does it look unprofessional to have an energy drink at my desk every day? by Alison Green on May 2, 2023 A reader writes: I’m about to start my first real office job soon. I’m in my mid 20s and still working on my degree, so I’m a little worried about seeming immature. I have an unfortunate habit of drinking one or more energy drinks per day. Ignoring the health aspect of that, will it look bad if I am drinking an energy drink at my desk in the morning? I feel like it shouldn’t matter, other sources of caffeine like coffee and tea are perfectly normal after all, but at the same time it’s hard to picture a can of NOS or some such on the desk of a working professional! This is such an interesting question because it definitely should not matter! And my first instinct was, “No, it won’t matter.” But it’s also true that I would notice an energy drink in a way that I wouldn’t notice a coffee or a tea. Not enough to care, but I’d notice it. And if I saw you had one every day, I’d notice that too. It wouldn’t matter at all — drink what you like! — but you’re not wrong that when you picture “polished professional,” you don’t picture a can of Red Bull on their desk. There are probably people who would see a daily energy drink (or especially multiple daily energy drinks) and think, “This person isn’t managing their health/sleep very well” … which is ridiculous because coffee is outright sponsored by most offices … but we’re into optics territory now, and optics often aren’t logical. Even with people who think that, though, it’s not likely to influence their opinion of you in any real way that’s likely to impact you at work. So I think where I land is: If for some reason you need to put an unusually high premium on appearing as polished as possible, the daily energy drinks might be something to reconsider. But if you’re in more typical territory of “I’d like to appear reasonably professional without turning myself into a work robot,” then you’re fine. Drink what you want. (Interestingly, though, I wouldn’t recommend taking an energy drink into an interview. That’s because your interviewer has few so data points about you so the ones they do have can easily count for more than they should.) And finally: some offices stock energy drinks in the kitchen for employees to drink. If you’re in one of those, I would give it exactly zero more thought. You may also like:my team keeps coming to work hungoverdo I have to drink to fit in at work?new director got drunk on his first day { 446 comments }
how to gracefully decline a job offer by Alison Green on May 2, 2023 You’ve been interviewing for a job and now it’s paid off with an offer – but what if you want to turn the position down? There are lots of reasons why that might happen: maybe the salary is too low, even after you tried to negotiate, or maybe the manager seems awful or the work itself isn’t what you want to be doing, and on and on. At New York Magazine today, I wrote about how to turn down a job offer while still preserving the connection for the future. You may also like:I turned down a job offer and now the recruiter is invoicing mehow to get info from job candidates who turn down our offersdid I burn a bridge by resigning right after I was promoted? { 77 comments }
no one wants the office an employee died in four years ago by Alison Green on May 2, 2023 Warning: this letter includes a death by suicide. A reader writes: I work for a small company (about 150 employees) that is about to merge with another company. We are in the midst of planning for allocating offices and reconfiguring our space to make it work, but our leadership team is stuck on what to do with one office in particular. About four years ago, one of our employees died by suicide in her office. While her family asked that the cause of death not be disclosed, her body was found by a coworker and the manner of death required a full scale cleaning and refurbishment of her office. The whole office was closed for a week and I’m certain that the rumor mill did its thing and that most folks at the time knew what happened and where it happened. She was in a role that meant she interacted with everyone in the company and it was a deeply traumatizing event. In the aftermath there were several employees who requested to do various cleansing or religious rituals in the space (burning sage, having a priest bless it, bringing in a psychic to send a message to our deceased coworker) but leadership felt like that could get both practically and legally problematic in a hurry, so said “no.” Despite the fact that the office in question would be highly desirable under normal circumstances (large space, lots of windows, a beautiful view), nobody wanted to move into it. After about six months, there was some discussion about converting the office into some other kind of space but nobody could agree on what it could be used for since some people flatly refuse to enter it. Then the pandemic hit and it became a moot point due to remote working. Now we are about to begin sharing office space with new people and that office is still vacant and there is kind of an unspoken office taboo about it (even some staff who weren’t working here when the incident happened won’t go into it). On the transition planning team we have one person who thinks we should just give it to the new people, with no reference to the history. One person thinks we should convert it into a storage room (which we don’t need), and one person who thinks we should offer it to the new people but give them a heads-up about why people are weird about the space. But if that means that they don’t want it either … does it just sit empty forever? We have pretty low turnover so it is entirely possible that there will be people still working here in 20 years that knew about the event, so will it forever be “haunted”? I think someone on our leadership team should just take it but I’ve been overruled. What’s the right thing to do here? Turn the space into something else and make it as different as you possibly can. Do you not need storage space because you already have sufficient existing storage spaces? If so, relocate one of them into this room. Or stick a copier in there, or filing cabinets, or a fridge and some cupboards. If you can bring in a carpenter so the space looks completely different, that’s ideal. Knock down a wall, do a new layout, different paint, everything — but most of all you want a different use for the space so it’s not an office. Your company’s employees have made it clear that they can’t see this as an office; they see it as the scene of something traumatic, and understandably so. Yes, it’s been four years — but people are allowed to feel what they feel, and what happened sounds awful enough that it’s not surprising that they do. And yes, it’s possible that if you assigned it to someone as their office and forced them to work in there, in time people would stop associating it with tragedy. And if the person you assign it to is one of the new people, maybe they won’t care that much. But maybe they will — and they’re likely to hear about it from other employees at some point — and why do that to someone if you don’t have to? It’s worth some reshuffling to respect people’s feelings. You may also like:my employee fired someone whose mother had died the night beforemy coworker says her husband died -- but he didn'tmy boss said my posture is too casual for the office { 491 comments }
