Ask a Manager

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

1. How to answer “Why are you the best person for this job?”

I was once asked in an interview, “Why are you the best person for this job?” I can prepare for some questions, but this was unexpected. Logical me says, how am I supposed to know whether I’m the best person if I don’t know who else is applying? What’s the best response to this?

This is a terribly phrased interview question, since of course you can’t know whether you’re the best candidate for the job or what the rest of their applicant pool looks like. But they’re not really asking that; they’re asking why you’d be great at the job. So mentally rephrase it to that in your head, and talk about why you think you’d excel at it.

2. We don’t get per diem when we travel on business to our home office, although we get it on other trips

I work remotely on a team that is made up of about 30% remote workers. Twice a year, our entire team gets together for a week long on-site meeting to regroup, plan, etc.

Normally, we travel about a week a month and have a per diem of $40 for food. However, when we travel to the home office, we are only allowed to use the per diem on the two travel days (Monday and Friday), and the other days we are supposed to pay for meals out of pocket.

One of my coworkers asked our department head why this was the case and was told that no one was paying for his meals (the department head’s) during the on-site, so why should we be different? The coworker replied that we should as we aren’t going home to a refrigerator full of food every night. The coworker was told to drop it. Does this seem unreasonable to you? If so, can you think of another way to approach this?

Yes, it’s unreasonable. If you’re traveling away from home, it doesn’t matter that you’re traveling to another office of your company. It’s travel. The fact that there are employees who live there doesn’t change the fact that you don’t, and that you’re on travel that whole week, with the accompanying expenses.

If you want to pursue it, I’d approach HR, not your department head, since he’s shown that he’s not open to thinking about it. In approaching HR, I’d say, “Given that we’re incurring the same expenses that we’d be occurring on any other business trip that kept us away from home, would you consider allowing us the same per diem that we’d receive if we were traveling to, say, a client’s site? We’re still without a refrigerator of food to go home to at night.”

3. I was fired because of a false customer complaint

I was terminated today from my position as a store manager at a storage facility. Here’s why: While off the clock and visiting my father in the hospital, I received a call from a rep at the company’s 24-hour customer service hotline. The rep asked me to resolve a customer issue. The customer wasn’t able to access the gate. His PIN code wasn’t working. In speaking with the customer, I realized he was routed to me in error. He should have been routed to the manager of a close-by sister site. He wasn’t my customer so there was little I could do to assist him. I hung up with the customer and informed the appropriate store manager of his need and asked her to follow up and assist him.

Today I learned the customer complained about my inability to help him and lied, saying I advised him to climb the fence to get in, something I would never ever do! I was fired for violating the company safety policy. I was told that my suggestion risked the safety of the customer and the facility. I was given no opportunity to give my side of the story. I was told specifics aren’t important and the decision had been made.

Can an employer terminate me for an incident that happened while I was off the clock and not being paid? And should I have been given the opportunity to explain and prove the customer’s accusations were false? My employer took the customer’s word and based my termination on it.

Yes, you can be fired for work-related incidents that happen while you’re off the clock. (However, if you’re non-exempt, they need to pay you for any work you do, even if it’s outside of your hours. As a manager, you’re probably exempt, but it’s worth mentioning.)

They absolutely should have given you an opportunity to explain what happened, and it’s ridiculous that they didn’t. Legally, they’re not obligated to, so you don’t have much recourse here, although you could certainly try reaching out to your manager and explaining the situation, even if only to negotiate the reference that you get in the future. Sorry this happened to you; it’s BS.

4. Can I put being the executor of a will on my resume?

My father passed away earlier this year, and he named me executor. He left behind a house, multiple accounts, cars, etc. and I (with the help of my wife) have been cleaning out the house, paying his bills, closing/transferring his accounts as necessary, and selling the contents of the house. This estate is still ongoing and I will need to pay taxes on it before the end of the year. I’ve already had to fire one lawyer and retain a second one to help out with this part at least. Is this something that’s worth putting on my resume?

