Ask a Manager

It’s tiny answer Tuesday — six short answers to six short questions. Here we go…

1. When can I leave my job to join my fiance?

I started my first job out of college this August. I perform it well, it pays nicely, I have a friendly and compassionate manager, and it is all around pretty great. However, I also just got engaged to my college sweetheart, who is committed for 2 years to a job in New York. We’ve been doing long distance since August, but as you might know, long distance is horrible and we really want to move in together ASAP. I’m planning to tell my boss the news and ask if I can possibly work remotely, but if that isn’t possible, how long should I be working at my current job before I can realistically look for work in NYC?

I’d start looking now, using your fiance’s address, which is soon to become yours. It can take many months to find a job, so by the time you’re going on interviews, you may have been at your current job a year or longer. Just make sure you stay at your next job at least 2 years and ideally 3+ so that you don’t look like you have a pattern of leaving jobs after a short time.

2. Recognizing coworkers several levels above you

This is a nice problem to have. Sometimes my superiors will go above and beyond to do something that really helps me get my work done or feel motivated, and I’d like to recognize it the same way they do for me when they like something I’ve done. I’ve typically done it in the same way they do — on group emails — but what’s appropriate? Are there things I shouldn’t do?

Recent example — a remote manager emailed my group with a lot of tasks, and one person was asked to provide information, but she was on the road in a place where she didn’t have internet. And, she didn’t have the information. But, somehow, she still managed to contact someone at another organization, find it and get it to us ridiculously quickly. She could have just as easily said no, or even “here’s what you should do because I’m not there.” So in my response to manager and my group with some questions on these tasks, I called out this person.

Appropriate and appreciated? Not following appropriate boundaries? I’m about 2-3 ranks below this manager and the person who helped, and about ~14 years behind in experience. I do want to promote a positive team environment and am always looking for appropriate ways that I, as the most junior member of the team, can do that.

It’s nice to cite other people’s contributions publicly, but in at least some of these cases, I’d just thank the person privately. It’s really nice to recognize people’s work, but it doesn’t always have to be through a public message (just like your manager should be praising you privately some of the time; it doesn’t always have to be a public announcement). Plus, be aware that at 2-3 ranks below the person you’re praising, and many years in experience behind them, you may not be seeing enough of the picture to realize that what they’re doing is pretty normal for their job, and it’s potentially weird if you’re always publicly praising people for doing what’s expected of them — but that doesn’t mean you can’t thank them one-on-one when they make your life easier.

3. I declined to give 360 feedback on my boss

I received a request to give 360 feedback on my boss. I have heard that giving negative feedback to your boss is fraught with danger! My boss has only two direct reports (me and one other person). I declined this request for feedback.

Just yesterday, I discovered that if a request for 360 feedback is declined, whomever requested the feedback received a notice. The person that requested the feedback could have been either my boss or my boss’s boss. Either way, someone received notice that I declined.

How does this look? I declined the request because I had nothing good to say and was afraid of retaliation if I was honest. I am worried my boss would still retaliate because she knows the “if you can’t say something good, don’t say anything at all” rule. Did this make my boss look bad?

It’s true that declining to give feedback on someone usually implies that you don’t feel comfortable speaking negatively of them. What I want to know, though, is whether you have reason to fear retaliation from your boss if you gave honest feedback. If she’s never done anything to make you feel that way, and you feared that based only on hearing that this can happen, then you’ve done her a disservice. If, however, you have reason to worry about her reaction, then you were perfectly entitled to decline to participate.

4. My boss won’t keep meetings with me

I am a paralegal and my attorney keeps pushing back the weekly review meetings we are supposed to have. It’s been nearly two months since our last “weekly” meeting. His boss, the head attorney, has already admonished him repeatedly that he needs to have these meetings with me (otherwise, how will he know what’s going on with the case). I feel like I’ve tried everything I can think of — setting an appointment, emailing and texting reminders, asking nicely, explaining why they have a purpose, and even just standing inside his office tapping my foot impatiently. It’s not that he is intentionally putting off the meeting, it’s just that he always thinks whatever he happens to be doing at that moment is more important than the meeting, which is rarely true.

