Ask a Manager

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

1. My company hosts a dove hunt and only invites men

I’m in finance and my company (with 5,200 employees) hosts an annual dove hunt for high net worth clients. Employees are included and it’s great opportunity to meet your clients and other employees, especially higher-ups, from other offices. I understood there are director level and up at this event.

The issue is my director sends out email invites individually to male employees but it appears he doesn’t invite female employees. Neither I nor or other female coworker in our office received an invitation, although we were asked to provide a list of clients who may be interested. Alcohol is also served at the clubhouse (the Dick Cheney hunting fiasco comes to mind, lol). Not all who go are interested in hunting; my understanding is they go to network.

I’m thinking so many things … guns and alcohol, most women left out. I’ve been with company for about 16 months so I don’t feel comfortable saying much to my director or even HR. I may feel more comfortable next year asking why didn’t I receive an invite. I believe we have ethics line I can call anonymously, but I don’t feel comfortable speaking up at this point and am wondering if I should let it go for now.

Excluding women and only providing a networking opportunity to men is sex discrimination and it’s illegal. If you’re up for calling your company’s ethics line anonymously, you should. Otherwise, at whatever point you do feel comfortable addressing it, you should point out that the company is exposing itself to legal liability by issuing invitations based on sex (to say nothing of the potential liability of mixing guns and alcohol, but I doubt you’ll be able to convince them on that one).

Also, organizing a work event — or any event — around killing animals for entertainment is disgusting. I’m assuming you must work in a region where lots of people are okay with it, but I can’t be the only one who would pull my business if I heard about this as a client.

2. Defining “hybrid”

I recently had a job interview for a hybrid position that perfectly matched my expertise. I came in confident, prepared, and excited. The interviewer and I really gelled, and everything went well. However, in the last few minutes, the interviewer mentioned that the expectation was to be in office four days a week. I thanked them for the information and replied that that isn’t something I’m looking for. We exchanged pleasantries, and I’m back on the job boards.

I’m currently in person three to four days a week and am looking to reduce that, but recognize in my field, I’m unlikely to ever be fully remote. But now I’m wary of “hybrid” positions, because I now realize it can mean anything from four days a week to a few times a month. Are there any general assumptions I can make when a role says “hybrid”?

Typically “hybrid” means you’re working from home at least one day a week, but I wouldn’t assume more WFH days than that until it’s explicitly discussed. (I’m sure there’s some company out there calling themselves hybrid when they mean even fewer WFH days than that, but generally it’s come to mean at least a day a week.) There could be other nuances to it to that you won’t know unless you ask, like that you’ll be expected to be in the office every day for the first four months until you’re trained, etc. So if it’s a deal-breaker for you, definitely ask at an early stage what it looks like it practice.

Related:
I apply for remote jobs … and then it turns out they’re not remote

3. Moving a meeting so people can go out on Halloween

Our office meeting is usually the first Wednesday of the month. The November 1st meeting is being moved to November 2. The reason … Halloween, so people can party that night. A lot of people work remotely so it doesn’t really apply since they won’t be in the office. I have an appointment with a client outside that I can’t change. Is this the path that office culture/protocol is going down? Is this a trend you’re seeing?

Don’t read anything into it about office culture or trends. It sounds like your office just wants to be considerate of people who have Halloween plans. And why not? It’s good to accommodate people’s schedules when they can, and if means they get better engagement at the meeting that’s a plus too.

4. Can suing my current employer harm my job search in the future?

I recently retained a lawyer after filing a discrimination and retaliation claim at my workplace. I didn’t jump to this in ego or anger; I worked with my company’s HR for several months prior but received no support. My company has a reputation for legal issues and I was told by many that the company doesn’t address issues until they’re forced — i.e., with outside legal action.

There is no question in my mind this company is not the place for me, and I’ll need to take some time to heal from this and find my next role. Is the company allowed to comment that this is ongoing if they get called for a reference? Or is there any way a prospective employer may find out that I could actively control? To clarify, I’m still working there for the time being, so could this happen after I leave as well?

