Ask a Manager

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

1. My manager wants me to start telemarketing

I work for a small financial firm, and a lot of our business comes from referrals and leads from other types of businesses in the area (insurance companies, etc). Lately work has been kind of slow, so the owners of the firm (a husband-wife team) hired someone specifically for “telemarketing” – cold calling people to ask if they’re interested in our services.

Before they hired this person, the husband asked me if I would be comfortable making calls like this, and I told him that I would not. I consider myself a financial professional and don’t think it’s in my job description to be a telemarketer (I wouldn’t like it, and I wouldn’t even be good at it). I thought the problem was solved since they made the hire, but yesterday the wife pulled me aside and insisted that I start making these calls too. She gave me a list with hundreds of names and phone numbers, and didn’t even give me a chance to say no. Basically, I was told rather than asked.

I don’t know what to do now since A) I have zero interest in being a telemarketer for them, and I extremely dislike the idea of it, and B) they hired someone specifically for this role, so I don’t understand why I have to be forced to participate as well – especially since it’s so outside my job description. If I wanted to be a telemarketer, I’d work for a telemarketing company! Is there any way that I can tell them that I don’t want to do this? Or am I obligated to “do as I’m told”?

You always have the option of pushing back if your job changes in ways you don’t like. Say something like this: “I’m really not comfortable making cold calls, and it’s far afield from the work I came on to do. My understanding was that we hired Jane to focus on calling, so that I could continue focusing on X and Y, which is my professional focus. I’d like to continue keeping my focus there — is that possible?”

From there, it’s certainly your employer’s prerogative to say, “Sorry, I hear you but this is how we’re doing it now” — in which case you’d have to decide if you still want the job under these changed conditions — but often a simple conversation will resolve the issue.

2. I just got a raise — can I ask for more?

I’ve been in my current job for a year, and just had a positive performance evaluation. I didn’t ask for a raise in the evaluation meeting because, to be honest, I wasn’t sure how the evaluation was going to go. I had lots of evidence that I excelled in my position, but my boss isn’t forthcoming with feedback and is frequently out of the office, so it wasn’t clear to me how she felt about my performance until we sat down to talk about it. Now, two weeks later, I received a notice via mail that I’ve gotten a raise – which, while appreciated, was lower than I was planning on requesting. Is it bad form to negotiate it? I’d like the chance to at least make a case for a higher percentage, but I don’t want to overstep a boundary.

If it matters, I sit in on the budget meetings, so I know the range set for raises. My raise was on the lower end of that scale.

Sure, you can go back to your boss and make the case for more, explaining why you deserve more. (Leave your knowledge of other people’s raises out of it, though — it can be background info to inform your thinking but shouldn’t be part of the case you make to your manager.)

Keep in mind, though, that your window for renegotiating this has probably passed. In many organizations, you would have needed to do this before raises were finalized; at this point, the budget might be set. (That’s especially likely in an organization that notifies people about raises by mail. Nothing really screams “bureaucracy” like conveying big updates by postal mail.) But there’s nothing wrong with having the conversation and finding out.

3. My coworker keeps cc’ing my boss on minor issues

I have a peer who always CC’s my boss when asking me to follow up on minor issues. I get along with this person really well and have a lot of respect for them, but this really makes me feel like I’m not being trusted to get something done. What’s the best way to approach this?

“Hi Jane, I noticed you’ve been cc’ing Percival on minor issues. It made me wonder if you have concerns about my responsiveness. Is there a reason you’re looping Percival in as well?”

4. Did HR mishandle my sick coworker’s resignation?

A coworker recently quit because of health issues.She was unable to give notice because she no longer had any vacation days or sick days left and was too unwell to continue to work. HR said that because she quit without notice, she was not allowed to say goodbye to anyone. She was shocked and very sad about this. She was allowed to clear her desk, but then had to leave the office immediately.

This sort of procedure is usually what happens when someone is fired. Her leaving came a surprise to many people when it was announced a day later by email which didn’t explain the circumstances. There is a feeling that HR behaved in a very mean way. What would be a normal procedure if someone quits without notice?

That’s ridiculous. While quitting without notice is usually a Bad Thing, there are certain types of situations where it’s totally understandable — like health issues that make it impossible to continue. The appropriate response to that is sympathy for the person with the health issues, understanding of the circumstances, and wishing them well. It’s not to treat them like someone you’ve just fired, which is what your HR department did. Someone on that team has a misunderstanding of some very basic concepts.

