Ask a Manager

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

1. Boss confided family issues to me … and my manager is interrogating me about it

I have worked for a small company for just under a decade. The owner of the company is very active in day-to-day operations. During 2020, the owner’s teenage children started working random shifts at our company because they were going stir crazy at home. They are good kids and I have no issue with their work. They still come in during school vacations and summers.

During this time, I noticed behavior from one of the kids that was concerning enough to me that I brought it up to the owner. He confirmed my suspicion and told me the entire situation. He asked me to keep the conversation private and apologized for unloading his personal life on to me. The situation is something I have personally dealt with, so I was just glad he was aware and getting help for his kid.

Fast forward to now: I get unprompted updates on the kid (I worry I am the only person besides his wife who he feels comfortable talking to about it), who hasn’t been doing well. The owner is getting incredibly mentally fatigued by the situation. He has days where he is a total jerk and snaps over the littlest things and can be awful to work with. My manager is ready to strangle him since he’s also started to neglect certain aspects of the business (nothing major, but things that get annoying and create more work for the rest of us).

Since I know what is going on, I’ve had more patience and tried to get my manager to give him some slack. In retrospect, since I usually engage in my manager’s complaining about the owner, my response was a dead giveaway to her that I know something she doesn’t. I am now being interrogated by her on a weekly basis about what I know. I have not confirmed nor denied anything, but she guessed what the situation is on her own and asked me if I agreed. So she basically knows at this point even though I haven’t said a word.

I’ve told owner the manager is asking me questions about his kid and I am getting uncomfortable with it. He is refusing to do anything to alleviate the position he put me in. Is it fair for me to ask him to tell the manager something like “Kid is going through medical issues right now and I’m under a lot of stress” and apologize for acting like a jerk because of it? If she knew for certain what was going on, she would absolutely give him more grace than he’s currently getting, I would stop being questioned, and things would feel much less tense at work, too.

You can suggest it. You could frame it as, “I’m in a tough position with Jane. She’s really pushing me about what’s going on, and I’m uncomfortable knowing and being badgered by her about it. I understand you want to limit who you share the situation with, but you would make my life a lot easier if you’d tell her something. Could you tell her Alex is dealing with medical issues, or even just that there’s family stuff going on, and you’re under a lot of stress? I’m certain she’d back off of me if she knew, and she’d give you a lot more grace too.”

But frankly, your manager bears a lot of responsibility too. She shouldn’t be hassling and interrogating you, and ideally you’d say to her, “I’m really uncomfortable being questioned about this. This is Bob’s private business, we’ve crossed a line by speculating about it, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

2. I don’t want my horrible boss at my wedding

I work as a physical therapist for a small wellness company. I love my work and my clients and overall it’s very rewarding.

The problem is my boss. The company is led by the founder and her husband, and they are terrible people. They’re awful leaders, horrible communicators, narcissistic, greedy, and manipulative. Some of the lowlights of my time at this company include: sharing a bed with my boss at her insistence on a work trip when there was an empty sofa sleeper in the next room, my colleagues and me working 18-21 days straight because of staffing issues instead of closing the business for one of the seven days to allow us time to recuperate, constant gossip by the founder about other employees (including private medical information that no one had any right or need to know), a culture of intimidation around the topic of money, constant questioning about details of our personal lives, extremely shady financial practices, repeated violations of privacy, racist and transphobic remarks by the founder … I could go on. The only reason anyone stays is because the money is good. The founder also has very loose lips so we all know everything that’s going on in her marriage and with the company and none of it is good.

I’ve made the decision to leave, but I have about 6-8 months before I can quit. I’m planning to get married at the end of that time, and I’m adamant that I will NOT invite my bosses. I know the founder will ask me about the wedding and has already said she assumes she is invited. Do I keep my planning secret and pretend I don’t have the date set to avoid it? She’s relentless when anyone keeps something from her, as I discovered the hard way with a medical issue that I didn’t want to talk about. (She questioned my colleagues about it for two weeks, trying to find out what procedure I needed time off for, before finally cornering me and making guesses about what it was.)

As long as you’re willing to hold firm with your boss even if she’s relentless about wanting to be invited, you shouldn’t need to completely hide your wedding plans. But you’ll need to stick to saying, “We’re having a small wedding with only family” and “our head count is really low and we’re not inviting anyone from work.” However, if you think you’ll be in danger of caving — or if you just want to minimize how often you hear from her on the subject — then yes, don’t talk about it at work. It sounds like it’s going to come up regardless though, so be ready with the “only inviting family” line.

