Ask a Manager

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

1. My boss laid me off, then emailed my mom

My mother was a regular customer at the business I work at for some years before I was hired there. OldBoss likes to mentor employees and takes pride at those who move onto prestigious companies in the field. After my hiring, OldBoss gave me opportunities to develop my skills and encouraged me to get a degree in our field.

After seven years of working there, I got my degree. Soon after, OldBoss encouraged me to look for positions elsewhere. It wasn’t long before he subjected me to severe bullying in the hopes I’d quit. At one point, he even asked why I was still there. After seven months of treating me as The Thing That Would Not Leave, he laid me off.

A month later, my mom mentioned an email OldBoss sent her. Did I get it? I did not, so she forwarded it. Paraphrased, it said: “I’m sorry for taking so long to write this. I struggled to find the right words. Jane is stagnating at Business. I could promote her, but I don’t generate enough demand to hire a second role. I’ve begged her to apply to prestigious companies, but months later, she remained. I’ve laid her off so she can have more time to focus on job applications.”

How bizarre is this message? That email was much nicer than anything he said to me in a while, but directed at a paying customer.

Extremely bizarre. The whole thing is extremely bizarre — after seven years of being a great manager to you, he started bullying you to leave simply because you got your degree? And then emailed your mom about it? I assume he felt like he had to say something to her since she’s a long-time customer … but (a) he didn’t actually have to, (b) but if he was going to, this is a really weird way to explain his actions (claiming it was so you could have more time to focus on job applications??), and (c) if he was that worried about what your mom would think, maybe he should have rethought the bullying? It’s not like he could assume you wouldn’t tell her about it.

I hope your mom lets him know this is weird on every level and takes her business somewhere else.

2. Is it OK for my boss to request that I leverage my friendships (which are also part business)?

I have worked in the same smallish, regional field for the last decade, bouncing to a new organization in the same bubble every few years as new opportunities arise. Like a lot of smallish fields, I’d guess, these organizations are sometimes collaborators and sometimes competitors for the same grants, clients, deals, etc. As a result, my former colleagues are my friends, but also a part of my professional network. During the same week, it’s not unusual that I would go to a friend’s home for dinner and then also encounter that same friend (who works for a different organization) in a business meeting to discuss a potential collaboration. There are plenty of issues that can arise from this soup, but I wanted to get your take on one in particular that keeps coming up with my current boss.

He will on occasion (maybe once a week on average) ask me to leverage a social connection for our business goals. Sometimes it seems fairly innocuous; for example, when I mentioned that I planned to see a friend at a gathering over the weekend, he requested I remind the friend that we need his decision on a particular business deal sooner rather than later. Other times, the request feels a little too far (but not in the realm of “I’m bowled over by the audacity”). Yesterday my boss asked if I would inquire what a friend charged his client for a recent work product because we sell a similar product, and knowing this pricing information from a competitor would give us an edge in the market. I care very much about maintaining this relationship with the friend, and I think that puts both of us in an awkward position.

This makes me uncomfortable and I think my boss might be overstepping a boundary, but where my thinking might be wrong is that since these friendships were forged during the course of doing businesses, maybe it is reasonable to expect that this is par for the course? On the other hand, since my field is so small, aside from putting a friend in an awkward position, I am very hesitant to behave in a way that might affect my candidacy for future positions if someone interprets this friend-leveraging as inappropriate.

Yeah, this is tricky! When it’s such a small community with so much overlap, some of this is going to happen naturally — but a good boundary is that if something is inappropriate to ask a business contact (like asking a competitor for pricing info that could put them at a disadvantage), it doesn’t become more appropriate just because they’re a friend. (Of course,  you and your friend might choose to discuss your rates if you were both freelancers or similar, but it’s not something your boss should ask you for.)

On the other hand, something like, “When you see Jim this weekend, could you mention we never received the RFP he was going to send?” is more grey. You shouldn’t have to use your friendships to carry business messages for your boss … but it’s okay to use your own judgment about whether it feels like a burden or will annoy your friend.

