Ask a Manager

It snowed on Friday, and my mail shows it. Today we have four questions about how companies should handle snow days.

1. My company wants me to use PTO when I’m working from home on a snow day

My company is requesting that workers who work from home on days of inclement weather use the day as a vacation day, although sometimes we have deadlines that don’t allow us to actually take the day off so we are still working a full 8-hour day at home. I feel strange using PTO time while actually working.

Yeah, that’s not okay. If you’re taking PTO, you should be getting the day off. PTO isn’t for full days spent working from another location; it’s for days spent not working at all.

It sounds, though, like this may be an issue of your company-wide policy just not being in sync with what’s going on in your department. Your manager should be able to exempt you from this policy on days when you’re working from home due to weather. I’d assume she’ll be reasonable on this until proven otherwise, so I’d start by saying to her, “I need to spend the full day working from home, so can you ensure that I’m not docked PTO for the day?”

If she says that’s not possible, then say, “How would you like me to handle this then? I have work that I need to do today, but obviously I can’t spend a PTO day on it. Should we change the deadline and have me use PTO today, or do we need to keep the deadline and have this be a regular, non-PTO work day for me?”

2. I worked from home on a snow day and then was told to use vacation time for it

I work for a large institution which provides bus service to our off-site office location. A major snowstorm caused the bus service to be suspended today, which I had anticipated, so I brought my laptop home last night. I had been working for several hours today when my supervisor told me that I would have to take the day as a personal day because I didn’t make it in to the office. I’m an exempt employee, and have worked from home in other bad weather situations, so I was shocked when I was told I had to take the day off and use my time. Although there are a few alternative ways for me to get to work, none were viable options today.

I lodged a complaint, and stopped working after letting my colleagues know that they would have to complete the task I was doing and canceling a conference call I had slated for the afternoon.

Do I have any recourse for the time I put in before learning that I would have to use my accrued time off?

Not legal recourse, no. Your company is allowed to structure vacation time any way that it wants, which includes what they’ve done here. However, I’d push back on this with your boss. If you’ve worked from home in bad weather in the past, what changed this time? I’d point out to your boss that you made a reasonable assumption based on what was allowed in the past, and ask why he felt differently about it this time.

You’ll have the best chances of the outcome you want here is if you don’t approach this adversarily, even though you’re rightly pissed off. Approach it from the stance of genuine confusion and trying to understand where he’s coming from so that you’re on the same page in the future, even if in your head you’re thinking he’s an ass.

3. When bereavement leave overlaps with snow days

I get three days off for the death of my brother. I am exempt. The third day, the company was shut down due to weather. Should I be charged for that day or do I get another day off?

It depends on your company’s policy. Some companies would be glad to extend the bereavement leave by another day, and some would consider it to overlap with the snow day (and so wouldn’t extend it). The best thing to do is to simply ask your manager. Say something like, “I’m uncertain how my bereavement leave works with the snow day. Should I count Monday (or whatever the day after the snow day would be) as my third day?”

I’m so sorry about your brother.

4. My manager called me at 6:30 a.m. with snow day weirdness

Due to the storms today, my company had a delayed opening. This is my first delayed opening I had with this company. I figured this would happen, so I ensured we finished the work due today yesterday.

The weather hotline for my company advised at 6:30 this morning that it was a delayed opening, liberal leave was in effect, and if you were commuting from the area I live in to contact your manager because the state said not to be on the road.

A few minutes later, my manager called me. I assumed my manager was calling about what the recording said about coming to work if you live in my area. Boy, was I wrong.

My manager was calling to have me contact all of my staff to see if they were coming in. During the conversation, my manager told me she was unaware of the recording indicating a delay. She still told me to call my staff.

My concerns:
1) Company policies require staff to contact supervisors; there is no department policy advising otherwise. My staff who utilized leave followed this policy perfectly.
2) This phone call took place almost 4 hours prior to our opening. I feel that is too early to assess whether a person can come in. Plows may have not hit all roads.
3) Employees don’t have to contact us until an hour before we open.
4) My manager was completely unaware of what the recording said.
5) On a bitter note, there was no wishing me a safe commute!

