Ask a Manager

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

1. New receptionist has a shopping habit

Two months ago I hired a new receptionist, one of my few direct reports. She is young and this is her first office job. She has a good personality for a receptionist, and everyone likes her.

The problem is her shopping habits. She spends her breaks and her lunch hour shopping online and getting the items delivered to the office. This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, but she also spends those hours sending me links to things she wants to buy for the office.

In the past two weeks alone, she has sent me three links, asked me in person for five different (unnecessary) things, explained her desire to “spruce up” the place, and has had multiple packages of office supplies delivered to her at the office. Once, when I told her no to an item, because there were space issues, she went out and purchased it with her own money! My supervisor had to tell her to remove said item, as it was taking up space that needed to be left open for clients.

I am at my wit’s end! I know that she is doing this in an attempt to make the space better for everyone, but it has simply become too much. How do I explain to her that she needs to stop asking for so many unnecessary things without tamping down on her enthusiasm for the work?

Does the office need sprucing up and, if so, can you give her a small budget to do it? That way you wouldn’t be shutting down her enthusiasm entirely, but by giving her a budget of $X to use for the next 12 months, it’ll be clear there are limits that she needs to work within (and it’ll give you a built-in end to the shopping).

But if the office doesn’t need it or it’s not something you want to spend money on (which would be quite reasonable), be up-front about that: “I appreciate that you want to spruce up the office, but buying more things like X or Y aren’t in the budget for this year, and I don’t want you spending your own money on that. Going forward, we need to limit purchases to necessary supplies like ABC.” You’ll be doing her a favor by explaining this since otherwise she has no way of knowing that what she’s doing is a problem (especially if a lot of her requests have been approved).

Normally I might also ask you if she has enough to do, but it sounds like all the shopping is happening on her breaks.

Also, try to mentally separate the work part of this from the shopping she does for herself on breaks. It sounds like you might be lumping them together but they’re two separate things (and one is very much not your business, as long as there’s no problem with her getting her packages delivered to the office).

Read an update to this letter. 

2. Resigning while my boss is on parental leave

I started my current position one year ago, and we’re a very small team in a much larger company. The onboarding process was rough — I enjoyed the type of work in general, but immediately I started to feel overworked and under-supported. What I was hoping would be a positive step forward in my career instead felt like an erosion of my work-life balance. Further exacerbating this stress, my boss left on a six-month parental leave about three months ago, and I’m now filling in. I’m doing the work of two people with half the resources and one-tenth the institutional knowledge — and with no additional pay or benefits. I’m burned out.

My plan was to power through until my boss returns and re-evaluate how I feel about my job at the end of the year, but a recruiter just reached out with a promising job opportunity at a rival company. I jumped at the chance to discuss it further, as this would be a great opportunity regardless of the challenges in my current position. I understand that it’s still very early in the process and that I won’t necessarily get this job, but it got me thinking: If I were to exit my role in the middle of my boss’s leave, how could I do so gracefully? How should I give notice when my boss is gone, and I only meet with their supervisor once a month (and sometimes only virtually)? I would potentially be leaving in the middle of a lot of big projects — and while I realize sometimes there is no easy time to leave — how can I minimize the negative impact that my absence would have on my team that is already very understaffed and stretched thin?

You’d give notice to the person you’re reporting to in your boss’s absence (sounds like your boss’s boss) and since you don’t talk often, you’d ask to set up a call or meeting to do it. You can say that you know the timing isn’t ideal but the opportunity was too good to pass up and that you’ll do whatever you can to help with the transition (within reason — not things like extending your notice period or working awful hours during it).

Beyond that, there’s not a lot you can do, and that’s okay. People leave at inconvenient times — sometimes really inconvenient times — and that’s just part of doing business. Your team will figure it out.

Read an update to this letter. 

3. Employer wants to contractually forbid me from returning to my previous company

I am in negotiations for a position as a creative project manager, and the initial offer a was lowball given my experience and expertise. (Epecially after the two direct managers for the position called to say they wanted me for the job one step higher than the one I applied for.) I sent them a counteroffer, and within 30 minutes they emailed asking to talk via phone. I’ve been fairly accommodating as my current work schedule allows for a good bit of flexibility, but was unable to meet with them at the requested time and said as much. This is the second time they’ve sent such an email, asking for a video call within 30 minutes of the email being sent, and my initial phone interview was asked to turn into a Zoom interview after the call and interview had already begun.

