Ask a Manager

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

1. Can my wife report her creepy coworker to HR?

My wife is in a concerning situation at work. A coworker who started out as a friend began crossing the line, making it clear he was looking for more. The comments he made were more “creepy” than outright harassment. When she politely turned him down, he continued to ask her to meet her outside of work. She ended up texting him saying she was uncomfortable with their interactions and wanted to confirm they were just friends, nothing more. He said she was acting crazy and of course they were just friends. He then followed it up the next day with another creepy invite to meet outside of work.

Last night, a couple days after telling him they were just friends, my wife had plans to go out to dinner with her friends and had mentioned in passing to him that she was going to a specific restaurant and asked if he had ever been there. He said he was not a fan, yet while she was sitting at the bar, he showed up and sat a few seats away. They did not interact and my wife left a few minutes after she saw him.

She now feels unsafe at her workplace and is at a loss on whether this is something she can approach HR about. It is obviously a public restaurant that anyone can go to, but it seems a bit to coincidental that he showed up there. She’s also a bit concerned that this can be turned back on her because she did not immediately shut down his creepy comments but would generally just ignore them at first. What is the right thing to do in this situation?

She should absolutely talk to HR. Of course anyone could just show up at a public restaurant, but her complaint isn’t “I was at a restaurant and he showed up.” It’s “he has repeatedly asked me out, despite my saying no, and I am concerned that he has now escalated to showing up to at least one place outside of work where he knew I would be, at the time he knew I would be there.” It’s the pattern that paints the troubling picture. She’s being harassed by a colleague, and her company has a legal obligation to put a stop to it. Any halfway decent HR will spot that immediately.

Please don’t let your wife worry that she’ll be seen as less credible or at fault for not immediately shutting down her coworker more firmly. Her response — to be polite, to try to soften the message to preserve the relationship, to hope he’d get the hint and stop on his own — is an incredibly common and understandable one, particularly at work where she had strong motivation to let him save face and preserve their working relationship (and particularly in a culture where rejected men not infrequently lash out … and his accusation that she was being “crazy” is just the softest version of what that can look like). Her attempt to tread lightly doesn’t make her responsible for his choices.

2. Interviewers want to talk about my feelings after rejecting me

I’ve been applying for jobs in a specialized field of human services. Of course, not every applicant is a good fit for every job and rejections are inevitable. But a weird and unexpected thing has happened to me twice recently — the hiring manager who calls to let me know I’ve not been successful in my application then wants to see if I’m okay? How am I feeling about this? Tries to reassure me the candidate pool was strong, etc. In one case I flubbed a question in the interview. The hiring manager asked if it would make me feel better if I knew that that was not the reason I didn’t get the job. Kind of? I don’t know.

If a manager takes the time to let me know by phone that I haven’t been successful — which is fairly common in our field, since the hiring experience can be extensive — all I want is to pick up on any feedback on things I can improve in future, then thank them for considering me and wish them the best. If I’m feeling sorry for myself over not getting the job, that’s something I’ll work out talking to a friend or in my journal, not talking to someone I met once and may want to consider me in future. Is there a way I can cut this short, without saying “yes, I’m fine, really” in a way that could be construed as brusque?

What?! This is weird. I have a feeling it stems from hearing that applicants hate impersonal rejections and then trying to counter that — but trying to probe into and manage your feelings about their decision is a step too far.

The best thing you can do is to be a cheerful wall — by which I mean you stay upbeat but refuse to entertain attempts to probe into your feelings. So (abbreviated to remove any discussion of substantive feedback):

Hiring manager: “I’m calling to let you know we went with another candidate.”
You: “I appreciate you calling to let me know.”
Manager: “I know that’s rough news to hear.”
You: “It’s never the answer anyone wants, but I understand the process was competitive!”
Manager: “Are you feeling okay about this?”
You: “I appreciate being considered, and it was great to get to know your team a bit. I’d love to stay in touch. Well, thank you again for letting me know, and good luck with the work you’re doing!”

Cheerful wall.

3. My boss got upset that I tried to keep her email after she retires

My boss will retire in two months. She has worked for this company for 24 years and, as far as I understand, her job is a big part of her emotional support system.

When they hired me, we discussed mailbox privacy policy. I expressed a doubt that I should check a mailbox of another employee when they are on their day off and was told, “Work mailboxes are not personal, you don’t need even ask.” I still ask though.

A couple of weeks ago, my boss and I were discussing that her mailbox and email address should stay in our department after her retirement. And, as far as I understood, she wanted me to contact our IT department to say that. It was her idea; we even discussed in which terms exactly I would ask for that.

