my coworker doesn’t understand anything I say, working from abroad without telling your employer, and more by Alison Green on November 9, 2022 It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker doesn’t understand anything I say I have been on my team a few months. My only colleague, Ernest, has been in the role 15 years so he is clearly able to do his job well enough. However, I often feel like we are having two different conversations because it doesn’t seem like he’s understood anything I’m saying. It’s not a language barrier, it’s more like I have no idea what wavelength he’s on but it’s not mine. If he and I have a meeting, it will go like this. Our manager is Dorothy. Her manager is Betsy. Me: Should we get on to writing that report about the new knitting process? Ernest: I don’t see why Betsy wanted that. Our knitting process is better than it’s ever been. Me: … yes … I’m glad you think so…but Dorothy wanted us to write a quick report just to check how it went and if there is anything about it we want to change, so we can feed that back to Betsy. Ernest: I’ve looked at the crochet program and we’ve had some great feedback on that. Me: That’s great … we’re not talking about the crochet program though. We’re talking about the knitting program. How did you want to divide work on that report? Ernest: I’ve told Betsy our knitting program is better than it’s ever been. Me: Good. That’s great. But we still need to objectively LOOK at it and do the report. I thought we could start by reviewing the knitting production figures. (After a few minutes of talking about these figures, I ask him what he thinks.) Ernest: We’ve had some great feedback on the crochet program. Me: No, we’re talking about the knitting figures. I haven’t mentioned the crochet figures at all. I mean the knitting figures, on screen right now. Ernest: I’ve told Betsy that the knitting program is the best it’s ever been. After 35 minutes of circling, it becomes apparent that Ernest isn’t going to do the report with me. We’ve been over it 20 times and I’m still not even sure he understood the question, so I just ask him to give me a few days to do it myself. This is not just a me issue. I’ve been in meetings where I’ve seen Dorothy and Betsy ask him a question, get an answer on a completely different topic than the one we’ve all been discussing for 15 minutes, and look bewildered. It’s resulted in me taking more of the lead when I have to work with him because I can’t trust that he’s even thinking about the same topic as me. It’s almost like he’s reached capacity — he knows the areas he works on and if you approach anything new, his brain just short-circuits. How do I approach this without looking like I’m treating him like an idiot and taking over all the tasks? Oh my goodness, talk to your boss. Tell her you’re having a lot of trouble communicating with Ernest and ask for her advice. She’ll probably know what you’re talking about since he does it to her too, but if she doesn’t, you could ask if she’d be willing to sit in on a few of your meetings with Ernest to get a better understanding of the challenges you’re running into in. You can frame it as, “When we sit down to divide work on a project like X or Y, I have trouble getting him to respond to what I’m saying or move forward on the work. Would you be able to join us for a couple of these meetings in the next few weeks? I’m hoping if you observe, you might be able to point out if there’s something different I could be trying.” Also … don’t assume that just because Ernest has been there 15 years, he must be doing his job well. Given what you’ve seen, it’s quite possible he hasn’t been managed effectively in that time (which means that appealing to your boss for help may or may not move things forward … but if nothing else, it’s likely to get you more information about what you’re really dealing with). 2. How to politely say, “I’ll respond when I can” I’ve joined an organization as an editor, and I have a full inbox at all times. I am a one-man team, and often I have to put responding to non-urgent emails at the bottom of my to-do list, which leads to some long response times. I’m in a field where it’s not unusual to take a week or so to receive a response to a submission or for edits on a piece. However, newer submitters sometimes aren’t aware of this, and they’ll follow up a day or two after their email, sometimes multiple times before I can get to their email. Generally, this is a mild annoyance that doesn’t affect my workflow. Still, I am tired of “apologizing for a delay” or “thank you for your patience” for something that isn’t an actual delay, just an extended timeline that is normal in our field. How can I say politely, “FYI — it’s normal for it to take up to 10 days for a response, so no need to follow up until then. Chill.” I deal with a lot of emerging writers, and I want to treat them with care while also setting up my own professional boundaries and teaching them norms. Can you set expectations earlier in the process? For example, when you’re first assigning a piece, you could say, “Once you submit it, expect to hear back within 10 days”? Or, when you receive the piece, you could send a quick acknowledgement that says, “Received! I’ll have feedback to you within the next two weeks.” You could even set that up as a form reply in your email or auto-text so you can send it with just a few clicks rather than having to type it out every time. Another option is an auto-reply that lists your expected turnaround times for various types of inquiries (“if you’re a writer submitting a piece, I’ll respond with 10 days”) but you can probably avoid that by setting up some quick form replies in your email program. 