Overall, I feel like this was most unnecessary. I would at least like to tell my manager that when there is a delayed opening, calling my staff 4 hours before while the sun is not up will not be useful because people cannot completely assess their situation. Does that sound reasonable?

Sure. But I’d be more focused on the fact that your manager seemed not to realize that the company had already issued people directions on this. The fact that she didn’t know that could explain the whole thing. So I’d focus on that first, saying something like, “In the future, if the company hotline has announced instructions for the day, is it okay for me to follow that and have my staff follow that?”

If she tells you that your department needs to handle things differently than the company-wide policy (which could legitimately be necessary), then work with her to create a policy for your department that meets whatever its needs are. That policy should not include you calling everyone to find out their plans at 6:30 in the morning. If you need to hear from them individually, the onus should be on them to contact you (I’d hope through email, a voicemail on your work line, or another method that’s less intrusive than a crack-of-dawn phone call at home).

You can also point out to her that if your staff needs to make a decision about coming in three hour before everyone else does, people are more likely to err on the side of caution and stay home. If they can wait until later, when they can more accurately assess road conditions, you’ll probably get more people coming in (not to mention being generally safer, if the roads get worse rather than better).

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

1. My employer monitors employees to make sure we’re not job-searching

I am employed for almost 2 years now with my current employer and I already feel the need to explore opportunities somewhere else. I am an assistant manager and I love my team, they’re actually one of the biggest reasons why Im still here. However, I’m beginning to dislike the company. For me, the corporate values are just engravings on the walls- something that isn’t really embodied by the organisation.

However, our COO is watching every move of all managers. He tracks our jobstreet/monster accounts and flags anyone who he thinks is exploring other jobs. Yes I admit that my loyalty to the company is not 100% anymore but that doesnt mean I’ll not meet my deliverables as I ease myself out. You see, it has been a recurring thing that he is bitter whenever someone leaves the company for greener pastures. Now I don’t know how to make my career move. I want to explore but I don’t know how. Is it unethical to update my job accounts while I’m still employed? Do I really need to explain myself?

Your COO is ridiculous and I can certainly see why you’d want to get out of there. Luckily, you can conduct an active job search without ever updating a monster.com or similar account. In fact, simply passively posting your resume online is one of the worst ways to job search. Instead, leave those accounts alone and just apply for specific jobs directly. That’s going to get you better results anyway, and your activities won’t be broadcasted online for your absurd COO to track.

2. Required to sign a non-disclosure statement in exchange for severance

Did you see Gawker’s bit about the guy whose severance was withheld because he refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement? I always thought that pretty standard and would love your thoughts.

Yeah, it’s completely normal, so I’m not sure why Gawker presented it as a noteworthy thing. Generally, in exchange for receiving severance, you sign what’s called a general release — a legal document agreeing not to disparage the company and releasing them from any future legal claims of harassment, discrimination, etc. You’re asked to sign this not because the company thinks it did something wrong (usually), but because they’re giving you free money that they have no legal obligation to offer you, and so it’s generally considered reasonable for them to say “hey, we don’t want to give you free money if you’re going to turn around and stab us in the back.”

3. Using a school-issued email address when job-searching

I know that you have addressed using a yahoo or hotmail account as your primary email, but is using a school email (yourlastname@stu.school.edu) going to hurt you on an application? My boyfriend and I have been having this discussion for a long time, and I think that being a person in their late 20’s still using their school based email is not going to look good to any potential employer. My boyfriend is still in school, but trying to find a better job, and he thinks that it’s fine and why start a new email when the old one works just fine?

School email accounts are completely fine to use in job-searching and will not hurt you.

