Ask a Manager

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

1. Should conjoined twins receive one salary or two?

I recently read this article. The summary is that Abby and Brittany are conjoined twins who are fifth grade teachers. They only draw one salary between the two of them because they occupy one position in their school district. I can’t help but feel like this is a little unfair. I understand that they can only physically occupy one classroom at a time but they are two people with two minds who, presumably, both put work into lesson plans, etc. As an avid reader of your website, I am very curious to hear what your take on this situation is.

It’s true that the school district is benefiting from the position being filled by two people with two different perspectives and potentially two separate sets of strengths. It’s also true that they’re in a single teacher’s role, meaning that the school district would need to use a second teacher’s salary without that putting a teacher in a second classroom. And realistically, if hiring them meant paying two salaries to fill one position, it would significantly limit their job options because a lot of employers simply wouldn’t hire them. I do think you’d have a potential legal problem if the half-salary they’re each earning is less than minimum wage … but otherwise my take is that the whole system we’ve set up for work isn’t cut out to handle conjoined twins!

2. An acquaintance won’t stop contacting me about a job he was rejected for

An acquaintance of mine applied to work at my organization. He got partway through the process and realized through a mutual friend that I work there, so reached out asking if my area was hiring. We are, so I passed his resume along to my manager, as he seemed like a good fit in terms of skills and experience. This landed him an interview. My manager said something was “off” in the interview and he didn’t seem like the right hire, and asked me if I was strongly recommending him. I said no, he’s just an acquaintance. We used to volunteer at the same place for a time a few years ago, but I have never worked with him professionally, nor is he a close friend. So, she informed him we would not be moving forward.

That was two months ago. Since that time, he has contacted both me and my manager repeatedly to “follow up,” including emailing my personal email to ask for advice about how to be reconsidered. My manager told him we were no longer filling the position but he still persists, each time explaining how and why he would make a great addition to the team. After responding politely the first time, I am now ignoring his email. However, we do have mutual friends and I am worried we may run into each other, and in fact I likely will see him at an upcoming event. Do I continue to ghost him? I’m not the hiring manager but he got a very clear “we aren’t moving forward” after the interview. I don’t think he realizes these continued attempts to change my manager’s mind are giving a bad impression.

You’re not obligated to coach this guy, but since you’re likely to run into him, you could respond to his next email with, “I’m sorry this didn’t work out, but that really is the final answer and you should not keep contacting Jane about it — it’s coming across as too pushy and has no chance of changing the decision.” I might add, “Continuing to contact her will be harmful, not helpful.” If he keeps it up even after that, feel free to go back to ignoring him.

3. How to interpret new daily meetings with my boss

I have a fully remote sales job and have been a top performer for the last couple years, though admittedly I have been flagging lately. About a month ago, my boss started scheduling DAILY 30-minute 1-on-1s with me, in addition to our weekly hour. I’m trying to figure out why, and how to respond.

The way he framed it, I’m working with some challenging customers right now and could use the extra support, and this will give us a chance to discuss in detail. This kind of makes sense, but I don’t feel like I really uniquely need support compared to others on the team.

Two other interpretations were: either this is a warning shot that I’m underperforming (though I’m still otherwise being praised and assigned important work) or he’s concerned that I’m considering quitting (there’s been some drama lately and I don’t think I’ll stay forever, but I’m fine for now).

Each interpretation suggests a different approach — if it’s really for my benefit, I should just honestly pick his brain and end early if I don’t need help. If it’s a warning, I need to use the time to show commitment to the work. And if he’s trying to read me, I guess I shouldn’t share any doubts? Since I don’t know why we’re doing this, I try to cover my bases and project a lot of confidence and enthusiasm and progress and frankly, it’s exhausting. Does one of these sound more plausible than the others? What would you do?

Any of those is plausible. Do you have the kind of relationship where you can just ask him? Personally, with a boss I had good rapport with, I’d just say, “Can I ask — are we having extra daily meetings because you’re worried about how I’m approaching these clients? Or is there anything else in my work that’s making you concerned?” And depending on how that went, I might say, “If you think it’s helpful to meet daily, I’ll of course do that, but on my end, it works well to keep our weekly hour and just touch base ad hoc if anything comes up that we need to discuss before that.”

