can I ask for a raise because I stopped getting high at work, how to talk about a firing socially, and more by Alison Green on July 10, 2023 It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Can I ask for a raise since I’m not getting high at work anymore? I am a customer service manager. Recently, I quit getting high at work. My marijuana use here was no secret, and sometimes even encouraged by ownership. I recently took a long break from cannabis, and discovered that I am much, much better at my job without it. Who figures. I have a review coming up, and I’m wondering if there’s any possible way to leverage “I’m not taking bong hits, and my performance has improved vastly” into more money without making it sound like my previously stoned work was not worth my salary. Is there any artful way of handling this? Leave the weed out of it entirely. If you’re performing at a higher level now, that’s what you should build your case for a raise around — leaving the reason behind the change out of the discussion (just like you would if your work improved because you were getting better sleep or finally left your crap boyfriend or so forth). That said, if the change has been relatively recent, you need to wait a while longer. There’s not enough case for a raise if it’s just “my work has been better for the last few weeks.” You need a sustained period of higher-level work to point to — generally an absolute minimum of six months (and always at least a year from when your salary was last set, unless something very significant about the job itself changed). 2. How to talk about a firing socially I am in a situation where all signs point to me being fired from my current job. I’ve been using a lot of your prior advice about how to improve job performance issues and talking to my manager candidly about expectations and performance. However, it’s very much looking like a “when, not if” situation. My question is: when that shoe drops, how do I discuss it in social situations? You’ve talked about how to address it in interviews, but what do I say about it to friends and family? Do I bring it up proactively, or do I wait until somebody asks about work? It will come out eventually and since many of my friends are from grad school, it would be helpful to let them know that I’m looking for work to activate that network. (For context, I am financially independent of my family and have been for several years now. I wouldn’t be asking for money from them!) It’s really up to you! It definitely makes sense to share it proactively with people you’d like emotional support from; beyond that, you can announce it or not, as you feel like. If you don’t announce it to someone and they ask about work, it’s fine to just say, “Actually, I’m back on the market” … and then you can either share more or not, as you feel like doing. If someone asks what happened and you don’t want to get into it, it’s okay to say, “It wasn’t the right fit” or “they really needed someone to do X and that’s not my strength — I’m better at Y.” That’s not to say you need to dance around the fact that you were fired; there’s nothing shameful about it and if you want to share it, you should — this is just advice for navigating it if you’d rather not. All of this also applies with people in your network who you specifically want to know you’re looking for work; you can still use language like the above with them if you’d like to. And if you want to proactively contact them to let them know you’re looking, you could start with, “I’m back on the market and looking for X.” You can fill in as much or as little detail as you want to from there. 3. Coworker is posting daily bible verses on the company social channel I work for a large U.S. company, one that you’ve definitely heard of. We have an instant messaging app that the whole company uses, with different “channels” for different groups. My immediate team has a channel, my entire department has a channel, and so on, including one channel for the entire company, with approximately 128k people who see it. For the past three days, a person (non-management) has started the day by posting a bible verse of the day. The first two had overtly Christian titles and were multiple paragraphs long, encouraging readers to “commit to Christ.” This morning his verse was much shorter and had no title, so I wonder if someone spoke to him about it. Between 10 and 20 people have responded with “like” emojis to each post. Since the channel is company-wide, someone in HR has to have seen these. I know it’s only been three days, but many, many employees (myself included) are not Christians. And I really don’t want to be proselytized to while trying to find instant messages that actually do pertain to me. However, the channel is, by definition, a social channel. There’s someone who posts (non-offensive) jokes, and someone who posts fun polls asking things like “What’s your favorite rock band of all time?” So the vibe for the channel is pretty much “anything goes.” Should I point out the bible verses to my HR rep? Or should I just ignore them and hope that the poster gets tired or bored and stops sending them? You should absolutely complain to HR and say you don’t want to be proselytized to at work. I wouldn’t assume they’ve seen it (not everyone reads company social channels or sees every message on them). It’s also possible someone in HR saw it and wrongly thought it would be fine as long as no one is complaining; scuttle that by being the person who complains. Read an update to this letter. 4. Can your boss refuse to let you ever eat lunch while at work? Several years ago, I worked for a truly horrendous woman at a mid-sized company. From day one she set out to make my life miserable. I know most bad boss behavior is not illegal, but there was one thing that I always wondered about: she refused to let me have lunch. I couldn’t pop across the street to grab a sandwich, or even leave my desk to eat food brought from home in the break room. I would even try to eat while I was working, but she stated this was a distraction from my work and therefore not allowed. Twice, she called a lunch meeting and ordered food for everyone else but me. When I tried to eat afterwards, she reprimanded me. She frequently demanded that I sit at my desk until 100% of my work was completed, which was regularly 10-12 hour days. I was classified as exempt so break and meal period protections don’t apply, but can management legally refuse to allow an exempt employee any kind of break at all? And can they refuse to allow you to eat while working? I did try mentioning that I was legally allowed to have a break and she told me that since I was exempt I wasn’t legally allowed anything, and skipping a few meals wouldn’t hurt me. For the record, I only lasted working for her for two months. I tried to bring my concerns to HR and they were useless, so I walked out of that office in the middle of the day and didn’t even tell my boss I was quitting. This was clearly not the only horrible thing she did, and I had no qualms burning that bridge. You’re right that state meal and break protections mostly only cover non-exempt workers — but a handful states do extend those protections to exempt workers too. So first and foremost, check your state’s laws. Regardless, though, it sounds like your boss was specifically targeting you and trying to make you miserable in a particularly sadistic way. It’s ridiculous that HR refused to intervene, and you were right to get out without bothering with notice. 