3. Can someone work from abroad without telling their employer? My company is very flexible and allows full-time remote workers in most of the U.S. Because I am a rule follower, I make sure to discuss with my manager and HR if I am ever going to need to work from a remote location. My understanding is that I can work from anywhere in the U.S. for less than 30 days without issue; I am just expected to adhere mostly to New York hours as our headquarters are based there. If I were to relocate for more than 30 days, then I would need to update my address and make sure the company is licensed to do business in that state. Where it gets tricky is working internationally. My company has offices in London and Singapore but will not allow anyone to work from there unless the company explicitly sends them there on business. I have asked if they would ever offer the option for people to work remotely from other countries (on their own dimes) and they said that the legal and tax implications are too complicated for the HR team to handle right now. I totally understand that and accepted it. So imagine my surprise when I get on a video call and find that one of my colleagues is calling in from … Peru! From my understanding, this is not okay and I was really bothered by it, but maybe I am missing something? I should also note that we have unlimited PTO so if my colleague really wanted to go there they could have just taken time off. Are employees obligated to tell their employer where they are going to be working from if they can work remotely? And are there any consequences for employees who bend the rules should their employers find out? You don’t really know the situation with your coworker! They might have been in Peru on business, or might have received permission to work from there (despite your company not wanting to authorize it more generally). Or they might have been on vacation and were asked to call in just for this one call. Or yes, they might have done it without checking first. (If so, that’s between them and your company and I’m curious why you’re so bothered by it. Is it because you’d like to do the same and were told you couldn’t? That’s legitimate. But if it’s just because you’re a rule follower … well, it’ll be better for your quality of life if you accept not everyone is, and that doesn’t need to be your problem unless it directly affects you or you’re their manager or otherwise in a position where your job is to enforce the rules they’re breaking.) But generally speaking, yes, there can be tax and legal consequences to allowing employees to work from another country (including needing to follow the labor laws of the country where the work is taking place). A single work call from abroad usually won’t trigger those consequences. Realistically, a full week of working from there probably won’t either. But companies generally want to make that call themselves, not leave it up to the individual judgment of each employee, and they can indeed require employees to seek permission to work from other locations (and impose whatever consequences they want for people who don’t). 4. Giving notice in a travel-heavy job I work in a job where I travel about 75% of the time, and my schedule is set roughly one to two months ahead of time. I plan to quit the job soon because I’m just not happy in the position. I am job searching, but I’m unsure of how I should navigate the resignation process. If I get another job, do I have to set my start date to after the time when I’ve completed all my scheduled work travel? Can I give two weeks notice and cancel the trips that I already have planned? Should I give my boss a head’s up that I intend to quit in the next few months and I shouldn’t get scheduled to travel beyond that? None of these options seem great to me. If I get a new job and say I can’t start for one to two months, is that generally acceptable to companies? If I give two weeks notice and cancel trips, there’s no one who can cover these trips (this is part of the reason I’m quitting). Telling my boss I intend to quit seems risky for obvious reasons. Any advice you have for this situation would be very much appreciated! Give the normal two weeks notice. You don’t need to wait until all your scheduled travel is done. (Think about how that would work in jobs that are scheduling travel a year out!) Your company will cancel the travel that you won’t be there to do; some of it will probably be refundable, but if some of it isn’t (or even if all of it isn’t), that’s just a normal part of doing business. You’re still only expected to give the same amount of notice as someone in a non-traveling job. 5. How to say “I’m really good at my retail job” on a resume I’m attempting to update my resume and struggling with how to describe my current retail job while conveying how good I am at it. My manager has repeatedly said that I’m the best employee they have, customers occasionally comment on how well I do my job, I never get complaints, and I’m extremely accurate at anything to do with numbers to the extent that I’ve been told “the paperwork [that my boss does] is always easiest after your shifts.” Our store doesn’t do any sort of “Employee of the Month” awards and I don’t have any stats I could use to quantify my work, so I’m having trouble coming up with how to talk about it that’s not entirely reliant on word-of-mouth feedback. I doubt I can put something like “’You’re always so professional’ – A Customer” on my resume and without the things other people have told me I don’t think I come off as particularly impressive. Another factor in my resume troubles is I want to switch fields to something completely different so I feel getting across “excellent employee” might be more useful than “excellent at the tasks of a retail job.” Especially since I want to move to a more professional field and I am aware being a cashier doesn’t exactly have the reputation of being skilled labor. This job is by far my longest stretch of employment and is likely the most load-bearing component of my resume, which is why I feel it’s so vital to depict it in the absolute best way possible. You can cite the feedback you’re getting! I’d do it like this: * Repeatedly lauded by manager as the team’s most effective employee, due to X, Y, and Z * Regularly receive accolades from customers for A and B * Cited for extreme precision with numbers and producing the most consistently accurate XYZ paperwork on a six-person team You may also like:my employee makes up words and is impossible to understandmy coworker had an affair with my wifemy employee says he's "already thought of" every suggestion I make { 290 comments }
