessing. (Having to judge from whether your computer is off or on isn’t a particularly efficient or effective method.) As for why not emails go out when managers are out, who knows — but you’re fighting a losing battle on this one; it’s just not going to be seen as a privacy violation. If someone is tracking your time off who shouldn’t be, address that directly — but it’s reasonable to send “Jane is out today” emails to your team.

2. Describing level of seniority in job postings

My question is related to job descriptions. Beyond listing out expected ranges of experience (i.e., 2+ years in teapot making required), what other indications can be put into a job description that makes it more clear that a position is more senior or junior? For example, for a posting I currently have up, I saw in our system we had a few applicants who were WAY too senior (they had more work experience than I do!), but maybe it’s written in a way that makes it seem like you need lots of experience. I am really looking for someone who is still pretty new to the working world and isn’t interested in quickly rising through the ranks quite yet (my team is pretty small, there aren’t opportunities for growth at the moment).

Well, you can try clearly stating “this is a junior position perfect for someone with a few years of experience in X” or “this is a senior position for candidates with substantial experience in X” or so forth … but you’re always going to get candidates applying who are far too junior or far too senior. That’s just what happens when you post jobs, and you can’t eliminate it entirely. Some are applying because they didn’t bother to fully read or process your posting, and others are applying because they’re hoping that you’ll overlook their lack of experience (or over-qualification). Your measure of success here isn’t “is the ad attracting only well-matched applicants?” but rather “is the ad clearly describing what we’re looking for and attracting a good number of well-match applicants?”

3. I found out my coworker was once charged with drug possession

I work part-time in a high-end restaurant. One of my coworkers is in his 40s and is extremely capable and efficient, so much so that I asked him one day what else he does (I assumed he was in grad school or was an artist/writer of some sort and doing this job for supplementary income). He replied that he used to manage a law firm but got burnt out and needed a change. That seemed odd to me since we are hourly employees and aren’t particularly well paid, so I did a Google search. It turns out that he was indeed operations manager of a large law firm, but I also found out that three years ago he was charged with possession of a large quantity of cocaine with intent to traffic.

So, what do I do now? I’m assuming my employer doesn’t know. I was hired from a resume (no disclosure statement) and they only called the first reference on my list. I like this coworker, and he is good at his job, but he is taking on more and more responsibility and is sometimes the first one in or the last one out. We are kitchen staff so don’t handle money, but there are a lot of expensive supplies around and most people leave their personal property (handbags, etc.) on open shelving at the back of kitchen. I believe everyone deserves a second chance, but I also know that drugs can make people behave erratically. While I have no concerns for my safety from this man, I do feel a little uneasy now about my personal property while I’m at work, and wonder if it’s wrong of me to keep this info to myself. I also think my employer should know who they are entrusting with their property, but at the same time it really was their responsibility to do a proper background check. If it makes any difference, we are part of a large chain with a centralized HR department, and the company spends money lavishly but cheaps out on staff salaries and thus has trouble finding good people.

This really isn’t your business. You have no idea if your employer knows or not, or whether they would care if they did. Charged doesn’t equal convicted, and possessing drugs doesn’t equal thief. On top of that, many states make it illegal to discriminate in hiring on the basis of criminal convictions that don’t relate to the work someone is doing (and again, we don’t even know if there was a conviction here). Plus, it’s pretty likely that he’s not your only coworker who has possessed drugs.

(And on that “intent to traffic” element, with drug laws, simply possessing over a certain quantity typically triggers that addition. Which is weird, because no one accuses people with big wine collections of intending to traffic bottles of wine.)

Eyes on your own paper on this one.

4. Reaching out about a position that doesn’t appear to be available

I had a wonderful interview last week. i got called back today as promised. This is shocking in and of itself. I had a great talk with the person I interviewed with. She was very sorry that she couldn’t offer me the position. She said it was an extremely hard decision. I thank her for calling and wished her luck with her new hire. She then gave me a name of a director for a local nonprofit and said they might have a position I would be interested in, but she couldn’t find the information on their web site. I thanked her for the lead.

After the call, I looked up the organization and there is a person named as being in that position. LinkedIn confirmed this person has been there for just over a year. So it looks like the position is filled.

I was contemplating reaching out to the director anyway. I was going to say something along the lines of “Jane said this position was open, but it looks like it has somebody currently in it. If this isn’t the case, Jane suggested I contact you, as she would recommend me for the job.” This seems awkward to me. Is it? Is there better phrasing I could use? Or should I just assume the position is filled and leave it alone?

