Ask a Manager

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

1. People keep asking why I wear pantyhose

I am an adult woman who doesn’t shave my legs. I don’t like the feeling of shaving, I’m prone to rashes that I feel are more noticeable than the hair, and I hate having stubble. I’m fine with my hairy legs at the beach, but I feel like the leg hair would look unprofessional in an office. At the office, I am always wearing pants or hosiery. I’m a recent grad in my 20’s so my boss let me know that I didn’t have to wear pantyhose if I didn’t want to. The dress code is slightly more formal than business casual. Pantyhose is appropriate, just a bit old-fashioned. My boss and one other woman at the office wear them, but they are both about 60. Even the women in their 30s and 40s don’t wear pantyhose. (The office staff is eight women. The only man who works here is my boss’s retired father who shows up for a few hours two or three days a week.)

When I started, I had the convenient excuse that the office was way too cold and I couldn’t do bare legs. Our office shares a building and we are not the people who own it. The back office was regularly set to 68, sometimes even lower. It was believable and nobody asked further. Now I’m sharing the back with somebody new and she purchased a space heater. I’m not complaining — the office is way more comfortable now — but I am once again being asked why I never have bare legs. It’s not like they are singling me out, talking about clothes is regular small talk in the office. Wearing pantyhose by choice in your 20s is somewhat unusual and it keeps coming up. What should I say?

Option 1: “I like them!” Because you’re allowed to like them. People probably think you’re wearing pantyhose because you feel like you have to, so if you reframe it as something you like, it might take care of those comments.

Option 2: “I don’t shave my legs so I prefer this at work.” There’s no reason you can’t just own it —and if you do, you might hear, “Hell, go with hairy legs if you want to, we don’t care!”

There’s definitely still a thing about women’s body hair, particularly legs and armpits, but it’s starting to change a bit. It would still be A Thing in many offices, but there are an increasing number of offices where it wouldn’t be. And by A Thing, I mean mostly that it could be something people notice, think about, and have feelings about, not necessarily anything more than that. You might care about that or you might not.

In any case, you need to know your office to judge how much of a thing it might be, but I wouldn’t assume hairy legs would be side-eyed everywhere (especially in less conservative fields).

2. Career coach wants me to use someone else’s job title

I’ve recently hired a career coach as I’ve been looking to leave my job for a while and figured putting money down would finally motivate me to fully participate in the job-searching process. It’s been going fine, but I’m concerned about their advice for my resume. They’ve changed my current job title to fit the jobs that I’m looking for. For example, if my current job title is operations manager and I’m hoping to transition to the leadership coaching field, they’ve encouraged me to change that to say “leadership coach.” Aside from that just not representing my current role, I’m weirded out by the fact that someone at my current workplace does have the title “leadership coach.” If people from my workplace see my LinkedIn profile updated with that job title, they might actually think I’m having a break from reality and that I think I have my coworker’s job.

Is it normal to paint your resume and LinkedIn to reflect what you’re looking for instead of what you’ve actually done? If so, how would I do that without confusing all my past and current colleagues?

No! Not even slightly normal. This is not a thing that is done or would be okay to do. You can’t just randomly change your current job title to something completely different. And even if you could do that, which you can’t, it would be bizarre to list “leadership coach” as your title and then, presumably, have the bulleted list of accomplishments for that job be things that have nothing to do with that job and instead reflect your actual job of operations manager.

What does your career coach suggest you do when an interviewer asks why your title doesn’t match your resume’s description of your work? What do they say will happen when employers contact your company to verify your title and discover that you lied about it? (For the record, you could lose the offer.) And there’s also your very good point about how weird it will look to colleagues if you use someone else’s title on LinkedIn.

This is so astoundingly and strangely off-base about how hiring works that I’d be very wary of taking any other advice from this coach.

3. Should I report deceased people’s LinkedIn profiles?

As I get older, I’ve encountered former colleagues who died but their social media accounts including LinkedIn are still active. A freaky thing on LinkedIn is that LinkedIn generates posts on people’s work anniversaries as if those people are still working at the employers. LinkedIn support accepts requests to remove those accounts from non-family members by providing an obituary. I have done so once, but felt nosy afterwards.

