Ask a Manager

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

1. Employee wants us to pay for an Uber when they have to work late

A member of our team does not have a car and uses the bus for transportation. The role has occasional evening work (2-4 times a year), and the bus they take stops running in the early evening. Is it reasonable for them to request reimbursement for an Uber home in these situations? I feel like I’m being unreasonable if I say no, but we don’t reimburse gas/mileage for people who drive to work. Isn’t this an expense they have assumed by not having a car?

Eh. If the job frequently required working past the time public transportation was running, then yes, this would be an expense they assumed by not having a car. But expecting someone to have a car because they have to work late 2-4 times a year isn’t reasonable or realistic. You’re not obligated to cover the cost of an Uber home, but I would. It’s worth the relatively small expense to have an employee feel you’re taking care of them when they’re going above and beyond for you, and to not feel resentful that they lose money by meeting the needs of their job on those days.

Obviously the flip side of this is what to say if an employee with a car complains their own travel expenses aren’t covered on those days. You can point out that their commute expenses aren’t any different on those days than on others, but if they’re ever in a situation where that changes (like their car is in the shop when they need to work late), you’ll cover it for them as well. If that ever becomes so burdensome as to be unrealistic, you can revisit it then, but it probably won’t.

2. My coworker jumps to answer the phone, then complains about it

At work we have a system for the phones: It rings twice to the secretary, then everyone’s phone rings until someone picks it up. We’re all supposed to take turns answering the phone when the receptionist is out, and she only works half days so that’s pretty frequent.

I have a coworker who is unnaturally fast at answering the phone; sometimes she gets it before the first ring has even stopped. She is almost always the first person to answer it, and then she complains constantly about being the only person who answers the phone. I mean, seriously every time I talk to her, she’s mad about the phones. I’ve tried explaining that if she lets it ring longer, the rest of us will have a chance to help, but because she answers it so fast no one else can touch it. Then she’ll go on a long tangent about being happy to help, and it’s fine, but she just wants everyone else to help with the phones too.

I don’t how to explain to her that she’s not giving people the chance to help her. She’s mad about a problem she created and won’t take advice on solutions, but she does want to complain. Is there anything I can do to help her see the obvious solutions? Are there solutions or something else I’m missing here?

If you’ve already tried explaining it, probably not — she’s getting something out of martyring herself over this. But you can certainly try saying, “Would you please do me a favor? Would you spend one week not answering until the third ring? I can almost guarantee you that other people will jump in and handle it, and you won’t be upset anymore.” If she refuses to try that and continues complaining, then you can respond with, “Well, you know the solution, so if you want it to change, that’s what you should try.” Feel to also ask point-blank, “Why don’t you?”

3. Does using a computer in meetings make me look bad?

A mentor/consultant I’ve been working with said something to me this week that has me slightly boggled: that if I use a laptop to take notes during meetings, I’ll be seen as a “secretary” (her word). I know there are many old, tired tropes about admin workers, and I’m not trying to promote them, but I also want to be realistic and aware of how I might come across to more senior colleagues or other outside stakeholders whose impressions might matter.

For context, I’m a mid-30s woman (but I often look/dress on the younger side day to day, no makeup), working in a creative-ish role in a non-creative industry (which can come with its own perception issues — though I’m working on telegraphing “organized” vs. “bursting with ideas” in meetings/presentations). We have a fairly casual-dress office and I have generally positive relationships with my colleagues, but there are one or two senior staff who don’t seem to view me/my role with as much professional respect as I’d like to develop, so the nuance is part of what I’m considering important.

The comment was made 100% as helpful advice from a really experienced consultant whose read on things has so far been pretty spot-on, who has a strong understanding of our local community, and who seems to be really attuned to politics/vibes of how things look and how to work with that reality. I trust her.

AND I can’t help but wonder if this is really true!?!? I have colleagues who use computers in meetings 100% of the time and seem to telegraph “I am a productive and maybe nerdy multitasker” and not “I’m the note-taker,” but they’re male and tech-adjacent, and I know the standards are not the same, even subconsciously.

But I really rely on being able to take notes, especially during long meetings, and I’m worried that trying to avoid them will just result in me being less organized and missing stuff. I’m not always able to jot down notes right after a meeting.

How much weight should I put on this advice? Is there a difference between an open laptop vs. a notebook vs. a small notepad vs. a digital tablet? If I’m able to jot down clue words without looking down much, is that an okay compromise? How do other people just remember stuff without any help?!

In most offices this would be a complete non-issue. But because the advice is coming from someone who’s highly attuned to your particular culture and whose read has been spot-on so far, I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand.

