Ask a Manager

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

1. Employees’ banter turned into play-fighting

I have a fairly established team who all get along very well. Two members of my team, Pam and Angela, are particularly close. They chat outside of work, enjoy sharing projects, and always speak well of each other. With their good relationship comes a fair amount of teasing. Nothing over the line, and always taken in good humor.

We have an in-office meeting once a month, and during the latest one an incident happened that I don’t know what to do about.

It was a great meeting, very informal, we had pizza and shared lots of great ideas. Pam and Angela were having a bit of banter, during which Angela slapped Pam on the shoulder. It sounded hard — it echoed through the room! Pam laughed and seemed to find it amusing, and Angela looked a bit embarrassed at how carried away she’d got. It very much felt like the kind of play-fight that might break out between siblings.

We moved on, and nothing else has been said. I don’t know how to handle this now. Should I pick it up with Angela? It’s sounds very patronizing to tell a grown woman not to hit her friends, and she already seemed embarrassed about it. On the other hand, it was a ridiculous thing to do in work and while I like to keep our meetings causal, it’s still work. What do I do, if anything?!

I think you could do nothing at this point if you choose to — they have a jokey relationship, Pam didn’t seem bothered, and Angela looked embarrassed. It’s unlikely that you have an “Angela think it’s okay to slap her coworkers” problem on your hands.

That said, you certainly have standing to address it if you want to. You could say to Angela, “I know you have a jokey relationship with Pam, but you can’t slap anyone at work, even in jest.” And you could say to Pam, “I know you have a jokey relationship with Angela, but it wasn’t okay that she slapped you yesterday. I wanted to check in with you and make sure you’re okay and there’s not more going on.”

2. I found love letters on a shared drive

I’m an admin in a large corporation. We are planning a big migration of our shared drive to a new software provider, and ahead of the migration, I was tasked with organizing the digital files of one of my superiors. One of the many challenges in organizing his section of the shared drive was that he had many personal files mixed in with his professional files, such as a letter to his landscaper and an invoice for a new mattress.

Then I found a pair of love letters. They had been given names that disguised them as documents pertaining to a real professional matter. At first I thought they were wildly inappropriate correspondence with a business associate, but I’ve never heard of the woman to whom the letters are addressed. The letters just seem to be declarations of love to his sweetheart.

I’m at a total loss to what I should do here. The letters are very intimate, but not sexually explicit outside of a reference to “nights spent together.” I can tell my superior wouldn’t have wanted me to see them, but they’re in a section of the shared drive that I didn’t not require any special permission to access. Anyone could have found them at any time. I obviously can’t put these letters with the other documents pertaining to the real professional matter. Should I just delete them? Should I tell my manager what I’ve found? I’m mortified and so lost!

Make a folder called “personal” and put all the personal stuff in there, mattress invoice and love letters alike. Then put it out of your mind and never think about it again. No need to mention it to him specifically, beyond perhaps “I put all the personal stuff in its own folder so you can move it off the shared drive.”

To be clear, if he were the one writing in, I’d tell him not to keep love letters on a shared drive — or on a work computer, period. And I’d definitely tell him not to give them names that sound like they’re work-related, holy crap. But he’s not the one writing in.

3. Should I help out a new person at my old job?

I recently left a position I had been in for five years for a similar one at a new employer. It was not an easy choice and though I am in a better spot now than I was a year ago, my first choice would have been to stay with my old job closer to home in a city where my husband and I have friends. The higher-ups there made it impossible when my immediate supervisor resigned and they asked me to take an interim position without any kind of timeline and without offering me more pay for the extra responsibilities. I have moved on, but still feel a lot of leftover resentment about how I was treated and the resulting burn-out.

My old employer is now having a lot of trouble filling their open position. I have heard from my former supervisor that they’ve asked her if she has any interest in returning to her former role and she turned them down. I have been contacted by a new person in a new management position who wants to talk about their “challenges.” I’m torn because this new person didn’t mistreat me and I would like things to be better for the next person in that role. I have a long history with this employer, having worked for them before I went to grad school in addition to working for them recently. Careers are long and while I wouldn’t move back to work for them again right now, they are the best choice closest to home. On the other hand, the other people in management had a chance to do an exit interview or have this convo before I left that they let slip by. Or they could have just promoted me and paid me more and we all could have avoided the trouble.