What’s your take on reporting deceased people’s LinkedIn accounts? Some people, while still living, wrote a post notifying their connections that their accounts will be closed because death was imminent. Some people also entrusted family members to use their accounts to notify others upon their death.

Unless the person is a family member or you’re the executor of their will, I’d stay out of it. You have no way of knowing what their wishes might have been; it’s possible they or their family wanted their profile to stay up, and you risk directly violating their wishes. It’s really theirs/their family’s/their executor’s to handle.

4. My interviewer apologized for ghosting (but they didn’t and I wish they had)

About six weeks ago, I interviewed for an entry-level position in a field I’ve been considering moving into. They told me they hoped to have an update after two weeks and they’d let me know if anything changed. Then I repeatedly heard from them via email with apologies for not having updates yet and explanations about the status of the offer — an industry conference delayed us, the offer is stuck with HR, etc. Then six days after the last follow-up, they sent me a rejection email with a long apology for “radio silence” and “ghosting.”

However, I did not feel remotely ghosted. It’s standard in my experience for interview processes in this field to be pretty slow moving with lots of gaps in communication (a comparable org told me after an interview in May that they hoped to have an update “before September” for a job I applied for in February). So I was assuming that these detailed updates about the status of the offer were because they were planning to offer me the offer. I know that basically the number one thing you tell people about job searching is to assume nothing from a potential employer’s communications, but I was assuming. And now I do feel a little resentful that these updates spent so much time pushing this offer to the front of my brain when I could have just ignored it until the rejection rolled in.

Is this type of communication typical? Should I reframe my expectations here, or is it worth bringing up to the hiring manager that I didn’t find their approach to the process as helpful as it seemed like they wanted it to be? I know more transparency is theoretically good thing, but this felt like more of an exercise in frustration than a meaningful shift in the power dynamics of the interview process.

Nah, let it go. They were trying to do the right thing: they gave you a timeline and then tried to keep you updated about potential changes to it. It’s possible, even likely, that they were doing that because they did consider you a top candidate and thought they could end up making you an offer — in fact, this looks to me a lot like what can happen when you’re in the top two or three candidates and they want to make sure they maintain the connection because they very well could end up offering you the job. But even if it’s not that, it’s worth reframing your expectations; let this just reinforce that the only true  sign that an offer is imminent is when they say “we are sending over an offer.”

5. Do you have to be paid for your waiting time if your manager is late to open the building?

I have a question about the legality of docking hourly employee pay. Let’s say that an hourly employee is scheduled to start work at 5 am. The opening manager is scheduled to start at the same time and this manager has the keys to unlock the door to get into the building. What happens if the manager oversleeps and doesn’t arrive until 6 am? Can the business dock the pay of the hourly employee by one hour? I can’t find anything online about this type of situation, but I hope that the employee would be required to be paid for that time since it is not their fault that they can’t get inside the building to clock in.

Yes, they’d need to be paid for the hour they were waiting. This falls under what’s called “waiting time,” which is where you arrive at work and are required to remain there until you’re needed. This is the same concept as if you got to work and your computer was down so you couldn’t work immediately but were expected to wait there while it was fixed.

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

1. Instructor keeps commenting on everyone’s food choices

I’m taking a four-day online class (I’m federal government and the class is put on by a private sector training company). We get a break for lunch, and when we return, the instructor checks in to make sure we’re all back by asking us to type what we had for lunch into the training chat (since we aren’t on camera). Then, as the answers come in, he makes conversation by passing judgment on each person’s lunch, declaring many of them “too healthy” but deeming things like pizza to be much better and something he would enjoy eating. He talked a lot today about how his wife makes him eat salad before he’s allowed to have dessert.

