Ask a Manager

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

1. My boss asked us to hold him accountable for his weight loss plan

I recently left an admin position at a resort that includes a high-end athletic facility in an affluent tourist area. It is a very old three-star resort that has made serious investments in becoming a five-star resort in the next few years. They have hired a consultant to advise and he is working one-on-one with my former direct boss, the senior accountant (Paul), get him where he needs to be to be promoted to CFO.

The consultant held a team-building meeting that focused on holding ourselves and each other accountable. We went around the room and said what we needed help being held accountable for. When it was Paul’s turn, the consultant encouraged him to tell the group that his weight loss is what he wishes to be held accountable for (among other work-related items, such as communication). The consultant prompted him to tell us all about his progress so far and what he wants to accomplish etc. After the meeting ended, Paul put his work-out regimen on his door and reminded us to hold him accountable for it.

The consultant calls/texts Paul weekly to check up on progress for “all his goals,” but the conversation is focused 80% on weight loss, from what I could hear on the speaker phone. I asked our junior accountant his opinion and he felt that it is up to Paul to say what he wants to say, and that the consultant is focused on appearance because of the image that the resort is trying to project. My intuition is that his appearance may be kind of tied to his promotion.

My question, is this not wild? Aside from my own feelings about talking to my boss about if he worked out, I feel this is not fair to Paul. Surely image is nothing that some tailored suits and a few body language conversations can’t fix? What if this were a woman? Is there ever an appropriate time for this type of conversation at work, with or without a promotion on the line?

No, this is weird. I can’t tell whether the weight loss goal was something that Paul initially raised himself or whether the consultant pushed him into it. If it was Paul’s idea, it’s weird and inappropriate to ask employees to hold him accountable to that in any way, let alone to have weekly check-in’s with a company-paid consultant about his progress. If it was the consultant’s idea, it’s far worse.

2. After I had to fire someone, my boss asked if I still want to be a manager

After 14 years managing a team of nine people, six years ago I switched careers, taking a less senior position in order to do some very fulfilling nonprofit work. In my current role, I supervise three people. One had to be let go two weeks ago. I felt terrible about it, but it was clearly not working out due to a skill-set mismatch, plus other behaviors that were causing issues. The employee had come off a PIP about 10 weeks prior, but the improvement was not sustained beyond the first few weeks. The employee felt taken by surprise during the termination meeting and lashed out, trying to convince the HR rep who was present that I had not given them any feedback about this lack of progress or unprofessionalism. (HR was not fooled, but I definitely had given the employee more leeway than I probably should have.)

Fast forward to yesterday, when my boss asked whether I “still wanted to be a manager.” I was so taken aback that I did not ask whether this was coming from a place of concern, as I had voiced feeling like I had let this employee down as a manager, or from a place of mistrust/disappointment that I had not been able to mentor this employee into a better performer. (My boss was out on leave during most of this employee’s tenure of 10 months, so his understanding of the situation was not first-hand, but he was in agreement that the termination was needed.)

I answered that I was content to continue managing my team. Maybe I am not that great of a manager and merely have been lucky during my entire career in never needing to fire someone? I have been truly shaken by this whole experience. Because we won’t be able to hire a replacement for a couple months, I am now busy doing the work of two people, but find myself fretting over my boss’ question. Do I let it go or ask for a clarification? Do I ask for some professional development of my management skills?

Go back and ask your boss why he asked. It’s very possible, even likely, that his question was a response to you voicing self-doubt. But you’re not sure and it’s weighing on you — and it’s potentially a serious enough topic that it doesn’t make sense to guess. Go back to your boss and say, “I’ve been thinking about you asking if I still wanted to manage and I want to make sure I understand where you were coming from. Do you have concerns about how I’m approaching the job?” Find out for sure instead of speculating.

