Ask a Manager

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

1. How do I stop looking bored during meetings?

My work involves a lot of collaboration with other companies and meeting with stakeholders. My company is small, and overall the work environment is good and I’ve been told I’m doing a great job. The one problem I’ve been having? Looking bored during meetings.
My boss first pointed it out in the fall after we had a morning zoom meeting with a partner where I remember feeling very sleepy but still doing my darnedest to pay attention. I apologized and promised I would work on correcting it. She hasn’t brought it up since, but she also isn’t very confrontational so I wouldn’t be surprised if she noticed it multiple times after but just neglected to tell me.

My coworker, whose role heavily overlaps with mine, has been much more vocal about this. We recently had an in-person afternoon meeting with a potential partner, and she messaged me on Slack the next day saying that my boredom “was very evident” during the meeting. For context, this was my fourth meeting of the day with little break in between, in addition to having slept poorly the night before, so by the time we had this meeting I was exhausted (not an excuse, just an explanation). I once again apologized and she offered to help me in whatever way she could. This is the second or third time that she has brought this up in the last six months, and she has also mentioned that I’m “not very emotive” as a person in general.

I’m very frustrated because this keeps coming up and I’m not sure how best to fix it. I’ve tried squinching my eyebrows during zoom meetings which I think has helped, but I’m still having trouble with in-person meetings, especially when I’m feeling tired. Are there tips or tricks I could use that don’t involve doodling in a notebook? In a small in-person meeting, that doesn’t seem like a good option.

Think about visual feedback that signals you’re paying attention: nodding, smiling when appropriate, even a thoughtful frown at the right time. In person, it can also help to take notes — not so much that you look like you’re doing something unrelated, but enough to signal “I’m here, I find this interesting, and I’m jotting some reminders for later.” And obviously, there’s no better way of demonstrating that you’re actively engaged than … actively engaging in the conversation. Ask questions, compliment someone’s idea, voice agreement, expand on a point, ask for clarification, propose next steps, etc.

By the way, if you’d only gotten this feedback from your coworker, I’d wonder if she was just being overly critical (especially in bringing it up multiple times). But because you’ve also heard it from your boss, it’s likely to be a real issue. So: are you actually bored in the meetings and zoning out, or does your face just not accurately reflect your engagement level? If it’s the latter, the above tips should help … but if it’s the former, it’s worth considering how to solve it at a more fundamental level. For starters, do you actually need to be in all these meetings? But if you do, are you clear on what role you’re supposed to be playing there and what you’re supposed to get out of attending/what you’re supposed to be contributing? It might be an interesting experiment to lean into those things more and see if it helps you stay more engaged.

2. Should I say I’m leaving because of my horrible coworker?

I am looking for a new job after almost eight years in my current role. Interviews are going well and I’m in the late stages for a couple, so I’m starting to think about what to say when I announce my resignation.

The main reason I’m leaving is because of one individual at my current company (Beth). Beth is the same level as me and runs a separate team. However, her team is more central to the business and therefore is across more projects.

There have been many issues with Beth over the years, stemming from a lack of communication to a clique approach to business where she will push her friends for opportunities. Major issues have been raised by me and others, but little has changed. Minor issues, like directing answers to my questions back to somebody else and not looking at me, have not been raised, because how do you even say anything about such a thing? Her actions have led to me feeling isolated and demoralized at work.

Should I raise this when I leave? When/if I’m asked about why I’m leaving, should I very bluntly say, “I’m leaving because of Beth”? I’d obviously go into detail about the specific actions, but I worry that it will come across like I just have an axe to grind.

Honestly, I’m gutted to have to leave, and my intentions would be to let them know that this is how far things have gotten, and they are likely to see more people leave (I know a few others who have similar issues) — that maybe if they know that it was bad enough for me to leave, they might take the issue seriously, and that it’s the morally right thing to do. But I also don’t want to nuke what is a very good reputation at the company. I don’t want to be remembered as the person who left angry at somebody.

If you’re leaving because of Beth, you could potentially do some good by being honest about that. Somewhat counterintuitively, though, you’re more likely to make an impact with that feedback if you don’t show how angry you are. Ideally you’d say something like this in a borderline-detached tone: “I found the issues with Beth like XYZ too hard to handle after a while. I loved working here and I’m sad to be leaving, but things like XYZ didn’t feel tenable anymore.” The tone you want is “I’m letting you know about a business problem you might want to attend to, but do with this info what you will.”

If you sound emotional, people are more likely to dismiss it as an interpersonal issue or as you taking things too personally. When your tone shows you’re not taking it particularly personally, just not willing to put it up with it anymore, this kind of feedback can be harder to ignore.

