Ask a Manager

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

1. My manager seems angry that I turned down a job offer from his wife

I work for a big multinational entertainment corporation with much name recognition. For the most part, I’ve enjoyed my job. A while ago, I received a phone call out of the blue from my manager’s wife. My manager is the director of the team I’m part of. His wife called to offer me a job managing her private veterinary clinic, which is their family business. This field is completely unrelated to the field in which I presently work.

The wife then sent me an email to my private email account (not my work email) with the official job offer, which I politely and graciously declined. I thought at the time that this situation was rather awkward.

Ever since I declined the offer, my manager has blocked me from two promotions and also sent me to HR with complaints about things like not CC’ing enough people on emails and working in a silo (we moved to a hybrid model, which means less time in office).

I’m unsure what to do. It seems my manager is actively trying to remove me from my place of employment. I also wonder if a job offer from his wife is an abuse of power and goes against company policy. The whole thing has made me feel uncomfortable and like I have a target on my back. However, because my manager has already sent me to HR with petty complaints, I’m unsure if I should show them the emails of the job offer.

I will add that other people within our corporation seem to value my work and output, so I’m wondering if approaching HR will help or hinder me.

On its face, this sounds pretty outrageous! It’s not inherently an abuse of power for your manager’s spouse to offer you a job, but it’s definitely an abuse of power for your manager to punish you for not taking it.

Now, it’s possible there’s more to the situation — like maybe your manager’s actions haven’t been in response to you turning down the offer and would have happened anyway. Who knows, maybe your manager had concerns about your work but thought you’d be great at this totally different job with his wife, and was hoping this would be a solution that worked out for everyone … but when you didn’t take the job was forced to start dealing with the work issues he saw. But that’s a pretty big stretch and I doubt it’s what’s happening.

It looks enough like retaliation that it’s worth having a conversation with HR about what’s happened. (And don’t let the fact that your boss has sent you to HR for petty complaints be a reason to stop you. In fact, you should cite that as part of what has been happening since you turned down the job offer.)

2. Dressing up for Halloween on my first day at a new job

I’m starting a new job on Halloween, and this is an office where people dress up for the day! I’ve never worked in an environment like this, so I don’t know what’s appropriate for the workplace. Furthermore, this is quite literally my first day at a brand new company, and I don’t want to look like a stick-in-the-mud! Is there well-known (or not) etiquette on Halloween at work?

Do you want to dress up for Halloween? It’s very unlikely that you’ll look like a stick-in-the-mud if you skip it on your first day; generally even in offices where people wear costumes, not everyone wears a costume, but even if that’s not the case with this one, people aren’t likely to hold you to their traditions on your first day. It’s fine to skip it this year and wait until you know the vibe of the office more and what kind of costume would or wouldn’t be inappropriate for your activities that day.

But if you do want to dress up, go low key — a witch’s hat or cat ears — or even lower-key, like skull earrings — something that’s more a nod to Halloween than a total embrace of it (and which you can easily take off if you realize it’s not a great fit for what they have planned for you that day). This is not the right day to show up as an enormous piece of toast or a flamingo.

3. How do I avoid being the go-to person for questions from our new people?

I work at a firm where most people are still working from home for the majority of the time. Management is looking to up this, but hasn’t taken any firm action. Due to my role and because I am one of those folks who enjoys being back in person in an office, I am in-person five days a week.

Recently, a few new members have joined the team, and all of the folks are working to help them acclimate and succeed in their new roles. Most of them are early in their careers. They of course have tons of questions … and they ask me literally all of them. I am interrupted once every 15 minutes. Some of them could easily be googled (“how do I connect to the monitor?”, “How do I change the formatting on this document?”), some could be found with a couple minutes of critical thinking, some genuinely do need to be asked, but to someone more senior than me.

The tricky thing is that they are so nice and apologetic. I am starting to say “this is more of an Angela question” when it isn’t at my pay grade, but it feels aggressive to say “spend more time looking for an answer” when I can give it to them easily.