Setting aside his very gendered approach to his nutrition, this is an absolutely terrible environment for anyone with food issues. I understand why he wanted to have a “conversation” as we came back in after lunch. In this virtual setting, no one is on video and he’s the only one on audio — the rest of us are typing into a group chat. So having him just asking “are you there?” over and over would have been pretty dry and boring. I like the idea of him asking a question that requires something more than “here” as an answer. But this is the second day he’s labeled me a “health nut” because I didn’t have pizza and I’m dreading the next two days. I’m trying to decide if I should say something, either now in a private message to him or in the course evaluation at the end. From some of his comments, I don’t really think he’d would put much stock in anything I tell him about this. Do you think I could suggest another topic for our after-lunch conversation? Or do you have a good suggestion for how to bring us back together in this weird virtual setting?

I’m just not sure if I want to spend capital on a guy who I don’t think will understand the issue. It’s annoying to me but not derailing me, so it might not be worth the effort of shouting into the wind. But then I don’t like to “tell on him” to his employer without giving him a chance to address it himself, and I don’t like to just leave it unaddressed. I feel like I’ve eliminated all of my options!

I think you should complain about this to his employer because what he’s doing is so rude — not to mention full-on harmful to some people — and he (and they, and his future classes) would benefit from someone in a position of authority telling him to stop. And if you want to just go straight to that rather than trying to address it with him directly first, there’s nothing wrong with that — especially when he’s already given you the impression he wouldn’t be receptive.

However, if you’re willing to speak up directly before the class is over, I think there’s value in that too. A private message to him is one option, but what about just typing it in the public chat? The feedback you’d be offering isn’t so sensitive that it demands privacy … and it might be good for other people to see it (and who knows, maybe someone else will back you up). But whether it’s public or private, the next time it happens, you could write, “I know you don’t mean anything by it, but could you stop all the commentary on people’s food choices? It would be really terrible for anyone with food issues. Maybe you can ask us to indicate we’re back by naming our favorite movie or show instead.” If he blows you off, that’s one more thing to add in your evaluation later.

2. Employee won’t do the work we hired her for

I am the the grand-boss of our administrator, Jane, who is driving her manager, Marissa, distracted. We are a small organization and this doesn’t leave a lot of leeway for picking up other’s tasks and means we have to be very focused in our priorities. When Jane started, she was very enthusiastic about our work and explicitly said she wanted to do “backroom support” as she was burnt out from front-line work.

Unfortunately, it has been an uphill battle to get her to do the admin work we desperately need. She doesn’t seem to see or take ownership of tasks that are right in front of her, e.g. getting rid of furniture we don’t need that is in the way or she starts a task such as organizing to get the furniture picked up, then works from home and emails the whole organization to “see who will be in the office” on delivery day. Staff in the office are usually there doing front-line support work or strategic and finance work and are constantly having to reorganize around this. It seems like she has to be constantly reminded what her actual job is and that she should be doing it.

Alongside this, she will go off on tangents doing work that no one has asked for, isn’t in our strategic priorities, and takes up other’s time and capacity to deal with. She has emailed our board directly a number of times trying to arrange meetings about work that is not at their level. (The board have nicely redirected her but she keeps trying.) This is despite repeatedly being told not to do this, that this work is not our priority and not in her job description.

We have raised these issues with her and are about to go down a more formal route, but Marissa and I are baffled about WHY. Jane is smart, personable, and enthusiastic but despite being here for nearly a year has not picked up the tone and strategic position of the organization. It doesn’t seem malicious or lazy and although we are taking steps to address it, it’s bugging us both that we don’t understand. Just to be clear we have asked Jane, we’ve reviewed and tightened up her job description, set clear work plans, talked about communication mismatch, and asked her point of view, and then things improve for a week, then circle back. Can you help me understand?

You might never know the “why.” You should certainly ask Jane that directly if you haven’t already — phrasing it as, “We’ve spoken repeatedly about X and it improves for a week but then backslides. This is serious enough that we can’t keep you on if it continues. Do you have any insight into what’s getting in the way?”