When we do have meetings, they are slow and painful because, instead of looking at the case file of discussion on his laptop, he’s responding to unrelated emails. This means I have to repeat myself often, gather him back on track, and an hour-long meeting takes a full 8-hour day and still isn’t done.

Our cases are suffering because of this — the cases that have MY name attached to them also. How can I truly make my attorney understand that, no, really, you do need to sit down and review the cases with me?

You can’t make him get that if he doesn’t get it on his own, especially after being admonished repeatedly by his boss. He’s a crappy manager, and it’s very hard to change that, especially from below. Your best bet is probably to go back to the head attorney and ask for advice about how to handle the lack of meetings and the lack of attention when you do have the meetings. (Note that you’ll be asking for advice, not complaining, but it should get you to the same outcome.) And if you can ask to be transferred to a different attorney in your office, that’s probably worth doing.

5. Employer is telling staff that I was fired, but I quit

I quit my job three weeks ago without notice. I know that is something you shouldn’t do, but it just got too much for me and was putting me through emotional distress. Anyway, I quit and have now found out they are telling other staff that they fired me for calling in sick too often.

Background: I took four days off for illness in May and June. I didn’t call in sick again until the day I quit. I was abused over the phone, saying that I do this too often and if it continued my position would be in jeopardy so I quit instead. Could this affect my future employment? I am currently in university with another 2 years to go so am not looking for a job straight away.

It’s hard to know what they’re saying to people when you’re hearing it second or third hand. It’s possible that people heard that you were told you were calling in sick too often and that it was jeopardizing your job, and they interpreted that as “and she got fired as a result.” Of course, it’s also possible that your employer is lying to people. We can’t know for sure from what’s here. However, the real question is what they’ll say to prospective employers who call for a reference, and the way to find that out is to (a) have a professional-sounding friend do a reference check for you there, and/or (b) call them up and ask them. If you find out through either of these avenues that they’re misrepresenting things, then it’s time to do #2 in this post.

Either way, though, you probably don’t want to use this employer as a reference when you’re applying for jobs anyway, because it doesn’t sound like they’ll give you a glowing reference, which is what you want from reference-giver. If you can simply leave it off your resume (which sounds like a possibility since you have another two years of school), that might be your best bet.

6. My coworkers aren’t responsive to me

There are several coworkers who do not get back to me in a timely manner, if at all. How do I deal with this? Because we are in home offices, our main method of communication is by email. Many times, the information I need keeps me from moving forward on my work, completing a project, appropriately scheduling my time or passing along information to customers who are waiting for information from me through these coworkers. I even tell them from time to time they are keeping me from completing something. Help!

First, talk to them: “I’ve noticed that I”m not always able to get the information I need from you when I email you for it. Is there something I could do differently to make it easier? Do you prefer phone calls rather than emails? Do you want me to follow up if I’m waiting on something? What would help?” If the problem continues after you’ve talked to them about it, then you need to alert your manager or theirs (depending on what makes sense in your particular office culture). The basic formula with any problem with your coworker that affects your work is to talk with them first, and then escalate if that doesn’t fix it.

It’s short answer Sunday — seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go…

1. Explaining doctor’s visits — and their side effects — to your manager

Recently, you answered a reader’s question about explaining frequent doctor’s visits. I have a similar situation, but mine causes significantly more disruption to my work and I’m not sure how to talk about it with my boss.

I’ve rewritten the paragraph trying to describe my situation without giving away my problem a bunch of times, but I give up. It’s warts! I have a several big, nasty warts on my foot. Ugh, so embarrassing. Anyway, so I have these warts. Had ’em for years. I’m finally getting serious about getting rid of them and it’s a real endeavor. The treatment (cantharidin) that is finally working requires biweekly application and is significantly debilitating: It’s very painful and as a result I am pretty sleep-deprived/loopy on painkillers the day after the treatment and can’t drive for four or five additional days. I just had my third treatment today and will probably need at least three more.

