Ask a Manager

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

1. How do I rebuild a department after an abusive manager?

I’ve recently accepted a new position at the director level. I supervise several managers who, in turn, each supervise their own team of employees. Prior to my arrival, one of the managers, Marcy, exhibited some problematic behavior. As I understand it, she has sometimes reacted with extreme anger, aimed both at her direct reports and at other members of the department. She’s never gotten violent, but she has screamed so vociferously that people felt intimidated and afraid. She was reprimanded, coached, and forced to undergo anger management training, and I’ve been told that her behavior has improved. I’m not sure if her anger issues are completely resolved, but I haven’t seen anything troubling since I’ve been here.

What I have witnessed, however, is the damage done by Marcy’s past bad behavior. The entire department walks around her as though on eggshells. Disagreements which in other circumstances would be minor and manageable are blown up into bigger ordeals because everyone approaches her with such distrust.

Her past behavior has earned this distrust, but I need to find solutions to help the department move forward. I cannot fire her (barring future bad action), so how do I help my department without seeming like I’m minimizing their trauma? I want everyone to work together effectively, and I don’t know how to do that so long as Marcy remains, but I have to play the hand that I’ve been dealt. Do you have any recommendations to help speed up the process or allow for the opportunity for the rebuilding of trust?

Marcy is responsible for this problem and she should be an active part of the solution. You should meet with her and lay out what you’re seeing — fear and distrust and problems becoming bigger than they need to be because she’s salted the earth with her past behavior — and tell her that you need her to work on repairing those relationships. It’s not enough for her to just stop yelling; now she needs to figure out how to repair the damage. Maybe that means apologizing to people one-on-one. Maybe it means she still needs to alter more of her behavior (for example, she’s not yelling now, but how much of a point is she making of demonstrating that people can safely disagree with her?). I don’t know because it will depend on specifics, but she needs to be thinking about this and working on it at least as actively as you are, and part of your role is to hold her accountable for doing that.

You should also ask other team members for their input, because you need to make sure the problem hasn’t just been driven underground. (For example, do you know for sure that Marcy isn’t still reacting to people poorly, just less intensely than before?)

Realistically, though, this might not be fixable. People don’t trust her because they have reason not to trust her. But that’s where I’d begin.

2. Should I intervene with a creepy coworker?

I’m a fairly junior female employee in a very male-dominated field. I sit a few rows down from one of my few junior female coworkers, Liz. Liz and I are friendly, grabbing the occasional coffee or happy hour here and there, but not super close beyond that.

A male employee in our office, Jack, who is several decades older than we are, has recently been treating Liz in a way that feels very uncomfortable to me. Two to three times a day, I will see him go over to her desk and insist on conversing with her for stretches of 15-20 minutes, even if she is clearly working. The chat is never work-related: He asks about her weekend, her evening plans, what she’s reading etc., and often launches into long personal stories of his own. Liz is usually civil but curt during these interactions, mostly nodding along while trying to continue her work; her expression and body language usually appear (at least to me) visibly annoyed throughout.

Is there anything I can do about this situation? I feel horrible just being a bystander without trying to help put a stop to it, but I assume that I shouldn’t intervene without asking Liz what she would prefer. But as someone who is neither Liz’s manager nor her close friend, but just a coworker, is that even an appropriate conversation for me to have — and what would be the right way to have it, if so?

Yes, talk to Liz. Say, “Are you happy to chat with Jack when he comes by or would you appreciate me interrupting with something work-related when he stops by?”

Also, if she expresses any discomfort with what he’s doing, please encourage her to talk to her manager. She shouldn’t have to put up with this and a decent manager should be happy to intervene on her behalf — for anyone, but especially because Liz is junior, which means she’s more likely to be unsure of how to shut down Jack herself and whether she even can shut him down. It’s so normal to need help with things like this when you’re new to the work world and dealing with an employee several decades your senior. Encourage her to get that help!

3. Hiring manager texted me at 9 pm

I got a text from a hiring manager at 9 pm last night after submitting an application that morning/early afternoon. The timing of it weirded me out. Is it a red flag?

