update: I’m sick of having to do my incompetent colleague’s work by Alison Green on June 13, 2023 It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager and I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day. Remember the letter-writer who was sick of having to their incompetent coworker’s work? Here’s the update. (Reminders: The incompetent coworker is Ron, his boss is Kate, and the letter-writer’s boss is Joe.) A couple weeks before your answer to my letter went up, Kate quit her job out of nowhere! Here is where I should point out that she had what everyone in the office has independently characterized as “horrible undiagnosed/unmedicated ADHD” (which I, as a longtime diagnosed/medicated ADHD-haver, can pretty much confirm) and was sort of constantly in trouble for not doing various parts of her job. Well, we’re now pretty certain she had an executive-dysfunction freakout about a massive grant to our organization that we have historically relied on to fund parts of our budget, lied to everyone about how she was working on the application, and it built up and built up to the point where she knew the situation was unsalvageable, so instead of coming clean to everyone, she simply got a new job and quit this one, giving us zero notice about this grant situation. So that was fun to deal with. (We ended up explaining the whole series of events to our contacts at the foundation and got an extension on the application, but this explains exactly what kind of person hired Ronald in the first place. And also — because he currently has no official manager at the moment — why he has not yet been put on a PIP or fired.) Anyway, onto the Ronald Update. I don’t know what to say here other than that conditions have NOT improved. In the weeks before the holidays, Ronald so badly screwed up several projects that when I returned, I learned that the bulk of his job duties in that area had been reassigned to me and a much younger assistant in another department, Shannon. It’s been fine — I honestly spend less time doing this stuff myself than I had before, fixing his errors — but it’s still infuriating, and neither Shannon nor I can figure out what he does all day now. Remember when Ronald referred to me as “Joe’s assistant” in front of everyone and it sparked a tense conversation about how I had a whole job that in no way involved being an assistant? Well, a couple weeks ago, Ronald pulled me into an email thread involving materials that were overdue to an outside agency (HIS FAULT!), and in doing so both threw me under the bus and referred to me as both “his” employee and a job title that was completely NOT my own! I ended up fixing the issue and forwarded the thread to Joe; Joe replied to Ronald with an all-out reaming about his mismanagement of the project and quoted heavily from my official job description; and Ronald responded with ZERO apology, another weird under-bus-throwing reply, and concluded it with a sarcastic “Wooooow” [sic]. WOW!!!! So — that brings us to this week. Joe and I have had many, many hard conversations about how the Ronald Problem is untenable, how we cannot continue to work under these circumstances, and this week, Joe was on vacation and I was in charge. The main task for the week revolved around getting an email with a video out on the morning of a very important anniversary for our agency. And this would’ve happened if RONALD HAD NOT LIED ABOUT HIS ABILITY TO EDIT VIDEO, AND SHANNON HAD NOT HAD TO STEP IN TO SPEND SIX HOURS EDITING THE VIDEO ON THE DAY OF THE ANNIVERSARY. But ALAS. That email went out at almost 6PM. I ended up leaving work two hours late. And — adding insult to injury — I was subsequently dumped by the person I’d been newly seeing for being almost two hours late to the date we had planned. (This was probably a bullet-dodging thing as I was very apologetic, but it doesn’t change the fact that Ronald has now managed to blow up both my professional and personal lives.) So… it’s going great. I don’t know when/if you’ll print this, but all I can say is that I hope very dearly that when/if you do, there will be some resolution to this situation. Because this is literally insane. Update to the update: Well, we still don’t have a replacement for Kate. Ronald still has a job and still doesn’t bring much to the table, though he’s chilled out considerably with all the weird missteps and miscommunications. I don’t actually know what he DOES all day (neither does my boss), and Shannon and I still do most of the work that would typically fall under his job description, but I don’t seethe every time he crosses my eyeline anymore, in part because it just isn’t healthy to carry around a grudge like that and in part because there simply isn’t an end in sight and you just have to get used to it. There are numerous other weird, dysfunctional things that have happened at this place recently, but none of them have been Ronald-induced, and for the meantime it seems like our long collective workplace nightmare has come to a middle. You may also like:I'm sick of having to do my incompetent colleague's workhow do incompetent people get work?our new team lead is horrible and keeps sharing private details about us with our colleagues { 156 comments }