The biggest red flag that jumps out at me is part of their non-compete clause. It says I am not allowed to return to my most recent (current) employer if I leave the company. It strikes me as strange and raises questions as to how many people have joined and left to go back to their old jobs. My current job is not remotely related to the work I would be doing for this employer, and quite frankly I’m a little concerned about their communication and this contract.

I asked them about it when we talked, and apparently so many people have left the company and gone back to their previous jobs that they felt the need to include it in the contract. Am I getting myself into trouble? Should I run fast and far away?

Yes. “Any chance you could talk in 30 minutes?” isn’t a big red flag as long as it’s clear they realize that may not work. But contractually forbidding you from returning to your previous employer is. If they want to stop people from doing that, they should be focused on figuring out why it’s happening — are they not describing the job well enough before hiring people? Is something hideously wrong with the office/culture/boss that sends people running back to wherever they came from? Trying to forbid it from happening won’t solve whatever’s driving it in the first place.

4. My manager is doing a “stay interview” with me

I just had a meeting with my manager, and they let me know that as part of our goal-setting and review process, she’ll be asking me some questions. It seems management wants to gather information to ensure employees are happy. I appreciate their thinking of this, but I’m not sure the execution has been planned appropriately. Here are the questions I’ll be asked:

What do I look forward to when I get to work?
What are some reasons I want to stay at this employer?
What prompted the last thought I had of leaving?
What is one thing they could do to make my experience better?

Good questions, yes, especially if some action is taken on the overall responses. Unfortunately, I’ll have to answer directly to my manager in our meeting, and they’ll pass information along to higher management.

Am I wrong to think this should be fully anonymized? What if I don’t express adequate enthusiasm for staying and what I look forward to? What if other answers make them think I’ve been looking for other work (I haven’t)? I think this leaves a lot open to biases and prejudices and that when the next round of layoffs comes, this could factor into it. Or should I keep a more open mind about this?

Yeah, this is a bad way to do it. It’s reasonable for your manager to ask you some of these questions (like what they could do to make your experience better) but for many people, the answer to “What prompted the last thought you had of leaving?” will be something related to your manager — and even if it’s not, it might not be information you feel comfortable sharing with your boss. By doing it this way, they’re lowering the chances of getting honest answers, which raises questions about whether they’re just going through the motions (versus using peoples input in meaningful ways that will benefit you). They’d be better off anonymizing it or having you to talk to someone who’s not your manager.

That said, since it’s happening, you might as well see if you can use it to your advantage. Are there things you’d like to see happen that you’d feel comfortable talking to your boss about (even if they’re not your absolute highest priorities)? Share things you feel safe sharing, and feel no obligation to share the rest.

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

1. Is my workplace toxic or am I just inexperienced?

I came into my first job excited and idealistic, believing everyone wanted to improve the company and work towards the same goal. I was given some warnings prior to starting that my position had high turnover, but I initially couldn’t figure out why. It slowly became clear that my boss only listened to the opinions of one employee. That employee was friends with the boss at a previous job, and is close with the two directors who are directly below the boss. This employee is deemed untrustworthy by her peers, as she tends to monitor our work and report anything she finds disagreeable. This concerns my position because she is my partner in my team and we work closely together as peers. Other employees warned me of the partial treatment and recommended I keep my head down and appease this employee as much as possible. I did this for as long as I could, until she started threatening to tell my boss if I didn’t agree with her or do what she wanted and the work environment started to feel unsafe.

When her treatment finally became abusive and discriminatory (yelling, saying racist things, spreading rumors about me), I reported the treatment to HR. HR performed mediation and approved my request to sit in a separate office, but my relationship to management has not been the same. I was previously viewed positively, but after standing my ground, I could never do right again. My boss started yelling at me, falsely accusing me of things. HR had to get involved, and he was forced to apologize to me. He gave me a written warning which I found unreasonable and I requested a second opinion. That person agreed it was overreactive and could’ve been easily dealt with with some coaching. He wasn’t pleased with that either and recommended I leave my job if I didn’t like the treatment (I’ve had to stay for personal reasons).