I work remotely, don’t manage anyone, and control my own highly flexible schedule, but my job requires me to be out and about in the community, attending meetings and events. So far, I’ve been able to schedule around my appointments (arranging to have the appointments late in the week, blocking off the couple of days immediately following an appointment for desk work, etc.) and it hasn’t had a direct effect on important meetings, etc. But it does limit the time I’m able to spend on outreach, and the pain is significant enough to be distracting for several days after each treatment.

I work in a Results Only Work Environment, and I’m months away from deadlines on my biggest goals, so I’ll be able to catch up once the treatments are done. But I feel like I need to loop my boss in a bit more. Do you have suggestions for how I can handle this conversation?

The key in situations like this is to distinguish between info that would be helpful for your manager to have (that your’e dealing with something medical, it’s nothing she needs to worry about, and that it’ll affect you/your schedule in X ways) and info she doesn’t need (warts). So you might say something like, “I wanted to let you know that I’m having a series of medical treatments over the next few weeks for something that’s minor, but that is going to impact my ability to drive and sometimes focus for a few days each time because of the painkillers they’ll be giving me. I’m scheduling meetings and work around it, but I wanted to give you a heads-up that it’s going on, just in case anything seems different than usual for the next few weeks. It’ll all be finished by January.”

2. Did my manager rob me of this internal promotion?

Recently an internal job was advertised through my manager for 3 positions. I applied for the role with my manager’s permission and had a successful interview. When my manager was told that both I and another member of my current team had been successful, she made the interviewer pick between us, as she said she could not give us both up due to resources. The interviewer picked my colleague.

I feel like I have been robbed of an opportunity to better myself and my career. My colleague will be replaced with a member of staff from a larger team (who I will train) and the interviewer has been told to pick another member of staff from one of the larger teams. Is my manager within her rights to do this? If they are replacing my colleague within the team, why could they not have replaced me as well?

Sure, your manager can do that. It’s often much harder to lose two people (and be training two new people) at once, so it’s not surprising that she didn’t want to lose both of you. This is often part of the deal with internal promotions: Your manager’s input counts for a lot more than it might if you were looking outside your company, and she can often control timing and whether a promotion happens at all. I wouldn’t look at it as being robbed — this is pretty par for the course with internal moves. You don’t always get them, for reasons that aren’t always entirely about your qualifications … which, of course, is also true with external moves as well. Stuff isn’t always fair.

3. My post-interview follow-ups were forwarded

I’ve applied for several jobs in the last three months; many of them I had phone screenings and a full interview, and then I followed up with an email sent to the interviewer. For three of the jobs, I received quick emails acknowledging receipt of my follow-up email, but I also noticed on the bottom of them they had been forwarded to human resources or the recruiter who made initial contact. I’m assuming in these cases I was not suppose to see the forwarded message that contained quick phrases such as “FYI”, “forwarded as per discussion” and a similar message about my follow-up letter, followed by a private conversation about the interviewer’s dog and personal relationship issues.

It’s one thing to see this once, but to see it three different times over the last few weeks seems very strange. Is forwarding follow-up emails to recruiters/HR standard? Is it a part of a file they keep on applicants? What would be the reasoning for forwarding a follow-up email to HR/recruiter? Should I email the interviewers about this, or leave it alone, especially in the case of the really long email about the dog and relationship issues?

All these interviews seem to have gone well, and the follow-up letters were very short but included two reasons I would do well in the position and touched on one or two points the interviewer had mentioned in the interview in terms of looking for a solution to an issue they were having (e,g. streamlining data entry, client relations, and event planning ideas), and to be honest they weren’t remarkable.

Yes, it’s normal to share correspondence like this with anyone involved in the hiring process and to keep it part of your overall file for that job. After all, you sent those follow-ups as part of your candidacy, and they’re treated that way. You shouldn’t email them about it; that would be weird. And you should simply ignore the personal message that you weren’t meant to see.