my office ignored my surgery, undergrad using ChatGPT to network badly, and more by Alison Green on June 13, 2023 It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My office ignored my surgery and medical leave About six months ago, I announced to my office of 30+ staff that I would be on a medical leave following knee replacement surgery. I am the office manager for our regional branch, and have been with the company for six years. We have no HR in our branch—it’s located in our corporate office. Whenever anyone in our office is sick, experiences a death in the family, retires, or otherwise deserves to be acknowledged, that responsibility falls to me; I am the person who ensures that cards are passed, pizza is ordered, and the employee feels seen and supported. In the weeks leading up to my absence, I had two meetings with leadership to review my temporary coverage; trained my replacement and created pages of documentation to help her navigate the tasks I handle; helped to plan the retirement party for my boss (he will go out on retirement while I’m on leave); and made sure that everyone knew who was responsible for specific facets of my job while I was gone. My last day in the office was two weeks ago. My surgery was one week ago. I have not received a card, a bouquet of flowers or any acknowledgment of my absence. I am disgusted by the lack of humanity and compassion displayed by my officemates and leadership. Is there an expectation that the person who cares for others in the office deserves some modicum of care themselves in situations like this? Is it the Oxycodone talking, or am I right to feel the way I do? I cannot tell you how many letters I’ve received over the years from people in exactly your situation. When the person in charge of this kind of recognition/care is the one who is out, it’s really, really common for them to receive none of that care themselves. On a strictly logical level, you can probably see why — no one else has been assigned the responsibility. That doesn’t make it not sting — you have spent years ensuring others are cared for in this way, and now when it’s your turn you’re neglected — but it’s very likely that no one thought to handle it because it’s never been their responsibility before. Now, should it occur to people that the person who normally handles this stuff is out and someone else will need to step in? Yes, of course (particularly your boss). But in reality, most people are focused on their own work, and it’s not an intentional slight. If you want, you could point out that no one is covering this task during your leave and someone should be. Not only for your own card/flowers/etc., but for anyone else who has this kind of life event while you’re away — if Cordelia’s dad dies or Niles is hospitalized while you’re away, presumably they’re going to get ignored too. So if you want to, you could message your boss and your replacement with a note pointing out that’s a task someone needs to be handling while you’re out. You could add, “Receiving no acknowledgement of my surgery made me realize we have no one covering this in my absence” … and if they’re not entirely oblivious, that should jog them into realizing the oversight. (In the future, it’s a good thing to include in the training for your temp cover — not “send me flowers” but “send flowers to anyone who is out for XYZ reasons”). 2. My coworker isn’t following through on handing off a project to me I am new to my firm, and we all work primarily remotely. One coworker, Jane, who is roughly lateral to me but has been with the company for a couple of years, seems very brusque when speaking with me. This may simply be a difference in style, and I’m willing to chalk it up to that. However, she was supposed to hand off a project of hers to me. She has an unbelievably full plate, and since I’m new, I believe the company is trying to ensure that I have enough work and the project is in my catchment area. When our boss (who is a very light touch with regards to management, and not very assertive) asked me if I’d take over the project, I told him that I’d be happy to, as long as Jane was okay with that transfer. Our boss reported back that yes, Jane was fine transitioning the project over to me. However, whenever we have a project call or follow-up, I ask if I might take that on, and Jane says no, she’ll handle it. She never seems to actually hand anything over, at all. Perhaps the boss should have had the hand-off conversation with all three of us on the line at the same time, but that’s not what happened. Considering that Jane is so abrupt with me in general, I honestly want to avoid another unpleasant interaction. But I feel like I should be a big girl and say something directly, rather than going back to the boss and asking about the firm’s intentions with regards to this project assignment. What exactly should I say, and how should I go about it, given that we are remote, and it’s not so easy to just tap her on the shoulder and say “Do you have time for a quick chat?” Be matter-of-fact about it! “Hi, Jane. Rupert asked me to to take on X. Can we set up a time this week to do the transition?” If she’s vague or blows you off, try asking, “Do you still think it makes sense to move X to me? If not, I need to go back to Rupert and let him know, since currently he’s expecting me to take it on.” If that doesn’t solve it, go back to your boss and say, “I’ve asked Jane several times about when we can meet to transition X to me, but I haven’t been able to get time with her, and I think I’m at the limits of how much I can push her to do it. If if still makes sense for me to take it over, could you ask her to make time to meet with me so I can get started?” 3. Undergrad using ChatGPT to network (badly) Last week I got a LinkedIn message from an undergrad at my alma mater, asking to connect and get advice on how to get started in my field. I’m always happy to help people who are getting started, so we’ve exchanged some messages, and… it’s become very clear that they’re using ChatGPT to write theirs. My field is in fact machine learning, specifically natural language processing — I know an LLM when I see one! I put genuine thought and effort into my advice, and I’m getting back businessy rephrasings of what I said and generic requests for more information. Is this as rude as it feels? Should I say something to them about it? I get that networking is hard for students, but I really don’t like this! This is an area that’s likely to evolve quite a bit in the coming years, but answering right now, with our current norms and expectations … I can certainly see why you see like it’s a one-sided conversation and that your levels of effort are not equivalent. That’s particularly galling when you’re offering up your time as a favor to this person. (And no one likes to receive back businessy rephrasings of what they just said, WTF.) Just name it and ask about it! For example: “Since we’re talking about machine learning, can I ask — your responses sound very much like they’re being written by ChatGPT. Are they? If you’d like to continue corresponding, I’d ask that you not do that.” If it continues after that, feel free to just discontinue the conversation … or offer a phone call, and only a phone call, instead. 