5. When and how long can you take FMLA for bonding with a new baby? My wife is a teacher with a due date after the school year ends, and her contract is supposed to only obligate her to work the 180 days of the school year. Her principal told her she might not be able to take as much time off (or at least get paid for it) next fall as we had planned since some of it falls more than 12 weeks after the child will be born. She only gets paid for FMLA if she uses sick days, so we had planned to use up most (not all since we need a buffer) of her accumulated sick days and then use my company’s more generous paternity benefits afterward, but this would limit how many sick days she could use that way. Can employers block taking newborn bonding FMLA that starts a few months after the birth of the baby? If you can use sick days for maternity leave generally, can your employer limit you to only using them for days that fall before 12 weeks after the birth? No! You’re allowed to take FMLA for the birth of a baby and to bond with the child during the 12-month period that begins on the date of the birth. That’s any time in the 12 months, not 12 weeks, following the birth. The only thing I can figure the principal might be thinking is that you get a total of 12 weeks of FMLA per year, so maybe she misunderstood and thought your wife was proposing using those first 12 weeks over the summer and then more in the fall? But since her contract gives her the summer off anyway, that wouldn’t make any sense. You may also like:will asking for a huge raise make it more likely you'll get the lower number you really want?can I ask for a raise if I wouldn't leave over salary?how to answer when your interviewer asks, "how do you relieve stress?" { 498 comments }
weekend open thread – July 8-9, 2023 by Alison Green on July 7, 2023 Laurie with portrait of Laurie. This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand. Here are the rules for the weekend posts. Book recommendation of the week: My Last Innocent Year, by Daisy Alpert Florin. A college student in the 90s has an affair with her professor, as the Clinton impeachment plays out in the background. * I make a commission if you use that Amazon link. You may also like:all of my 2021 and 2022 book recommendationsall of my 2019 and 2020 book recommendationsall of my book recommendations from 2015-2018 { 910 comments }
it’s your Friday good news by Alison Green on July 7, 2023 It’s your Friday good news! 1. “I was previously published in AAM Friday Good News with the news that I had gone from a really toxic job to essentially my dream job with a 35% pay increase. Since then I’ve continued to enjoy my job a ton, my boss is wonderful, my team is super supportive and it has been a really great fit for me and my family. My job is a very niche but essential position for a small corporation, and I work alongside another person who has basically the same position as I do. We had different titles, we cover different departments and work for different bosses, but our duties are exactly the same. He started at the company three years before I did, and we have a good working relationship. In conversation with this coworker last year, we disclosed our salaries to each other and I learned he was being paid 20% more per year than I was, and was hired on at a significantly higher salary than I was. He is also a white male and I am a woman of color; I cannot prove this was a factor in our pay disparity but it feels relevant to mention. I went into my one-year review knowing I was going to ask for a raise based on the knowledge from my coworker. My boss gave me a very strong review and before I could say anything she openly shared that she felt I was undercompensated for my role and responsibilities. I took that opportunity to tell her about our pay disparity, and used the AAM guide to asking for a raise wording almost verbatim. She was shocked at the difference in our wages and told me that while it might not be immediate, she would work on it and see what she could do. She does not have final say on compensation; that approval has to come from higher up. Six months passed without an update, so I sat down with her again at the beginning of this year to ask if there was any movement. She told me that because it had been a tough couple quarters for the company, the timing had been tough to bring it up, but gratefully she went directly to HR after that second meeting. About a month later I sat down with two reps from HR, and they quickly realized my job responsibilities had essentially doubled from my original job description in the time I had been with the company and I clearly needed to be reclassified. I am proud of how well I advocated for myself during that meeting and how directly I spoke about my disappointment about our pay disparity; it felt so scary to name but I am glad I did it. They were really responsive and helpful during this entire process. It took almost two months for the reclassification and approval process, but I finally learned last week that I have been given a 20% raise to full parity with my coworker! I also got a title bump. I’ve been getting lots of congratulations from my coworkers on my promotion but really my company has finally given me the compensation and title that I have been performing for the past two years. I’m bummed I had to fight for it but I am so, so glad I had supportive women in my company who had my back, and I am incredibly grateful to my coworker for sharing his salary with me. Thanks Alison and the AAM community for continuing to be a resource for pay parity in the corporate world! And if you care about pay parity, share your salaries with your coworkers, especially your non-white, non-male coworkers!” 2. “I struggled in school, did well in classes but floundered in praxis, choosing prestigious establishments and ignoring red flags for me. Reading your advice reinforced that I needed to be very clear about what I was looking for in a job. I’m neurodivergent and didn’t realize what was going on until the tail end of school. When I screwed up it wasn’t coming from a bad place, the set up put me in sensory overload and it takes me a longer time to process. So if the setting was off I was going to fail. When looking for jobs after school, I was very cognizant of that. First I had one job, it didn’t have a ton of hours but gave me training wheels to develop skills, eventually I was let go when there wasn’t enough work. Then I found another job, part time, flexible, good for my specific sensory needs, understanding/attuned managers, lots of time to slowly develop and recuperate. Now it’s been a year at the end of this month. They reached out to increase hours (said no) and I have had a bunch of recruiters reach out to me. I still see a therapist to process and try to be careful about my capacity. If you’re neurodivergent, get to know your needs and supports well. Diagnosis is a starting point. Oftentimes we’re trying to fit into the world in the way we ‘should’ fit instead of finding places that play to our strengths and align with our needs. We can help people, get paid (helps if it’s an in demand job) and not feel awful all the time.” 3. “I waited to send this until the slow HR department at my school district finalized more of the paperwork, but I’m so happy to have been hired as a teacher next year! I wanted to write a good news update because I think my version of one of your recommended interview questions made a HUGE difference in the success of my interviews. I asked, “In your experience, what differentiates a great teacher from a good teacher?” and I could see a positive shift in my interviewers’ demeanor when I asked that question. I also really enjoyed the responses I received to this question — it felt like a moment of career development in an interview! I think the position I’ve accept is a really good fit (designed for first year teachers), and I take it as a good sign that this was the only school that did a proper phone screening before my next round interview. I really appreciate your blog as a model of rationality as I transition from the boundary-stomping mire of academia to the career I’ve been working towards for years.” You may also like:how do I respond to employees asking if they should be worried about an upcoming bad-news meeting?what to say when your manager calls with bad newsis it ever bad to reply to an email too quickly? { 43 comments }