4. Leaving previous career experience on your resume when graduating into a new field

After high school, I spent a short time in college because I was unsure of which path I should take. I opted to explore my interests, and over a few months I tried a hodgepodge of jobs until eventually settling into a retail position I enjoyed. I worked with a major cosmetics company that promoted me several times over a 7-year period and gave me a tremendous amount of responsibility. But I decided I wanted to do more with my life, and I could only do that by finishing school. I left my job and returned to academia. This month, I will graduate from an Ivy League university with a degree in English. I am passionate about publishing and have been working in the industry for the last few years through various internships and freelance writing jobs. Now it’s time to move from an internship to something that actually pays. Suddenly, at 30, I’m applying for entry-level jobs that most people hold in their early 20s. Luckily the cosmetics experience kept my skin looking young, but I’m afraid HR will see my previous career as a red flag.

Should I take this off my resume? The professional experience I gained formed a practical basis for my academic career and I know that it will continue to serve me professionally. I just wonder if HR will see it that way.

Nope, leave it on there. For most employers, the fact that you have previous real-world work experience will be a plus, not a negative.

5. When should you send interview thank-you notes?

I have a quick question regarding thank-you/follow-up letters. I know you said to wait at least a few hours before sending a follow-up letter, but how long should I wait? If the interview was on a Friday, would waiting until Monday to send it look bad? I would send it today, but I take quite a while to write them as I tailor each one… and by the time I finish the interviewers will probably no longer be in the office. Anyway, your advice would greatly be appreciated.

Sending it on Monday is fine. You’re not expected to have these sent instantly. The whole idea is that you don’t want them to appear perfunctory; you want it to appear that you’ve thought about your conversation in the interview, digested it, and are still interested. You don’t want to wait too long, or they may have already made a hiring decision, but sending them on Monday after a Friday interview is completely fine.

6. PTO when converting from hourly to salaried

I am soon going to be converted to salary. I have been hourly for almost a year. What happens to my PTO earned? Can they just tell me that since they are converting me, I now lose it and part of the company’s salary vacation policy?

It depends on what state you’re in and what your company’s policy on PTO is. No federal law requires that employers give paid vacation time at all, so at the federal level, employers are free to handle their vacation policies however they want, including telling you that you’re losing all your accrued PTO when you transfer to a salaried job — although that would be both unusual and dumb. However, some states (like California) have laws that govern how accrued PTO is handled, so your state’s laws may require that they pay it out, leave it accrued, or otherwise handle it in a specific manner.

7. Using a title below your official one

I’m wondering what advice you have about using a job title below the title you’ve officially been given. I am a young professional (just finishing a master’s degree), working at a small non-profit with two staff members (me and the ED). A few months ago, my boss decided to give me the title COO. Since that is my title I’ve been using it, but I’m starting to look for a new job (I’ve been there about 18 months and I don’t see a growth path where I am now). As I said I’m a young professional working for a small organization and I think that title 1) doesn’t reflect what I do very well and 2) seems too senior for someone with my level of experience. Do you suggest I use the COO title and give an explanation when looking for other jobs, use a different title, or talk to my boss and change my title all together?

Don’t use a title different than the one that your company will give out to someone calling to verify your information. You’re better off trying to get a title that reflects your real responsibilities.

It’s short answer Saturday — seven short answers to seven short questions! Here we go…

1. Having personal packages delivered to your office

I’ve had issues getting things delivered to my apartment (several items have been “delivered”… just not to me) and since I’m in a city there’s no back door or porch to leave packages (or doorman). How do you feel about having personal packages shipped to the office? I don’t mean all my Christmas and holiday gifts, but I’d maybe have something sent to the office once a month, particularly when a signature is needed.

I’ve always done this and think at most offices it’s completely fine, as long as it’s not daily deliveries that take up the time of the people in your mail room. I’d do it once or twice and see if anyone objects, or just ask whoever gets your incoming mail if they mind you doing it on occasion.

2. Which salary should I give?

I was recently laid off from a company because it went out of business, but for about a year and a half to two years before that, I (along with the entire company) was working on half-time pay (with commensurate half-time hours) due to poor sales and other funding issues caused by the economic crash. When asked by future employers about my salary at this position, do I give the full salary I was hired at (and that I received for half of my tenure there), the amount I was actually being paid at the end (since I was only working part-time), or something in between?

