living in my boss’s spare bedroom, my employee lied about finishing high school, and more

by Alison Green on September 26, 2024

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

1. Should I temporarily live in my boss’s spare bedroom?

I’m in a bit of a housing bind, and dealing with some pretty serious anxiety to boot. I mentioned my anxiety issues to my boss to explain any lapses she may be seeing in my performance at work, and mentioned that my apartment search in NYC was a big contributing factor to the anxiety. She very graciously offered me her spare bedroom rent-free, where I could stay while I hunt for something that’s a better fit than the places I’m seeing now. (She was quite serious, and mentioned her offer again in a follow-up email later that day.)

Am I crazy to consider this? I definitely see the problems living with one’s boss, but I think we could handle it okay. She was my mentor for about a year before she came to work at my company and became my boss, so we have a fairly close relationship, though still professional. It would definitely be only temporary, but I’m not sure if taking my boss up on her offer would end up causing trouble?

The only way I’d do this is if you’d otherwise be homeless. It’s just too fraught with the potential for problems.

Yes, it might work out fine. But it could also cause huge problems. If she has to give you really serious critical feedback at work, do you really want to see her in the living room that evening? What if she has to tell you that your job is in jeopardy? What if she loses her job while you’re living with her and wants to complain to you every evening about your company? What if she wants to talk about work when you want to collapse in front of a movie and you feel pressured to let her? What if there’s a weird issue over money — will that really not bleed into work? What if she changes her mind and wants to kick you out early and you feel screwed over? And most importantly, what about the power dynamic? Are you going to feel comfortable telling your boss things you need to be able to tell a roommate, like “I really don’t want to spend a third hour listening to you talk about your ex?” or “Stop walking into my bedroom without knocking” or “Could you not blast Sia at 5 a.m.”? (And you can find more potential issues with it in this old letter.) Particularly if you’re dealing with anxiety issues, this all seems like an unnecessary additional source of stress.

It’s also a really bad idea for your boss herself, for all the reasons above. The fact that she’s offering says there’s a good chance she’s not super thoughtful about boundaries (again, unless you’re truly about to be homeless) and that’s a flag to be really cautious too.

– 2016

Read an update to this letter here.

2. I share a desk with the night shift and someone keeps rearranging my stuff

Recently, we had a huge increase in our workload. As a solution, my employer has hired more people and added a second shift of work at night. We do not have enough desks to accommodate the sudden influx of employees, and the night shift people share the day shift people’s desks.

I keep a few personal items in/on my desk, such as hand sanitizer, an extra bottle of water, mints, and a spare phone charger. For the past week, my entire desk has been rearranged. Being the type A I am, it drives me up the wall. Today was the last straw. I keep my phone charger plugged in oftentimes because the plug is hard to reach behind the computers. It was unplugged and thrown on the floor when I came in this morning. I am sick of people touching my stuff and not taking care of it. Am I overreacting? Is there anything I can do or say to resolve this?

When you’re sharing desks, things are going to get rearranged — there’s no real way around that. To the person working the night shift, that’s their work space — not someone else’s space that they’re borrowing, but their space. I know that’s hard to accept when it was your space first, but the reality is, now it belongs to both of you. (After all, if you were on the night shift, wouldn’t you hate feeling like you were just a guest in someone else’s space?)

If it’s going to drive you bananas to see items rearranged, I’d suggest keeping them in a drawer. It might even be worth working out an arrangement where you each get assigned a drawer, so you each have some space that’s just yours.

I agree that unplugging your phone charger and tossing it on the floor was less than polite, but just talk to the person about it — explain you like to keep it plugged in because it’s hard to reach the plug, and ask if they mind keeping it there when they’re using the desk in the evening.

Overall, just talk to the other person, acknowledge it’s tough to share space, and see what kind of system you can work out that will keep you both happy.

– 2014

3. Did I irritate this hiring manager?

I am a full-time college student graduating next month. I recently went through a phone interview with a recruiter, and she pressured me into a phone interview immediately because they liked my resume. During the phone interview, she told me I was the number one candidate, then scheduled an interview with the hiring manager. The hiring manager was giving me really good vibes and was being very nice. At the end of the interview, he told me he wanted to move forward and have a face-to-face in one week before he interviewed anyone else. Then he said that someone from his staff would contact me.

After a few days, no one had contacted me, so I contacted the hiring manager and told him that no one had contacted me. He said I should hear something this week. So, I replied with, “When should I expect to hear, and are we still planning to meet this week?” He said, “Maybe next week.” So I said, “I am looking forward to meeting with you, and I was hoping we could do it this week.” Then the manager replied, “Really – are you questioning me??” At that point, I took a step back and said, “No, I am really looking forward to the opportunity. I sincerely apologize for the misunderstanding.”

I feel like I was just trying to be assertive and show interest. Are they just giving me the run-around? What do I do now?

“Are you questioning me?” is utterly obnoxious, but his point wasn’t surprising — he told you when he was able to meet, and you kind of violated interview norms when you pushed back. The employer controls the hiring timeline. You can certainly share any constraints on your side (such as having another offer), but aside from that, you’re really at the mercy of the interviewer’s timeline.