open thread – July 7-8, 2023 by Alison Green on July 7, 2023 It’s the Friday open thread! The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers. * If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer. You may also like:my colleague's auto-reply says she might never answer your emailmy coworkers have a crush on my boss ... and are taking it out on mehere's a bunch of help finding a new job { 883 comments }
requiring a doctor’s release after medical leave, vaping on video calls, and more by Alison Green on July 7, 2023 It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. Should we require a doctor’s release to return from a medical leave? I am a director at a manufacturing company, and our positions have different physical requirements (sedentary to heavy lifting to outdoor work). When employees request time off for medical reasons, I’ll use my best judgement on whether they’ll need a doctor’s release to return. General rule is if an employee needs several days off and their position requires physical labor and/or has safety concerns, we will require a doctor’s release to return. Still, it’s dependent on the medical situation and job type, and sometimes they don’t fully divulge what’s going on. Which is fine, I understand the need for privacy. Sometimes I will have to request additional info, but I try to pry as little as possible and focus on side effects/concerns/etc. All employees are given info on FMLA, and we encourage them to request any accommodations. We rarely require a doctor’s note for the accommodation because we trust our employees. I’ve been told by various people that this is a legal liability and harms our employees, and once I was told its “abusive.” They’ve insisted that if an employee discloses a medical issue, no matter how vague, we must require a doctor’s release to return. This feels invasive to me. Demanding a note feels like I don’t trust my employee to give me the correct info. If I feel that an employee is struggling, I’ll address my concerns with them then, but not all medical issues require releases to return to work. Sprained ankle at a desk job? Don’t need a doctor’s release. Sprained ankle for a mechanic that climbs ladders and lifts boxes? Probably needs that release. The “abuse” comment came when an office employee was diagnosed with cancer. They initially requested a reduction in hours when they began treatment, which we gladly did (without reduction in pay) and worked with them to move some responsibilities. We encouraged them to take as much time as required for treatment, but they wanted to continue to work to keep their life “normal for now.” As treatment progressed, they decided to take time off, which we also had no problems accommodating. The abuse comment popped up when another employee pestered this employee for information early on in their treatment, found out about their lack of a doctor’s release, and promptly accused us of abuse as we did not confirm with that they were healthy enough for work (her treatment of this employee is a different story, and she was eventually let go for bullying). Am I completely off-base? Are we harming our employees by not getting confirmation that they are allowed to work when they disclose medical issues? Or are we on the right track? No, you’re not off-base. You’re treating your employees with respect, honoring their privacy when you can, accommodating whenever possible, trusting them to tell you if there’s an issue, and using common sense about when safety might require something more. Those are all excellent things. Requiring someone to submit a doctor’s release before they can return to work regardless of the circumstances would be adding an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy that would undoubtedly frustrate your employees, delay their return (since now they have to go back to the doctor to get a release), and cost them more money, without any real benefit over what you’re doing now. Don’t let yourself be thrown off by an employee who sounds like they had some sort of highly problematic agenda of their own (and which clearly wasn’t just the best interests of their ill coworker). 2. Vaping on video calls I work at a company where everyone is fully remote so all meetings are online. There have been a few times where I have noticed coworkers vaping during meetings (even during meetings they were leading so they knew we could see them) and I found it a bit weird but wanted to get your take on it. Obviously I feel like it would be rude to smoke or vape in an in person meeting but since this was online I’m struggling to work out why it still feels a bit odd and slightly unprofessional? Is it just me? What is the etiquette here? No, it’s not just you — in most workplaces, this would be considered unprofessional and a problem. You’re expected to maintain at least some illusion of professionalism and adherence to work norms, even when you’re at home. And vaping on a work calls looks entirely too relaxed — it’s similar to if you were swigging from a beer as you led the meeting (which would be okay at some companies, but not at most) or were, I don’t know, flat-ironing your hair or leading the meeting from your blanket fort. It’s not that you couldn’t possibly be fully engaged while doing those things, but you’re going to look like you’re not. When you’re working you give up a certain amount of freedom to do other things at the same time. Sometimes it can be mostly because of optics, but it’s a reality of work nonetheless. 3. My boss is assigning my employee work without letting me know Today I was in a department meeting when my boss (the head of our department) called upon my direct report to give an update on a project. The only problem: this was the first I was hearing about this project! My boss had apparently assigned it to my direct report without looping me in. This employee has been my assistant (helping me with my own senior projects) for about two years, and in addition to those duties he is now also starting to take on his own junior projects in our department (but always, so far, with my explicit oversight and guidance). My expectation has always been that I’ll have oversight of his work along with my own, and while this project my boss assigned him isn’t huge or complex, I was surprised to have it added to his plate without my knowledge. I feel like I should say something to my boss, politely asking to be looped in when she’s assigning work to my direct report. But how do I even say that … and is it appropriate to raise this concern? I have a warm and cordial relationship with all involved, and I don’t want to cause drama. My boss has her own assistant so it’s not as if she’s short-staffed, and I think she saw this project as a “growth opportunity” for my assistant, so the assignment was coming from a good place. But how