Ask a Manager

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

1. The office temp is making more than me

I’m a recent college graduate and just started working for a small company about four months ago. The pay is not that great (a few dollars over minimum wage) but I don’t have issue with it because I know I don’t have much work experience and my boss has been great at training me in everything I need to learn for my job. With all the experience I’m receiving, I can deal with the pay. We recently hired a temp two months ago, who I supervise, to help with the sorting of some documents. I’ve spoken candidly with the temp regarding staffing agencies and the temp has mentioned that the agency takes 10% from their paycheck.

I open and sort the mail at my job and today I happen to see the bill from the temps staffing agency. I was a little shocked to see how much the temp has been getting paid by the hour and with the agency’s cut it’s still more than what I earn, almost $10 more. I stared at the paper for sometime just to make sure I was reading it correctly.

I’m in no way going to complain to my boss or anything like that. I was just shocked and I can’t help but to feel a little hurt that someone who is here temporary is making more an hour than I do. Is it common for a temp to earn more an hour than the employees who already work there? Could there be another reason why the pay for the temp is higher than mine if all they are doing is just sorting documents?

Yes, sometimes — because they’re being paid to be temporary, to be cut loose at any time without warning or feedback. Temps also don’t get benefits, so they often cost your company less overall once you factor in benefits and other overhead.

2. I made a mess of asking for a raise

Can I salvage my raise negotiation? A couple of months ago, I went to my department head to ask for a raise because my supervisor had left and his responsibilities became mine. My supervisor left a year and a half ago, and since then I have assumed some major responsibilities that used to be part of his supervisory job. I have done a good job in my new role and implemented some new programs, as well as completed lots of unfinished projects from the previous supervisor. The problem is when I met with the department head, I turned the meeting into a manual on “How NOT to ask for a raise”! I used every wrong technique and phrase in the book. All the stuff you warn people not to do. I focused on my years of experience and not on my ability to do the job, I whined about much money my supervisor used to make compared to my salary, I threatened to leave, I threatened to do less work, etc. etc. Oh, it was bad! Then last week I got mad because the department head had not done anything so I called him in to HR for a meeting. Again I did a pretty bad job of asking for a raise at that meeting.

Now, I am wondering if there is anything I can do to salvage the situation? I don’t feel that my employer is completely resistant to giving raises but I am fairly sure that they are not interested in giving ME a raise because of the way I handled the negotiations. Help!

Oooooh. Yeah, this isn’t good. If I were your manager, I would be pretty damn hesitant to give you a raise at this point because I’d be concerned it would signal that your approach paid off (thus potentially reinforcing it). If I were in your shoes, I’d go back to your manager, say you mishandled it, apologize, and say something like, “I hope you’ll let me make a more business-based case for a raise down the road” … but I do think it needs to be down the road (like six months or more), and you need to establish an impeccable track record of professionalism between now and then to mitigate some of this.

Read an update to this letter here.

3. One of my drivers is accepting gift cards from a customer

We are a small company, and employ delivery drivers to bring our product to our customers. They are paid a fair hourly rate, full benefits, etc., and are non-exempt. They do not receive tips, but I recently found out that one of our drivers has accepted gift cards in small amounts (less than $20) from a particular customer as a tip. For some reason, this is not sitting right with me, but I can’t put my finger on why. What are your thoughts on this? Are we missing some big issue that could be caused by this?

Well, your drivers don’t typically accept tips, so this driver isn’t acting in alignment with that policy. If you intend to offer free delivery to your customers, he’s undermining that by taking tips (even in the form of something other than cash). Your customer is being kind in offering the gift cards, but your driver should handle it the way you’d want him to handle the offer of a cash tip — which presumably would be to politely refuse it and say something like, “No tip necessary.”

4. Can I be fired for not coming to work during a state of emergency?

Can I get fired for calling off of work when my state has been declared to be in a state of emergency and I can’t even get my car out to go to work? One of my coworkers went in and it took him 3 hours as opposed to his normal 30-minute commute. Most businesses are closed and people aren’t even supposed to be driving unless its an emergency.

Legally? Yes. In practice, that would be pretty unusual, unless you already had a serious absenteeism issue. But employers can legally require employees to come to work, even in extreme weather conditions.