4. Is my voicemail greeting inappropriate for job-hunting? I’m about to start job-hunting soon and am wondering if my voicemail greeting would be considered unprofessional, as it is intented to be funny. My last name rhymes with “phone.” So my greeting is, in my best imitation of a recording, “FirstName LastName cannot answer the phone. Please leave a message after the tone.” It’s my normal voice, but very much monotone. I wanted to avoid accidentally adopting a sing-song tone (the whole recording is iambic, after all), so I tried to speak very flatly. Think 1990s robocalls that had a bunch of phrases recorded from someone’s voice rather than synthesized. Should I change it to “you’ve reached FirstName LastName; please leave a message,” or just my name with the generic recording instead? If you were using a jokey robotic-sounding voice, I’d definitely suggest changing it while you’re job-searching. But if it’s just your normal voice speaking a normal outgoing message that happens to rhyme, that’s not a big deal. That said, I haven’t heard the message (I always wish for sound files with letters like this one!) and you’re always safer with a blandly professional greeting, so the more cautious approach would be to change it. 5. I don’t want to manage anyone I don’t want to manage anyone, ever. Is that ever okay, or am I being naive? Most people in the world go their whole lives without ever managing anyone, so it’s not at all naive to expect you could do that. However, it depends heavily on your field, as well as your income expectations. In some fields, you’d need to stay at a fairly junior level your whole career to avoid managing people, and that would mean accepting a correspondingly junior salary. You might be fine with that! Lots of people are fine with that. On the other hand, in other fields you can still advance without managing people (becoming a more and more senior version of whatever it is that you do). To really know what it’ll mean for you, you’d need to look at what career paths exist in the fields you’re interested in. But for the record, it would be a major improvement if people who didn’t want to manage didn’t get pushed into management roles, where they are often too passive and shy away from using their authority, in an effort to avoid the hard and even sometimes painful parts of managing (On the flip side of that, there are also people who are too interested in being in a position of authority.) 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updates: the out-of-control health committee chair, the political conversations, and more by Alison Green on June 12, 2023 It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager and I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers. 1. How do I draw the line on political conversations at work? I wrote in with a question about drawing the line on political/social issue conversations during meetings three years ago, about a month before the 2020 election. Part of the issue with my colleague is that I was a team lead, but not officially the team manager, so I had very little actual authority to exercise. Coupled with a boss who really didn’t want to deal with it, I wasn’t sure how to approach asking her to knock off talking about very difficult topics when we needed to focus on work. Ultimately I did end up having a private conversation with her. I took the approach of asking her to not bring up difficult news topics in meetings because I was dealing with a lot of anxiety and it made it hard to focus on getting work done for the rest of the day (which was true!). I also suggested seeking support among one of our peer affinity groups at work if she needed to talk through her feelings about hard social situations. At first she became very defensive and was not receptive to that request, and I have to admit that some of my reluctance to bring it up in the first place was knowing she would probably react negatively. However, later that day she came back and apologized for her reaction and agreed to keep political and societal topics out of work meetings. I also talked to the whole team during our next weekly meeting about taking mental health time if anyone needed it since everyone was very anxious and stressed about the election–thankfully our workplace is very supportive of offering space and encouraging time off when folks need it. Ultimately that situation was a really good opportunity to grow my management skills, and almost three years later our department has undergone a major reorg, we have new leadership, and I was promoted to an official management position! I’m a lot more confident in having difficult conversations and recognizing when it’s my job to intervene for the good of the team. Additionally, that colleague has transitioned to a different role that suits her better overall, and these days I have a lot more support from a new boss to effectively manage my team. She has told me repeatedly that she thinks I’m a great manager, which I largely attribute to the great advice and tips I’ve picked up from AAM over the years. Thanks to Alison and commentariat for the great advice, both for my own question and the many others that have been relevant to my work over the years! 