can I mentor him and support that growth if I don’t even know what he’s working on? Yep, it makes sense to want to be looped in on what your employee has been assigned if it’s a substantial project or outside the normal course of what you’d assume he’s working on — not only for the reasons you mentioned, but also so you know his overall workload and available bandwidth. It’s reasonable to mention that to your boss and it’s unlikely to be a big deal; she probably just didn’t think about it and will be more likely to in the future once you nudge her about it. But you should also mention it to your employee, too — i.e., “If Jane assigns you a project that will take longer than a few minutes, please let me know so that I’m aware of what’s on your plate.” That way you’re covering both sides of it and you’re less likely to be left in the dark. 4. When applying for a job, can I tell an employer that I’d need the high end of their salary range? It has been many years since I last searched and applied for a job. I live in a state in which a salary range is required for job postings, which is great because I feel like it saves time and effort for both the job seeker and poster. My issue is that I often see postings with a wide salary range, with the low end being too low, but the high end being reasonable. Is it okay to include my salary requirements in a cover letter so they are aware I am not interested in the job if they are going to offer me the lowest salary posted? I don’t know if that would be off-putting to the person on the receiving end of the application, or if they would appreciate it so they can move on if they are not able to offer me the salary I would need to accept the position. Yes, that’s fine to do! It won’t be off-putting to any sensible employer (you’re saving them time if they don’t want to pay the range you listed). There’s potentially some risk that by naming a range so early, you’re boxing yourself into that … but if what you learn about the job during the interview process makes you think a fair salary would need to be higher, you can always explain that at that point. And I’d argue that (relatively small) risk is outweighed by the benefit of saving yourself time if they don’t intend to pay the high end of their range anyway. I do recommend trying to avoid naming a salary before the employer has named their own range (since otherwise you risk lowballing yourself). But in this case, they’ve already told you their range and you’re just clarifying where you’d need to fall in it. You may also like:my employee keeps groaning in pain -- and won't get medical treatmentmy new job sprang a surprise medical exam on mehow much detail do you have to share when you call in sick? { 402 comments }
how can I avoid getting my hopes up for a job I’ve applied for? by Alison Green on July 6, 2023 A reader writes: I’ve been feeling stuck at my job for some time now, and especially trapped because I’m unhappy in my field and am considering changing careers in my mid-30s (which I know isn’t particularly late, but still daunting). I haven’t done much job-searching yet since I figure I’ll have to do some retraining. Yesterday I unexpectedly came across an ad for a job in my field I’d probably love. It was the last day to apply, so I made a few tweaks to my resumé and wrote a cover letter using your advice. I think I have a reasonably good chance of getting an interview, although the job itself is likely a long shot. Since I only applied yesterday, I obviously haven’t heard back yet, but I’m really struggling not to get my hopes up. I’m excited about the possibilities the job might offer, full of ideas, and feeling upbeat about work for the first time in ages. How do I keep myself from getting too hopeful in case things don’t work out? And if I don’t get the job, or even an interview, how do I go from there? You could tell yourself it’s this job. Or this one. Or this one. So many possibilities! Those are extreme examples, but it’s worth remembering that you really don’t know much about what it would actually be like to work there day-to-day. The things that make people miserable at jobs usually aren’t about the job description; they’re about culture and management, and it’s very hard to know what those things will be like before you’ve interviewed. In fact, it’s hard once you’ve interviewed too. You’ve got to do a ton of investigation to know what a job will really be like in real life (versus the version in your head). When you feel yourself getting really invested in a job you’re applying for, it can be helpful to remember that. But even more helpful is to apply and then simply put it out of your mind. Tell yourself you didn’t get the job, mentally move on, and let it be a pleasant surprise if they do contact you. And then do the same thing at the next stage of the process, and the next. That can be hard to do! But remind yourself that you can’t know what might be going on behind the scenes. They might have decided not to hire for the position at all. They might be planning to fill it with someone internal. They could decide to hire the CEO’s brother or reconfigure the position into something completely different than you applied for, or they might have neglected to mention that it’s only four hours a week or requires you to speak fluent Flemish or is far more junior or more senior than the job description seemed. They might put all hiring on hold while they wait to see what’s going to happen with their budget. Or, as in the examples above, the manager could be an absolute nightmare and you’ll be lucky if your application gets lost and is never seen. You just can’t know from the outside. Whatever is happening inside the company and inside that team is completely opaque to job-seekers … and yet, when you apply for a job that you’re excited about, there’s a tendency to fill in the blanks in your own mind to make it seem perfect for you and a fantastic opportunity that would be awful to lose. It’s the same mental filling-in of the blanks that people do with online dating too; our brains forget that we don’t know what people/jobs really are until we meet them in person/start working there. The more you can do to remind yourself of that, the easier it will be. You may also like:how do I mentally move on after not getting the job?my company is incredibly weird when people resignmy new junior employee said he's "disappointed" in his job { 71 comments }
update: my coworker sent a classist, racist email company-wide after a janitor won our Christmas contest by Alison Green on July 6, 2023 Remember the letter-writer whose coworker sent a classist, racist email company-wide after a janitor won their Christmas contest? The first update is here, and here’s the latest. I’ll start with the good news: my spouse passed the bar and has a job. We started receiving Health Insurance through his job, so I started seriously looking for a new job! Gaston retired at the beginning of the year. I carefully took note of all the suggestions here and rehearsed them at home with my poor husband. I’ve always been on the shy side, so I needed practice, but I did start to challenge Gaston. It didn’t work. · “What do you mean by that?” and other similar statements were met by explanations about how people with low paying jobs are lazy and entitled and if they wanted more money they would get new jobs. · “That sounds classist” and other explicit statements were brushed off as this was my first “real” job after college and unlike college the real world isn’t all about safe spaces and political correctness. · He seemed happy to educate me