But otherwise, since you say you haven’t been performing at your usual level and there’s room to get back there, the smartest avenue is to do that. If that’s his concern, you’ll be covering it. However, that’s not about projecting extra confidence and enthusiasm; it’s about the actual work you’re doing; projecting enthusiasm alone is unlikely to take care of it. (And unless something happens that convinces you that  definitely not what’s behind the new meetings, it’s safest to assume it could be, and proceed accordingly.)

4. Should cost of living adjustments be prorated based on your start date?

Is it normal for cost of living adjustments to be prorated based on employment start date?

I work for a nonprofit with employees working remotely across the country (I am one of these). I started working here in July 2024, which was the beginning of the org’s fiscal year.

This past fall, the org held town hall meetings to share messaging about the upcoming year: COLA’s would be lower this year, no merit raises, and they revamped how bonuses are done, so no more individual bonuses but rather a team bonus situation. I’m new, so I don’t know how things used to be done and I tried not to worry too much. And of course none of us works at a nonprofit to get rich — I’m biding my time being underpaid just to try to get my federal student loans forgiven.

The COLA emails start coming out in early January. My adjustment is 0.58% and includes a note saying, “This COLA acknowledges the 2024 percentage and exceeds the 2025 projected rise in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and is intended to help alleviate the impact this may have on you and your family.” I did the math. That’s only $300 more per year, or $12 per pay cycle. I wrote back and asked if there were perhaps an accounting error, and was told that employees who started after October 1, 2023 do not receive the full 2.5% but rather a prorated amount commensurate with their start date. They said the reason for that is that employees hired in that time period “have a salary amount that takes the current CPI into account, whether by the amount offered or the minimum range amount they are brought in at. By providing a prorated amount for the following year, we are balancing out the total amount for COLA between the two calendar years.”

Is this normal? Is this fair? My expenses for the upcoming year are going up way beyond half a percent! There are many things about nonprofit life that make me cry, and the pay is the biggest one of them.

It’s not unusual for cost-of-living adjustments to be prorated in that way. The thinking is what they shared: that the salary you came in at already reflected the cost of living at that time, whereas people who have been with the organization longer had their salaries set under different cost-of-living calculations. Whether or not that’s true is a different question, and would depend on whether the salary band for the job you were hired into had changed in the previous year. But it’s pretty common for them to figure that you accepted the salary as a fair one only six months ago.

5. Federal employee grappling with private sector resume

I’m a federal employee. If you’ve been watching the news this week, there’s a lot going on in the background that’s making life for federal employees very hard right now. Aside from the obvious, they are making several lists of categories of employees, likely trying to figure out how to get rid of as many of us as possible in big sweeps of layoffs and firings at once. (We’ve been told these lists are being provided with names to the White House.) This has pushed me to try to find a private-sector job for the first time in more than 25 years. I know I need to completely overhaul my resume from a federal format where listing your duties is primary to a corporate one where accomplishments are king. What I’m not sure of is my current position, which I started about 4-5 months ago. I’ve done two big things that will eventually make a difference and have numbers behind them, but they’re not there yet. I know you’ve advised folks in the past to leave these shorter stays off resumes, but I’m concerned about it not looking like I’ve had a job since the summer. How would you advise me to handle this? If this weren’t my current position, I’d just leave it off, but I’m stumped here.

Leave your current position on your resume. People will understand why you’re looking right now. And for the two big things you’ve done that don’t have numbers behind them yet, you can still list those! Not all accomplishments can be measured quantitatively, and that’s okay. Just describe as best as you can what you’ve done and what the impact is / why it matters.

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

1. My partner is angry about how I handled harassment at work

Content warning for domestic violence.