Generally a state of emergency doesn’t forbid businesses from being open or require residents to take any particular action; rather, it simply empowers the state to more quickly reassign resources to to provide immediate assistance to areas affected by the storm. As one example that’s pretty typical, see the North Carolina labor department on this issue: “It does not matter if state officials have declared a state of emergency and are advising people to stay off of the roads. The decision to stay open or to close, for its employees to remain at work or leave early, or for its employees to report to work or not during adverse weather conditions, is entirely up to each individual employer to make on its own.”

5. What’s the difference between a manager and a supervisor?

Is there a difference between the job title of supervisor vs manager, or is more semantics? I have been in my position with the title of supervisor a little over 2 years. As the company has grown and my position along with it, I feel that I have more responsibilities than a typical supervisor. My thinking is that a supervisor does just that, supervises employees in accordance with set policies and procedures and monitors their performance but doesn’t set the policies/procedures and must get that from their manager. On the other hand, I think of a manager as someone who sets those policies and has the authority to make necessary changes and basically has full responsibility for the activities and outcomes of their employees.

I report directly to my director, who in turn reports to administration; there is no one in between. For the most part, I have the capability to make any changes that I feel need to be made in order for my department to maintain productivity. The main reason I am wanting to clarify is that I am considering asking for my position to be reevaluated; the position has grown and developed as the company has grown, and I no longer feel I am doing the job I was initially hired to do (along with of course asking for compensation to match). Am I being too picky with the title or is this relevant to the overall issue of wanting to have a title that matches what my responsibilites are?

People sometimes use “manager” and “supervisor” interchangeably, but generally “manager” connotes more responsibility than “supervisor”; supervisors are often more concerned with process and day-to-day activities, while managers often have more involvement in things like setting goals and strategy, assessing performance, and giving feedback and are more likely to be responsible for the overall success of their team. Neither, though, has a set scope of authority that’s universally applied. In particular, some managers and supervisors have hiring and firing authority, and some don’t. It really comes down to the particular role and how the terms are used at your company.

Regardless, though, if you feel that your position is substantially different than it used to be, it’s reasonable to propose that your title (and pay) reflect that.

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

1. I’m being evaluated by a manager who just started last week

My new boss has been with our organization (a state agency) for one week. She has banking experience, which is hardly applicable, and a long history of management experience. Aside from the lack of experience, she has an awful work ethic and is an overall textbook bad manager. I have just recently learned that she will be doing our office’s employee evaluations this month. I can’t see how she’s qualified to be in that position, let alone to provide performance feedback for the past year. I take my career seriously and I value good constructive feedback. Am I being overly negative or is there a positive aspect that I’m not seeing?

Yeah, it’s pretty silly to have someone evaluate you who’s only worked with you a few weeks. However, managers sometimes get pushed into this position when they’re new, it’s evaluation time, and there’s no one else to do it. If I were in your shoes, I’d approach this as if she were competent, just new and try to make the process easy for both of you: Give her a self-evaluation ahead of time, laying out what your goals were for the year and how well you’ve met each of them, as well as information about any additional achievements you’ve had this year. The more information she has about your performance, the better, so take it upon yourself to supply her with that information.

2. My interviewers ignored me during a lull for technical difficulties

I had an interview this afternoon that didn’t go very well. To make a long story short, I was supposed to present, as part of the interview, a technology-based library program that I had created, and unfortunately, the internet was not cooperating. I was interviewed by a panel of five, and while the library director spent 20-30 minutes trying to work out the technology issues, the other interviewers talked amongst themselves, texted, played with the cell phones, etc. After about 10 minutes of this, I decided to engage them in conversation, but had I said nothing, I would have sat there the entire time twiddling my thumbs. Is this acceptable behavior? I have a sneaking suspicion that if I had pulled out my cell phone and started texting during the lull in the interview, this would not have been looked upon very favorably.

Depending on what type of library it was, there’s a chance that they’re operating under insane hiring rules that some government agencies and universities operate under, which are sometimes (mis)interpreted as not allowing your interviewers to engage with you outside of a specific list of questions that they’re asking everyone. (That makes for terrible hiring, but so be it.) Or, alternately, they were just being rude, possibly because they were thinking of you not as a professional colleague but as an “other” who they were there to assess.