Also! I know it’s too late now, and working in an environment like this can wear you down and warp your norms, but you do not need to let anyone insist that you share a bed with them. You get to say, “No, I’m not going to do that” and take the sofa.

3. My coworker is preemptively telling customers about colleagues who were laid off

My company announced sudden layoffs today. Our department is customer-facing, where a small team of people manage accounts. One of my colleagues, Sam, started emailing his customers saying things like, “As you likely saw, Widget Company made the difficult decision to lay off staff and, as such, XYZ is no longer with us.” Our account management structure is such that Sam is the primary contact 95% of the time, and the secondaries who were laid off were only looped in by Sam for relevant escalations, so it’s not like the customers have to change the way they communicate with us. None of Sam’s customers ever asked what happened, and we weren’t told to reach out, we were only given guidance by HR on how to respond to direct questions about the situation. He also sent the messages less than an hour after the departures were announced. Am I right in thinking this person is totally out of line?

Unless someone told him to do that or he has the authority to decide on those communications on his own, yes, wildly out of line. Companies generally put a great deal of thought into how to message situations like this to clients and don’t want people taking it upon themselves to send out public announcements. (Also, less than an hour after the layoffs? I’m curious about what his agenda is.)

4. Should I stay in a new job where I’m miserable?

I started a new role with a different team and department at my large corporation in August, and so far it hasn’t been a good fit for me and I’m not sure it’s worth sticking it out.

It’s a very small team, but I really don’t interact much with my coworker or manager at all. We don’t have weekly team meetings and my work so far isn’t very collaborative; my assignments are given to me via email and I work independently to complete it. I didn’t get any formal training for most tasks. We are in office one day a week, but it is rare that I interact with my team while in office and often my manager and coworker aren’t there or leave mid-day (without notifying me most of the time, either). In addition to feeling pretty isolated, I don’t find that most my assignments are the best use of my years of skills and experience and, frankly, are quite boring. This is pretty different from my prior role and department at the company where there were at least weekly team meetings, a more collaborative work environment, and more work assignments that better fit my skills.

But on the other hand, my new position is a small pay and title bump compared to my last, and the team reports directly to top management. The company is also going through a notable business change which might be a good opportunity for me to be involved in this role at this time.

I am just unsure if it’s worth sticking around this miserable work environment long enough to potentially gain relevant experience that would carry me to my next role. So far, I don’t feel very confident that I’m going to get the support and opportunities that I had anticipated in this role. I also don’t think my manager or team will change how it currently operates. I wanted to stay on at least for the early part of the year so that I can receive my annual bonus, but I have concerns about my mental health further declining and impacting my work ethic.

It’s not worth staying in a job where you’re miserable just because maybe you might get relevant experience for your next role. There are other jobs that will give you that where you won’t be miserable.

5. How to throw a holiday party instead of a Christmas party

What are your tips for throwing a holiday party vs a Christmas party?

My work has a pretty entrenched Christmas party culture, where the party activities all revolve around Christmas themes, and I get the sense that they are struggling to figure out what to do if there isn’t a Christmas theme. What are some games/activities that an office could do together to make it a “we’re getting together to celebrate This Time of Year that is Not Exclusively Christmas”?

You don’t really need activities at all. You can just … get together for food and drinks. Lots of office holiday parties work that way! (Think other adult parties that are basically just social get-togethers without activities and games. Same thing here.) That said, I’m happy to throw the question out to readers for suggestions.

Meanwhile, some don’ts: Don’t treat Hanukkah as the Jewish Christmas (it’s not; it’s a very minor holiday that just happens to be around the same time as Christmas) and don’t let anyone claim that Christmas decorations are secular (they’re not).

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

1. I don’t want to start a business with my mom

I’m a university student studying film. My parents own a successful flour milling company, but as it goes with a lot of people going into business with family, there were a lot of fights and disagreements, even nearly a divorce. The business is all in my dad’s name with my mum owning only a small percentage of shares despite doing most of the work. Because of this, she wants to start another business that is in her name only in case they do get a divorce and my father decides to take the company.

She asked me a few months ago if I’d like to join her in starting this business. I told her that I’m not sure what I would do as I don’t have any qualifications in the food industry and that my interests lie in film instead and I wouldn’t be of much help to her. She told me that I would only be a director of the company in name and wouldn’t actually need to do anything. I reluctantly agreed because I felt bad for her regarding the whole flour milling company situation and I didn’t want to disappoint her and make her feel like she was alone. My older sister is a doctor but my mum never discussed any of this with her. A few hours ago, she messaged me saying she registered us for the company as the two founders and that she wants it to be a women-owned business and she wants me to give her ideas and she would implement them.