I’m a huge note-taker and can’t imagine retaining everything I need to retain from most meetings without taking notes, and I’m a lot faster on a laptop than I am with pen and paper. There’s no practical way to give that up, nor would I advise it. Whatever people might think about note-taking, it’s far worse for your reputation if you forget things that pertain to you.

However, I do think it matters what your note-taking is like. If you’re keeping up a fairly constant stream of typing throughout the meeting, that’s a lot more likely to land in people’s brains as “taking minutes,” whereas if you’re just occasionally jotting down things that relate to you, it shouldn’t.

4. When side conversations interrupt a guest of honor

What is the etiquette around work conversations when employees are gathered to celebrate an individual (think retirement, moving away, getting married, etc.)?

Our VP attends these luncheons and frequently starts talking business with a few of the other attendees. In the meantime, we’re supposed to be sharing stories about the guest of honor, or at least listening to what they may have to say. Today, we had a lunch gathering for an employee who is getting married, and at the request of the party organizer, most of the people in the office submitted marital advice for him to share with his fiancé. As he was trying to read the submissions to the group, our VP was entrenched in a work-based conversation with another employee, and I had to politely ask them both to listen to the guest of honor. Is there a better way to manage this, or is it par for the course when work colleagues get together?

It’s very common for work to get discussed at office social gatherings, but your VP was being rude in doing it in that particular moment, when the guest of honor had the floor. The VP could benefit from reading the discussion on last week’s post about being a gracious leader!

When this happens, can you first try saying something like, “Can I have everyone’s attention up here on our guest of honor?” If that doesn’t solve it, be more direct: “Bob, Celeste, would you mind pausing that conversation so we can hear Falcon?” (That said, this assumes that the internal politics on your team allow you to call it out directly. Usually, with an event like this, you’ll be able to. But if you’re dealing with a higher-up who will take poorly to that, then all you can really do is let him demonstrate to the other attendees what a boor he is.)

5. Are there any limits on “other duties as assigned”?

I work at a state agency and am struggling with being assigned (voluntold) duties that are outside the scope of the position. How far can an employer claim “other duties as assigned” when they have nothing to do with the job description or my profession? I have requested a raise, promotion, and an additional employee to take on the extra workload. All have been denied.

About these additional duties: Employee 1 was fired and their responsibilities fell in my lap. Employee 2 was retiring soon so 40% of their workload was assigned to me. After that, their replacement refused to take back this part of their job. To quell any unrest, the 40% was permanently assigned to me. These changes occurred nine years ago. I’ve stuck with this job for the excellent benefits package and this is my last stop in my working career.

I am two years from full retirement and five months from being eligible for the state retirement program. It’s obvious to me that upper management is unwilling to adjust my pay equal to my responsibilities due to my possible retirement in the next two years.

I’ve complained to my supervisor, and he understands my plight but says his hands are tied. Is there legal standing protecting the employer with “other duties as assigned” clause in the job description?

There’s no law that defines “other duties as assigned” or limits the responsibilities an employer can ask you to take on, even if the work is wildly outside of your job description. However, if you have a union, you might have a contract that limits it, so definitely check there if they exist. Otherwise, though, an employer can make your job pretty much anything they want.

In this case, you’re especially unlikely to get any traction because it’s been nine years. The time to push back was in year one — ideally then you would have taken advantage of your employer’s desire to “quell any unrest” and been the person generating that unrest who they wanted to appease (instead of ceding that ground to the new hire who was allowed to refuse to take the work back). But at this point, when the new responsibilities have been part of your job for nearly a decade, the chances of them agreeing this isn’t your job are much lower — and even more so if they’re calculating that you won’t leave over it because you’re so close to retirement.

That said, you could certainly approach this the way you would any overwhelming workload (“I can do X, Y, or Z but not all three — what do you want me to prioritize?”).

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

1. Trainer had religious messages on his presentation screen

I attended a multi-day training a few months back where the trainer who was running the presentations had extreme religious images/quotes as his laptop background, so every time they were between presentations, the image was projected on the screens at the front of the classroom. If the images/quotes had been of the “love thy neighbor” type, I probably would’ve clocked it as not the most appropriate in a professional environment but also pretty harmless. The message was not this. It was “the wages of sin is death,” we’re all sinners who will burn in hell if not for Jesus type of quotes, arranged in the shape of a large cross. It was … extremely unsettling.

I’m guessing someone said something about it, because about halfway through the training he switched his background to a generic Microsoft background. I had wanted to say something, but was unsure how to approach it since religion is such an individual and personal thing, and it felt weird as an attendee to ask the trainer to change his screen. How would one go about asking someone who is in a position of authority at least if not power to make such a change?