should I tell an employee that the new hire sitting right across from him all day is unvaccinated? by Alison Green on November 8, 2022 A reader writes: The company I work for has weathered the pandemic okay. We’re a 100% in person, small U.S. manufacturing company. I’m HR, finance, many other things, and sometimes reception. Because of that, I’m in a unique position to know the vaccination status of all visitors (due to a Covid screening form they complete) and some details about health status for employees and their family members. Until recently, all employees have been fully vaccinated (to the best of my knowledge). There is no “vaccines required” policy; any mention of that in the past has been shot down by management. It’s been hypothetical given everyone’s vaccination status, plus the owners aren’t keen on mandates. There is no longer a masking requirement at work, though people are free to wear them. Recently we hired someone who is not Covid-vaccinated, according to their visitor info form. I shared that info with the person conducting the interview, now their direct manager, since he’d be meeting with him in the conference room. The new employee is working in a large, open manufacturing area and is almost always working at a bench on his own, so keeping distanced wasn’t a problem. However, work stations just got moved around. He’s now at a work station that directly faces the work station of someone who lives with a medically vulnerable family member, who is at risk of serious illness from even minor infections. When they are both at their work stations, they face each other, six feet apart. Ethically, to me, the employee with the vulnerable family member needs to know they are working every day with someone who is unvaccinated, so that they can choose to mask up, change their work station placement, etc. But that would be disclosing medical info about a coworker, which normally I wouldn’t do. Though it shouldn’t figure into the decision about “the right thing to do,” complicating matters, the new guy’s role is one with some overlap of the existing employee’s role and the existing employee had their hackles up about the position even existing, felt threatened, and gave the new guy the cold shoulder for a couple of days. As HR, and personally, I’m very cautious about Covid: still masking in public and avoiding crowds. At work I’m the person who reminds people about eye protection, safety gloves, etc. if I observe someone doing something that requires that. I’m lightly teased about about my focus on caution and safety. So though I’m willing to use my capital as needed to address this issue, I also suspect the owners and the manager involved might not share my level of concern over it (particularly given that they moved the one unvaccinated person to face — all day — the one person they know has an at-risk family member). My initial impulse was to simply talk to the employee with the vulnerable family member, let him decide how he wants to proceed (by masking up, asking to move his work station, etc.). I could be vague about who, exactly, is not vaccinated … but he will likely see through that. Also, there may be other employees with similarly at-risk family members who I’m not aware of. Any suggestions how I should proceed in this situation? Agggh. Morally, I’d argue that you should be able to tell the person with the at-risk family member that he’s facing an unvaxxed person all day long so he can take additional precautions if he wants to (like masking if he’s not been doing that). But legally, you can’t share employees’ confidential medical info, which the EEOC says includes vaccination status. Ideally, everyone in your workplace would assume that they don’t know other people’s vax status and just take whatever precautions they’d take if they knew for sure that someone was unvaxxed. And really, this is what everyone should be doing in situations where they don’t know the people around them very well. For some people, that won’t mean changing anything — they’ve decided being vaccinated themselves is enough. For other people, it will mean masking and/or other precautions. However, if in the past your employees were told everyone there was vaccinated, you’ve got people operating with out-of-date information. Given that, it makes sense to remind everyone that the company doesn’t require vaccination and doesn’t share people’s vaccination status, and so if they are concerned about protecting themselves or high-risk family members, the company supports them in taking safety precautions like masking and adding more distance between work stations. You could also ask the employee with the vulnerable family member if he’d prefer a work station with more distance around it — as a general safety precaution, not one specific to the person he’s near right now. If he’s not masking all day, that’s a good idea anyway since vaccination — while highly effective at preventing serious disease and death — doesn’t fully prevent infection, so his family member’s risk isn’t just from the unvaccinated new guy. In fact, this is worth offering to all employees if you can since, as you note, you don’t know who else might have at-risk loved ones they’d like to protect (or be at risk themselves). 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my employee always gets other people’s help on his work by Alison Green on November 8, 2022 A reader writes: I’m a little stuck on how to handle one of my analysts. He’s reported to me for about six months and I have some performance concerns that I’m working to address. He procrastinates a lot, and he doesn’t ask me for help, even though I have encouraged him to do so on multiple occasions. Instead, whenever I assign him something, I find out later he’s asked other analysts for help. For example, I give an assignment and then when we meet to discuss it, he’ll say, “John and I thought I should do it this way.” When I question why John was involved, it’s because he “just wanted another opinion.” I generally encourage collaboration and we’re a supportive office but I feel like I can’t assess his skills/understanding if he’s always getting help. I also don’t want him taking up others’ time. But I can’t forbid him from talking to others? What should I do? Or is this not really a problem? I answer this question — and three others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here. Other questions I’m answering there today include: My employee never knocks Can I avoid cooing over coworkers’ kids without looking like a jerk? How should we announce we’re offering health insurance, but not to part-timers? You may also like:playing a ukulele in an open office, coworker is greedy about supplies and snacks, and moremy coworkers scoff and roll their eyes when I question decisions in meetingsdo I have to teach my coworkers my hard-earned skills? { 181 comments }