2. Our health committee chair is anti-vax, anti-science, and out of control I had already resigned when you answered (you were quick, my impulsiveness was just quicker). My resignation did catch the attention of the person who oversees the employee groups and we had a candid chat. I don’t know specifics, but there was definitely action somewhere behind the scenes because the Chair toned everything I mentioned in my letter way down and ultimately stepped down herself. It was never my intention to oust her…I guess I was hopeful she’d find a better understanding of the limitations of workplace groups and some of her more controversial opinions. But if that can’t happen, this outcome is for the best. 3. Resigning while my boss is on parental leave (#2 at the link) After my boss came back from leave, things settled down somewhat, and I took the time to catch my breath and begin skillbuilding and updating my resume. Before I could secure a new job, however, she beat me to the punch and resigned for another opportunity. Because our organization is in the middle of a hiring freeze, they wanted to go back to the previous summer’s plan of me doing both jobs with half the resources. And by “hiring freeze,” they don’t plan to backfill her position until fall 2024 (so not THIS fall, NEXT fall!). The idea of repeating last summer’s workload for approximately 18 months sent me into a mental tailspin, and I lost track of the amount of anxiety attacks I had during those first few weeks — although thankfully never in front of my coworkers. To her credit, my boss tried to get me a raise and a new title before she left to accurately reflect the additional work, but several months later it’s still in central budgeting purgatory, not approved but also not denied. Suffice to say, beyond my individual situation, a number of ominous organizational red flags cropped up that pushed me to supercharge my job search. I bought your How to Get a Job e-book and overhauled my resume and cover letter. Without a doubt, I can say your advice helped me achieve my most fruitful job search to-date, and I even had to navigate juggling multiple job offers. I received one offer letter from Company B while waiting to hear back from Company A, which was my dream company. Based on guidance from previous posts, I immediately emailed Company A to ask if I was still in consideration and if they could let me know by (that Friday). Company A is in an industry known for a slow and bureaucratic HR process, but to my surprise, they pulled out all the stops and within two days offered me the job — including a higher title, a salary more than 10% over what I’m currently making, and a signing bonus! I start in a few weeks, and I couldn’t be happier. Not only am I leaving a situation that was so harmful to my mental health, but I also feel valued and like my hard work is being recognized. Most of all, I’m genuinely excited about the new role itself and the team I’ll be working with. I want to thank you and this community for being such a great resource during a challenging junction in my career. 4. Rewriting my job description when I’ve taken on lots of new work (#3 at the link) I wrote to you in late 2020 about updating my job description with new responsibilities with no talk of changing my title, pay, etc. I took your advice and was straightforward with my boss that these were new responsibilities and that I felt they reflected a shift in my role. Well, I honestly think this all just hadn’t crossed her mind before—she agreed with me and early the following year, I got a promotion and a raise! It felt great to have success with this because I struggle with confidence at work. The thing is, as much as I liked my job and colleagues, the responsibility additions didn’t really stop coming and there wasn’t another raise or promotion in sight. So, I looked around and was successful in finding a new position that offered some opportunities I didn’t have before and a nice salary boost. It hasn’t been a seamless transition—there have been bumps in the road as I adjust to a new role at a smaller organization. Overall, I feel proud that I had this success and am so appreciative of the advice I received from you and the AAM community! You may also like:how do I draw the line on political conversations at work?I'm worried my new hire won't fit into our very liberal -- and vocal -- teamis a reminder to vote too political? { 19 comments }
update: HR won’t do anything about a coworker who’s angry about my weight loss by Alison Green on June 12, 2023 It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager and I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back– there’s more to come today! Remember the letter-writer whose HR wouldn’t do anything about a coworker who was angry about her post-surgery weight loss? Here’s the update. (First update here.) I got an offer from a local company that’s going fully remote with administration and management meeting up once a month. The salary was right, it’s 90% remote, it’s a good fit, so I’m happy with it. My role is HR adjacent as head of payroll. I report to the COO and was hired by the CEO and COO. I walk in to our first admin meeting and who is sitting across from me but the HR Director who told me medical documentation doesn’t matter and orchestrated my red-flag meeting, let’s call him “Bob.” Bob is the interim HR director for this company. Bob looked very uncomfortable when he saw me. We went through some employee files, including several who are on maternity leave and two who were injured on a job site. Bob got quieter as we began reviewing medical documentation and approving paid leave. I smiled and looked him in the eye every time I asked, “And does Jill have her medical documentation? Great! Medical documentation holds a lot of weight. That’s important stuff to have.” He looked like he wanted to melt into his seat. At one point he tried to argue against someone using their PTO to provide end of life care for a parent when they had ample PTO. I smiled and said, “You’re right, our employee support fund should cover half this time. It’s a shame for them to have to lose all their PTO when they’re obviously going to need it to heal and grieve over the next few months. Why don’t you get me the paperwork for the support fund this afternoon? That’s so generous.” Everyone was happy and in agreement. He looked like he swallowed a lemon but everyone was like “OMG Bob how thoughtful.” He had to eat it so bad and got me the documentation an hour later. Bob can suck it. Bob is also only a contractor so he’ll be moving on soon anyway. Medically I’m doing better, and very happy to move on from where I was. Aubrey’s been full-on radio silence which is perfect for me. Thanks AAM team and commenters! You may also like:most popular posts of 2023HR won't do anything about a coworker who's angry about my weight lossvote for the worst boss of 2023: the finals { 236 comments }
