Ask a Manager

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

1. My coworker is making hateful comments about a foreign country

An employee where I work has become very radical in his views concerning a foreign country which is going through a crisis. He has family in that region. His social media is littered with hateful thoughts concerning what he feels is their enemy — and how evil the enemy is, how non-human, etc. Often the comments are aimed at people of a specific religion, and he makes similar comments to coworkers.

I have mentioned to my boss that I am concerned, especially in today’s world in which people sometimes just “snap.” She shrugged it off. Should I put this in writing? If something should happen in the workplace, I think I would want evidence that a report had been made. Or is that jumping the gun (no pun intended) since there have not been threats made to his coworkers?

Your boss should at a minimum be concerned that your coworker might be creating a hostile workplace — in the legal sense — for people with roots in the region your coworker is ranting about. Just like federal law requires employers to maintain workplaces free of sexual harassment, they also require them to act on hostile statements that are grounded in ethnicity, race, national origin, religion, and other protected classes.

And aside from the law, your boss should also be concerned that your coworker is spewing this kind of vitriol into your work environment. Apparently she’s not, which is messed up, but I’d bet your HR department would be. I’m not a fan of going to HR for 85% of the things it’s suggested for, but this one is right up their alley (and they’re trained — or at least should be — to realize the legal issues this poses, which your boss apparently missed). Go pay them a visit.

Read an update to this letter here.

2. Am I misrepresenting my commitment to a job?

I’m currently interviewing for jobs, and while I’m a hard worker and I strive for excellence in my work, I also prize my time out of the office. I don’t just want work-life balance, I need it. In my current job, that can mean that I will elect to leave work on time rather than staying late, or not check email at night unless it’s an emergency.

I’m currently interviewing for a new job I want very much. I plan to tell them that I will be an excellent, committed worker in their company, always striving for excellence. My concern is: is this false advertising? I want to sell myself, but if don’t want them to get the impression that I will be working late into the night, or that I’ll drop what I’m doing on a weekend to answer emails. This company is a nonprofit, so many employees stay late because of their commitment to the cause.

When I’m in the office, I have a strong and committed work ethic, but I can’t be that way 24/7. Will I be selling myself incorrectly on an interview if I don’t indicate that?

“Excellent and committed” doesn’t mean “committed 24-7 with no outside commitments” — at least not in reasonably functional workplaces. It does, however, often mean “willing to tolerate small amounts of inconvenience when the work requires it,” like staying late on occasion, working through lunch when you have a packed schedule, or checking email outside of work when something important is going on. It becomes unreasonable if it means working late into the night on a regular basis (although in some fields, like law, that is considered reasonable), but in most professional positions, you’re expected to work late on occasion if the work demands it. So you don’t want to draw a hard line — or rather, if you do want to draw a hard line, you’ll need to make sure you’re focusing on fields where that will be okay. (Nonprofit work could go either way, depending on the culture of the organization and the type of role you’re in.)

In any case, it’s in your best interest to find out what their expectations are of you. You don’t want to talk your way into a job and then find out that you’re required to work hours you’re not interested in. So you should ask your own questions too — about what hours people typically work, how often people work on weekends, and so forth.

3. Company says they don’t have to pay out my vacation days, but they do

I’m about to leave my current job, and after giving my notice, I talked to HR (which is really just one uninterested woman) about my unused vacation days. She informed me that they don’t pay out for unused vacation days, which was news to me. I checked Maryland state law and it says that the only way a company can not pay out unused vacation time is if they put it in writing and inform the employee at the time they start the position. I brought this up and she said the law doesn’t apply to them because that’s not their company policy — which isn’t written anywhere, not even in the employment agreement that I signed. Their compromise was to allow me to take off 3 of the 7 days I am owed during my last 2 weeks. Is this legal at all, or so I just have to let it go?