A large reason they come to me is because I am physically in the same office space as them and most of our team isn’t (which I can’t change). But I’m losing productivity over this, and I don’t think it’s optimal that the bulk of training falls on my shoulders when my team has multiple people. Any suggestions to remedy this?

Tell your boss what’s happening and that it’s impacting your work, and ask to have the training distributed more evenly. This is something a decent manager would want to know about and intervene on. She probably needs to give the new people more guidance on how to handle questions (both that they should go to different people on X and Y and spend more time looking for answers themselves on some things). She’s much better positioned to have those conversations than you are, but she can’t do it if she doesn’t realize it’s happening.

Read an update to this letter. 

4. My employer only gives Veteran’s Day off to veterans

My company recently announced that they are going to give the Veterans Day holiday only to employees who are veterans. Is this legal?

It’s legal because non-veterans are not a protected class. (Protected classes are things like race, sex, religion, etc., and an employer can’t give different perks based on those things.)

In fact, some states — Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Tennessee — require employers to provide veterans with the day off, even if they don’t offer it to other employees.

5. Should I email the hiring manager after applying?

I’m curious if this piece of advice is still relevant/accurate. In the cobwebs of college past, I was given this piece of advice by a career counselor: After you send in an application through a career portal, you should hunt down the recruiter/hiring manager’s email and send an introductory email. Not attaching the whole app, but just a short, “Hello, thank you for the opportunity. Please keep an eye out for my app.”

Is this pushy, creepy, or annoying? Or is this ambitious and eye-catching? Looking forward to your thoughts!

Pushy and annoying. They know you’re interested because you applied. There’s no need to email them separately.

It’s different if you have a specific connection to the hiring manager. In that case, it’s fine to send a short note (with your resume attached!) saying, “Cadence Warbleworth, who I used to work with, suggested I contact you about the X position on your team because of my background in competitive oatmeal eating. If you think I might be matched with what you’re looking for, I’d love to talk. (I’ve applied online as well.)”

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

1. Is it worth telling my manager that he’s why I’m leaving?

I’ve been at my current company for over a decade. I’ve been a high performer throughout, received excellent reviews, I’m at the high end of pay for my role, and have been told that my leaving would be a blow. Not in the “you can’t go” way, but from a very senior person who has been a mentor for me and was trying to point out that while my manager doesn’t, everyone else sees and values my contribution.

I’m on the verge of leaving. There’s no further growth here, there’s very little work from home flexibility (and no good reason for it), and my boss is awful. He’s a nice person, but totally complacent and lazy. When I go on vacation, he’s meant to cover my work. This means I come back and am immediately drowning in missed or half done, sloppy work. Other team members and I will come up with simple, actionable ideas to improve workflow. However, we’ll need him to work with another team. He always says he’ll bring it up but never does. One item I’ve been bringing up for five years! He doesn’t tell us when someone calls out even though he should be managing the team’s workload to distribute the extra work. Having worked with him as long as I have I do call him out on things, but he’s like Teflon; nothing sticks.

Is it worth trying to explain to him what role he’s had in how unhappy I’ve become here? I like my colleagues and feel like if I can help I should help. But then, I’m so tired of the whole thing. Would it be a kindness to point out how his team feels?

I would love to give you a different answer, but it’s very unlikely to make a difference. Someone who operates like your manager does is very unlikely to hear a rundown of his faults and suddenly become a capable, competent manager. He might make some changes around the edges, but he’s not going to become a different person. (You also risk causing problems for the coworkers who are staying if you present it as “how his team feels.”) You might be able to share the feedback with someone with authority over him — or someone with the ear of someone with authority over him — but once you’re on your way out the door, it’s usually more in your interests to just make a clean getaway and enjoy this not being your problem anymore.

I know you’re thinking you could help out your coworkers … but unless there’s someone in authority there who you know to be highly responsive to this kind of information, it’s so unlikely to cause meaningful changes.

