Ask a Manager

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

1. I’m frustrated with my daughter’s new job

Our daughter is struggling. Her job has asked her not to come in for the rest of the month as they are “giving her time to work on herself.” She is a new employee of a brand new ice cream shop that hired 25 people to work as shift leads, managers, and worker bees. This is her first job at the age of 19. She is also a student in culinary school.

Because she is over 18, she almost exclusively works the evening close shift and seems to be scheduled for every Saturday and one other day during the week. Often the manager when she works is the same person who we are reasonably sure is related to the owners somehow.

She left early on one shift due to the smell of something they were making that made her extremely nauseous. She left right at close another time when her manager told her it was okay for her to leave since she was struggling with sore muscles and an injured wrist after wakeboarding earlier in the day. She left early in her last shift due to inexplicable loss of bladder control while washing dishes (which was mortifying and certainly not planned). On another day, she had failed to take her anxiety meds and let the owner know she was struggling to cope appropriately with stress on that occasion, but has since not had any issues with that.

She has been honest with them about her anxiety and ADHD. The employees were apparently told by the owner the first week of training to be open and honest and they would work to accommodate needs. But apparently she has had too many needs? She discovered that the two four-hour shifts she was given for this week were removed. No one spoke to her about it. She was notified in a email, but was still scheduled for two shifts next week.

She texted the owner to ask if that was done because of her most recent issue with her bladder and the owner texted her and said they don’t feel she is a team player and can be relied on. And every communication is via text, not on the phone voice to voice. Super frustrating since we all know that typed messages are often misinterpreted. She has been in tears.

I am not inclined to get involved but my mom heart hurts to watch her trying so hard to conform to what they want and getting her already fragile self-esteem thrown in the trash. I know she is not the only employee with issues and concerns. Why does it feel like she is being singled out for not being an easy employee?

This is food service; if you’re not reliably there or have to leave early a lot, it can mean they just take you off the schedule — or at least schedule you less. It sounds like she left early from four shifts at a brand new job, so it’s not surprising that they’re prioritizing scheduling other people.

I know you’re thinking these were all legitimate reasons to go home, but on their side of it, what they see is a pattern of not reliably working full shifts. Four times in a short period is a lot, regardless of the reason. That doesn’t mean she’s a bad person or not capable of having a job; it just means that this particular job doesn’t think they can rely on her right now.

I get that it sucks that the owner encouraged people to be open about their needs and then she was penalized for it. But it’s could be a good opportunity to talk about what that really means in a work context and how to navigate it, and what will and won’t be considered reasonable or excessive (because in very few jobs will it mean endless patience for whatever you need; it’s a balancing act that takes a while to understand when you’re new to work).

(The texting is also very normal and a thing she should expect in food service jobs; it’s faster than calling because they don’t need to wait until they can reach someone on the phone.)

2. Is this 18-month process typical to fire someone who doesn’t do their work?

I’m a director of a small group of people in a very large professional organization. My team is all remote workers, which generally works out well. I’m not a micromanager by nature, and given our remote status, I can only ascertain someone’s work by their output.

I have one employee who I know has been suffering from mental health issues. This has manifested in, as near as I can see on my end, them “checking out” and doing zero work for days at a time. Work orders would go untouched, and I would receive complaints from other leaders when their tickets had no action. People began to dread when their tickets were assigned to this person because it typically meant a slow process. I began with talking to them in our biweekly meetings and when things didn’t improve, I had to move to HR and PIPs.

I’m sympathetic to their mental health issues and offered solutions such as FMLA, PTO, and our employee health services. PTO was used here and there for some scheduled vacations but also largely on days when we had a scheduled team meeting, I think as a way to avoid me/the team. Things didn’t improve and, while I kept HR looped in every step of the way, their solution was to keep issuing PIPs, just PIP level 1, PIP level 2, PIP level 3, etc. It was ridiculous, in my opinion, and drug out for over 18 months because the employee would improve for a couple of months after receiving a PIP, and then backslide again. After PIP level 3 should have been termination. When I got to that point, I had a meeting with HR and expressed my continued concerns and thought they would support me in my desire for termination, but our HR rep wanted to know what I had done to coach and guide this person before getting to this point.