5. I flubbed an answer to a recruiter

I just had a call with a head recruiter, and I mispoke regarding where I was in the process with other companies I have been applying to. I wasn’t used to being asked about whether or not I was actively interviewing elsewhere. I corrected the mistake quickly. Later I discovered one of the companies I mentioned had decided to wait and regroup before continuing with any candidates (it’s a small but promising startup). I let the aforementioned recruiter know via email, but it all feels sloppy. How much does a recruiter weigh into final hiring decisions? I have an in-person interview at the company next week and now I am frazzled. The phone interview with the hiring manager went well, and the call with the recruiter, which followed the in-person invite and was really about prepping for the in-person interview, is the first call I felt I didn’t sound my best. Now I am wondering if I should be worried or anxious about what role he may play in the final hiring choice.

Should I be concerned about the fact that I flubbed a bit and was flustered by the question? (I’ve been prepared for others, but this caught me by surprise) Was it a bad move to share the information about the other company that decided to wait? Does that make me seem undesirable, honest, none of the above?

You’re over-thinking it! First, it’s not a big deal at all that you didn’t have perfect info about some other company’s hiring process; no one would expect you to. (And in fact, you didn’t need to follow up and correct your answer afterwards.) Interviewers sometimes ask about where you’re at with other companies because they want a sense of whether they might have to move you through their process particularly quickly or not. Your answer doesn’t need to be precise, and even if it is, it’s common for things to change.

Second, recruiters aren’t usually a major voice in final hiring decisions; their decision-making is much more at the start of the process, where they decide who to interview and who to move forward to the hiring manager. They might still give input and relay info back and forth, but it’s highly unlikely that something like this would factor in at all.

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

1. My coworker came on to me and now his wife is emailing me

Several months ago, I was at a pub after work with some workmates. Toward the end of the evening, I was aggressively cornered by one of the married men I work with (who I thought was a trusted friend). One minute he was standing next to me, and the next minute he had his hands on me and his mouth on mine. I immediately said NO and pushed him away while he protested with an entitled “Come on!” I asked him why on earth he would do such a thing and mentioned that his wife and young toddler would not appreciate his behavior. He apologized and broke down, telling me that he is having marital problems. I suggested he work on his personal problems and leave me out of it.

I went away from that incident feeling shattered that this person would betray my trust in such a way. I spent the weekend deciding what to do about it. The following week at work, I took him aside and had a follow-up chat with him. After our chat, I had a sense that he understood how inappropriate his behavior had been, and he assured me he was taking steps to deal with his problems in a more constructive way. We were able to maintain a somewhat professional working relationship, although strained at times because I no longer respect or trust him. (Incidentally, he approached me about my seeming negative attitude toward him in the workplace and I explained to him that the incident had affected my trust and respect and that with time it could improve.)

Fast forward to the present day. I received an email from his wife that read, “You kissed my husband? How could you?” I am beyond livid and I have serious concerns about this affecting my employment. What should be my next step, if any? (I should mention that I chose not to discuss the incident with anyone in my workplace and I did not report it since it happened after work hours.) I suspect he told his wife that “we kissed” because he found it a useful driver for whatever his agenda is. I cannot even begin to tell you how helpless I feel.

Tell your coworker ASAP that he needs to do whatever is necessary to ensure that you never have to hear or think about this incident again, and if that doesn’t happen, you’ll file a sexual harassment complaint with HR. Don’t get into a long conversation with him about it; it’s not up for debate. He solves the problem he created or you involve someone who will — and then follow through on that. And in fact, if you don’t get the sense during this conversation that he’s taking you seriously, go straight to HR with it. And don’t feel at all guilty about doing that; you’re entitled to have a work life free of groping hands and accusations from spouses — and that applies to interactions with coworkers outside of work hours too.

Read an update to this letter here.

2. My otherwise great intern is a sloppy writer

I am supervising a talented and driven summer intern, who is enthusiastic and conscientious in every way but one: he makes many spelling and punctuation errors and randomly capitalizes words inappropriately. I’ve asked him to proofread his work more closely, but that hasn’t fixed the capitalization issue – I tried running one of his paragraphs through Microsoft Word’s grammar checker and it didn’t catch most of the capitalizations. Also, he’s doing a lot of spreadsheet work where a grammar checker doesn’t really help.

The problem is, I don’t know whether this is caused by a learning disability or something that might be sensitive – especially since he is in college, and I can’t imagine that professors are letting this kind of thing go. I know I need to explain to him that his work looks unprofessional and that he needs to fix this; apart from the job he’s doing now, I think avoiding the issue would be a disservice to him. How should I approach this conversation?

Be direct! Don’t worry about dancing around it; it’s kinder to him to deliver clear feedback about this. (Wouldn’t you prefer it that way if you were in his shoes?) I’d say something like this: “I’m finding a number of spelling and punctuation errors in your work, as well as words being capitalized when they should be lowercase. Can we talk through some of these errors so we can figure out if it’s just an oversight that would be fixed if you proofread your work, or whether it would help to talk through what should and shouldn’t be capitalized?” And then do that — and if turns out that he’s really not clear on when he should and shouldn’t capitalize, point him to a helpful online resource like this or this.