my employee is upset that her work-life balance means she won’t get promoted here by Alison Green on November 8, 2022 A reader writes: I’m having trouble managing an expectation gap. Someone I manage, Elizabeth, is probably in the middle (maybe lower middle) of our organization’s performance ranks but is upset she is not on track for promotion. Elizabeth is not the most skilled but she’s adequate and organized. Where she falls behind others is the volume of her impact. We’re in a highly competitive white collar company where it is not uncommon for top performers to work 50-60 efficient hours a week to go above expectations. They tend to be young, or child-free, or have a partner who has sacrificed their own career to support them. Or they are exhausted active parents. It’s a biased system, I get it. Elizabeth has two small children so I sympathize that “going the extra mile” is maybe beyond her capacity. She works at most a 40 hour week and has expressed zero desire to further develop her skills or take on stretch opportunities when we’ve discussed what a promotion trajectory might look like. She has stated how she is already at full capacity in her work-life balance. I have no problem with her just meeting expectations. However, she has also been upset (to the point of tears) that her career trajectory is stagnant, complaining to me and others about the company and culture that makes it difficult for her to succeed. She has become increasingly disengaged and resentful about this, which doesn’t help how others perceive her for promotion either. How do I help her reconcile all this? I cannot change the reward system of the company or capitalism. I want to show empathy for her and support her but the cold hard reality is that she is unlikely to improve her career trajectory without making some of the same sacrifices as our top performers or changing company/industry. Or just learn to gracefully accept it. Even just typing that to you sounds harsh. I can’t imagine the tears if I said it. Ugh, there are two problems here … one of which you probably can’t do anything about. The one you probably can’t do anything about is your company’s culture. But to be clear … this sucks. No one should have to work 50-60 hours a week (that’s up to an extra 50% every week) to be considered for a promotion. That’s an excessive amount of work for people to put in week after week, particularly if it’s the year-round expectation. So the culture — whether it’s just your company or your whole industry — sucks. If you’re in a position to push back on it, you should. That said, it’s also true that if you go into a field like, for example, Big Law, you generally know what you’re signing up for. The fact that Elizabeth is so out of sync with those expectations makes me wonder whether or not she did know what she was signing up for. Is this an industry-wide expectation, or is it more specific to your company? If the latter, did anyone talk to her about this during the hiring process so she knew what she was getting herself into? If not, that’s one thing to change going forward; make sure prospective new hires know. Either way, though, that’s the conversation to have with her now. Sit down with her and speak frankly about the realities of the culture you’re working in. I can’t tell how frank you’ve been about it in the past, but strip away any sugarcoating you might have added to soften the message — she needs to hear the unvarnished, plain-spoken version. Lay it out as candidly as you can: “The reality is that people who get promoted here are working 50-60 hours a week, taking on stretch projects, and sacrificing personal time. I’m not defending that system — I think it’s a problem. Not everyone can do that, or wants to do it. It’s not the system I would have set up myself. But I want to be up-front with you that it is the culture here. I see you getting increasingly frustrated by your inability to advance, so I want to be really transparent with you about what it would take. I also know you’ve shared that you’re already at full capacity, so I want us both to be realistic about what that means for your advancement potential here so that you can make the best choices for yourself.” You’re worried about tears, but it’s far, far more kind to spell this out than to dance around it. You’ll be doing her an enormous favor by laying these expectations as bare as possible, because if there’s any part of her that has avoided looking head-on at how this really works, coming face-to-face with it will help her make better decisions for herself, even if she does respond emotionally in the moment. From there, it’s up to Elizabeth to figure out what she wants to do with this information. But the most supportive thing you can do is make sure she’s clear about it. 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is it wrong to remind coworkers to vote, resting your eyes at work, and more by Alison Green on November 8, 2022 It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Is it wrong to remind coworkers to vote? I’m taking the temperature on something that happened in a meeting last week. It was a virtual meeting with about 25 people. It is our custom, as people are logging in, to have chit chat. One of my coworkers said she wanted to take the opportunity to remind everybody that the mid-term elections are on Tuesday and provided a very common website link if anybody needs it to register to vote. Another team member told her this was inappropriate at work, and she said she wasn’t asking people if they voted or who they voted for, just giving a reminder. The team member responded that he has voted in elections longer than she has been alive and doesn’t need her help. The person leading the meeting intervened and said, “Thank you for the information and let’s get into the agenda.” This weekend my spouse and I were talking about this and we think the person running the meeting handled it well, but was it right or wrong to say this before the meeting? In normal times, I would have thought nothing of it. Your coworker’s statement was non-partisan and pro-voting, not advocacy for a particular candidate or issue. In current times, the atmosphere is so wildly poisonous around politics that it’s not surprising that it quickly turned heated. But the coworker who complained is the one who was out of line. P.S. Please vote today. 