4. My coworker slacks off on shared responsibilities

I work at the front desk of a doctor’s office with two other women (let’s say Barb and Suzy). We all get along, and we all really like each other and have had no issues so far, but recently Barb and I have started noticing that Suzy is slacking off. We have duties that are given to us as a whole, and we each have our own personal duties, and Suzy is doing her personal duties just fine, but when it comes to the group duties, she never does them. We have two or three things that are quite time consuming and no one likes doing them, but she never even attempts to do them. We are very behind on one of the tasks, and at the beginning of the day Barb will say to us as a group, “How about we each do 20 of the calls we need to make?” and Suzy never completes any. Suzy will either ignore that the work is there or she will say things like “I don’t know how to do that” or “Oh, you guys will have to show me how to do that again” when she has been trained 3 or 4 times already.

Barb and I aren’t sure what to do, because we don’t want to cause friction by going to Suzy directly and say that this is bothering us, but we also aren’t sure that going to our manager is the right thing to do either (it feels a bit like tattling, and other people in the office have a very bad habit of tattling about anything). Any advice?

It’s not tattling. It’s reporting an issue that’s getting in the way of own work, because you’re having to pick up Suzy’s slack. It’s absolutely reasonable to ask your manager for advice on how to handle this or even to intervene, although you should talk to Suzy directly first. If it causes friction, that’s on Suzy, not on you, as long as you do it in a pleasant, professional manner. I’d start by just getting more assertive about dividing the work: “Suzy, I’m doing X and Barb is doing Y, so you’ll need to do Z today.” If she says she doesn’t know how, say in a genuinely puzzled tone, “What’s going on that you’re having trouble with this? I know we’ve talked many times about how to do it.” Or, “I know you’ve mentioned that before, but you’ll have to be responsible for this on many days, so let’s figure out right now how to ensure that you have all the training you need and this isn’t an obstacle going forward.”

From there, if she continues to slack off, say, “Hey, we keep getting stuck with X, Y, and Z and we don’t have enough time for all of it. Can we work out a better system so that it’s evenly divided?” And if that still doesn’t work, that’s when you need to get your manager involved.

5. Can I ask for an informational interview when I’ve applied for a job with the same company?

I’m a recent graduate looking for work in the human rights field, and I recently applied for a paralegal position at a prominent civil rights firm that I would be incredibly thrilled to join. As I sent in my application, I thought of the following question— is it okay to contact someone at this firm for an informational interview even though I applied for a job there? If that’s inappropriate, can I ask later on, if I get rejected? I really don’t mean it as a sneaky way to get an official interview, and I don’t want it to be perceived in that way. It’s just that I’m in the “informational interview” stage right now, particularly concerning legal aid services, and I really would love to speak with someone at this very impressive firm, but I don’t know if it’s appropriate, as I applied for a position there.

Nope, don’t do it. Because you’re currently applying for a job there, it will come across as a back-door attempt to get an interview. However, if you get rejected, you can absolutely ask at that point.

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

1. My new coworker is rude and hostile to clients

I have a new coworker who sits behind me and who I have only known for a month. She is super nice to me, but lately I have noticed her having outbursts over the phone at patients. I work in the healthcare industry and we have access to sensitive information and sometimes we call people who don’t feel comfortable talking to us. Lately, about one to two times a day, she has been getting in arguments with patients and acts rude/ somewhat hostile, and instead of just resolving the problem professionally, she seems to not understand normal customer service ethics. She has told me several times that she has “anger problems” and has shared personal problems she has. After these heated arguments, she gets so upset that she doesn’t do anymore work for about 20-30 minutes and keeps the negative attitude throughout the day.

This week, I have a trainee, and since we can typically hear everything that goes on with this coworker, I’m afraid this is going to negatively affect my training, as well as bring complaints towards my department because of her. I am also very worried about my coworker’s well-being. She needs this job, so I feel guilty if I could possibly get her fired, but I don’t know how to handle this. I don’t want to gossip about this to other people, but my manager and her boss respect me and I feel like this is something I should mention to them. Would the best way to confront this situation be to confront the coworker (I’ve tried casually mentioning advice on dealing with patients who don’t want to confirm info a couple times), talk to the person who trained her, or go straight to my manager?