my employee assumes I’ll always pay for her food, no answer to a time-off request from new job, and more by Alison Green on May 2, 2023 It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My employee assumes I’ll always pay for her food This is more of an “am I the asshole?” type question. My husband and I run a small business and have one full-time employee, Jane. During tax season, it’s really stressful and one day we decided to take a break and take our employee down the street to a nice restaurant and treat for a big lunch as sort of a morale booster. We made it clear that we were treating, and the lunch was for our convenience during one of the 12-hour days. We put it on the company credit card, and it was a business expense on the books. The next week was stressful but the weather was nice. Jane suggests we take an ice cream break. Great idea, let’s drive down and grab some. All three of us get in my car, I place the order and get out my personal credit card, and when it is time to pay, Jane doesn’t even offer. She just stands there and lets me pay. This week, there is a calendar entry that neither my husband nor I made that says “Taco Tuesday.” Jane made it. She thought it would be a good idea to take a therapeutic break to go grab lunch again. I agreed, so we all go out to lunch and when the bill arrived she jumped up from the table and went to the restroom. I sorted out my husband’s and my share plus tip and laid cash in the folder, and when Jane came back she said, “Thanks for lunch.” I said, “I didn’t think this was a business lunch!” like I was surprised. She was embarrassed and grabbed her card and paid for her share, and then hid from me for the rest of the work day. Should I have discussed beforehand that we weren’t going to eternally pay for lunches and ice cream? I think I handled it fine, but I’m not a professional manager/HR person. It can be tricky in these situation to know who’s paying for what, because it’s so common for managers to always cover the bill when they’re out with employees. If you had been the one to suggest the tacos or the ice cream, Jane wouldn’t have been wrong to assume you were paying … unless you said something ahead of time like “not our treat this time” or “can’t expense it, but want to go grab X with us?” (as the boss, you should always make that clear before someone accepts the invitation so they know the terms). But even with Jane being the one to initiate the plans, a lot of bosses still would have picked up the bill; it’s just a common thing that happens because of the power dynamics. Jane shouldn’t have assumed you would, though, since she was the one to propose the plans. In any case, because the power dynamics make the “who pays?” question less clear than it would be if you were all peers, ideally you would have addressed it up-front before solidifying plans. For example: “We can’t do it as a business lunch — we don’t budget for a lot of those — but if we’re all paying our own way, sure!” Or, “I saw you put Taco Tuesday on the calendar! It’s not something the business would pick up the tab for, but I’m always up for sharing the bill on tacos if you want to.” Or just addressing the pattern head-on: “We’ve covered some treats lately but we can’t do that as a regular thing. If it’s an event we initiate, we’ll always cover the tab, but otherwise I wouldn’t want you to assume that.” Also, if it’s just a time or two, it’s worth it to have the business pick up the bill as a small investment in morale, even if you hadn’t originally planned to! But it does seem like a pattern was developing that you needed to clarify. 2. Should I tell a community partner’s boss that he was unprofessional? I’m a program manager for a school board. My staff work in schools providing education around mental health. I am new to this role (this is my third month) and prior to this I was in the same position as my now staff. Part of my staff’s role is to make connections with community partners and bring them into schools for presentations. The idea is that if the students meet these people in a safe environment, they are more likely to seek them out outside of school. We have worked with one organization for a long time. Today one of my employees came to me with a concern about one of this organization’s staff, John. John was booked to come into a class and do a series of presentations on topics like financial literacy, career planning, and conflict management. My staff had told me earlier that he had been hard to get organized. He wouldn’t answer emails and missed several deadlines in confirming dates and sending us information on his topics that we could pass along to the teachers. He also just didn’t show up for one of the sessions. When that happened, I emailed his supervisor to make sure he was okay. Apparently his schedule had changed and he said he sent an email that must not have gone through (we did receive an email from him about 10 minutes after his supervisor replied, saying he wouldn’t be coming that day, but by that point it was three hours after the scheduled session). Today my employee told me that the teacher told her they don’t want John to come back. Apparently he was not very professional in how he spoke to the students, talked about how he never finished high school and was doing great, made jokes about high school not being important, didn’t manage his time so didn’t get through all the content, and acted, in her words, “like a bro, not a professional trying to educate students.” I’m wondering if I should say anything to John’s supervisor. We could very easily just not invite him back, but if we want to work with this organization again, John is their go-to person for youth presentations. It would be near impossible to not have him assigned to the job if we asked for more presentations. And it seems weird to ask for someone else without giving a reason. I know if my employee behaved like that, I would want to know so I could coach them to improve. This is my first time in a management role. Previously if I had a situation like this, I would tell my manager and let them deal with it. But now I’m the manager! I’m also an anxious person who hates conflict, so this is extra challenging for me. Yes, contact John’s manager. Those are serious issues for someone who’s presenting to students, and it doesn’t make sense to invite the organization back without addressing it. It’s very reasonable to explain what happened and ask if they can send someone else in the future. (What they do with that information in regard to addressing it with John is then up to them.) Read an update to this letter. 