Ask a Manager

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

1. Denying a new mom’s request for remote work while approving a different one

An issue has cropped up at my partner’s job, and I’m curious about your take on it. Pre-pandemic, the job was 100% in-person. During the pandemic, the company went remote. Post-pandemic, they returned to 100% in-person per the CEO, despite everyone proving they could work remotely, no drop in productivity, etc.

In the last year, two women (same position, same duties) got pregnant. They gave birth a few months apart. Woman A had one child. As she was getting ready to come back to the office, she asked to work from home two or three days a week because of a problem with childcare. This accommodation would last for one month to resolve the childcare situation then she could return to work full-time and in-person. She was denied.

Woman B had triplets. Just before her return to the office, she announced that she was relocating to a different state where she has family to help out. She also said that she would keep working for the company full-time, but in an office located in that state. The thing is, she’s going to remain a full-time employee of my partner’s office. So, basically, she’s working in a corporate office, but because she’s in another state, she’s working remotely.

No one is happy about this for so, so, so many reasons. While I know manager’s discretion is a thing, is this legal? It seems like they accommodated one person and not another despite the fact that their situations are the same (both just gave birth, both had childcare issues, etc. I know giving birth to one is different than three, but I don’t know if that makes a difference here).

It’s legal. It’s legal to treat different employees differently, even within the same job, as long as it’s not based on a protected characteristic like race, religion, sex, etc. (and intentions aside, as long as it doesn’t have a disparate impact on people in a particular protected class). That doesn’t mean it’s always smart or good management — although sometimes it is — but it’s legal.

In this case, it’s possible that Woman B is considered more valuable, so the company is more willing to accommodate her to avoid losing her. Or maybe since Woman A was only asking for a month-long accommodation, they’d rather have her extend her leave by a month until the situation is resolved. Or, who knows, it could just be the personal whim of the manager, or a manager who doesn’t accommodate anyone until it’s obvious that they’re quitting otherwise, or all sorts of other things.

But it’s worth noting that Woman A was asking to work from home and Woman B was asking to work from a different office and those are very different things. A company can dislike people working from home while being fine with them working from a different office. Woman A was also asking to work while simultaneously caring for a baby, and it’s not unreasonable for an employer to decide that’s not practical.

Regardless of the cause, though, it sounds like they’ve mishandled the communication around the decision. They might have avoided the reaction they’re getting now if they’d done a better job of explaining their reasons for each decision.

2. Job applicant didn’t tell me she’d been fired after applying

I was pulling together an offer for the top candidate for an open position. Let’s call her Mary. I work in higher education and Mary works in a different part of the same university.

Well, not exactly.

My HR officer reported back that Mary had been let go from her current job during her six-month probationary period. Mary applied on 10/15. Her termination letter was dated 10/28. My first interview with Mary was on 11/6.

During the interview, Mary did not share that she had been let go. However, I did not directly ask if she had been. Instead, I asked about her interest in our position and why she wanted to make the switch so soon.

Should Mary have volunteered this information? Most of the advice I see online tells people not to talk about being fired. I can’t help feeling like Mary lied to me and I am hesitant to hire her if I don’t trust her.

If she just didn’t volunteer the information, she didn’t lie. When she applied with a resume listing the job as current, it was true. As long as she didn’t then talk in the interview about the job as if she were still there (“I’m currently working on a project doing X, which we’ll launch in February…”), she didn’t lie to you.

It’s very, very common for people to be unsure about how to handle the situation was Mary was in and — as you saw — a lot of the advice out there tells people not to proactively raise it with an interviewer (but still be honest if asked), including mine.

If you have questions about what led to the firing, you can certainly ask Mary about that, but I wouldn’t penalize her for not proactively alerting you that it happened.

3. Punny edits to work documents

I’ve just started a new job at quite a prestigious marketing firm. One of my new colleagues, let’s call him John, was on leave during my first few weeks. Everybody was hyping him up as the life of the office, a real character, can’t wait for you to meet him, etc. etc. Alas, turns out his brand of humor is pretending to mishear instructions, e.g. he’ll respond to “could you fetch the printouts” with “why would you want me to fetch primordial ooze?” and then he’ll try to maintain the joke for another minute or three. (Note: he’s definitely not hard of hearing or buying time to process.) It’s an unfunny annoyance, but whatever.