Maryland’s law does indeed state that if an employer doesn’t have a written policy to the contrary that was communicated to you at the time of your hiring, then they must pay out your unused vacation days upon your exit. It’s all well and good for your HR person to say that they do have such a written policy, but if she’s wrong about that, then they owe you the money. I’d go back to her and say, “I’ve looked everywhere for some record of this policy and can’t find it. The law says that the policy would need to be in writing and communicated at the time of hire. Is there something I’m overlooking? If not, we really need to follow the law on this.”

4. Coworker is calling an older coworker “daddy”

Am I wrong to think it’s creepy for a young woman in our office to be calling an older coworker “daddy”? To me, it sounds sexual and just creepy. The man on the receiving end of this is a nice guy and he just laughs. I don’t think my female coworker understands how it sounds because she is from Vietnam and not a native English speaker. I tried to explain it to her, but I only hurt her feelings, which i apologized for — but it just sounds sexual and inappropriate.

Whoa. Yes, inappropriate indeed. I’m sure it is a language issue, but someone should help her realize that she should stop. Ideally, that someone would be the guy on the receiving end of it — he should stop laughing and tell her that he’d like her to call him Percival or whatever his name is.

5. My company wants me to buy new clothes for work

I have been working for my current employer for about four months. I have fallen into the role of manager/cleaner/chef/bartender at a country pub/restaurant bed and breakfast. Yesterday they decided I have to buy black and white clothes to wear to work. I feel this is unfair as I have been buying work-specific clothes since I started work there. I also feel that as they didn’t mention this when I started, it is unreasonable for them to change their minds four months later. My job is poorly paid and I have no desire to spend what little money I have on clothes that someone else has decided I must wear. Do I have any rights? I have no contract and nothing in writing.

They can legally require this. But before resigning yourself to it, try talking to them. Explain your situation and see if anything can be done. For instance: “I want to be respectful of this change, but it’s going to create a hardship for me. I don’t have many black and white clothes so would need to buy new ones, and I’ve already been putting money into buying ___ under the old dress code. Are there any alternatives that would work?”

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

1. My interviewer kept laughing at me

I had an interview today for a part-time writing tutor position at my local community college. I met all of the qualifications and I have previous tutoring experience, so I was very excited about this opportunity. The interviewer said he was impressed with my resume and he was pleased with my experience, but then the interview started to go sour.

He started things off with the “tell me about yourself,” so I told him about my recent graduation and my past experiences as a tutor. He looked at my application, grinned, and started chuckling! I laughed nervously, but I really had no idea what he found funny, so I just fell silent. I sat there for a minute or two, and I felt too taken aback to ask him if anything was wrong or if I should clarify anything I said. Finally, he looked back at me, still grinning, and said again, “Tell me about yourself.” I had no idea what to say, so I somewhat repeated my original statements, as well as discussing my other past job experiences that were relevant. He nodded and seemed to follow along this time, but his next question was for me to describe my past jobs…which I had already spent several minutes doing.

During the interview he said, “My supervisor is supposed to be sitting in this interview, too,” and looking out the door before asking me another question. He also kept apologizing for weather, which was strange because I had never really mentioned or complained about the weather. And after almost every question, he would shuffle through my application and laugh. I don’t even know his name; he didn’t introduce himself, he didn’t have business cards, and I felt too put off to ask.

I’m really not sure what to think. I mean, he was probably just a bad interviewer, but his laughs didn’t seem nervous or friendly at all; he really came off, to be frank, like a jerk. But I also don’t want to over-analyze because, otherwise, the tutoring center seems well-run and the other staff was nice. The interviewer said that he’ll be emailing me his decision tomorrow and that I would need to start right away, but this just feels so rushed and I’m just still perplexed about him laughing after all of my answers. I really don’t know what to do.

My guess is that he’s an inexperienced interviewer, maybe even a first-time interviewer, who had no idea what he was doing and was laughing from nerves. It’s still totally inappropriate, but the only other feasible explanation is some form of clinical insanity, and I think inexperienced, awkward interviewer is far more likely. And his comment that his manager was supposed to be participating would fit with that explanation too.