(This has the potential to be a demoralizing conversation — it’s embarrassing to be told you don’t know how to capitalize when you’re an adult — so make sure that you’re also giving him positive feedback on the many things it sounds like he’s doing well.)

3. Rejected candidate keeps contacting me

I interviewed a candidate for a position in my company. She was not qualified, and so we moved on. After the interview, she added me on LinkedIn, and I accepted (with some reservations). Now she is constantly contacting me on LinkedIn asking about positions, such as are there any jobs, how is the company doing, and resume advice. Is it better to cut her off completely or better to say, “Don’t call us, we’ll you”?

The kindest option would be to politely ask her to stop. I’d say something like, “Unfortunately, I’m not able to respond to questions like these very often. Thanks for understanding, and good luck.”

4. Mentioning a raise or bonus on resume

Should I include the fact that I received a performance bonus and merit increase on my resume? Not the dollar amount, of course, just that I received them. If so, how should I phrase it?

Nope. You can talk about what you did that merited them, but not the bonus or raise themselves. In part this is just convention, but it’s also about the fact that other employers have no way of knowing what this really represented (some companies give raises and bonuses out liberally — which is why it’s better to focus instead of what that raise of bonus was in response to).

5. Company changed online application providers right after I applied

Yesterday morning, I applied for a job through a company website, which was connected to recruiting software. It took me to a new window to upload my resume and cover letter. After hitting the “send” button, I received an email from the company confirming the receipt of my information. Later that night, when I went back to the company website, I noticed that they changed to a different recruiting software (though the format is similar).

Now I am worried that my information may be discarded due to this change, despite the confirmation email. Should I reapply? What are possible reasons for them to make this change?

Companies periodically change software for all sorts of functions and for all sorts of reasons — you just happened to get them on the day when they were making a change-over, apparently. I wouldn’t worry about your application; they likely have hundreds or thousands in their system, which they certainly will have arrangements to transfer over to their new system.

(If you absolutely must, you could email them in a week to explain that you saw they changed software on the day you applied and you want to make sure your application didn’t get lost in the transition — but this would be more for your peace of mind than a likely need.)

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

1. My office is moving inside my boss’s house

I work for a small company with 2 full-time employees, 2 part-time, and a weekly bookkeeper. My boss is wealthy, mercurial, and often out of the office or traveling. Recently, he announced that he has decided to move our office from our (already small) space (no kitchen, no conference room and we all share 2 long desks) into his duplex apartment, which is supposed to be quite luxurious. I am extremely wary of working out of his apartment and the lack of division this would create between personal and business space, not to mention that we are expected to work 9 hours (or more) a day and are discouraged from taking more than 20 minutes outside of the office to get lunch. But he wants to save the money and it seems like his mind is already made up. Not to mention his live-in partner just moved out following a split.

I really want to express my reservations about the move, and I’m already looking for other jobs. How do I frame my concerns so that they sound professional and not just personal – i.e., that I don’t want to be in his house all day? I’m dreading this move and I feel it will make our company look less legitimate.

If you have a good relationship with him and generally have a good rapport with him, you could say, “I’ve been thinking about the prospect of having our office be inside your house, and I’ll be honest — I’m a little wary. How are you envisioning this working so that you’re able to maintain a division between the work space and your personal space?” If you have specific concerns beyond that one, it’s reasonable to bring those up too and ask what his thoughts are for how to handle them.

But ultimately, I think you’re right to be looking at other jobs if this doesn’t appeal to you. This is a very specific type of set-up that wouldn’t be for everyone.

2. Can I use bereavement leave in this situation?

My father-in-law just passed away. My company has a three-day bereavement policy. He was local to where I live, the arrangements are already taken care off and the funeral will be simple and brief. Other than supporting my husband, I am fairly unnecessary to the process. I can’t honestly say that I am devastated by his passing. My children will be coming from out of town for the funeral and I would like to spend time with them. Is it wrong to take all three days when I don’t really need them to help with arrangements or travel and I am not personally experiencing significant grief? Taking the time away from work will not create an issue, at work, for anyone else. What do you think?

On one hand, bereavement leave is intended for situation where you’re truly bereaved or where it’s necessary for travel and other logistics. But on the other hand, your husband and children are presumably truly grieving and would appreciate your support — particularly your husband; losing a parent is a big deal. And really, it’s just three days. If you were going to use the time to, say, go shopping, I’d tell you it’s a misuse of the benefit. But assuming that’s not the case, I think it’s legitimate.

