Ask a Manager

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

1. Interviewer was bothered that I didn’t ask any questions of my own

I recently completed a fourth interview with a company. The interviews consisted of a 30-minute screening interview, a 40-minute screening/informational interview with one of the higher up directors, an hour-long interview with that same director and another director, and a fourth hour-long interview with one of the previous directors and an even higher up director.

All of the interviews were pleasant and informative, but during the first three interviews I was able to gather all of the pertinent information I needed about the job, culture, and proposed role. During that stage I had also done a bit a research into the company’s expansive and well-designed website, which left nary a stone unturned in terms of providing information on the company.

At the end of the fourth interview, the director asked me if I had any questions. I replied honestly that I did not. He seemed caught off guard and questioned me on this in a polite but pointed manner. I was unsure how to react in the moment so I explained that the previous conversations I had were very helpful and informative and that I did not have additional questions at this time. I visually referenced the director from one of the previous interviews hoping she would confirm that we had talked extensively about questions I’d already posed, but she was silent. How should I have responded to this?

Ideally you’d always have at least a couple of questions ready, even if you feel like you already know everything you need. Not asking any questions can look like you’re not being thoughtful enough about the job (and maybe aren’t terribly invested in this particular job, although obviously doing four separate interviews should be a counterweight against that). And really, when you’re considering spending 40+ hours a week with this company for the next several years of your life, there probably are additional things that would be interesting or useful to know, even after you’ve gotten the basics out of the way.

I sometimes hear people say, “I ask questions as we talk, so I really don’t have anything left to ask by they time they formally ask for my questions.” And if you’ve really been asking your own questions during that meeting (not just in previous ones), that can be fine. But otherwise, yeah, some interviewers will be a little taken aback if you don’t take advantage of the opportunity, so it’s smart to always have some questions ready to go.

Also, it’s fine to repeat a question you asked someone else in an earlier round. You can frame it as, “I asked about this in an earlier conversation but I’d love to hear your perspective on it too.”

2. My boss prioritizes constant personal calls over her job

My team and I all work remotely. Our supervisor prioritizes everyone within her personal life over her employees. She has two grown sons and spends her whole day on the phone with them. They call her nonstop and she prioritizes their calls over a business call with me or the other team member. I’ve had to sit there listening to them talk about a mattress being delivered, a drive from point A to point B, even her putting me on hold while she calls her 28-year-old to get up for work. She has put me on hold because she needs to call a friend about something. Or a friend will call and she will take their call and put me on hold. I’m not talking about emergency/urgent matters, I’m talking about the mundane everyday issues (i.e., grocery list). I should say, she doesn’t just do this to me, but also my coworker.

She has worked with the company for 20+ years. I have been with them two, so my standing is essentially nothing. I am 63 years of age and plan on retiring within the next four years, so looking for a new position isn’t really optimal. I have disconnected the connection when she has left me on hold for more than a minute. I once tried to talk to her about the situation but got “you don’t understand, I’m a single mother.” She has uttered the phrase “you don’t understand, I … (fill in an issue we’ve all faced)” more times than I can count. How do you deal with a person such as that? What do you do with a supervisor who feels her private life is a greater priority over your job-related issue?

She’s being rude and neglecting her job, but it’s probably not going to change. If it causes actual work problems, you can raise the specifics of that — like, “We’ve had two clients storm out in a huff because we needed your input and you were on a personal call — how can we handle this differently in the future so that doesn’t happen?” But if it’s just that she’s being rude to you and the other team member … well, you’ve tried to talk to her about it, she wasn’t open to hearing it, and there’s not a lot more you can do.

In theory you could escalate it to someone above her, but there’s no guarantee that will solve it and you risk the situation blowing up into something worse. If you’re ever asked for feedback about her, it’s definitely something you should raise. But otherwise … your boss is rude and inattentive and isn’t likely to change, so you’ve got to decide if you can live with that or not. Sometimes there can be liberation in just accepting that this is how your manager is and you don’t need to keep searching for solutions because there aren’t any. Other times knowing that’s the reality can make you want to jump out of your skin. You’ve got to decide where on that spectrum you fall.

