Ask a Manager

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

1. Overreaching employee wellness trainings

I work in a public facing setting. Today was the first of 12 monthly training sessions focusing on employee wellness. I know our administration means well, but today’s topic and subsequent sessions I regard as triggering, cringey and irrelevant to my job (think fitness, nutrition, body image, suicide prevention). I’m middle aged now, but I spent decades suffering from an eating disorder that I have learned to manage. To me, today’s “wellness” is updated code for the exercise and diet craze of the 80s that ruined my youth with distorted thinking.

Past staff meetings have focused on topics and issues related to our work, such as improving our research or customer service skills, implicit bias awareness and even public safety issues such as active shooter or CPR. Attendance is always encouraged but never required, and people miss the trainings for all sorts of reasons. For today’s session, our director sent an email stating that attendance was expected except for a work conflict or urgent deadline, or if the topic is triggering or causes distress, but we are to reach out to him in advance to discuss.

Is it just me, or is wellness in the workplace overreaching and paternalistic? Do I really have to share my past with my boss, who is 20 years younger? I should add that I am a supervisor, and as such feel it is my role and duty to provide guidance and help staff by addressing work-related problems and mitigating situations that are inherent to public service, hopefully to prevent burnout and malaise in the first place! Please let me know if I’m out of line here.

It’s not just you. It is indeed overreaching and paternalistic — and being required to discuss your reasons for opting out is invasive and inappropriate as well.

One option is to simply say, “I won’t be attending today’s session for personal reasons.” And then if pushed to discuss your reasons: “With highly personal topics like these, I don’t think we should push people to share what might be deeply personal reasons for opting out.” If you want, you could add, “I don’t think it’s appropriate to bring fitness and body image into the workplace at all and would like to see a return to work-related trainings.”

2. Rambling coworker is monopolizing our trainings

I recently started in an office job that requires several months of on-the-job training. One coworker in our group of about 20 constantly asks long, rambling questions that are often not related to the current topic. It’s so bad that I’ve begun timing her — she talks for a minimum of 25 but often up to 50 minutes every eight-hour work day.

It is driving me crazy, but our trainers seem to have been told to answer any and all questions. “There’s no such thing as a stupid question” is their mantra, but I think it’s out of control. It’s making me genuinely hate the training. How can I bring up this problem in a professional way? For the record, everyone else in the class notices this and is frustrated by her too, but nobody wants to speak up.

Those trainers are failing at their jobs; they need to be managing the training time for everyone, not letting one person dominate it. They’re almost certainly losing the attention and engagement of the rest of their captive audience. Frustrated, on-edge people do not learn well.

Are you willing to talk to the trainers privately and say that your coworker’s monopolizing of the class is getting in the way of the rest of you learning, and ask that they lay down ground rules about sharing air space and holding unrelated questions until another time? If you can encourage some of your frustrated coworkers to do the same thing, it’ll be harder for your trainers to ignore.

Read an update to this letter. 

3. Can I create my own writing samples?

Is it okay to make your own writing samples for a job? Despite having multiple degrees and several years of work experience, I don’t really have any articles I’d want to share. First, sometimes there’s contractual reasons I can’t (e.g., it’s internal work I did for an org). Second, one of my degrees I graduated from almost nine years ago, meaning the writing feels a bit dated. Third, my MA is theology so I’m not wild on supplying theology writing to a secular organization because it may color their opinion of my ability to be unbiased, even though the specificity of this degree means that I actually have a lot of training in “secular” things like community organizing, psychology etc. I know I can’t expect an employer to necessarily know that, especially if they’re getting a writing sample that talks a lot about Jesus in the process.

Anyway, I want to create some of my own writing samples. I figure one way to do this is to create my own academic writing (say by creating 2-3 academic styled essays) and reports, proposals, etc. But maybe it’s a problem if no one has scrutinized the work before? Before I go ahead, I figured I’d run it by someone else.