Nope. It’s certainly a lot of work, and you could even argue there might be transferable skills involved, but it doesn’t belong on your resume. In general, attending to family personal matters is inappropriate to include on a resume, regardless of the work involved. (To use another example, if you’d coordinated a massive and complicated trip as part of your job, that might be a highlight worth mentioning, but if you did it for your family reunion, it’s not.)

Part of the reason for this is simply convention, part of it is that you’re not really accountable to anyone (clients, employer, etc.) in doing this type of thing and so theoretically could have done a mediocre job at it and prospective employers have no way to know, and part of it is that it’s the type of thing that so many people will do in the course of their family life that it’s not quite considered resume-worthy.

I’m sorry about your dad.

5. Letting a company I interviewed with know that I’ve accepted another position

You’ve had several posts regarding the reality of how rarely applicants hear back from an employer when they are not offered a position. My question concerns the flip side – the applicant’s responsibility or courteousness to let a potential employer know she is moving on and is no longer interested in the position she applied for. Obviously it doesn’t make sense to follow up like this for every application, but what about those for which you’ve interviewed?

My particular situation is that I received an offer for a position which was my first choice, but the paperwork/offer letter/contract was still in the works. During that interim, I interviewed for another position, which was my second choice. At the end of the interview, we discussed their timeline and when I might expect to hear from them. I followed up with a thank-you email and received a personal and typical response from them. It has now been more than seven weeks since they expected to make a decision and I haven’t heard anything more, yet through my network I have heard they are just “slow to fill the position.” I would potentially like to work with this employer in three to five years from now. The paperwork has gone through for my first choice and I will be taking that position. It seems courteous to close the hiring process with the other employer by taking myself out of consideration, but I would like to do that in a way which keeps the bridge open for the future and without sounding snooty. Any suggestions on appropriate wording?

“Thanks so much for talking with me about the ___ position in August. I wanted to let you know that I’ve accepted another position so need to withdraw from your process. I enjoyed the opportunity to talk with you and think the work you’re doing is (fascinating/exciting/something I’d love to be a part of down the road). Best of luck in filling the role, and I hope our paths might cross again in the future!”

That said, since they’ve let seven weeks go by without being in contact, you’re really not obligated to do this. That’s enough time that it would be reasonable to assume that they’d moved on without other candidates without bothering to tell you (and if you hadn’t heard otherwise through your network, it would be a decent bet, given how common it is for employers to do that), and in that case you wouldn’t owe them an update. But particularly since this is a company that you might be interested in working with in the future, a quick email like this could be a nice closing of the loop.

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

1. My coworker told me I’m too loud

I work in a cubicle farm in sales. Today as I was on the phone with a client and closing a sale, a coworker comes up to me, waits for me to finish on the phone, and then in a rather back handed fashion says, “You are very good but you are also very loud. I’ll appreciate it if you would quiet down.”

I was incensed. I make my bread through closing deals and am a gregarious, enthusiastic person. This is a large part of what makes me successful. I’m not quiet as a mouse, but I am not brutishallly loud.

I only started at this new company 6 workdays ago and have had two interactions with this woman, who I think works in HR. Is what she did okay? Should I take her comment as a put-down? It sure felt that way in the moment. The icing on the cake is that I have received nothing but friendly and positive feedback from my boss and co-salesmen.

Without knowing exactly how loud you are or how much your voice might carry, it’s hard to say. But asking a coworker to try to keep their volume down isn’t an inherently rude request; in fact, I often advise people here to be direct with coworkers when they’re particularly loud and making it hard for others to focus. That said, I can see why her wording rubbed you the wrong way; I suspect you would have taken if differently if she’d said, “I’m so sorry about this, but I wonder if you could lower your voice just a little on the phone? I can hear how gregarious you are with clients and I bet it makes you great at your job — but unfortunately sound really carries in this office, and the volume is making it tough for me to focus.”

In any case, I wouldn’t take it as a put-down. I’d take it at face value — as a direct request for you to lower your volume if you can. If you can’t feasibly do that, you can tell her nicely that you’re sorry but you don’t have a way to do your job any more quietly than what you’re already doing.