For what it’s worth, anyone who’s managed for a long enough time will eventually have to fire someone. It doesn’t mean you failed as a manager — in fact, keeping someone on who was clearly not right for the job (after feedback and coaching) is what would have been the failure. Addressing a problem forthrightly and working through it is not. I don’t know the details of what happened and maybe there were failures in how you handled it; maybe you waited too long, didn’t set clear enough expectations, or didn’t give useful feedback. But “I didn’t manage to turn someone without the skills for the job into someone right for the job” isn’t normally in the failure category. Maybe it was a failure of hiring! That’s worth looking at. Whenever you have to let someone go, it’s smart to look at what happened and how you ended up there. And maybe you do want some management training. But the fact of having to fire someone who was backsliding right after finishing a PIP is not itself a sign you failed.

Related:
I had to fire someone and I feel like a failure

3. My coworker keeps screaming profanities … but we’re remote and he’s my husband

In a normal office environment, it would never be appropriate to shout or curse. But now that my husband works from home, he enjoys the perks of remote work such as wearing gym shorts and letting out a stream of expletives after frustrating meetings. The problem is that I work remotely, too, and it’s really stressing me out! It’s not audible on my calls (I have an excellent headset), but every few hours I get a jumpscare when there’s sudden banging and shouting in the next room.

I understand he’s on a very high drama project with impossible deadlines, so it seems wrong to tell him he’s not allowed an emotional outlet in his own home. But now I’m getting secondhand stress. How do I deal?

You need to talk to him about it! Tell him the impact it’s having on you and ask him to stop. This isn’t about saying he’s not allowed an emotional outlet in his own home; it’s about asking him to be considerate that during the workday, it’s a shared space where you’re both working.

He can have an emotional outlet outside of work hours, like everyone else. That’s how he’d need to deal if he were working in an office, and it’s not outrageously onerous to ask of him when you’re both working from home either.

4. New hires are missing our ID check appointments

I oversee the onboarding process for new hires at my company, and one of the steps is a video call where we check that the employee is the person on the ID documents they’ve given us. This is a legally required check where I live, and our compliance team requires it after an incident where the person we hired wasn’t the person we interviewed!

However, a lot of candidates show up late to these calls, or don’t show up at all. Often, they’re also slow to provide necessary documents to even start this process, and it’s not until I start sending emails telling them we’re going to delay their joining date that they seem to get that there’s urgency here.

This does tend to be candidates in very junior roles, or ones who haven’t changed job in years. Any suggestions on how to manage this bad behavior from otherwise good candidates? (These calls are before their first day, but after they’ve been given their offers and signed paperwork.)

The ID check used to happen in person on the morning of a new employee’s first day, so there was no chance of their missing it. Many companies have moved to doing it remotely ahead of time, but there’s no reason it has to be done like that. So one option: any chance you can simply do it the morning they start? (If they’re remote, you could keep it remote; we’re just talking about changing the timing.)

If that’s not practical, then your best bet is to make it really, really clear when setting up these calls what the consequence of missing it will be. As in: “It’s essential that you be on-time for this appointment or your start date may be delayed. If you need to reschedule, please let me know as soon as possible.” Since you’re also encountering people being slow in getting you the documents needed to start the process, be up-front about timelines there too: “Please submit XYZ no later than September 17 or your start date may be delayed.” You’ll still get people being flaky (in part because they’re not working for you yet and likely figure some of this can be handled once they start) but it should cut down on it.

5. My employer is trying to get out of paying me overtime

I am a teacher, and have never had to think about overtime pay because teachers are exempt. I now have a second job as the director of a small local history museum. I am the only employee. It is mostly a summer job, with some administrative tasks in the school year. The museum board pays me a salary of $30,000. I don’t think anyone on the board was aware of the minimum salary rule for exempt employees, which makes me a non-exempt salaried employee. I only learned about it from reading your column.

I let the board know that I will need to be paid overtime for hours I work beyond 40 in a week. I typically work at the museum 38 hours each week. Outside of business hours, I work on things at home, such as researching programs and recording videos, and do work outside of the building like shop for supplies, go to off-site storage, or attend committee meetings. Much of this I cannot do during business hours because I am the only employee.

One board member said because I am salaried, I have to expect to do things outside of business hours without being paid overtime.

Another board member said I should only count the hours I work at the museum.