3. Can’t get an answer to a time-off request from new job At the end of March, my partner accepted a new job with a start date of May 15. In the offer conversation, he brought up two somewhat-long vacations that we have planned for the summer (one for two weeks and one for four weeks). The organization said that they would try to accommodate him and would let him know as soon as possible. We understand that these lengthy amounts of time off may not be approved, but would like to know either way so that we can plan. The two-week trip is to Alaska at the end of June, and plane tickets just keep getting more and more expensive with each week that they don’t provide an answer. My partner continues to follow up each week, and multiple times now the answer has been, “We’ll let you know by next week.” Three weeks later, we still don’t have an answer. We’re beginning to feel pretty frustrated and think that this may be a red flag that this organization doesn’t value employee work/life balance. Is there a reasonable or standard amount of time for getting time off approved before starting a new job? Is this a ridiculous thing to back out of a job over? It’s possible there’s something going on that genuinely makes it hard for them to answer him yet, but if you need the answer right now you’re safer assuming it’s a no and planning accordingly. Would your partner have accepted the job if the company had said no to the vacation time initially? If so, I don’t think their delay warrants backing out of the offer; it sounds like they’re at least trying to make it work and probably don’t realize they’re making things harder on you. If he might not have accepted the job originally if they’d said no … well, it doesn’t sound like that’s the case, but if it were, he could try one final “I’m sorry to keep asking, but at this point the timing means I really need a clear answer so I can plan” … but if they’re not ready to give a yes, that statement just makes it more likely that they’ll give a no. Which means he likely needs to choose between a clear no right now or a potential yes with a longer wait to get it. Read an update to this letter. 4. If I quit, will I have to pay my org back for the leadership program they’re sponsoring me in? I work at a nonprofit that has been going through transitions, including a change in the executive director. A year-long program for developing leaders in a sector (that my organization’s work covers) launched in my city at the beginning of the year. I told my organization that we should have someone apply even though the role that would normally lead my organization’s work in that sector has been vacant for almost a year. It was decided I was the best person to apply for the program, and I got in. It also looks like my organization wants to move me up into that vacant role. I am looking to leave my organization, preferably sooner than later. I would have a little guilt if I left soon after getting promoted, but I can deal with that. The issue is my work paid for my participation in that program. It’s not a super high amount, but it is an amount I would not want to pay my organization back. It feels different from (for example) them paying for me to attend a conference and me leaving, because I assume in those situations the organization eats the cost and the employee won’t still get to go to the conference, etc. I would/could continue participating in the program, so I would still be getting benefits. It also would mean my organization won’t benefit from having a staff person in that program, making connections, learning about best practices, etc., despite paying for someone to go. I just want to get a gauge of what is normal in this type of situation. Is it a normal “sucks for the organization, they should’ve retained the person they were investing in better” situation? I can’t imagine the right route would have been for me to decline opportunities because I knew I wanted to leave at some point. Yeah, this is basically the same as with business travel, conference registration, etc. — as long as you’re still working there and don’t have concrete plans to leave (like another job that you’ve accepted, not just “I’m hoping I’ll be leaving soon”), it makes sense to proceed with arrangements the same way you would if you were planning to stay. That’s because there’s no guarantee that you’ll be gone by the time those things roll around, and it doesn’t make sense to put your work and professional development on hold meanwhile. Then if you end up leaving before the thing your employer has paid for has happened, the organization does typically eat that cost. (Sometimes they can transfer the thing they paid for to someone else, but not always. If the leadership program is already underway, this is probably a case where they cannot, and that’s just how this stuff goes.) Do be prepared, though, that they might expect you not to continue in the program — probably not, but if you’re really there to represent the organization and its interests, it could come up. If it’s more about professional development for you and you’ve already started the program, it’s less likely. But either way, paying them back shouldn’t come up. 5. Are salaries typically listed as pre- or post-tax? A university I’m hoping to work for lists a range of target salaries with the other details on their job board. These seem to always be specific, not-round numbers (think $4627 monthly). Do you think the sums they list are pre- or post-tax? I assume they’d want to list the pre-tax wages since those will be more and will attract the eye, but they’re such specific numbers I’m not sure. Or maybe in fields other than the one I’m coming from it’s customary to give very precise salary ranges, even pre-tax? In my current field it’s a very standard “$900/week, 60 hours guaranteed” type thing and always pre-tax. It’s almost certainly pre-tax. It would be extremely weird if they were listing salaries post-tax because (a) that’s not how this is ever done and (b) they can’t know what tax bracket you’re in so they couldn’t accurately list the post-tax amount regardless. Universities — like government employment — often list their salaries as very specific, non-round numbers because they are weird bureaucracies. You may also like:a coworker stole my spicy food, got sick, and is blaming memy satellite team resents that we don't get the perks offered at our headquartersmy coworker is always dieting -- do we have to accommodate her? { 363 comments }