Hiring often takes longer than people think it will. Employers often state one timeline and end up taking three times that long, or even longer. It’s frustrating, but it’s the nature of how it works. It’s good to show interest, but not to pressure them, which is what ended up happening here. At this point, I’d just be patient and wait for them to get back in touch with you. If you haven’t heard anything in two weeks, contact the recruiter (probably not the hiring manager in this case) to ask if she has an updated timeline.

– 2014

4. My great employee lied about finishing high school

I am a middle manager and we recently hired an employee, for a non-professional position, who told me after she was hired that she lied on her job application. She said she had her high school diploma, when she doesn’t, and if she had answered that question in the positive, the online application would have booted her from the application as it is required for the position.

She is a hard worker, a great team member, and really needs the job, so I am not sure if I should ever bring this up.

Ugh. Requiring a high school diploma (or a college degree) is supposed to be a proxy for “this person is likely to have certain baseline skills necessary to do the job.” This person has demonstrated pretty clearly that it’s a misplaced requirement. Plus, not finishing high school can correlate with poverty, class, abuse, and other issues that aren’t great to screen people out over.

On the other hand, obviously it’s not okay to lie on your application. But I’m having a hard time working up outrage about it. She didn’t go out of her way to lie on, say, a resume — a document that someone presumably puts a lot of thought and care into. She answered “yes” to an online application question when she should have answered “no.” It’s hardly the lie of the century.

As for what to do now … I’m sure some people will disagree, but you have a hard worker and a great team member with no high school diploma. If she’s otherwise trustworthy, I might just take it as a sign that you should drop that requirement, and then move on.

– 2016

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my new employee ran a background check on me and asked me about what he found

by Alison Green on September 25, 2024

I’m off today, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2019.

A reader writes:

I started a new position recently and was promoted quickly to a management position. Great, I have a long supervisory background, looking forward to helping in a wider capacity.

One of my direct reports is a very conscientious and ambitious young man named “Scott” who I have found pleasant to work with.

Last week, during a normal conversation about a project, Scott brought up that he had done a background search on me and then asked me about an arrest on my record — an insurance snafu that led to a driver’s license snafu and when I was pulled over for a normal traffic stop in a rather conservative county, I spent a night in lock-up. Which was both humiliating and illuminating.

This is not immediately googleable. I gave it a try myself after he brought it up, and some of the specificity of the details he used leads me to believe he went to one of the publicly available background report sites and paid the nominal fee to obtain a detailed report.

His question was framed as that he “had been doing some research and wanted to clarify what happened in X state, because it wasn’t clear if it (the arrest) was in X or Y state.” I lived in Y state more recently, but there’s nothing easily found that links the two without paying for it.

In the moment, I answered truthfully that these items were from more than a decade ago and were the result of a particular set of circumstances. I then excused myself from the conversation and returned to my office.

The longer I think about it, the more weirded out I am. Scott would like to advance and I feel like a follow-up conversation is definitely warranted, but I’m struggling with an approach aside from “hey, you super violated a boundary for me and that will go over like a ton of bricks if you do it with future managers.”

To be fair, this is an overtly aggressive office culture and asking to explain your professional background in a fair amount of detail to coworkers/employees is par for the course. But while I understand having a background check run by the company during the hiring process, I’d like to keep my personal background personal.

(And while I’m not wild about discussing this embarrassing incident, my reaction was more of a “how and why did you obtain this information?” than a deep, dark secret that I’m worried might come to light.)

How do I let go of my weirded-out feeling and how do I best address this in a follow-up conversation?

WHAT?

You are being way more chill about this than I would be.

It’s an incredible overstep to run a paid background check on your new manager — but what’s really weird here is that he thought he somehow had standing to (a) make it clear to you that he did this and (b) ask you to clarify what he found.

The way he asked you about this sounds like he genuinely thought it was appropriate. He was “doing some research and wanted to clarify what happened”?? Because he didn’t feel he had sufficient details? About something that’s none of his business whatsoever?

Have you seen anything else weird about his judgment? Because this is such a bizarre thing for him to approach you with that I’ve got to think there’s a bigger issue with him. Maybe it’s just incredible naivete — but regardless of what’s at the root, this is just wildly inappropriate and I suspect it’s part of some broader pattern.

And as you note, it’s not that this is a deep, dark secret. It’s just that it’s personal and spectacularly irrelevant to anything he would ever have cause to “research.”

So I don’t think you need to let go of your weirded-out feeling. Your weirded-out feeling is warranted and appropriate.

I would say this to him: “I was taken aback last week when you asked me about a traffic incident in my background. Frankly, I was too taken aback to address it in the moment, but I’m not clear on why you were undertaking that kind of background search on me in the first place — and especially on why you decided to inquire with me about it.” And then, depending on his answer, you could say, “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn’t realize you violated a work boundary here. But I want to make sure that going forward you know that this was inappropriate, everyone you work with deserves privacy, and this is not something you should do again to anyone here.”

And I’d keep a very close eye on his judgment after this, especially around interpersonal stuff — and be prepared to swiftly shut down anything else inappropriate.

Read an update to this letter. 

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LinkedIn is sharing your data with AI — unless you tell it not to

by Alison Green on September 25, 2024

LinkedIn has a new practice of sharing your personal data to train AI — unless you specifically opt out. That includes your profile, your posts, and your videos.