But ultimately, while it’s useful to try to figure out the “why” if you can, the most important thing is the “what.” And the “what” is that Jane, for whatever reason, isn’t doing the job you need her to do, even after clear, explicit, and repeated feedback. Sometimes an employee just isn’t well-matched with the job they’re in, no matter how much coaching you give them — and the reason could be anything from a fundamental skills mismatch, to lack of interest, to things in their personal lives, to mental health, and all sorts of other things. The best thing you can do is to be really clear about what success in the role looks like, how she’s falling short of that, what needs to change for her to stay in the job, what support you can provide, and how much time she has to make those changes. (And because she improves briefly and then backslides, you should be explicit that you need to see “sustained and consistent improvement.”)

That said, I get why you’re so interested in figuring out the “why”; if you knew it, it could potentially point you toward solutions. But sometimes you just won’t get that answer. Ultimately — assuming that you have been clear about your expectations and the consequences if she doesn’t meet them — the mismatch sounds significant enough that you should be planning to resolve this quickly one way or another (for example, if you do a formal improvement plan, do it for something like four weeks, not months and months).

3. Can I make my spouse wear noise-canceling headphones at home?

This is a bit of an odd question because it involves my spouse, not my coworker, but as we are both working from home, I feel like this is about a shared workspace. My husband works a later shift than I do, and he takes online meetings after our kids return home from school and while they are home in the evenings. The kids are 11 and 14, and the youngest has some behavioral disabilities that make them a bit volatile at times. My husband is constantly shushing us at home, and it really stresses me out! I will try to pack all the kids off to the park after dinner, but then one kid starts dribbling a basketball on the way out the door — and my husband comes out to shush us. I let them have screen time, and he says the video game is too loud. He does use earbuds; I’ve suggested he invest in a really good pair of noise-canceling headphones that will eliminate the noise around him, but he says the technology isn’t good enough to cover up how loud we are when he’s speaking in a meeting. Is there a solution I’m missing? Are there headphones that will help? He says the situation is not that bad, but I feel awful for my kids.

I don’t have the technical know-how to speak to whether there are noise-canceling headphones that would help (although I’m inclined to think yes) but hopefully readers can. But I do think this may be more of a husband problem — it’s not reasonable to expect perfect silence at home in the evening, particularly when you have kids, and if he’s shushing you just for dribbling a basketball on the way out the door (when the noise will obviously be short-lived), it sounds like his expectations aren’t reasonable. I’m also concerned that he’s not willing to even try the headphones idea, given how helpful it could be for all of you if they work and especially given the stress he’s causing your family.

At a minimum, he should be collaborating with you to figure out how to make this better — if not noise-canceling headphones, then how about sound-dampening material in the room he works in? Some other solution? The answer shouldn’t be that the rest of you have to spend your post-work/post-school hours in silence.

Read an update to this letter. 

4. My company is cutting pay to force people out

I work at a small startup, and a new CEO has just come on. He has decided he wants to get rid of me and other senior members of the company without having to pay severance, so he is cutting our pay.

In my case, I’ve had multiple promotions and many glowing performance reviews and he wants to cut my salary by nearly half — to less than what my direct report makes.

Is this legal? Obviously I’m looking for a new job, but my field is very hard to find new jobs in so I fear I may either be stuck or unemployed without unemployment if I quit.

It’s legal unless he’s targeting people based on race, gender, religion, disability, age, or other protected classes (and age is one I’d particularly look at here). However, the salary cut is big enough that in a lot of states it would be considered “constructive discharge” (which is when your employer changes your working conditions in such a way that remaining in the job would be intolerable to a reasonable person) and you’d be able to get unemployment benefits. At a minimum, you should consult with your state unemployment agency — and you might also want to consult with a lawyer who can look at the specific facts in your case (not necessarily to sue, but lawyers can be good at finding points of leverage to compel the employer to behave differently or, failing that, to get you severance).

5. Can I charge a fee for all the follow-up I have to do with my boss?

I am a 1099 contract employee project manager for an ad agency. I have to continually follow up with the boss to see if they have read and approved the proof attached to emails before sending to the client.