I’m only 21, I’m still in university, and I really don’t have time to be running a whole business because from her description it seems the success of the company is dependent on my ideas. I know nothing about the food industry or running a business, and I simply am not interested in anything besides film. I don’t know why she didn’t ask my older sister. Is she doing this partly because she doesn’t believe I’ll succeed in my own career? It was already hard enough to convince my parents to let me study film and now this feels like she wants me to have a plan B. I can understand she only wants the best for me but it’s hurtful to think that she doesn’t have the confidence in me to be successful. I want to tell her I’m not interested anymore but I don’t know how to do it without hurting her feelings or making her feel like I’m betraying her or that she’s alone. I know telling her will crush her as she seems excited about it but I really don’t want to do this. Do you have any advice on how I should go about this?

You don’t need to be pressured into running a business you never wanted any part in! I know you feel guilty about saying yes earlier and now saying no, but you didn’t actually say yes to this. Your mom said wouldn’t need to do anything and then, surprise, she’s started the company and you need to give her a bunch of ideas to run it. It’s okay to say, “When we talked about this before, you said I’d just have my name on the paperwork but no other involvement, and now it sounds like you do want me to be more involved. I don’t have time for anything besides school right now and I don’t want to start a business! I support you in pursuing it yourself if you want to, but I want to make sure you’re not counting on me for help.” If she pushes you, really lean into the “no time for anything besides school” angle.

I wouldn’t assume she proposed this because she doesn’t think you’ll succeed on your own! It’s possible since family dynamics can be weird — and it’s true that film is a path pretty much designed to make parents worry about your income-earning potential — but it’s more likely she’s excited about doing this and figured you could do it with her. She might not have asked your sister because she’s already busy with an established career (or maybe she did ask her, who knows). Regardless of her motivations, though, it’s okay to say no. You can be a loving daughter who supports your mom emotionally in this new endeavor without being her business partner. (And remember that if she’s a loving mother who supports you emotionally, she won’t want you to do something that makes you unhappy, even if she’s disappointed in the moment when you tell her no.)

If you need help shoring up your resolve, remind yourself that you’d be doing your mom no favors by joining her half-heartedly. Running a business is a major endeavor that takes a full commitment, and she’s better off knowing now that you’re not up for that than she would be slowly figuring that out over the next year.

If you worry about her feeling alone, you could lean into non-business-partner things — call her more, express interest in her life, visit, etc. You might already be doing that or have reasons not to, of course. But pretty much none of the ways to make someone feel supported/not alone involve running a business with them!

Read an update to this letter. 

2. Misleading starting salary

This language in a job ad seems absurd to me — would love to read your comments!

Starting Salary: $40,000 per year (see below)**

**We give raises, bonuses, and promotions to dedicated employees who demonstrate success, commitment, and performance. Past employees have started at $35,000 and, based on performance and dedication, their salaries grew to $40,000, $45,000, $52,000, and $65,000. This position will receive $3,000 per month for 11 months and after the 12th full month of work, the employee will receive $7,000, for a total of $40,000. The employee is not eligible for the $4,000 bonus if she/he has not completed 12 full months in the position.

Pay: $40,000.00 per year

Yeah, that’s not a job with a $40,000 salary; that’s a job with a $36,000 salary and a bonus in month 12. The language is intentionally misleading … and it sure sounds like they have a lot of people who don’t stay a full year for some reason.

3. Medical practitioners expressing stress to me, the patient

I have a severe neurological condition that makes standard medical exams/procedures excruciating. Think ear exams, throat exams, dental cleanings. (Nobody likes dental cleanings, but they’re worse with a neurological illness.) Due to my condition, I also need these things unusually often. I’m very lucky to have a number of practitioners who’ve been with me for many years and who try extra hard to be gentle. I’m vocally grateful to them every time, I thank them repeatedly for their extra gentleness, and I absolutely never snap at them no matter how badly anything hurts. It’s not their fault!

Recently, two practitioners (unconnected) have started saying things like “I’m nervous!” (before we start) and “I think that was equally bad for both of us!” (afterwards). I’m curious whether you think it’s unprofessional of them to share those feelings with me. The appointments are torment for me anyway, and it’s hard to shoulder practitioners’ emotions on top of my own physical pain. There’s nothing I would do about it, but if you think it’s unprofessional — that they shouldn’t be saying those feelings aloud — I might feel less awful when it happens.