2. I’m struggling with motivation at my internship

I am an undergraduate who is currently working in a part-time internship in the career field I want to get into. I am embarrassed to admit this because I feel so bad about this, but I have been really slacking on my internship work. I’ve been slow on my assignments and I have also started coming into work 20-30 minutes late, not on purpose but because I’ve been having trouble getting myself out of bed. I lost a close family friend unexpectedly earlier this month and it hit me super hard. I didn’t tell my work about the loss because I didn’t need to take any days off for the funeral and also it felt too personal to really tell my boss about.

Ever since then, I just have not been doing my best at work. And I feel really upset and ashamed about this. I usually pride myself on my good work ethic but I am totally cognizant that I am slacking, and I know that my boss notices it. We’re in-person but we can ask to work remotely ever so often although it’s not encouraged. I’ve started calling in to work remotely at least one day a week because some days I just don’t have the energy to go into the office, do the commute, buy lunch, etc. I know I should be coming in every day. I feel so guilty about it every time I stay home or come in late. I just … I don’t know what happens.

My boss talked to me this week about how I need to try to come in on time. She hasn’t addressed the days I work from home yet but I know she doesn’t like it. I just wish I could start over and make a better impression.

I need to get my life together and fix this. But I know that I already have the reputation of being a slacker. How do I even start addressing this? I could try my best to come in on time every single day and get all my work done – that should be the bare minimum. I just don’t know how to turn things around without flat-out telling my boss that I know I’ve been slacking off. I feel so lost and hopeless. Do I even have a chance at fixing this?

Please talk to your boss! She’s clearly noticed some problems even if she doesn’t know the extent of the slacking off, and knowing the context that would likely make a big difference to her understanding of what’s going on. It’s really normal for people to struggle at work after a serious loss like this, and it’s okay to share that with your boss. You could say, “I want to let you know that I’ve been struggling over the last few weeks — I lost a close friend unexpectedly earlier this month and it’s hit me very hard. I will be redoubling my efforts not to let it affect my work, but when you talked to me about my schedule recently, I realized I needed to explain what’s been happening.”

This is the kind of thing that most managers will be sympathetic to and she’s likely to want to accommodate you … whereas if she doesn’t know what happened, she’ll be left to fill in the blanks on her own. Talk to her!

3. Fundraising at work

I know you have written about how to deal with pushy fundraising at the office, but I was wondering if you had any advice on how to respectfully approach this as a fundraiser? I have Type 1 diabetes (T1D), a chronic medical condition, and this month is the 20th anniversary of my diagnosis. It also happens to be an important anniversary for the T1D community as October 1923 is when insulin was produced and distributed on a commercial scale. October 25th also marks the anniversary of the inventors winning a Nobel prize for their work.

I have been toying with the idea of running a fundraising campaign to benefit a few different national and international research, advocacy, and health organizations that focus on T1D. My plan at work was to reach out to the folks I know well and have discussed my experience with. But, I work at a mission-driven organization with a long history of global health programming (along with other economic development topics). I think others in the organization would be interested in supporting the cause, but I don’t want to overstep. I thought I could post on our company’s social feed (think Facebook-style) and present the info, link to donate, and perhaps ask for suggestions for T1D-focused organizations in the countries where my company operates. I plan to only post once, maybe twice publicly, then follow up individually with the folks I know well.

I’d appreciate your feedback, as I don’t want to be “that person” at the office!

Your plan to post on the internal* social feed sounds fine, assuming your company doesn’t prohibit solicitations (although that’s something to check if you’re not sure) — but I would stick to doing that once, not twice. I’d be wary, though, of following up with individuals one-on-one; that creates a lot more pressure to respond/donate than a group posting does. (Group posting is more the equivalent of posting something on an office bulletin board, which people can ignore if they want to, whereas one-on-one follow-up is more like showing up in someone’s office to ask if they’ll donate. The latter does cross a line at work.)

* I’m assuming that Facebook-like social feed is internal; if it’s not, you’d need to get the sign-off of whoever manages your company’s external communications.