However, his other party trick is editing puns into work documents. I work on the text side, while John designs. So, if I send him 10 banners to design, one is bound to contain a naughty pun when it comes back to me for feedback. He’ll also sneak “puns” into file names — so a PDF named Marketing_batch_3 might come back as snarky_batman_3 (that’s not even funny!). At my previous gig, this was a DEADLY SIN. You would get raked over the coals! The risk of a punny document being circulated? And reaching our clients, who take their subject matter very seriously? I’m astounded that nobody seems openly bothered. As a newcomer, and with him being obviously popular, I’m not sure what to say.

Since you’re new and everyone else seems to find John hilarious, you probably don’t have much standing to say or do anything, other than privately roll your eyes. The exception to this would be if you’re in a position of authority that gives you standing to address it — like if you’re John’s boss or the person with the most ownership of the documents he’s working on. Otherwise, though, chalk this up to different offices tolerating different things, even when they shouldn’t (and make a point of checking the name of every single file John sends you).

4. Are visibly mended clothes still professional?

I’m a huge proponent of sustainable fashion, which includes mending my own clothes as needed. Recently I had to mend one of my work shirts that had a rip in a place where my best option was to apply a patch. It’s about as visible as most stylized elbow patches, and in a complementary color to the pattern of the original fabric, but given the placement it’s pretty obvious this wasn’t an original design feature. Can I still wear the shirt in a business casual office? Would the answer change if the mend was as noticible but more decorative, like embroidering a flower to cover a hole?

For context, the dress code at my office is more like “creative business casual.” Jeans and t-shirts aren’t allowed, but one of my boss’s favorite button-downs has an unsubtle pattern of skulls, another person tends to wear tops and pants in very loud contrasting prints, etc., and in most ways I’m one of the more conservative dressers in the office. I’ve had a few positive conversations with my boss about sustainable fashion, as its tangentially related to our field, and I’m sure I could just ask, but I’m curious as to whether you think “no visible mends” is a universal/reasonable rule in the same way that “no visible holes” would be.

A visible mend via a patch should be fine in all but the most conservative dress codes (and even in a lot of those it would still be fine). In an office where the boss is wearing a skull shirt, have zero worries.

5. Including a background check with your application

I’ve been listening to a podcast that has a lot of ads for a background check service that says including a background check with your resume will give you a leg up. This is ridiculous, right? If a company wants a background check, they won’t trust one you do on yourself!

Yeah, this is weird and not helpful. I assume the intent isn’t to imply this would replace the background check the company would run on you, but rather is supposed to demonstrate that you’ll be able to pass it … but “can pass a background check!” is not a terribly exciting qualification on its own (especially since more people pass checks than not) and it’s likely to make you seem naive and/or out-of-touch with professional norms. This company is just trying to make money off you and you should ignore them.

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

1. Should I organize an all-men beach weekend for my coworkers?

I work at a bank branch of about 17 people, nine of whom are male. I’m considering inviting all the guys in the office for a weekend at the beach. We all get along and enjoy golfing, and think it could be a fun weekend. I wouldn’t be advertising it around the office because this would be a “guys weekend,” but since all the guys in the office are being invited, I’m anticipating the women in the office hearing about it and causing some drama.

Am I overthinking this because of the office culture we live in today, or is there a specific way that I should approach this? No work is going on during the trip, so no “deals” are being made. We are simply hanging out. The simple fact is that us guys are all pretty friendly towards one another and enjoy each other’s company. We’re all on the same career path and no one officially answers to or manages the other. Thoughts?

Yeah, it’s likely to be a problem. There’s a long history of women being excluded professionally through informal all-male social networks, where men are included in networking and business conversations in off-hours social settings without women. You have to understand that history to understand why, even if you 100% don’t intend this that way, it’s likely to have echoes of that to people. (Especially with the golf, by the way, as that was a traditional way women were excluded. Golf and strip clubs.)

Don’t be part of that, and definitely don’t be the person who organizes it. At a minimum it’s going to look really bad, and you may end up causing real issues in your office, as well as making people above you question your judgment.

And if you’re really friends with all the men in the office and none of the women, it’s worth thinking about why that is, since in a group of 17 people, that’s not likely to be a random quirk of statistics.