I could quote them a consultant fee, but I work in academia and I’m not sure that’s common practice. I’m in librarianship, where the expectation is to offer support to librarians at other institutions without being paid, but this isn’t exactly the same since it’s coming from management. If it were coming from my old bosses, I’d say no. If it were coming from a newly hired librarian, I’d say yes. Since it’s coming from neither, I’m conflicted. What would you advise?

It’s 100% up to you! One question to ask yourself, though: do you have reason to think that talking to this person will truly change anything for the next person? When the problems are really entrenched, most often it won’t.

But it really just comes down to whether you feel like doing it or not. If you don’t, it’s perfectly fine to say, “I’m booked solid right now. I’m sorry I can’t help!” If you feel more comfortable softening it, feel free to add, “I’ll reach out if that changes.” (That doesn’t obligate you to get back in touch later.)

4. My client is holding up half my fee because she’s too busy to schedule a meeting

I’m a freelancer who works on niche projects for clients I know well, so while I’ve learned over the years to be very explicit about timelines and payments, my contracts tend to reflect the casual and flexible nature of these long-term working relationships. Recently, I had a new client whose company I work for in a different capacity ask me to complete a survey project for her. I drew up a contract where I would invoice half my fee upon submitting the survey, and the second half of the fee once we met to discuss the results (this follow-up meeting was included in the scope of work). I set a date for when the work and all meetings would be completed.

Though my work was submitted on time, the meeting kept getting pushed back and never scheduled, as the company owner was very busy. It was a small project, so half my fee is not a huge amount of money, but if I had known the meeting would not happen for months I never would have structured the fee payment that way. The truth is that the bulk of the work had already happened, and this was just a small way to acknowledge that they would see the work before finishing the payment. They were very pleased with work, and it is annoying to have half my fee held up because we can’t schedule a meeting. After months, I emailed the company head and explained that since we were well past the date outlined in the agreement, I was going to complete the invoice, but I know that we still have that meeting on the books and I’ll be happy to meet whenever they want to schedule. I thought this would give them some scheduling breathing room, since I could be paid but then meet whenever this survey project cycled back into priority. I still work for another part of the company, so everyone speaks with me regularly — it’s not like I’m going to vanish. The company head responded saying, essentially, thanks for the gentle nudge and yes let’s set up that meeting asap, and seemed a little taken aback that I wanted to invoice before completing the duties I had said I would complete (i.e., the meeting). I was worried I had not clearly explained my logic, and so replied that I would be happy to hold off invoicing if we could meet soon, but that the fee structure presumed a timeline roughly within the one we had set in the scope of work, and that I wouldn’t have structured it that way if I had known we would not meet until much later. She replied vaguely, insisting she knows this is important and will get to that meeting soon, she promised. So I thought I was emailing with a very specific request and now I’m back in limbo.

I know, lesson learned, that I should not have split the invoice this way, since it did not reflect the input of work. But do I have any recourse now? I need to keep a good working relationship with this company, and I don’t want to come off as petty. I think I’ve pushed as hard as I can with this last email, and they definitely bristled at my suggestion to get paid now but commit to holding that meeting whenever it makes sense for them.

Given all the factors here — the way the contract was written, the need to keep a good relationship with them, the fact that it’s a small amount of money and you’re working with them on other projects — I’d set it aside for one month. But then, if the meeting still hasn’t been scheduled at that point, just send the invoice over with a note saying, “Attached is my invoice for the remainder due on the X project.” Leave the meeting in their court, but make it clear you need to be paid.

If you think you need to be more delicate about it, you could instead wait the month and then say, “Since it’s been X months since the work was submitted, I do need to close out payment. I don’t want to push you on the meeting if it’s tough to schedule right now, but I’ll plan to submit the invoice by ___ (date about two weeks away) either way.” And then … submit the invoice by the date you name in that message. But really, the first option should be fine unless these people require very careful handling.