We’re in the same time zone (this place is only 30ish minutes away from me). He said he really wanted to get someone hired and trained but I thought, “Would it have really hurt to wait until the morning?”

I have this feeling that the work/life balance won’t be good and there will be no boundaries if I do get hired. That there will be multiple late-night messages and trying to get me to do stuff on my off time. I was just trying to relax before bed when this text came through, then I was trying to figure out my schedule to fit this in. I just get red flags from it.

Yeah, you’re right to be concerned.  If it had been an email rather than a text, I’d be less worried because that’s less intrusive; people work their own schedules and as long as he wasn’t expecting an immediate response from you, I wouldn’t be terribly concerned. I’d still ask about what hours people there typically work and probe around a bit, but a 9 pm text is more unsettling.

That said, it’s too early to conclude anything definitive. Go to the interview, take his measure, probe into the culture (and remember that you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you!), and feel free to ask, “I noticed you texted me at 9 pm — is it common for the team to get work texts at that hour?”

4. Can I ask to have the red wall in my new office repainted?

I work in higher education and my department recently welcomed a new director. Due to some changing priorities, I have the exciting opportunity to transform my role to one that better serves our students (and is generally a better fit for me)!

This change will require me to change offices, which brings me to my question: can I ask for my new office to be painted before I move in? The last time (10+ years ago) it was painted, they used the basic office greige for a majority of the walls and a deep red for a pop of color. The red is bright and distracting and now that I’m losing my window and natural light, I’m worried the statement wall is going to impact my mood and productivity.

We have such a tight budget and I don’t know my new boss that well. Will asking for one wall to be repainted cause me to pick up a “diva” reputation?

I think you can ask. Don’t make it sound like it’s about decorating to your precise aesthetic preferences. It might turn out that would be perfectly okay too, but since you’re worried about coming across as tone-deaf on a team with a tight budget and new leader, say something like, “That red makes my head hurt after five minutes — any chance I could get it repainted to something neutral like the color on the other walls?”

For what it’s worth, if they’re not willing to repaint it, they might be willing to let you do it in a neutral color at your own expense. You shouldn’t have to do that, but it’s a solution that’s been used before by the desperate.

5. I can overhear my coworker’s Zoom therapy

A coworker I consider to be a trial of patience just moved into an office on my hall. Our offices all have doors that shut, but the walls are paper thin and I can usually hear everything my immediate neighbors are saying. When it’s about work stuff, it doesn’t really matter but this coworker has therapy on Zoom once a week. I can hear what she says (although I can’t make out what the other person says) and it’s really uncomfortable. I normally avoid chitchat with this person because of rude things she’s said in the past and I don’t want to stir the pot … but I also don’t want to listen in on her personal therapy sessions!

Since you’d rather not say something to her directly, why not just put on headphones or use a white noise machine? Sometimes you have no choice but to suck it up and have a potentially awkward conversation, but since in this case we’re only talking about an hour a week, there’s nothing wrong with just taking the easy way out rather than dealing with someone you’re worried will be rude.

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

1. Coworker sleeps too deeply when she’s on-call

I work in a job (child welfare) that requires overnight and weekend on-call shifts. We get calls almost every night, but usually those are in the evening hours; true middle-of-the-night emergencies are more rare, but always highly urgent.

I have a coworker who can’t wake up to calls in the early morning hours. She’s very responsive in the evenings, and even late at night and in the later morning — it’s just the wee hours of the morning, when she is most deeply asleep, that cause a problem. She’s missed a call three times now; when that happens, the on-call worker from a neighboring office has to get called in, which delays our response time significantly (and makes the other worker mad!).

Our general office policy is that it’s fine for this to happen once — stuff happens, people sleep too deeply when they’re tired, etc. After the first missed call, your supervisor talks to you about how to prevent it happening again (changing the ringtone to something more startling, giving the supervisor your personal number so two phones are ringing at you, etc.). After the second, it’s a serious warning. We’ve never had someone miss three calls without a corresponding performance/attitude/other problem before, but that’s not the case with this coworker; she’s great at her job when she’s awake!