I’m a woman in finance. Six months ago, I was put into a team with an older male colleague who from day one decided to call me “Legs.” When someone challenged him, he said, “Well, look, she’s got legs up to here!” He gets too close, stares at my boobs, and one time walked past me while I was at my desk and, rather than squeezing my shoulder in passing, he put his hand effectively on the side of my boob and as he walked off his hand brushed off me. Word got back to the directors, he was told off for his behavior, he tried to apologize to me on a work night out, and I told him, “It’s not just what you do, but after you leave the room I become the butt of the joke for the next hour and it’s all totally humiliating.” It all then stopped.

Whilst all the harassment stopped after that, he has been difficult to work with because he’s lazy and non-compliant and I have to tidy up all his messes. I’m leaving this job because I have a promotion with a new firm. Since my exit interview, this collegue and I have butted heads on a project and I’ve gone home and vented to my partner.

Somehow, all the past sexual harrassment stuff came up and my partner got really, really furious with me for not previously reporting this colleague or doing anything to get this “predator” out of work. He shouted at me and gave me ultimatums of “you’ve got until your last day, otherwise I’ll be contacting the director.” He was so cross he shoved me at one point and said, “You’re a POS, not an advocate for women at all. It’s embarrassing a man has to stick up for women’s rights.” He berated me for making excuses for enabling this colleague. He is a domestic abuse survivor, but I plainly told him this is my situation and my work, and he’s being controlling and overstepping. My partner strongly believes he has a right to advocate for the next woman who’s going to step into my role.

How do I handle this? I’m very close to ending my relationship.

I’m so sorry — this awful and unfair in a number of different ways.

Would you consider calling a domestic violence hotline? I’m so sorry to say it, but I don’t think you can safely stay in this relationship. The verbal abuse and belittling on their own are a reason to leave; the shoving takes it far, far past that line.

None of the rest of my answer matters as much as that, but to address the other issues: your partner isn’t “sticking up for women’s rights.” Trying to overrule a woman’s autonomy in deciding how to handle a professional situation that affects her is not being an ally to women at all. If he wants to advocate for women, he needs to start by respecting their autonomy and their judgment. If he simply can’t live with how you’ve decided to handle your own work situation, his options are to try to change your perspective respectfully or to leave — not to try to bully you into doing what he wants.

2. Should a top executive be venting to employees about managers above them?

My coworker Michael was lateral to me and on my team when I joined about seven years ago. However, in the years since, our CEO has taken a strong liking to him and he has risen through the ranks, to the point where he is now essentially the CEO’s second-in-command in charge of daily operations.

Michael does not manage our team, but he is still quite close with many of us and often hangs out with us socially at team lunches and happy hours. Sometimes during these gatherings, he will “vent” to us, often about people or teams far above us — complaining, for example, that VP Jane never shows up to meetings or that X Product Team takes forever to get anything done. He once ranted about how our team’s manager never checks her messages and how various processes she’s implemented make no sense. These are all things that I agree with. They impact my daily workflow, in a way I don’t think they impact his, and hugely frustrate me as well. But I’m finding myself getting annoyed when Michael complains about them, because I don’t have the power to change any of these things as a rank-and-file employee — but he does! He has hiring, firing, and disciplinary power, he’s in high-level meetings, and he could actually do something about these problems!

I know that some of these may well be battles that Michael has reasonably decided aren’t worth fighting. Still, is it reasonable to think that Michael is a bit insensitive for making these complaints to us?

Not only insensitive, but oddly oblivious to his own position of power and influence, as well as to how “here’s a problem I could try to fix but rather than dealing with it competently, I’m just going to complain” reflects on him. He’s basically advertising his own ineffectiveness.

And if he has correctly judged that these aren’t battles worth fighting, then he’s just demonstrating bad judgment in picking you as his audience to vent to. Besides being indiscreet, venting from higher-ups about other higher-ups is bad for people’s morale.

What would happen if you started replying, “Don’t you have the authority now to do something about that?”

3. Should I tell my boss about my PMDD?

I am four months into a new position in my company. I am past the training stage and am now handling my own accounts and assisting others. I have struggled with ADHD in the past, but have been able to manage it for the past few years with medication.