I’m kind of incredulous. I work with and hire adults. We have had numerous conversations over the past year, and at the last PIP level 3 meeting, I told the employee that this was the last step before termination. I feel like HR wants me to be a kindergarten teacher and baby everyone. I can coach someone on how to do their job better, or how to better communicate, or how to better handle a process — but coaching someone on actually coming to work every single day seems wildly out of line. Is this normal for large organizations, where it takes an act of congress to terminate someone who is quite obviously not working out?

No, it’s not normal, but you do see it in incompetently run organizations. It’s possible they’re being extra cautious with this person because of the health issues, but even accounting for that, this is a ridiculous process. PIPs don’t need three levels, and they don’t need 18 months (!). They should be a few months at most (often less, depending on the nature of the issues and the nature of the work), and they should include a clear statement that improvement must be sustained; if the problems recur, you don’t repeat the whole process.

In organizations that move as slowly as yours (or even half as slowly), it can help to ask HR at the very start of the process to lay out the process in its entirety — what will be required of you when, and what the timeline will look like. Sometimes if you know what they’ll want to see later in the process, you can work on documenting that you’ve done it early on, and that can save time and aggravation later. It’s also possible that your HR person’s inquiry into what you’ve done to coach the person up until this point doesn’t actually mean, “We’re ignoring everything that came before today and we want you to start from scratch”; it might just be a thing they’re required to document at this stage, and it’s easier to ask you than to go back through all the previous records. You should say directly, “My understanding was that having gone through 18 months of performance management and three levels of PIPs, we would terminate if improvement was not demonstrated. If that’s not the case, what exactly needs to happen between now and when we would be at that point?”

3. Can I ask an employee if they need an eye exam?

I supervise someone who is a few decades older than me. Normally this isn’t a problem for them or me, but it’s making me hesitate to bring something up. Lately they have been submitting things that look blurry or pixelated. This has happened 3-4 times across 3-4 different contexts. It’s always right on the edge, something that I think needs to be crisper and they think can pass or that they didn’t notice. It’s a low stakes issue — I just ask that the photo be swapped — but it’s enough times now that I’m wondering if they need to have their close-up vision checked. However, is that something a supervisor can even bring up? Is it something I would even think about if the person was my age, or would I assume it was just carelessness? For the record, my vision is terrible, so having my eyes checked is always top of mind for me.

Handle it way you would if they were 25, which (hopefully!) means just naming the pattern you’re seeing: “Several times recently, you’ve submitted work that’s looked blurry or pixelated. Can you look into what’s causing that, whether it’s an issue with the tools you’re using to create them or something else?”

If that doesn’t solve it, the next time it happens look at the blurry item together and ask if they can see what you’re talking about. If they can’t, the by-the-book answer is to flag for them that it’s an issue and ask them to look into tools to help them see whatever they’re producing more sharply. Maybe they’ll decide that’s glasses, maybe they’ll decide it’s a magnifier or something else — up to them.

4. Do I have to say who my competing offer is from?

This happened a few years ago, but I realized recently that I still don’t know what the right move would have been. I was interviewing and Job A made an offer. I told Job B this and asked for an update on their decision. In response, Job B asked who Job A was.

I told them. (I ultimately didn’t get an offer from B. They didn’t end up hiring anyone for that role.) I get that it’s not necessarily private or sensitive information, but it felt gauche for them to ask. Was that reaction warranted? Would it have been okay/normal to decline to tell them who the exact other offer was from? If so, what might have been reasonable wording?

I agree it’s a little gauche of them to ask, although some employers do this. They’d defend it by saying that knowing who your offer is from helps them understand if they’re likely to be able to compete with it (and they can save you both time if they know they can’t) or helps them better understand the totality of your situation and you as a candidate. But it’s really none of their business and you don’t need to disclose it if you don’t want to.

It’s fine to say, “I’d rather not share that at this point; I’m just hoping for an update on your timeline.”

Related:
what does it mean when an employer says, “let us know if you get any offers”?

5. Giving lots of advance notice of a layoff

How do you feel about giving advance notice of an impending layoff that is truly only for financial reasons? The setting in question is a small business (very small) and with some other recent income-generating-staff departures, we no longer need or can afford as much administrative support.

The administrative professional in question is amazing and I stand prepared to give a wonderful reference, but I also think she may struggle in the job market because of possibly encountering bias (she is a visible minority, and I think unfortunately may be subject to discrimination). So I want to give her as much lead time as possible to begin seeking new employment.

How long is too long? Can I tell her 3+ months in advance, “In the fall our budget will be tighter and we may not have room for your position,” thus essentially asking her to begin looking for work? Or should I limit it to a shorter time period such as 4-6 weeks? I truly want the best for her and am heartbroken that I am having to make this decision.