A third board member said if I am choosing to do research and make videos at home, they shouldn’t have to pay me for it.

A fourth board member suggested that they could increase my salary to meet the exempt threshold if I do a fundraiser and earn that amount.

Now they are arguing about which of them is right and what they should do. I think they are all wrong and they just need to have me work fewer hours or pay me overtime. What do you think?

The law is very clear about how this works; it’s not open to interpretation. Because you do not meet the salary threshold for exemption, you are non-exempt and must be paid overtime (time and a half) for any hours over 40 that you work in a work week. That includes work that happens off-site, and it includes work that you “choose” to do on your own. There’s no “unless you really want to do it” exception. This is what the law requires.

It’s true that they could decide it’s a requirement of your job to fundraise the amount needed to pay you enough to be exempt. That’s the only thing they’re proposing that wouldn’t be illegal. (And even then, if you failed to raise the amount needed, they’d still need to pay you for any overtime you’d worked. They could fire you for not fundraising enough if they wanted to, but they’d still owe you the overtime pay.)

If they can’t afford to pay overtime or raise your salary so that you’re legally exempt from overtime, then they can’t afford an employee who works more than 40 hours a week.

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

1. My coworker doesn’t listen and then pretends she was never told

I’m having an issue with my coworker, Christine. I am in no way her supervisor so I’m not sure there’s anything I can do, but here goes!

Basically, she complains that our boss, Lars, doesn’t tell her things and then Lars gets upset with her afterwards for not knowing. I can see why that would be incredibly frustrating. Except the last couple of times she has told me that’s happened, I was in the room with them and I know Lars told her the correct info.

For example, Lars told me and Christine that we were going to use Form X instead of Y. The next day, Christine used the wrong form and Lars asked her why. Christine tells me Lars never told her, so I said that he did in fact the day before. First she says she wasn’t in the room, I remind her she was. Then she says he must have been talking to me and not her, but it was just the three of us in a small room and I talked about it with her afterwards so I know she heard him. Then she says she just “wasn’t listening” but again, we talked about it so I know she knew.

From other experiences with her, I don’t think she has a great memory, but instead of admitting or realizing that, she just says Lars never told her things. She’s done the same to me even though I can send her screenshots of our chat or forward emails that she’s replied to. It’s mostly complaints about Lars, which doesn’t directly impede my work, but when she does it to me, it’s frustrating that I have to ask her to do something three times and then she takes zero responsibility for dropping the ball.

She is job searching, so is there really anything I can or should do or should I just hope she moves on soon? That might be part of it too — she’s just checked out mentally since she’s planning to leave. But honestly I’d rather have her just say “Yeah, I know we’re supposed to use X instead of Y but I don’t care” instead of lying to me about it!

There’s a decent chance she’s not deliberating lying but is simply a scattered mess and not keeping track of stuff. She could be genuinely surprised when she’s confronted with evidence that she was previously told things. There’s also a decent chance that she is lying — that she sees it as a way to save face and doesn’t understand how bad it makes her look.

It doesn’t really matter; it’s frustrating either way. I don’t think you need to do anything about it — as you say, you’re not her manager — but you also don’t need to pretend you don’t see it happening. If you want, the next time it occurs, you could say, “I don’t know if you realize this happens a lot — you’re sure Lars or I never told you something when we actually did. Sometimes I was there during the conversation with him, or I have emails that you replied to confirming you knew. Is everything okay?” If she thinks she’s getting away with it, this might drive home that she’s not and maybe nudge her to do it less in the future. Or it might have no effect at all! But you’re not required to pretend you don’t see it. (Similarly, the next time she complains to you about Lars not telling her something, feel free to say, “I don’t know, a lot of times when you’ve thought that in the past, it’s turned out that he did tell you.”)

2. Should I correct a candidate who assumed I was a man?

I’m a woman with a name that reflects that: let’s say Anne Smith. I don’t work in a male-dominated industry.