Here’s where the problem comes in: I was diagnosed with PMDD years ago and stopped taking the hormonal birth control that made me stop my period completely. This has caused the hormonal surges and drops that lead to PMDD and it’s beginning to cause issues at work. One super fun side effect of my PMDD is that it makes my ADHD medication essentially useless. A lot of people have been out of work this last week, and trying to handle the extra work while dealing with unmitigated ADHD and terrible mood swings has been a nightmare and I’ve admittedly been ineffective. My boss has scheduled calls to check in and while I’ve been open about feeling overwhelmed, I’m beginning to wonder if I should explain why. During a non-PMDD week, I feel I would’ve been able to handle the higher work load. I’m worried that this is going to leave a lasting impression. I’m beginning to wonder if it would be easier to just explain to my boss that my PMDD wreaked havoc on my ability to focus last week but that I am working with my doctor to find a solution. Is this too much to share? Would it be viewed as making excuses?

You don’t need to share that level of detail, and doing so risks opening you up to misunderstandings and biases about PMDD (and ADHD, for that matter). But as with any health issue, it’s enough to just stick to the parts that are pertinent to your boss. So for example: “I want to let you know that I’m having a medication issue that’s affecting my ability to concentrate. I’m working with my doctor to find a solution and I don’t expect it to continue long-term, but I wanted to let you know in case I don’t seem at 100% right now.”

Related:
should you tell your boss if you’re struggling with mental health issues?

4. How do I move back to a more junior job after covering while a coworker was on leave?

For over a year now, I have been covering the job of a colleague while she is on maternity leave. Her maternity leave is due to end soon and in my country she is entitled to her previous job back. I will either need to return to my previous (more junior) role in the organization or to look for a new job elsewhere.

How do I prepare to give her her job back without getting possessive or anxious that she will do a better job than I did? How do I navigate taking on a more junior role within the same team? I totally support the rights of working parents but am not sure how to navigate this transition emotionally and practically.

It’s hard when you feel like you’re moving backwards. But a better way to look at it is that your coworker’s leave can be something that helps you move forward: it gave you something really great to put on your resume, which you can now parlay into a similar position somewhere else. (Or potentially at your current organization if something opens up.) The time you spent covering her job built your skills and gives you evidence of those skills and capabilities, and that should make getting the next job easier.

Doing higher-level work can also help you do more junior roles at a higher level than you were doing them previously; you probably have a more nuanced understanding of the priorities, constraints, and politics of management above you and that broadened perspective can influence the way you approach your job now. You also might think about what you did and didn’t like about the work you were covering and use that to refine what you want next (as well as where your biggest challenges were, if those are areas you want to develop in).

Last, are there opportunities to bring the skills you’ve built in the last year back to your current team in a new way? If so, consider talking to your boss about places where those could be helpful.

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

1. What to do about a terrible workplace when you can’t leave

I know it’s often the case that the best thing to do in a terrible work setting is to start looking for another job. I’m wondering if you have any advice for circumstances where you really can’t do that, or at least aren’t willing to accept the consequences of doing so. I’m a PhD student in a psychology program. As part of the program we have to spend a certain amount of time providing services through our departmental clinic. This is non-optional for the program, so the only way around this is to drop out of the program. Within our field, PhD students cannot transfer programs — if you drop out, you start from scratch at a new program (assuming one will even accept you; it’s one of the most competitive fields of graduate study and dropping out of a program is looked on unfavorably). So, the consequences of leaving are very high and potentially career-ending.

Within this context, our clinic admin is a nightmare. She routinely screams, swears, yells, stomps around, and otherwise makes the clinic a tense and unpleasant environment. She interacts inappropriately with clients, yelling at them, recommending crystals instead of therapy, telling them to go home because they’ve arrived at the wrong time when in fact they’ve arrived at the correct time, and the list goes on.

The students have tried to push back. We bring up these incidents to the clinic co-directors. One student even coordinated collecting complaints in a unified document — it was five pages long, single-spaced. When presented to the clinic co-directors, the response was that not much could be done. Supposedly, the clinic has no hierarchy and the co-directors therefore have no authority over her (?!).