and to brag about being willing to “speak truth to power” and “take a stand against wokism and cancel culture.” When I asked for specifics, I was assured that as I got older and more experienced I would be able to spot these things and I would get a feel for when things weren’t quite right. He did say that after sending around the email he was scolded but stood his ground. He was very proud of that and how he was moved around for “taking a stand” in the past. According to Gaston he was able to stand up for people and against virtue signaling because he was going to retire soon and could fight back when others couldn’t. After a week of this a woman I work with pulled me aside and essentially said while she could tell what I was trying to do, he was never going to listen to a woman decades younger than him and if I wanted to help giving him a platform was not the way to do it. I will say that the company is a big fan for “restorative justice.” That is instead of someone being punished they are supposed to be educated. So, when Gaston made loud comments in the past he was assigned online courses about diversity and inclusion, etc. while on the clock as opposed to disciplined. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a next step after “take course on inclusivity,” except, “move under another manager who can assign more/different courses and hope this time it works.” I don’t know if the company is bad at holding people accountable because they are truly sold on “everyone can change if you help them right” or if they don’t care (and secretly agree with the Gastons) and are using restorative justice as a cover to make it look like they are doing something. Mostly I want to thank you and your readers for showing me where I worked. I genuinely thought I worked at a great company. When I asked in my last interview before I was hired they said they were a very diverse company and they do have a lot of policies on the books that are great. For example, there are rooms set aside for pumping and for daily prayer, different desks and computers for people to choose from depending on their physical needs, the office is decorated for pride month, black history, etc. While all those things were rolled out relatively recently, within the last five years, I was convinced I worked at a wonderful company with a few loud outliers. So when there was a lack of pushback to Gaston and moving him around instead of dealing with him I thought maybe I was overreacting or oversensitive. When I asked around and was told I would be labeled a troublemaker for making a fuss about him I thought I was the problem. I guess I am still reconciling, “we decorate for pride month but don’t slap down classist emails.” On that final note, do your readers have any suggestions on how to find a good company to work for? I’m worried that my sense of normalcy has been damaged and that even if there are great policies on the surface the culture underneath might be rotten or with spineless upper management. You may also like:my coworker sent a classist, racist email company-wide after a janitor won our Christmas contestmost popular posts of 2022can you fire someone solely for being racist? { 193 comments }
what can I negotiate other than salary? by Alison Green on July 6, 2023 It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I probably wouldn’t be the only one interested in hearing what people have successfully negotiated for other than money. I‘ve been in a few situations, both at my current and at former jobs, where I was told a raise or bonus wasn’t possible (bad economic climate, general salary structure, etc.), and I keep wondering what, then, would be creative things to ask for — especially if you‘re not high up enough to ask for something big like a company car, etc. A few things that worked for me have been “I‘d like to go to this one big industry conference“ or “I‘d like to do two weeks of paid professional training per year” (which I suspect were granted because the money comes from a different budget than salary). I‘m sure many of your readers have been successful negotiating other non-salary things and I‘d love to hear which of their ideas I might be able to copy. Readers, what have you successfully negotiated that wasn’t money, and how did you do it? You may also like:how to ask for more vacation timehow to negotiate remote work once you get a job offerI quit a new job after they took away my office, and my friend says I'm being petty { 195 comments }
my boss convinced my hotel to open my room, my manager might have a second job, and more by Alison Green on July 6, 2023 It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My boss convinced my hotel to open my door so he could find out if I was there I was sent out of town to train a new employee. My employer booked a room for me to stay in. The last day, my boss called twice at the beginning of my shift. I didn’t answer. Is it okay for him to call the hotel and create a false emergency situation and convince the hotel to go open the door to see if I’m in the room? He could have just called the store I was working at. What?! No, absolutely not. If he genuinely feared some sort of harm had befallen you, that would be different — but if he deliberated fabricated a story just to find out if you were in your room (because what, he figured you were sleeping in? playing poker in there while blowing off work?), that’s a wild boundary violation and not the behavior of a reasonable or grounded person. Of course, the bigger question is what to do now that you know this about him, especially if it doesn’t strike you as out-of-character. 2. How can I pull back on a friendship with a coworker? I befriended my coworker in the last few months, and we began spending time together and communicating outside of work. I realized that while I enjoy being friendly with this person, they require a lot of emotional labor from me as a “friend.” This includes multiple calls and texts a day, asking to hang out outside of work, and venting about work or their personal life constantly. Often they share things that are very unprofessional — for example, detailing their efforts to blatantly disregard a company policy. When I don’t agree, they get defensive and I end up apologizing. I am at a different stage in my life personally and professionally than this individual. They are not someone I would spend time with if I had not met them at work, and I do not like the person I am when I interact with them (gossipy and unprofessional), but I worry it is too late to walk back the level of access they feel entitled to without a big blow-up. What steps can I take to create some distance and set some boundaries? What should I say when they ask why I am not as available? The easiest way to do it in a work context is to become much less available. Explain that your time outside of work has become so booked up that you don’t have much time left for anything but collapsing at the end of the day; you’re going to be less available for calls and texts as well. You can cite a specific reason for this change if you want to, or you can be vaguer and say something like “there’s a lot going on in my family right now.” Then follow through on that — don’t answer calls or texts outside of work (or if you do respond to a text, let a day or two go by and then send a short response: that alone will make you less satisfying to vent to). You can demonstrate what you want your new boundaries to by … just having those boundaries and sticking to them. But it’s kinder to do that when you first give a sort of blanket “I’ve got a lot going on right now and I’m not going to be around as much” so the person isn’t left wondering what’s going on or if they’ve done something to upset you. More here: my coworker has become needy and wants a closer friendship than I want Read an update to this letter. 