3. I can’t give my employee much notice for schedule changes

I co-own and co-manage a very small business: it’s just me, my spouse, and a full-time hourly employee, “Joe,” who has worked for us for four years. Our work requires us all to be outside the vast majority of the time, so it’s weather-dependent but we keep a list of “indoor projects” to keep Joe productive when it’s not safe to work outside.

Our policy has always been to set Joe’s schedule as far in advance as we can, usually months in advance. I ask Joe to provide four weeks notice for time off requests. To date, I’ve never scheduled him to work more than 40 hours per week, Monday-Friday, but he does sometimes work up to 45 hours/week of his own initiative to finish projects, which I appreciate (we pay overtime).

Last year we had a few work bottlenecks due to unexpected weather events that prevented us from being outside. My husband and I made up the missed hours ourselves by working overtime on weekends and during the week before and after the weather to meet the deadline, and it sucked. We didn’t ask Joe to help more because it seemed unfair to change his schedule at the last minute. This year, I’d like to institute some kind of expectation that mandatory overtime or weekend scheduling may be necessary during key periods (generally just once or twice a year), but I’m still stumped on how to fairly change Joe’s schedule at the last minute. What if he already has plans? I could probably give him a two-week heads-up like, “Big deadline X is coming up in about two weeks. If we can’t work due to rain around then, we will all need to work overtime or weekends to make sure that we meet the deadline.” I could also offer him some extra time off after the deadline is met. But again, what if he already has plans (either pre-approved time off or just regular after work/weekend plans)?

For some additional context: in our industry, the norm is for full time employees to work 45-55 per week. When my spouse and I worked as employees in this industry, we found that many hours unreasonable for a long-term career since work is also really physically demanding, so we’ve tried to have more reasonable expectations in our own business … but we’re the only job in this industry that Joe has had so I’m not sure he knows this.

If once or twice a year he might have to work overtime with two weeks advance warning … that’s not really a big deal! If it were constant, that would be different (and you might need to pay a premium to make it worth it to the person). But you’re talking about something very occasional, and not terribly last-minute. It should be fine to just explain this is what to expect going forward. If it does turn out that Joe has unmovable plans for that period, he can tell you that and you can work around it as you’ve been doing — but much/most of the time, it’ll probably be fine.

One thing I’d look at though: Do you really need four weeks notice from Joe every time he needs time off, even for just a day or two off? Maybe you really do, but that’s a lot to ask unless there’s a very clear work-related need for it. If you’re asking him to be open to schedule changes with less notice then that, ideally you’d be open to it from him as well (within reason).

4. Asking for a copy of the job description

I have an interview in one week, and I foolishly forgot to save the job description before it was taken offline. Does it look really bad to reach out to my interviewer and ask for it? Should I just try to remember what I can based on what I put in my cover letter?

Nah, it’s fine. I mean, obviously it’s better if you remembered to save it, but it shouldn’t be a big deal to say, “Would it be possible to send me a copy of the job description since it’s no longer online?” And that’s definitely better than going into the interview without being able to review the details about the job.

5. How do big theme parks manage staff?

I recently returned from a trip to Disney World and while it was fun and magical and all that, I couldn’t stop viewing it through a management lens and a mind-boggling HR and logistics perspective. There are SO MANY employees. They appear to work pretty independently and not closely supervised, yet they are all towing the strict-bordering-on-cultish company line (calling everyone “friend,” maintaining a happy demeanor in the face of rude and cranky people, greeting little girls as “princess,” etc.), people are herded through lines efficiently, and every parade and show starts right on time. How is this accomplished?! What kind of interview process determines if someone is suited to be relentlessly happy all day? How do you give Cinderella a performance evaluation? How would you know if one employee out of hundreds (thousands?) isn’t fulfilling their responsibilities? I am incredibly curious about Disney World in particular, but I guess this would apply to managing any sort of large entertainment venue (other theme parks, stadiums, etc.) the thought of which thrills and terrifies me in equal measure.

Everything I know about this comes from reading the absolutely fascinating book Inside the Mouse: Work and Play at Disney World, which I highly recommend if you have these questions (this recommendation isn’t sponsored, but I do make a commission if you use that link). But I’m also going to throw this out to commenters who have worked in theme parks and are willing to share their experience.