To make the question more interesting, I’m interviewing for a senior leader position next month, and that position supervises that particular trainer. If I were this person’s supervisor and saw that kind of religious message on his computer, how would I address it? If it’s just on his computer background and wasn’t projected to an audience, do you say nothing? If it were a less violent message, would it be okay if it were projected to an audience? Would a blanket “don’t have a religious background when projecting to an audience at work” rule be legally appropriate? I know general expression of one’s religion in the workplace is protected and I would never want to single someone out for their religious beliefs, but this feels different.

Wow, yeah, that’s wildly inappropriate. You weren’t there for religious proselytizing; you were there for a work training.

You were absolutely entitled as a training participant to speak up and ask him to change it. One way to do it would be to talk to him privately on a break and say, “I don’t know if you realize your screen background has religious quotes, but I’d appreciate if you’d change it to something neutral since we’re here for a work training.” On the other hand, you’d also be on solid ground in speaking up during the class itself and saying, “I find that background really distracting and off-topic. Could it be changed?” (Personally I’d do that one because I think there’s value in other people seeing pushback on this stuff, and I also wouldn’t want to sit here with it for hours before an opportunity to talk to him privately, but I’m also less shy about making a scene over this sort of BS than many people are.)

As his manager, it would be 100% okay to require that all your trainers use neutral presentation backgrounds with no personal messages on them (this would cover not just religion, but sports, politics, marijuana leaves, and on and on).

2. Should I report my son’s friend’s dad for sharing confidential student data?

I teach history an elite prep school (something akin to Chilton for you Gilmore Girls fans out there). Thanks to tuition discounts that faculty receive, my son “Jack” is able to attend and is in the fifth grade. The school does standardized testing twice a year. During the most recent round of testing, Jack was sick and did not perform his best. My husband and I chose not to show him his test scores because he’s a perfectionist and we knew it didn’t reflect what he is capable of. Recently, I overheard his best friend, “Milo,” teasing him because Milo had outscored him on the test. He knew Jack’s scores in specific categories and was able to compare them to his own.

Given that Jack had no idea what his score was, Milo had to get the information somewhere else. I strongly suspect Milo learned the scores from his father, who works for the school in IT. His father has the ability to access grades and test scores that others can’t.

Here’s my dilemma — do I report my suspicions? On the one hand, Milo’s father is potentially sharing confidential information with students, which is a fireable offense. On the other hand, if Milo’s father loses his job, there’s no way their family can afford to continue to send Milo to our school. We’ve discussed our financial circumstances before, and the fact that our children can only attend due to our employment with the school. I don’t want Milo to suffer for his father’s mistake. I also have no proof, just my suspicions.

I think you should report it. Disclosing confidential student data is a really big deal, and if Milo’s father was truly oblivious enough to that that he’d disclose Jack’s data to Jack’s best friend (what did he think was going to happen?!), there’s a problem that needs to be addressed.

That said, you don’t actually know this came from Milo’s father. You only know that somehow Jack’s confidential data found its way to a schoolmate. Report that part of it, not the part you can’t prove. The school knows who Milo’s dad is, and if that is indeed what happened, they’re highly likely to be able to put it together themselves. But for all we know, it leaked out some other way — so just stick to the pieces you know for sure.

3. Why won’t people include my middle name?

My name is ​Alexandra Jane Smith, and I’m very attached to it in full. My first name is Alexandra, and that is what I introduce myself as, but I hate it when things are addressed to Alexandra Smith, or my name badge misses out Jane. I know this is a small thing, but it’s my name! It’s particularly frustrating when I get official or important documents without my middle name. ​

​Any suggestions on how to approach this, or just accept my fate as Alexandra (Jane) Smith?

Yeah, if you introduce yourself as Alexandra and you go by Alexandra, you’re going to get addressed as Alexandra (or Alexandra Smith) and Alexandra (or Alexandra Smith) will be on your name badge … since most people don’t use their middle names except on extremely formal legal documents (and often not even then).

You can certainly try to head it off beforehand by letting people know, “I prefer my full name, Alexandra Jane Smith, on documents/name badges.” That will work some of the time, but it won’t work all the time.

Even if you went by Alexandra Jane, you’d still be fighting an uphill battle — ask all the Mary Janes who find Mary on their name tags, or all the people with hyphenated last names who find only half of their last name printed.

It’s perfectly fine to have the preference! But you’ll be happier if you accept that, realistically, your preferences are different from the naming conventions people are used to.