Our management seems to be at a loss as to what to do at this point, and they’re asking us for suggestions. Other than the standard “this helps me wake up” advice, what are the options here? It’s not really a performance issue that can be worked on, and it seems silly to fire a good employee for sleeping too deeply at 3 am! But someone does need to be responding to these emergencies, and honestly the rest of us would probably revolt if we had to take more on-call shifts and this coworker was excused (we’re already on-call one weeknight out of 10, and a full weekend every eight weeks). Any suggestions?

It sounds like it should be treated as something more like a medical issue than a disciplinary one — and the coworker herself should be enlisted in finding solutions. Surely there’s got to be a technological solution, like some sort of equipment that can be kept in her bedroom that would blare loudly and flash lights when she’s called? A wristband that vibrates when a call comes in? Other devices that provide emergency alerts for hearing-impaired people? Technology almost certainly can solve this (and your organization should pay for it the way they would other assistive devices used for medical accommodations).

2. Coworker is rude to my intern

I’m managing a summer intern. While she does 95% of things fantastically, she does make the occasional mistake. I address these with her in one-on-ones where I ask what occurred, we discuss the seriousness of the mistake when it’s a big thing, and then talk through ways to help her not make that mistake again (if it’s relevant). Our team’s culture is to always bring up mistakes to people one-on-one so that person can correct it, or to let them know it’s been fixed if it needed to be dealt with immediately.

There’s a problem employee, Jane, who is at a lower level than me but not a direct report who frequently calls out only my intern’s mistakes publicly via Teams. None of these mistakes have specifically affected Jane. In fact, Jane has made (and continues to make) the same mistakes as the intern and many other mistakes, and she also gets defensive at any correction at all. How do I tell my intern that it’s Jane who is in the wrong, not her (other than the mistakes)? And how do I tell Jane to stop being a jerk to the intern?

Tell Jane that if there are problems with your intern’s work, she should come to you privately so you can handle it; she shouldn’t address it herself. You could say, “It’s important to me to praise in public and correct in private, and most people don’t appreciate being called out publicly like that. If something needs to be addressed with her, please let me know and I will handle it with her one-on-one.”

And then to your intern: “I’ve asked Jane to stop doing this and to come to me privately if there’s anything that concerns her, because our culture is to raise mistakes with people privately. Frankly, it’s also not her job to be monitoring your work like that. I’m sorry that’s happened, and I want to make sure you know you’re doing a great job.”

3. Should I wear a button to signal I don’t want to talk about politics at work?

I recently started a new mid-level position in a professional office in a heavily-Democratic region of the country. People tend to assume you are a Democrat, and political comments that are anti-Trump and pro-Harris are extremely common. I happen to be anti-Trump AND anti-Harris, and I don’t want to hear anything about politics at work, ever. It makes me feel “othered” and has led to me struggling a bit to form bonds with my new colleagues, which I feel is important to my success with the company — and I don’t know how to act or what to say when these comments are made directly to me.

What do you think about my wearing a Cornel West button on my coat, in hopes that people might notice and just stop talking politics with or in front of me? Is there anything else I can do? I should add that if someone noticed my button and then attempted to talk to me about my political beliefs, I think I would feel comfortable politely letting them know that I’d prefer to not discuss politics at work.

If you don’t want to talk about politics at work, wearing a political button is the exact wrong thing to do! The button would signal that you’re inviting political conversation (and in this case not just conversation, but probably debate) — and it will come across oddly to wear it and then say you don’t want to talk about politics at work. You’re better off just saying, “Oh, I really hate talking about politics at work” or “I have a politics black-out right now — thank you for understanding.”

4. Employee is constantly anxiety venting

An indirect employee (reports to one of my reports) has a lot of stressors about a sudden unpleasant life change. I’ve given their supervisor resources regarding free counseling sessions through work, flex scheduling, etc. to share. However, this employee has started handling their anxiety and anger by coming to my office to report/vent about anything bothering them. Sometimes multiple times per hour. About seemingly minor things I would expect folks to deal with on their own or brush off (no I really don’t need to be told someone didn’t wipe up some drips of coffee in the break room).