It’s true that much of the conventional wisdom around layoffs says to avoid much/any notice (and to instead offer severance in lieu of notice) because otherwise you open yourself up to sabotage from bitter soon-to-be-former employees, or people slacking off and barely working or affecting the morale of other people. But that’s not your situation! This is a small business, you describe the employee as amazing, and it doesn’t sound like you have reason to be worried about any of those things.

So give her as much notice as you can. Also, if you’re sure you will be laying her off in the fall, don’t say you “may not” be able to keep her. Be clear and direct and tell her that you will need to cut her position then so that she’s very clear on what will be happening. Otherwise, she may not move as quickly or aggressively in a job search, thinking that she might be kept on.

Let her know that it’s purely a financial decision and has nothing to do with her work, she’s great, and you’ll give her a glowing reference as she’s searching. Also, if you can use your network to try to help, do! It’s tough to find really great admin support, and you might be able to make someone in your network very happy by connecting them.

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

1. My coworkers are feuding over a text, a lack of condolences, and some coffee

We have two colleagues in our office, Pam and Sarah, who do not get along. Sarah’s mom passed away recently, and she sent a text message to our people in the office letting them know. It should be noted that she left Pam off the text. I did not respond to the text message because I am older and find texting and social media to be impersonal, so I was going to call her the next day. Pam also did not send a text to Sarah that day (again, Sarah left her off the text sharing what happened).

The next day, both Pam and I woke up to a text message from Sarah that read, “Thanks for the condolences” and had a picture of her dead mother in her hospice bed attached. Knowing Sarah, I know she was drunk and emotional when she sent the text, so I didn’t think anything of it and called Sarah that evening. I told her I was sorry about her mom, and she apologized for the picture and that was that. We are fine. However, Pam has taken the picture as a personal affront, and she and Sarah no longer speak to each other.

Two weeks have passed, and this morning Sarah comes down to my desk asking where the key to the supply closet is. She said she was looking for the Green Mountain coffee but thinks we are out of it because Pam, who orders supplies, will not order it anymore because she is mad at Sarah and knows Sarah likes it. Since I have a company credit card, she asked if I could order it. I said I could try but I don’t order supplies. Next thing I know, Sarah is going into our manager’s office, and I hear her say, “Bob, can you order more of this coffee? Pam won’t order it because I was mad that she did not send me condolences, so I sent her a picture of my dead mother and now we only have Folgers.” I had to put my head under my desk and hide, I was laughing so hard. How is that sentence even possible in a sane world? Anyway, any advice on how to handle this situation?

The question is what Bob is going to do! He’s the one with the authority and obligation to deal with it. What he should do is talk to them and tell them they need to be civil to each other at work and it’s not okay to ignore one another or make supply-ordering decisions based on personal feuds. He also needs to tell Sarah that angrily sending a photo of her dead mom was inappropriate and upsetting and she needs to keep her communications to colleagues professional.

But that’s the tip of the iceberg! The fact that this happened at all, that it got to this point, that Sarah’s history is such that you knew she was drunk-texting — something’s going on in your office beyond this, and I strongly suspect part of it is that Bob isn’t actively managing the situation.

Luckily, it’s not anything you need to fix yourself; it’s not your job and you’re not the one with the authority to address it.

2. Is saying “my calendar is up to date” rude?

I work in a quality function at a large company, so we need to sign off on a lot of things that the various groups under our purview are doing. That usually results in a lot of quick meetings so the groups requesting our sign off can give us a quick rundown of the situation and allow us to ask questions. Oftentimes, these sign-offs need to happen relatively quickly.

Recently, someone was requesting my sign-off on a change and sent me a Teams message asking if I had time to meet that day. I responded, “Sure, my Outlook calendar is up to date” and expected the person to send me a planner.

This person, for some reason, flipped out when I said this, saying that I should have scheduled the meeting. I had no idea how long the meeting needed to be, who else to invite, etc., which is why I told them to schedule it.

I have to ask. Is it rude to say “my outlook calendar is up to date” and expect someone requesting a meeting to go ahead and schedule it?

No, it is not. It is very normal.

Moreover, even if it were a little rude — which it isn’t — your coworker’s reaction would have been wildly over the top. They could have simply replied, “Would you mind taking the lead on scheduling because of (reasons)?”