4. Can I put relevant jobs first on my resume?

I did some health counseling work decades ago, and started again during the pandemic for a major hospital system. In between I did a variety of things totally outside the health-related field. As I try to get back into health-related jobs, can I list my work experience by relevant experiences first, and then fill in the rest underneath? Like so:

RELEVANT WORK EXPERIENCE:
2020-2023 – relevant health-related job
1997-2004 – relevant health related job
1992-1997 – relevant health related job
2004-2020 – list other non-health-related jobs here

Would that seem weird on a resume? I’m concerned that a quick glance won’t show me off in the best light if I list the jobs chronologically.

It’s completely normal to separate out relevant experience and list it first, when some of your recent work history is really unrelated to what you’re applying for now. You just need an additional heading in the other for the less relevant jobs, like this:

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE:
2020-2023 – relevant health-related job
1997-2004 – relevant health related job
1992-1997 – relevant health related job

OTHER EXPERIENCE:
2004-2020 – list other non-health-related jobs here

Also, you don’t need to go back 20 years. Feel free to stop at 12-15, depending on what produces the strongest resume. (It’s also okay to go back further for the relevant jobs while only including the more recent non-relevant ones.)

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

1. My coworker is angry that I advocated for myself when I was hired

I work as a contractor at a company. I’m paid hourly and work a normal 40-hour work week. My coworker got curious about my contract and my schedule, and I was happy to answer some questions but not others. She got upset because I mentioned that I was very clear with what I wanted in this job when interviewing and when I was considering the offer. I even rejected an initial offer and later received a better offer.

I worry my coworker may make drama about it and cause others to become jealous as well. My manager seems to be happy with my work. I asked my coworker why she was upset and who she was upset with. Her answer in short is me because I shouldn’t be able to make demands during my interview. Do I ignore this and what do I do if it becomes drama?

Advocating for yourself and being clear on what it would take for you to accept a job isn’t “making demands”; it’s managing your career well and being appropriately assertive. If your coworker thinks people shouldn’t do that, that’s very sad for her; she’s internalized some seriously harmful beliefs.

Any chance you have the kind of relationship with her where you could say, “I was surprised you didn’t think people could or should do this in interviews. I regularly do it, and so do a lot of other people. I’d be glad to share with you how I’ve approached it in the past and what has worked, and you could try it yourself and hopefully negotiate well in future jobs.” (Make sure you say this in a genuinely warm and helpful tone, not a patronizing one.)

2. Do I thank someone for sending me work if he’s in a dispute with my friend?

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine, Gary, started a small company in the field in which I freelance. He hired Sean to be the manager. Neither Gary nor Sean lives in my city, but I saw them once while they were visiting; that’s the only time I’ve met Sean in person.

Sean oversaw a project I did for their company. He didn’t give me feedback for months, and when he did it was minimal. (I know I turned in solid work so this didn’t necessarily raise any flags for me.)

Fast forward about a year: Gary says that Sean is causing problems because he’s not giving feedback to anyone or performing the majority of the work he was hired to do. Being so behind schedule on everything was costing Gary thousands of dollars; he even had to take a second job to pay his rent. Eventually this led to a board meeting in which Sean was ousted.

Sean was, by all accounts, shocked, despite the fact that (according to Gary) he had been spoken to multiple times about these issues. There were threats of lawsuits, many dramatic emails, etc. But in the end, Sean disappeared into the ether. Gary is my friend, so I know I’m inclined to be on his side, but the fact that everyone else involved seemed to think Sean was the issue, plus the fact that it mirrored my own experience with him, made me think this wasn’t a witch hunt.

Fast forward six months: I get an email from someone interested in having me do some easy, well-paid freelance work … and they got my name from Sean. (Sean did not contact me to let me know he had referred me or follow up with me in any way.)

This freelance work has truly been a godsend — it’s my only steady stream of revenue at the moment. Do I have to thank Sean? We’ve only met once, have no relationship outside of the fact that we very briefly worked together, and he nearly made my friend homeless. Gary is so upset by the whole thing that I honestly believe he would see any communication with Sean as a betrayal.

But also, the referral was kind of him and extremely helpful. I’m a midwestern millennial woman, so the idea of not thanking him is crushing me with guilt but I know that that might be a me problem!

You don’t have to thank Sean, but you should. He referred you for easy, well-paid work that’s providing key income for you. It’s something you’d presumably like him to do again. And you don’t have any beef with Sean; Gary does. As badly as Sean’s work for Gary might have gone, that’s not really your business. (And for what it’s worth, Gary was Sean’s manager so he bears some responsibility for letting the problems go on as long as they did.)