I wrote the letter. Basically: my boss will retire on this date, please keep her email in use in our department because Reasons. I send it to my boss first, because I didn’t feel good doing it without her approval. She didn’t reply. So after a week, I sent it to IT with our boss copied. They opened a ticket to fulfill my request.

My boss called me, expressing extreme anger and being terribly hurt. I have never seen her like that. She said, “I’m still alive, I am not dead, I should handle that.” I apologized immediately and tried to speak with her, but she said that she would cry and no. She wrote to the IT department to stop the ticket processing.

We haven’t spoken about the situation since then. My boss is speaking with me very sparsely and only about job tasks. I would like to apologize for my mistake. I am very sorry that I did it and still don’t quite understand why my boss’s reaction is this extreme. What I can do? Why did this situation even happen?

Two possibilities: either you somehow misunderstood her initial direction, or she’s having an emotional response to retiring that has nothing to do with you. It doesn’t sound like the first is true (the conversation was clear and explicit, she asked you to contact IT, and then she had a week to review your message, during which time she said nothing) but even if it were a misunderstanding, her reaction would still be over-the-top. It’s much more likely that she’s having mixed feeling about retiring, doesn’t like feeling pushed out even though she’s leaving by her own choice, and maybe is having an visceral but irrational reaction to seeing clear plans made for The Time When She Will Be Gone.

Any apology you make would be about smoothing over the situation, not because you actually owe her one. But it would be fine to say, “I’m sorry I misunderstood our conversation. I thought you had directed me to send that email to IT. I would never do that on my own.” Frankly, that’s more responsibility than you need to take (it would be reasonable to just say, “Did I misunderstand our conversation? I thought you’d explicitly told me to send that email to IT”) but if you’re looking to smooth things over with someone who’s clearly struggling about her upcoming departure, it might help.

4. People are pressing me to attend the staff Christmas party (it’s August)

I currently work in a convenience shop that belongs to a big supermarket chain in the UK. We’re a close-knit team, and I genuinely enjoy working with the majority of my colleagues. I’m leaving at the end of this month so that I can pursue the career that I actually want to be in, and everyone has been genuinely supportive of me, except for one small detail: they all want me to still go to the staff Christmas party.

Yes, I know it is only August.

For the record, I have only attended one Christmas party, which was my first year working for the shop. I decided that it was not my scene, and volunteered to cover other staff shifts so they could attend the party the following years (we normally got outside cover). So even if I was staying, I likely wouldn’t attend anyway. However, while my colleagues are lovely people, they seem to struggle with taking my “no” as a full answer. They even joked about making it my unofficial leaving do, which I very quickly shut down.

There are other reasons I don’t want to attend as well. For one, it would just be awkward? Yes, these people are my friends outside of work but … it’s a quarter of the year away. Secondly, it is £60! That’s not a small sum to me, even if they have set up an unofficial pay-in-3 system (I should note it is other colleagues who chose the venue, not management). Third … it’s just a bad menu. Limited choices, and they can’t even promise the vegan option will be free from non-vegan contaminants.

I just don’t know how to stop them from asking me to go! Should I just leave it until I actually go? Any advice or a script you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

I’m assuming you don’t actually have to buy your ticket this month, right? So: “Sounds like fun! I don’t have any idea at this point what December will look like, but I’d love to attend if I can!”

Or: “I can’t even plan for September at this point, but I’d love to come back and see everyone.”

Is this is a lie when you know you don’t plan to go? Yes! But it’s the sort of white lie that gets used in these situations all the time, where people are pressing you and you don’t feel comfortable saying, essentially, “Nah, when I’m out, I’m out, and by the way, that sounds like a crap time.”

I wouldn’t advise this approach if the stakes were higher — like if they were asking if you’d be available to do a work project as a freelancer and might plan around your answer. But for the question of whether you’ll return to attend the Christmas party, it’s fine.

5. I want a job without much variety

I’m hoping to harness the power of the AAM commentariat with my question. I think it’s pretty common to have job listings that tout how “no two days are the same!” For some people I know, this is ideal! But not me. I don’t actually want a job that’s always different. I’ve thrived the most in jobs with a fairly scheduled process flow to them. I used to be a payroll specialist, and I loved the bi-weekly cycle of things. Sure, we had special projects and unusual situations pop up from time to time. But overall the flow of the job duties was pretty consistent. I knew what to expect on a general level, which I now understand is very important to me. I don’t function at my best when the unexpected is the rule.