2. Can my company require me to share what I’ve heard about them from others?

I am a manager in a very small company, with less than 10 employees. Can my employer require me to divulge information I have heard said about our company from other companies in the same industry, vendors in the industry, or acquaintances in the industry?

Sure, they can make that a requirement of your job — although I’m not sure how they’d know if you’re filling them in fully or not.

3. Why did this interviewer ask why I’m leaving my current job?

I had a surprise phone screen today (my first ever, actually) and am really shaken. I’m wondering if it was reasonable. To give some context, I’m a pharmacist. This phone screen was for a job in a pharmaceutical manufacturing sort of company. I’m not familiar with the hiring processes of corporations like this–I’ve only ever worked (and applied for) jobs in local chemist shops and hospitals, and neither have ever had any phone screens. I maybe should have suspected it when the caller identity showed up in a different state to the job I’m applying for, but I thought it was simply HR calling to offer an interview rather than a phone screen as such! They asked the following questions:
– Why are you applying for this job when you’re from another state?
– What do you do at your current job?
– Why are you leaving your current job?
– What’s your expected salary?
– When would you be available to start?

The “why are you leaving your current job?” really threw me for a loop, as I’ve never been asked this question before by anyone. Yes I’ve only been in the workforce for 3 years but have held 7 contract positions plus this current perm fulltime job and never been asked that. Plus I would’ve interviewed for a few more, so I’d say maybe about 15 interviews at least.

I did seem to pass it however, as they asked me when I was free to do an actual interview with the site managers, but yeah I’m really shaken and wondering if this is a typical phone screen?

I ask “why are you thinking about leaving your job?” or (if the person isn’t currently employed) “why did you leave your last job” on every phone interview I conduct. It’s a very normal question and not one you should be rattled by. Interviewers ask it not in a judgy way (like “what’s wrong with you that you’re thinking about changing jobs?”) but rather because sometimes it produces really interesting answers. Sometimes it produces really mundane answers too, and that’s fine. But it’s a reasonable and normal question to ask.

4. Do I have a right to keep my salary in a demotion?

Do I have a legal right to keep my salary if I get demoted to a less responsible position? I work in California.

Nope. Your employer can change your salary any time (as long as it’s not retroactive and as long as you don’t have a contract that says otherwise, which most people don’t). If you were demoted to a less responsible position, it makes sense that your salary would change as well.

5. Update from the reader thinking about writing a grant to fund the job she wanted

Here’s an update from a letter-writer in December who proposed to a nonprofit that she’d help the write grant applications, on the condition that they hire her if the grant came through. She was wondering if she should ask for a signed guarantee that they’d hire her for the grant was approved, which I advised her against for the reasons you can see here (#3 at the link). Here’s the update:

It turned out to be better for me that we didn’t make any future employment commitments. As a couple of commenters deduced, the organization was, in fact, young, disorganized, and helmed by a woefully inexperienced director. And that manifested in unclear vision, unrealistic goals, frequent staff turnover, and leadership too out-of-touch to properly serve the “community leadership” aspect of its mission statement. (“Honest, we tried to recruit [members of the minority group we primarily serve] to the board, but they are way too busy scraping by to contribute in any useful way!”)

I did get some valuable experience helping my organization and a partner org negotiate and outline a project agreement for a collaborative program they were proposing. The collaboration fell through due to – drumroll, please – lack of funding. However, the partner org recently told me that a month or two after I left, my home org finally wound up hiring a program manager to do pretty much what I had been doing – and is paying her with actual money! It’s best I got to walk away from this mess unscathed not long after my original letter. Since then, I’ve been contracted to work on some curriculum development projects, and I have an interview for a new educational outreach position soon – a paid position.

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

1. Am I obligated to share my work with my coworker?

At the job I started several months ago, it’s important to take notes because there are very few sources to look up needed procedures/information and there’s way too much to rely on memory. All the people who had been working there before me have notebooks full of notes, and when I (and a few other new people) started, we were supplied with large notebooks. So I’ve been taking very detailed notes, and I even typed all my notes up this past weekend to put in a binder to make them neater and more organized.