3. My manager might have a second job I saw a LinkedIn post congratulating my manager and “their team” for their work building a startup. They weren’t directly tagged in the LinkedIn post, but somehow the algorithm decided to send it to my feed, which is how I found out about this venture. I know people can have side hustles, but my manager hasn’t mentioned doing any kind of side work at all and I don’t think our company would be okay with it, which makes me think they’re trying to be somewhat covert about it (although maybe the LinkedIn post suggests otherwise?). Now that I know this, should I say anything (to my manager or anyone else)? It’d be nice to know whether my manager is planning on leaving soon, but I don’t really want to confront them with something they might have been trying to keep secret. I also don’t want to cause drama by snitching on them, but it does feel like a big thing they’ve been keeping from the team. Don’t say anything. If your manager wanted to talk about it, they’d tell you. And you’re not obligated to share it with your employer — and could blow things up for your manager if you do, when it might not affect your team’s work for years, if ever. Lots of side businesses never become the person’s full-time thing; for all we know, your boss plans to do this on the side with no disruption to their primary job. Whether or not that would be okay with your employer is a different question, but not one so pressing that you need to raise it on their behalf — assuming, of course, that there’s not some additional detail that changes that calculus. All that said … if your boss put this on LinkedIn, they’re being public enough that if you did want to ask about it, you wouldn’t be totally out of line. But check their profile to confirm that they really did first, because it could also just be something LinkedIn got wrong. 4. Should I let applicants know we’re not hiring after all? I recently circulated a job description for a new role working under me in my small organization. I sent the description to a few friends in the industry. As resumes came back, I realized I wasn’t finding quite what I was looking for, and looking at them helped me recalibrate what I wanted in the role. We decided to put a pin in hiring for the position for now. Do I need to respond to people’s resumes telling them we aren’t hiring for the role anymore or is it okay to just leave them? I’ve been told the latter is fine, but I feel guilty leaving people on read and I’ve even had some people follow up. What do you think? Ideally you’d send everyone a short note saying the hiring is on hold (or the role has been cancelled, or whatever message seems right to you). Doing this can be super fast; you can have one form letter that you copy/paste if you don’t have an applicant tracking system that will do it for you. You don’t have to do it — a lot of employers don’t bother — but it’s certainly more courteous, and most candidates will appreciate it. Plus, it’ll (mostly) stop people from following up with you. 5. Should I be paid for checking email outside of work? I am a school aide — the lowest rung on the ladder of jobs in a public school, and paid as such. I am paid hourly; I clock in and out via timeclock daily. At no point during my day am I assigned to a desk, nor have I been issued a computer, cell phone, or other personal digital device. However, there is an expectation that I check email regularly. I asked at a recent staff meeting when aides were expected to check email. Our supervisor was baffled. She stammered and had no clear answer but said, “Most staff check at home before coming to work.” I pushed back, “But I’m hourly, are you saying I should do work off the clock?” She said, “It’s not really doing work, it’s keeping informed about work.” After the meeting, some of my coworkers told me they have downloaded the city’s email onto the personal cell phones and check their school email during the day that way. Is this something I should push back on through my union? This seems wrong to me. If there is an expectation I am to read email, it seems to me I should be provided the time and a device to do so. Your manager’s statement that “it’s not really doing work” is legally incorrect; the law is very clear that reading and/or responding to emails is a work activity, and you do need to be paid for it (assuming that you’re non-exempt, which you sound like you are — and also assuming the time is more than a minute or two or otherwise de minimus). However, in most states, your employer wouldn’t need to provide you with a device to do it on; they can say that having a way to check email is a condition of the job. But they do need to pay you for all non-de-minimus time you spend doing it. You could certainly check with your union for advice. You might end up finding out that it’s not a battle they want to spend capital on (and the political reality might be that if you pursue it yourself, your contract doesn’t get renewed — that’s not fair or right, but you should be aware that’s how this stuff works sometimes), but there’s no harm and potentially some gain in talking to your union about it. You may also like:can I bring a friend-with-benefits back to my hotel on a work trip?my coworker brought sex workers back to our hotel on a business tripI had to stay in a horrible hotel on a team-building trip { 329 comments }
the deliberately terrible lunch, the vindictive daffodils, and other petty moments at work by Alison Green on July 5, 2023 Last month I asked about the pettiest things you’ve seen (or done!) at work. There were so many hilarious stories left on that post that I couldn’t fit them all my favorites into one column. Part 1 was here, and here’s part 2. 1. The new offices This is a thing that I knew because I was in a very, very small department at my undergrad. Small enough that our department proper was two professors, with about six others that were technically part of other departments pitching in. (Cross-disciplinary science degree, small school, etc.) My senior symposium was a hydrology and river ecology seminar taught by a biology and geology professor who were best friends. It was also held the year before a huge remodel of the science building on campus, so the professors were mildly obsessed with the whole process, as the building had been built in the sixties. Professors Fish and Rock were especially enthusiastic, and recruited the seniors in my department to help pack things (mostly rock samples, also a tank of invasive round gobies that Prof. Fish had removed from the environment but was too softhearted to kill) that had to be moved out over the summer. This is where my entire graduating cohort (all ten of us) learned some of the best gossip on campus. Offices in the New Science Building were being assigned by professor seniority. If you were hired in X year, you could go down to the building office on Y day and write down your name on the office you claimed. First come, first served, with minor exceptions for people who had to be within shouting distance of their labs – mostly chem and biology. Unfortunately for Professors Rock and Fish, Professor Unpleasant, who was not at all popular with students or faculty, had more seniority than them, and took the last spot near the wet lab where Professor Fish had to be stationed to care for his fish. Professor Unpleasant made the mistake of writing his request down in pencil, so Professor Rock Simply erased his claim, wrote himself into the office next to his bestie, and banished Professor Unpleasant to a basement storage area. Allegedly there were at least a decade of grievances involved in this decision, but academia is like that and if I’d stayed to listen to them all someone would have talked me into trying for a PhD. Professor Unpleasant didn’t discover his relocation until the final building plan with office assignments was announced, the day of my senior banquet. My whole department got to witness Prof. Unpleasant tearing through campus looking for Professors Fish and Rock to yell at them, and didn’t tell him they were hiding under the library steps with a cheese tray, giggling. 