If you’re offered the job, I’d ask if you can meet with the person who would be your manager. During that conversation, you might also ask about the role of the first guy and see if you can glean anything that way.

Read an update to this letter here.

2. My managers are giving me contradictory instructions

I’m a graphic designer working for a government agency. I report to both my direct boss, “Tiffany,” and the head of the organization, “Jared.” We’re a small office (maybe 20 people), and there’s been a huge amount of overhaul recently. The office is running much more smoothly than it has in the past due to Jared’s strong leadership and hiring more qualified applicants to several key roles, but 3/4 of the office hasn’t been here 12 months yet, myself included.

There have been multiple occasions where Tiffany and Jared have given me directly contradictory instructions. In the last incident, Tiffany told me to cc her if Jared gave me any additional direction on how to proceed with Project X. Jared did end up giving me extra feedback, and when I informed him that I’d be cc’ing Tiffany, Jared told me not to. (This wasn’t due to any maliciousness; Tiffany was on medical leave and I really believe that Jared though he was avoiding stressing her out.)

This puts me in an awkward spot. I can’t follow both of their instructions. I’m very junior in the company, and I was first hired on an intern while an undergraduate. They chose to keep me on after I graduated. This job is fantastic, and I’d really like to keep it. But I don’t want to have to fib to either Tiffany or Jared. Tiffany has told me that this is “just how Jared is,” but colluding with her to keep Jared out of the loop isn’t going to benefit me in the future! I’m going to have a direct conversation with Tiffany once she returns to medical leave, but I’m worried that she’s going to essentially tell me “don’t worry about it,” which doesn’t solve my problem. How do I handle this?

Explain to them both that you sometimes get slightly different guidance from each of them and that you’ll flag it when that happens so that they can decide how they’d like it handled. I wouldn’t assume that Jared will object to that; when he told you not to loop in Tiffany, she was on medical leave — and employers should leave people alone when they’re on medical leave.

Flagging contradictory instructions doesn’t have to be a big awkward thing. It can just be a simple email to them both saying, “I’m hearing slightly different perspectives from each of you, so wanted to alert both of you to do that so we can figure out which path to take.”

Read an update to this letter here.

3. Should employers stick to application deadlines?

I was wondering what your suggestions are for application deadlines. If I set deadlines and advertise them, isn’t it just common courtesy to all involved that I keep to those deadlines? I had one person who I worked for who said, “No, we should take applications on a continual basis,” which would be fine, but I have to run all of my hires through a selection committee, who are all busy people and to keep adding more and more applications to the stack after the deadline seems disrespectful of their time. I will of course keep all of the applications that I receive for a year, in case any other openings become available and to ensure that we are ready in case anyone accuses us of unequal hiring practices.

Ultimately, your goal is to make the best hire you can, and you shouldn’t let an arbitrary application deadline get in the way of that. It’s fine to sketch out rough timelines for when you hope to finish each stage of the screening process, but if a fantastic candidate applies late in the process, it would be foolish to lock them out just because the deadline had passed. The bar certainly might get higher in the later stages — it might take more to get an interview after a certain point — but you want to make sure that you’re considering any truly excellent candidates who apply. You’re right that you don’t want to “keep adding more and more applications to the stack” of candidates for busy managers to interview, but that’s an argument for keeping the bar high throughout the process, so that your interviewers are only spending time on the best of the best.

4. My husband hit up my company for business

My husband recently became the director of sales for an LED lighting company. What I’m upset about is that he went behind my back and against my wishes by approaching my company about doing a lighting installation for them. I had told him to let me ask about it and to let me handle it, but he submitted a note on the website via our contact page.

I love my husband but he’s very inexperienced in the professional world. Plus I’ve been busting my butt for prospects of moving up within the company but I feel this very unprofessional behavior on the part of my husband will ruin things. How do I handle this? My boss hasn’t mentioned anything. The note would have gone to either my boss, the CEO, COO, or CFO or, worse, all four. Do I bring it up?