2. Closing my eyes at work I work in a grey cubicle in a grey building with no windows, no natural light, almost no human interaction, and the constant white noise of the air system. As a result, my supervisor has seen me close my eyes at my desk a few times and had sent me an email about it. I’m staring at a computer screen for eight hours, my eyes get tired! And I’m not actually sleeping! I just close my eyes for a minute or two, then I get back to work. How do I approach this? It seems so normal and human to me? It’s normal and human to need to rest your eyes for a minute … but it’s also normal and human that if you walk by someone who’s at their computer with their eyes closed, it will look like they’re asleep. Can you switch things up a little to avoid that impression? For example, can you turn so your back is to your door when you close your eyes, so it’s not as easily observable? Or is there another type of break you can substitute, like standing up and stretching, walking the long way around to the printer, or grabbing a beverage? Again, it’s not that you’re doing anything wrong by resting your eyes for a minute. But it’s going to look a certain way to anyone who happens to pass by right when you’re doing it, so it’s smarter to head off that impression. 3. Our letter terminating an employee never reaches her We had a new employee, Robin, who after six weeks abandoned her job. After three consecutive missed shifts (which stretched over a weekend, so it took a full calendar week) and no response to our phone messages, texts, and emails, based on our procedure we decided that she had voluntarily resigned and was no longer employed due to job abandonment. There was no PTO banked to pay out and due to how payroll dates fell, she had received her last paycheck in the middle of the week of missing shifts. As part of the process, we mailed her a letter summarizing the situation and officially declaring that we had designated her as no longer employed due to job abandonment. The letter was mailed with tracking via the U.S. Postal Service. After five days of watching the tracking, it was clear that the letter was lost in transit. It never made it to its destination. When mailing the letter, I had remarked that the closest post office to our work (Post Office A) seemed very disorganized, and another member of administration stated that she never went to that post office, always the next closest one (Post Office B). Post Office B happens to be the one that serves the area where ghosting employee lives. So one week after the first letter was mailed, I went to to Post Office B to mail a second copy of the letter (now noting that it was being re-sent on X date due to post office delay). Once again, the tracking indicates that after three days, the letter disappeared into the abyss. It has now been 21 days since last contact with Robin and 11 days since we changed Robin’s status in our system. Robin’s former manager doesn’t want to post the new job until we know Robin has gotten the letter. I have called the USPS customer hotline. I have personally visited Post Office B again to ask them what we can do (answer: nothing). So I mailed the letter a third time, this time via UPS. The letter now contains a notice that this is the third time it has been mailed due to mail delivery delay. I have been assured by UPS that the letter will be delivered tomorrow. Did we have other options? If the two lost letters end up finally making their way through the system, Robin will receive this letter about abandoning the job three times, and I don’t want her to think that’s due to unprofessionalism on our end. Was there a better way to handle this, or is this just one of those series of unfortunate events? Just bad luck. It made sense to switch delivery services after the first two attempts failed, which you did, and you included a note explaining the situation so if she does eventually receive the first two letters, she’ll have context to understand why. If you hadn’t included that explanatory note, I would worry that it would look like you were inexplicably firing her over and over (and by multiple delivery methods!) but that note should put you at ease. (I assume you’ve checked on her welfare in some way, such as through an emergency contact?) 4. Outplacement company is giving me bad advice Like so many folks lately, I was laid off along with the rest of the team I was on. Part of my package included sessions with an outplacement group. So far the recommendations have been incredibly basic (look up companies in your area) or seeming out of touch with how things are done these days (try emailing recruiters and ask if they have jobs). What I would like to know is: is this normal? Would it be appropriate to call the outplacement company and ask for a different person or is the issue just their process? I’m certainly experienced enough that my resume and job search skills are very decent, but there’s no way that they are absolutely perfect. Even with plenty of time on my hands, I’m tempted to tell the outplacement company that I’ll call them if I need their support. Yeah, a lot of outplacement groups are really bad. I’m skeptical that asking for a different contact will change that — they often have all their reps work from the same curriculum — although it won’t hurt to try and, if nothing else, it’s useful feedback for them to hear. What might be more helpful is telling your old employer that the service (which they are paying for!) has been subpar. They might not care terribly — providing outplacement services is often more a PR move than anything else — but who knows, they might. 5. Ghosted by my volunteer job I’ve been a volunteer for an international nonprofit on a part-time basis for 2.5 years. One of our supervisors will be on medical leave for a few months and I was asked to interview to take over a few of their duties on a paid part-time basis. I interviewed a week ago. I am actually am not very interested in doing the job (due to other circumstances) but they had told me that they wanted the successful candidate (only three of us were interviewed) to start in a week and I’ve heard nothing from them since the interview, so wondered if I should reach out to the HR people about this. HR was not part of the interview but was cc’d on email correspondence that set it up. My disappointment at being ghosted like this has affected my enthusiasm for a main part of my job and I am pretty sure I’m going to step back from it. Do you think I should ask HR about why I was ghosted? I don’t want them to think it’s sour grapes if I didn’t get the job, but want to register my unhappiness at being treated like this. It’s way too early to conclude you’re being ghosted! A week is nothing in hiring, and that’s true even though they told you they wanted the person to start in a week. It’s really common for interviewers to say that (and mean it) and then miss that timeline significantly, often by weeks. Give it another two weeks before you conclude anything. If it does become apparent at some point that they ghosted you, then it would definitely be reasonable to tell HR what happened. Employers shouldn’t be ghosting anyone who interviews, and doing it to a volunteer (one who they invited to apply!) is particularly bad. You may also like:is a reminder to vote too political?vote for the worst boss of 2022: the finalsvote for the worst boss of 2023: the finals { 445 comments }