2. The poker chip Occasionally people in my department would need to borrow the master key for our floor from our program manager (if we accidentally locked ourselves out of our office, for example). Previously, we’d just ask her for it, use it, and bring it back. Then another small department was moved into some empty space on our floor. Immediately the most unpleasant member of that small department created a complicated system for borrowing the master key: each of us had a poker chip that we had to write our names on, and they were kept in a special bin, and if we wanted to borrow the master key, we’d need to fish through the bin of full poker chips, find ours, and move it to the spot where the master key was kept. It took longer to find my poker chip in the bin than it took to borrow the key, open my office, and return it. The same man instituted a bunch of other ostensibly efficient new methods and expected everyone to obey them. He had no official authority, he just decided these things and assumed we’d listen (and scolded those who didn’t). He was a deeply unpleasant man in general, and I resented his arrival on my floor. So I stole his poker chip. My petty heart loved imagining him searching fruitlessly through his stupid bin, looking for the one with his name. Long after he retired, I’ve still got it in a little box on my dresser. 3. The pens I once worked at a healthcare office that was always busy and paid poorly, so our staff was a bag of mixed nuts. One guy brought in a new pen that clicked, and he started clicking it all. the. time. His coworker (Tiffany) asked him nicely to stop clicking and not only did he refuse, he started clicking it in her face when she around. It became a HUGE thing, with his minions clicking their pens at her every chance they got. She put in her two weeks (don’t blame her a bit!), and about an hour after she left on her last day there was an uproar at the front of the clinic. She had removed the springs from every last click-y pen, and the poor dears had to use basic Bic ballpoints until they went to the store the next day. Well played, Tiffany, well played. 4. The daffodils I had a coworker who was having a one-sided feud with me because I got promoted to her same position and I think she took it as a threat (even though our work didn’t overlap). We had someone bring in daffodils to sell for Daffodil Day and this coworker overheard me say I wanted to buy a few to take home and proceeded to buy every single daffodil before I could get any. She hasn’t been with the company for years, but my coworkers and I still bring this up on occasion. So bizarre, but amusing. 5. The nickname I worked at a university and there was a chief officer (reported directly to the president) who I kept ending up on the same committees with me. He was in general a very genial guy but from our first meeting he kept calling me by a nickname. For example, if I were “Katherine” and only used “Katherine” professionally, he would be calling me “Katie.” At first I’d say, “It’s actually Katherine” and he’d apologize and then a month later in a committee meeting, he’d say, “What do you think, Katie?” And then one day I was out of f’cks to give and so I nicknamed him back: “Well, Timmy, I was thinking…” And everyone kind of froze because I was about 3 levels down on the org chart from “Tim.” He was oblivious. And so it kept on. For years. We’d run into each other at the campus coffee shop and he’d say, “How are you, Katie?” and I’d say, “Just fine, how about you Timmy?” If it was my turn to take notes in a meeting, I’d label him “Timmy Jones” as in attendance. Once we were presenting to a faculty body and after he off-handedly mentioned me as “Katie”, I found a way to say, “It’s great to work with Timmy!” And when he heard I was leaving the university, he stopped by my office to say, “This place is really going to miss you, Katie.” My reply, “Thanks so much, Timmy.” 6. The new technologies I would make up technologies to mess with my know-it-all co-worker. “Oh have you heard about the new Flarbelstein video card? It’s got 15 numptytons of RAM…” and they would nod along, “Oh, yes, the Flarbelstein, great stuff.” I never let on. 7. The detective work One time I had a student defacing my bulletin board while another teacher used my room. I spent several days trying to rig my document camera to record that part of the room during her classes so I could catch the kid in the act. Like, strategically putting it inside a box on a shelf with a small hole cut in the side levels of “spy” work. Totally ridiculous and it didn’t even work! This was NOT a problem worth so much energy but it was one of many irritating things involving this coworker so I think I snapped lol. 8. The bookstore I worked in used bookstores for many years. Most customers were great but there were always some who were incredibly nasty and mean and who loved “catching us” out on tiny things and generally being horrible on purpose. They were usually repeat customers who we all came to know and loathe. One such came to the counter with two copies of the same book – copy A priced at $4.00 and copy B priced at $5.00. He wanted copy B, and first harangued me about our “error” (it was not an error) and then demanded that I sell him copy B for $4.00. We did not allow price changes and never negotiated with customers, which he absolutely knew. I looked over both books extremely carefully and deliberately, really taking my time. Then, while looking him dead in the eye like an apex predator, I said, “You’re absolutely right – I’m so sorry for the mistake. These books should be the same price! They are both $5.00.” and then gave him the most sincerely apologetic smile I could muster. He did not buy the book. It was glorious. 