– 2018

2. Can I ask for a chance to process things at work before responding?

I’m an introvert who works for and with a group of extroverts. When in critical work conversations where my boss is giving direct feedback or asking my input on changes she’d like to make to the team that I manage, I often find myself unable to think on my feet and clearly articulate what I think would work best. I know myself well enough to know that I almost always come up with better answers when I’ve had time to process things. I should add that my boss is sometimes known to spring large changes on people in our organization without much warning.

I’ve thought about asking for some of those types of “change” announcements/suggestions in email, or asking for a day or two to think about things, but I’m afraid of it not being received well or being perceived as weaker because some of the other managers aren’t like this and she likes to make quick decisions. Is it ever appropriate to ask for a chance to process? If so, when and how? If that’s not appropriate, what else can I do?

Yes, at least sometimes. Ways to say it in the moment:

* “I want to take a little time to reflect on this. Can I come back to you with input by Thursday?”

* “Do you need our thoughts right now, or could we take a couple of days to think on this and then revisit it?”

* “My initial thought is ___, but I haven’t fully digested it yet. Could I take some time to think this through and come back to you later this week?”

You could also address it more big-picture with your boss: “I find I’m more able to give you input on things like X and Y if I have some time to think rather than doing it on the spot. I know that’s not possible with everything, but where there is room to circulate things a bit before we’ll be asked to comment on them, it would help me give you better input.”

– 2018

3. Taking a two-month vacation my first year on a job

I’m fresh out of college (though I started late and am now 30) and an important thing I wasn’t able to do before now was really in-depth travel (due to either school or low-paying temp jobs between semesters). I now can happily say I have a two-month vacation planned in Asia with my best friend starting in eight months! We’ve been saving and planning for over a year.

The only problem is: now that I’m done with school, I’m excited to start looking for career opportunities and have found my ideal job is hiring. I’m qualified, it’s a company I really want to work for, and a job I feel passionate about. I don’t want to go back to a unrelated job when I know I’m ready for more and need the resume experience. Is it irresponsible to apply for a career job knowing I’ll be gone in eight months for a two-month span?

Should I bring my vacation up if I get the offer? Should I see what the job is like and then work on selling the trip as benefiting the company and myself in the role (it likely would help as the job is about cultural outreach within my city). I’d love to do the job remotely if they’ll let me, but I doubt I’ll know if remote is possible until I start. Is it professional to politely quit and tell them I truly hope they’ll have an opening for me when I return?

All of this is under the umbrella that I’m an excellent worker. I’ve never been fired, get promoted quickly, and my reviews are frequently in the “exceeds expectations” category. I love working and my dedication to the company and the job always shows.

Assuming you’re in the U.S., it’s very unlikely that a junior-level job is going to let you take two months off at once … ever, but especially in your first year of working there. You typically have to have a lot of capital built up to get an employer to agree to that, and if you’re just getting started in your field, you’re very unlikely to have that capital.

That’s not to say it’s impossible. It’s possible that you could find some company that would agree to it, if you negotiate it as part of your offer. But the vast majority of employers will say no to it.

It’s also not a good idea to go in planning to quit after such a short time (and by the time you’re hired and start, it’s likely to be only six months or less before the vacation), especially since you called it your ideal job. That’s likely to burn a bridge and not be great for your resume.

If you’re committed to doing the two-month vacation, you’d be better off waiting to job search until you’re back from it. But that has its own drawbacks, and sometimes it’s easier to get hired when your degree is brand new. (2023 addition: You could also try to negotiate a start date for after you return.)

But the timing here may just not work out; it might not be realistic to take a two-month vacation in the same year you’re launching yourself into a new field.

– 2018

4. I’m embarrassed that my boss found out I’m living with my parents

I’m 26 years old and moved back in with my parents three months ago as a combination of getting renovicted (where a landlord evicts a tenant under the, sometimes false, reason of conducting renovation) and wanting to save up a down payment to purchase my own place.

I work in an office and have been with the company since graduating five years ago. On a recent day off, my manager called the home phone and my mother picked up and handed the phone to me. I think they were provided an outdated phone number by HR.

Obviously I am embarrassed by this, as I especially don’t want people at work to know I moved back home as an adult. People will tend to judge you and look at you a certain way and I am aware of that. Basically I’m afraid that word will get around and affect my work relationships and/or future prospects with this employer. Why would a manager want to advance someone or recommend someone who doesn’t seem to have their personal life together?