The coworker who sits next to me rarely takes notes, so he’s constantly asking me questions. And he makes comments like, “Gee, I wish I had great notes like yours,” or “Hey, where did you get all this information?” (I just tell him that I take notes whenever I see or learn something new.) I’m worried that now that my notes are neat and typed, he might start asking me to print them out or make copies for him. Which I don’t want to do. I’ve poured a lot of time into taking great notes—why should I share them with someone who hasn’t put any effort into taking notes? I’m not sure how to respond if he asks me. Is it okay to refuse, or am I obligated to give him my notes to be a “team player”? If I can refuse, what’s a good way to do it?

It’s not likely to reflect well on you if other people, particularly your manager, learned that you refused — it will come across as saying that you’re protecting your own turf at your employer’s expense.

But you could actually turn this into something that’s both useful and reflects well on you: Show your manager your awesomely organized binder of notes and say something like, “Cecil sounds like he’d really like to have something like this for himself, and I know it would have been really helpful to me to have something like this when I started too. Now that I’ve created it, would it be useful to set up some version of this for the whole team to use as a reference, or even just supply to new people?”

(Also, it’s crazy that your company hasn’t already done something like this. This isn’t school, where you’re expected to learn the whole thing on your own. In the workplace, shortcuts and finding ways to minimize people’s learning curve and set them up for success are good things.)

2. How can I reward an exceptional employee?

I have an employee who is exceptional — anticipates problems, has great attention to detail, works well with others, and goes above and beyond the call of duty daily. She came on board eight months ago. Within a month of her hiring, not only was this apparent but because of a reorganization, she received a $10,000 raise. I have encouraged her to apply for professional development grants (and if I can swing it, even if she doesn’t get the grant, will send her to the annual national conference in our field.) I spoken to my supervisor about providing further professional development. I give her feedback on how well she is doing verbally and in writing (she had an outstanding six-month review) and to our supervisors. She has flextime, generous vacation etc. I have given her a Target gift card (a thank-you for work on a special event), supplied her with cartons of her favorite power bar, bought lunch for her and her cohort, and gotten her a team jacket.

I can’t give her any more money as she is at the top of her classification. I can’t give her more vacation. I can’t give her a higher title as I made up the one she has to get her classified. Is there anything else that I can do to reward her outstanding work?

P.S. I do not fear that I will lose her to another organization, as her position is a much coveted one, the work is miraculously exactly what she wants to do, and her pay is above the industry norm.

I don’t know that you need to continue searching out rewards for her; you’ve done a nice job of that already. Now I’d just focus on being a great manager to her — give her useful feedback, flexibility, and recognition, be a buffer for her from annoying people/processes to the extent that it’s feasible, check in with her periodically about how things are going, and make sure that she’s taken care of at raise time.

Read multiple updates to this letter here.

3. Should I ask the hiring manager who rejected me to put in a good word for me with another department?

I was rejected for a position last week, and upon learning of the rejection I sent the hiring manger an email requesting feedback. She replied and stated that I interviewed well but was overqualified for the position and went on to say that she was not sure that I would be growing or learning anything new in the position if hired. This was what I believed was the reason for my rejection, so I am plenty relieved – but I have another issue.

I recently applied for another position at the same company (in a different department). This position aligns with my skills a bit more. Would it be inappropriate to ask the hiring manager to put in a good word for me? She seems friendly and was kind enough to give me feedback, but I am wondering if it would be ok since she knows my qualifications and has interviewed me.

I wouldn’t ask her to put in a good word for you, exactly — that’s a little too much for someone who doesn’t know you well. But you should absolutely mention to her that you’ve applied for the other job, because she might decide to do that on her own. You could say something like, “Thanks again for talking with me and for taking the time to give me feedback, as well. I actually just applied for the X position with your Y team and am hoping that might turn out to be the right fit — I’d really love to join the team there.”

4. When should I tell a prospective employer about a name change?

I have an interesting situation. I’m a guy. I’m changing my last name. I won’t bore you with details, but it has nothing to do with trying to hide anything. I was abandoned, adopted, abandoned, have had so many people in my life I wanted something of my own.