Following up with the boss to see if they are reading their own emails is a burden on me, as I have to keep an eye on my own emails and projects. Can I bill an inconvenience fee or babysitting fee on my invoice to cover this insane amount of follow-up? Child care service rendered?

You can’t bill for fees your employer never agreed to, but you can either (a) raise your rates to account for the additional hassle or (b) bill for the additional time you’re spending, if your contract is written to allow that.

I suspect the bigger problem might be that you’re referring to yourself as an employee when you’re actually a 1099 contractor — those are two different things, legally speaking. If you’re being treated as an employee but your employer has misclassified you as a contractor, that’s a legal issue that needs to get straightened out (especially since it would mean you’re paying a bigger tax burden than you should be) — but if you’re an employee, this kind of thing is part of dealing with having a boss. On the other hand, if you’re correctly classified as a contractor, then the remedies in the first paragraph are available to you, whereas they wouldn’t be to an employee.

I’m off today. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. My coworker is routinely late to work because she stops for coffee first

I have a question about a coworker, Sansa, who is routinely ~5-10 minutes late (2-3 times a week). Her job does not require she be here at 9 on the dot. I know being a stickler about a few minutes is not good. However, every morning (not an exaggeration) she is late, she strolls in with Starbucks drinks/food … so in this case, it’s not “traffic was bad” or “the kids weren’t cooperating” — both of which I totally understand happen and aren’t cause for concern. To me, this is a known discretionary stop on her commute and she should plan appropriately for it. If one day the milk steamer explodes and she is late because of that … well, fine, but this is happening SO often. Honestly it just drives me crazy, but I know I have a pet peeve for habitual tardiness.

A further concern is that we are in the midst of recruiting (two offers have been made to new grads and we expect them to start within two months). These new employees will be at the same level, and doing similar work at Sansa (they’ll be more or less equals), and I’m worried Sansa is setting a bad precedent.

I’m not Sansa’s direct manager, but I do have seniority over her (I’m middle management, she is entry level). Am I crazy for wanting to say something to her? I could go to her manager? He and I have a good relationship — we’ve been working together for seven years and I consider us friends. But that seems extreme.

I think this is a you problem rather than a Sansa problem!

You have a pet peeve about habitual tardiness, but the fact that it’s your pet peeve doesn’t mean Sansa is doing something wrong. The way to solve this isn’t to talk to Sansa, but for you to realize that this isn’t really your business.

Many managers, including me, couldn’t care less if someone is routinely five or 10 minutes late, as long as their job doesn’t require coverage that starts earlier than that. The question for any manager should be: What is the work impact of this? If there’s no work impact and Sansa is doing good work, who cares? I suspect you care because of the principle of the thing — it annoys you on principle that she doesn’t take timeliness more seriously. But lots of things can annoy you on principle without it being something you should address.

Ultimately, if her manager doesn’t care, why do you need to? And if you’re thinking, “Well, her manager is making the wrong call” — it’s not smart to nickel and dime good employees over five or ten minutes, especially when a lot of people value that kind of minor flexibility in their jobs. (Personally I’d be really annoyed if my boss gave me crap about being five minutes late when I was doing great work and it didn’t have any impact.)

If your concern is that Sansa is setting a bad example for the two new grads who about to start, that’s something for those new hires’ managers to deal with. If you’re their manager and you really need them to arrive at 9 on the dot, then you can let them know that — saying something like, “You might see some people come in a little later than that, but for our work it’s really important that you’re here on time because of ____.” (But if you can’t figure out what to fill in the blank with, that’s a sign that you don’t have a reason to require that.)

– 2019

2. My coworker copies everything I do

One of my coworkers and I share a desk, so we’re very close all day long. I’ve been getting super frustrated lately because it seems like she copies everything I do. She started bringing in the exact same breakfast as me, and then proceeded to copy my daily lunch as well. At the end of the day, she won’t pick up and leave until I do too. She’ll finish her work about an hour before the day ends, but as soon as 5 p.m. hits, she’ll suddenly start pretending to do work again until she notices I’m leaving too. I one time casually mentioned how I come in early each day due to my rough commute, and ever since then she’s been coming in early as well. She has a very light workload, so I know there is no reason for her to be in the office before 9. She also stares at me continuously throughout the day, which is super uncomfortable when I’m trying to get work done.