what subjects are off-limits for work chat? by Alison Green on June 12, 2023 A reader writes: I was recently part of a conversation about things that should never ever be discussed at work. People listed politics, religion, personal lives, alternate health, and money/health troubles. I don’t know if I can fully agree all of these must be fully checked at the door. Making sure one is mindful of knowing one’s audience, realizing one is at work, and keeping things in check, sure. So I thought I would bring the question to you. Do you think these are solid no-nos? Some but not others? Do you have any things you think are solid no-nos for workplace discussion? I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here. You may also like:trainer had religious messages on his presentation screen, did my son’s friend’s dad share confidential data, and morehow can I get my coworker to stop talking about God?how can I get my boss to talk to me in person instead of over chat? { 322 comments }
update: my boss told me I’m “not a good human” when I asked to be paid for my time by Alison Green on June 12, 2023 Welcome to the mid-year “where are you now?” event at Ask a Manager! All this week and next, I’ll be running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day. Remember the letter-writer whose boss told them they were “not a good human” when they asked to be paid for their time? (First update here.) Here’s the latest. As I mentioned, I stuck around working for these miserable people because my husband and I were trying to have a baby. Those efforts were successful, and we had a healthy child. Yay! My job offered paid parental leave, which I took. It wasn’t particularly generous, but better than $0 (and not optional – I tried to opt out bc I very much knew there was no “free lunch” with these people, and they were the last people to whom I wanted to be indebted, but I was told I couldn’t opt out and take unpaid leave.) A few days after I returned from parental leave, my boss handed me a bill. For the amount he expected me to pay him back for my paid parental leave. You read that correctly. He demanded that I (a W-2 employee) reimburse him (the owner) for my “paid” parental leave. I was like: “Uh, then it’s not really paid leave?” He said, and I swear this is an exact quote: “Yes, it was paid. Believe me, I know because I had to pay it. That’s why you owe it back.” I know it seems like I must be leaving something out here. I’m not. Employer has a clear and unambiguous policy in the employee handbook, for paid leave for which I clearly qualified. I did, in fact, birth a child. I had, in fact, worked at the firm well more than long enough to qualify for the leave. I took less leave than was allowed – both by my firm and by law. No weird facts here. I had a baby and went on a short maternity leave, nothing fancy or complicated, song as old as time, and no one claimed otherwise. The only dispute was that my boss claimed it is “generally understood” that “paid” leave is essentially an advance, which the firm pays but then the employee owes back. The firm’s policy says nothing about reimbursement and just says “paid” leave, but boss contends that it is inherent in the concept of “paid” leave that the employee will later reimburse the firm. (You don’t even need to tell me he’s wrong and I’m right because, obviously, he’s banana crackers.) I was dumbfounded but not really surprised. I tabled the conversation for a few months because I hoped that he would decide this wasn’t a nickel he could squeeze with a straight face. But I was wrong. He kept bringing it up, demanding to know my plan for paying him back the money I “owed,” and saying things like “this isn’t something I can just let go.” This finally came to a head one day, when he popped into my office for the umpteenth time, unannounced, wanting to know my plan for paying him back, while I was in the middle of prepping for an important meeting. I just had enough. So, I told him my honest thoughts on the matter. This started gently, just explaining that he was wrong – factually, logically, legally, ethically wrong AF – about the meaning of “paid” leave. He doubled down. The conversation escalated in tone and intensity. There were other issues too, so what the heck, while we were at it, I went into those. He played dumb, and told me that I was off-base and that no one had ever disagreed with him on these issues and no one had ever questioned or tried to discuss these issues with him before. Except, I knew for a fact that someone had quit a month or so earlier, over a dispute about one of these issues, after REPEATEDLY trying to discuss with boss to no avail. I just couldn’t. So I called him on that. And he LOST IT. He stood up, said that never happened, demanded that we call former employee immediately to confirm this never happened, stormed out of my office to grab his cell phone and call this poor woman. Well, that backfired for him, because she answered and she said, “Uh, yeah, that happened.” Boss then calmed down and reflected and said, “Wow, I’m wrong and also what sort of a lunatic calls a former employee out of the blue to settle a dispute?” Just kidding! Boss did none of that. Instead, he hung up the phone, and looked at me and said, “See, I told you?!” That’s when I LOST IT. This wasn’t a nuanced issue. It was like I was saying “black,” boss was saying “white,” and former employee was saying “totally black.” Then boss hangs up and declares