If you’ve tried giving her advice and she’s not taking it, you really should talk to your manager about what you’re seeing. The behavior you’re describing is serious, so it’s something your manager should be in the loop about. You can say something like, “Lately Jane has been getting into arguments with patients and being hostile with them once or twice a day, every day, and then seeming very upset for the rest of the day afterwards. I’ve made some suggestions to her, but it’s continuing.” You can add, “Do you have advice on how else I might approach her about this?” if that makes you more comfortable, but this is serious enough that you don’t need to frame it that way.

A good manager isn’t going to fire your coworker on the spot, but will lay out clearer expectations for her and give her a chance to meet them. But if she’s going to eventually get fired over this, that’s going to happen sooner or later anyway — it’s just a question of how long it takes your manager to discover the problem. (And the longer it goes on, the harder it will likely be for your coworker to change — plus, she’s doing real damage to your company meanwhile.)

2. I gave my office my personal laptop for repair and now they won’t return my personal files

I work from home and was using my personal laptop for work. My laptop stopped working suddenly and since it had work files that we needed, my boss agreed to have a computer person at the company look at it. I sent the laptop to the guy and they were able to take the hard drive out as it was still working. He told me to he would return the hard drive to me and I could plug it in to any computer with a USB and still be able to access the files.

My manager ended up sending me an old laptop with some of the work files I needed and hardly any of my personal files. He will not respond to me when I ask for the personal files, which I clearly stated from the beginning that I needed also, since the laptop was a personal laptop that I bought with my own money. I email him about it and get no response. What can I do now? He is also giving me about 10 hours a week now when he was giving me 30, so I think he has found someone else to do my work now that he has all of the files. Anyways, I am wondering if there is anything I can do to get my hard drive back since in my opinion he is basically stealing it.

For starters, stop emailing and pick up the phone and call. Have a conversation with him and find out what’s going on. If you can’t reach him that way and your office is near enough to you, go there in person and talk to him. Meanwhile, you should also try contacting the tech guy directly and state clearly that you need your hard drive returned to you.

I do wonder if the reason you’re getting the runaround on this is because they didn’t keep the hard drive and now don’t have your personal files and are too cowardly to tell you. But you won’t know until you get more assertive about talking to one or both of them.

3. I manage a team of writers who aren’t great writers

I am a writer who currently manages one person and have been told that my team will soon increase to five. However, the people I will manage are not great writers. The expectation is that I will somehow help them meet our CEO’s high standards through my burgeoning leadership skills. Unfortunately, I’m not convinced that this is possible! I’m unable to devote all my time to development (I’ve tried this in the past with only limited success) and yet I still need staff who can create effective communications under pressure. Do you have any tips on improving the performance of an average team, let alone a team of writers? These employees have many skills to offer, but written communication isn’t their strong suit.

It’s very, very difficult to make people better writers, at least not without a significant investment of time — which usually isn’t the right use of a manager’s time and resources. If writing is a key skill needed for the job, you may be looking at a team of people who aren’t right for the jobs they’re in. You can certainly try the usual course of action for subpar performance — lay out clear expectations, explain where they’re falling short, and give them a chance to meet that bar — but I’d also start talking now with your own manager about the gap between your staff’s skills and what you need, so that you’re both on the same page about the situation and how to proceed.

4. My coworker told me she might not return from vacation

I work in a health and weight-loss field, and as you can imagine, January is a very busy season for us. I will be out of the country for my honeymoon, and a coworker informed me that she will be on approved vacation while I’m away. We both have coverage, which is great.

I am concerned, however, that my coworker will not return. She has told me about conflicts with our manager, and she mentioned that her vacation will be indefinite. Our manager does not know this. Although I have coverage in place, she does not, which is obviously problematic given our high volume of clients at that time and a substitute who may not be aware of the circumstances.

My gut tells me to speak up and tell my manager. Not only does this absence affect me, but it affects clients, and the people who’ve willingly stepped in for us during this time. Is it appropriate to give my manager notice that my coworker may not return even though I don’t have proof?