While waiting for the legal system to approve the change, I applied for a position at a company that I’ve been wanting to work for. I nailed the phone interview and now I have a in-person interview. However, my name change will either be approved or denied before this interview. If the change is denied, no worries. If it’s approved, how do I let my new potential employer know? Do I wait until I’m actually offered the position? Do I tell the recruiting manager right away after it’s approved? I really want this job but am worried that this might somehow tarnish my image but I legally need to let them know. I’m very confused on how to proceed.

I’d wait until you’ve accepted an offer. At that point, you can say, “By the way, I want to let you know that my last name has recently changed to Lannister. Is there anything I need to do on my end to get that reflected in my paperwork?” You’re likely to field questions about whether you recently got married (because people will be being friendly and assume that you did, and will want to express congratulations), but you could respond cheerfully, “No, it’s a long story, but it’s settled now.”

5. My boss wants access to my tools when I’m not there

I’m a dog groomer and our tools are very expensive. All together, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on all my equipment. I work with another groomer and we bought a five-foot tall lockbox with drawers to keep all our stuff safe at work; we’ve had things stolen before, and it’s too much work to bring everything home and back every day. There are only two keys, and we can’t get another one made because the key is unique.

Our boss wanted us to leave a key there so she can get into our stuff even though there is no real reason to do that. She hired a bather recently and wants him to start grooming. We feel that until he has his own stuff and because we’re training him to be a groomer, he can use our stuff but only if we’re there to supervise. I’ve already lost very expensive shears to groomers in training dropping them.

Yesterday, on my day off, one of my coworkers called demanding that I come open the lock box for the bather who was going to do some grooms completely alone. I was an hour away visiting with in-laws and the other groomer was busy with her kids. Now the boss is demanding that we leave a key. I feel that she should buy her own tools for the shop and not rely on our tools to train new groomers. We bought the tool box and all the tools in it so she shouldn’t be allowed to go into it whenever she wants, right?

Yes. That’s a 100% reasonable position. There are jobs (like yours, apparently) where you’re expected to provide your own tools, but that shouldn’t mean that you’re expected to provide them for others to use. I’d say this to your boss: “Since we purchase and are responsible for our own tools, I’m not comfortable having people access them when I’m not there. I can’t afford to replace lost or broken tools, which has already happened. Could you get a store set to keep on hand for this sort of need?”

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

1. Should I worry about not being the go-to person for my team?

I have one employee reporting to me who is working in one of our remote offices. I have found that on many occasions when other teams in the remote office need any information, they directly approach her instead of coming to me. I understand that it is easier for them to get together with her since she is working in the same office but as the manager of this team, I would like to be kept in the loop as well. I am concerned that if I let this continue, it would end up undermining my position. Is there anything I can do to loop myself into these meetings?

I don’t think you need to worry that having a competent and helpful employee will undermine you; as a manager, you want to have competent and helpful employees, and you want them to field as much as they can so that you’re freed up for higher level work. That actually makes you look good; after all, it reflects poorly on managers when they have people on their team who don’t excel.

If your concern is that you’ll get out of the loop, that’s legitimate, but you could address that by asking her to keep you informed about certain types of queries or information and/or looping you in on particularly challenging or sensitive situations. Beyond that, though, if you’re concerned that people won’t see your value, you could look for ways to give your work higher visibility if that’s appropriate — but in general, assuming that you’re producing at a high level yourself, people aren’t going to wonder what your worth is just because they interact more frequently with one of your staff members.

2. My coworker’s website has nude photos alongside photos of her in her work uniform

I recently stumbled arose one of my coworker’s public blogs and decided to scroll through it since she is always going on about it at work. I didn’t really think much of it at the time. While scrolling, I saw that she had multiple nude pictures of her (not full nude, like partial nudes) on this site, including a full view of her lady parts. It isn’t any of my business if she wants to share this with the entire internet. However, these pictures are right next to other pictures of her in her work uniform and some of these photos clearly have the company name on them.

I’ve thought about going to her personally and saying that maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to have those photos right next to the company’s name, but given the fact that she is extremely hostile towards me at work, I have decided this is not the best course of action. (I talked with two of my managers about the hostility issue, and their response was “Not my problem.” So, I have tried to reach a resolution with that to no success.)