In fact, “will annoy you or your friend” is another good bar to use. If your instinct is that your friend will be irked to have you delivering business messages during a social get-together (or that you will resent having your time intruded on in that way), it’s okay to say, “Jim and I have a strict firewall between business and friendship and he’d hate if I asked that this weekend, but I can email him to check on it separately if you want.” So you’re still offering to use a part-business relationship in a business-appropriate way, but you’re maintaining boundaries on how and when you do it.

3. Is it wrong to accept a promotion while waiting for a job offer from another company?

I recently applied for a promotion at my current job and I’m waiting for the decision. It seemed the obvious thing to do since the person doing that job left and 80% of their responsibilities were handed over to me. I have been frustrated for a while with my current position and stressed by the workload and not having a real definition of my scope of work. This role would include a higher title, a raise, and a more specific job description vs. the jack-of-all-trades role I have now.

At the same time, I was also contacted by a recruiter from another company for a role I’m very interested in. I interviewed and made it to the final rounds (thanks for all the interviewing tips!) and I’m waiting to see if they extend an offer.

During all this, I realized I’m very burnt out and just plain tired of my current company’s culture, management, and many issues. So even if I don’t get an offer now, I will still be looking to leave the company in the near future.

If I’m offered the promotion before I hear back from the new company, would it be unethical to accept it knowing I will definitely leave sooner rather than later? I fear saying no to the promotion or withdrawing my application at this stage might be seen as a faux pass. But would saying yes and leaving (hopefully) three weeks later be even worse?

It’s fine to accept the promotion even if you end up leaving shortly after. Unless you have a firm offer that you’ve accepted, you don’t know if you’ll be leaving for another job in the near future so it makes sense to proceed as if you aren’t (and therefore not turn down raises, promotions, or other things that benefit you). If you do end up needing to resign soon after you’re promoted, you’d just acknowledge the timing and say, “This fell in my lap and was too good to pass up.” That happens … and if they have any sense, they’ll realize that if you were seeking a promotion, of course you might have been applying other places too.

4. Company closes the week before New Year’s — but you have to take PTO for it

My sister is a physical therapist who does infant and toddler home health. Her company is private, but they get a lot of government funding. She started in February, and just found out the company is closed between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Seems great – except they have to take mandatory PTO!

As a tech worker, this blows my mind. They also can’t take too much unpaid time, because this will boot them off their health insurance. I imagine this is may be legal, but even if it is, how do you suggest they talk with management about amending this policy? They do not have a union. They accrue fairly standard PTO for U.S. healthcare workers, but nothing so generous that would make a forced week over the holidays seem normal.

This is actually really common. It sucks since people don’t always want that week off, but it’s not an uncommon practice. Of course, the more preferable practice for companies that shut down that week is to give it as a freebie rather than subtracting it from people’s PTO — which is exactly what better companies do.

If your sister and her coworkers want to push back, they should point out that people might need to save their PTO for other things — especially things that take a good chunk of time (for example, traveling internationally) — and they also, you know, might not celebrate Christmas and need to use their PTO for their own holidays… but if they’re in a field where it’s common, they might not get much traction.

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

1. Is my answer to “tell me about yourself” too impersonal?

I have been operating under the assumption that discussing personal information is not acceptable during a job interview, and as a result whenever someone says “tell me about yourself,” I take it in the professional sense, outlining my job history and saying nothing about my life outside of work. However, it’s recently come to my attention that doing so might be actively harmful. Instead of coming off as professional, it could instead be seen as distant or distrustful, and might explain why I’ve been having such a hard time landing a job offer. Could you please confirm whether this is case, and maybe provide some advice on what kind of personal info to provide?

Most interviewers are looking for exactly what you’ve been offering (“tell us about you as a professional”), although some are hoping for something a little more expansive (although generally not a ton more — just something like “I grew up in Florida and moved here after college” or “and outside of work I do a lot of volunteering with homeless armadillos” — literally just a sentence or two, and nothing terribly personal).