Yes. You shouldn’t make it sound conclusive if what she told you wasn’t definite, but you can simply relay what your coworker told you. For instance: “Jane mentioned to me that her vacation would be ‘indefinite’ and that might not return. I don’t know if she was serious or not, but I thought I should pass that along to you.”

5. My employer makes me wait to clock in until it gets busy

Is it against labor laws for my employer to keep me on premises and make me wait to clock in for my shift until it gets busy, stating that they need me there and ready to clock in when it gets busy, sometimes for hours at a time?

Yes, that’s illegal. If you’re required to be there, you must be paid for that time.

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

1. My reference applied for the job I wanted, after I told her about it

I have been using three references regularly for the past couple years in my job search. One in particular I have known the longest. I worked with her for 6 years, then off and on again after the company (Company A) downsized me and she called on me for temp work. She even called on me last year to help her present at a conference in our industry. I recently was contacted by Company B, which had my resume on file from a past application. Someone had resigned and my resume indicated I might be a good fit, and they asked me to interview. I was ecstatic. It was my dream job. They set up a Skype interview for the very next business day. I even knew many people at company B who had previously worked with me at my previous employer, Company A, where my reference still worked.

A couple days after the interview, I was meeting with my reference for hot drinks and gossip, and I filled her in on my lucky break and let her know I used her as a reference again. She agreed it was a perfect fit for me and seemed genuinely excited. I knew she was also looking to escape her job at Company A, but she had been pretty mum on her efforts to leave.

A week later, Company B emailed me that they had decided to pursue other “more closely qualified” candidates. I was shocked, to say the least. I had even had people on the inside pulling for me. Well, yesterday, my reference calls up and giddily tells me she finally left Company A and has a new job. She’s been hired by “that place [I] told [her] about.” She didn’t say they contacted her directly or that she went and applied on her own, but either way she was very excited and mentioned she’d have to give me her new contact information since I use her as a reference. I managed to mumble congratulations before hanging up, but now I don’t know how I feel about using her as a reference. She knew how desperate I was for work – my husband has been unemployed or underemployed for years and we already lost our housing twice. Should I keep using her?

Wow. What’s weirdest her isn’t just that she exploited what you told her for her own gain, but that she didn’t think there was anything odd about calling you up and announcing her new job without any acknowledgement that it was the job you were applying for yourself … which she appears to have learned about through you. It sounds like she made her giddy announcement to you without any sense at all of what was due to you — even if just an acknowledgement of the awkwardness.

So yeah, she’s a crappy friend. But is she a crappy reference too? Oddly, I’m not sure that she is — I mean, obviously you shouldn’t use her as a reference for any jobs you think she might like to apply to herself because she might decide to go after them herself, but aside from that, is she likely to give you a bad reference? I don’t think you can conclude from any of this that she is — although it would be reasonable not to use her simply because she’s a crappy person and untrustworthy.

2. I love and hate my part-time teaching job

I have a full-time job at a nonprofit which I generally like and I’m good at. It provides a decent living. A year ago, I was given the chance to teach part-time at a local university. I was thrilled at the opportunity, but I don’t really need the money. Teaching for me has been a roller-coaster ride. It has been both wonderful and awful. I am still learning the ins and outs of the teaching software, how to manage a class, and grading. I do have a master’s degree in education, but it didn’t really prepare me for the realities of teaching at the college level. I know my subject extremely well, but there’s a lot more to it than that. The compensation for teaching adds up to about 4% of my income but it takes a much larger chunk of my time and energy. I often use my lunch break or go to the library after work to work on my class. I have skipped going to the gym many times for this. I am constantly thinking of my class, and I am filled with anxiety more often than not about whether I am doing a good enough job. I lie awake at night thinking about it. It’s difficult managing my students and grading (I usually have more than 20 students). My department chair is kind and available as needed, but since I am only one adjunct teaching one class, and unable to be on campus during the workweek or really much at all due to my day job, I don’t get the experience of being around others who are doing the same type of work.