4. How do you keep information confidential without feeling like you’re lying to your coworkers?

As the communications director for my small org, when there’s an internal shake-up or news about leadership, I often know before my peers do because I provide counsel or have to write the emails and announcements. This puts me in a tricky position when a colleague who knows enough to know that “something’s up” asks me,”Do you know anything about what happened after that board meeting?” or “Did you know that Sally was going to step down?”

I’m fortunate to be trusted by executive leadership and by my colleagues as someone who has the organization’s best interests at heart. But to maintain that trust on both sides, I need to be able to keep mum without feeling like I’m lying by saying, “No, I have/had no idea!” What’s the right way to respond that respects both my superiors’ confidence and my relationships with well-meaning peers who just want to know what’s going on?

To the questions after it’s been announced (“did you know…”): “Not until right beforehand.”

To the questions before anything has been announced (“do you know anything about…”): “I can never share anything from board meetings until there are public announcements, even dull stuff.” But obviously this one is trickier because you’re indicating you might know something but aren’t sharing it — but you’re also underscoring that maintaining confidentiality is part of your job. Someone who presses you beyond that is being a jerk by putting you in an unfair position and you can respond flatly with, “I’m not allowed to share anything from those meetings. You’re putting me in a weird position.”

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

1. My boss has terrible ideas about social media

I’m part of an academic research lab, and our PI desperately wants us (postdocs and Ph.D. students) to do an amazing job with our lab’s social media, but whenever it comes to concrete suggestions on how this would happen, he shoots down all of our ideas. This is ridiculously egregious. The first time my PI asked, I went to my friend who is a social media professional, and together we drew up a list of ideas (basically, fun science facts and photos of our adorable lab cats). This was destined for success! I mean, LAB CATS. Our PI refused, on the grounds that we had to show that we were very serious. The other postdocs and Ph.D. students proposed similarly practical, reasonable social media campaigns (interviews of us in front of attractions in our aspirational tourist city! March Madness style brackets of our favorite dromedary species!), only to have all of those rejected in turn. Instead, our PI wanted to post pictures of himself with notable politicians. You see, our PI was recently elected to a minor government position (think, member of the school board) and has since been rubbing elbows with those on the political circuit, and … you get the idea. When he asked for more suggestions, he got crickets, because … why. Why would anyone suggest anyone else only to be told they were wrong?

Later, my PI confided in me how sad and unreasonable it is that he is handling all the social media all himself, and none of the people who should be helping are. He has another meeting planned, and we are going to discuss social media again there.

Please send help. This is a recipe for a nightmare thankless time sink that takes away from our other work, work that actually furthers our careers, and I don’t know what to do other than feigning incompetence and being hopelessly noncommittal.

I can’t speak to the politics of academia at all, which can sometimes be quite different from other workplaces, but can you just decline? Can you say, “Social media isn’t my area of expertise, and I think I should focus my time on XYZ”? Or if that’s too straightforward, can you just be aggressively unhelpful about it — “Hmmm, I don’t know. You’ve heard all the suggestions I could think of.” … “I’m not sure what would be best, it’s not really my thing.” … etc.?

The other option would be for you and your fellow team members to push back on your PI’s preferred strategy, possibly suggesting some A/B testing so you get real data on what does and doesn’t work … but it doesn’t sound like you want to take that on, which is completely reasonable.

2. Putting video game playing on your resume

My daughter is in college and trying to create a resume with very minimal work experience (so far). She plays video games as a member of her school’s esports team. It’s actually very competitive to get on the team, but is this the kind of thing that many (most?) employers would find silly or even negative? Or am I just old?

She could name it as one of several hobbies or campus activities she’s involved in (like a single line reading “president of the climate action group, member of competitive campus esports team, and avid chess player”) … but I wouldn’t put more focus on it than that. She definitely shouldn’t make it its own item on her resume similar to how you’d list a job (if that’s what she’s considering); that would come across as giving it inappropriate weight.

Related: can I put World of Warcraft leadership experience on my resume?