he heard “totally white”? I know it sounds crazy, but that’s what happened. I’m rarely speechless but I just stood there for a while, with my eyebrows on the ceiling and my jaw at my knees. Which, brings us to the point of no return. After asking “are you serious?” a few times, I just started screaming at him. He started screaming at me. This spilled out into the common area of the firm. The good people of the world got up to discreetly and politely shut their office doors, embarrassed for us both. It was bad. It was a scene. I’m not proud of it, and I definitely lost my cool and that’s not how I typically handle myself. I eventually ended the “conversation” by screaming “this isn’t productive” a few times, then walked back to my office, grabbed my bag, and left. On the way home, I was like — wow that happened and this isn’t healthy. So I made one phone call, and in less than 3 hours, I had a better job with a competitor for more pay. (I’m in a niche field, so everyone knows everyone, and they were already familiar with my work.) I’m not going to lie, it was extremely satisfying to give notice the next morning. Mic drop moment for sure. That was six months ago, and I couldn’t be happier at my new firm. Also a positive note: Apparently the only way to get that “paid” maternity leave at my old firm is to leave before they can take it out of your bonus, so I got the last laugh on that one. You may also like:my boss told me I’m “not a good human” when I asked to be paid for my timemy coworkers are asking if my pregnancy was plannedmy employee wants to work from home without child care for his baby forever { 405 comments }
can I say anything about my boss’s affair, how long should you wait when your interviewer is late for a Zoom call, and more by Alison Green on June 12, 2023 It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Can I say anything about my boss’s affair? I’m 99% sure my boss and another subordinate are having an affair, but I’m not sure if I can or should say anything. A couple of days ago at lunch, I was sitting in the window of a restaurant and saw my boss, “Tim,” decidedly disheveled, hurriedly walking back to the office and tucking in his shirt. I then saw “Kristen” behind him a minute later, doing the same thing and fixing her hair. They had both come from the direction of my boss’s close-by apartment, which is the opposite way of the restaurant Kristen later said that they had lunch at. This, in combination with how flirty they are and how much they’re always off by themselves and whispering, not to mention touching each other/fixing each other’s clothes, makes me think that they’re having an affair. Kristen has been given a lot of high-profile assignments despite how relatively new she is, and also immediately took over my boss’s corner office when he moved into one closer to other members of leadership. During meetings, they often derail the discussion with flirtatious banter, and the rest of us are left sitting there uncomfortably. Despite all these day-to-day issues, Tom and Kristen feel untouchable because everyone respects him and thinks she’s a ray of sunshine because of her bubbly personality — she even got kudos from our grandboss for her good attitude. I’m just not sure what to do or say at this point (like submitting an anonymous report to our hotline) if anything. If you’ve got a hotline set up for anonymous reports, use it. If Tom is having an affair with someone he manages, that’s a major violation of professional ethics, as well as a legal liability for your company. If he’s also engaging in blatant favoritism toward his affair partner (and it sounds like he is), that’s an even bigger deal. As a general rule, I’m not a fan of anonymous reports; they’re normally not taken as seriously as a report with a name attached and they can be impossible to investigate. But when your company has a hotline set up to report anonymously, they’re specifically offering you that avenue and you might as well use it. If that doesn’t work, you could also talk to HR and explicitly ask them to investigate without tying your name to it if at all possible, and to ensure you’re protected from retaliation either way. 2. How long should you wait when your interviewer is late for a Zoom call? I’ve recently been interviewing for jobs and have had a few situations where the interviewer is extremely late or a no-show. I start to get nervous that I’m on the wrong Zoom link, or just not sure if they’ve forgotten. If it’s say, a 10 am scheduled meeting, at what point would you reach out to see if they’re coming? And if you have both the coordinator’s info and the info of the person who is supposed to be interviewing you, would you reach out to both, or just the coordinator? Give it at least 15 minutes if you can. Interviewers shouldn’t be that late, but in reality they sometimes are, and you risk missing the interview entirely if you drop off earlier than that. But you can also send a message after 10 minutes letting them know you’re on the call and asking if they’d prefer to reschedule. If you have contact info for both the interviewer and the coordinator, send that message to them both. 3. Can my boss make us send him our personality test results? Can my manager mandate that his reports take third party personality tests and send him the results for “team-building purposes”? The team is very tense right now, as he has been harassing and bullying anyone who has different ideas or ways of working than he does, so I don’t feel comfortable with him having that kind of information about me at his disposal. He stated in his request that the tests are “morally neutral” and won’t be used “in any sort of official review capacity,” which makes me suspicious. In short, I don’t trust my manager to not use these test results for malicious purposes. Is there any recourse here that doesn’t make me a further target of his bullying? My company’s HR isn’t the strongest advocate for individual contributors, so I’m nervous to go to them. Yes, he can do this … but he has no way to make you fill out a personality assessment honestly. So if you’re not comfortable going over his head about the bullying, your best option might be to fill out the assessment in whatever way you think is most likely to minimize negative attention from him (or to simply confuse him, which might be satisfying). 