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

1. Our managers are on a rampage about cell phones

I’m an exempt employee who works hybrid. We were fully remote since March 2020, but the CEO decided we needed to come into the office four days a week as of last week. As soon as we returned, the managers were really aggressive about cell phones. Apparently we are allowed to use our earbuds and listen to music from our phones, but the actual phone needs to be hidden. We are even permitted to wear smart watches and use those to respond to texts, just not our personal cell phones. We’ve received four mass emails within the last 48 hours reminding people of these rules and each of us have received documented discussions from our managers stating that we have been made aware that our cell phones need to be hidden. For reference, this is an office job with a lot of downtime; we are even permitted to flex our time and go home to finish our work if we want.

I find this to be so bizarre. First of all, it feels like I’m only required to make an appearance at the office. I’m not complaining too hard because I don’t want them to take away the option to flex our time and go home, but it’s aggravating to sit in an hour of traffic (no exaggeration) to be there for around six hours and then sit in another hour of traffic to finish my work. We’ve also proven we’re able to work from home with no supervision with free access to our phones, so I don’t understand the massive push against seeing our phones on our desks, as long as it’s not excessive use — and those issues can be dealt with on a case by case basis.

Do you have any insight? Why do managers hate phones so much? It feels like they just want to make things as inconvenient as possible. I don’t see the need to cause drama when work is still getting done and we are still hitting our goals. And what if we have an emergency situation and someone needs to get in contact with us quickly? I feel like I’m back in high school.

It’s hard to say from the outside. It could be an optics thing, like if your managers know the CEO has a real thing about seeing phones and they’re trying to head that off. It could be an overreaction to an isolated incident, like if someone was really abusing their phone access (although as you say, you could all be doing that when you’re working at home). It could just be that your leadership has weird ideas about what “working” is supposed to look like and/or that they’re overcorrecting now that they suddenly have control over your working environment again. If you have a good relationship with your manager, you might be able to simply ask and they might tell you.

But yes, this is weird. Not unheard of by any means — some offices do have strict rules about phones — but weird in its execution (four mass emails in two days?) and weird for your particular context.

2. My new hire said I should have told him about my maternity leave before he arrived

I’m writing for a bit of a reality check. I know you aren’t an academic expert, but this feels like more of a people management problem to me. I am a principal investigator (PI) in an academic laboratory in Canada, so I manage a small team. I started a new team member, Joffrey, in January. Joffrey is American, and it took a little time to get his paperwork in order. He was on a one-year renewable contract; I had committed to him for that period of time (breach of contract would need to be pretty egregious for me to be able to fire him —not that I was planning to). I did expect/hope that he would stay for at least two years, and that hope was communicated at the start. The point is that he had some guarantee of stability.

He’s been working on a team project with a team which includes two other PI’s and two industry partners, who he met during the interview process, and there are five other team members at his level who he is working with.

Joffrey quit after just two months – two days after I announced to the team that I was going on parental leave in five months. I announced it as part of a discussion introducing the person who would be covering my role on the team for the time I’ll be on leave (it’s Canada, so I will be gone for six months or one year).

During his resignation, Joffrey had a litany of small-ish complaints (it took a month to get him ethics approval from the hospital to see the data he was going to be working on, so in the meantime he was doing small learning “pointless” tasks, it took a month for him to get onto the extended health plan, he didn’t like his work station location). His big complaint, however, was that I should have given him the “professional courtesy” of telling him about my upcoming parental leave before he arrived – so approximately 7-8 months before the child is due.

I do get that it’s a big deal to move countries for a job, and it’s a really big thing to quit a job in a foreign-ish country after you’ve gone to the expense of moving. My guess is that it felt a little unsettling to know that his first point of contact would be leaving, but this feels like an extreme reaction. I was just one manager in a team of mentors, and I expected that he would be up and running and a well functioning team member after seven months working on the project, so the impact on his career would be minimal (or positive if he demonstrates good leadership).

Obviously I released him from his contract at his request, but I feel taken aback by his expectations surrounding parental leave. I found it incredibly regressive, but am I being unreasonable?