Honestly, I wouldn’t assume they’ll see it at all. A cold contact about lighting submitted through the company website’s contact form is unlikely to be forwarded to C-level executives. It’s actually far more likely that whoever handles that email account will ignore or delete it. Most companies aren’t particularly responsive to random email solicitations.

That’s assuming he didn’t mention your name, of course. Even then, though, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. If you’re asked about it, you can simply explain you didn’t know he was sending it.

5. Indicating a change in company ownership on a resume

I work for a CPA firm whose original owner sold the company last October. How do I incorporate the change in ownership on my resume without having to list both companies as separate employers? I want to keep it all as one so it doesn’t look like I quit one job and started another job all in the same month and year.

Like this:

Lannister Tyrell Accounting (formerly Stark Ltd.)

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

1. My coworker spread a false rumor that I have racist tattoos

I was recently tipped off to a rumor going around the workplace about me, created by a person in a supervisory position above me, saying that I have tattoos of swastikas on my chest (which I do NOT). I have no idea how far this spread before it got to me, but I was made aware of it in front of a room of my peers when I was conducting a training module that involved distribution of temporary tattoos (which sparked a coworker to tell me of the rumor). I do have tattoos on my upper chest, but they have no similarities to swastikas. I have no affiliations with any racially motivated organizations and don’t socialize with any coworkers outside of work.

I alerted my immediate supervisor of this rumor and asked for assistance. How should I proceed? Should I retain an attorney? Will my reputation recover? What does the law say about people in positions of power spreading false rumors about their subservient employees?

The law provides remedies for defamation of character by anyone (there’s nothing special for people in positions of power), but more to the point, why not go talk to the source of the rumor directly and ask them why on earth they think that about you? Express shock and disgust at the prospect, tell them that you’re horrified that they’ve told people this about you, and say you’d like them to correct the record with people this has spread to. Say that you’re concerned that this has falsely damaged your reputation, and ask what they plan to do to fix it. If you’re not satisfied with their response, I’d talk with HR and tell them you’re concerned about the impact of this on your reputation and standing.

It’s certainly possible that you could explore legal remedies with a lawyer, but you’d have to prove damages and there might be a more direct (and less expensive and less time-consuming) way of fixing this by just talking with the people involved.

2. My manager took away an opportunity I was excited about

I’m an HR manager, and I recently attended an Interviewing Skills for Line Managers training session with a few other managers. They appreciated the information, got a lot of value out of the session and indicated it was time very well spent. I then dedicated a lot of time and energy to taking what we’d learned in that presentation and combining it with our current training deck to create a more comprehensive Interview Skills/Recruitment Training session for all managers. During this project, my manager asked if I would be interested in rolling this out to our other offices and presenting the workshop globally (we have three other global locations). Of course, I said yes.

Fast forward a few weeks, and my boss has told my colleagues that this training can be presented by HR locally (with some fine-tuning per local legislation) and she wants me to present the session to my team, who will present it as their own.

Part of me wants to speak with my manager and ask why all of my hard work is being passed over to someone else and I am not getting this opportunity anymore, but part of me thinks that would be viewed as petty. I don’t want it to look like I have a problem with withholding information or that I’m not a team player. I feel like I am always sharing my knowledge, articles, ideas and time with my small team but am being overlooked and under appreciated in this instance. Do you have any suggestions? Is there a point asking my manager why?

It sounds like your manager thinks this will be a more efficient way of spreading the information, rather than you having to travel to each of the other offices. If that’s correct, that’s a pretty reasonable position and isn’t about overlooking/under-appreciating your work, but just about making a decision that makes the most sense for your company.

If you genuinely believe that it’s better for your company for you to do all the trainings yourself (for instance, if that would save others significant amounts of time), you could present that argument to your manager. Hell, even if you were just really excited to do it yourself and saw this as a growth opportunity, you could mention that and see if she’s willing to let you proceed as planned. But I wouldn’t look at this as a slight to you or as something unfair, because it doesn’t sound like that’s the case.