Of course, it still might not matter. It sounds like the issues with Beth have been raised before, to no avail, but sometimes concrete “we lost Person A over this” data can get through where other attempts fail.

Read an update to this letter. 

3. Revenge porn using the company name

I was searching our company name on social media platforms to see if our Pride display this weekend generated any buzz. My job is unrelated to PR or comms, I just happen to have a role in our Pride BRG. I stumbled across revenge porn against a coworker! The posts are on mutliple social media platforms, only a few days old, using the coworker’s full name, hashtagging her college, high school, hometown, and of course our mutual employer.

Do I have an obligation to tell her? Do I have an obligation to alert anyone else at the company? Do you have any advice for how to have this conversation, and with whom? For context, I am a mid-thirties queer woman and not in a management role.

Thankfully the posts only have one “like” each. I reported them to the platforms for violating terms of service. But now what?! This is such a horrifying and senstive situation to have stumbled into. The posts have black bars over the lewd bits, but then provide a link to “see more.” Some even pretend to be written from her point of view, saying lewd things, but others insult her and all of them tag our employer. I’m sure it’s revenge porn, but do I trust a faceless company rep to see that or is there a risk they will think she’s willingingly tagging them in sex work?

I think she is fairly new to the workforce. This is her second job and she seems to be in her early twenties. I spoke to her twice on the phone a few months ago, but we don’t even live in the same state. This company is a massive global behemoth. The only way to contact HR is by placing a ticket into an automated system. I’m at a loss for how to handle this without making this even worse.

Please do tell her. She might not be aware of it, and your alert could be key in helping her combat it. Frame it as, “If you are already aware of this, please ignore me and we never need to speak of it again. But I wanted to make sure you know since there are things you can do to get it taken down. I’m so sorry this is happening to you.”

Please do not alert your employer. Your coworker should be the one to decide how to manage it (and while your employer may come across it on their own like you did, you don’t need to hasten that or guarantee that they do).

4. Is it good or bad when a job’s schedule is “to be redefined”?

I’m considering a job where I’m pretty certain I’m one of very few (if not the only) candidate. During the first phone interview, I got to ask lots of questions and it quickly became obvious that the position has been vacant for quite some time (I’m in a field where qualified professionals are in very short supply).

I was taken aback when I asked about part-time or full-time and work hours, and got a vague answer about “starting with a clean slate” and “redefining those requirements.” I’m wondering if this is good (like, I’d get to propose a schedule that works for me) or a red flag (they don’t know what they want), and I’m not sure how to find out. Conversely, they were pretty clear about job duties and provided lots of details about the team I’d be joining and the people I would serve.

Ask them directly in the next interview! “You mentioned that you weren’t sure whether the position would be full- or part-time and that you’re redefining some things about the role. Can you tell me more about what’s behind that and what you’re currently envisioning?”

So far, I wouldn’t say it’s a good or bad sign, but that could change quickly depending on what you hear. I’d also want to get a sense of why the job has been vacant for so long. Is it just because it’s hard to hire in your field right now, or have they been “redefining” for a while? If the latter, is that because of a lack of commitment internally to the work, disagreements about the job’s priorities or metrics, lack of a clear vision for the role, or something else? Those are the sorts of things that would worry me unless they’re clearly settled before you started.

5. Anonymous job postings

I was browsing for jobs in my field and found a job listing for something that I’m interested in on the company’s website. A few days later, the posting had been removed from there and was instead listed on a third party recruiting site where the company name was withheld. My spidey senses are tingling and it feels like a red flag that a job listing would be made to have an anonymous recruiter. Am I wrong in this gut feeling? Could there be legitimate reasons for a company wanting to remain anonymous when recruiting at that stage?

It’s actually really normal for recruiters to do. They don’t want you to go around them and apply directly with the company because if you do that they don’t get paid for their work. (And in some cases, the company doesn’t want applicants doing that either because they’ve hired the recruiter to handle that part of the hiring work for them.)

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

1. Employee lied about his mom dying

Last year I hired my first-ever direct report. From the get-go, there were red flags I overlooked. Everything bad seemed to happen to this guy. He had to change the date of our interview because he got hit by a car. Within three days of starting the position, his older brother passed away and he needed to help his mom get back to her home state for the services. Two days later, his car was stolen and he couldn’t get to work. We were so understanding that crazy stuff does happen and gave him plenty of leeway.

The weird things cooled off for a couple months. Then he let me know he got Covid. He sent me a picture of a positive Covid test on the morning we had a mandatory joint staff and board meeting. Covid had him out for almost two weeks, during which he would send me updates of high fever thermometer tests (I did not ask for this or proof of positive tests), ongoing symptoms, and that he was transported to urgent care a few times.