update: my coworkers keep asking about my assault by Alison Green on May 1, 2023 Last month we had a letter from someone whose coworkers kept asking about her assault and were being really pushy about getting answers. Here’s her update. (Content warning for discussion of assault below.) Thank you so much for the advice! It was really helpful to get a more objective view of the situation, and to feel so much support from the commenters! Initially it seemed like some of your suggested responses were helping my coworkers understand how intrusive they were being. Unfortunately, things got significantly worse before they got better. One of the other admins in my office, Jane, would. not. leave me alone about it. She said she just wanted to help, so I tried your suggestion and said that what I really needed was to stop being asked about it constantly, and asked her to help field off the rest of the office. I said that I knew everyone meant well (although at this point I was really doubting whether that was true), but being interrogated about it fifty times a day was making it impossible to focus on my work, and that if she could discreetly tell our coworkers to cut it out I would be very grateful. She agreed, but instead of doing anything helpful she convinced another of our coworkers, Jack, that cornering me in the kitchen and refusing to let me leave unless I told him what happened would solve all of my issues. From what I pieced together after the fact, she thought that I wasn’t telling anyone what happened because I was afraid of whoever did this to me and that having a strong man on my side to protect me would fix it. (?!?!?!) Later that afternoon I went to the kitchen to make a mug of tea, and Jack came up behind me to ask about the bruises again. I didn’t know he was there, so I jumped when he started talking, then tried scooting past him so I wouldn’t be blocked into a small room by a very large and strong man. He put his hand up on the wall to prevent me from leaving, and said he wasn’t going to move until I told him what happened. I feel somewhat bad about this, but I completely lost it on him. Everything had been building up for days at this point, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. The constant pestering was hard enough, but being physically trapped by a man so soon after being assaulted pushed me over the edge. I started yelling. “What the fuck do you think happened, Jack? Are the literal bite marks not enough to get the point across? I have been doing everything I can to keep coming in here every day so that everyone else won’t have to take on another 15 hours of work this week when all I want to do is curl up into a ball and die, and the only thanks I get is to constantly be cornered and interrogated about my face! I think it’s pretty clear what happened! I don’t understand why you think this is any of your goddamn business! I am traumatized! I am trying to do everyone here a favor in the middle of the worst thing that has ever happened to me and every single one of you has only made things ten times worse! You are not helping and I cannot do this anymore!” I was hysterically sobbing, Jack was stumbling over himself trying to apologize and get out of my way, and since literally everyone in the office was within earshot of me yelling, every other coworker was either staring at us horrified or guiltily trying to avoid eye contact with me. I didn’t have it in me to try and do anything else, so I walked to my desk, grabbed my keys, and left everything else behind. Luckily I was able to get an emergency session with my therapist scheduled that evening, where we decided that a few days in an inpatient facility would be hugely beneficial in my recovery. I’m still frustrated with my office, because I don’t think that would have been necessary had they just listened to me, but it is what it is. I notified my immediate supervisor that I would be using PTO for the rest of the tax season, and that I was planning on returning at the end of April but I’d be in touch with more specific details when I was able. My office pays for every employee and a plus one to go on a week long, all expenses paid vacation to Costa Rica right after tax season ends as a thank you for all of our hard work. I almost didn’t go because I was so afraid of seeing my coworkers again after my outburst, but I decided I’d worked too damn hard to turn down a very expensive stay in an all inclusive resort. The airport gate was the first time I’d seen anyone since my breakdown, and it was incredibly awkward. For the most part, people seemed too ashamed to talk to me at all. One of my supervisors did come over to personally apologize for not stepping in earlier, and said that the entire company really just wanted me to enjoy the vacation. She said she couldn’t think of a single member of our team who deserved it more than me, and that she didn’t want to get into things until we were actually back at work, but wanted to tell me that I would not be facing any repercussions so that I didn’t have to worry about it while I was supposed to be on vacation. She also let me know that the company would be upgrading me from economy to business on the flight there and back, giving me a gift certificate for the resort spa, issuing me a bonus in my next paycheck as a token of their appreciation for all my hard work, as well as granting me an extra week of PTO to replace the time off I’d had to use at the end of tax season. The resort ended up being big enough that I didn’t see a single one of my coworkers the entire week we were there, which I will forever be grateful for. Seeing as my life is not an episode of Criminal Minds, I’m still pretty upset with the way my coworkers treated me in their quest for juicy information. However, the bonus I received will more than cover my mental health care expenses since I’m lucky enough to have very good health insurance, sitting in the sun on a beautiful beach did wonders for my state of mind, and not a single intrusive question has been asked since I’ve returned to the office. I’ve received handwritten apologies from both Jack and Jane that seem very genuine, my clients were all handled perfectly while I was out, and for the most part things have gone back to normal. My biggest takeaway is that I’m allowed to advocate for myself and my needs, and that even if it’s inconvenient, your company will always find a way to make it work. I will absolutely be taking the time off in the future if I need it, as I probably could have avoided a lot of the stress I’ve experienced over the past month if I had just done that from the start. Honestly I just hope I can move on, and that my coworkers have learned that a good bit of gossip is not more important than someone’s actual feelings! You may also like:my coworkers keep asking about my assaultour new team lead is horrible and keeps sharing private details about us with our colleaguesI manage someone who was terribly harmed by my family ... what do I do? { 576 comments }