At first, I let it slide because I realized that as a new employee, she was probably just looking for a role model. But at this point, she’s been here almost a year and it frustrates me that she can’t form her own identity. Any tips on how I should handle it?

There’s not really a kind way to address most of this. The breakfast and lunch copying probably falls in the category of “sometimes coworkers have really weird, often annoying quirks,” which is just part of the deal of working with other people. But I do think you could ask her about the arrival/leaving time thing. For example, you could frame it as making sure she knows that your hours don’t have to be her hours, by saying something like “I’ve noticed you’ll often wait to leave until I’m leaving — you know you can actually leave whenever you’re done, right?” Or you could just ask “What’s bringing you in so early lately?”

And with the staring, I’d recommend meeting her eyes and saying, “Did you need me?” Do that a couple of times and it might be enough to make her realize it and stop. But otherwise, there’s the more direct “You keep looking at me — what’s up?” and, if necessary, “You’re staring and it’s unnerving me!”

Read an update to this letter here.

– 2017

3. My employee keeps adjusting himself while we’re talking

I have a male employee who will adjust his balls (over top of his pants) during most conversations I have with him. It’s distracting, a bit uncomfortable, and I have no idea if I should have this conversation with him or if so, how I would approach this issue in a respectful way. Does he even know he is doing it? Am I being unreasonable in pointing it out as a habit that needs to change? Is this common and I only notice with him? I’m too embarrassed to even bring this up at work to ask anyone else how they could approach it. Thank you for some practical guidance and honest feedback on if this is worth the energy to discuss.

Well, this is incredibly awkward. You shouldn’t have to tell him that regularly touching his own genitalia during a work meeting is not okay, and I’m annoyed on your behalf that you need to.

I do think you should, though, because he should not be touching his balls while talking to people at work. I mean, most people aren’t going to take issue with one quick, discreet adjustment — but this does not sound like that.

After reading your letter, I had a good solid five minutes of not being able to come up with language for you to use, but I’ve come up with three options.

You could pointedly say, “Do you need a minute to yourself?”

Or you could be more direct: “Could you do that adjusting in the bathroom?”

Or: “I would feel more comfortable if you could do that in private.” And you could follow that up with, “Assume your coworkers might feel the same way.”

It’s going to be awkward, no matter what you say! Because referring to an employee’s balls is awkward AF. But he’s the one causing the awkwardness, not you, and you should be perfectly comfortable letting him shoulder all of that burden himself.

– 2018

Read an update to this letter here.

4. My boss asked me to change my ringtone

Is it worth it to try to push back when you’re the only one in an office of 10 people asked by your manager to change the ringtone on your personal cell phone? My standard one (that’s the one when anyone calls, but I have distinctive ringtones for certain folks) is the theme from the Beverly Hills Cop movies, and I keep my volume at about 20-25%. Everyone else in the office has their ringtones on full blast. I know because I hear them. One is a particularly shrill old-style telephone ring, and another is the bugle call “Release the Hounds” from a fox hunt.

In any case, mine’s not bad, and it’s not loud, but I’m the only one asked to change it. Is it worth pushing back on?

I mean, I think everyone in your office should be keeping their phones on vibrate; this sounds like way too much jarring noise.

But I don’t think you can push back on this. Your manager has told you that she finds yours in particular to be disruptive (and maybe others have told her that too), and that warrants changing it. Or if you feel strongly about keeping it, then keep your phone on vibrate when you’re at work.

(And actually, even if this request had come from a generally reasonable peer, rather than your manager, I’d say the same thing. It can be hard to work in an office full of other people’s noises, and if someone tells you you’re making a noise that’s particularly driving them round a bend, it’s kind to try to accommodate them if you can do so without major inconvenience. Even if you feel like other people are just as bad!)

– 2018

Read an update to this letter here.