Ask a Manager

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

1. My boss lies about deadlines

I’ve noticed that my boss uses lying about deadlines to members of our team and external service providers as his tool to get things done… and I hate it. It’s effective because folks are working to meet a false deadline that, even when missed, will meet the real deadline. Unfortunately, it creates this energy of chaos/being overwhelmed plus in my opinion, incompetence (folks miss the fake deadline with no repercussions) and lack of integrity. I realize that a good manager gets results, so do I just need to R-E-L-A-X about the whole thing?

Why not ask about it? He might be doing it not to be duplicitous but because he knows that there needs to be a buffer in case something goes wrong (or for others to sign off on the work once completed, or who knows what else). You note that sometimes these deadlines are missed, which sounds like a reason for building in buffers. I’d just ask him about it: “I’ve noticed we’ll often set deadlines for projects like X and Y earlier than their external deadlines. Is that to give a buffer in case something goes wrong?”

2. An employee asked me to put it in writing that we’re not replacing him

I’m a deputy manager. An employee on probation came to me saying that he has been told we have plans to dismiss him next year and that we have already hired a replacement. Due to poor performance, he will be dismissed if no improvement is shown, but nobody has been employed to replace him.

He asked for something in writing for piece of mind, so I wrote the following: “I certify that to this date nobody has been employed for replacement and that no plans are made for his dismissal.” But now I’m thinking I shouldn’t have written anything at all. Will I get in trouble with my superiors for this? And will this affect his dismissal at the end of probation? All procedures and constructive feedback has been done appropriately.

Whoa. You should not have done that. First of all, your company probably has strong opinions on whether they want to put things like that in writing, particularly for someone who they sound pretty likely to replace fairly soon, and depending on the exact situation, you may have really complicated the situation for them. Second, you also shouldn’t have indulged this guy’s request for his own sake; you did him a disservice not saying something more honest like, “If we don’t see the improvement we’ve talked about by (timeframe), then yes, it’s possible that we’d need to let you go. However, we’re not at that point yet and we’re still looking for you to show that you can make the changes we’ve discussed.”

At this point, you need to tell your own manager (and HR, if they exist) ASAP about what happened. If you don’t tell them and they’re blindsided later, it’s going to be an even bigger problem.

3. My work crush seems upset with me

I have been in my job for 3 months – halfway through my 6-month probation period. There is a coworker who has a crush on me and I like him as well. We talk when we run into each other, and he comes by to my desk to chat with me and another coworker who sits behind me.

The other day, I was busy with a piece of urgent work and ignored him when he came by. He took a day off the next day. I saw him when he came back and he said “hi” in his usual happy way. However, he has been ignoring me ever since. He looks upset. I caught him looking at me but when I looked at him, he looked away.

I feel like he has overreacted. I do like him but my work is also important to me. Shall I ask him about it? Or shall I keep being polite or ignore him. Im not sure what I should do as I still have to work with him.

If he’s reacting like this because you were busy with work and couldn’t talk one time while you were, uh, at work … he sounds awfully delicate. I’d just keep being polite and let him work it out on his own, which is the professional thing for him to do anyway. And maybe reconsider the crush, because he sounds like he might be exhausting to deal with.

4. Company car policy change has taken away a perk of my job

From 2000-2008, I worked for a jointly funded (City/County) Parks and Recreation Authority. As the executive director, in addition to the salary, I also had a vehicle that I could drive to and from work and on any official business. In 2008, the authority was abolished and the county took over full funding and oversight. They continued the policy of allowing my children and or wife to ride in the county vehicle, provided it was a direct route (i.e., from office to home or from park to home).

Recently, they changed their policy and now only county employees are allowed to ride in the vehicles. This causes a real hardship on me. My children are often dropped off at my office after school and ride home with me. Also, as I’m required to work many evening hours, my wife many nights would bring the kids to the park and drop them off and they’d ride home with me. We only have one personal vehicle, which is driven by my wife. Now, I’m in a position where I’ll have to purchase a second vehicle to be able to transport my own children. I’d like to negotiate a solution with my County Administrator/ board of commissioners. In essence, this new policy has taken away a perk of my position. What advice can you give me in my negotiations?