how can I get our employees to arrive on time? by Alison Green on May 1, 2023 A reader writes: My organization operates in a very traditional office setting: business professional dress code, strict lunch hours, and a strict 9-5 day. In theory, this is for efficiency and to allow employees to feel more separation between their work and personal life. However, new staff tend to struggle with it when they first arrive since many other places they have worked for are more flexible about arrival times, making up time, PTO, etc. We tend to go through a cycle: an email reminder that we work 9-5 so please be here ready to work by 9 a.m. goes out, it helps for about a month, and then folks begin to slide back into being 5, 10, 15 minutes late. For example, two weeks ago I addressed this problem in person and asked staff to plan their commutes accordingly. This morning, two-thirds of the staff were missing when work started at 9 a.m. On the one hand, commuting in our area can be unpredictable; traffic, mass transit, and weather all play their part in turning a typical 30-minute commute into an hour and a half battle. On the other hand, the people who are late are chronically late, and always for the same reasons (subway, traffic, weather). Among senior management there’s now a discussion about setting up a new system to punish people for being late. I do not want to go down that route. We’ve had some staffing issues recently and I know that our inflexible office policies are directly related to people leaving. What alternatives can we consider that will both enforce our policy but not punish the staff, especially when other members of senior management can’t seem to follow the policy themselves? 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:why are people so relaxed about lateness, should managing be this much work, and morecan you end a job interview early if it's not a good fit?I had to deal with a sick toddler and a vomiting dog while doing a video interview { 343 comments }
my boss from before my gender transition is now my colleague by Alison Green on May 1, 2023 A reader writes: My first full-time office job was at an awful place. I was there for nearly three years before I was unceremoniously laid off, just a week before I was supposed to take on a new title and a raise. My boss, Marcy, handled it really poorly. It turned out that, although she seemed to be in my and my department’s corner, she was most certainly not. Our whole group was treated awfully with the acquisition that led to downsizing, and that’s not even getting into how overworked, underpaid, scapegoated, and frankly mistreated we were as workers. Fast forward to fall 2020. On my second day of work, I realized Marcy works here, albeit in a totally separate department (in a company of about 300). I was startled but then realized it might not be an issue. At the time, I had two things working in my favor: I was working entirely remotely and I have fully transformed since Marcy last saw me. That is to say, she knew me as a twenty-something slightly-chubby young woman with a non-Anglo feminine name, and I am now a thirty-something fat dude with an Anglo name. I present as a man and use he/him pronouns at work, though outside of it, I’m out as non-binary and use they/them pronouns. This year, we were mandated to go from remote to minimum twice-weekly in the office. There’s one day a week where everyone who doesn’t have a special exemption is supposed to be in, regardless of department. Wouldn’t you know it, the very first week they enforced it strictly was last week, and I ran into Marcy for the first time since she laid me off. Apparently we’re among the few who still mask and therefore eat lunch on the patio as a matter of course. I was writing when she came outside and while I registered her, I didn’t say anything. She was the one who engaged me in conversation for a bit. Before I left, she said she knew my name (new/current one, for the record) and introduced herself. I said, “Nice to meet you, Marcy” because I had no idea what else to do than roll with it. This week, it happened again. She sat near me though there were other options and said hello to me. I was reading so I said hello back, but I didn’t disengage from my book. To be fair, I genuinely prefer a solo, quiet lunch as a break from all my meetings and other social interactions. Still, I felt rude because she seemed to want a conversation with me. It was really awkward. I don’t know what to do, if anything. This has been so weird and I don’t know how to handle it. She could have known my name because lots of people at the office know me better than I know them; I do deliberately put myself out there whenever and wherever I can, both as part of my role and as part of the general office culture. But she also could have put two and two together. It’s not like there are absolutely no traits, habits, or features I share with my pre-transition self. Her (re)introducing herself might be a sign that she’s willing to start over with me. If she hadn’t tried to engage with me so much, I wouldn’t care. Bluntly stated, I neither need nor want to be especially friendly with her. I simply don’t trust her. She was pretty sneaky and sinister as my boss. Her choices directly harmed me and had repercussions that affected me for years. For now, I’m going to avoid being on the patio when it’s her lunchtime, but I can’t imagine this will be the only way I could have a run-in with her. Do I let her know that I know she knows? Drop hints and see if she takes the bait? Keep pretending like we’re brand-new colleagues? It’s weird and I feel weird. I can see why you feel so weird and awkward — first, here’s the person from your past who was at the center of a really horrible experience at your old job and whose behavior affected you negatively for years. Second, there’s an information imbalance — you don’t know what she knows, so you’re left wondering and trying to figure out what she knows, and what that means for how you should respond … all without having any real information to use to navigate it. That’s incredibly nerve-wracking. Here’s what I think: maybe she recognizes you and maybe she doesn’t, but so far she’s not indicating that she’s relating to you as anyone other than a new coworker she just met and so, at a minimum, there’s enough plausible deniability present that you can just go with that. Best case scenario, there’s an opening for you to just model the relationship you want to have with her — which is as a new coworker who doesn’t work closely with her or know her well, and who doesn’t need to. You can be politely distant and see if she respects those cues. If she recognizes you as someone she knew previously, there’s a decent chance that you demonstrating the terms on which you want to relate will result