Also, is your normal contact there someone different than the owner who bristled? If so, you might talk to that person and ask about the best way to navigate it. They might even be able to submit the invoice for you and get it handled without involving the owner at all, depending on how stuff works there.

5. My company gives free lunch to one location but not another

I am located in Florida. My previous company A had a cafeteria and charged employees $3 for lunch if we decided to eat there.

A few years ago, company B bought company A. Company B has a few locations our county and they get free lunches in their cafeterias. This is mentioned on their job postings. This is a very large company based in the U.S. When company B took over, employees spoke about us now getting free lunches like their other nearby locations. However, the $3 charge didn’t change. The cafeteria manager let it slip that company B saw the profit the lunches were making and decided to keep the $3 charge. This meant that we paid $15 more per week than the other locations if we decided to eat in the cafeteria (most employees did). Is this legal?

It is indeed legal. It might not be fair or good for morale, but it’s legal. Employers are allowed to treat different employees differently as long as it’s not based on a characteristic that’s specifically protected by law (such as race, sex, religion, age if over 40, or disability). They can legally say “we’re going to have a different policy for employees at location X” as long as there’s not what the law calls “disparate impact” on one of those protected classes (like if employees at your location were disproportionately a different race from the other locations).

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

1. Religious apologies in out-of-office messages

It’s pretty common in Jewish circles to send mass blanket apologies (in email and social media) to coworkers, friends, and family, apologizing for anything they might have done during the year to offend the other person, whether intentional or unintentional. These messages usually come in September, just before the beginning of the Jewish high holiday season.

What are your thoughts on out of office messages in workplaces that are not specifically Jewish workplaces containing such an apology, but not explicitly explaining why the employee is apologizing? I’ve done it for years, as have many of my coworkers (we are a global organization and my Jewish coworkers and I work all over the world).

For example, my out-of-office messages have said something along the lines of, “I will be out of the office from September 25 to 27. If I have done anything to offend you this past year, please accept my apology.” It probably might seem a bit odd and confusing to non-Jews who have no idea why Jews do this, but I still feel compelled to insert an apology in my out of office message every year. My (non-Jewish) boss told me this year that last year’s message was the most interesting OOO message he had ever read, so this year I toned it down; my OOO had just the dates I would be out, followed by, “Please forgive me.”

First, I am Jewish and have never heard of this, nor have any of my Jewish friends/family who I polled! We all agreed we would be confused if we received this. That doesn’t really matter — there are lots of things where different Jews observe differently — but I’m noting it to say I think even many Jews won’t realize what you are doing!

So answering as someone who wouldn’t understand what I was seeing … it would seem very strange and confusing, if not downright alarming. I wouldn’t connect it to Yom Kippur and would wonder if you’d been offending people left and right and were now trying to cover your bases before you got fired, or possibly even if you had been suspended and that’s why you were out of the office. (I’d also wonder how it could be a sincere apology when you don’t even know who you’re apologizing to, since it’s an auto-response. If you had offended me during the past year and then I got that auto-response, it wouldn’t feel like a real apology.)

I’m obviously not commenting on it as a religious practice — although I don’t think you should involve others in your religious practices at work — but I do think it’s going to come across extremely oddly to most people. I would leave it out of your auto-response.

2. How do I avoid Boss’s Day gifts next year?

I had no idea Boss’s Day was this weekend, and my staff have never done anything for it even though I’ve been a manager for 10 years (with the same team the whole time). This year, one of my staff dropped off a gift, with a card with a very sweet message — total value under $10. He gave it to me personally, to my great surprise, told me Boss’s Day was Sunday, and left my office with a smile.

Now, I don’t think he’s trying to curry favor. I think this is genuinely just something generous he wanted to do, and once I read the card I dropped him a note and thanked him. But I still feel awkward, because this has never happened before, and because (like you) I think Boss’s Day is inappropriate. What’s the best way to handle this to make sure it doesn’t happen again?

Ward it off ahead of time next year! One easy way to do it is to send around an article like the one I have here (or anything similar; doesn’t need to be mine) with a note saying something like, “I agree with this! I don’t believe in Boss’s Day and hope none of you feel any pressure to buy into it (or to send cards or gifts my way at the holidays, for that matter). Your good work is always the only gift I want!” Do this two weeks beforehand, so it’s early enough to stamp out anything that might be about to be planned. (This might feel a little weird to the rest of your team, who have worked with you for years without it coming up, but they’ll presumably be aware new team members have been added in that time and that they don’t know what other people might be doing individually.)