It’s fine to create your own writing samples if you don’t already have anything well suited to use. But don’t create academic-type essays unless you’re applying to jobs that specifically request those. Academic writing tends to be quite different from professional writing, and typically the sort of writing samples employers want to see are ones similar to what you’d be creating on the job. Generally that’s more likely to be press releases, briefing papers, blog posts, articles … or whatever is closest to the sort of writing you’d be doing in the job.

4. Books with competent, polished professional characters

Due to a series of sad, traumatizing events (deaths of several loved ones, financial setbacks, my own you-could-die-from-this medical diagnosis) in 2022, I’m finding it hard to find my focus and get back on track at work.I floundered in the second half of 2022 and it’s obvious to everyone I work with, especially management.

I am having trouble keeping my mouth shut about myself (no one wants to hear sad stories about their coworkers) and my “cheerful” facade is coming out all wrong. I think I’m being funny, but it’s just … weird. I’m realizing that my emotions are so messed up that I am finding humor in things that the average person very much does not think are humorous.

I want to pull myself out of it and *fast*, so I can’t wait the amount of time it will take to find the right therapist and get to the part where she and I have productive conversations. A thing I’ve noticed about myself, however, is that I can take on the personality / thought patterns of characters in books. (Pity my long-ago ex-boyfriend when I was reading Game of Thrones and identified with Cersei!).

So I thought I’d ask if you had any books, preferably fiction, whose character is someone you would like to see yourself or an employee emulate in the workplace? Doesn’t matter if the character kills vampires, solves murders in the 17th century, or is just living her life in the 21st century. Whatever. I just need to borrow someone else’s inner voice for a while until I stabilize.

I’m sorry you’re dealing with all this! This is a fascinating question and I thought I’d throw it out to readers for ideas.

Read an update to this letter. 

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

1. Is it rude to leave a coworker waiting for the elevator?

I recently got into a sort of mini-dispute with a friend from work about manners, and I’m wondering if you could weigh in.

I work on the second floor of my building. It’s a very short walk up, but there is a very slow elevator. I have one coworker, “Jane,” who always takes the elevator. I know she has some kind of physical disability (she sometimes brings a cane to work, sometimes visibly limps, and sometimes quietly opts out of certain activities) but don’t know any details. Not my business either way, but relevant to the dispute.

So, when I see Jane waiting for the elevator in the mornings, I usually say good morning and then head up the stairs. Recently, I happened to be walking in at the same time as my friend, who also said good morning, then stopped and waited for the elevator with Jane. I greeted both and went up the stairs. Later, my friend found me and expressed shock and disapproval that I hadn’t waited for the elevator as well. She said, “Jane doesn’t have a choice, and it’s very rude to leave her standing there waiting for the elevator.” I was surprised – I like Jane fine, but we’re not friends or close, and she’s perfectly capable of waiting for the elevator without a chaperone. And since I never take the elevator otherwise, it would feel very condescending, even if Jane didn’t know that’s why I was doing it.

So … is it rude to leave a coworker waiting for the elevator?

No! It doesn’t sound like Jane requires assistance and I’m sure doesn’t want people to feel obligated to wait with her. There’s nothing wrong with saying hi and then continuing on your way.

2. I recommended a friend and it went terribly

Earlier this year, I helped a friend get a job at a firm a few friends of mine work at. We’re all women who work in an extremely male-dominated industry so I try and advocate for other women as much as I can.

Recently my friend was fired so I took her out to drinks to catch up and she basically said that they were discriminating against her and people were purposely setting her up to fail. She is thinking about suing the firm and has retained a lawyer to support this.

I was really frustrated about her experience and reached out to my other friends, who had a very different story. Apparently she would delay projects by not working on things until they were at their deadline and then would pretend she was too busy on other projects to help. She would also leave work randomly during the day and would often set up fake meetings to instead go out and run errands. The final straw was when they had an important meeting but no one could get ahold of her so they were worried something had happened. They called police for a wellness check and it came out from her roommate that she had gone to the beach that day. They fired her shortly after.