3. Will I be allowed to work a standard notice period if I’m on a performance improvement plan when I resign?

I’m currently in the first month of a three-month performance improvement plan at my job. I made a fairly high-profile mistake at my job and haven’t made a mistake since, but was put on the plan as a result of the error. I had been thinking about moving on before all of this, so I began taking calls from recruiters and am at the references stage for a new role. I’m beginning to think about the timeline for my departure and was anticipating giving a standard two-week notice once I sign a new offer, and taking a few weeks off before starting the new role to reflect on what happened and recharge since this experience was pretty awful.

Should I anticipate being able to serve the notice period given that I am on a PIP? Our company policies request a standard two-week notice, but I’m concerned about being told that the day I offer my resignation will be my last day and being out nearly a half of a month of income. What’s customary in these situations?

If there’s a risk I’ll be asked to leave immediately, I’d rather quit with no notice period and start two weeks after that date, given the circumstances. I feel the relationship with my manager is already irreparably damaged in a way that quitting without notice won’t make worse, and the two weeks of unemployment insurance would be a tiny fraction of what I’d normally earn during that pay period.

It’s hard to say with certainty. If your work is going okay, they’re likely to let you work out the two-week notice period. If they felt firing you at the end of the PIP was a real possibility, most employers would be relieved to have you end things on your own initiative so they don’t have to, and will be glad to let things wrap up as harmoniously as possible. If they didn’t feel it was likely the PIP would end with firing you, they’re even more likely to treat your resignation like they would anyone’s else. I’d say there’s significantly more chance that they’ll let you work the notice period than not, but there’s no way to know for sure.

One possibility is to tell the new employer when you’re setting a start date that you’d like to start in four weeks, but ask if you can leave that tentative until you speak with your current employer to see if two weeks would make more sense (and then if your current job does have you leave right away, you can come back to the new job and say you can start in two weeks after all).

4. Should we be more clear that we don’t offer health insurance?

My office has five partners who own and manage the business, including myself, and 20 employees who are not owners/managers.

Seven years ago, we discontinued our group health insurance plan, as its cost was set to more than double upon renewal and other plans we investigated were comparably priced. We had never covered the full cost of our employees’ insurance, and through research determined that the out-of-pocket cost for our employees to obtain insurance on the insurance marketplace was going to be roughly identical to what they were already paying out of pocket under our group plan. We immediately increased our employees’ pay commensurate with what we had been contributing towards their insurance, in addition to their normal merit-based and cost of living increases.

Last month, we hired a new employee. On their first day, they asked our office manager what they had to do in order to participate in our group health insurance plan. Of course, we no longer have such a plan and haven’t for some time.

The new employee was offered their position in writing, and the letter sets forth their pay and benefits. Health insurance is not listed. Those who participated in the interview process are confident that nobody represented that we offer health insurance as a benefit, since we have not for many years now. We asked the new employee if they felt that they had been offered insurance at any point, and their response was that they “assumed” it was provided.

It goes without saying that this is not a great way to begin a relationship. Should we begin to explicitly disclaim in our written summaries of benefits that we do not provide health insurance? Or is the fact that we provided a benefits list that did not include health insurance sufficient? Obviously, it was not sufficient in this one case, but the fact that this has not been an issue in the previous seven years despite many other hires being made in that period of time makes me question whether we need to take any additional action for the future.

I don’t see why you wouldn’t include that explicitly on your benefits sheet now that you realize the potential for confusion! Erring on the side of clarity is always better, especially when the stakes are so high if someone doesn’t understand the situation.

5. Should I list my references on my resume?

I have a question about references. I was taught to include two as standard on a resume. But do people leave them off and only supply when asked? Would this be seen as a red flag?

Never include your references on your resume! It’s absolutely not expected (at least not in the U.S.; other countries have different norms). When an employer wants to contact your references, they will ask you for them.

Plus, you want to know when your references are going to be contacted so that you can prepare them, and you don’t want them contacted for jobs you’ve decided you’re not interested in. You also want the benefit of knowing when you’re at that point in the process with an employer.

Similarly, you don’t need to include “references available on request” on your resume either; it goes without saying that you’ll provide them when requested, and that line takes up space for no reason.