3. My employer reimbursed my student loan payments and now my payments have been refunded

I recently paid off my student loans!

I work for a nonprofit and I love the organization. One of my benefits over the past few years has been student loan reimbursement. This allowed me to keep paying during the Covid “pause.”

Now those payments (almost $6,000) are refundable and my refund just came through. Do I need to give it back to my employer? HR told me that they would appreciate giving it back. I don’t want to steal from a charity. What do you think?

So you made the payments, your employer reimbursed you for them, and now the original payments themselves have been refunded? Yeah, you should pay that back; otherwise you’re getting an extra $6,000 when that wasn’t the intent of your employer’s program. They just wanted to reimburse you for payments that have now been reimbursed from a different source. You don’t necessarily have to (that would depend on the wording of any written agreement you had with them), but a nonprofit that you still work for and that you love? It does feel like cheating them if you don’t.

(It’s interesting to consider, though, what your obligations would be if you didn’t still work there; in theory the obligation should be the same, but in practice I don’t think it would feel as strongly obligatory and I can’t fully defend that.)

4. How do I tell my boss to stop being so long-winded in meetings?

I work at a social justice organization where the white VP I report to takes up way too much air time during internal and, worse yet, external meetings with prospective funders (we’re a nonprofit). It’s particularly painful when the people of color we’re meeting with can’t get a word in edgewise and she talks over them when they are able to jump in. Colleagues are asking me how to get her to stop behaving like this. FWIW, I’m also a white woman who feels like I should be the one to talk to her about it, but I’m honestly afraid of getting on her wrong side and jeopardizing my job. When I’ve had “radical candor” conversations with her about other issues, she gets a deer-in-the-headlights look on her face and then is angry and defensive.

It sounds like it’s going to need to come from someone above her. You already know that she gets angry and defensive when you give her candid feedback, so it’s a job for her boss or someone else with authority over her. What you can do, though, is talk to someone in that category and ask them to intervene.

5. I made an employer wait 10 days for an answer to their offer … and then I turned it down

I recently had a job offer that I think I may have totally messed up. Basically, I was going through an interview process for a job I was intrigued by, but not totally sold on. There were two interviews, and during each one I let them know that I had a week-long family vacation coming up, and that if they contacted me during that time I might be slow to respond.

On the first day of my vacation, literally when I was waiting in line to board the plane, I got an email from the hiring manager, Bob, offering me the position. This was a Friday, so I asked if I could get back to them on Monday, and they said that was fine.

However, as soon as my flight landed, it became clear that I would not be able to fully consider the offer during the trip. The agenda ended up being booked solid each day, and internet access was slim to none. Not only would it have been difficult to fit in a call to Bob, but I also wanted to give my current employer a chance to counter-offer, and that would’ve been completely infeasible with the trip schedule. So I emailed Bob again on Monday and said I was sorry, but I wasn’t going to be able to deal with this during my vacation after all and would need to let them know the following Monday.

After I got back (the following Monday — so 10 days after the offer had been made) I told my employer about the offer, and they ended up making a very compelling counteroffer, which I decided to take, so I ended up turning down Bob, who was very disappointed. Now I feel guilty, because I know I made Bob wait 10 days to ultimately still be rejected. However, I am having trouble thinking of what I could’ve done differently. What is your take?

You’re fine. It would have been shady if you had made him wait 10 days if your intent was always to just use his offer to get a better one from your current job, but it doesn’t sound like that was the case. And you’d told him from the beginning that that you were going to be away and less responsive during that time anyway.

When a hiring manager agrees to give you more time to consider an offer, that doesn’t create an additional obligation to accept the job at the end of that period. It’s always understood that you could come back and say no. If that was going to be a problem for Bob, he could have explained that he needed your answer sooner. Yes, it’s disappointing when you wait for a candidate (while keeping all your other candidates on hold) and they turn the job down, but that’s a normal part of how job offers can go.