Yeah, that’s kind of awkward. I’d avoid making any assumptions about the job — maybe they’re creating a new position, maybe that person is about to leave, who knows. I’d just say this: “Jane Smith at Teapots Inc. suggested I reach out to you and thought you might be looking for someone with my background in ___. I’m attaching my resume and would love to talk with you if you think it would make sense.”

5. Finding out why a position is open

I’m interviewing for a position next week. The position is for a new program, but someone already has the job and has for 7 months. It is a small nonprofit so it’s very likely that she will be leaving. How do I find out why she is leaving if it isn’t addressed by the interviewer?

“Can you tell me why this position is open?”

… And if that doesn’t get you a clear answer, you can say, “I noticed that on your website, it looks like the position is currently filled. Is that person moving on?”

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do I need to wear a suit to a job interview?

by Alison Green on April 7, 2015

Do you need to wear a suit to a job interview?

Probably. But maybe not.

But if you’re unsure, then yes.

Here’s the deal with suits and job interviews: You need to know the norms for interview dress for your own field. And not just your field in general, but your field in your particular geographic area. The norms for banking jobs in California can be different from the norms for banking jobs in Chicago. So you need to know your field, and how it plays out in your particular area.

When you are unsure and can’t seem to find out, wear a suit … because the vast majority of candidates applying for professional jobs should be wearing a suit for interviewing. Exceptions include parts of California (not all of it), parts of tech and design (not all of it), and a small number of others. But most people should be wearing a suit to an interview.

The problem is when someone doesn’t know and listens to someone not in their field or geographic area, and that person tells them a suit isn’t necessary, and that advice turns out to be wrong for the field/location.

Here are some other problematic things I hear when this topic comes up:

* “But their office is business casual.” Sometimes people think that if you don’t wear a suit while working there, you don’t need it for the interview either. But that’s wrong — many places expect you to interview in a suit even if their day to day is less formal. In that context, it’s about understanding and respecting professional norms, and those norms often still say “wear a suit to interviews.”

* “Why should it matter as long as you look professional?” Sure, you can find people who really don’t care at all as long as you look professional — and then there are lots of people who firmly believe that if you care about looking professional at a job interview, you wear a suit. Period. And that reality means that job candidates should wear a suit (with the exception of the caveats above) — because they have no idea who they’re going to be interviewing with and how that person will feel. (People would probably guess that I wouldn’t care. I do.) It’s a silly thing to risk your impression over.

* “I don’t really care if candidates wear a suit.” That’s fine, but you are not everyone. Plenty of hiring managers do care. Most candidates stress so much over truly meaningless aspects of job searching (who do I address the cover letter to? should I attach the cover letter to my email or put it in the body of the message?) that it would be silly not to pay attention to this one aspect that actually does still carry weight for many people.

* “In my industry, you’d look ridiculous for wearing a suit.” That’s great — but irrelevant to people outside your industry! People outside your industry should not take that as a sign that don’t need to wear a suit, nor should you encourage them to.

* “I wouldn’t want to work somewhere that cared whether I wore a suit.” That’s totally your prerogative.

* “I’ve always gotten hired without wearing suits.” Cool. If it’s working for you, I’m not going to push you to change it. But people also get hired without writing cover letters. That doesn’t mean that other candidates shouldn’t write them. It’s about giving yourself the best possible chance to be offered the jobs you want.

In sum: Know your field, know your geography, and default to a suit if you’re not sure and aren’t willing to risk making a bad impression. And don’t be swayed to believe the opposite by people outside your field or in a different area of the country.

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you, being unprofessional

by Alison Green on April 7, 2015

Ever look back at your career and realize that you weren’t always the consummate professional that you (of course) are today? That you didn’t always have a strong grasp of office etiquette and what is and isn’t professional?

Last week, I asked readers to confess their unprofessional deeds from the past. Your answers … well, I am still not done laughing. That was one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I’ve had in some time.

I’ve compiled 10 of my favorites below.

1. Inappropriate calendar choice

We were allowed to have our own wall calendars in our space. It was the 1980’s. I was young. It was Chippendale’s.

Worst part: my supervisor told me the last week of December I should pick a different type of calendar for the new year. I guess I should be thankful the entire department was women and it couldn’t be seen unless you actually stepped into my cube. But we were all in each other’s cubes all the time . . .

2. Benefit blunders

When I as an intern, the HR people responsible for orienting us and organizing events and all that jazz constantly bragged about how much the company values its perks like yoga classes, Spanish classes, all of the onsite “work-life balance” stuff that they use to make sure you never have a reason to go home. At the time, I didn’t know that those HR people were basically responsible for marketing the company as a workplace – I wasn’t technical but it was a tech company and those love to coddle their engineering interns.