I’m stuck in the middle right now and feel awful for recommending her and worried that I’ve ruined my own reputation as a result. I’ve tried talking to her and now she’s started accusing me of being in on it.

This is a friend I went to college with and I know she’s a capable person, which is why I’m so lost why she’s acting like this. Do I need to go and make my amends to my friends’ company? I just don’t know what I should do.

You’ve probably already said this to your friends, but if you haven’t, you should now: “I’m so sorry it turned out this way! Obviously I had no idea when I recommended her, and I’m really shocked to hear it.” But that’s really it — there’s no need for further amends. Sometimes hires go wrong, even when the person comes recommended. (And they presumably interviewed her and checked references!)

This shouldn’t ruin your own reputation. No one is going to think you are a bad worker just because she was. That said, it will probably weaken future recommendations for a while (if someone there previously trusted you implicitly to know who would be a good fit, they’re likely not to give your judgment on that quite as much weight for a while) but that’s a different thing from impacting your reputation more broadly.

Also, I’m guessing you’d never worked with your friend. Be really careful about recommending someone when you’ve never worked with them because you’re vouching for their work and work habits … and people can be really different as friends than they are as employees/coworkers. That doesn’t mean you can’t still suggest a friend for an opening, but you should be really clear about the limits of your knowledge — spell out that you’ve never worked with them and can’t vouch for their work, but you can attest that they are smart/personable/passionate about bears/whatever the case may be.

Read an update to this letter. 

3. I don’t want to put work charges on my personal credit card

I am a public librarian in a city of around 50,000 people. Frequently through the course of my work, I have to buy things with my own money and the library pays me back once a month. This isn’t terribly out of the ordinary. For instance, I may be out at Target on my own time, and I will pick up something I need for work and ring it up separately. These usually don’t amount to more than $10-$20 and aren’t a financial burden and, timewise, it makes more sense than making a special trip to Target on the clock.

However my director handed over the task of purchasing memorial books. Because these books don’t come out of the city’s budget, they need to be billed differently. She told me that I could just purchase the books with my Amazon account and they would get around to paying whenever (!). These orders can be pricey — from $30 to $500! I pushed back on this and found a different way to order them, but it’s not a great long-term solution.The department that is supposed to be paying for these books has refused to set up their own Amazon account.

My director has never worked for another city, and I think she thinks this is normal. (There are a few other ways the city is a little wonky but my boss just doesn’t see it and thinks that this normal.) How can I push back on the city borrowing money from me?

It sounds like maybe you already have! But if it comes up again, stay firm: “I’m not able to put more than very small charges on my own account. We’ll need to set up a department Amazon account or the department that needs these would need to order them themselves.” You can use that same formula for other situations too — “I’m not able to carry these charges myself so we’ll need to purchase them some other way.”

Think of the way you’d handle it if you didn’t have financial credit of your own — meaning that if the department that wants the books refuses to pay themselves and your department has no way of doing it, you’d presumably need to say, “We don’t have any way of ordering these without payment in place” (or you’d say that to your boss and ask what she wanted to do next). If someone pushes: “That’s not an option. What do you want me to do instead?” (I’m tempted to recommend, “That’s not an option, but you could put it on yours if you want to” — but I don’t like reinforcing the idea that employees should have to loan money to their employers.)

And you don’t need to defend your decision. Not everyone even has credit, those who do don’t necessarily have a credit limit that would accommodate large charges and/or may need to leave that credit open for other uses, and not everyone is comfortable carrying a balance on their cards for an employer. It’s also worth noting some employers really suck at reimbursing people quickly, leaving the charges accruing interest on the card if the person doesn’t pay it off themselves.

Read an update to this letter. 