I’m trying to decide if I should report this to HR or not. My concern is her finding out that I reported the blog and thus creating a worse and more hostile work environment for me. The only reason I’m bothering to concern myself with the photos is because I feel like the photos would portray the company in extremely bad light should they somehow come up with a Google search of the company name.

I don’t think a photo of a company uniform is likely to come with in a Google search of the company name (assuming she doesn’t have text on the site that names the company), but that doesn’t mean your company wouldn’t rightfully be concerned about the photos; most companies wouldn’t be pleased by that.

If you’re in a management role, you have more of a responsibility to mention what you saw. If you’re not, I think it’s really up to you. But the fact that you’re working somewhere where your managers actually said “not my problem” when you tried to talk with them about a work issue means you’d be pretty justified in deciding that this this is not your problem. (To be clear, I wouldn’t say that if it were something more clear cut, like if you’d learned that an employee was embezzling. But I don’t think that it would be an unreasonable stance here.)

3. Why is this interview process being coordinated by such junior staff?

I recently applied for a job at a firm that employs about 50 people. I looked at their website and LinkedIn presence before applying, and I thought everything looked great: their company culture seemed to be exactly what I was looking for, and they had an awesome roster of clients.

Today I received an email from someone who introduced herself as an intern at the firm. She asked if I would be available to interview with another person at the firm who’s at the same level as the job I’m applying for — one that requires about 2 years of experience and a college degree. I’m very confused about why the interview would be coordinated by an intern and conducted by an entry-level employee, when both of these roles are traditionally the responsibilities of a hiring manager. Have you heard of this being done before, and is this a normal (though perhaps unusual) practice?

Not weird! It’s reasonable to delegate coordinating interview logistics to a junior person (including an intern), so that part isn’t strange. And it’s not crazy to have a peer talk with candidates at some stage of the process. I’d usually do that later in the process, but it’s definitely possible that the peer is well-equipped to do the early screening stage. The hiring manager should get involved at some point, of course, but I wouldn’t take this as a red flag.

4. Is my employer reimbursing enough for mileage?

I am currently working on salary, and it is my first job paying me like this so am new to it. I do a lot of traveling, and although for big trips I usually rent a car, I still do a lot of local meetings where I take my own car. My mileage report has a set rate of 35 cents. Is this correct? I have a company credit card that I use to tank up rental cars, but the company does not want me using it on my car; their explanation is that they pay me the mileage rate for the usage of my car. I was just reading another post of yours where you stated that the mileage reimbursement is 56 cents. I want to talk to my boss about it but am not sure if this is the law (California), or is he allowed to give me what he sees fit?

The IRS allows people to deduct a mileage rate of 56 cents per mile, and many employers use the IRS’s rate. Some, though, use a lower one. The purpose of the IRS rate isn’t to impose the rate on employers, but rather to tell people what they can deduct at tax time. An employer can pay any mileage rate they want, but if it’s lower than the IRS rate, you can deduct the difference on your taxes (although that only helps you if you’re already itemizing deductions).

However, California does require employers to reimburse all business expenses, so if you could show that the mileage rate they’re paying doesn’t do that, it’s possible there could be a legal thing here — although that’s outside my own scope of expertise.

It does makes sense, though, that they’re not reimbursing you for both gas and mileage for the same trip, since the mileage rate is intended to cover gas, as well as wear and tear on your car.

5. Skype interview advice

Something happened in a Skype interview that I thought your readers could learn from: my interviewer’s computer monitor was too low. You mentioned this in a previous list about Skype tips but I think this example will help drive home the point.

Not only does this create an unflattering double chin, but it also looked like he was spending the majority of the conversation with his eyes locked on my chest. My chest wasn’t even in frame, so the interviewer wasn’t actually doing anything inappropriate, but I still felt somewhat uncomfortable. I have also seen it appear that someone has their eyes closed or is avoiding eye contact. Nearly every webcam has software to take a picture with the webcam, which is a great way to check that everything you’ve noted in previous lists is good and Skype has a number to call to test sound.

Excellent tips. Thank you!