So I would freely sign up for those classes or skip off to a lecture or presentation without asking my bosses if it was okay. I would just tell them I was going to be at an event today from 2-3 or from now on I’m going to have 2 hour lunches on Mondays and Wednesdays for Spanish class or hey, I’m going to yoga this afternoon. I thought this was GOOD because look, I was showing interest in all of these things that the company really values! I’m such a great fit for the culture! (I did get rehired there for 4 internships but I didn’t get a FT job – they weren’t exactly handing out functional entry-level jobs in 2010.)

3. Hiding from the client

I would like to blame this on being young – but I wasn’t that young and should have known better. Many years ago, I had three children under the age of 5 and my husband’s firm gave him an amazing offer in another state — and we so we relocated. I thought this was the perfect time to work from home. I had skills that could be freelanced, and wanted to spend more time with the kids. Plus, I wasn’t looking forward to a job search.

I quickly got a large project from a local company and eagerly set about completing it. But — turns out having three kids under 5 isn’t conducive to “working” from home. I certainly spent more time with them, but I didn’t get much work done. Deadline day comes, and the project is nowhere near done. I’m afraid to call the contact, so I don’t. And he doesn’t call me, which is a relief. It gives me some breathing room and I vow to myself that I’ll work day and night to get the work finished. But I don’t. And each day that I don’t get the work done, or call my contact, and he doesn’t call me, makes it easier to think that the deadline wasn’t really that important. But we all know it was. Eventually he calls. We have a very uncomfortable conversation.

I hire the high school girl next door to come and watch the kids while I finish the project. The quality of work was still very good — but there was no way that firm was ever going to use me again. Especially not after I made my husband drop off the flash drive with the files on it because I was too embarrassed to face the client – yes, I really did that.

4. Board meeting faux paus

In my first job post-college, I got asked to take minutes for a board meeting. (The person who usually handled this task was out.) For some reason, I didn’t realize that this was a serious thing. Because the meeting was really early in the morning, I assumed it would be laid-back? Or something? Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking, but I showed up in jeans and a hoodie. Needless to say, everyone else was in a suit.

5. Borrowing the limo

I asked my boss at a temp job if it would be cool if I used his limo. Just for a night. You know, if he wasn’t using it or anything. That guy had the patience of a saint.

6. Office or salon?

I used to use my cubicle as an extension of my vanity at home. I’d usually put foundation and eye shadow on at home and then finish with mascara, blush, and lipstick at the office. (WHY?! Why could I not just apply those at home when I was obviously already in the throes of applying make-up?!) Sometimes I would just wait and put on all my make-up at the office. It was ridiculous. I had a full make-up kit in my drawer at work. I had an eye shadow palette. I had blending brushes. I had a hair straightener. What must people have thought as they passed my desk and saw a hair straightener plugged in?

7. Not quite Remington Steele

When I was in high school, I worked in a small florist shop, and often I was the only employee there. There weren’t many walk in customers, and I often got very, very bored (this was long before computers or phones to keep one occupied). One day it was raining outside and there hadn’t been a single customer all afternoon. I was wandering around the store, down to the basement and back trying to find something to do, and noticed the lock on the basement door. For some reason, I decided I would teach myself to pick the lock (I had been watching a lot of Remington Steele around that time.) I grabbed some paper clips, went into the stairwell and closed the door. I soon realized that (1) I had locked myself in and (2) it’s a lot harder to pick a lock than it seems on TV. I was there about an hour before I heard the jangling of the bell over the door. I knocked repeatedly on the door until the confused customer finally opened the door to let me out.

8. Jilted love

In my early 20s, I worked as a peer minister at a college church. It was a unique situation, and we got paid in room and board. One of the responsibilities during the year was to give a talk during a weeknight service on our own faith journey.

I was totally completely enamored with a guy who attended the church, but the week before my turn at the church talk I found out that he had started dating a mutual friend. My talk never included specifics, but it was all about jilted love, people not recognizing the people in front of them, etc. The room was dark, so I have no idea how he reacted in the moment, but he, along with every one of our mutual friends who could figure it out, was gracious enough to never ever talk about it.

9. Hippogriff mishap

In my first job at a nonprofit, I thought I was hot stuff and had some serious swagger (I have since humbled myself quite a bit). I was often a bit inappropriate with the staff, including the CEO, COO, and CFO. Thankfully, they thought my snark showed spunk and gumption and didn’t fire me, but it certainly rubbed other members of the staff to see me be so sassy and sarcastic (and just plain obnoxious, to be honest).