It’s not terribly professional. It sounds like they’re nervous because they don’t want to cause you pain and they’re trying to communicate to you that they understand there’s a higher-than-normal need to be careful and gentle with you … but of course those comments are doing the opposite of setting you at ease!

4. “My rates aren’t unreasonable, you just can’t afford me”

What is a polite way of telling a potential client, “My rates aren’t unreasonable, you just can’t afford me”?

I worked for a company as an entry-level copywriter straight out of university; now, a decade later, they’ve reached out to me to ask me to work for them again. The task involves detailed editing and minor translation. I made my per-word rate clear at the outset of our conversation, and the client said they would prefer an hourly rate. I did a sample piece of work (limiting myself to 30 minutes) and got back to them with an hourly rate that corresponds to my per-word rate.

The response? “We will be looking for someone with more reasonable rates.”

I am frustrated, especially as I made my rates clear from the outset, but I’m unsure of whether the right course of action is a polite “Thank you for the conversation and I wish you the best of luck with finding a better fit” or something more along the following lines: “Absolutely no problem, sounds like it’s not the right fit for this project! My rates are fairly standard for a native bilingual with a decade of experience, and I’m afraid that I’m no longer taking on work which doesn’t reflect that. That said, I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding someone who can provide what you’re looking for! It may be worth making your budget clear from the outset to avoid such a mismatch going forward. Regardless, I’m looking forward to seeing and using [your website] in [my language] soon.”

It sounds like you’re reacting to the implication that your rates aren’t reasonable, but it’s more likely they mean it’s not what they anticipated paying than a judgment on how you’ve priced your services. A lot of people use “reasonable rates” to mean “affordable” — not “rooted in reason.”

Even if that’s not where they’re coming from, though, that second response sounds pretty defensive and is a lot of words for something that could be kept shorter. I think you’d be better off condensing it to, “My rates are fairly standard for a native bilingual with experience, but I wish you the best with the project!”

Read an update to this letter. 

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

1. Teen daughter wants to quit her new job because of bad history with a coworker

My teen daughter, Artemis, is about to start her first job at a new location of a national chain. She’s been training at another location while waiting for hers to open, and so far, she loves the job, her manager (Demeter), and her coworkers. Today, she found out that a very toxic former friend, Apollo, with whom she has some really bad and somewhat traumatic history, has also gotten a job there. She’s miserable about it, to the point that she’s considering quitting before the store even opens. I understand – the history is far worse than the typical falling out, and she has very good reasons to be concerned about bending the boundaries she has established around this person. I would love to help her understand that working with difficult people is sometimes necessary and give her some ideas and skills on how to cope with the situation. (Please rest assured that I have no impulse or desire to be That Parent and try to intervene on her behalf; my goal is to help her successfully advocate for herself.)

Clearly, the best outcome would be for them not to be scheduled at the same time, but there’s really no way of knowing or controlling that. I also strongly suspect that if Artemis were to say, “Hey, Demeter, it’d be best if my schedule doesn’t overlap with Apollo’s,” she’s going to be the one to get the less desirable shifts. This is further complicated by the fact that Apollo is very charismatic and good at winning people over, which adds additional concerns about their ability to come out ahead in the eyes of their coworkers if the conflict ever becomes apparent. It also causes me more than a little concern that it may give Apollo the opportunity to talk their way back into Artemis’ life, which would be bad for her in a number of ways.

Do you have any advice for how to navigate this, either (a) as the self-advocating teen and (b) as her supportive parent?

Support her in quitting if that’s what she wants to do! Yes, it’s important to know that you can’t control your coworkers and sometimes you’ll have to work with difficult people … but this is a high school job where the stakes aren’t that high if she’d just prefer not to, and high school social dynamics can be really messy in a way that probably/hopefully won’t be replicated in her adult career, and expecting her to work with someone she has an upsetting history is like 301-level difficulty when she’s presumably still at 101 levels in figuring out work (and if the history is full-on traumatic, that’s even worse). And frankly, most adults wouldn’t want to stick around in this situation either; they’re just more likely to be trapped in it because they have bills to pay.

It makes sense to talk through an array of options with her … but if she still wants to quit at the end of that, she’s got my support.

Read an update to this letter. 

2. Can we encourage our unhappy coworker to leave?

I work in a small department of 15 employees. Our boss has left a year ago for another position in the same company. Two of us applied for his position, and both were rejected.