Give your full salary. If asked at any point to verify it, you can explain that the whole company moved to half-time hours when it ran into trouble but that your salary for full-time work was $X.

3. Is there any point in following up on the status of this job?

After a final interview, references checks, and an additional follow-up where I was told that the decision is waiting approval from the Board of Directors, does it benefit me at all to follow up again? I am getting mixed advice, I realize the only benefit would be to see if they have identified a timeline. Would it be better if I just sit tight and be confident that when the hiring manager hears I will hear?

Yes. There’s no way that you’re not going to hear about it if they decide to hire you, and meanwhile you should be continuing your job search unabated anyway, as you should always do when you don’t yet have an official offer that you’ve accepted. However, if you don’t have a sense of the timeline for when you’re likely to hear something, it’s certainly fine to get in touch and ask that (as long as it’s not right on top of your last follow-up; if you just checked in yesterday, wait a week before contacting them again).

4. Explaining why you left your last job, when it’s because you were dating a coworker

I want to know how to answer question, “Why did you leave your last position?” I left because I started dating a guy at work, which became serious and I did not want to work at same employer. No bad terms and I have never dated anyone from work before. Now we’re engaged. I was there one year, and I quit in September.

I’d just say, “A coworker and I got engaged, and I thought it would be better if we didn’t work for the same employer.”

5. Sharing work samples when interviewing with a competitor

I have a question that is broadly about protocol and expectations for interviewing with a firm that is a competitor to your current employer. I currently work for a professional services company that conducts strategic research on behalf of clients in a particular industry. I have been interviewing for a job with a firm that does consulting for clients in that same industry. It’s a relatively narrow field, so you can assume they’re competing for some of the the same clients, but the services they offer are reasonably unique.

With regard to providing competitive intelligence to the firm I’m interviewing with, is there a rule of thumb to keep in mind or a line I should be wary of in the interview? Would be unethical to send a copy of or excerpt from a report I completed for my current firm as an example of the type of work I do (and my writing abilities), or could this be seen as competitive intelligence for the interviewing firm? My concerns stem from a) a desire not to compromise the firm I currently work for and b) concern about whether the interviewing firm would view me as being an unethical employee.

Yeah, that doesn’t sound like the type of thing you should be sharing with a competitor. Basically, if it’s something that would be of benefit to the firm you’re interviewing with at your company’s expense, or if it’s something that your company wouldn’t share publicly, you can’t share it. I’d find a different writing sample to use.

6. Conflict of interest when a sibling works for a competitor

Can I be terminated for “conflict of interest” because a sibling works at or is a partner in a firm in the same industry?

Legally, sure. But practically speaking, it’s unlikely to happen unless there’s more to the story.

7. Should I quit my new job?

I recently moved to New York from San Diego in hopes of finding better opportunities to find a job in my career. I had spent the last two years in San Diego doing part-time jobs, having no luck landing a job in PR. I finally realized that I wasn’t going to get anywhere if I stayed where I was, so I decided to make the big move. Within two weeks of moving, I had interviewed for 2 jobs and had landed a job at one of the biggest agencies in the world.

It is such a great opportunity, but I don’t feel that it is a good fit for me. I don’t like the work I am doing, plus I don’t feel like I fit the company culture at all. The company rushed the hiring process and basically threw me in to projects without any real training. I’ve gotten my bearings, but I’m still not liking the work or the people. I really dread getting up and going to work everyday, which is unfortunate, because it really is a great company. I’ve been thinking of quitting, but I know how terrible that would look to both my current and future employer. I’d like some advice on the best way for me to go about deciding to quit or not. Should I wait a little while longer or should I just trust my gut and jump ship?

Instead of making the choice quitting vs not quitting, why don’t you instead start looking around again and see if you find another opportunity that seems like a better fit? That way, you’re not quitting with nothing lined up, you’re giving yourself more time to see if the current job gets any better while you look, and once you do have an offer, you can compare it against your current situation and decide which you prefer. That way, you’re comparing your current job against a real job, rather then your current job against “anything else at all.”

(And you can generally get away with one quick departure from a job, as long as it’s not a pattern in your career.)