I’m currently in an analyst job where I’m always working on several different projects at once. And at any moment, something completely out of left field can be added to my plate with urgency behind it. I haven’t had this role for long, but I do not think it’s right for me. I’d love to get more examples of jobs that are more consistent. I’m talking the type of jobs that people who love excitement avoid like the plague. Can I please get some input from the readers?

Let’s throw it out to readers for ideas.

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

1. My team was told to do less work

I’ve had an interesting three months at work. During this period, my team of three was pulled aside while one service desk team member was out. We were asked in that meeting to work LESS diligently so that the third person had a chance to grab tickets. My sentiment was essentially too damn bad … he needs to catch up and stop watching YouTube all day. When I brought this up to management and HR, they said that I’m not privy to everything going on in the background, plus my current manager has only been in her position for the past three months and she hasn’t had adequate time to address all the problems.

Am I going crazy or is this favoritism from management, allowing this coworker to be on YouTube all day while the rest of us pick up the slack? What recourse do I have in a situation like this?

In some situations, asking you to take fewer tickets could be reasonable — like if someone is being trained and needs those tickets to learn from, or if your manager is trying to give your coworker enough rope to hang himself with (by ensuring there are clearly tickets available that he could be taking but isn’t). It’s also possible that he’s claiming his numbers are low because there’s no work available and they truly believe that … but based on the “you don’t know everything going on in the background” comment, I’m guessing it’s not that.

As for recourse … you don’t really have any. If they’re asking you to take fewer tickets, you’re not being asked to pick up your coworker’s slack; you’re being asked to leave his slack right there where everyone can see it. If that causes other problems (like if he doesn’t do the tickets you leave for him and you end up having to stay late or rush to get them done at the last minute), you can and should raise those issues. But otherwise, take fewer tickets like they’ve asked and see what happens.

2. Two of my employees hold their own “accountability” meetings

I manage a team of five executive assistants at a fairly big company. Two of them meet weekly for almost 1-1/2 hours for an “accountability” call. One of them has this call marked as private on her calendar and the other does not. Here are the questions they have on the meeting invite for discussion:

• What was your biggest priority this week?
• Did you accomplish it, and if not, why not?
• What did you learn this week?
• What was your biggest business highlight this week?
• What is/was your biggest obstacle?
• What do you need to solve it, or how did you solve it?
• What was your biggest personal highlight last week?
• Rate last week on a scale of 1-10 (10 being amazing).
• What needs to happen to make next week a success?
• What do you need help with (and who do you need to contact)?

Another on the team (who is no longer with the company) suggested that these two teammates are manipulating behind the team’s back. I also get the feeling these two may talk about the other team members and also plan on their own to push items forward. I haven’t heard from the other current teammates yet, but I think knowing these two have a regular meeting could make some of them feel like these two are conniving together and, frankly, it makes me feel that way as their manager as well.

I do think it is important to have mentoring discussions and our company fully supports personal development but this just bothers me a bit and I don’t want it to become a bigger issue. Am I just being paranoid?

It sounds great to me! They’re supporting each other and holding each other accountable; those are good things!

If you see signs that they’re plotting together to push agendas you don’t want them pushing, or if work isn’t getting done because they’re prioritizing these meetings when they should be prioritizing other things, you’d address those issues specifically — but that would be about those specific problems, not the meetings themselves. Assuming you’re not seeing anything like that, it sounds like your discomfort is all coming from the former employee (who doesn’t seem to have offered any real reason to be concerned) and maybe your own uneasiness at feeling cut out of the loop. The meetings themselves, as presented here, seem great. And if other team members ever indicate that they feel excluded by not being part of it, you could suggest other people form their own small groups to do the same. (Hell, if there’s interest, you could even suggest that these two share their process with the team as a whole in case other people want to learn how to do something similar.)

3. Will my job chances go up if I color my gray hair?

Recently, I had a conversation with my father, who is a sales manager, about my job search situation, and he said that I would be more likely to get promoted or hired if I dyed my hair. I am 42 and I have salt and pepper hair (mostly dark brown/black and a good amount of gray in front). I like this color contrast and I get a lot of compliments from peers and young people, but I do care about my career. Do you think I should get my hair dyed so that I am more likely to be promoted at my current company or hired at another company, or is this not usually a factor for hiring managers?

I’d love to tell you it doesn’t matter at all because it certainly shouldn’t, but in reality some hiring managers are biased, unconsciously or otherwise, against candidates who they perceive as older. That’s obviously BS, but it happens. Does it mean you’ll never get promoted or hired anyone if they see, gasp, gray hair? It definitely does not. Might it narrow your options in ways we can’t anticipate? It’s possible. Is that more the exception than the rule? Probably. Might you decide you’d rather screen those managers out anyway? Yes!