But if they’re interested in a broader answer than what you gave, any competent interviewer would simply say, “Tell us a little about you as a person outside of work too.” It’s extremely unlikely that not offering up anything personal originally is losing you offers or coming across as distant or distrustful. I suppose it’s possible that you’re coming across as distant or distrustful in other ways, but it’s not because you’re confining your answer to this question to the professional sphere. That’s a really normal thing to do.

Related:
how to answer “tell me about yourself” in a job interview

2. My friends say I’m bribing colleagues by being nice

I try to be extra nice to the service folks at my job: custodians, IT, shipping/receiving, etc. Mainly I do this because they are humans who deserve the same respect as the engineers/scientists I work with, but also partially because I want them to like working with my team, which might get us better service in the future. I was telling this to some friends and they accused me of trying to “bribe” these workers to get better service. Some examples I told them were:

– Our AC was getting fixed and I told the HVAC crew if they wanted any sodas or snacks out of our snack bar, they were welcome to them. (I manage the snack bar, so I have the authority to do this.)
– We were having a cookout at my building and the custodian happened to arrive while we were grilling. I told them to feel free to grab a burger/hotdog/sides/soda. We had plenty of food and several other folks told them the same thing.
– I needed something shipped out on super short notice and when I brought my package to the shipping office, I gave them a large bar of chocolate to tell them sorry for the rush.
– I had a very tricky computer problem and when it was resolved I wrote a very nice email to the IT department praising the two people who helped me by name. Apparently they were both given a $60 customer service award from their team because I did this.

Maybe this is bribery, but I feel like that term can get blown out of proportion very quickly. I am torn because while no one at my work has said anything, my friends told me I might get in trouble if management starts hearing about it.

Your friends are being ridiculous. All the examples are you just being a kind person and recognizing other people’s humanity. I assume the part your friends latched onto is that part of your motivation is that your team might get better service in the future — but all you’re doing is being thoughtful about your work relationships and being someone people will have good will toward in the future, which is a really standard, smart, and emotionally intelligent way to operate (in addition to making you someone your colleagues probably like working with).

It would be different if you were covertly sliding cash their way. But you’re just treating them kindly and letting their managers know you appreciate their work. That’s not bribery, and that’s a really bizarre lens for your friends to be putting on thoughtfulness and kindness.

I’m dying to know what your friends’ work relationships are like if they think there’s something nefarious about being kind to your colleagues!

3. Should I hire someone to finish a side project that a coworker offered to do for free?

I’ve been working on a dream I have had for a while, a small food business (think catering like apps, meat and cheese boards, venetian hour setups, etc.). I have been doing this casually for quite a while now and I have probably two dozen repeat customers. I never intended this to be anything more than a monetized hobby as I have a full-time job in an unrelated field I love.

After a very successful holiday season last year, I decided to come up with a formal name and eventually create business cards, a website, etc. Yay!

Here is my dilemma. I did an event for a coworker, James, at the end of last year that went really well. The success of this event, and the number of people asking for a business card so they could hire me in the future, is what spurred my decision to get my butt in gear and turn this into a legit side business. I mentioned that I didn’t know where to start, and James offered to help create the logo and website. He graduated from an art school with some kind of degree in digital marketing and design. Awesome! I thought about it for a few weeks and then brought him a name and a general idea about the logo. I told him to send me his rates so I could pay him for his time, he said that he didn’t want any payment, and sent me over a first draft of my logo within 12 hours. I was so happy!

I asked for one small change to the design, regarding coloring. I never heard back. I followed up a few times to see if my idea was plausible but it was radio silence. This was back in April. Since the season was ending and I knew my side work would disappear for the summer, I left it alone and figured I would follow up as we approached the season (which starts in mid-November). I was starting to feel like a pest and since I didn’t pay him, it felt wrong to essentially demand his time.

A really good friend of mine, Jessie, just started a business doing the same thing and has offered to finish up what James started and more. I really liked the logo he came up with, just not the coloring, and Jessie has been doing this work successfully for years with great reviews so I trust she could make something I love with the bones of James’ design.