4. Career advancement with social anxiety

Is there generally going to be a ceiling when it comes to career advancement for a person working through social anxiety (or possibly sensory overload)? I’m very good at my job, naturally take a leadership type role (helping others when needed, making decisions when asked/consulted, keeping track of work at a team level in addition to my own, things like that), but when it comes to things like social gatherings or even big meetings, I have bad panic attacks. We had an on-site happy hour and I could barely make it into the area without breaking down. I had to take a whole department meeting remotely because sitting in the room with everyone was too much. On on one or virtually I do fine, but in-person events are just tough. Even being in the office gets to be too much sometimes with interacting with others.

I’ve been told this will inhibit my advancement because I can’t just be unavailable if I need to have a breakdown. Is there anything (besides loads of therapy, which for various reasons right now is not available for me) that might help make it easier for me to advance? Is it even possible to move up the ranks into leadership/management without the networking/socializing aspect?

The networking does matter, but it’s also that as you move up there are more demands to lead and participate in meetings and other events. I wouldn’t say it would be impossible to move up under the conditions you describe, but definitely harder and the paths more narrow. If your entire job were remote without any expectation that you’d periodically show up in person, and if you’d be okay leading big meetings remotely, then it could be done. That’s becoming more and more possible, so I wouldn’t write it off completely … but it’s definitely a limiting restriction.

5. Can I ask my boss from seven years ago for feedback now?

About seven years ago, I received a six-month evaluation that was the worst of my career. It was a job I was really struggling with, and I really wanted to do well in it, even to the point of hiring a professional coach. But my review was a notch above scathing, and I was clearly headed for termination. Here’s the issue: I can’t remember exactly what was going wrong. Is it too weird to reach out to that boss, now about seven years later, to say, “Hi! I worked for you seven years ago, and I bombed. I’m about to start a new job. Can you offer some advice that might help me start off better in this new job or offer me some insight into where I was coming up short back when I was working for you?”

Seven years is a long time to expect someone to remember those kinds of details, unfortunately. If it were within a year, then you could definitely ask. But it’s probably unrealistic to expect she’d be able to give you useful feedback at this point. (You don’t remember it yourself, after all, and you were more affected by it than she was!)

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

1. VP is pressuring everyone into choreographed dances

My mother is a long-time elementary school teacher. She’s very good at her work: she’s popular among the kids, her classroom is a jewel in her school often shown to visitors, and her test scores are high.

This year, her school has a new, right out of school vice principal who has decided to tackle low morale among staff with mandatory spirit days, costume contests, and an obsession with “going viral” on social media (think noisy and disruptive parades in the hallways, dunking booths for fundraising, all sorts of “funny” stunts for TikTok). The VP’s latest plan for the upcoming holidays is to have teachers participate in long choreographed dances for schoolwide programs to entertain the kids — filmed and posted online, obviously. My mom is a diabetic in her sixties with a light palsy who goes to bed at 4 pm to rest up for the next school day. Is this not some form of age discrimination? “This woman is killing me” is my mom’s daily complaint of the VP. How can my mom tactfully explain that these high energy, often physical stunts are unfair to older or disabled teachers? The VP keeps careful tabs on participation and regularly cajoles those who aren’t “doing enough.” (Never says anything about actually teaching, though!)

Simply organizing these events isn’t itself a legal issue — the law would only come in if your mom explains she needs to opt out for physical reasons and is denied, or if she’s penalized for not participating after that. It sounds like the VP is inching right up to that line, if not already over it (with the careful tabs on participation and the pressuring people who aren’t doing “enough”). Someone needs to point out to the VP that they need to lay off the pressure and people of all ages could have reasons for not participating that the school needs to respect.

Has your mom said directly, “Physically these events aren’t options for me, so I’m not able to participate”? Or more broadly, “You know, these events are high-energy, physical activities that aren’t safe for many members of staff, including me. People need to be able to opt out without pressure or penalty”? In an ideal world, she’d be able to say this to the VP directly … but if she’s doubtful that’ll go over well, she might have better luck talking to the VP’s boss directly. She could also talk to her district HR and make a formal request for accommodations, but this is a situation where a more informal conversation with someone in authority might get the job done too.