Luckily his boss saw how he was treating me and demanded that all his conversations with me be mediated by her. She ultimately stepped in and requested that I nominate a mentor who could advise me and also be present in my meetings with the boss. This was immensely useful, and my boss ultimately ended up hearing my side (albeit begrudgingly when my nominated mentor spoke up for me). My boss abruptly left a few weeks later.

Work has never been the same for me since. I am now scared of punitive treatment every time I am called to a meeting, even though my new boss is reasonable and fair. Is my workplace toxic or am I just inexperienced with how to handle workplace situations? Should I have just put my head down, been agreeable, and kept a low profile?

No! This is about your workplace, not you. It’s not just your ex-boss or that favored coworker; it sounds like everyone there has learned to tolerate a level of dysfunction that they shouldn’t. When an employee is yelling at a colleague and saying racist things to them, HR shouldn’t be mediating; they should be shutting down that behavior firmly and with finality. When your boss’s boss saw how he was treating you, it’s good that she intervened, but that should have involved laying down the law with him immediately, not just having someone sit in all your meetings with him. (That said, if his abrupt departure was the result of her firing him, then she did do the right thing, and the chaperon might have been her mitigating things for you until she could act, if the organization’s processes made a speedier resolution impossible.)

You might be inexperienced, but it sounds like you handled all of this well and your instincts were good. Now you’re dealing with the emotional reverberations of having worked for such an awful manager, which is very normal. This may help with that.

2. I don’t want my coworkers to keep hugging me

I started a new job in hospitality around a month ago. My coworkers (managers included) are all very close (as they have all worked together for at least a year) and often show affection by hugging. I am not comfortable with this but I haven’t said anything because I’m scared about offending them or causing a rift in the workplace.

What can I do to stop this? And how can I make sure I don’t offend them?

The words you want are: “Oh, I’m not a hugger!” You might need to put up a hand as a physical sign as well so they see it before they’ve already gone in for the embrace (not with a fully outstretched arm like you’re stopping traffic, but closer to your body). But even if they’re already hugging you by the time they hear the words, they’ll hopefully remember for next time.

I know it might feel strange to say you’re not a hugger after you’ve been hugging them, but it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Most people will realize that you only just now felt comfortable saying it, not that you suddenly developed a new aversion to them.

This shouldn’t offend anyone or cause a rift! Some people are huggers, and some people are not. Make a point of being warm with them in other ways (greet them warmly, take an interest in them as people, engage where you can) and it should be fine.

3. I’m losing out on money because I got a raise

When I accepted my position over two years ago, I reported to a manager, who reported to our director. After six months, the manager resigned, and the director used that position to fill another role in our group. I ended up being assigned all of the former manager’s responsibilities, which included leading two massive projects with tight deadlines.

My director, to whom I now report, has been promising me a raise the entire time. In August, he finally came through and excitedly told me the merit pay would be retroactive to the beginning of July. Not great considering how long I’d had additional responsibilities, but they usually don’t allow any sort of retroactive pay.

Last week, our CEO announced that everyone would be getting a pretty large one-time bonus. However, anyone who received a raise from January 1 to July 1 is ineligible. That lump sum payment is significantly more than what my raise will yield in a YEAR.

I feel ungrateful for being upset, but I honestly think they granted my retroactive pay as a money-saving tactic. It’s worth noting that this is the only time our company has provided a bonus, and my raise was lower than expected. Should I say anything to my director during our next check-in?

Yes. I wouldn’t even necessarily wait for your next check-in unless it’s in the next few days; if it’s not, schedule a separate meeting (both because it’s time-sensitive and to underscore the importance). Point out that you are losing money through the raise, after already not being paid for the higher level of work for the last … 18 months? Say, “I’m sure the company’s intention is not for me to lose money through this raise, so I’d like to ask that it be corrected.”

4. Someone put scales by our vending machines

I was at our office’s main building today for a multi day training, and noticed these fun additions next to the vending machines!

BRB,
Gonna go burn it all down. (Figuratively.)

WTF no.

There is zero reason anyone needs to weigh themselves at work (as opposed to at home if they choose to). And if for some reason they did feel the need to do it at work, they could do that privately. Putting two scales next to the vending machine sends a message and that message is a problem.