Without announcing it, LinkedIn apparently added a new data privacy setting last week that covers this, and they turned it on for everyone.

If you want to opt out, here’s how:

In your LinkedIn account, open “Settings & Privacy.” Select “Data privacy” and turn off the option under “Data for generative AI improvement.”

Be aware that turning this off will be not retroactive. LinkedIn has already begun training its AI with your content, and there’s no way to undo whatever they’ve already used.

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I got fired for attending a conference that I wasn’t invited to

by Alison Green on September 25, 2024

I’m off today, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2017.

A reader writes:

I started working at my job eight months ago, not long after I completed college (thanks in part to your write-ups about cover letters, resumes, interview questions and job searching). A few months ago in the elevator, my manager’s manager and someone from upper management in another department were talking about an upcoming conference. The idea of the conference sounded interesting and at our next departmental meeting I asked my manager’s manager about being able to attend the conference. She said the company couldn’t send me to this conference.

I really wanted to go. This was for several reasons: (1) what I heard about the conference in the elevator sounded interesting, (2) I was trying to show initiative, and (3) It would be good for my career to attend something like that. I was bummed out about the company not being able to send me.

But a week later I was asked to assist someone from a different department. He had a broken foot and needed help carrying paperwork and laptops up to one of the meeting rooms on another floor. He told me he was swamped with trying to get everything ready for the meeting on top of signing up people for the conference and making all the arrangements. I offered to do all the conference so he could get the meeting set up.

I signed myself up for the conference along with everyone else. But I only signed up as an attendee from my company. I paid for the conference fee, the airline tickets, and the hotel room out of my own pocket. I didn’t charge anything to the company for myself, even though all of the other attendees had everything paid for using a company credit card. I also booked vacation time so I could go.

I was excited to go to the conference. But when my manager’s manager saw me there the first day, she was upset at seeing me there, even after I explained I had paid the sign-up fee and everything else out of my own pocket and had used my own vacation time. I admit now that I made a mistake because I didn’t know the conference was for directors and executive management in my industry, not for entry-level people with less than a year like me. My manager’s manager had to get special permission from the company to go because she isn’t a director yet but is next in line for a promotion when someone retires. After the conference organizers found out from my company that I am not in upper management, they asked me to leave and said my fee would be refunded.

I already paid for the hotel room and return flight, so I ended up staying there even though I couldn’t go to the conference. My first day back at work was my last one ever because I got fired. My manager’s manager was furious and so were her bosses. I know I messed up, but when I asked about going to the conference she didn’t say I couldn’t go; she only said the company couldn’t send me. I also had no idea it was a conference for upper management only. If I had known, I obviously would not have signed up, but she didn’t tell me and it wasn’t clear at registration.

I know I made a mistake and it was a huge embarrassment for the company when word of what I did got around the conference, but I never had any write-ups or trouble and I was a model employee. I don’t think it was a fireable offense and I was shocked they fired me. Did I mess up that badly or were they wrong? I want to know if there is anything I can do to fix this.

Well, you definitely overstepped. I can understand your logic in thinking that if you paid for yourself and made all your own arrangements, it would be fine for you to attend … but this was a business event that your company only invited select people to. It’s sort of like if your company was sending all the senior directors to Vegas for a retreat, and you booked your way out there and showed up too and figured it was okay because you paid your own expenses.

That said, you’re new to the work world and clearly didn’t understand how this worked, and firing you over it is a pretty extreme reaction.

That makes me wonder if anything else had happened previously to make them worry about your judgment. If this was one in a string of concerns, then their decision would be more understandable. Complicating matters, you wouldn’t necessarily know if that were the case; sometimes managers notice iffy things about someone’s judgment but decide that it doesn’t quite rise to the level of needing to address it, especially if the person is entry-level. So it’s possible that something like that was at play here.

I don’t think there’s anything you can do to fix this situation now, unfortunately. But there might be things you can learn from it. If you had pretty good rapport with your manager, one option would be to reach out to her now and say something like this: “I want to apologize again for my error in judgment in attending the conference without anyone’s okay. I genuinely didn’t understand that it would be a problem, but I do realize now that I erred. The experience has made me wonder if my judgment may have been off in other areas too since this was my first post-college job, and if so, I’d be so grateful for any feedback you can give me. I’m at the start of my career and I want to make sure that I learn from this, so if you noticed any other areas for improvement while I was working for you, I’d love your feedback.” That might not produce anything useful — but it also might, and it’s definitely worth a shot.

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giving extra time off to people who get married, rejected me because I was late for the interview, and more

by Alison Green on September 25, 2024

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

1. Giving extra time off to people who get married

My friend got married this weekend, and she mentioned to me that her office gives her an extra week of PTO to use in the year which she got married. (The idea behind it being that she’ll use it on her honeymoon, although I doubt that that’s enforced.)

I was thinking today about the fairness of this policy. I’m not married and have no prospects (lol). If I worked at her office, I would get a week less of PTO — just because I’m single.

Ultimately, this doesn’t affect me because I don’t work at her office, but, what do you think?