2. I have a LOT of vacations planned this year … when do I tell interviewers?

This year will be a wonderful one for me — both my partner and I are turning 30, and we are getting married! On my calendar so far this year, I have a solo international trip planned for my 30th, an international trip planned for his 30th with his family, a friend’s bachelorette party, my own bachelorette party, our wedding, and our honeymoon (roughly in that order). For the record, I am very grateful to be able to afford to travel so much! I was not in this position a few years ago and am more than aware what a privilege this is. Much of this travel is already booked.

At my current job, I have plenty of PTO banked from last year (and accruing this year) to accommodate all this travel. However, this job has not been a great fit from the beginning (great org to work for, it just does not suit my skills or interests at all) and I have begun applying in earnest to roles that suit my strengths more. To my surprise, I’ve started receiving interview offers much earlier than anticipated.

When is the hiring process is it appropriate to bring up the unusually high amount of travel I’ll be engaged in this year? Too early, and I fear they won’t give me a fair shake as a candidate even if they could accommodate my travels. Too late, and I fear coming off as unprofessional or duplicitous. If a company simply cannot make it work, I respect and understand that need. I’m also happy to take unpaid time for travel that’s already booked if the situation calls for it. I would like to know the professional etiquette in this situation.

In case it should come up: working remotely during a vacation is not something I want to do. I had some unpleasant work experiences pre-pandemic and now guard my vacation time like a very small terrier with a very big personality.

That sounds like an awesome year … and it’s also a lot of time off to ask a new employer to accommodate. One or two of these, no big deal. Maybe even three. But six separate trips, at least four of which sound like they’ll be at least a week long, if not more … it’s a lot to hit a new employer with.

If you’re committed to changing jobs this year, my advice is to consider if you’re willing to hold off on any of the so-far-unbooked trips and whether you can make the two bachelorette parties weekend-only so you can leave them off your request list entirely. But you’re still going to be left with a lot of travel. Once you have an offer, I’d frame it this way: “I have a lot of travel planned for this year; I had banked a lot of PTO at my current job to make it work, but I understand it might not be feasible to do all of it when starting a new job. My wedding and honeymoon on (dates) can’t be moved, but the other trips are (dates). Is there any way to make that work? I’d be willing to take the time unpaid if that made it possible to do, but I also realize it might not be feasible.”

Be prepared to hear that they’ll accommodate the wedding and honeymoon but not the two international trips — and decide ahead of time what you’ll do if have to pick the job or some of the travel. But the less you’re asking for, the more likely they are to okay it … and unfortunately this is a lot! Some jobs would work around it, but a lot wouldn’t. Among other things, it’s going to depend on the type of job, your seniority, their need for coverage, what they’ve approved/denied for other people, and, to some extent, how much they want you.

Wait for the offer stage, though. Most employers don’t want to start thinking about these kinds of scheduling logistics until they’ve decided to make you an offer, and it’ll seem premature if you bring it up earlier. (An exception to that is if they mention you’d be heavily involved in a project during dates you know you’ll be away — like if you’d be organizing their big annual conference that takes place during your honeymoon. That’s worth flagging up-front to save everyone time.)

Read an update to this letter. 

3. My boss eats while on the phone with us

I have recently started a new job (almost three months ago) and it has been going great so far. The problem I have is with my supervisor. He has a very different approach to what is accepted when on the phone with the team than I do. He often snacks, eats, and chews while on the phone/zoom with the team (eight people). He talks with his mouth full when on the phone, too. Also, he often dials in from the way to work (when in traffic, on the bike, or outside). He never mutes his microphone in these instances, but talks through them. While it is hard for me to understand him sometimes, most of the time we can understand him fine but I just find this really disrespectful. We talk on the phone/zoom a lot, as half of the team sits in a different city and many of us work from home.