5. Asking to go part-time as a new employee

I was recently hired into a new full-time role shortly after having a baby. I quickly realized that although I like the team and the work, I want to spend more time with my children. I am considering quitting altogether. However, I’m already getting very positive feedback in my new role, and the company seems to really need people. Is it worth asking to drop to part-time?

Yes! If you’re going to leave otherwise but would be willing to stay part-time — and so their choice is none of your time or some of it — it absolutely makes sense to ask. (That assumes that you’d want to go part-time, of course. If you’d rather just leave entirely, do that instead — don’t give them hours just because they need people.)

Read an update to this letter. 

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

1. Should I work with this investor or run for the hills?

I have a connection who is a successful entrepreneur and investor who wants to start a business in my industry. Because of my industry experience, he asked if I wanted to work with him on the side. I was initially excited for the opportunity! We have only had a couple in-person meetings to discuss, so the real work hasn’t yet begun. However, even in these early days, I have noticed a few red flags:

(1) I had to press for information on his existing companies to learn more. They appear legitimate, but he seemed taken aback when I said that I wanted to learn about what they do. (2) He used a lot of flattery and said he saw a lot in me, even though he does not know me very well and we have never actually worked together. (3) We’ve already had a couple miscommunications. After our first meeting, I had the impression that this would be a consulting arrangement since he mentioned a consulting fee. When we met the second time, he told me he wanted me to be a “partner” in this, yet there was no talk of a contract of any sort. He said that if he pays me for my time, there is less equity to invest in the business, and it became apparent in that meeting that he was not planning on paying me until this business turns a profit. During that meeting, I shared some ideas which he seemed to really like, and when we concluded the meeting, he told me to run with it and then said, “Tell me what to do next.”

I walked away feeling uneasy, knowing that it would be a significant time investment to put together a business case in order to tell him what our next steps should be. I called him a few days later and said that because of the effort involved, I would need to be paid for my time. He pushed back and said that because we have no idea what we’re doing yet, he would not pay me. He then clarified that all he wanted was a list of some problems in the industry and which ones I think we should solve; this is not at all what I gathered from our last conversation.

My gut is telling me to run, but before I say back out, I want to be sure I am not turning down a potentially life-changing opportunity. He’s had success before, he’s well-connected, and I understand that there will be ambiguity with startups. He seems like a genuinely nice guy and I truly don’t sense any malicious intent; I think he is just a bit scattered. I am also wondering if this is a “me” problem, like maybe I just misunderstood him, jumped to conclusions, or am not cut out for the unstructured nature of a startup. However, something is not sitting right with me, and I sense that I could be taken advantage of. What is your perspective on this situation?

Right now, with no agreement in writing, you’re just giving this guy your time and ideas for free. There’s no agreement for how you’ll be compensated, or when, or in what amounts. He could have you pour hours into ideas and a business plan and “telling him what to do next” and then decide it doesn’t make sense to work together or abandon the project entirely, and you’d be left with nothing. If he’s proposing paying you in equity or ownership or money down the road, that needs to be hashed out now and put in writing. Otherwise, you have zero protection.

It’s up to you whether you want to be a partner who doesn’t get paid until later (and who might make nothing, a little, or a ton) or a consultant who gets paid right now (without the potential for a windfall later) — but you need to be one of those, and it needs to be settled and written down before you put more time in. If he balks at doing that, he’s not someone you should work with — he either isn’t willing to commit to the promises he’s throwing around, or he’s so naive about how business is done (or so cavalier about your protection) that he’d be a crappy partner anyway.

Personally I’d choose consultant — it’s guaranteed pay for your work, and I’m risk-averse. But if you choose partner, make sure the partnership is structured in a way that rewards you fairly for your contribution. If you’re doing all the work, your compensation/ownership should reflect that (unless he’s offering something of high value too, like all the capital).

Read an update to this letter.

2. Justifying a low salary because the person in the job lives with their parents

This happened to me years ago and I’m wondering if there would have been a good response at the time. I was working in my first job out of college, making $34K a year in New York. No one I was friends with made much more, but it’s not like I was saving anything. I was applying for other jobs, and was in a second interview for one that paid $28K (if I remember correctly). I asked if they could go up at all — I think I told them that I could go down in salary for the perfect job but not that far down — and the response was, “We know it’s low, but the person in the role right now lives with her parents,” as if maybe there was some secret no-rent solution I wasn’t thinking of.