We’re adding new people to our team for work that we’ve got a contract to cover, and I’m pre-screening the candidates by having short phone interviews. The role is research on a very specific topic (let’s say metallic red teapots with brown spouts produced in the south in 1853), but we’re just looking for people with a MS in pottery and 2+ years of teapot experience. I’ve compiled a solid short list quickly and I think we’ll have the jobs filled in record time.

Yesterday we got an application from Fergus, a candidate finishing a PhD on exactly the topic we’re working on. And of course that PhD came with many years of experience doing research. On paper, Fergus seems perfectly (over) qualified. So I reached out to schedule a phone screen, addressing him by him by his first name and signing the email with my first name, which is the norm in our industry (but perhaps not in the region of the U.S. that he is in). He promptly wrote back with, “Mr. Smith, here are dates/times that work for me, thanks, Fergus Jones.” I ignored the “Mr.” and wrote back a quick, “Thanks, I’ll call you at date/time — Anne.” Fergus responded with, “Sir, I look forward to speaking with you then.”

It’s not bothering me that he doesn’t seem to know the gender of the person he’s talking to, but I would be mortified if I realized at the start of an interview that I had misgendered the interviewer multiple times (and I sound like a woman on the phone). So I debated responding with a clarifying email (“Just a heads-up that I’m actually Ms. Smith”) but asked my partner for his two cents. He said, “Hey, if Fergus can’t see that the signature on your emails is a big and bold line that says ‘Anne Smith (she/her),’ is he really going to be that great of a researcher? Ignore it and see how he handles it at the interview.” Good point, but I miss things sometimes too, so I also ran it by a friend who hires in a more male-dominated industry. She responded, “Do you have your pronouns in your signature? He’s doing it on purpose.”

So … uh … is this really a thing? Do I try to clarify over email in advance or see what happens in the interview? Most of us in the company have our pronouns in our signatures and many people in the agencies we work for do as well. And it’s great that his experience so closely aligns with what we’re looking for, but we do have several other strong candidates: I’m not worried about filling the positions.

I doubt he’s doing it on purpose. There are people who are hostile to the idea of pronouns in email signatures — or to respecting people’s pronouns generally — but they don’t normally take an openly hostile stand while they’re trying to get a job with you.

It’s more likely he’s (a) defaulting to the sexist assumption that anyone with hiring authority would of course be a man and (b) not paying enough attention to see the big glaring sign in front of his face that you are not. Both of these are problems if you’re hiring someone who needs to have attention to detail and an ability to work respectfully with women.

You do not need to try to save him from embarrassment over his own actions by clarifying pre-interview. Let him learn the lesson on his own (if he will, which he probably won’t).

Note: it’s possible Fergus is from a culture where Anne isn’t a common name and he doesn’t recognize it as typically feminine. His use of “sir” also might point in that direction since that’s not how we typically write emails in the U.S. But it doesn’t really matter because both the points above still hold, given that your pronouns were right there.

3. I told a networker the truth about my awful old boss but they didn’t believe me

Last year I left a role on Team A where I routinely got screamed at. As you might imagine, it was a really bad place to work: favoritism, no empathy from leadership, inconsistent expectations, high workload with high expectations and zero resources. And of course, the screaming.

Thankfully I moved onto a new team B where I’m treated very well. There is an opening on my current team and on my old team — both are essentially the same job I have now and had then. Someone on LinkedIn reached out to me and asked if I was the hiring manager (obviously I am not) and if not, could I tell them about the role(s) and/or introduce them to the hiring manager or someone else to ask questions. No problem! I am happy to help out and answer questions. It turns out they have applied only to my old department, so my response was something like, “Sure, I can introduce you to someone, but to be completely transparent, part of the reason I left that team is because I do not enjoy being screamed at.”

I know the job market is rough right now — a lot of my friends are struggling. But I believe in being honest about this kind of thing and I don’t want to encourage someone to walk into that situation. But the person who reached out to me about this clearly didn’t believe me. I think I’ve done what I can and I know I don’t have any obligation to do anything else, though I did give her the name of the hiring manager (the screamer). What I’m curious about is if there is a better way to be up-front about this kind of thing or if there’s anything you would have recommended doing differently?