What are we missing? When a situation is this level of bad, what options are on the table that aren’t leaving?

Well … possibly none. If the co-directors report to anyone, you could go over their heads to whoever they report to. If that’s another person, that’s a more feasible option than if it’s a board of directors. (Going to a board isn’t completely off the table, but the bar for doing it is very high and often won’t work; boards frequently just don’t get involved in day-to-day management issues.) The other options are to (a) keep pushing with the co-directors, but it sounds like you’ve already been pushing and they are simply not going to act, (b) come up with some kind of leverage that will motivate them to act (such as credibly making it clear you’ll be steering other students away from the program), (c) bring in someone else who has influence (like someone high up in your program who isn’t part of the clinic, or someone in the university who has oversight over the program), (d) unionize, (e) accept it’s not going to change and find a way to be okay with working around the problems, or (f) leave, which you noted you can’t do. Most people in normal work contexts end up eventually choosing E or F. In your case, C is likely the best shot at changing things, and if that doesn’t work, you’re looking at E.

2. Employee keeps writing in her pregnancy journal at work

I work at a larger higher education institution in a department that manages many grant-funded projects. All of us working on these projects are in staff positions (not teaching faculty). One of my employees, Sansa, started several months ago and this is her first professional job since graduating. She is capable and I have no issues with her work overall.

Last week, she announced to the office (repeatedly) that she is pregnant. Of course I wish her well. But the issue is that she now walks around with a first-time mom pregnancy journal and pulls it out to write in. Continually. It has been about a week and I see this journal multiple times a day. I want to say something to her along the lines of, “I know you are excited about your pregnancy, but please save your journal for your personal time, such as lunch breaks or out of office time.” This is no different to me than say, doing homework on work time (which I have dealt with before in a similar way). I feel that since this is pregnancy-related, though, I am dipping into uncharted territory.

Do I say anything? Do I let this go? How do I approach her? My goal is to create a comfortable, low-distraction environment for staff and I am concerned this is going to turn in to a “thing.”

If she’s doing a good job and getting all her work done and the amount of time she’s spending on the journal is just a couple of minutes here and there, let it go — the same way you presumably would if she were spending a few minutes socializing in the kitchen or texting her spouse.

But if the amount of time she’s spending on it is excessive, then it’s reasonable to say something like: “I know you’re excited about the pregnancy, and I’m really happy for you. I’ve seen you writing in your pregnancy journal a lot during the day and I want to remind you to please save it for breaks or other non-work time — just like with anything else not work-related, like homework or social media.”

3. Interviewers want to know how I handle difficulties

I’m looking for a job again for the first time in many years and am running into a type of question in interviews that I haven’t encountered in the past. All the questions are some variation of “how do you handle it when you are experiencing difficulty?” and I’m confused how to answer because it seems like an obvious “I would discuss it with my manager.”

Some examples include:
“What do you do if you can’t find the answer when you’re working?”
“How do you handle it when you have a lot of work to do and can’t meet your deadlines?”
“How would we know you are struggling?”

That last one made me gape a little because it seems so obvious. I responded with, “I would tell you.”

Can you provide some insight on why they are asking this and what sort of answer they are looking for? For deadlines or research, I did try to expand on how I would approach it if my manager wasn’t available.

I’m concerned that I’m coming across as being unable to deal with problems on my own if my first thought is to ask my boss. However, that is how my prior bosses have wanted me to handle it. In my experience, my manager always wanted to know if I was running into roadblocks.

You’d be surprised by how many people’s answer to the last two questions isn’t “You would know because I would tell you.” It’s obvious to you, but it’s very much not obvious to everyone. Some people will answer, “I would stay late and find a way to get everything done,” or “I would prioritize on my own without looping anyone else in” (although they don’t say it like that) or all sorts of other things. So your answer to those is fine.