Even in my very green state, I remember thinking that you can’t base a job’s pay on the employee having no rent. Do you think this is still a thing when figuring out what roles at nonprofits should pay?

In some fields it is, yes. It’s not a universal nonprofit thing by any means, but there are fields that are structured around the expectation that employees — especially junior ones— don’t need to earn a living wage because someone else helps support them. Think some parts of fashion and the art world, for example. It’s not always as direct as “we plan to hire someone with family financial support” … but they have so many applicants who can take less money for that reason that it completely skews the field’s market rates.

And of course this ends up hugely gatekeeping who can enter those fields.

3. Was I wrong to share the reason for a coworker’s absence?

I was in our workplace lunchroom when an employee I don’t know well asked why she hadn’t seen Jane (a coworker in my department) recently. I answered that she had had a death in her family, namely a brother who died while on the job as a fire fighter at a forest fire. This was how our department manager had explained the absence at a recent meeting, with no caveats.

At a later department meeting, the manager scolded us, saying it had come to his attention that one of us had been gossiping about Jane and that we were not to share the reason for her absence, because it was all private information. I was not aware of his policy before that; the employee manual didn’t cover the situation. How could I have better handled the lunchroom query?

(The manager then also told us not to bring up the brother’s death to Jane when she returned, not even to express condolences.)

The manager is the one who should have handled it differently, not you. It’s not normally off-limits to share this kind of thing with a colleague if you haven’t been told otherwise. It’s not typically gossip; it’s sharing important information about someone you feel warmly toward, so that people can send extra good will their way. If your manager or Jane didn’t want it shared with others, your manager should have clearly explained that when he first shared it with you.

4. What’s up with behavioral interviewing?

I just got a flyer for a workshop on hiring, specifically behavioral interviewing. I’ve had pretty good success in the past with plain old interviewing and I’m not too inclined to change, but I wondered: Is this a thing? Does it work? Is it as wacky and touchy-feely as it sounds?

Behavioral interviewing, for anyone who doesn’t know, is what interviewers are doing when they ask “tell me about a time when…” questions. (“Tell me about a time when you had to work with an unhappy client,” “tell me about a time when you had conflicting deadlines,” etc.) And yes, it is very much a thing, and it works. It’s pretty common and not wacky or touchy-feely!

The idea is that you will make better hires if you probe into how people have actually operated on the job in the past (or observe how they operate in the present, via exercises and simulations), rather than just asking hypothetical questions about how they think they might handle something in the future. It’s really easy for people to BS their way through hypothetical questions. For example, a question like “how do you think you’d stay on top of everything?” is likely to get you answers that sound good in theory, but you’ll get far more useful info if you ask, “How much volume did you have to handle in your last job? How did you stay on top of it all? Tell me about a time when the volume was at its peak. What did you do?”

Approaching interviews this way will also give you real examples that you can dig into more deeply, so that you’re able to go beyond surface-level answers and get a sense of how the candidate truly operates and whether they have the skills to excel at the work you need done.

5. Intern as contractor

I work at a small nonprofit (about 10 staff) that has some management/organization issues. We are hiring an intern, and while it is great that we plan to pay them (the bar is on the floor), my manager is requiring him to send an invoice every month to receive his stipend. This makes the intern responsible for his own payroll taxes, as well as the responsibility of making sure he is paid. What should I do in this scenario, as someone who is not entry-level but is not directly in charge of hiring? Is this as crazy as it seems?

It’s almost certainly illegal. Your manager is treating the intern as an independent contractor (no taxes taken out) rather than an employee (taxes required to be taken out), but whether someone should legally be an employee or contractor isn’t up to the employer’s preference; it’s controlled by factors laid out by the IRS. If the employer controls when, where, and how the person works, they’re generally an employee, not a contractor. It’s very unlikely that an intern doing intern-type work would qualify as a contractor.

I’m guessing your boss doesn’t know that or figures the organization is too small for the law to apply (it’s not). You could say something like this: “Federal law doesn’t allow us to pay someone as an independent contractor if we’re treating them essentially like an employee, and we could have to pay fines and back taxes if we do it this way. Legally we need to pay him the way we do employees, with taxes taken out.”