Yeah, it’s lovely that they want to support their employees, but a policy of giving people a full extra week of paid vacation upon marriage is destined to cause resentment among people who aren’t married, or who were married before they were hired and would really like an extra week off to spend with their ill parent, or so forth. It’s prioritizing marriage above all other life events in a way that isn’t fair or equitable (although it reflects our culture’s tendency to do the same). I don’t think anyone would begrudge, like, a congratulatory fruit basket, but an extra week of vacation is a huge thing to only be giving to some.

An alternative would be to offer an extra week of PTO for anyone with a major life event, which they could define loosely (and they could cap it at one-time usage, or only every X years, or only after X years of employment) — or even remove the “major event” requirement and just let people have it after three years of employment or so forth.

– 2019

2. Approaching a manager in public for an impromptu chat about a job

Let’s say I visit a cafe close to my office every day at 3 p.m. for a cup of coffee. I also see a manager whose team has an opening, and it just so happens that I possess the qualifications required to join his team.

Are managers in general open to being approached by potential candidates in a public setting such as a cafe, and having a 5-10 minute chat if they genuinely had time to spare? What if the manager works for a company that is different from the candidate’s? Would they still be willing to talk to the candidate for a few minutes? They may stumble upon a very talented individual for their team.

Don’t do it! There are some managers who are always in recruiting mode and are happy to talk to potential candidates any time, anywhere. But there are far more managers who would be annoyed to be interrupted while they’re trying to have a quick coffee (and who may be doing something else they don’t want to stop).

And it’s not like interrupting someone in public is the only way to reach them and you have no other options. If you’re interested in approaching a hiring manager, you can do it over email or LinkedIn, where they can respond when it’s convenient for them and where you can include a copy of your resume, so they can figure out right from the start if it even makes sense to talk. (And if you’re really just interested in applying for a specific job with them, go ahead and apply, following the application instructions, since otherwise you’ll come across as if you’re trying to circumvent their process.)

The one exception to this is if the person works for your company. In that case, it’s reasonable to talk to them informally — but I still wouldn’t do it when they’re trying to relax.

– 2017

3. Interviewer rejected me because I was late for the interview

I had a job interview that got rescheduled because they had a snow day that closed their office. The rescheduled date was last week on Monday. I was really excited for the position and felt it was a great match for my experience and skills, and I had killer reference letters to attest to this.

It was hard to find parking and was still icy and snowy from the week before. After it was clear I wasn’t going to be as timely as I had hoped, I texted the manager I had been communicating with that I was just parking and would be there in a few minutes. (It was 1:07 pm, with our interview scheduled to start at 1:00 pm.)

I arrived about 1:10 and she and two other staff were waiting for me in a room. I apologized briefly (but didn’t want to focus on that) and what I heard in reply was. “Oh, it’s okay.” The interview went well and was well organized, thorough, and professional. I followed up two days later with a thank-you email.

But I heard back that being late had more or less eliminated me and clouded my other great qualities and that timeliness was very important for the position. I’m surprised and thought it was weird they didn’t bring that up in the interview. What do you think?

I don’t think it’s weird that they didn’t bring it up in the interview because it’s not necessarily something that requires discussion (and a lot of people wouldn’t know how to address it on the spot in a way that didn’t feel uncomfortably confrontational). Plus, they might have wanted time to think about it and decide how much it mattered to them first.

I do think penalizing you for being 10 minutes late if it was very icy and snowy was excessive; even when people plan for bad roads, they can’t always predict the weather impact with perfect precision. But I suspect not texting until you were already seven minutes late was the issue (as opposed to pulling over to contact them before the interview was scheduled to start, so they weren’t sitting there waiting and wondering if you were going to show).

– 2019

4. How do I politely end conversations at networking events?

Your recent post about conversation starters at industry events got me thinking: once you’ve got talking to someone at a networking event, and both people have got what they needed out of the conversation, how do you politely move on?

I’m on the board of the association for a charity that pays for me to attend various networking events. I want to get the most out of the event both for myself and my charity, meeting people who may want to collaborate, engaging industry leaders, and chatting to a good cross-section of the community so that they feel heard. But sometimes I get stuck — it’s not that I don’t want to talk to the person, I just need to circulate!

I know a few people who are networking ninjas. They are so good at extracting themselves from conversations without fuss that I don’t even notice them moving around. While I’m happy to say “I must circulate” to people I know well, it seems rude to just cut off the flow of conversation with someone you’ve only just met (especially if this is their rare chance to give input into our charity). In that situation, I usually say something awkward like, “I must pop to the toilet” which … isn’t that elegant…

I don’t want anyone to think I don’t value their conversation. Do you have any scripts I could use to move on without causing offense (or having to use the bathroom as a hideaway)?

“Well, it was great meeting you!” is an easy way to signal the conversation is coming to a close. You can dress it up by adding things like “I’m going to pass on your advice on X to our board,” “I hope we see each other at next month’s event,” and so forth. But the basic idea is to start saying those wrapping-up phrases.

Another way to do it is to offer your card and ask if they have one, and use that as your closing ceremony. Do the card exchange and then go straight to, “Wonderful! Hopefully we’ll stay in touch. It was great meeting you.”