The question where I’d adjust a bit is “What do you do if you can’t find the answer when you’re working?” With that one, are there things you would do before you’d go to your manager — like reviewing documentation, googling, or looking at how similar problems have been solved in the past? I bet you do that stuff, and you’re assuming “when you can’t find the answer” means you’ve already tried those things, but spell out those steps too.

4. How to explain my boyfriend’s job when he has a trust fund and rarely works

I’ve been with my boyfriend for five years. He comes from a rich family and has access to a trust fund and he doesn’t work, aside from a few projects here and there. (For anonymity, let’s say they are llama grooming projects and I am also a llama groomer). The problem is that when I’m out socially — or at networking events — people constantly ask me what my partner does. Saying “he’s a llama groomer” isn’t really true or accurate, as I can’t name an employer or even any recent projects. I’ve tried to keep things vague and name jobs he’s had in the distant past, but people just keep asking questions. Is there a graceful way to answer this? It’s very frustrating and I constantly find myself making things up, which I don’t like to do. I don’t think he would want me telling people he has a trust fund, either.

Can you say, “He does freelance llama grooming”? If pressed for details about what he’s working on currently, you can say, “He’s pretty selective about what projects he takes on so nothing currently, but he tends to like work featuring X and Y.”

Also, why are people asking so many follow-up questions?! Maybe that’s normal in your field, but I’m surprised they’re pushing for so much info. (Is it an in-demand speciality where they might want to hire him? Or what do you think is behind it?)

The other option is to not mention his occasional llama grooming work at all and just answer with what he spends his time on: “He’s really into gardening and currently taking over our backyard with rutabaga and kohlrabi.”

5. How do I “do” FMLA as the healthy spouse?

We’ve just been told that my husband’s medical tests have found evidence of cancer. We don’t know what stage anything is in yet, and we don’t know what treatment or management might look like.

At what point do you request FMLA once you find out that your spouse has cancer? We only just found out, so we don’t yet know the severity or treatment plans. Is this something where I should go to HR right away, let them know the situation, and keep them updated as I know more? Or would it be better to wait until we have a clear idea of what’s going on and when I will need to be out of work?

I’ve never had to request FMLA before, so I don’t even know where to start or what the etiquette is … or even what it really means, other than “you go on FMLA when you have a baby or somebody in your immediate family is really sick and you need to help take care of them.”

How much detail do I have to give? Do I have to tell my supervisor first, and then she speaks to HR about it? Can I go straight to HR, bypassing my supervisor? Can telling my work what’s going on be used against me in any way?

As the healthy spouse, what can I really use FMLA for (accompanying them to medical appointments, staying home with them while they’re recovering from the effects of chemo)? If we get worst-case scenario news and the doctor gives them six months to live, can I use FMLA just to stay with them so we have every moment possible together?

I mostly want to cry and hold my spouse right now. I don’t want to have to explain to everybody what’s going on, especially as we don’t even really know yet and I will likely cry when I make the FMLA request. I just want my spouse to get better, and for the work aspect of my life to let me be with my partner as much as possible right now.

I’m so sorry and I hope you get news that’s as positive as possible, as quickly as possible.

FMLA is unpaid leave of up to 12 weeks per year that protects your job. You can be required to use up your paid leave as part of it; in other words, it’s not a separate bank of leave that kicks in after you’ve run through the rest of your leave. It’s basically 12 weeks of job protection while you’re out, which may or may not overlap with the paid leave your employer offers. You can use it for accompanying your spouse to appointments, transporting or caring for them during treatment, and other forms of care they need, including “psychological comfort.” More here.

Generally it makes sense to wait until you have more clarity on the situation and know what you want to ask for. If you have a good relationship with your boss, you can certainly let her know now what’s going on, but you don’t need to do that. It’s fine to wait until you have more specifics about the time you want to take, at least to start with. You can also go straight to HR if you prefer to start with them. Once you’re ready to officially request FMLA, HR will likely have forms for you to fill out. Legally your company cannot hold your use of FMLA against you; that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, but if you’re working with generally decent people, they are likely to simply want to ensure you get what you need.