Yeah, if they wanted to make your life difficult (while you’re there or afterwards), they could say something like, “I’m not permitted to comment due to pending litigation.” Actually, even if they’re not motivated by wanting to make your life difficult, they might say that because it’s probably true — their lawyer almost certainly doesn’t want them commenting on your performance to an outside party (especially off the cuff) while there’s pending litigation because something they say could be later used against them.

Since you’ve already got a lawyer involved, this is a great thing to ask them about. They may be able to negotiate how it gets handled.

5. Fantasy Football after firing

I was terminated on Friday, but I participate in a work Fantasy Football league with my previous coworkers. I would prefer to just remove myself from the league and move on, but that’s not an option (literally there is no way to leave after the draft unless you are removed by the commissioner). Do I ask to be removed? Do I just tank the rest of the season on purpose? Or do I stay in the league and try to win?

If your preference is to be removed, it’s highly likely that you can just email whoever’s coordinating it and ask to be removed. But if you want to stay in … well, it might be weird and it might not, depending on the circumstances around your firing and how your people in your company generally deal with stuff like that. If it’s going to be awkward for you or them, the more gracious move is to bow out. If you don’t think it’ll be awkward, I’d still send the coordinator a note to let them know you’re no longer there since they might prefer to keep it employees-only or have a precedent for what they do if someone leaves the company mid-season.

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

1. My wife is sexting a coworker on work systems

My wife happened to leave her system up while working from home and I noticed a chat where she was cheating with another employee and there were sexual references and conversation in the messages. How would an employer view this?

Badly, usually. But it’s not your place to take this to her employer — and that would be a really awful thing to do. You have 100% standing to address it with her as her spouse; you have no standing to address it with her company.

2. My employee uses my name in every sentence

I have a new direct report who uses my name regularly in both written and verbal communication. Think “yes, Amanda, I will surely look at that,” “Amanda, I am going on lunch now,” “thank you for explaining that to me, Amanda.” I HATE this, I don’t know why, but it’s something that’s always bugged me (reminds me of a creepy salesman and sometimes feels quite assertive / aggressive — “Amanda, I do not agree”). I think it may be a slightly cultural thing, as she is not from UK / US and I don’t think English is her first language.

Is this something I can address? Or do I just need to put up with it? I know in the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal, but it’s winding me up!

I hate this too! But I’d bet money that it’s a cultural/language thing in this case.

Either way, try to let it roll off you. Maybe it’ll be easier to do that if you remind yourself that it’s probably a language thing … or possibly it’s just awkwardness, like she struggles with talking to people and read that everyone loves the sound of their own name and misunderstood how to apply that (Dale Carnegie was big on this and bears some of the blame). Whatever the cause, she’s almost certainly not doing it because she wants to be smarmy or insincere, even if it’s coming across that way, and she’s allowed to have personal quirks.

A caveat: if you can see it grating on her coworkers to the point that it’s affecting how she’s perceived at work, it could be a kindness to say something about it to her, framed as “This might be a quirk of English, but sometimes it can come across aggressively when you use someone’s name so often. I know that’s not where you’re coming from, and don’t want you to be perceived wrongly.”

3. Can I convince a board to get rid of their toxic CEO?

Tonight when I happened to be perusing some AAM advice about how to avoid toxic workplaces, I thought I might as well check out the Glassdoor reviews of a company I’m interviewing with and am really excited about. Well … I’m glad I did, but I almost wish I hadn’t. Turns out there had been a change in leadership in 2020, and since then, there have been a slew of reviews of the company about a toxic CEO and a culture of fear.

I was really excited about this job, not least because mine is a very niche field and the job description is one I might have written if I could write my dream job description. However, a few slightly strange things have happened so far that, in hindsight, extend back to the application process:
• This organization literally runs the main job board for my field, yet the job wasn’t posted there until two days before applications were due. Normally jobs like this are heavily advertised over a couple of months.
• The first interview was scheduled for 60 minutes, but the interviewers only asked me three questions! I had a lot of questions for them, which ended up taking up rest of the hour, and we had what I thought was a great chat. But I thought the time management for that step in the process was strange.
• The director I would be working under has no particular expertise in my area. Lots of experience in the field in general, but for that type of role I would have expected a real rockstar.
• A role on the team I would be working on that had been a full-time role (I know this because I applied a few years ago) is now only part-time, yet they claim to be growing the team!