Can I take that logo James started and have Jessie finish it? I reached out again a few times this past month in anticipation of rolling out everything for the season, but never heard back from him. Our in-person conversations hint that he doesn’t think I should change anything and I am starting to feel like he thinks his ideas are too good to be changed at all. That leaves me with a general design I like, but coloring that essentially feels … so not me. Should I offer to buy the current design from him again so I can have Jessie do whatever I want with it? I am unsure of how copyright might play into this (if at all). Alternatively, his silence since then has been so weird to me that I am wondering if I committed some kind of faux pas by asking him to change the coloring even though he didn’t want payment for his time or work. Should I have just been happy with what I got?

Last question first: Nope, definitely do not accept a logo that isn’t what you want. It’s entirely reasonable and normal to have several rounds of tweaking after a first design. It would be surprising if you didn’t!

As for the rest: Who knows what happened with James — maybe he got caught up in other things, maybe he’s too touchy about his work to be designing for people, maybe he realizes he shouldn’t have offered his time for free and doesn’t know how to backtrack. But regardless, you shouldn’t use or change his design without his okay. He owns the copyright to it unless you have a written agreement to the contrary, and it could be a big mess (as well as just bad manners) if you changed and then used something he legally owns. The safest thing to do is to start over from scratch with Jessie (who might prefer that anyway, rather than tweaking another designer’s work, and who might come up with something you like better anyway).

Also, make sure you sign a contract with Jessie specifying transfer of rights, etc., even though she’s a friend and even if she’s doing it for free!

4. How long do I have to wait before adding my new job to LinkedIn?

After years of working jobs that were crushing my spirit, I recently started a new job that is a great set-up in my career, doing work I enjoy, with an organization that seems to have a healthy culture. I just finished my first week and it seems to be a great fit! I’ve read that you’re not supposed to update your LinkedIn profile until a few weeks (or even months) into a new role — in your opinion, how true is this? I’m really excited to update my profile with my new position … but is it too soon? Does it even matter?

Nah, update it now if you want. That advice has always seemed overly cautious to me. The thinking is that the job might not work out and if you’re not there in a few months, you don’t want to have to deal with it being on your LinkedIn … but you could just remove it at that point if you want to. It’s not a big deal, and very few people are monitoring changes to your LinkedIn profile that closely.

I do agree it doesn’t make sense to add it before you actually start the job — but you’ve started, it’s been a few weeks, and it’s fine to add it now if you want.

5. Employee working four hours, then taking the rest of the day off

If an exempt employee works four hours and then takes the remaining four hours off, are they paid for the full four hours?

Yes. If exempt employees work any part of the week, they must be paid their salary for the full week. (Starting and ending weeks are an exception to this.) The employer could deduct the time from their PTO, but they must legally pay for it.

Employers are allowed to prevent abuse of this, of course; they can require X number of hours of work a week even you’re exempt, and can address it like any other performance issue if someone isn’t doing that. But even if that’s happening, they’d still need to pay exempt workers their full salary for the week.

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

1. I’m being blamed for a coworker dropping the ball while I was out

I was recently out for three weeks due to scheduled surgery. An important task needed to be completed as quickly as possible during my absence. Since I could not do it before my surgery because I was still missing some key information, I asked my colleague whether she could do it. She said yes and I provided her with all necessary info.

During my recovery, I called her once or twice because of unrelated matters and asked how the task was coming along. Both times, she said she hadn’t gotten around to it yet but she’d do it. I told her to please keep me posted on this, even while I was sick.

The day I came back, she still had not done anything. The client had written an angry email to my boss and cc’d me and complained that I did not get anything done since quite a bit of money was at stake.

This task is usually not my coworker’s responsibility, and she is not obliged to do it for me. It was supposed to be a favor. If she didn’t have the time or simply didn’t want to, that’s fine. But why didn’t she tell me that? Or she could have called me after a week and told me, “Sorry, I realized I don’t have time for this!” Am I in the wrong to expect this?

I told my boss that I had delegated the task to another team member who had not gotten around to it, but I didn’t say who. My coworker has been with the company for 20 years and my boss works very closely with her. I have only been here for one year. I also didn’t want to say anything without talking to her first. Unfortunately, she is now on vacation until the end of September, so I have to wait until she comes back. How should I approach this? Am I in the wrong for expecting she’d at least inform me that she cannot do it?