in those being the terms on which you do relate. And if she doesn’t realize you’ve worked together before … well, that’s still true. You will just be the politely distant new colleague. The exception to this is if you would feel more comfortable raising it proactively. If you’d get more peace of mind from saying “I’m not sure if you realize we used to work together; I was on the X team at Y Org,” you can do that! (And I’d lean toward that if she starts treating you more strangely than she is now, as well.) Obviously that’s tied up with a bunch of issues around whether you’re out at work or want to be (which I am not addressing as a worry since you didn’t raise it) but if that would make you rest easier, it’s an option. Thank you to Kalani Keahi Adolpho and Stephen G. Krueger of the Trans Advice Column for helping me think through my answer to this question. Read an update to this letter. You may also like:getting people to use the right pronouns, finding trans-friendly workplaces, and trans-inclusive hiringmy awful former boss is my new coworker's sistermy awful former boss works at the new job I'm about to start { 196 comments }
my boss won’t help with my workload, interviewer made a weird sexist comment about his marriage, and more by Alison Green on May 1, 2023 It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I asked my boss for help with my workload, but she didn’t come through Like a lot of people, I’m drowning at work right now. I have more work than anyone could possibly do and no one who assigns me tasks can accurately tell me their urgency so figuring out how to prioritize is a nightmare. I’m used to being a high performer, and I still am, but I hate feeling like I’m constantly on the backfoot and struggling to keep up. I have tried talking to my manager about this. I told her my workload is unmanageable and I asked for less work and more structure. She seemed to understand and immediately set up a weekly 1-on-1. In our next team meeting, she told our whole team we would all be getting work plans with specific goals. That was eight months ago. Our weekly meetings lasted about two weeks and I still don’t have my work plan because my manager is trying to fight the rest of team into accepting theirs first. My manager supervises half of the known “problem employees” in the department and I know that takes up a lot of her time and energy, and she has her own work on top of that. But I really need some support and I am at a loss to figure out how to get it. This has been a lifelong problem for me, being neglected by teachers and managers and even parents because I seem like I can take care of myself. Are there specific things I should be asking for that will help me break this cycle or do I just need to abandon this ship and seek a better captain elsewhere? So, there is a thing that I have watched happen in office after office where someone brings a problem to their manager once, it doesn’t solve the problem, and so they conclude that clearly the manager is unwilling or unable to help. I get why — now she knows about the problem! if she’s declining to help, she must not care to! — but in reality you’ll often need to go back a second time and say, “It’s still a problem and I still need help.” Often that’s because the manager assumed whatever she did after the first conversation solved the problem and so needs to hear that it didn’t … or sometimes (and this is probably your situation) she has her hands full with other things, it slipped down the priority list, and she’s assuming you’ll come back to her if you still need help … and when you don’t, she assumes everything is fine, or at least fine enough. And yes, your boss should have known that two weeks of weekly meetings wouldn’t have solved the problem. And she should have checked back with you to see how things were going. But she didn’t, and it could help to go back to her and say, “This is still a problem and I still need your help.” Since her initial suggestion of work plans for everyone has clearly gotten hung up somewhere, you also could suggest a work plan for you. Unlike your coworkers, you want one, and she won’t have to fight you into accepting it. You also could just draft an initial one and then the two of you could refine it together, which will probably make it happen faster than if you leave it all to her. You could also just start prioritizing your own workload, keeping her in the loop (so for example, telling her each week “I’m going to finish X and Y this week but Z won’t get done” so she has the chance to say “actually push Y back and prioritize Z”). But the main thing is: keep it on her radar. Don’t give up just because the initial conversation didn’t solve things. Raise it again! And again after that if you need to. There’s a point where you’ll have raised it so often that you can safely conclude nothing will change, but you’re not there after just one conversation. Read an update to this letter. 2. Interviewer made a weird sexist comment about his marriage I had a great on-site interview yesterday for an executive assistant position for a director in a male-dominated industry. My husband also works at this company and I’ve been very clear about that from the beginning — I mentioned him both in my initial video interview and to one or two of the people I met on site. I got a tour of the facility and met several people, and all of this went great! I like the environment, I like what I’ve learned, and I have a good sense that I’d be happy there. There was one weird moment with the director, though. After sharing about his background and career, he transitioned to speaking about his family by saying, and I quote, “I’m married, happily. I just want to emphasize that.” It was weird, so I think I just nodded and said something like, “Okay, same.” He’d heard about my husband a few times by that point, and mentioned him by name to talk about a project the company is doing right now. Like, he knows that I’m married. In the moment, I felt awkward so I tried to breeze past it, but after reflecting and sharing with a few trusted friends, I can feel how weird and sexist this was. I’m having a difficult time finding some a motivation for this comment besides a sexist belief that all young women are seductresses who must be warded off with assurances of a man’s marital bliss or else she’ll have no choice but to pounce. I also feel like I can safely assume that he’d never say such a thing to a man interviewing for the position. I’m worried that taking this job would mean subjecting myself to low-level sexism like this all the time, and that by not speaking up in the moment I’ve made him think that comments like this are acceptable. I do want to accept this job but I don’t want to create the expectation that comments like this are okay with me and not weird. Is there a way for me to bring this up during negotiations