Now that I found the Glassdoor reviews, all of the above to me seems to confirm that the org can’t attract or retain talent.

Is this salvageable?? Obviously I don’t want to work for a tyrant, which this guy seems to be — the Glassdoor reviews were very specific and credible, and the one good review called the others “sour grapes” with no work ethic. I don’t know what I can ask if I get a second interview that might reassure me about working there. But I guess my real question is, if I get an offer, can I tell somebody there that I’d love to work for them if the board would get rid of the toxic CEO? It seems so tragic, because this org has done some truly amazing and pioneering work in my field, and this one guy seems to have completely derailed it all. Can I somehow contact the board and let them know the CEO is driving off talent?

There is zero chance that a job candidate complaining to the board about this stuff would result in them firing the CEO.

The Glassdoor reviews do sound credible and alarming. But the organization already has access to those and almost certainly knows about them. The information that you’d be adding yourself — the four bullet points about your experience in their hiring process — aren’t terribly damning, and definitely not near the level of “fire the CEO.”

If you’re offered the job, you can certainly explain to the hiring manager that you’re saying no because of their Glassdoor reviews. It’s possible that at some point in the future it’ll help them to be able to say that they’re losing good candidates because of the CEO’s reputation. But that’s really all you can do.

4. I told my interviewer I’d been fired even though they didn’t ask

I was recently “let go” (okay, fired) from a job. It was traumatic and I took time to really reflect on everything that had happened. I did not write on my resume or cover letter that I was let go. While I was interviewing, I was not asked why I left my previous job, I, having too much Catholic schooling, decided to alert them to this fact. Needless to say, the interview went south after that and I did not get the job.

Is there another way I should have approached it? Should I have written something on my resume or cover letter about being fired? I have read not to but now I am second-guessing myself.

You’re not obligated to disclose that you were fired. If a company wants to know, let them ask you. You absolutely should not put it on your resume (you don’t put reasons for leaving jobs on your resume) or address it in your cover letter (your cover letter is for explaining why you’re a good candidate; it is not a confessional!). You also shouldn’t bring it up proactively in interviews!

If your interviewer asks why you left that job, you shouldn’t lie — but you should have a short (short!), upbeat answer about why it wasn’t the right fit and, depending on the details, possibly what you learned from it. We’re talking like two sentences here at the most — with a few more prepared to use in case they ask any follow-ups. But you absolutely do not need to raise it on your own.

5. I don’t want a promotion

I started at the bottom in my industry a couple years ago, performed really well, and was promoted quickly. I had all the glamour that came with it — praise from management, decently high pay — but I was miserable. The more my workload grew, the more my stress grew. I couldn’t seem to disconnect from work, even when I wasn’t there, and it was affecting my marriage. I was upset and frazzled all the time.

So, I decided it wasn’t for me and started job searching about six months ago. I ended up moving to a new job where I essentially took a demotion and a pay cut, but my workload was much more manageable and I was noticeably calmer and happier.

Except now it’s happening again. I did really well during my 90-day trial period, and management has talked about training me in more skills and potentially moving me to a new role. I am being assigned more and more work that is outside what I was actually hired to do. I’m getting comments from my boss like, “Of course you want to keep growing here, so we’re looking at continuing your training, and there’s an internal role opening up in such-and-such department, so of course you’ll be throwing your hat in the ring for that…”

Is there any possible way to say in the working world that I do not want a promotion, I do not want to grow, and I’m happy where I am? I understand the trade-offs of such a thing, i.e. getting paid less and having a lower title, but all of that is worth it to me if it means having good mental health. I just can’t seem to stop running into the expectation that I should be taking on more, more, more … and I feel like trying to voice my feelings will reflect poorly on me.

Talk to your boss! She’s assuming you want those things — probably because in her experience most people do — but that doesn’t mean she’ll be appalled to find out that you don’t. But you do need to tell her or she won’t know.