4. My coworker keeps giving feedback about me to my boss I’ve started a new job, so I’m still learning the ropes around here. But there’s a particular quirk of a coworker, Augustus, that I haven’t encountered before, so I’m hoping to make sense of it. I have a certain skill set, and Augustus has a certain skill set. Sometimes those areas overlap so we’re often involved in the same projects, even though we have different areas of expertise. We also have vastly different titles, but we report to the same manager. I am in regular meetings with Augustus, as well as on Slack channels and project management channels, and we say hello and engage in small talk often. Opportunities to communicate are ample, and we have nothing but good rapport with one another under normal circumstances. But I have noticed — and this has happened more than once — that he will go to our manager with questions about what I’m doing or feedback about what I’m doing, rather than coming to me directly or commenting on Slack or in the preferred project management tool. It could be something as simple as why I chose to do something a certain way — something my manager might not even be able to answer. Which is why she will ask me during our 1:1 time, and then do her best to manage that response back to Augustus. Or, it could be a piece of feedback on something creatively that he felt should have been done differently. Am I thinking about this too much? Wouldn’t it make sense for us to connect directly, or is there another issue I’m not considering? I’m thinking of addressing it with our manager in our next meeting because I’m just not sure why there’s a wall up with Augustus when there isn’t one in all other circumstances around the office. I can see why you’re bothered by that! When you talk to each other so regularly and seemingly have good rapport, it’s strange that he’s going around you with such minor things rather than just bringing them to you directly. Why not say mention it to him? The next time it happens, you could say, “Jane mentioned you’d asked her why I did X in Y way. The answer is Z. You can ask me directly about stuff like that; often Jane won’t know the answer without asking me anyway.” Or, “Jane told me you’d offered X feedback on my Y project. I’d be glad to get that kind of feedback from you directly — is there a reason you want to go through Jane?” It would also be fine to say to Jane, “Can you encourage Augustus to give me this kind of feedback directly/come to me with this sort of question rather than sending it through you? We talk all the time and have a good relationship, and it would probably be more efficient for him to talk to me directly, unless there’s some reason you’d rather he do it this way.” 5. What’s up with my summer camp pay? Do you have any advice/suggestions on how camp/camp pay works? I was hired to coordinate a Jewish day camp for our local community by a big regional camp. I’m thrilled to do this for our kids and didn’t anticipate making a lot of money, but I figured it was worth it for the experience and the staff discount for my child. Well, I’m confused at how this is legal. I’m expected to do a ton of work, so much my hourly rate is below minimum wage. When I bring that up, I’m told camp staff is paid a “stipend,” not hourly. But we are a day camp and we aren’t getting room and board like the majority of the camp staff, who work overnight camp. I’m getting paid $3,500 spread over May thru August, for five weeks of camp (40+ hours a week) and all the prep to make those camps happen — designing five weeks of camp activity, field trips, parent communications, etc. I hadn’t realized the $3,500 included all the prep. I wouldn’t have taken the job if I’d realized, honestly. I asked for an hourly breakdown and was told, “The stipend doesn’t have an hourly amount.” Does this all seem … okay? Is this just how camps work? It’s probably legal. The Fair Labor Standards Act — the federal law that includes minimum wage and controls who is exempt from overtime and who isn’t — exempts camp employers from having to pay minimum wage and overtime, as long as the camp doesn’t operate for more than seven months in any calendar year (or, if during the preceding calendar year, the camp’s average receipts for any six months were not more than a third its average receipts for the other six months of the year). You may also like:should I tell a colleague people think she's having an affair with a coworker?coworker told everyone I’m having an affair but I’m not, colleague's office is gun-themed, and moremy coworker had an affair with my wife { 428 comments }
weekend open thread – June 10-11, 2023 by Alison Green on June 9, 2023 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: Games and Rituals, by Katherine Heiny. I have mixed feelings about short stories because when they’re good, I wish they were full-length books and that was the case here. Each story really enjoyable and each too short. * I make a commission if you use that Amazon link. These are our adorable foster cats, Cheerio and Nermal. They’re supposedly two years old, but I think Cheerio is closer to one. They’re incredibly sweet and friendly and love to play wildly! Can you give them a home? Apply to adopt them here. 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 { 1,233 comments }