He returned to work after that, but just over a month later he said his mother was in the hospital after a heart attack, and later that day she passed away. I was devastated for him. We gave him an extra week of bereavement so he did not have to use PTO/sick time (he was almost wiped out of both). We had detailed conversations about his and his mother’s last interactions and his plans for a service. When he returned, he asked for the afternoon off to pick up her ashes. I, of course, gave it to him.

Two weeks after that (while I was on vacation), he came down with Covid again and emailed a picture of a positive test. When I returned, my boss let me know of some strange communications with him, and I asked if she thought we should look into the image of the Covid test, because it looked a little off. Sure enough, after a reverse-image search, we found it was a picture of the test from the internet. After being confronted with this, my employee at first doubled down that no, this was his test. He took the picture on his counter. After being shown the image we found, he apologized and insisted he did have Covid but thought we needed proof of a positive test. We gave him a final warning, and two days later he resigned, effective immediately.

After his departure, we find out he is telling folks that we fired him. He gets a position at another business in our field. They never called to confirm his previous employment with us. A few months later, I found irrefutable proof that his mother did not die back in November when he worked for us. She is still alive to this day.

I am struggling on what to do. I have informed the folks involved at my company, who are obviously livid (as am I). Do I have a duty to inform his current employer somehow? Our CEO suggested this (but is leaving it up to me and my supervisor), but I’m not sure this is the best route.

Nope, you don’t have any duty to inform his current employer, nor should you. If they wanted to check in with you, they would have checked references. They chose not to. He’s not your problem anymore (and unless you think he’s going to burn down their building or endanger minors under their care or something similar, as a general rule you shouldn’t try to interfere with people’s employment at companies that you don’t work for).

I would try to look for lessons in this, though. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to accommodate people who are going through a rough time — some people will genuinely need it even though this guy took advantage of your kindness — but I’m curious whether, in retrospect, there were other signs you should have paid more attention to. How was the quality of his work when he was there? Were there other red flags? Maybe there weren’t — sometimes jerks just play people, and that’s how it goes — but a lot of times you’ll realize that there were other signs beyond just “he needed a lot of time off” that, in combination, could have rung the alarm bell earlier.

2. My coworker is a magpie

My office is almost fully remote, but we have a lot of random items in our workspace that we store and use for various projects. We’re getting ready to move to a smaller space and have been cleaning these items out, with a designated space for items that are up for grabs.

We have a new-ish colleague, Earl, who has been working almost fully in the office since he came on board. I noticed a few months ago that he’s decorated his desk with random items he’s found around the office — stress balls, an old department award, cups, pins and lanyards he found lying around. A few of us have noticed and thought it was kind of odd, but it was stuff no one cared about, so no one said anything to him.

A few weeks ago I noticed he added an item from one of my ongoing projects to his display. It’s not an expensive item, but not one that I can give away freely, and not something I’d put in our “free” spot. To find this item, he’d have to dig through multiple boxes in a low traffic part of the office and unpack the item from its shipping container and wrapping. I thought it was very weird and planned to ask for it back when I started formally packing to move my stuff.

Today, I came in to the office and a coworker told me Earl had asked about a box of items in my cubicle, and whether he could take them. Again, he’d have needed to intentionally enter my cubicle and look through my things to find this stuff. My coworker told him it wasn’t something he could have and Earl put it back, but it’s left me concerned. Is Earl assuming that everything in our office that isn’t labeled is fair game? How do I ask Earl what he might have of mine beyond his desk decor without accusing him of stealing or making things awkward? I don’t want this to reflect badly on him, so I’m hesitant to elevate it to management, but I also need to know my stuff isn’t going to go missing unexpectedly.

This is odd! But while decorating his office with random things that don’t belong to anyone is just mildly quirky, digging through your stuff and claiming whatever he wants isn’t okay. It’s reasonable to ask him to stop and to return your things!

You could start by saying, “Cedric mentioned that you’d asked if you could have my ceramic turtles. How did you even come across those? They’re stored in boxes in my cubicle.” It’ll be interesting to hear what he says, and then you could say, “It sounds like it wasn’t clear, but please don’t go through boxes in my office; a lot of that is my own personal stuff. I also need to get the Etch A Sketch back; that’s part of a project I’m working on.” Depending on how this goes, you might add, “Anything on the break room table or in the supply closet is up for grabs, but otherwise most things will have an owner you should check with first.”

3. My new job is scolding me for my hours

I have been at my current job for about four months after being a stay-at-home mom for 10 years. I wanted to go back to work part-time after my youngest started kindergarten and found an admin job through a neighbor. I told them during the interview that I only wanted part-time hours and they said that was fine.