No. It’s not reasonable for a colleague to expect to be informed about your pregnancy when you’re only one or two months pregnant. (Is Joffrey aware that many people wouldn’t even know they were pregnant that early, let alone be sure of their plans?) Sure, I can see how starting a new job and learning that the person you thought would be managing you will be going on a lengthy leave, but (a) it’s scheduled for seven months after he started, not a couple of weeks, and (b) that’s not generally “I must quit this job” territory or “how dare you not inform me of this earlier” territory.

You told your team when you were four months pregnant. That’s really reasonable, and it’s earlier than many people do.

It sounds like Joffrey might have been dissatisfied with the job in general. Sometimes when that’s the case people search for clearly articulable reasons to pin their dissatisfaction on, even when that’s not quite the thing driving their unhappiness. Maybe that happened here, or maybe Joffrey is just unreasonable. But you didn’t owe him earlier notice.

3. I can’t get promoted

I’ve been an employee at my company for close to a decade. I started taking on additional leadership opportunities about five years ago at the encouragement of my then CEO. A management position opened up, and I got additional certifications to make myself more marketable for that position. I made it through a first round interview, but they went with an external hire. This pattern has repeated itself several times — management spot opens, I get a first round interview, I get told I’m not ready, and they hire externally. Then I get more leadership tasks assigned to me, which I do successfully, but then this repeats. I’ve now applied for and been rejected for about seven management/team lead openings at my company over the last five or so years.

The last year was frankly hell. The manager at my branch was abusive towards others and me, but I was the main target. The new CEO and HR were aware, but I was afraid to make a formal complaint. I was then promoted to assistant manager at another branch (I was told that I was moved specifically to get us apart), and then filed a formal complaint against my former manager. She left the company (HR never interviewed me after my complaint and I don’t know if she was fired or quit), and now the CEO has to be the manager of that branch and the CEO at the same time.

My new manager has told me that I’m doing a great job and has no complaints. Now they are hiring for the manager spot at my old branch. The application specifically said that for internal candidates, two years of assistant management were required. I am the only assistant manager in the company. HR forgot I applied and asked me to sit in the interviews. When I asked how that would work considering I was a candidate, they told me that I was not. Once again, I’m not ready.

I have never been disciplined, written up, or anything like that. Whenever I ask for feedback, I am told that there are only minor things, which I correct. My performance reviews have always been exemplary. I’m incredibly frustrated and feeling like this is targeted due to me being a whistleblower on my abusive boss and forcing them to make a change. I love this company and what it does, but I’m not sure how much longer I can last in an organization that treats its people this way. What do I do?

I don’t think they’re ever going to promote you. I don’t know what the reason for that is — maybe they don’t want to lose you where you are, maybe someone high up doesn’t like you, maybe it was the whistleblowing (although it sounds like this pattern started before that). But based on their actions, they’re not going to promote you. If you want to move up, the only real thing to do is to look outside this company — I’m sorry.

4. Is it weird to be privy to junior team members’ performance issues?

In my current role, there are several junior members who don’t report to me directly but work with me regularly on several admin and operations-like tasks. I was hired on as a floating team member, so I’m rotating between different teams throughout the department. I’m currently on my third rotation.

Twice now, in my last team and my current team, I’ve found myself in a situation where my manager informed me of a junior team member’s lack of performance and imminent placement on a PIP. My current manager actually opted to keep the underperforming junior person reporting to her, so I didn’t have to deal with managing him while also onboarding and getting settled.

While I’m a bit discomforted having the knowledge, it does makes sense to me broadly. Even outside such issues, I am expected to regularly provide informal feedback on these junior folks as their work is important to the success of my role and the team writ large. Having this information means I can keep an eye on their work. My feedback also goes into their annual reviews.

The working culture of my org has seemed positive so far. As far as I can see, the PIP process is clearly communicated and fair. I guess my discomfort arises from the information asymmetry, that my junior coworkers don’t know that I know about their performance. I’m curious about your thoughts on this practice, and if there are downsides or alternatives to consider.

That kind of information should be on a need-to-know basis, but it sounds like you may have had a need to know. When you’re charged with providing junior employees with guidance and feedback, it can help to know that a particular person has been struggling — it can help you correctly calibrate how closely to watch their work and where to step in and give more coaching. It also sounds like it it was relevant context for your boss to explain why she was going to keep one person reporting to her, rather than moving him over to you as you might have expected.