the gong, the missing reply-all button, and other weird things companies thought would boost productivity by Alison Green on November 7, 2022 Last month I asked about weird and misguided things your company has done in the name of boosting productivity. Here are 12 of my favorite stories you shared. 1. The gong “I had a boss (one of THREE CEOs at a tiny company) do a lot of reading on what other CEOs/companies were doing and decide that he should implement it without giving much thought to: 1) was it good in the first place? 2) does it make any sense for that thing to be implemented where we worked? 3) what bad knock-on effects could that cause? We had a one-room completely open-office plan and all of us were on phones all day. It was already hard to hear candidates/clients with everyone talking all the time, but CEO had read that a sales company somewhere had a gong in the office and they banged it whenever they made a sale, which caused excitement and made people work harder I guess. He then purchased a gong and decided every time we recruited someone/got a recruitment deal, we had to come over and bang the gong, so all day long: ‘Hi is this Jane Sm-‘ *GONG* ‘Sorry. Is this Jane Smith? I came across your resum—’ *GONG* ‘Sorry. I came across your resume and thought you’d be a great fit for a position we have opening in finan–’ *GONG* and so on. It didn’t last long but was awful while it did!” 2. The missing reply-all button “After a reply-allpocalypse, they removed the reply-all button altogether from Outlook. Someone pretty junior at a subcontractor sent an email to a list that had the entire company (thousands of people) on it and people were able to reply to that list with all the usuals: why am I on this? This wasn’t meant for me. Please remove me. Stop replying all. The volume was so enormous that it shut down our network. The CEO was really mad and he had IT literally remove the button for reply all. Even though obviously this was an IT problem — that list shouldn’t have existed unrestricted and they should have been able to shut down the list/replies right away! People freaked out about the loss of reply-all and then they started a task force for employees to come up with new ideas to prevent another reply-allpocalypse. All normal stuff like restricted access to large lists and I think there was also a warning/confirmation if you were replying all to a group larger than 8. And most importantly, IT implemented controls on their end. It hasn’t happened again. Much to my disappointment because I love a good reply-allpocalypse.” 3. The color changes “I once spent a full three weeks of work making minute changes to the workflow charts. Think: highlighter yellow bubbles become lime green, then yellow again because Susan doesn’t think lime green is eye-catching enough, but then Tom suggests maybe a soft shade of maroon? But then Paula says that maroon gives her a headache, so what about lilac? Ad nauseam. This was all supposed to be part of an organizational push to review processes and increase productivity. My team decided that that meant reviewing workflow charts (good!) by making small aesthetic changes (mind-numbingly stupid).” 4. The group song “My supervisor decided to boost morale (and therefore productivity) by having a ‘group song.’ He excitedly told us we were going to sing this song at each meeting and he planned to hire a professional choreographer to create dance moves for it. He wanted the song to be selected by employees, so he put out a call for nominations. I don’t think he got much of a response because he repeated his demand for nominations multiple times. Finally, weeks later, we got an email with four song options we could vote on. If I recall correctly, they were ‘Livin’ on a Prayer,’ ‘Country Roads,’ ‘Get Lucky,’ and ‘Don’t Stop Believing.’ Journey won and we were then forced to end every meeting by singing along to the song. He was clearly expecting us to act like we were doing karaoke at a bar, but instead everyone looked at the floor and mumbled along with the words awkwardly. I worked there for six more months and had to go through that awkward experience at EVERY meeting until I left. I’m just glad I got out before the choreographer came and staff were forced to dance along with the music as well.” 5. The mandatory lunch “The financial organization I worked for back in the late 00s painted all the windowless break rooms red and burnt orange on the advice of some behavior specialist, and took out the comfortable furniture in there to discourage relaxation so people would get more work done … while also instituting a mandatory hour lunch break. Computers locked for an hour to stop people working through. It got to the point where people would eat in the car park, then management sent out emails telling people not to do that as it looked messy, so we’d all roam the nearby streets. We were in a weird industrial estate that had no food or coffee options within a 30-minute drive, I don’t know why we couldn’t just have padded chairs and normal walls.” 6. The aggressive sales “One store I worked at decided that we’d sell more if we approached customers more. Those of us who actually worked with customers knew that approaching them typically got you blown off or worse, and the ones who wanted/needed help would come to you. Management, who never listened to the floor workers anyway, decided the best way to accomplish this was to get on the loudspeaker and order the floor workers to ‘perform an ACN now.’ ACN = Approach Customer Now so it was a stupid acronym and redundant all at the same time. It flopped after less than a week because they tended to call for an ACN when there weren’t enough customers in the store to go around, some employees (like me) refused to do it, and the customers caught on pretty fast when this announcement came on and every employee on the floor started swarming after them and they’d hustle for the nearest exit.” 7. The garbage cans “We had a large garbage can and different recycle/compost bins in the kitchen/coffee area. To decrease the amount of time people spent walking to the kitchen to dispose of their trash, garbage cans and recycle compost bins were placed in every hallway usually near the elevators. As soon as you stepped out, your nose was hit with the smell of garbage because they weren’t emptied out every day. Carpets were stained from leaking cups and containers because people didn’t always rinse them out because it meant a trip to the kitchen … but we were so much more productive.” 8. The video monitoring “For three days in high school I worked at a greeting card shop. I never saw the owner, and was trained by someone who had only worked there a few weeks. This was pre-cell phones, and I worked hard all three days. On the fourth day, the owner called and said she had watched all the tapes and wanted to go minute by minute with me over everything I had done wrong. I quit on the spot.” 9. The meeting ban “Our company has gone after all meetings after an employee survey has like 60% of people thought we had too many meetings. No one asked which meetings, or where they were located, just ALL meetings. As a hybrid workforce, we often spend five minutes with some ‘water cooler’ talk. But that’s no longer allowed. We have to have very specific time limits on each agenda item, and meetings can be no longer than 45 minutes, with a preference for 25 minutes. Well, literally NO one in leadership follows that. Directors and above regularly schedule meetings with no agenda, they go over, and generally waste time. I believe the core issue with meetings is lack of prep, and a lot of meetings aren’t necessary. But instead we have these inane rules where people are getting yelled at (like they are asking for proof that a catch-all meeting I sometimes have with a coworker I work very closely with has an agenda) for not following directions, when it’s not being modeled by leadership. But we have really long presentations about not burning out at work, and how to take care of yourself in the after hours, and achieving a work life balance. it’s frustrating, and they think the new rules will help with productivity. But it’s just made us have multiple 45 minutes meetings in a week, most of which could be fixed with a well worded email and a 30 minute meeting.” 10. The initiatives “My workplace keeps announcing these ‘initiatives’ to supposedly inspire us to be more productive. They come from various department heads who are people I’ve never met or seen. The dumbest was the ‘dance your pants off’ initiative that featured emails from these department heads that I’ve seen or met with badly photo-shopped pictures of their heads put on the bodies of clip art ballerinas. (There were matching posters in the office.) We were going to ‘dance, dance, dance our way into closing more cases’ and processing more transactions and letters. I really don’t know how it turned out. The current one is the ‘chipping away at our mountain of inventory’ initiative in which we are going to use our ‘picks’ to chip away at and mine things to get ‘gems’ and eliminate the mountains. Every week we get an email that says we’ve added more gems to something. They really don’t inspire me and they really don’t even make sense.” 11. The talking ban “After law school, I worked as a clerk at an incredibly toxic family law firm. The managing partner brought in his wife as our ‘office manager/HR/supervisor’ who decided that walking one foot to your neighbor’s cubicle or asking them a question out loud ‘led to too much socializing,’ which was clearly affecting our productivity. Enter the IM only rule – quite literally, no one was supposed to talk unless it was an emergency and all communications between staff had to be via IM only. We were reminded that management could review IMs at all times and to keep conversations ‘brief and only about work-related matters’ (that was a direct quote). Funnily enough, though, that manager wasn’t that computer savvy and didn’t know how to monitor the IMs, so everyone had became even more unproductive, just over IMs. The managing partner had no idea why everyone was so quiet until he tried to ask a paralegal a question and she would only answer him over IMs. Man, that place was crazy. We also had cameras in the office, but you could only monitor them over a computer, which was located in my office(?) At least once a week, the manager would come into my office and pretend to ‘adjust the server’ while she watched what everyone was doing.” 12. The malicious compliance “I had a boss who needed to know via email every. single. time. we stepped away from our computers (we were all fully remote). So I decided to comply 100% with her request. I told her when I’m using the restroom, that I had to put cream in my coffee, that I’m going to put on a sweater bcuz I’m cold, I’m about to open my living room blinds, you get the point. Others did that too and after like 2 weeks, she said we no longer have to notify her unless it’s going to be over 15 minutes.” You may also like:company will let us work from home -- but our pay will fluctuate based on our productivitymy favorite posts of 2022pushing back on unreasonable reference requests: a success story { 389 comments }