it’s your Friday good news by Alison Green on June 9, 2023 It’s your Friday good news! 1. “A few weeks ago I left a place where I had worked for almost nine years. I had been keeping my eye on the market in my niche field for a while, but the pay and benefits were just so good that I couldn’t really wrap my head around leaving even though I was miserable. It was the final straw when a fourth person quit my team and leadership gave no indication that they were planning to replace any of them. I updated my resume and put together a great cover letter, and I ended up getting a bunch of interviews right away. Eventually I got an offer that was a pay cut from what I had been making, which I fretted about for a while. But since I had been treating the interview process as a two-way street where I got to know them as well (a real game changer!), I was able to realize that what they showed me about their culture and management style would make me so much happier in my work than I had been at my last company. I started a few weeks ago, and it’s been amazing. I feel so appreciated by my teammates and managers, there’s a real onboarding structure, and being able to go fully remote without worrying about being called to the office is such a relief. As a bonus victory, I took your advice about sticking to one thing in my exit interview, even though there were quite a few issues to complain about. I talked about short staffing in every conversation I had, and I was direct with H.R. in both a written survey and an in-person interview about the fact that I was taking a compensation cut to leave because of it. After I put in my notice, they posted multiple job listings to replace me and some of the vacated positions I had been picking up the slack for. My former manager said that my comments seem to have helped, she had been asking to open hiring for those vacancies without much luck until my exit interview. It makes me happy for the colleagues I left behind that they’re going to get some support, but at the same time highlights for me that I made the right decision leaving a place where I had to quit to get what we needed. Update: The other day a meeting at the end of the day ran long, and my new manager apologized to me for keeping me until 5:05. I routinely fielded late meetings and after hours texts at my old job and am so relieved that I can breathe again. On Monday morning, I was actually excited to get out of bed!” 2. “I’ve been reading AAM for about ten years, eight of which have been in my current role (non-US, higher education) and have often used your posts as help, inspiration and distraction, through 9 different line managers, 4 separate institution or department-wide reviews, and an environment that keeps promising positive change but has become increasingly toxic. More good colleagues than I can count have moved on. Finally this year, I decided enough was enough. I went for 4 roles, interviewed for 3, was offered 2 and accepted 1, all based on advice from you and your commentariat. I handed in my notice yesterday, and am ticking off my 3 months’ notice with glee. I’m looking forward to a different focus, kick-starting STEM careers, from the summer onwards.” 3. “I’m writing to say I didn’t get a job! However, it’s thanks to your job-searching guide that I feel so good about my rejection. All the questions on your list were asked, but thanks to the extensive preparation you recommended, I was ready for them. I had good, thoughtful answers and asked good, thoughtful questions. The panel seemed sincerely disappointed that I would not be able to meet the in-person requirements at this time. They offered, unasked, to recommend me to other positions where the hybrid requirements are not so strict and asked me to reapply when I can meet their in-office terms. So, I’m still job searching but honestly this interview was such a confidence boost. Thanks again.” 4. “I’m an early 30s woman working in IT in Australia. I’ve only been officially in IT since late 2018 but I’ve always unofficially helped with IT in my jobs, whether removing printer paper jams or teaching colleagues how to do different tasks in programs such as Microsoft Office Unfortunately my boss’ partner had a major health scare in 2021 so my boss was talking of shutting the business down. He decided not to but last year was again talking of closing the business and said that if I found another job to go for it. I found one being advertised at Bigger IT Company but there were a few items in the job description I didn’t have experience in. I remembered what you said about women being more likely to not go for jobs when they didn’t have 100% of the experience while men would and decided screw it, I would go for it! I called the owner of Bigger IT Company and we arranged a time for an interview. The interview ended up going for two hours but didn’t feel like it at all. When Owner asked about experience in parts of the job I wasn’t sure about, either due to wording or experience wise, I asked them to give me an example of what they meant and I was then able to either give examples of my experience or honestly say that I had no experience. Owner said they would call me by Monday afternoon and let me know their decision. This was Thursday evening. Friday afternoon, Owner called and said they would like to offer me the job and did I want it. Yes I did! I have now been there three and a half months. Part of my job description changed almost immediately as a colleague was going away for an extended period of time, so I got to learning and helping with a big client of theirs. Two or three weeks before my probation finished, my boss asked if I was comfortable taking on being the main tech for that client so my colleague could focus on a project they were doing. I am now the main tech for two more clients due to a colleague unfortunately having to quit. I am enjoying the work and being part of a bigger team.” You may also like:should I leave my awful job with great pay and great benefits?was I wrong to quit my job?when is it OK to quit a new job I hate? { 15 comments }
open thread – June 9-10, 2023 by Alison Green on June 9, 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:a coworker prayed for my fiancé's death so we didn't invite her to our wedding ... and now there is dramashould employees have to train their new manager?here's a bunch of help finding a new job { 827 comments }