If it still feels too abrupt to leave after those phrases, it’s fine to add, “I’m going to grab a fresh drink” or “I’m going to go check out that buffet!” or any other phrase that politely announces your intentions.

– 2019

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my coworker apologizes All The Time — how can I get him to stop?

by Alison Green on September 24, 2024

A reader writes:

I work at a small public library and I have a coworker who is a very naturally anxious person. He apologizes for every little thing, whether it’s his fault, not his fault, or not something that could possibly be anyone’s fault. I feel like I hear him say “I’m so sorry” with complete sincerity a dozen times a day.

It’s not just a verbal habit, he means it. This is not “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” it’s “I’m so sorry that I took a scheduled phone call at the time that I said I would and that meant I wasn’t able to refill the printer paper when it ran out in the middle of your print job, I should have anticipated that and I’m so sorry you had to do it.” Whether he’s apologizing to a patron that there’s a waitlist on the book they want, or to our coworker that she talked to the loud teenagers before he did, or to me when I mention I don’t like the ringtone on the new desk phone, it’s all Red Alert Remorse Top Priority Contrition Protocol.

I don’t care that he didn’t print out more copies of a form that I can also print out! I don’t blame him that the building manager hasn’t fixed the leaky faucet in the staff bathroom! He’s constantly taking on the full responsibility for absolutely everything. It must be exhausting for him, and the rest of us have to reassure him multiple times a day that it’s not necessary.

He also takes responsibility for every possible work task, but is bad at multitasking and prioritizing those as well. This results in more apologies when he wants to organize spare computer parts in the closet but gets distracted partway through and leaves loose keyboards and mice all over the floor, or he does go to get more printer paper but gets distracted refilling a water cooler and then tries to load the paper with wet hands. We are short-staffed, but things are not so hectic that he needs to do absolutely everything, by himself, right now. This frustration I have tried to let go, since it is our manager’s responsibility, not mine.

But it’s hard to bring up real issues and feel like he hears and understands that I’m asking for a change in behavior, not an acknowledgment of guilt. One time it took him 25 minutes to drop off mail in the front office, and I had to page the office to get him back out when the floor got too busy for me to handle on my own. I pointed out as patiently as I could that this happens a lot, asked that he keep track of time, and suggested that the next time the mail came he didn’t need to rush it to the office ASAP — especially since some of it turned out to be for me and he had to bring it back. He spent five minutes apologizing, but he still does something like this at least once a week, months later. I appreciated the apology, but I would have appreciated it more if he tried not to do it again.

This happens even when he identifies the issue himself, for example apologizing for calling me (a woman) and another coworker (nonbinary) “you guys” and basically mansplaining to us why he was wrong to use a gendered term that we might not be comfortable with … but he still defaults to calling every library visitor either “sir” or “miss.”

Because he apologizes so often, but he never follows up the “sorry” with any real change, I don’t actually take any of his apologies that seriously. Even though I know he feels bad, I’m frustrated and unsympathetic because all he does is feel bad.

It’s clear to me that this is internal to him and probably only a long course of dedicated personal work could help him get to the bottom of the guilt he feels over every other person’s minor inconveniences. It would be nice if he could dial it down three or four notches at work, though.

I’m in full BEC territory, not because I dislike him, but because it’s so exhausting. I have limited emotional space for his constant apologies and all the work I wind up doing to either communicate that I’m not upset about the thing he did (or someone else did, or the freaking weather did) or that while I appreciate a since “my bad,” what I really want is for the mistake not to happen again. I like him just fine as a person, but this habit has really worn down the respect and patience I’m able to hold for him as a coworker.

Do you have a kind script that I can use to communicate either or both of these ideas:
1. Don’t apologize for things you have no control over, or
2. If you do have control over the thing, try fixing it.
And if you don’t have a kind script, do you have one that might result in him not apologizing for how much he apologizes?

That sounds utterly exhausting. I’m sure this is coming from a deeply-rooted place on his side, but it’s demanding a lot of emotional labor from you each time: you have to pause the conversation and reassure him that it’s fine. I was worn out just reading about it.

That said, you might not be able to change it. This stuff is deeply-rooted, and sometimes it can become almost like a verbal tic where the other person isn’t even aware of how often they’re doing it.

But you can certainly try!

The next time he apologizes unnecessarily and there aren’t other people around (so you don’t embarrass him by calling him out publicly), you could say: “Can ask you a favor? You apologize to me and other people a lot and it’s unnecessary. It makes me feel like I have to pause the conversation and reassure you that it’s okay. I know it’s probably an ingrained habit, but I’d be grateful if you didn’t apologize to me so frequently.” If you want, you could add, “Or at all, really!”

He will probably apologize in response to this. I don’t think you can prevent that. But you’ll have laid the groundwork so that the next time he starts to apologize, you can cut him off and say, “No apologies” and then keep talking — and that part is key. If you just say “no apologies” and then pause, you’re leaving room for him to apologize for apologizing or otherwise continue in the vein, or to just feel awkward. It’s better if it goes something like this:

Coworker: “I saw you had to help that patron and I’m sorry—“
You: “No apologies needed! She was asking about books on llama grooming and it made me remember that time last year when we found that llama sleeping in the kitchen. Do you remember that?”

or

Coworker: “I saw you had to help that patron and I’m sorry—“
You: “No apologies needed! Hey, have you seen Lucinda? I wanted to ask her about the crocodile presentation she’s doing.”