Personally I think you should do whatever you want with your hair, and if you’re moving along in your career in a way you’re happy with, you should feel free to ignore your father. If at some point you’re struggling for the sort of advancement you want, it could be one thing to consider, but it’s hardly a definitive one.

(You might also consider whether your father works in contexts similar to your own or not, and whether he might be sort of telling on himself with this particular opinion.)

4. My friend asks me to help them professionally but won’t return the favor

Am I being petty because my friend won’t engage with my work or share their connections?

I have a friend who works in social media at a renowned company, and every now and then they send me company Instagram and Tiktoks to engage with such as with likes and comments. This helps them gain traction for their videos and posts, which shows the company that people are engaging with their content.

My issue is, before they got this role, I was doing a similar role at a different company and I would send them videos to like and comment on. However they would never engage on any of the videos I was putting out there. Recently, I worked at another company and sent them videos to do with my work. But again they ignored me when I asked them to engage with my content.

I find it unfair that I engage with their work but they never do the same. I have also noticed that when it comes to networking and connections, they also don’t share their connections (which is fine).

Is it petty of me to stop engaging with their videos? I am also hesitant to now and in the future to mix my networking connections with them because they never do the same. I understand people have to start from somewhere and that they struggled at one point, but sometimes it feels unfair. I sometimes see them engaging with old friends when it comes to the creative field working on projects, but I am excluded despite having a creative background.

You’re under no obligation to do them a favor that they repeatedly declined to do for you. (In fact, it would be better if you all stopped doing and requesting these favors because it’s skewing the data on how the content is really doing.) You could see that as petty, or you could see it as “they showed me that’s not a friendship action they put value on.”

You also don’t need to keep helping them with connections if they don’t share their own. Networking is supposed to be mutually beneficial.

If you otherwise like this friend, I’d just engage with them on completely non-work-related levels. For whatever reason, the work stuff only goes one way with them.

5. Should companies check references for internal transfers?

You’ve spoken often about how important it is to check references, but I’m wondering about in the case of internal hires. For the last two roles I’ve been offered, no one asked to check my references because I was an internal transfer and the bosses had worked with me previously. In one case it made sense to me, but in the other I hadn’t worked with that person in over five years. Theoretically I could have changed and become a less useful employee. I’m curious about what’s normal and what you think they should do in these types of situations.

It’s super normal not to check references for internal transfers, because you’re already a known quantity. The manager hiring for the new position might talk informally with your current manager (they definitely should), but it’s pretty uncommon for formal reference checks to happen in those situations.

Reference checks are for when you don’t know the candidate and their work, and can’t simply take their word for what they say about themselves. When you’re already working there, they know you and your work, and their firsthand experience with you will be more recent, more unfiltered, and more nuanced than anything they’d get from a reference call.

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

1. My employee isn’t as productive on her WFH days

I work in a university on a small team of just me and one other, Claire. Claire is in her mid-30s and has been in her role for over 10 years, initially full-time and now three days a week since having her two children, who are both under five. Claire works Monday and Wednesday in the office and Tuesday at home.

My issue is that Claire’s Tuesdays at home are … seemingly not as productive as her days in the office. Whilst I’m confident that she does not have her children at home with her on Tuesdays (they are both in well-established childcare), I think that the issue may be that she is trying to use her Tuesdays at home to get caught up on housework, personal admin, etc.

Claire is a good worker — she gets her work done, meets deadlines, and is knowledgeable and personable. But she has mentioned to me on a couple of occasions about difficult times at home, citing behavior from her husband that I would say is unreasonable / bordering on being emotionally abusive — criticizing her, suggesting that she should be able to do more on the days she cares for the children, being unkind, etc.

I’d like to see more from Claire on a Tuesday, but I also don’t want to put her in a scenario where I’m micromanaging her on her days working from home or making things difficult for her at home if the cause of her lower productivity on a Tuesday is what I suspect it is and she is doing her best to manage both work and home life, as I have a responsibility to her as an individual (and also remember how difficult it is to work and keep a home with very young children). What do I do? Do I do anything?

Assuming you’re her manager, you should just name what you’re seeing, without speculating on the causes. For example: “I’m noticing that your Tuesdays at home don’t seem as productive as your days in the office. For example, (fill in with some specifics that illustrate the problem). I know there might be more to it than I’m seeing, so I wanted to ask you about your sense of that.”

It’s possible you’ll hear something you didn’t realize, like that Claire purposely saves all her deep-focus work for Tuesdays, and that stuff takes longer to produce tangible results that you can easily see, or it’s her day for catching up on phone calls with clients, or who knows what. But if there’s no explanation like that and Claire is in fact working less on those days (for whatever reason), this is a reasonable first step in addressing it.