Once I started the job, I realized I am the only part-time employee. I originally was asked to work six-hour days, five days a week. 30 hours a week was a little more than I had originally planned on working, but it worked out fine with my children’s school schedules and the work was pleasant enough. After a couple months, I asked to go down to Monday-Thursday, which they accepted but did not seem thrilled about.

My children both have chronic health issues that require appointments with specialists a minimum of every three months. These appointments are scheduled out several months in advance. I’m getting a lot of pushback when I ask for leave for these appointments because I have Fridays off now, so I should be making all of my appointments for Fridays. I was reminded sternly that I am still on my probationary period and they are watching my hours. I was up-front with all of this during my interview and was assured it wouldn’t be an issue, but it obviously is becoming one. The job is decent but I’m frustrated by the change in attitude since my interview, and I can see a lack of communication has occurred (this is evident in several other situations). I’m lucky that I don’t have to work, I’m here because I want to be working, but my children come first. It seems like a little thing, but I don’t appreciate being threatened with my probationary period and am considering quitting. Am I being silly?

You’re not being silly — you don’t need the job, you took it with a specific understanding about your hours and how much flexibility you’d have, and now they’re acting like you’re trying to get away with something. I’d be pretty aggravated too. And the idea that all your kids’ appointments can easily be scheduled on Fridays is the belief of someone who’s never had to make many medical appointments.

If you’re not already fully set on quitting, it could be worth trying to address it head-on first and see what happens. You could say, “I want to make sure that we’re both on the same page about my schedule. When I was interviewing, I was up-front that I would need XYZ and was assured that would be fine, but from our recent conversations it sounds like it might not be working for you. I do need XYZ and wouldn’t be able to stay without it. Does that no longer seem workable to you?”

Read an update to this letter. 

4. Can my husband’s firm require him to report my political donations?

My husband works for a very large, not-for-profit financial firm. Whenever I have mentioned wanting to make a donation to a political candidate, he asks me to let him know before I do it because he has to report the donation to his company. I find this ridiculous and possibly illegal. What business does his company have with who I decide to donate to? I don’t work for them! I’m not even sure they should be allowed to know who he donates to (if he actually donated, which he doesn’t because he doesn’t want to go through the reporting process). I’m not sure if he misunderstands the rule about reporting spousal donations, or if it is possibly legal for them to require him to report my donations because we have a joint checking account. We’re talking about donations of maybe $100 at the most. Do you have any insights on this?

Yes, they are legally allowed to require this — and they might even be mandated to. Depending on the type of work they do, they may have disclosure obligations for political donations from employees and their spouses and minor children. It gets easier to see why if you imagine, for example, a company bidding on a government contract and not disclosing that a member of their leadership (and/or their spouse) had made large donations to the legislator who will award the contract. The regulations extend to some family members to prevent nudge-nudge agreements where the donation is made through a spouse or child because the employee themselves isn’t permitted to donate.

In finance firms specifically, the rule is often there to prevent investment managers from making campaign contributions to elected officials who can influence decisions about who to hire to manage public funds.

5. Should I ask for accommodations for an unpredictable medical condition?

A couple of years ago, I was diagnosed with chronic migraines. They are mostly managed with medication, but occasionally and unpredictably one will get through anyway and when that happens, I need to deal with it immediately before it becomes completely debilitating — leave work, lie down in a dark room, and basically do nothing until it gets under control. Usually I’m fine by the next day, but rarely these episodes last a couple of days and so I do miss some work.

I’ve had a terrific job with a supportive boss for a number of years now, and they have been very accommodating and understanding of this situation. But now I am a finalist for a new job that I am really hoping I get, and should I get an offer I’m unsure of whether or how to bring this up, never having had to deal with accommodations before. It feels a little weird to bring it up in negotiations before even taking the job, but NOT bringing it up feels like hiding something. (Just to be clear, though, this isn’t a very frequent thing — in the last year, I have had to leave work early twice, I think, and missed one two-day stretch due to a migraine, and I take very little sick time otherwise — but it’s unpredictable.)

I don’t think you need to bring it up at all! If in the average year the migraines mean you leave work early a couple of times and miss an occasional two-day stretch, that is a solidly unremarkable use of sick leave. If it were happening every month, that would be worth negotiating accommodations for to ensure it wouldn’t be an issue… but you are talking about sick leave usage that’s on the lower end of the typical range! Not mentioning it isn’t hiding anything, just like you wouldn’t be hiding anything if you didn’t warn them that you get an occasional cold.

If that changes at some point and it becomes more frequent, you could talk about formal accommodations at that point (here’s advice on how to do it as a candidate and as an employee), but this doesn’t sound like anything you need to worry about right now.