Kudos to you for being straightforward about it. You’ve given them important information that’s often very hard for outside candidates to get (until they start working there and discover it too late). You can’t do more than that; if they don’t believe you, it’s not your job to convince them.

Sometimes people refuse to accept this kind of info because they want the job so they they tell themselves it couldn’t really be as bad as you said, or that you fed into the problem yourself (you deserved to be screamed at — the office version of “your skirt was too short”), or that they’ll just somehow have a different experience. It’s short-sighted, but it happens. To be fair, sometimes people do have a different experience! Some people have a higher tolerance for yellers, or vibe with the boss in a different way, or just don’t care as much as others would. But not believing you is weird.

I don’t think you need to change anything about how you approached it. Your response was pretty perfect, in fact. You gave the relevant info matter-of-factly and concisely. What someone does with it is up to them.

Related:
should I warn job candidates about how bad my company is?

4. Former employee keeps hassling me to come back after I was fired

Last winter, I was let go from a company where I had worked for seven years. Now that they’re in their busy season, a former direct report has been contacting me constantly, begging me to come back.

He was always a bit erratic when I was his manager, going through periods where he’d make bizarre claims like being independently wealthy and not needing the job, only to later demand a $10,000 raise because he was struggling financially. His work was good and he filled a niche we needed, so I tolerated his emotional outbursts, even when they involved him venting to me for 45 minutes at a time. Odd people deserve jobs too, right? However, now that I’m no longer being paid to manage this kind of behavior, I’m not thrilled about being dragged into work drama again.

I’ve offered to help out during the busy season because I’d like to repair my reputation at the company, where I was once a valued employee before burnout led to my departure. My former boss informed me that the higher-ups rejected the idea of me returning, but they didn’t tell my former employee this. Instead, it seems they’ve told him that I burned bridges, and now he’s pressuring me to “mend fences,” saying the team can’t manage without me.

I’m currently searching for my next role and am hesitant to alienate anyone who could potentially help me find work. What should I do?

Realistically, how likely is this guy to help you find work? He seems to have terrible judgment (on display when you worked there, plus now in hassling you to return after being fired; even if he doesn’t know you were fired, his belief that it’s appropriate to badger someone into returning to a job doesn’t speak well of him) and I’m skeptical that he’s a valuable contact who you need to preserve a relationship with at all costs. You could simply ignore his messages.

But if you don’t want to do that, there’s nothing wrong with saying the next time he contacts you, “I’ve offered. They’ve declined. I’m not going to pursue it further, so please stop asking me to.” Or skip the details and just say, “It’s not on the table, so please stop asking about it.”

5. Rejected by text

After a phone interview, an in-person interview, and a work sample (unpaid), I’ve just been rejected for a job over text. The rejection itself doesn’t sting as I had decided the job isn’t right for me, but I can’t get over them doing it by text!

Should I say something? Is there a way to without sounding catty? Ordinarily I think I’d just leave it, but the person who sent the message had told me they’ve only worked there seven weeks. Part of me feels like maybe someone should tell them how unprofessional it is, especially at this stage of the process.

Is a quick “Thanks for letting me know, this is news I would have rather received over email or a phone call, but all the best in your search” even worth it or should I just forget it ever happened?

Ugh, why do people do this?! This is not a casual “I’m running 10 minutes late, meet you inside” message. It’s professional news of some weight and it should be treated that way.

As for whether or not to say anything, I’m torn. On one hand, it’s good for hiring managers to get feedback about this sort of thing, and you might be telling her something she genuinely had never thought about and she might rethink it for the future. On the other hand, when you give feedback about how a rejection was delivered, there’s always a risk that it’ll bite you in some way in the future. For example, if a job opening comes up there next month that you’d be perfect for, will she not contact you about it because she’s embarrassed or feels chilly toward you now (whereas she would have contacted you otherwise)? Or if you apply there in the future, same concerns.

I really hate telling people not to deliver well-warranted feedback because it plays right into the problematic power dynamics already present in an interview situation, and also because employers will never learn if they don’t get feedback from candidates … but you’ve got to balance all that and decide how much you care about each piece of it.