before accepting a potential offer? Or am I better off ignoring it for now as a weird interview mishap and committing to speaking up if he makes a comment like this again? Ooooh. The only way I could see this not being alarming is if he said it in the context of some amusing anecdote about his wife —like, “I’m married, happily. I just want to emphasize that. But I’m pretty sure she’s trying to give me food poisoning via this sandwich.” But assuming it was nothing like that … yeah, this is a really weird thing to say to a job candidate, especially if there was anything in the context that made it sound like he was warning you not to look at him as … what, a potential romantic prospect? Or like he was assuring you that you wouldn’t need to worry about him looking at you that way? Agggh. I don’t think there’s any way to bring this up during negotiations without it being disastrously awkward. However! Your husband works there, which means you have access to a ton of intel on this guy. Can your husband find out what he’s like from women who work closely with him? Or connect you to those women so you can have your own off-the-record conversations about what he’s like to work with? Getting info through your husband’s connections there would be worth doing even if this concerning comment hadn’t happened, but this is additional impetus to do it. 3. I’m getting an unnecessary apology from a colleague I started a new office job a few months ago and everything seems fine, but I feel like my colleagues are a lot more sensitive than I am in a lot of ways. Anyway. A few weeks ago I was processing orders and having a really difficult time. I’m still fairly new and the job I do is very time-sensitive with daily targets, and my inbox was very backed up. One order was sent in by a sales rep, a guy who’s known for having difficult orders. It had very obscure information and a lot of cleaning up had to be done behind him to get it all to go through okay. I’d been on the phone with him trying to explain something about his order and he was just being a bit dismissive. I think it had more to do with him not really understanding what I was trying to explain than any bad intention on his part. I was more than a little frustrated and I ended up tearing up a little after he hung up. I don’t usually cry at work, but I can’t understate how minor this was. A few tears popped out and then I carried on. The problem is one of my more sensitive colleagues saw me and got concerned. I told her I was fine, but she told our manager. Apparently saying you’re fine means nothing because our manager insisted on talking to his boss, who came to my desk to apologize and assured me he was going to talk to the rep. I would just rather have forgotten the whole thing. This morning my manager came over to me and said the rep was “mortified” and that he’s passed on an apology and is probably going to come and say sorry to me in person. Which I just feel so guilty about because I just think this is so unnecessary. And it’s going to be really awkward as well. Is there a professional sounding way to get out of this? I don’t know if there’s something I’m not getting about office culture, but I don’t think this guy is really any worse than any other of the reps and I think my colleague might have overplayed my initial reaction. Your coworker and manager probably think you’re saying you’re fine because you don’t want to make a big deal about it, but that since you were crying, it was bad and the rep was a jerk. They’re probably not accounting for the fact that sometimes it’s not the specific incident that triggers an emotional reaction, but some larger context (or a bad day, or stress in general, or something totally unrelated to work). You could try preempting the apology by messaging the rep with something like, “I think signals got crossed somewhere — there’s no need to apologize to me! I was a little stressed the other day, but you didn’t do anything that warrants an apology. Please don’t worry about it for another minute.” Or if he does come by in person to apologize, you could say something similar then. 4. How should I use recommendation letters from my professors? I am a college student looking for internships and jobs as I get closer to graduating, and I’m getting some letters of recommendation from my professors who I have worked well with, which I’m excited about. As I look at internships, how should I incorporate these letters into my resume and/or job prospects? Is there a tactful approach to including them that might help my prospects, aside from emailing potential employers with them alongside the traditional resume and cover letter? Well … those letters aren’t going to be very useful, and it doesn’t make sense to continue putting effort into collecting them. In the vast majority of fields, letters of recommendation don’t carry any real weight with employers because (a) no one expects to find critical information in them, since the person they’re written about will read them, (b) when things get to the point that a hiring manager wants to talk to your references, they’ll want to ask their own questions about the specific areas they care about — and generally will want a phone conversation, because hearing things like tone, hesitations, and enthusiasm level can convey a lot that most letters can’t. (Academia and law can be exceptions to this, as they continue to use recommendation letters — but they’re the exceptions, and they’ll explicitly ask for letters if they want them.) 5. Only one person has seen our employee handbook The owner of the small local flower shop I work for hired someone to create employee handbooks. The owner gave one to a new driver upon hiring her. The new driver read it, as instructed, and then gave the owner the signed acknowledgement. Although the owner has had copies for every employee for over five months, she’s never distributed them to the rest of the employees. Is it legal for the owner to distribute the handbook to one person only? It feels discriminatory to me. Technically, she can hold that one person accountable to the policies while no one else is even aware of the policies. Yes, it’s legal (as long as she’s not basing who gets to the see the handbook on race, sex, religion, or another protected class) but it’s weird! There’s no point in having a handbook if no one is allowed to know what’s in it. I’m guessing this is just disorganization or incompetence on your boss’s part. Have the rest of you asked for your own copies of the handbook? If not, do that. But after that, if you still don’t get them … well, that’s a problem of your boss’s own making and you don’t need to solve it for her. (If she starts penalizing you for not following policies you don’t know about, that’s a problem, of course — but it doesn’t sound like that’s happening.) You may also like:is my workload too high or am I bad at my job?my coworker tells others I'm going to be overwhelmedwhat to do if your workload is too high { 324 comments }