The assumption, of course, is that you’ll keep the information confidential — that you understand it’s being shared with you for work-related reasons (not as gossip) and that you’ll be discreet and responsible with it.

5. Layoffs — what’s reasonable to ask for?

I work in a very flat, mid-size nonprofit that just announced upcoming layoffs, and is looking for volunteers to leave. I am the most senior person at my level on my team (so probably the most expensive) and was working towards a big promotion that is almost certainly now off the table with this news. Given that, I am considering volunteering to go, but as there is currently no info out about what that would look like I can’t make a decision.

What would be reasonable to ask for? I’m assuming I’d stay on for a few months to transition things, possibly until our fiscal year rolls over July 1. I’m a fairly tenured manager with seven years of experience at this org. Would it be reasonable for me to ask for six months of severance, or would that make me look out of touch? I’d feel confident about my financial situation with that kind of runway but not with much less given the current market.

Six months of severance pay is a lot and would be an outlier, especially at a nonprofit. A really common formula is one or two weeks of severance per year of employment (so for seven years, seven to fourteen weeks). You could ask for two weeks per year without looking out-of-touch; they might say no or counter with something else, but it wouldn’t be outlandish to propose.

You also could just ask what kind of exit package they’re envisioning, without making an initial offer of your own. It’s a bit silly for them to ask for volunteers without providing any details, and you can ask for more info.

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

1. I got drunk at a work event — but it was because of my medication

I have been at my company for six years and attend two or three in-person events a year that always include alcohol. The last event, my pharmacy gave me a higher dose antidepressant without my knowledge and the first night I had a couple drinks that ended up making me very drunk. Normally, the two to three drinks I had would not had affected me as they did that night. I didn’t do anything wrong, was just (not just … but didn’t cause a scene or fall on my face, etc.) intoxicated in front of our board of directors.

Naturally, my CEO wrote me up. I said I understood and apologized. I wasn’t defensive because I understand I was in the wrong but I did mention the medication issue.

I received the formal write-up and it leaves space for me to comment. Do I comment saying anything about the medication mix-up or just sign off and move on?

I certainly would; this is a record of the incident that will stay in your employee file, and I’d want it to contain the full story — because this wasn’t a situation where you just decided to pound shots at a work event with reckless abandon; this was you reacting to a medication in a way you had no reason to anticipate. In fact, I’m not convinced you shouldn’t push back on the write-up itself, given the circumstances — but that’ll depend on your sense of your boss, how much it will matter, your own capital, etc.

All that said, I’d argue “two to three” drinks at a work event is on the high side, regardless of your medication situation. Two might be fine, but three can be a lot in a work context.

2. Can I be friends with managers who aren’t my manager?

I know I’m not supposed to be friends with my manager, but what about other managers in different parts of the organization? What if they used to be my manager, but now they aren’t? Can we move from friendly to actual friends?

The potential friends I’m thinking of are in positions higher up the org chart than I am, but they are over other teams, so I don’t report to them, nor does anyone else on my team. So, no direct hiring/firing authority over me. But in a lot of ways they are also more the peers of my manager than me because of their roles. Any particular issues where this could cause problems at work (or outside of work)?

Also, one of the could-be friends used to be my boss. I reported to them in my previous role (in the same organization), then a few years ago I switched to a different role and started reporting to someone else. We get along well, we have some mutual friends, and it seems like this person wants to hang out more outside of work. Could this be weird given the past boss/employee relationship? Is this an issue if I ever needed to list this person as a reference?

I’m in a role where I often interact with other teams around the organization, and I often interact with people at different “levels” of the organization. I also have a hand in some decision making that might not be expected based on the “level” of my role alone. All of this makes it difficult to define who my peers are in my workplace, which just adds to the challenge in making friends at work!

If you’re not currently in each other’s chain of command, there’s no reason to avoid these friendships. It is worth thinking about whether you might ever be in each other’s chain of command in the future and whether that could cause issues — for example, if you become good friends with Jane, be aware that it might be complicated if you want to transfer on to Jane’s team in the future.

Reference-wise: as a hiring manager, I’d rather not talk to a reference who’s a very close friend of yours (because of bias) but realistically, reference-checkers are pretty unlikely to know it’s a close friendship unless one of you volunteers it.