And so forth.

Sometimes a visual signal like raising your hand in a “stop” motion is useful too, but the most important thing is to just quickly move the conversation to a different track and keep it there.

The more complicated piece is when you’re trying to get him to hear that you’re asking for a change in behavior, not an apology. In those cases, try this:

You: “You’ve been entering the oatmeal inventory incorrectly. Can you remember to use the checklist each time so steps aren’t missed?
Coworker: “I’m really sorry, I should have remembered, I am a terrible person—“
You: “No apologies needed. I would prefer if we could talk about how to do this going forward without you apologizing because that takes us off the main point, which is…”

But this can be really, really ingrained, so I’d imagine you’re looking at a lot of repetition of these strategies, unfortunately. If it helps to remember, though, it’s likely a kindness to him, since he probably doesn’t even hear how often he’s doing it.

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should I promote an employee who doesn’t get along with coworkers?

by Alison Green on September 24, 2024

A reader writes:

I am a general manager of two quick service restaurant locations. Running two locations has left me stretched very thin. Last September, I lost my assistant general manager, who helped me with all the day-to-day to make sure things ran smoothly at both stores.

Now enter my employee Abby. Abby is a shift supervisor at one location and the most senior employee besides me. Abby is an extremely dedicated and reliable worker. She is efficient at her job, but she lacks formal manager experience. She is also immature and instigates drama. Almost any and all drama, whether between other workers or our customers, usually has her at the center of it. She has bullied people in the past and would talk unprofessionally about coworkers. I have sat down with her several times and coached her on how to talk with her teammates and have seen slow improvement. I believe the team I have now does respect her, and much of the drama has subsided. However, I am now in the market to hire for the assistant general manager position, which she has has been clear she wants and believes she deserves. If I hire someone new, it would devastate her and she would regress to her formal unprofessional self and potentially quit. But I hesitate to offer her the promotion due to her past transgressions. Her feelings surrounding this have caused me to leave a position I desperately need filled empty for several months. Do I offer her the promotion and risk her going on a power trip and reverting back to her bullying ways? Or do I simply hire someone new who is qualified and let the cards fall where they will?

I answer this question — and two others — 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.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

  • Can employers reject candidates because clients might be biased against them?
  • Explaining to contacts why I’m job searching again after six months
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I’m intensely jealous of my coworker

by Alison Green on September 24, 2024

A reader writes:

I am extremely jealous of my coworker, and I have no idea what to do about it.

My coworker, let’s call her Lacy, and I started in the same entry-level position around the same time (Lacy started a few months before me). We’re similar in age and, while Lacy graduated from a much better university than me, had similar majors.

It was a terrible working environment for a long time due to our toxic manager, and Lacy and I bonded a lot over surviving. Then, about two years ago, there was a total overhaul of our department and our manager was replaced, along with almost all of the team except for the two of us.

Since then, Lacy has been promoted twice and makes almost 50% more than me, and I … am still in the same position. Objectively, I can understand why this happened. Lacy is very skilled and calm under pressure. Meanwhile, I struggle with socializing and really can’t handle pressure. In fact, even after her promotions, Lacy sometimes helps me with the more high-stress parts of my job.

I know all this objectively, but I am so, so jealous of her. When she got her first promotion, I had to leave the building because I was beginning to cry in front of her and our new manager. When her second promotion was announced, I had a panic attack and had to take a sick day. Sometimes, I can’t help but delay tasks that Lacy asks me to do because if she’s so great, surely she can do it herself (I know this isn’t how it works, this is just how I think in the moment). It’s hard for me to say thank you when she helps me out because it just feels like she’s rubbing it in, even though I know she isn’t.

It’s been two years, but I can’t adjust. My manager has talked to me about it several times throughout the years, and no one has mentioned firing or a PIP, but I’m sick of feeling this way. I know that this is on me, but I’m struggling so much. How can I change?

Two things: Change jobs, and therapy.

Change jobs because you’re miserable in this one! You’re comparing yourself to Lacy and having panic attacks over her accomplishments and even doing worse work yourself out of resentment, which risks harming you professionally. It sounds like you’ve been at this job for a number of years — and you’re deeply unhappy. Why not leave? You don’t need to stay and feel tortured.

But it’s essential to also pair that with therapy, because Lacy isn’t going to be the last person you encounter who triggers these feelings. I suppose it’s possible that there’s something specific to Lacy that’s unlikely to come up again — you’re similar ages and backgrounds, you started at the same time, you trauma-bonded together, and so it feels like whatever she achieves that you don’t reflects on you — but your reaction to her success has been intense enough that something is going on internally that’s not about Lacy and that’s likely to pop up in other ways in your life and make you unhappy, even after you’re long gone from this job. That’s therapy stuff.

Meanwhile, though, while you’re working on whatever those issues turn out to be (and it may be a while, because a lot of therapists have waiting lists for new patients right now and because even once you start, progress takes time), you really don’t need to keep trying to power through this.

If it were easy to solve with logic or mental reframing, you would have already done it.