It’s not a crazy policy change; I’m sure this new policy is better for their insurance and liability. But you can certainly point out that the car was a major perk of your position, and the change has lowered your overall compensation, and ask that your salary be adjusted accordingly. You may or may not get it, but it’s not crazy to ask.

5. Asking if HR mistakenly rejected you for an internal position

I’m writing for some advice for my wife. She currently works part-time at the public library in a small town, and a full-time position at the same library opened up. The library director and my wife’s supervisors encouraged her to apply – the same people who would be responsible for the hiring decision. She’s qualified and did a great job on her application, but about two weeks after the application window closed, she got a form letter from HR with a non-personalized “thank you for applying but you’re no longer in consideration” message. Not even a first-round interview.

Is it probable that HR culled her resume before the decision-makers even had a chance to look at it? If her application made it through HR, I don’t think she’d be overlooked like this; everybody at the library knows her and would recognize her name. Would there be any benefit to her contacting someone – and would you start with HR, or going to the library director and asking if she ever saw the application?

It is indeed possible that HR rejected her without looping in the decision-makers, and that it would have gone differently if they had. It’s also possible that they did loop in the decision-makers and still rightly rejected her (other applicants might be stronger). But with an internal application like this, where her director was encouraging her to apply, it’s not unreasonable to at least check with them to be sure.

She could approach the director who encouraged her to apply and say something like, “I wanted to let you know that HR sent me a form letter rejection for the X position. I was hoping to at least get interviewed, and it made me wonder if something might have gone wrong somewhere — I hope I’m not being presumptuous, but do you think it’s worth checking into? If I just didn’t make the cut, that’s fine, of course — but I wanted to check.”

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

1. HR manager wrote us up for drinking at a party she attended

I attended an unauthorized party in the office where alcohol was served (clearly against company policy). Everyone in the department was invited, and many of us took part in the libations. No one got drunk, everyone behaved professionally. It was intended to be and was a great morale booster.

The HR manager came and did not drink. The next day, she called everyone who did drink up to her office for a verbal/written reprimand. She told me, and everyone else I presume, that it was confidential and that she was having to do this because someone from another department found out and told her about it and she felt compelled to reprimand us.

I inadvertently learned from her boss that she had all the documents prepared immediately after the party, which was the day before she claimed she got a phone call from outside the department.

She was right, we should not have had alcohol at work. My beef is that she came to the party, I believe she knew alcohol was going to be served, and she took names and lied about why she was reprimanding us. My gut tells me to shake it off and learn from it. On the other hand, having a deceitful HR manager is a huge problem. Should I call her out for lying?

It’s a little weird and I can see why you’re wondering about it, but I’d let it go. Who knows, maybe your source got the timeline wrong. Or maybe there was no source, and she said there was because she was too wimpy to admit it was based on her own concerns and what she herself witnessed. Who knows. But I don’t think there’s much/anything to be gained by bringing it up, let alone “calling her out for lying.” I’d let it go.

2. My assistant goes overboard on gifts to me and even my kids

You’ve answered several questions already about whether it’s appropriate to give a holiday gift to one’s boss, and I completely agree with you that gifts should go “downhill” and not the other way around. Here’s another spin, and I’m hoping you have a good answer. I am the boss (female, if it matters), and my amazing, overqualified secretary sends small gifts to my home, for not only the holidays, but for my kids’ birthdays as well. It makes me really uncomfortable, but I don’t know how to tell her.

Her work is terrific, and she’s a lovely person, but I’m really concerned that if I don’t couch it in the right way, she’ll be (1) mortified, (2) more anxious than is her norm, and/or (3) really hurt if I tell her that she really need not send me gifts. To give you a glimpse into her personality, she sends (via snail mail) handwritten thank you notes for everything–she even sent me a handwritten thank you note for a grocery bag full of my kids’ books that I thought her (younger than mine) kids might enjoy. It’s very sweet, but it’s just too much.

It’s too late for this year, but I’d love to find a gentle way of making it stop.

Oooof. I don’t know that you can, not without hurting her feelings. She’s going so far beyond what can normally be the result of obligation (basic holiday gifts) to something so different (gifts for your kids’ birthdays, etc.) that it sounds like this might just be her personality. And if that’s the case, and she takes pleasure in it, I think you risk doing more harm than good by making her feel that she’s been in the wrong all this time. It sounds like you’re really happy with her work and she’s just an incredibly thoughtful person, so I wouldn’t risk causing awkwardness. This is a case where I think you can make an exception to the usual advice on this stuff.