No, you’re not in the wrong. Your coworker told you she would do the task, and then continued to assure you she was on it when you asked. If she realized she couldn’t do it, she needed to proactively tell you or your boss that.

I don’t think you can adequately defend yourself without telling your boss exactly what happened, which means naming the coworker (and it would look shady not to). It doesn’t need to be accusatory, though; you can allow for the possibility she did the task and emailed it before she left and the message went astray, or who knows what else. But explain to your boss that your colleague agreed to do it and you followed up with her several times and she assured you she was on it, and that you don’t know what happened but will find out once she’s back.

In the future, it makes sense to fill in your boss ahead of time on who will be covering things for you in your absence — not just to ward off situations like this, but also in case questions about it come up while you’re gone. You can tell her that you’ll do that from now on, and also ask if there’s a different way she would have liked you to handle this one.

2. My birthday is being hijacked

I have a question that feels ridiculous to even ask, but it’s bothering me more than I expected. A friend and colleague (we’ve known each other for years before starting at our current company; we were always more “acquaintances” than friends but we’ve never been at odds with each other, and we got closer while working together), “Jane,” and I almost share a birthday. Jane’s birthday is one day after mine. This is something that that Jane definitely knows. This year, Jane invited me to a birthday party for herself, to be held on my actual birthday because of weekends. The invite was online so I could see the guest list, and it is 100% mutual friends and work colleagues and includes all the people I would have invited to a celebration of my birthday.

If this were on any other day, I’d be happy to go and bring Jane a gift, but now I feel like if I go and other people brought Jane a card/gift, it will be awkward when they find out that it’s my actual birthday and they don’t have anything for me. I know this is small potatoes, but I feel really slighted here. The invite was also sent out a few weeks in advance, before I had invited people to celebrate my birthday, and now I feel like I can’t invite my friends to something for me unless I change the day. Even as I write this, I know it’s silly, but do you have advice for what to do? Am I just being ridiculous? I just wish Jane had asked me to do something together.

Why not just say to Jane, “I’d been planning to organize something for my own birthday, which is that day, and would have invited a lot of these same people. Want to make it a joint party for both our birthdays?”

I wouldn’t normally advocate trying to hijack part of someone else’s event for yourself, but when it’s your actual birthday and it’s the same group of friends (that last part is key), it makes a lot of sense.

3. How to get my co-interviewer to share her real opinions about candidates?

I work in a healthcare setting, manage the support staff, and am conducting interviews next week. For our interviews, the head of department always assigns a medical professional to interview with me. Usually this goes well and I have no problems. However, the colleague assigned this time — who I get along with well — has never conducted interviews before and is a real people pleaser. She is good at her job, but she never shares her thoughts in meetings/conversations and just agrees with the majority consensus. My concern is that I need the opposite in an interview process. If she simply agrees with me, even though she may think differently, then it is no different than me interviewing on my own. It is supposed to be a panel for a reason.

My plan was to not state my thoughts and instead push for her to speak first so she cannot simply repeat my opinion. However, I am skeptical this will work as I have tried this in the past with her and she just would not answer and kept deflecting back to my thoughts. Is there anything else I can do? How would you handle this?

Even when you’re not concerned about your co-interviewers being overly influenced by you (or each other), it’s still smart to create an interview rubric form that you each use to assess candidates, listing the key must-have’s and the nice-to-have’s that you’re looking for in candidates, and then each fill the form out on your own before you meet to discuss a candidate post-interview. That kind of assessment tool will ensure that you’re measuring each candidate against the same bar and can help mitigate bias (because you’ll be assessing candidates on clear requirements, not just a gut feeling or personal like/dislike — and has the side benefit of forcing your coworker to put her impressions down on paper before she has the chance to be influenced by you.

4. Taking a maternity leave without destroying my freelance business

I’m a self-employed nonprofit fundraising consultant, currently pregnant and due in spring 2024. I support a handful of organizations and I operate as a team of one (no subcontractors or employees). My business is a dream come true: I work remotely, doing projects I’m passionate about and highly skilled in, and I have tremendous flexibility.