How could I bring this up, being a fairly new employee, without any (or with minimal) backlash? I have asked a colleague about it and they mentioned that they also find it disrespectful, but “this is how he is.” I don’t think this is something I can just accept at work, but it seems to be such a small issue to change jobs over.

There’s not really much you can do about this. Your manager has bad phone manners. Particularly as a new employee, you just don’t have the standing to raise it … although even if you’d been there a long time, it would be tricky to raise.

If you’re genuinely having trouble hearing him, you can certainly say, “Could you repeat that? I’m having trouble hearing you.” And if there’s too much background noise from his commute, you can say that too — “There’s a lot of wind and traffic noise on the line — can whoever is outside mute themselves?” or even more directly, “Ron, we’re getting a lot of traffic noise on your end; could you mute?” But there’s really no way to tell your manager at your new job to stop eating during calls.

Would you find it any more bearable if instead of seeing it as disrespectful, you saw it as “no one taught Ron this was rude; how embarrassing for him”? If you’re really thinking of leaving over it, it’s worth at least trying to reframe it for yourself first.

4. I’m embarrassed when people ask how my job search is going

I semi-recently moved cross-country to be closer to family, thinking it wouldn’t be too difficult to find a job after the move. Turns out I was laughably wrong. My job search has been brutal, with mostly total silence and the occasional mid-interview-process ghosting. However, what I find most difficult is explaining my job search to casual acquaintances who see headlines daily that employers are desperately hiring. I don’t know who those employers are, but it would appear they most definitely are not the people I’m sending applications to! As a result, it feels like an admission that I am either extremely lazy or wildly incompetent if I cannot get a job in the current environment.

I do know 90% of this my own projection. The other 10% are unhelpful recommendations, which I know is a part of every job search, but now it’s based on headlines. Saying something like “it’s tough but I’m keeping at it” is more likely to be met with skepticism because from what they are seeing, it’s not tough! I’m looking for a way to answer to the question of how the job search is going that will let people know I’m genuinely trying and don’t want suggestions or to answer more questions about it.

You could try, “Have you seen all the layoffs in the news lately? The job market has changed in a lot of fields.”

But I’d rather you sidestep the topic entirely than try to justify to people that you’re looking hard enough! When the subject comes up, why not say, “I’d love to talk about absolutely anything other than job searching — I’d be so grateful to think about something else.” You could add, “I promise I’ll update you as soon as there’s anything to tell.”

Read an update to this letter. 

5. The saying “people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers”

What is with the concept of “people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers”?

While in my experience there have been some managers that made it easier for someone to consider switching jobs, I’ve also been in enough management positions to recognize that sometimes your manager doesn’t have the fill-in-the-blank-whatever to change the things that would encourage you to stay. Maybe it’s a change in culture, maybe it’s a change in other ancillary things, or maybe it’s something that rises to the top of your personal life needs that requires looking for something else … you get the idea.

My awesome previous boss at my previous job asked me this question before I departed — and it really bothered me in that I knew they didn’t have the ability to change the reasons why I was leaving, and I felt it would be a disservice to him to say, “Yeah, this is why I decided to look for a new job, but it’s not you, it’s with the other things you can’t control.”

Maybe it should be, “People don’t leave jobs, they leave leadership / merger / structure / culture changes.”

Yes, a more accurate saying would be “people don’t leave jobs, they leave management.” Sometimes it’s the individual manager, but other times it’s management policies that are tying that person’s hands, or creating a culture you want to escape, or so forth.

Of course, people leave jobs for entirely different reasons too — more money (which isn’t necessarily a reflection on their management), a desire to do work the current place can’t offer, something really appealing about the new job/company that the current one doesn’t offer, a desire for change, moving across country, and on and on. You could have a company staffed entirely by fantastic managers and people would still leave; that’s okay and normal. So I don’t think the saying — either version of it — is entirely accurate, but it does capture the fact that a lot of departures are because of management issues, rather than the person wanting to escape the job itself.