3. Applying for a job when I’m also on the hiring committee for it

I’m on the board of an organization that’s hiring an executive director. as the board chair and the person currently functioning as the interim ED, I’m on the hiring committee and am one of two people who will be conducting phone interviews over the next couple of days.

I would like to apply for the job and plan to clearly state that while I’m excited to apply, as a board member, I want them to be as unbiased as possible and hire the best candidate for the job. I’m coming into the process late, but we have a rolling deadline and I think my application would be competitive. Is it legally questionable to apply at this point? Is it legally questionable to partake in the phone interviews if I know I’m going to apply? (Note: we asked if any other board members could join us already and they all declined.) Regardless, do I need to submit my application in advance of the phone interviews?

In case it’s useful information, I am applying at this late date because I’ve gone back and forth a lot about whether or not to apply and because I wasn’t planning on applying if we had some applicants who I thought were really fantastic. Although some of the candidates are strong, I think I could be of better service to the organization.

None of this is legally questionable — the law doesn’t prevent board members or people involved in the hiring process from being candidates themselves. What matters is simply that the organization have a fair process that produces the best hire, and that others involved (board members, staff, members, and to a lesser extent, other candidates) don’t perceive the process to be have been unfair or biased.

That means that you should tell your fellow board members ASAP that you plan to throw your hat in the ring and ask if they’d like you to recuse yourself from the hiring process. Ideally you’d remove yourself from the process altogether; it might be too late to do that for the phone interviews scheduled for the next few days, but you should give them the opportunity to make different arrangements.

4. What to expect in a third interview

I had a first interview with the hiring manager and two potential coworkers that was more of a technical interview. I was then called back for a second interview with the full search committee, where I met with about 12 people across different departments that I’d interact regularly with. I’m definitely not used to being interviewed by 12 people in a room, but everyone was very nice (no stress interview tactics) and I felt like I did a really good job. If nothing else, it confirmed that I really wanted to work with these people.

At the end of the second interview, the hiring manager told me they had a few more candidates to interview, and then they would contact the references of their first choice. I didn’t hear anything for about two weeks, and my references confirmed no one had called them, so I just assumed they had gone with another candidate, and did my best to put the job out of mind.

Flash forward to last Friday, when they suddenly asked to set up a third interview between me and the department director (the hiring manager’s boss). I’ve actually never had a third interview before, so I have no idea what to expect. I’m trying to get prepared, but I’m not sure if this is going to be a technical interview (seems weird for a director to do), or more of a personality fit kind of interview. I know this is the annoyingly broad kind of question you probably hate, but can you give me any idea of what I should expect?

In general, I’d expect less of a technical focus, but beyond that it could be anything — it could be a basic “get to know you”/personality/culture fit kind of thing, or it could delving into your background, or it could be exploring how you’d handle particular situations or challenges. It just depends on what this particular interviewer is interested in assessing. Also, don’t assume it won’t cover some of the same ground you covered with others earlier — it very well might, because some interviewers like to do their own assessments rather than relying on reports from others.

5. Putting graduate-level GPA on a resume but not the undergrad GPA

I recently finished my master’s degree with a 3.67 GPA. I didn’t perform as well during my bachelor’s degree (below 3.0) however because I was working full time throughout it. My first question is whether a 3.67 is a good enough graduate school GPA to include on a resume? And second is if I do include my master’s GPA, is it necessary for me to also include my bachelor’s GPA? I’m not sure how it would look if I only listed my most recent GPA.

For undergrad, I don’t suggest including any GPA lower than 3.7 on a resume. But at the graduate level, a 3.7 GPA is good but probably not resume-worthy — since in many programs you need a 3.5 just to stay in. So I’d leave both of them off. (And in fact, I probably would have suggested leaving them both off even if you had a 4.0 for your masters, simply because most employers care even less about graduate GPAs than they do about undergraduate ones — with some exceptions, like law firms.)