Should I weather this knowing they are in a tough place, or shut it down and save my own sanity?

Shut it down and save your sanity. They’re asking you to perform an unreasonable amount of emotional labor, and you can decline (and should decline, since you presumably need to focus on work during that time). You’re also not their boss — they shouldn’t be coming to you this frequently at all.

There’s advice here and here on handling this sort of interruption, but since you’re their boss’s boss, make sure you’re also working with their manager to ensure that the problem doesn’t just get transferred over to her.

5. My colleague is copying me

As a small business owner, I often work with strategic partners. I’m developing opportunities with one partner and noticed on several occasions that she’s mirroring my language. For the most part, I let it go.

She recently posted on a professional networking site that she’s seeking new opportunities and asked me to recommend her in comments. I was incredulous when I read the post and noted her elevator pitch is pretty much the unique metaphor and structure I use for my pitch, which I shared when we met.

I already told her I’d write a referral before I read it. I’m not sure how to respond to this. If I don’t bring it up, I feel it’ll only get worse down the road. She’s also an up-and-coming speaker and I’m wary that she will use my anecdotes; it’s a very niche industry.

How can I address this in a way that doesn’t damage our relationship? This person has become a friend and there’s a second partner in our venture, so I’m not ready to walk away from this yet.

Her request for a referral actually gives you an easier opening to bring it up. You could say, “I feel awkward writing you a referral when the pitch you wrote is so similar in metaphor and structure to the one I shared with you that I use. I’m concerned it will look like I copied yours or you copied mine, and either way that’s not good for either of us.”

(Of course, make sure it’s really copied! Some pitches are generic enough that it would be hard to call dibs, but based on the way you described it, I’m assuming that’s not the case here.)

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

1. A man at our events makes other attendees uncomfortable

I’m on a planning committee for an event involving a fandom generally beloved by mostly women, often mothers and daughters. This event is spread over a few days and involves speakers, tours of book/filming sites, etc.

There’s a middle-aged man, Alex, who is a fan and has attended previous in person and virtual events (where I was not on the planning committee). Alex is passionate about this IP, which is great, but he tends to monopolize the attention of a few of the attendees. When one would gently but firmly say, “I’d like to stop talking now and enjoy the tour, Alex,” he would move to another and so on.

Additionally, at past events, the committee has gotten verbal and written feedback that Alex made some people uncomfortable, mainly by approaching their daughters to talk about this IP and other similar ones. Absolutely nothing untoward happened and all the children were with their mothers, but the girls involved didn’t wish to engage in conversation and their mothers had a hard time ending the conversations with Alex.

Alex was also removed from a social media group for this IP, for continuing to call and text a member, Joyce, after she asked him not to, and then mailing things to her home as apologies for upsetting her. This social media group isn’t officially part of the event, but Joyce will be there as a speaker. Alex has attended other, virtual events since then and has behaved appropriately and not interacted with Joyce.

Alex is neurodivergent, and his difficulties with communication, social cues, and rejection are absolutely part of his disability. It’s worth noting that while he clearly has higher support needs in terms of interpersonal skills, he has low support needs in his high-level career. The other planning committee members and I are struggling to figure out how to best handle this. We want Alex to be able to have a good time without impeding on other attendees’ boundaries. (As an aside, I only mention Alex’s neurodivergence as background that he processes the world differently than neurotypical adults. We have other neurodivergent folks attending and on the planning committee, and we’re trying to be as inclusive as we can.)

Past committees chose to rotate time buddying up with him to try and smooth these experiences, but that’s not something this committee is able to do. Should we quietly look for volunteers to keep Alex company? That might be our solution, but it also feels like we’d be imposing on people who are paying for this event to ask them to give up their focus on the event to engage Alex. Are we able to request that he only attend virtually instead of in person? I’d love any advice on how to proceed with being sensitive, respectful, and maintaining everyone’s boundaries while not being infantilizing or rude to Alex.