You could certainly say something like, “I hope you never feel any obligation to do this — your fantastic work is all the gift I’lll ever need,” but I wouldn’t push it beyond that.

3. Should I help answer the phones when it will distract from my work?

I’m in a new position, which only allows us to work part-time, but we have to accomplish a lot in five hours. We usually have to perform tasks that involve coordinating dates, while working on complicated spreadsheets. Things need to get done in tight deadlines. Many of our tasks demand full attention, and a mistake can carry serious consequences.

The office has a customer service representative who answers calls, but when things get really busy, sometimes we’re supposed to pick up the extra calls (which happens fairly often).

I’ve seen many times where the phone has rung and nobody has answered the call, even though we’ve been told that everyone should participate in answering the phone. What should I do when there’s a coworker with seniority telling me to pick up the phone, even though I have a deadline and only five hours to complete everything? Should I ignore her request? Should I be sincere and tell her I’m too busy? Or should I simply respond the call and delay all my work? I’m new, and I really don’t want to have any confrontations.

No, you shouldn’t just ignore her. If she has seniority over you, and you’ve been told you’re supposed to be helping with the phones, you need to help with the phones. However, if you’re concerned about how helping with the phones will impact your ability to get your work done, you should raise that with your manager. (Even better would be if you and your coworkers all raise it as a group, since it sounds like you’re all in the same boat.)

4. I was promoted without a raise

I work in a small company as a manager supervising just one person. Besides me, there is another manager who supervises four employees. Though he and I have the same grade level, he is considered the “right hand” of the VP who we both report to.

A few months ago, the VP shared with me that that the other manager is not efficient in his position and she wanted me to supervise him instead. I told her that my job was to help her and the company to the best of my abilities but that her decision has to be clear and documented so that other employees will see the new reorganization as being fair. This was my way of telling her that we needed to discuss the salary and the “promotion” details first before I assumed the new position. She said she would discuss it with the president of the company. During the following days, she mentioned a few other times that her intention was to have me supervise the whole team (the manager and his 4 direct reports). She said she also talked to him about this.

Today, she called both of us in and announced that starting the first of the year, he will be reporting to me. I was shocked. I was brave enough to ask her (after the other manager left the room) how this change will affect my title and work. I should have really said what I thought, which is what will be my new salary? She responded that she was still thinking about this and that I should be having an office now (I am currently in a cubicle and so is the other manager). How do I go about telling her that I do not want this new position if I will be paid the same salary for a higher position? I know for a fact that the other manager that she wants me to supervise has a higher salary than me.

Well, first, telling her that you wanted the decision to be clear and documented is not the same thing as telling her that you wanted to discuss the salary. It doesn’t really sound like that at all, in fact, so I don’t think you should be irked that she didn’t interpret that correctly.

It’s a little tricky now because she’s moved everything forward without having talked about salary with you, but you could go back to her ASAP and say, “We haven’t had a chance to discuss the salary for this new role. I’m hoping for something in the range of $X — is that feasible?”

Unfortunately, because you didn’t raise it earlier, you’re not in an especially strong negotiating position (and you also risk her feeling like you already accepted the job without a raise, since … you kind of did), but it’s worth a shot. If she pushes back for that reason, you could try saying that you were caught off-guard at the earlier meeting and hadn’t had a chance to think everything through since you’d expected a one-on-one conversation with her before things were finalized.

5. Why has my title change stalled?

My question is about updating my title. I’ve been at the organization for three years, and my role has changed and expanded quite a bit. I’ve asked both our division director and the head of HR about updating my title to reflect my current role. About a month ago, both agreed that was a good idea and said my list of potential titles looked good, then told me they’d have to check with the other to finalize. Neither have done so, to my knowledge, and I’m not sure with whom to restart the conversation. I’m not asking for or expect a raise along with it, so I don’t know what the cause of the delay is.

The delay could just be caused by it not being super high on their priority lists, but it’s fine to nudge them. You could approach either, but I’d start with your manager and just say something like, “I’m wondering if you’ve had a chance to talk to Jane about changing my title, and what the timeline might look like for making that happen.”

Read an update to this letter here.