weekend open thread – April 29-30, 2023 by Alison Green on April 28, 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: Romantic Comedy, by Curtis Sittenfeld. A woman working on a show clearly inspired by SNL becomes annoyed at how many of her average male coworkers end up dating beautiful, famous, accomplished women (cough, Pete Davidson) while the reverse never happens … and then is surprised when her own sparks fly with a pop star. * I make a commission if you use that Amazon link. You may also like:all of my 2021 and 2022 book recommendationsall of my 2019 and 2020 book recommendationsall of my book recommendations from 2015-2018 { 1,130 comments }
it’s your Friday good news by Alison Green on April 28, 2023 It’s your Friday good news! 1. “After over a decade at a tiny company where I basically ran and WAS 4 different departments, I was completely frazzled by all of the shifting priorities and running around trying to keep up with my core tasks and any other tasks put on me by the company leaders. I finally broke down and started to look at other positions in the area of my job that I enjoyed most, encouraged by other good news posts. I rewrote my resume using every bit of advice I could find on your site and, with much anxiety, applied to 3 of the most interesting postings. Only one of them contacted me to talk and the posting sounded like a bit of stretch — but after the first interview, it was clear that it was absolute perfect fit and the wording in the posting was mostly from the author not fully understanding what the role does (it’s a bit niche, so that’s understandable). I was excited, the hiring manager was excited, and they pushed the process through faster than normal just to get me on board. I knew that I was underpaid, but I also had a TON of flexibility, a very specific schedule that I had to work due to other commitments and personal limitations, and was able to work remotely for about 95% of the time. I thought I’d never find that somewhere else as a new employee. I originally planned to leverage all of your negotiation advice, but I never got to use it. Their offer came in 50% higher than the top of my asking range (which was already a 20% raise from my prior salary) with significantly better benefits and opportunities. My new boss was 100% ok with my required schedule and has no problem with any of the flexibility I wanted (if anything, she’s been even more flexible than my prior bosses). AND the position is 100% remote. I spent so much time thinking that I’d never find the same flexibility at another company. I’m less stressed now, both mentally and financially, and I absolutely love all of what I do, not just pieces. I’m so thankful for all of the advice on your blog and wish I had taken much of it sooner than I did! For anyone not even taking the step of looking based on a bunch of assumptions about other companies, like I did, just do it. And if a job posting doesn’t sound perfect, don’t let that stop you from learning more!” 2. “Over my time at my last, beyond toxic job I must have written you 10 emails a week in my head; they never made it to the keyboard because I already knew the answer. My boss sucked, and he wasn’t going to change. And I do mean sucked — despite being sometimes charming and incredibly kind, he also said and did vile things on the regular that made me sick to my stomach with distress. They were never aimed at me, but that didn’t reduce the harm, and at the end of my long tenure at that job I was realized I was barely living my own life anymore, just working, going home and crying and then going to sleep for the night to do it all again. I knew what job I wanted next, and I bided my time. When something finally opened exactly where I wanted it to, I had to fight myself and my guilt and crippling anxiety to even apply. To show up for the interviews. To accept the job, and to give notice. Every step I almost let the guilt win out but I tapped on the accumulated knowledge I have from years of reading AAM and forced my way through. Now, many months later, my life has changed. I love my new job. It has structure, and collaboration. People are kind. For the first time in all my years of working, it feels like I’m in exactly the right place for me — and that I can stay here and grow and thrive.” 3. “I’ve been a prolific reader of your site for years now, and in 2022 started proactively looking for my next job opportunity. Your interview guide was invaluable in my preparations — in particular, asking in the room if there are any concerns interviewers have about my candidacy really shifted the dynamics in interviews. I could tell a lot about who I wanted to work with based on their answer. I’m now in a new role with an incredibly supportive, well resourced team and I no longer accept ‘this is just what the industry is like’ as a way to be in business. Good companies prioritise the wellbeing of their staff and give them to tools to do their jobs well. Thank you for demystifying workplace culture.” 4. “I come from a family of working class people and grew up within very moderate means. After some years of not really knowing where I want to go jobwise, I’m delighted to say that as of today I landed a job, that will put me in the 10 percent bracket of top earning people here! Basically, I used the (soulcrushing, horrible) pandemic isolation to switch jobs in 2020, take on extra responsibilities within my job, regularly ask for raises and pester my employer about funding me in taking additional courses and certifications that I assumed would be helpful in job hunting (leadership training, method workshops etc). And since this very old-school, male dominated and backwards oriented employer still doesn’t see me or value my hard work, I patiently waited for the seemingly perfect job offer to come along. After a few months of interviewing here and there and even rejecting a few offers, I now accepted an opportunity which will pay 30% more than my current job. I will have more than doubled my salary within three years, have better benefits, a shorter commute and less weekly hours. Granted, as I haven’t started yet I don’t know how this will pan out. And of course, better pay and better benefits are no guarantee for more happiness. But regardless of that, I’m super happy and proud to even have come so far! And even if it doesn’t work out I will have a solid financial cushion to fall back on. Thanks to you and all the other wonderful professional women out there who share their knowledge and encouragement :)” You may also like:what to say when your manager calls with bad newshow do I say no to admin tasks that aren't my job?how do I tell my boss if she doesn't fill the empty position I'm covering, she'll lose me too? { 7 comments }