One of the rejected is very angry about it. I understand it was a big disappointment. However, it’s been almost a year, and she is getting angrier by the day. She will rant, snap at people over small things, shout in meetings and slam doors. Any meeting that doesn’t please her is treated to an avalanche of “I don’t give a shit, do what you want, I stopped caring.”

Honestly, it is exhausting to work with her. And it’s not like she can’t leave — she has a highly sought skillset, and many regional companies are hiring for that position. I’m tempted to tell her “if you hate it here, FFS leave already.” She’d most likely get a raise and the desired promotion in a new job. But nobody dares to tell her that she needs to either leave or stop talking about leaving.

We don’t hate her. We’d be happy to see her grow into new tasks, but it’s not happening here and that makes everyone miserable. Is there any way we could gently tell her “we think you would be happier in a new job”?

Honestly, “if you hate it here, FFS leave already” would be warranted at this point. Is there a reason no one is willing to say that or a softer version? Or at least, “It’s exhausting hearing this all the time. Please stop complaining and snapping at people”?

Also, this isn’t just about endless complaining (although that’s exhausting enough). Snapping at people, shouting in meetings, and slamming doors is a whole different thing, it’s completely unacceptable, and none of you should be tolerating it. All of you have standing to say “you need to lower your voice,” “you cannot talk to people that way,” “stop snapping at me,” etc. And you all have standing to ask her manager to intervene too, because that’s a horrible, hostile environment to work in. (Not “hostile environment” in the legal sense, just in the sense of “this is an angry and volatile person who has been spewing hostility into your space for a year and needs to be told to stop.”) A lot of people like this stop if someone calls them on it clearly and bluntly. (And the fact that no one has is probably warping her own sense of how she can behave.)

3. Whose responsibility is it to convert time zones when setting up a meeting?

Whose ultimate responsibility is it to convert proposed interview times to different time zones, the applicant’s or the hiring manager’s?

I’m on a tiny team based on one coast, but our team is largely remote and we’re hiring for another remote employee. I’m assisting my supervisor with interviews, and when I emailed a candidate about interview times, I sent times in my time zone without checking his location, which is on the other coast of the U.S. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t think of this ahead of time, but I also know that my personal expectations to catch all details before they become a problem are unrealistic. While I would have liked to catch this before it caused a problem today, I think the final responsibility to notice the time difference rests on the applicant who chose to apply to a company on the other side of the country. Am I right or did I have the responsibility to check each applicant’s location and convert the times before emailing them to schedule an interview?

Your responsibility isn’t to convert the times; it’s just to note what time zone you’re using when you list the time. For example, I’m on the east coast and if I’m setting up a meeting for 2:00 with someone, I’m going to to write “2 pm ET.” Indicate the time zone you’re using, and they can convert that however they need.

All that said, ideally someone applying for a job across the country would think about time zones on their end and ask to clarify if one isn’t specified.

4. Can you be fired for dressing inappropriately?

Is it possible to get fired for inappropriate dress in the office? It could be sexy, too young-ish (stupidly so, like a sixth grader), too informal, etc.

I’m thinking of Caitlin Bernier who was supposedly fired from an Alberta Honda car dealership for wearing an inappropriate white top that showed her bra underneath it. She was only there for two weeks and was on probation. Even without probation, can you be fired for dressing like that?

In general, yes, you can be fired for dressing inappropriately at work.

It’s also legal to have different dress codes for men and women, as long as neither is more of a burden on one sex than the other. In practice, though, they’re almost always more burdensome on women even though they’re not supposed to be, and it’s only really extreme differences in burden that end up getting prohibited. And of course, this completely ignores the existence of non-binary people.

That said, in the case you’re referencing, there’s some dispute over what she was actually fired for. I don’t know enough about the case to comment on that (and am skeptical that anyone outside the people involved does).

5. The job I interviewed for a month ago has been reposted

I had a second-round interview for a job I wanted with the VP but got ghosted afterwards. That was over a month ago but I just saw the same job posted on their LinkedIn page. Should I reach out to the VP again reiterating my interest in the role or will that seem desperate and I should just move on?

Move on. It’s not that it will look desperate, but they already know you’re interested because you interviewed for the job. Contacting them now isn’t going to make them remember you exist; they already know, but for whatever reason they’ve chosen not to move you forward.

If you haven’t done any follow-up since your interview a month ago, you could send one email now just asking for an update on their timeline for next steps (because you might get some useful info by doing that). But if you’ve already checked back in since that interview (and I’m guessing you have since you mentioned they’ve ghosted you), then you’ve got to just assume you didn’t get the job and move on.