Ask a Manager

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 here 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.