I am planning to cry “uncle” and quit, saying I can’t handle this on top of my regular job (and commitments to family, fitness, etc.) but part of me doesn’t want to give up the only work that makes me so deliriously happy (when I’m not freaking out). I don’t have a terminal degree, so it’s highly unlikely I can ever make this a full-time career. Unless I go back to school. And I’m nearly 50, which is somewhat of a factor. I would love to hear any thoughts or insights you might have.

In the starkest terms, it sounds like you need to figure out if the parts of teaching you love are worth the price that you’re paying for them (and that price seems to be time and anxiety). It might help you to talk to your chair or someone else who teaches to sort through this, but ultimately that’s the basic calculation you have to figure out: does the cost justify the benefit you receive? That’s easier said than done, of course, but it might help to look at it through that framework.

3. I don’t know if my manager remembers why I’m not part of our rotation for minor tasks

I work at a bank, and several months ago, a colleague and I received promotions with the same job title, which included the ability to provide final approval on loans. On paper, we both had equal signing authority in terms of individual loan amounts, but as I was more experienced, I was given the green light to approve certain types of more complex, higher risk loans that he could not. Since his risk exposure is significantly less than mine, and as I am the only person in the department able to approve these types of loans (which are more complex and time-consuming), the old supervisor and manager agreed to pull me out of the rotation for other small minor departmental tasks.

We’ve had a lot of change and turnover in management, and somewhere along the way, his internal restrictions were forgotten. He has been talking to new management as if he’s been engaging in the same complex and time-consuming files as me and is making me look terrible since I’m not engaged in any of the additional tasks that he and other team members in our department are required to do. What is the best way for me to handle this? Annual reviews are coming up, and I feel that because of this, I’m going to get the short end of the stick.

Why not touch base with your manager to make sure that it’s still the case that you should be out of the rotation for the more minor tasks? Just say something like, “Since we’ve had some changes since this decision was made, I want to make sure that you still want me to stay out of the rotation for X, Y, and Z. We’d originally pulled me out of that stuff since I was the only one able to do ___ and Jane thought my time should be spent there, but I want to check with you and make sure that you want me to continue that arrangement.”

(Also, keep in mind that it’s possible that your coworker’s internal restrictions weren’t forgotten, but deliberately changed.)

4. Applying for a promotion after being counseled for tardiness

A supervisor position just became available in my department and I want to apply for it, but I have been written up for my tardiness in the past. This all occurred between August and October; in October when I got counseled is when I stopped. I had no idea until then how many tardies I had. The unfortunate thing is that they think they were helping me by allowing me to accrue so many, but in reality, it hurt me.

However, since then I have been doing well. How do I honestly address this issue with the hiring manager? This is an internal position, and my current manager told me that the managers already knows about the tardiness, because they talk. I want to be straightforward and show that I have grown from this. Can you please help?

That was pretty recent, so I’m not sure that I’d apply for a promotion so soon after it — because it’s going to be hard to be convincing that it’s truly in the past. To a good hiring manager, the issue isn’t going to be just that you’re no longer being tardy; it’s going to be more about whatever was causing all that tardiness to begin with. They’ll wonder about your work ethic, reliability, and so forth. So you’re probably better off building up a great track record on those fronts for a sustained period of time — six months at a minimum — before advocating for a promotion.

5. I don’t want to list my manager as a reference

I relocated to a new city five months ago in order to be closer to my partner and I took the first job I was offered (literally moved on a Friday and started work that Monday). During that time, I have had three paychecks bounce, and am therefore actively seeking new employment. I have not informed my current supervisor, because when a colleague of mine told him she was looking due to the payroll problems, she was fired on the spot. If I decline to list my current supervisor as a reference on applications, explain why, and list a current coworker instead, is that going to be a kiss of death?

You shouldn’t list a reference from your current employer at all; that’s completely normal, since most people don’t want their current company to know that they’re looking. 99% of prospective employers will understand that and will be willing to only contact references from previous jobs.