When I left for a new job, I decided to do a “last act of evil” (and yes, I called it that)–I was moving on to SUCH bigger and better things, who cares about burning bridges?! The CEO was a huge Harry Potter fan, so I photoshopped her face onto a photo of a Hippogriff and emailed it to the entire staff. WHY this seemed like a great idea is beyond me.

I squirm, cringe, and turn red even thinking about it now! While the CEO was displeased, she has kindly been very gracious since my departure and has been a good mentor (gently guiding me on professionalism) and a solid reference.

10. Not that kind of suit

One time I wore a legitimate bathing suit cover-up (it was really cute and if made with the right material, would have been an adorable dress) with a white slip underneath thinking that made it okay. It wasn’t until I went out after work and my friend kept asking if I was wearing a bathing suit cover-up that I realized I most definitely should not do that again.

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my employee asked me not to give him any feedback

by Alison Green on April 7, 2015

A reader writes:

I’m a relatively new manager and trying to do my best to tailor my style for each of my team members. This week I asked my team members what they’d like to me to do more/less/differently in our one-on-ones. I got some great feedback from most of my folks, but one has me slightly stumped.

One of the standard things we talk about are work expectations. Our role has very specific levels we expect people to hit at different stages of their development. Management has standard forms for these conversations and a breakdown of meeting expectations, exceeding them, and excelling. For each topic, you have a table of examples at each level and questions to get to what’s going well and isn’t. These are typically less than 5 minutes of a half hour meeting, just a moment for us to pause and consider big picture thoughts.

The problem is – my team member’s feedback was for me to stop talking about them. Specifically, he doesn’t want to discuss expectations or feedback. I tried to probe to find out why he doesn’t like the conversations and explained that we do this so he’ll know how he’s doing, how raises are decided and how/why other conversations happen but he says he just doesn’t like talking about it. I asked if there’s another method he’d prefer – written vs talking, separate meetings for expectations outside of our check-ins, etc. but he just doesn’t like any of it. I said I’d brainstorm and asked him to come up with ways to get the info as well. Obviously I’ll be giving feedback whether he likes it and I’m open to other conversations, but I don’t want to entirely disregard the request.

Have you ever heard something like this? Do you have any other ideas of how I can make sure he understands his expectations and work progress without overtly communicating about it?

Wha?!

It’s pretty outrageous to tell your manager, “Stop giving me feedback. I don’t want to hear it.”

It’s outrageous enough that I’m curious about how he’s doing in his job aside from this, because you don’t normally see something like that from someone who’s excelling and easy to work with. So I suspect you actually have a bigger issue on your hands than just how to respond to this one request and that you might need to look at his performance overall.

But as for his request … no. He doesn’t get to opt out of getting feedback.

You need to frame it for him differently though. You told him that you’re doing it “so he’ll know how he’s doing, how raises are decided and how/why other conversations happen,” but that’s missing a key part of the actual rationale: You give feedback because it’s part of managing his performance; it lets him know where you need him to do something differently, where something might be going off-course, and what you’d like to see more of. That’s a key part of managing anyone, and you’re misleading him by portraying it as just being for his personal benefit. It does have personal benefits to him, of course (the ones you described, plus the assistance in getting better at what he does professionally), but if it’s truly just for his personal benefit, that makes it easier for him to argue that he’d rather opt out. It’s not just for his personal benefit; it’s primarily for yours and the organization’s, and that’s how you need to frame it.

Say this: “I’ve given some thought to your request not to continue to have feedback conversations with me. Feedback is a pretty key way that we manage performance here. It’s how you know where you’re doing well and where we’d like you to focus on doing something differently or better. Feedback is an inherent part of how we operate and what we value, and it’s something we’re committed to doing.”

Frankly, I would also add, “I’m surprised that you don’t want to receive feedback. To excel in this role, we need to have pretty direct conversations about your performance. I’m actually alarmed that you don’t want that, because it points to a fundamental disconnect about how we operate here.”

Also, I’m seeing a theme in your letter that’s pretty common with new managers: You want to be fair and kind, which is great, but you’re not exercising enough judgment in what is and isn’t reasonable. It’s great that you want to adapt your style to fit each team member, and that you want to take input from your staff seriously. But some requests are off-base enough that entertaining them actually sends the wrong message. There are some requests where it’s okay — even necessary — to simply say, “No, we’re not going to do that, because of ___.”

Don’t let your desire to be accommodating make you lose sight of what’s reasonable, and don’t let it lead you to try to accommodate anyone and everything. You can be nice without being a pushover.

Read an update to this letter here.

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