3. My boss decided I can’t work remotely, but I turned down another job offer to do it

I informed my boss I was moving out of state. He asked if I would consider working remotely. After a bit of thought, he clarified that I would work remotely for five months with a review of how it was working “for both of us” in two. (Timeline is tied to an academic calendar.) I had a job offer elsewhere, which I mentioned — but I decided to stay. At the review, he said I’d be done in May because he “needs his team in person.” I was gracious but now want to revisit this. I wrongly assumed the review would be about how to adjust, not that I was done. Although I say so myself, I am great at my job. Is it worth asking him to reconsider or for a longer exit time? My field is dismal in terms of openings.

Oh no. Yeah, his statement that you could do it for five months meant that nothing beyond that was guaranteed (and the point of assessing two months in was presumably so that you’d have those three months of notice if he didn’t want to continue).

You could certainly ask him if there are adjustments that would make the situation more workable, or for a longer exit time. Who knows, he might be open to that — but I would be prepared for him to feel like he laid out the terms pretty clearly at the beginning (that he was only committing to trying it for five months).

4. How can I make fewer typos in my emails?

I have so many typos at work. Mostly small occurrences, rarely does it change the intent of the email, but nevertheless I feel so unprofessional when I look back at things I’ve sent. I’ve tried drafting emails and stepping away for a moment so I can proofread with fresh eyes, but I still manage to make minor mistakes. I’ve caught two this morning already! I typed “of” instead of “or” and I left off the “ed” in a sentence in a different email (“I insert Person’s Name to claim this”).

It’s never been mentioned in a performance review or pointed out by my coworkers, but I can’t help but think people have noticed. I know I notice other people’s typos (usually because it makes me feel better about my own!). I re-read all my emails before sending, English is my first language, I’m well spoken verbally – why am I so bad at emails? Any thoughts on how to improve my written communication and catch these before I hit send? Just looking through the last week of emails I think it’s happening like, A LOT.

If you do good work and you don’t have typos when they would really matter (like in public communications, not in casual internal emails), it’s very unlikely that this is an issue. People make the sort of typos you described in casual internal emails — you’re typing fast, you’re being efficient, and it’s not always efficient to let an email sit for hours so you can re-read it with truly fresh eyes. In casual contexts, it’s not likely to be a big deal.

That said, since you’re looking for ways to combat it, you could try reading some of the emails out loud to yourself — for a lot of people that’s an effective way to spot typos that your eyes will gloss right over. (Although obviously if you don’t have your own office, it’s not practical — and it’s potentially weird and annoying to your neighbors — to read all your emails out loud to yourself.) There are other proofreading tricks like reading a sentence backwards, but realistically those are likely to slow you down enough that they’re not worth the trade-off except in situations where it’s particularly important that the message be flawless.

5. I couldn’t submit my application without contact info for managers from over a decade ago

I am job searching, as my current position is being eliminated after budget cuts. I’ve worked for my current organization for just over a decade, and can offer five different glowing references for my various positions with them, including my current manager. I recently filled in a job application that asked if they could contact my managers from all of my previous jobs. If I clicked “yes”, it also asked for those references’ names, phone numbers, and emails as required fields. I clicked “no” because I do not have that information readily accessible for managers from over a decade ago. Should I have waited to apply until I had tracked all of them down just so I could choose “yes” for that question? It seems like a lot to ask in an initial application before I’ve even had a phone screen interview. Do organizations really care that much about references from jobs going that far back into my employment history?

That’s bad application design, but as a general rule you should avoid checking “no” as the answer to “can we contact the manager from X job” unless you absolutely have to. You meant “no” as in “I can’t facilitate that process/don’t have their contact info” but employers tend to read “no” as “I do not give you permission talk to that employer, even if you can figure out how to contact them.”

Ideally you would have selected “yes” and either looked up the general contact info for the employer (company contact info would be fine; it wouldn’t have to be the manager’s personal contact info if you don’t have it) or put in a placeholder for the time being.

The hiring manager might not care about talking to references from 10 years ago, but at this point you were just trying to get your application accepted by an electronic system that isn’t set up to deal with that kind of nuance.

Related:
stop saying “no” when job applications ask “can we contact this manager?”