This wouldn’t be about micromanaging her; it would be about flagging something you’re seeing and letting her figure out how to fix it, if needed.

2. Politics on LinkedIn

I am fairly active on LinkedIn – the type of work I do has a big community/social component and I love it. Of course, this means that sometimes, just because of how the feed works, I can see that someone “liked” something someone else posted. I am very conscious of this and really try to avoid interacting with anything controversial, political, etc because I treat LinkedIn as if I were in an office. But sometimes, someone I know/work with will “like: something that is either offensive, flat-out false, or both.

Recently a colleague of mine did this on a pretty political and, I felt, offensive post, which a quick google search also told me was completely unfounded. Unfortunately, I can’t unsee this, and I am so tempted to drop him a note and say, “Hey, FYI, people can see when you ‘like’ stuff like this and, by the way, it’s offensive and incorrect.”

Having read a lot of your columns, I feel fairly confident that you’re going to tell me to leave it alone (and I know, deep down, that that’s correct), but UGH. Everyone knows politics should be kept out of the workplace, but don’t they realize this should extend to LinkedIn?

They do not realize it! People use LinkedIn for some really weird shit these days, and they definitely don’t treat it like an office (or they’re the same people who are inappropriate in their office too).

But your instinct to leave it alone is correct. It’s not really your business and you don’t have the standing to school him on this (unless you’re his mentor or something similar to that). File it away as useful info about him, but otherwise leave it alone.

3. Client’s new employee is trying to take over my job

I work in a freelance capacity and have a client who I’ve worked with for quite a few years. She recently took on a new person, Sally, who works in a completely different field than me.

The company is small, I am part-time, and Sally is almost full-time. I am remote, mostly, and Sally is in the office. My issue is that Sally is acting as though she is my boss, correcting my work and in some instances making changes to it, suggesting things I’ve already researched and dismissed as though they are new exciting ideas, and digging through things I work on to find things that she thinks are wrong, then pointing them out in group emails. This is despite the fact she has no experience in my field. I wouldn’t dream of telling her how to do her job, so I’m not sure why she is trying to tell me how to do mine. It feels as though she is trying to take over my role.

I need to find a resolution to this or I won’t be able to continue working for my client. Do I approach Sally first and try to work things out between us? Or do I let my client know what’s happening? She has already had to explain to Sally who I am and my background and expertise, so it wouldn’t be coming out of nowhere. My client is lovely, and I know she wouldn’t want me to leave. However, I have a big project with another client coming up later this year, as well as a project of my own starting to take off, and I don’t need to feel this annoyed.

Talk to your client and ask if she’s made this part of Sally’s role. Keep it matter-of-fact and unemotional. For example: “I hoped you could clarify for me whether you’ve asked Sally to do XYZ with my work as part of her role. There have been some situations recently where (fill in specifics) and since it’s so different from how I’ve worked with you in the past — and to be transparent, is making some of my work harder — I wanted to check whether that’s happening with your blessing or whether there’s a misunderstanding with Sally.”

Ideally your client will be surprised and say it shouldn’t be happening and she’ll take care of it. But if she says this is part of Sally’s role now, then you should explain how it’s interfering with your work … and then potentially decide based on that discussion whether the client relationship is still one that works for you. But start by finding out if your client even knows it’s happening.

4. I don’t want to record a training for new hires

I was told to train two new hires using Teams. I am not comfortable doing this. I am also a new hire, just not quite as new. I am horrified to be recorded on a platform I’m not familiar with, or any platform frankly. I am very, very shy and the thought of doing this training is causing me a lot of distress. I would prefer to do the training in person, but they insist that it be recorded. Can I be fired for refusing? I do not think they will care that I am in terror about doing this task. They gave me very little warning about this and zero time to prepare.

They can insist on it and theoretically could fire you for refusing. They’re not likely to fire you for refusing, but you’d be risking it having a pretty big impact on how you’re perceived and what kind of opportunities you’re given there in the future. There’s a decent chance that your reputation would take a lasting hit, just because this has become a pretty normal expectation in such a wide variety of jobs. (I’m assuming they want it recorded so the trainees can refer back to it in the future, which isn’t unreasonable.)

You could try saying, “I freeze up when I’m recorded and think I could train them a lot more effectively in person.” (Obviously if your job involves needing to do training and/or presenting or being recorded, you shouldn’t say this, but I’m guessing from the rest of your letter that it doesn’t.) Your boss might be sympathetic to that, or might not be. If she’s not, at that point you really should try to get through it.