I’d say it this way: “I really appreciate the vote of confidence! I actually took this job specifically because it was less responsibility and stress than I’d had previously; those were big draws for me, so I’m not interested in going after promotions right now. Of course I want to grow in my current role the same way anyone would, but I wanted to make sure you know that the whole reason I took this job was because I wanted to do XYZ (current responsibilities), not ABC (proposed new ones).”

The reason to include the “I want to grow in my current role the same way anyone would” language is because you don’t want to sound like you’re saying you’ll resist learning new things across the board. In most jobs, managers will assume that you’ll get better and better at what you do, and it may be a normal and expected part of the role to add in more projects as you master the basics. You don’t want to sound like you’re going to freeze your contributions at where you were in month three.

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

1. Can I regularly take PTO for a crafting social group?

I understand that vacation time is part of my compensation package and I need to take time off, but would it be considered unprofessional/immature to take PTO every other Friday afternoon to go to a recurring social gathering? I know that it is my earned time but cannot shake the feeling that going to a purely social crafting group on Friday afternoons, during the work day, might be seen as less appropriate than. say, taking the whole day off or taking my cat to the vet. I can’t exactly put my finger on why it feels wrong. Or other than just not mentioning the reason, is there a way to frame it that sounds less frivolous?

I am not necessarily worried about my direct boss/coworkers since they would encourage me to take some me time, but I am already seen as quirky (energetic with a decent Funko Pop! collection but am good at what I do) and would hate to tip the scales to unprofessional/immature outside of my team. My life outside of work is pretty nonexistent so I am trying to find ways to fulfill myself, since taking a day off without anything planned is the worst (since I could use that to catch up on my backlog), which results in me never taking time off to recoup from the burn out that is oh so real.

My only concern would be whether the recurring nature of it will make you harder to schedule with. Like if the only time everyone has free for a meeting is one of the days you’re going to be out, are people going to be annoyed if they know it’s because every other Friday you’re crafting? Same thing if you’re in a job where most people around you are harried and the nature of their work means they couldn’t do that — in which case you still could, but it might be wiser to be more circumspect about what that time is for.

But if none of those things are the case, or if you make it clear you’ll be flexible if it ever poses scheduling challenges, I think you’re fine. Even so, if you want to be vague about it, you could say you’re involved in a community group that meets then, or you’ve carved out that time for a hobby — you don’t need to say “crafting social group” from the get-go.

Read an update to this letter. 

2. A “glitch” stripped us of hundreds of hours of PTO

We were recently informed that for the last 28 months (since May 2021), the system that records our timecards, PTO, pay stubs, and other financial information had a “glitch” that incorrectly allocated more vacation time per pay period than was in the benefits guide. Leadership just found this out and are working to get the updated balances out to all staff.

For the past couple of years, leadership has waived the max vacation carryover rule and has repeatedly asked people to spend down their hours. People have saved PTO for honeymoons, to care for their children outside of school hours, and to supplement sick time for family emergencies and parental leave and were relying on this number to be accurate. Former staff members have come and gone and been paid out for these extra hours in that time. But now staff are finding themselves with negative balances, since the updated calculations are reducing totals by up to 200 hours per person. If you leave before your balance is over 0, you have to pay back the organization. If we had left before the error was fixed, we would not have been affected. It feels like the employees are being punished for staying, for a mistake that’s not ours and for trusting the system and the team in charge of it. What can we leverage to push back on this? Is there a way we can propose a different solution to leadership that wouldn’t penalize the team for this error?

Well, this is horrible.

It’s one thing to do this if the errors were very small and very short-lived — like just one paycheck and just a few hours of time. But it’s really awful to do it when we’re talking about years of miscalculations and people are losing 200 hours (!!) of the time they thought they had saved — that’s five weeks (!!). As you point out, people made decisions based on the numbers the company provided — and they had every reason to assume that the PTO calculations that had been showing in their records for the last two and a half years were correct. This is the company’s error, and the only ethical way to handle it is for the company to take the hit, let people have the balances they’ve been telling them they had, and just start calculating correctly from this point forward. Hell, not just ethical, but practical — because otherwise they’re going to destroy people’s morale, and that’s going to affect how hard people are willing to work for them, how interested they are in other offers, etc. And no one is going to trust a single thing this company tells them again.