3. I’m frustrated that my coworkers constantly miss work

I work at a small office that has less than 20 people. We get X number of paid off days a year (10 days until you reach 4 years, then it’s 15), which are used for vacation, personal and sick time. When you run out, you’re still allowed to take time off, but you just don’t get paid for it. There are no hard and fast rules about this anywhere, which is part of the problem. There are 2 particular employees who call off ALL THE TIME. One is a younger woman; this is her first professional job and she’s our receptionist. So when she calls off, the entire rest of the staff (meaning the assistants, not the attorneys) have to cover the phones all days. Typically I end up working 2 and a half hours up there when she calls off. We can remotely log onto our desk computers from hers to access our emails, files, etc., but only if the phones aren’t busy. We can’t take or make phone calls, because we have to be able to answer the phones. The other person who calls off is a long-time employee. He apparently has been doing this for years. I would estimate that they both call off every 6 weeks or so. The long-term employee has informed me, which defending himself about how much he calls off, that he has emotional issues (anxiety, depression from the loss of his father almost 2 years ago) and physical problems. He said that our boss knows about his situation. They both call off if there is snow on the ground; I live close to the long term employee and offered to give him a ride (he typically takes the bus) and he refused. They both talk crap about each other for calling off so much. Not to mention, the receptionist is late all the time, meaning more time spent up there covering for her. This makes the rest of the staff resentful of both of them.

Am I (and the others who complain) just a bunch of huge jerks? It’s hard to give someone the benefit of the doubt when they are off so much. Since the beginning of this year alone, the older employee has missed 5 and 1/2 days of work and the receptionist has been off probably 4 or 5 times. None of them are ever required to bring a doctor’s note. Some of these times, I really do know that they are sick and shouldn’t be at work but where is the line in the sand? I’ve suggested to the older employee that he go get his immune system screened because I’ve never seen a person who gets sick all the time that doesn’t have some type of deficiency. The office manager and the owner/boss of the office are both well aware of the situation and have even made comments about how much they call off, yet nothing is ever done. The older employee actually told me that I should just start calling off if I want to, that everyone else would be allowed to like he does, which I do not believe.

No, you’re not huge jerks. Your reaction is pretty natural. However, your resentment should be directed less at your coworkers and more at their managers, who are the ones who are allowing this to continue (and complaining about it to other employees, no less, which is incredibly lame when they have the power to do something about it and apparently aren’t).

(Also, for whatever it’s worth, 10 days off a year, including sick leave, is very stingy. That doesn’t excuse your coworkers’ absenteeism, which sounds excessive, but it’s another reason to be annoyed with your employer.)

4. Can my employer require me to attend a political rally?

I currently work on an Indian reservation doing some back-end IT work. I was recently informed that in the next few weeks I will be required to attend a political rally for an upcoming state initiative that will negatively affect the casino if passed. While I work on an Indian reservation, the rally will be at the state capitol, maybe 30 minutes away which bus transportation will be provided. In addition, time spent at the rally will be paid at my normal rate, so it would essentially be an 8-hour day at a political rally. I would not be required to make up the time. I asked what happens if I refuse to attend, and was told that at a minimum I would be written up and not paid that day and possibly fired. It was also implied that by not attending, I was singling myself out if they required layoffs in the near future since I wouldn’t be a “team player.”

Can an employer require an employee to attend a political rally regardless of their stance on the actual issue?

Well, some states (like California, Louisiana, and Washington) prohibit employers from directing the political activities of employees and others (like Massachusetts, Mississippi, Oregon, and Wisconsin) prohibits employers from requiring employees to provide any political service as a condition of employment. (These laws generally make exceptions for jobs that are political in nature.) However, if you’re being paid to perform specific activities (as sounds like would be the case here), the law isn’t clear. My hunch is that it’s probably allowed, but you’d need to talk to a lawyer in your state to be sure.

5. Can I be fired for not clocking in early?

I’m employed at a security company and my schedule is 11-7. But I’m constantly being written up and threatened with termination because I’m not clocking in 15 minutes before my shift. I’m told that my shift starts at 10:45, but I’m not getting paid for the 8 hrs and 15 minutes; I’m only getting paid 8 hours a shift. Does me clocking in on time before 11 and not at 10:45 warrant termination?

Wait, they’re requiring you to clock in at 15 minutes early and threatening to fire you for not doing that, but they don’t want to pay you for the time? That’s illegal. If you’re required to be there (clocked in or not), they must pay you for that time.