my employee gets stressed out and snaps at me by Alison Green on November 7, 2022 A reader writes: One of the people I manage is a recent graduate; this is his first office role and he struggles with anxiety. When I assign him projects, he is immediately overwhelmed and panicked. No amount or type of support mitigates this, but the next day he comes in feeling much better. We then reflect on how easy it is to feel anxious when doing new things but that sometimes we just need to work through it, and how awesome is it that he was able to do X, Y, Z and get so far from where he was the day before. I’m fine with all of this and helping him work through it to the amount I can, but when his anxiety is spiking, it is so evident that I have had other colleagues ask what’s happening. The part that I’m finding frustrating is that when I give him feedback about his work, he often responds with very irritated sighs and an exasperated tone, and often argues with me about what I’m saying. I have historically just ignored this and responded calmly. After an initial bad response, he then goes and does what he needs to. Aside from these things, he is very smart and capable. I sat down with him the other day and calmly raised for the first time how he had responded in a scenario a few days prior (sighing, sounding exasperated), said it’s not a great dynamic, and asked his thoughts for how we could work together more effectively. He took the feedback well and was open about sometimes feeling overwhelmed. The problem is that this behavior continues. When he reacts this way in our small, open office environment, what should I say in the moment? It’s incredibly irritating to make time to answer his questions and then have him respond in such an insulting way. I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here. You may also like:my boss's stress is out of controlmy coworkers' constant talk about stress is stressing me outI'm training my replacement -- and she's condescending, rude, and won't listen { 97 comments }
my manager told me that my male coworkers earn $40-60K more than I do by Alison Green on November 7, 2022 A reader writes: Last week I accepted a job offer with a new company, where my base salary will be 50% more than I currently make. This is a huge pay increase! And it is also an exciting opportunity! I told my current manager the news today. To my great surprise, not only did they ask what they could do to keep me on, but they also told me that they have noticed my salary seems very low, and that they have been working behind the scenes to try to move my salary closer to that of my colleagues who perform at a similar level. Apparently, if I was being paid the same as my colleagues, I would already be making the amount of money that the new job is offering me. For context, I am a woman in a technical field, and all of my peers (except one) are male. I have suspected for a while that I am being underpaid, but I was surprised to realize just how huge that pay gap is. To put some numbers to it, we are talking about a salary difference of $40-$60K. I appreciate how candid my manager was in telling me this information. They also said they are going to do everything they can in the next few days to get approval to bump my pay to match what the new company has offered. This is very flattering, but I’m not holding my breath. I think it would truly be exceptional if my company does end up matching the new offer. But just as a thought exercise, what if they do come back with a higher offer? I would think it so unusual, that maybe I should consider staying (after all, they clearly value my work). At the same time, I feel disappointed to know that they noticed a huge pay gap and chose to do nothing about it until I decided to leave. What would you do in this situation? More importantly, how would you talk about this to other women in the company and in the industry? The company has a lot of surface level equity and inclusion initiatives, and they even have a group to focus on women’s issues, but all that rings so hollow to me now. Don’t take that counteroffer from your current company. This is a company that was paying you less than your male coworkers by $40-$60K. That is a huge pay discrepancy. It’s also an illegal pay discrepancy. If you’re doing basically the same work as those male coworkers, getting paid a significantly different salary violates the federal Equal Pay Act of 1963. (The law does make exceptions if the employer can prove they’re paying someone more due to seniority or a merit system.) You don’t need to prove that your employer intended to discriminate against women, just that men and women are in fact being paid differently for the same work. It’s awfully convenient for them to say that they only just happened to notice, care, and be acting to fix it right when you’re about to leave. It also raises this question: Even if they do come back with an offer to raise your salary by that much, what are they going to do about all the lost wages from the period where you were working for tens of thousands of dollars less than they should have been paying you? It is very unlikely that they’re going to offer you a lump sum to fix that retroactively, so you’ll still be out tens of thousands of dollars that they were illegally not paying you. Your manager says they’ve been “working behind the scenes” and “trying to get approval” to follow the law. That is not a company you should agree to stay at when you have a different offer you’re excited about. And that’s all on top of the other reasons you generally shouldn’t accept a counteroffer — like that the next time you want a raise, you’re likely to be told “but we just gave you that huge increase when you were thinking about leaving” … and it shouldn’t take you being about to leave for them to pay you fairly … etc. etc. etc. But mostly, this is a company that was content to cheat you out of $40-$60K a year and even now is only “trying” to fix that. Leave and tell them why you’re leaving. Cite the Equal Pay Act. Tell other women there. Tell the women’s issues group there. Tell the men. Tell everyone. You have every right to talk about the pay discrimination you discovered (literally, you’re protected by federal law in talking about this) and you could do a great deal of good by shining light on this for other women still employed there. You may also like:company said they'd base my job offer on my current salarydon't forget to scrutinize benefits when you're considering a job offerhow do I negotiate salary when I'm overpaid? { 375 comments }
boss confided family issues to me, I don’t want my horrible manager at my wedding, and more by Alison Green on November 7, 2022 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). 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weekend open thread – November 5-6, 2022 by Alison Green on November 4, 2022 This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand. Here are the rules for the weekend posts. Book recommendation of the week: These Precious Days: Essays, by Ann Patchett. She is a beautiful writer and the title essay will make you cry, or at least it did me. I make a commission if you use that Amazon link. You may also like:all of my 2021 book recommendationsall of my 2019 and 2020 book recommendationsall of my book recommendations from 2015-2018 { 928 comments }