Give yourself the gift of changing jobs. But also give yourself the gift of committing to delve into (with help) what led you here.

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my coworker was penalized for things I never said, junior employee keeps interrupting me, and more

by Alison Green on September 24, 2024

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

1. My coworker was penalized for feedback from me, but I never said those things

Recently, during my coworker Wendy’s performance review with her management team, she was denied a raise and demoted on paperwork to someone “still developing” instead of being listed as “meets/exceeds expectations.” The reasons for this were: a low customer loyalty score for our location (not an individual low score — and the other person in Wendy’s position was still given a raise and significant praise from management despite having the same score and Wendy having seniority), and because she’s been reported for “poor communication on Slack.”

When Wendy asked for specific examples of this, management couldn’t give her any, but included my name along with two others as the sources of this. I have never complained about Wendy to management, especially not in regard to Slack. The other two coworkers listed no longer work here, but I worked with one of them long enough to know she wouldn’t complain to management about something like this either. Our job is an in-person job in a small location, and I’ve noticed Slack is not the preferred mode of communication for many in Wendy’s position.

I feel extremely uncomfortable that my name was dragged into this. I want to escalate this in some way, to say I have never had a problem with Wendy and that I don’t appreciate being used in false accusations, but Wendy is apprehensive about potential retaliation. What should we do? What should I do?

You shouldn’t do anything without Wendy’s permission, but ideally you’d talk to your manager or hers and say, “I’m concerned there’s been miscommunication somewhere. Wendy spoke with me about concerns she thought I’d expressed about her communication over Slack but, as I told her, I’ve never raised concerns about her work or her communication and don’t have any. It sounds like someone misunderstood something somewhere. How can I get this cleared up so that she’s not wrongly penalized for feedback I haven’t given?”

But also — what’s going on in your workplace? Are they disorganized enough that feedback gets warped like this? Are they targeting Wendy for some reason? If this is at all part of a pattern rather than a one-time mistake that gets quickly fixed, I’d be concerned about what’s going on there.

2. My junior coworker constantly interrupts me in meetings

My junior report (who was moved to another manager last year) constantly interrupts me in meetings. I’ve tried multiple approaches to get her to stop. She’s white and mid 40s, I’m Asian and mid 30s. I’ve noticed she only does this to me and I’ve even had other members on our team say they’ve noticed it too.

The approaches I’ve tried:
– Speak over her and keep going when she tries to interrupt. This works sometimes but sometimes it doesn’t.
– Stop her and tell her I’m not finished yet. This has worked a couple of times but not always.

Other approaches I’ve considered:
– Talk directly to her and ask her to be mindful of the interruptions.
– Talk to her manager and ask him to talk with her about this behavior.

Talk to her one-on-one and name what’s happening and what she needs to do differently. For example: “I’m guessing you don’t realize it, but you frequently interrupt me in meetings. I haven’t seen you do this to other team members, but it’s frequent when I’m speaking. Please wait for me to finish speaking before you start talking.”

If that doesn’t work, then yes, flag it for her manager. It’s a big deal to regularly be interrupting a colleague, especially a senior one, and especially after she’s been spoken to about it and told to stop.

And going forward, every time she interrupts you from now on, hold up your hand in a “stop” motion and say, “Please stop interrupting me and wait until I’m finished.” It will get pretty awkward pretty quickly for her if you’re consistent about doing it.

3. Can I ask to be fired sooner?

After 18 years at a company, I was recently surprised at my mid-year review with a rating that I’m not meeting expectations. It was followed with a 60-day PIP. Originally, I told my boss that despite feeling surprised, I’m 100% committed to making changes. Since then, I have realized that I no longer want to work there but need to be able to collect unemployment in the interim while I’m looking for another job so I can’t just resign.

I have a hard time pretending to do a bad job but my mental health is taking a toll. Is there a script for me to discuss with my boss ending the PIP earlier so that I can be let go sooner and then start collecting unemployment while looking for a new job?

In some cases you could say something like: “I appreciate you being candid with me about your concerns. I want to be candid in return that I’m not confident about my ability to meet your expectations and I don’t want either of us to invest further time in the process if it’s unlikely to work out. Would you be open to wrapping up the process earlier and letting me go with an agreement not to contest my unemployment benefits?”

4. We’re switching to unlimited PTO and I feel cheated

My company allows up to five vacation days to roll over each year.

We recently underwent a compensation study and one of the results is that we will now have “open PTO.” No more separating of sick days, vacation days, personal time, or floating holidays. This will begin when our 2025 fiscal year begins.

The issue that many of my colleagues and I have is that they told us this with three weeks until the fiscal year begins. I was going to roll over 36 hours — between my already scheduled vacation days and the vacation days of my coworker (one of us has to be in our office at all times), there is not enough time for both of us to use all the time we were going to roll over. There is no compensation offered for our leftover time. HR claims that because the rollover time is the first time that gets used up and now we are unlimited, we will use it in FY25. My objection is that it is FY24 compensation that I am not receiving. Could this have been handled better?

Yes. They could have given you more notice of the change — at least six months, not three weeks.