I’d like to take a three-month maternity leave when the baby comes. As I see it, my options are: (1) Give my clients as much notice as possible about my upcoming leave and let them know I’ll be unavailable during that time. In the meantime, I would work with them to get ahead on as many projects as possible. The goal would be to make things relatively turn-key and avoid leaving my clients in the lurch. (2) Hire a subcontractor to work with clients on my behalf while I’m on leave.

I’m less inclined to do #2 because I don’t have anyone in mind to hire as a subcontractor, I don’t want to manage payroll or other issues that might come up while I’m on leave, and I don’t want to be worrying whether they’re delivering the quality of work my clients need. That feels like too much potential stress on top of all the craziness of caring for a newborn and my older child.

However, I’m concerned that a three-month gap may cause some of my clients to walk away. I’ve built up a strong client base over the last couple years and I don’t want to lose the great thing I have. I know my clients trust me and value my work, but I also know they have significant fundraising needs and may struggle to get the work done on their own. My leave also happens to coincide with one of the busiest times of year for nonprofit fundraising!

Option #1 seems far preferable to me for all the reasons you name. If you already had someone in mind who you knew you could rely on, that would change things. It’s not impossible that you could try to find someone before then, but you’d need to work closely enough with them between now and your leave to be comfortable letting them stand in for you while you’re unavailable (presumably with a contract prohibiting them from making a play for the client’s business for themselves), and it’s far from guaranteed that you’d find the right person … and meanwhile you’d be paying for their work with you during that pre-leave period, plus managing them (which is a substantial time investment), at exactly the same time as you want to be doing extra work to get ahead on projects in case the person doesn’t end up being the right one. It’s a lot of additional work without a guaranteed payoff.

If you have strong relationships with your clients, you’re not likely to lose them over a three-month leave with lots of preparation. Good fundraising consultants are hard to find, and if they like your work and you’re very transparent about how you’re arranging things for your absence, you’re likely to be fine. (However, you could always test this with a client or two — have the conversation now and feel out their reaction before you proceed with the others.)

5. Can I refuse to do this extra work?

I have a regular academic job and am getting close to retirement. I also get a very modest annual honorarium for editing a journal for a publisher (think four figures). The amount of work I put into it well exceeds the compensation, and the job has been a lot of effort. The journal was moribund when I took it on, and it is now one of the leaders in the field and turning a profit.

I’m entering the last year of my several years tenure as editor, and the publisher is now asking me to do another large marketing task in addition to editing which involves a lot of coordination and time. A little while ago, I received a very small raise to account for inflation, but it really is a cut as it is nowhere near inflation, and it is clear no more money is forthcoming. Several of the previous perks such as conference travel have also been cut in favour of these cheaper-to-run but much more labor-intensive marketing efforts, and I’m expected to do it all at home with my own IT equipment. It isn’t because the organization has no money; it does rather well.

I’ve done some of the marketing tasks that were asked, but found that unless I run the whole show, it doesn’t come off very well. I’ve said, “Well, I’ve done X amount and if you want more, here is a plan to delegate it to others as I’ll be leaving next year.” The journal is running very well, so the next editor is inheriting a much easier situation than I did. Did I do right here or should I just cheerfully accept more work for the good of the journal? It is a service job and there is no formal employment contract per se, though I pay taxes on the honorarium so I suppose it is sort of a consultancy.

Nope, that’s perfect. In this kind of role, you’re not obligated to take on additional work that you didn’t sign up for and aren’t being paid for just because they asked. Your obligation is to be clear about what you will and won’t do so they  can make other plans. You’ve done that. If they’d like to sweeten the pot to entice you, they’re welcome to try that — but you don’t need to do work you never signed up for simply because they want you to.

That’s of course a much blurrier line to maintain in a traditional employment situation (and often an utterly impractical one if you want to keep the job), but when you’re a consultant or someone being paid via honorarium, you have a ton of leverage and authority to simply explain that won’t work for you/you don’t have the time/it’s not your area of interest/etc. and decline, as you did.