As for what you can do, you could talk to an employment lawyer in your state about whether you have any legal recourse. Depending on exactly how those “glitched” balances were presented to you, it’s possible the company created a legal obligation on their side, given the length of time this was happening — but you’d need a lawyer in your state to tell you for sure. If that’s not fruitful, your best bet is to band together with coworkers and push back hard, insisting the company honor the vacation balances it supplied you with for multiple years in a row and that people relied on. They may or may not cave, but a concerted, organized push from a large group of you could pay off.

3. Should I organize a low-pressure gift collection for an employee?

I’m the manager of a team and one of my reports is getting married next month. I want to organize a gift collection to send a wedding gift, but I don’t want people to feel pressured to participate! (I’ve read your many posts on gift-giving and fully agree that gifts should flow downwards, but this is more sideways/diagonal?)

Is it fine if I organize this myself? If so, any suggested language so people feel very comfortable opting out if they choose (especially since there is that manager-report power dynamic)?

Or should I find someone else to organize this? But then how to ensure that that person doesn’t feel pressured either?

Am I overthinking this? Most likely!

If their manager organizes a gift collection, people will feel pressured to participate; it’s just how power dynamics go. There will be less pressure if if a coworker organizes it, but there will still be pressure … and pressuring people to spend their own money at work just isn’t a good thing.

It’s better if this kind of thing is paid for by the organization itself. If that’s not an option, I’d urge you to just circulate a card instead. In addition to the pressure to give money, this sort of thing can be fraught in other ways — Cecil organizes a gift when Valentina gets married because they’re friends but seven months later no one thinks to organize a gift for Jane, who feels hurt and demoralized at the difference in treatment … or Cecil feels frustrated that he’s always asked to donate for colleagues’ weddings but no one recognizes his own non-marriage major life events … and on and on. You’re much better off sticking with either cards across the board or gifts from the organization itself.

4. Should I tell my employee I’m going to leave soon?

I manage a small office that is part of a larger corporation. We have the only office in the state, although the company heads are only about two hours away. While I haven’t even been employed by them for six months, I have noticed quite a few red flags: many people in leadership roles are leaving (including the VP who hired me) and unobtainable metrics set in place. I believe this office is being set up to fail (I know firsthand that my one remaining employee, “Gina,” was put on a PIP with the hopes she would fail, but to their surprise she came out stronger), so I’ve been looking for a way out.

Well, it happened. I just received my offer letter for a position less than a mile from my home, at the same salary, and in a field I am more comfortable in. It is still in the pending stage due to background and drug tests (no worries there), so it will probably be at least two weeks before I can hand in my notice.

I’m holding a “training day” on Friday and I would love to make sure that Gina has every tool for success. Should I give her a hint as to why I’m doing this? I also want to let her know because I think there’s a good chance that this office may close in a few months without any other employees there (they can’t hurry up and hire … the process to hire me took three months and that was nearly a year after the last manager left!).

In hindsight, I probably should have never taken this job to begin with, but now I’m attached to my employee. Can I tell her that she may want to work on her resume? She has no desire to change roles into my position.

Even though you’re not expecting any problems with the background check or drug test, things happen — positions get put on hold, offers get revoked, things end up taking much longer than anyone thought …

If you tell Gina now, you’ll be taking the risk that she’ll say something to someone else that ends up complicating things for you, and then it’s possible the firm offer won’t show up, or won’t show up on the schedule you’re expecting. So it’s really a judgment call. It sounds like Gina has reason to be more loyal to you than to the rest of the organization, but you never know what stray remark someone might make that can then blow back on you. So you’ve got to decide if that’s a risk you’re comfortable with.

For what it’s worth, though, if you do get the firm offer two weeks from now, that small amount of time is unlikely to make a significant difference when it comes to warning Gina. I think you could simply wait to tell her until it’s final, without either of you losing much for having waited.