Ultimately, you’re not involved in the Gary/Sean dispute and Sean referred you for work that you’re glad to have. If Gary takes issue with you sending him a civil thanks for that, Gary would be being a bad friend. (But also, you’re not obligated to disclose any of this to him.)

3. How to avoid burning out if you love your job

I landed a job I love so much. Let’s say I have a hobby of making banana pants, and I enjoy every aspect of it, even the stuff that most people dislike. Now I’ve gotten a job where I make banana pants for work. So I spend at least eight hours a day making banana pants, then I come home and do my hobby of making banana clothing for myself over the weekend. I try to keep a good work life balance, but I often find myself so engrossed in my work during the day that even if I intend to leave at 4, I often end up leaving at 6 because I’m just having too much fun — and even then I only leave at 6 because the train station nearest my work closes at 6:30. And that’s not even mentioning the times where I’ll bring my work projects home.

Due to my specific cocktail of neurodivergence, I also have trouble noticing that I’m not doing well until it’s too late. I don’t want to wake up one day and be like, “Oh wow, I am super depressed right now and have been for the past two months.” (Which has happened to me more than once.) I also don’t want to lose my love of making banana pants, which I’m afraid will happen if I keep going at the pace I’m going at.

Am I setting myself up for disaster here? If my hobby is making banana pants, am I still at risk for burnout? And if so, what are the signs of burnout and how can I combat it when my hobby is my job?

I do think you’re at risk of burnout even when you love your job. In fact, loving an activity and throwing yourself into it to the point that it consumes most of your waking hours is … kind of prime conditions for eventual burnout. Probably not this year! Maybe not next year. But eventually.

My advice is to find something else that you also love, or at least like a lot, and be deliberate about carving out space for it in your life too, so that your brain has more to engage it than just all banana pants all the time. 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.

4. Is this an exception to the “gifts flow downward” rule?

As someone who has managed many people in my long career, I fully support the “gifts flow downward” rule that you have expressed. This might be an exception though, and I’d like your opinion. My boss has invited our team of 8-10 senior-level colleagues to her house for a casual weekend afternoon together, along with our plus-ones. I’m generally a “don’t show up empty-handed” kind of person, so I want to bring something reasonable like a small plant or bottle of wine. That seems appropriate, right? Our boss is a supportive leader with good professional/personal boundaries, by the way.

That’s fine to do. You don’t need to do it — this is ultimately a work gathering, in the guise of a social one, so you don’t need to, but it’s likely to be perceived as gracious if you do. If you were very junior, I’d lean more on the side of nah, but you’re senior so the dynamics change a bit.

That said, unless you know your boss is a plant lover, I personally would not bring a plant or anything else that will require ongoing care, since for some people that’s like handing them a chore wrapped in pretty paper. But the general idea is fine!

5. Will having two two-year job stints damage my career?

I’ve been working in a male-dominated industry (97% men) and have always been the only woman on my team. Over the course of four years with my previous employer, I brought in $22 million for the company, but despite my success, I never received a promotion or a salary increase. After numerous attempts to negotiate for fair recognition, they refused, so I decided to leave. I accepted an executive position that was highly regarded in my field, becoming the only woman on the board. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a mistake. I was bullied constantly and denied the responsibilities we had agreed upon during the interview. The CEO even told me he would fire me if I got pregnant, claiming that mothers should stay home. After enduring two years of mistreatment, I resigned.

Now, I feel embarrassed for making the wrong choice and worry about how having a two-year stint on my resume might look. I’m also feeling pressure to stay long-term with my new employer, but I’m unsure if that’s what I want. They’ve assigned me to work in a developing country, 20 hours away from my family. The noise pollution here is unbearable. I haven’t been able to sleep through the night since I moved here. I’m okay with this arrangement for two years, but I’m concerned that having two consecutive two-year positions will reflect poorly on my resume. What do you think? I’ve been crying every night, overwhelmed with anxiety about my career path.

Leave! Please leave.

In the vast majority of fields, two two-year stints would not be a big deal at all. That’s well within the realm of “pretty normal” these days! Now, if you have four or five two-year stints in a row, it could be a bigger deal — but even that wouldn’t raise eyebrows in a lot of fields. (It would be more likely to be an issue for jobs where they expect and need people to stay longer than that, which still gives you access to a ton of jobs.)

Do be sure to do due diligence on the next job before you accept it since ideally you’d stay at the next one longer. But even then there’s no guarantee — jobs evolve, managers move on, life circumstances change.