I know it shouldn’t matter on paper but people don’t behave like that. Am I being paranoid? My plan now is just to basically just ignore it ever happened and be truthful if asked (and to get HR to update my cell #). What else should I do?

You are indeed being paranoid, or at least just overthinking this. This is not a big deal! It’s not even clear that your boss knows for sure that you moved back home (for all he knows, maybe your mom just answered your phone because you couldn’t get to it in time). But even if he does know or asks about it in the future, it’s no big deal to say “I’m saving up a down payment to purchase my own place” or “I’m temporarily at my parents’ house because my landlord decided to renovate.”

Living at home doesn’t mean you don’t have your personal life together. It’s true that it can come across that way if there are other signs of that too — inability to hold down a job, refusal to engage with the rest of the world, etc. But assuming that you otherwise seem reasonably together, it’s very unlikely that this would enter into your manager’s thinking about Professional You.

– 2018

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

1. My boss asked me to do her kid’s homework

I’m a receptionist, and although I have a cordial relationship with my supervisor, it’s pretty strictly professional. The other day, she came to me at reception during working hours and basically asked if I would do part of her sons’s homework assignment for him. I think it’s because she knows I have a design background and the part of his project she was asking me to do was to create a logo. While she was technically asking me, her approach was the same as when she asks if I have enough downtime to take on admin tasks for the office, and although it was not explicit, I felt pressure to accept it like a work assignment.

I declined as politely as I could (mostly because I don’t think it’s right to do a child’s homework for them), using an admin task as a cover excuse. She did let it drop, but am I wrong to feel it was inappropriate of her to ask, homework ethics aside?

What! No, you are not wrong — that’s entirely inappropriate on multiple levels. She was asking you to do something that wasn’t work-related when there’s a power dynamic that she should have known would make you feel awkward about saying no, and the particular thing she was asking you to do was in itself inappropriate (her kid’s homework! WTF!). I am not a big believer in shame, but really, how does someone ask that with no shame?

You handled it really well — you declined in a way that minimized awkwardness for both of you but allowed you to say no, and while reinforcing that you have actual work to do. Some people might advocate for addressing it more directly, but unless it’s part of a pattern of inappropriate requests from her, I don’t think you need to do that. If it happens again, then yes — but for now, I’d consider it handled.

– 2016

2. My coworker is being greedy about office supplies and snacks

I am in charge of ordering office supplies and snacks for the office. I feel one employee is asking for too many things. First she asked for some pens, so I got her a set of different colors. A few months later, one ran out of ink so she mentioned it had run out, but I just brushed off her hinting — colorful pens are not essential, she can buy her own or use the standard office stuff. Then she asked for a humidifier “for the office” and when I pointed out it wouldn’t work so well for our open plan office, she then pivoted to “there are desktop models” and I thought to myself that then it wouldn’t really be “for the office.” In this case I told her it probably would not be approved as an expense and did not pursue it further.

Lately she has been asking to order more snacks for the office. I do supply snacks; we are not restricted as to budget but I don’t want to abuse the perk, so I comparison shop and buy occasionally, and I have bought her things she liked in the past. But she has asked three or four times in the last couple weeks for purchases of different snacks. Maybe I am on a high horse, but I don’t want everyone to think that just because there are snacks available, it is a never-ending free-for-all, nor do I want them to think that just because they ask for stuff, that they get it no questions asked. We get plenty of free things — coffees, sodas, snacks, lunches, weekly breakfast, etc.

No other employee asks for so much so constantly. How do I make it clear to her that she is asking for too much, and to stop pestering me to get her stuff that ostensibly is for the whole office, but she really means just for herself? If she wants more snacks than the company offers, or a humidifier or special pens, she can get them herself. I don’t want her to be treating the office account like her personal Amazon. She’s been an intern here for six months and has transitioned into a full-time employee so I expect I will be dealing with her behavior long term.

You sound pretty frustrated with her, but you’ve just been hinting and hoping she’ll pick up on your hints. Before you get more frustrated, you need to tell her directly what you can and can’t do, and what she should and shouldn’t expect. If she asks for special pens, then you say, “We just provide the standard pens in the supply closet, and people provide their own if they want something special.” If she asks for more or different snacks, you can say, “I was happy to buy you some specific snacks a few times as a favor, but typically that’s not something I do — with so many people here, I can’t really take everyone’s individual orders.” And if she asks for something special for her desk like a humidifier, just say, “That’s not something the company provides, but you could of course bring one in yourself if you want to.”