3. Should I have dealt with this intern any differently?

This is about a job I just left, but I’d like advice on how to handle similar situations in the future. I had an intern in my department who was around my age. In the beginning, I really took her under my wing and tried to motivate and get her to do interesting things. Our department wasn’t the best managed, and at first, I understood her complaints. After a while though, it became clear that she was incredibly negative, and was very unwilling to be corrected in any way. She also simply wouldn’t do her work, requiring extensive hand-holding and needing to be told several times what to do, or complaining about her tasks. Socially, she would get into arguments with people over minor disagreements. Yes, I get that we need to mentor interns a bit, but I wasn’t her supervisor, and the degree of mentoring required seemed to be more on the verge of parenting. She made the working environment a lot worse, for everybody.

So I regretted taking her under my wing, of course, and distanced myself from her while remaining cordial. At times, I’d feel bad for not wanting to be around her. As I left the job, I had a small get-together with only a few of the younger people I knew in our company, without telling or inviting her. Again, I felt bad, but reasoned that I had done my best, and that this wasn’t a gathering with everybody in the office – if it had been, I would’ve invited her, of course.

How do I handle situations like this in the future? Was I reasonable in my behaviour? While she was difficult, I didn’t want to turn this into a situation of complete social ostracism. What’s the balance, here?

When you start to mentor someone like you did, it’s appropriate to give direct feedback about things you see that are holding them back. Ideally, you would have done that here. I think it’s fine to distance yourself from a colleague when you realize they have the traits that she displayed, but it would have been kind to let her know why. Ideally you would have explained to her what you were observing and why it was problematic.

I don’t think you need to feel guilty about not inviting her to a social event outside of work, since it sounds like that was a small number of hand-picked people, not your entire team

4. Reference from the boss who owes me money

I was working in a contract position which my boss decided not to renew due to lack of work. I was there for 2 years (during which time I had a couple of contract extensions). My last few paycheques came late or bounced. It has been a month and since I left and I haven’t been paid my last two paycheques or my vacation pay. I have repeatedly been in contact with my boss who says he is having trouble with his account and needs to contact his bank manager, and then doesn’t get back to me. He owes me over $2500, which is a substantial amount of money to me.

Now I’m in the process of interviewing for new jobs and they have asked for my references. Should I list my former boss? I’m worried if I press him for the money or call the Labour Board, he’ll turn on me and give me a bad reference. I’m 27 and have had only 2 professional jobs, so I really do need a reference from him. However, I’m not in a position to ignore the money he owes me. It is a small company with 10 people and he is owner, finance, HR and everything else.

Unless you know him to be highly ethical about this kind of thing (which seems unlikely, given his behavior with your pay), I wouldn’t put him on the list of people you’re suggesting they call — you’re in the middle of a dispute with him and so there’s no knowing how that will go. I’d suggest other references instead … and if they ask about your most recent boss, explain that unfortunately you still haven’t received your last few paychecks from him, the relationship has become strained over that, and you’re not confident that it won’t have affected the reference he’ll give you. (And actually, if you get the sense they’re likely to contact off-list references, I’d explain this proactively.)

5. Explaining my higher-than-usual salary to interviewers

I work in nonprofits, and my current position pays extremely well. I’m looking for a new job, and I realize that this may mean taking a substantial pay cut. I’ve had a couple of interviews recently where interviewers asked for my current salary, and I’m afraid sharing it was what discounted me from the position. I currently earn in the $70k range, and the position (I found out later through a colleague) was paying in the $50k range. I would actually be totally comfortable taking a cut of that size for the right job if I had to, but I’m not sure how to communicate that in future interviews while also being clear that I’d really, really like them to match or beat my current salary if it’s possible.

Well, first, stop answering a question that’s none of their business anyway (what you currently make) and instead answer the question that they should be asking you, which is what salary range you’re seeking. Saying “I’m looking for something in the X range” will be enough to stop most interviewers from pressing further. If someone does press further, it’s up to you whether you want to share that info or not (more on this topic here), but if you decide to, you could frame it as, “I’ve known for a long time that I’m paid above market rates, and I don’t mind getting my salary back in line with market norms.”

Beyond that, you’ve got to get a really good handle on what a particular job is likely to pay. Right now it sounds like you’re going in blind about whether they might pay at your current level, or if you’d need to take a significant cut. That’s going to make it hard to negotiate well — it’s hard to say “I’d take a big pay cut” and “I’d like you to match or beat my unusually well-paying current job.” So salary research for the particular organizations you’re interviewing with is going to be essential. (Particularly in nonprofits, where salaries can vary widely. Guidestar, where you can see nonprofits’ financial statements and their most highly paid staff, will be your friend here.)