9. The lunch I worked for a small nonprofit that centered around mental health support. Our ED was nuts but a very good sales person. She managed to talk our state’s pediatric professional association into partnering with us on a pediatric mental health conference. She promised connections to celebrities and corporate sponsors. It was all BS. She never had that stuff and after leading the association on for many months it was too late for them to pull out. They had secured a location and began promoting it. Not only were the sponsors and celebs not coming through my ED was difficult at every turn. She would take too long to approve conference materials and have a lot of feedback. I was mortified. Day of the conference and we have a number of attendees. The Professional association put out the worst conference lunch I have ever seen. Imagine picking out the menu with a blindfold. It was like, sandwiches, mac and cheese and pudding. Something weird like that. (The association created the menu. They usually put on a good conference with a tasty lunch so this was glaring.) It was noticed by people at the conference. The association would not return our calls after that day. 10. The sauce crime During my brief flirtation with food service, I worked at a very dysfunctional restaurant as a busser— or at least nominally so. In reality, they were always so understaffed that I did a little bit of everything. I had two bosses (the two owners) with wildly different standards, one who very strict and the other totally lenient. My strict boss was very exacting about staff meals and their exact portions and contents, which were the same every shift. I wasn’t going hungry or anything, but it was boring, and there were many other more egregious issues which I don’t need to detail here. The restaurant served a particular sauce (with things to dip) for free to every table, and had eight or so other sauces which were generally served in a sauce sampler. One of my jobs was assembling those appetizers and samplers. I could have the basic sauce with my staff meals, but the other sauces were completely off-limits. So naturally, I made it my mission to eat every single one of those sauces. I planned everything very exactingly, waiting for the perfect night when my strict boss wasn’t in and my lenient boss wasn’t looking to sneak into the walk-in, fill up a ramekin, slip it onto my plate, eat frantically in the corner behind the ice machine, and conceal the evidence with the rest of the dirty dishes. Slowly, over the course of that summer, I tried every single sauce— and it turned out that the one I was already allowed to eat was the best by far. I’m normally a rule-follower, but it was so satisfying to do something off-limits in that particular moment. I never got caught, even though I was always getting in trouble with strict boss for one thing or another. The restaurant has since closed and I live in another city now, so I think it can be said that I pulled off the perfect sauce crime. 11. The business cards I had an incredibly toxic boss at the beginning of my career. She was in charge of the word processing and proofreading department at Fancy Accounting firm. She’d choose one person to be her “pet” for a few months and drag them into her office for hours every day, telling them all her life story, her troubles and woes in her love life, her gyn health issues, really inappropriate boundary crossing and line stepping. I was too young to understand that this was so wildly out of the norm, that I just went along with it. I was her pet for about three months, my work not getting done due to her emotional bleeding for hours every day. After some imaginary offense, she’d pick a new pet. I quit that job with in a blaze of profanity and no notice after one too many insults to injury and being written up for, I sh*t you not, “not being nice enough to Boss.” Some months later, I was at a restaurant that the office would often frequent. They had a giant glass fishbowl on the hostess desk in which people would throw their business cards to get a free lunch in a drawing. I noticed that Old Boss had about 10 cards in there. When the hostess left to help another customer, I dug out every single card of hers I could find and chucked them in the bin out on the street. In my defense, I was left unsupervised with the bowl. 12. The heels I had a manager who was petty and a micromanager. She was about two inches shorter than me, but she always wore three-inch heels and I usually wore flats in the office. On days when she was especially frustrating, I would change into heels and make a point to stand close to her so she had to look up at me. She never failed to comment on me being taller than her. 13. The keyboard This was back in the day when your keyboard plugged into your computer. I worked in an extremely dysfunctional office with the most ineffective boss you could ever have. He thought nothing about throwing us under the bus to save his own skin. One day when he was out of the office I decided to unplug his keyboard from the computer, but leave the cord in just enough so it looked like it was still plugged in, and kind of forgot about it until the next morning when he started pounding on his keyboard pressing random keys, etc., freaking out about it not working. He called IT to come fix it and then left the room for a few minutes. I plugged the keyboard back in. He came back, the IT guy, who generally acted like all requests were stupid and a huge inconvenience comes in and presses a key on the keyboard and as it is working he keeps pressing that same key over and over while giving our boss the death stare, then just walked out of the room with no comment. Coworkers talked about this story for years even after I was long gone because it was so satisfying to make him look like an idiot. 14. The coloring books An old job had a “relaxation station” that featured, among other little activities, adult coloring books with large, complex designs. People would sit there for a few minutes and work on the top page, so each picture was colored by multiple people. One coworker took the coloring extremely seriously, telling people what colors to use, which parts to work on, etc. He even called people out by name for coloring badly or using clashing colors. When he was out for two days, a few of us colored three pages in the most garish, awful color scheme, making sure to go over the lines of just about every section. 15. The complaining customer LONG time ago I worked for a cable company in the Northeast. They got bought out by another cable company, so I think it’s safe for me to say it was MediaOne. Guy calls in because his internet is out and he wants a truck out thing first thing tomorrow, at the latest, to fix things. His problem didn’t qualify him for a next day service call, and the next available appointment was 4 or 5 days later. We went back and forth for a bit, with him acting like a bigger and bigger jerk each go around. Finally he says “Can you see where I live?” “You live in (village),” I say, (village) being the name of one of the higher income, tonier suburbs of our nearby city. “That’s right. I am exactly the kind of customer you want. Are you telling me you can’t cancel an appointment in (town #1) or (town #2) and send the truck to me?” (town #1) and (town #2) were very low incomes towns which had a poor reputation in our state. Undeserved reputations, in my opinion, but still … This dude’s classism and audacity knocked my barely extant sense of professionalism offline, so I just said, “Oh I’m sorry sir, it’s Bizzaro Month at MediaOne. We’re doing all the poor towns first.” The guy lost his mind, which made me very happy. Then he hung up on me, which made me even happier. So I was feeling pretty good the next day when I rolled in for my shift, until my boss met me at the front door and hustled me into his office. Know how at the beginning of service phone calls it says you may be recorded for training purposes? Turns out that’s true. The customer called back in, got my boss and gave him an ear full. My boss checked and, yup, they had the whole thing on tape. My boss didn’t say a word. Just sat me down and played the tape. That done, and stifling a laugh, he said, “I assume we’re not going to have a problem like this ever again?” I assured him we would not, and that was that. He was a great boss. You may also like:the faked heart attack, the very smart dog, and other (amazing) stories of pettiness at workshould I tell someone about my coworkers' exclusionary behavior at a conference?my boss is being a jerk about my gym time { 412 comments }