In other words, just be matter-of-fact and explain the situation. I think you’re expecting her to figure it out on her own (and you’re right that most people do), but since she’s not, you can probably solve this by spelling it out for her.

– 2018

3. Going into business with my boyfriend’s family

I have been with my boyfriend for six years now, and lived with him for five. I’m extremely close with his family, especially because my own family lives across the country, to the point that I’ve been invited to holiday events even when my boyfriend was unable to attend, and generally feel treated the same as him and his siblings.

Recently, his sister has come up with a business idea that springboards off the current brick-and-mortar store that she and her mom (same as boyfriend’s mom) run together. The plan is for it to be much less of a small-business thing, but it will still be a family-run thing as it’s a website and my boyfriend and his brother are web developers, I have some particularly helpful experience, and their father has run a larger business.

They are super enthusiastic about the skills I can bring to the business and naturally have already slotted out a place for me. I’m really enthusiastic about helping them and being part of the business (however inadvisable that might seem) but I want to raise the subject of the fact that I’m just attached by girlfriend status, but in a much nicer way.

My boyfriend is not likely going to scoff at my mentioning this sort of thing. We talk about “would one of us be able to handle the rent on our own?” every time we move into a new apartment, and I’m not at all worried that his family would suddenly try to edge me out if my boyfriend and I were to break up. But I’d like to discuss how we’d handle it if we wanted our space from each other after a possible break-up and if we no longer wanted to work together. I’m not sure if I ought to stress that we’re doing well as a couple and I’ve no plans on breaking up, or how to word this properly or even if it’s something I should just leave it alone and think “we’ll deal with it when we get there” due to how long we’ve been together happily.

You should absolutely talk about this and, depending on what’s decided, you might need to get something in writing about it.

When things are good, it’s very easy to think, “Even if we broke up, we’d handle things amicably. We love each other and we’re good people, so we’ll be able to figure it out.” But life can throw curveballs that you can’t predict, and plenty of people who thought they’d have kind, healthy break-ups instead have hostile ones. So it’s pretty important that before you get entwined with this family business, you lay out plans for what you’d do in a worst-case scenario — because as much as you feel like family right now, if things do go south, that can change pretty quickly.

You could say it this way: “I love that y’all make me feel like family, but to protect everyone, I want to recognize that I don’t have the same family ties that you do, legally or otherwise, and figure out how we’d handle things if Percival and I ever weren’t together. Obviously I hope that won’t happen and there’s no reason to fear that it will, but if we’re going to go into business together, I want to make sure we’ve thought through how we’d handle things if that ever changed.”

One potentially clean way to do it would be for you not to be a partner in the business, but instead to provide your services as a contractor. That’s an easier relationship to break off if you ever need to.

– 2016

4. Offering to take an interviewer on a tour of my current company

I work in a highly technical field — design and installation off large IT infrastructures, like server rooms. I have had an interview with several SVP’s at a new company two weeks ago, but nothing seems to be moving forward.

As the job is all about systems engineering, what about inviting one of the interviewers to my current company for a tour and to show examples of my work? It may sound awkward, but the new company actually is an on-site customer of my current company, so seeing new company people in the our building is completely normal. And there would be absolutely no suspicion from my current management. My goal here is to further impress the new company by showing physical examples of my work. What do you think of this out-of-the-box approach?

No, don’t do it. That’s a misuse of your current company’s trust in you — and the prospective employer is likely to see it that same way.

Two weeks ago seems like a long time when you’re waiting to hear back about a job, but on the employer side, it’s not that long. Give them time to do whatever they’re doing. If they want more information from you, they’ll come back and ask.

– 2016

5. Can I be written up for spitting?

I work in a small IMO insurance firm as a marketer and graphic designer. Today while outside smoking (I spit when I smoke), my boss came to me and told me that if he ever found me spitting on the walk way again he would write me up. We rent the building we are in and there is nothing in the lease (according to my office manager) about the condition the walk way is left if we should move to a new building. My question is: Can he really write me up for spitting out of habit?

I don’t see why not. That’s disgusting.

– 2009