The thing is, when you have a specific amount of accrued time off (rolled over or not), there’s no debate about whether you’ve earned that time: it’s there, it’s yours, you can take it. (That’s an oversimplification, since of course it’s subject to workload, coverage, etc. — but no one disputes that you have the time on the books.) When you just have unlimited PTO, there can be more of a question around it. For example, if you get four weeks off per year, and this year you have those four weeks plus a week that rolled over from last year … well, you’ve definitely got five weeks on the books. But when you switch to unlimited PTO, it may be harder to justify taking five weeks in a single year.

You and your coworkers should press for a longer notice period before the change is made.

5. What does this email from a recruiter mean?

I’ve been in a painstakingly long interview process with a well respected organization in my field for a senior level position. I’ve done a phone screen, hiring manager interview, and panel interview (all virtual). It was posted in early June and I applied right away.

I just received a baffling email from the recruiter and I honestly can’t decide what to make of it: “Thank you for your patience. Our team decided to move two candidates forward that have more X experience to the next rounds for now. You remain a strong candidate and still under consideration. I can provide another update in the next couple of weeks.”

What gives? The job would be a huge step up for me, an almost $70k/year raise at minimum so it’s not shocking (although I’m disappointed) that I’m not a finalist, but why not just reject me? The dangling / stringing along at this point is an huge bummer. Appreciate any insight or if this is a common practice with more senior roles?

That message means: “You’re not currently one of our finalists, but you’re strong enough that we’ll come back to you if neither of the two people we’re currently talking to pan out.” It’s actually very transparent! It’s not stringing you along; it’s letting you know pretty candidly exactly what’s going on.

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this one weird trick cured my burn-out

by Alison Green on September 23, 2024

In last week’s question about burning out doing work that you love, I wrote this:

I used to think the cure for burn-out was lots of downtime and relaxation — and sometimes it is — but what’s worked better for me personally is regularly using my brain for something completely different. Otherwise you’re just wearing the same grooves into it all the time and (at least for me) that’s been where my worst burn-out has come from.

In the comments, someone asked:

Would you be willing to do an entire post on this advice? This was mind blowing for me, and so useful! I’d really love to hear further perspective from you on it.

I’ve found it mind-blowing too. Here’s my experience with it.

Some years ago, I started a work advice column as a fun side hobby.

Then I accidentally monetized it.

Some time passed and the revenue grew enough that the column began to feel like a significant part of my work obligations. It was no longer just a fun hobby; it became a significant piece of what I do professionally, with deadlines and pressure to publish a certain amount of content on a certain (and frankly bananas) schedule.

It was also very similar to the rest of what I was doing professionally (management coaching — so in many ways the column was the written version of what I was doing with the rest of my time).

But I still really, really loved it, so all seemed okay. If anything, I felt like I was living the dream — everything I was being paid to do happened to be things I loved.

But somewhere around 2017, I realized I was overextended. I had constant deadlines, both here and for clients. I had to write on demand, every day, whether I felt like it or not.

And then I did many more years of that.

I was cranky, exhausted, and stressed out all the time. So I tried cutting back by jettisoning a bunch of clients. It didn’t work.

Every year, I would take the whole month of December off, thinking that a big chunk of time doing nothing would fix this. During that month, I could disconnect, relax, not think about work — logically, it felt like of course that should help. But every January 1, I’d realize that it hadn’t helped that much. I would try to figure out why; in fact, every year I’ve written myself a note to consult the following December, with ideas about how to make it more relaxing next time. But nothing worked.

I want to be clear: throughout all of this, I have loved my work, both here and for clients. I’m so happy to be doing it. It’s rewarding on a ton of different levels. So it was hard to understand why I was so exhausted, other than the sheer volume.

Then, early this year, I took on a new volunteer project that used a completely different piece of my brain. I don’t know why I thought this was a reasonable decision — I was already stretched so thin and didn’t think I had time for anything additional. But something in me really wanted to do it. (I can’t discuss this fully without saying that as a Jew I had been in a very, very dark place since October 7 of last year — very close to giving up on humanity in many ways — and this new volunteer work made me feel joy again, so I didn’t apply the “do I have time for this?” screen that almost certainly would have knocked it out of consideration otherwise.)

The volunteer work is weirdly perfect for me: I do it from home so I don’t have to go anywhere. It can be done at all hours of the day and night; I don’t have to commit to a specific schedule and can do it at 2 am if I want. It’s in many ways an F-you to big pharma, which I enjoy. It saves cats’ lives.

And it uses a completely different part of my brain than I’ve been using for years. I’ve had to learn a ton of new things, I have to do math, I have to think about science and medicine, I’ve had to learn to read bloodwork … it’s nothing like the rest of what I do.

And I haven’t felt burnt out once this year, even though I’ve added work to my life rather than subtracting it.

For years it seemed self-evident that I’d need to do less work, not more, if I wanted to feel less burned out. But somehow, after just adding something entirely different, I am no longer cranky, exhausted, or stressed out.

That’s what I meant when I talked about wearing the same grooves into your brain over and over. That’s the part that had run me down, not the busyness itself. I started some new grooves, and my brain feels … recovered. From adding work, not subtracting it — the exact opposite of what I had always assumed about burn-out.

I don’t think this will work for everyone. I think often downtime and relaxation is the answer. But I’d been trying that for years without success, and this worked like nothing else.

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