Can you just be straightforward with Alex? “We’re looking forward to seeing you at X! We want to share some feedback from previous events to help ensure everyone has a good experience. At previous events, some attendees felt you crossed boundaries by approaching kids who didn’t want to talk with an adult they didn’t know and by keeping people in conversation when they wanted to focus on the event. We are happy to welcome you back this year but ask that you not approach kids you don’t know, and be mindful that while adult attendees may enjoy a brief (five minutes or so) chat, most will prefer to return their focus to the event. We look forward to seeing you and hope you have a great time.”

It might sting, but it’s kinder to clearly spell out what he needs to do if he wants to be welcomed back in the future. You also have the option of asking him to only attend virtually, but you could give this a try first and see if it solves the problem.

Related:
telling a member that his behavior at our events is ruining it for everyone else

2. Acceptable beverages on video calls

I have a very low stakes question that I find myself overthinking in a new role. What are the generally accepted beverages and/or containers to drink out of on calls?

I would assume water bottles are fine, coffee mugs, coffee tumblers, etc., but I recently found myself thinking about things like cans of kombucha that might look like beer, a green juice with a straw, soda, that kind of thing.

My job is casual enough that it definitely doesn’t matter internally, but there’s something about seeing myself using a straw on camera that makes me feel like a toddler.

If it looks like beer, pour it in non-clear glass. Otherwise, any of those are fine, including straws! (Assuming it’s a standard straw and not, like, a Krazy Straw.)

The exception is if the meeting or your industry requires an especially high degree of polish. For example, I wouldn’t bring a soda can with a straw to a meeting with a VIP client for the first time — although it’s hard to defend why and, like so many things, it’s about cultural connotations around those items rather than any real reason.

Related:
does it look unprofessional to have an energy drink at my desk every day?

3. Management scheduled a team-building workshop to fix our bad manager

I’m part of a small team in a government agency. The team lead is my skip-level boss, Julie. Our team and our larger agency have gone through a bit of turmoil and employee tension in the past few years. There were a lot of factors, both in and out of our control, that contributed, but the main one was Julie. She has poor communication skills, is disorganized, and doesn’t seem to understand much of the work we do but refuses to admit it. This is especially a problem because our team is responsible for making sure the agency is in compliance with certain laws, so we are breaking the law if we don’t do our jobs correctly.

For years, upper management has ignored the problems with Julie, until this year when one of my coworkers reported the lack of compliance to the appropriate authorities. Upper management is now showing some interest in addressing the situation by asking us to attend a three-day-long workshop to “rebuild our working relationships.” We all anticipate that this will be a long and awkward “team-building” event that will do absolutely nothing to address the serious management issues we’re having, but will make our lives harder by interrupting our actual work.

Is it worth going to upper management as a team and telling them that we don’t think this workshop is a good use of our time, and that they should focus their energy on actually managing Julie? I don’t personally have a lot of confidence that management will actually listen to us.

You can try. The problem, of course, is that the same incompetence (and/or lack of care) that has allowed them to bury their heads in the sand about Julie up until now is the same incompetence that now makes them think a workshop on “rebuilding relationships” will somehow address it. Either they’re truly inept enough to think that’s an appropriate response, or they don’t actually care about resolving the issues and just want to be able to say they’ve done something. (However, this such a ludicrously bad attempt at “something” and so unlikely to fly with anyone exercising any real oversight that I’ve got to think incompetence is at least one of the factors in play.)

That said, it sounds like they were moved to action after the initial report, so it’s possible that applying additional pressure will move them a little more. So I say give it a try; tell them you’re happy they want to address the problems, but the workshop has nothing to do with what the issues are. Just keep your hopes low.

4. Porn Hub sticker on laptop

I work at a community college. One of my colleagues has a student in her class with a Porn Hub sticker on her laptop. We’re just curious if and how you would address this with a student?

In college? I’d leave it alone. If she doesn’t have the sense to realize not to do that once she’s at work, she’ll be informed pretty quickly.

This assumes the sticker is just words and not, say, an X-rated photo. If it were that, you’d need to tell her to stop exposing unconsenting classmates to it.