3. Customer is telling me too much about her family’s tragedy

I work at a bookstore. Recently I had a customer come in with a terrible situation; her son who plays football experienced a bad tackle and was seriously injured as a result. She was asking for medical books about the specific condition, as well as self-help books. I guided her to the appropriate section and expressed genuine sympathy and a hope that things get better. We didn’t have much that applied to the exact situation, so I ordered some for her as well.

The problem is, she’s a very frequent customer and she’s now giving me regular updates on the situation, some medical (he has a catheter) and some emotional (he’s told her he wants to die). I frankly didn’t ask and don’t want to know. I sympathize, truly, and I’m sorry this young man’s life has been so tragically altered but I’m here to do my job, not provide free therapy. I have my own background with losing someone young to suicide and hearing that this young man is considering taking his own life is genuinely triggering for me. How do I gently extricate myself from this situation? Should I talk to my manager about it? If so, what should I say?

First, are you able to quickly excuse yourself for work reasons — “good to see you, I’ve got to grab something for another customer” or so forth? If that’s not practical (or not practical every time), would you be comfortable saying something like, “I’m so sorry he’s dealing with this. It’s hard for me to talk about because of a situation in my own family — I hope you understand”?

But it’s also okay to talk to your manager about it; this is the kind of thing that you can ask someone above your pay grade to handle.

4. My boss is mad that I communicate better than she does

I’ve been with my company for 15 years, in my current position for nine. I’m one of the team leads. There are similar leads for other teams in our group. We each are responsible for supervising and mentoring the members of our teams, as well as facilitating conversations with other groups and setting/enforcing policies and procedures. As the longest-tenured lead, I have a few additional responsibilities which extend to our full group. My current manager is the third since I’ve been a lead. They were an internal hire who was familiar with me, my work, responsibilities, and how I interacted with the team and my previous managers.

Recently we had our company-wide employee survey, and my manager scored low on communication and team engagement. A couple of weeks later, I got a call from them telling me that I talked too much in meetings, it was inappropriate that my team came to me for group-related issues instead of just ones solely focused on our assignments, I should not be making policy and procedure decisions, and I needed to quiet down and let them handle anything that wasn’t specific to a particular assignment. Through the course of the conversation, I gleaned that they had just had a meeting with their manager, and the issues with their communication came up. Apparently I was used as an example of good communication and what my grand-boss would like to see out of my manager. But instead of using that to improve their style, I’m being told to curtail my work and behaviors.

Fine, I can mostly deal with this (although it does have me brushing up my resume). My question is how to explain to my team why suddenly I’m referring questions to our manager. And how do I tell people sending me requests from outside teams that instead of getting a prompt response from me, they’ll have to contact my manager and wait weeks for an answer? I’m afraid that they’ll interpret this change as if I’ve done something wrong and it will affect my reputation. I know my not speaking up during discussions in meetings has been noticed already and I’m not sure how to address that, either. So far I’ve just been saying “Manager wants to be more involved in X” but that doesn’t feel quite right either.

Wow, your manager is an insecure ass.

How’s your relationship with your manager’s manager? Any chance you could talk to her about these new directives? If she held you up as an example of the sort of communication your boss should be modeling, she’s probably going to be pretty unhappy to hear how your boss handled it. Make sure to say that you’re concerned about retaliation from your boss if they find out you went to your grandboss with this; your grandboss should be able to finesse that if she’s reasonably skilled, but it’ll help to flag it as a specific concern.

Beyond that, just be straightforward with other people: “Jane has asked to be more involved with stuff like this” … “Jane wants to be the point of contact for this” … etc. It sounds like you have an excellent reputation and Jane does not; it’s highly likely that people will know that the problem is Jane, not you.

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

1. Is my employee’s conference presentation taking credit for my work?

My question is one part reaction check, one part management advice. I run a small marketing team that didn’t exist at this company before I created it five years ago. I had some adjacent experience and figured everything else out as I went. Last year, we had an internal transfer to my team; she also didn’t have any marketing experience, but was eager to learn. She was brought on to expand upon and lead some social media marketing projects that I had done some work on, but had been stretched too thin to dedicate the time needed for it.

Fast forward 18 months, and she reached out for financial support to attend an industry conference. She wanted to learn more about social media strategy and develop her skills. This is great! I love continuous education opportunities for my team! I approved the request.

The next week I found out via a LinkedIn post she made that she applied and was accepted as a speaker at the conference, with the topic of how to create a social media function at a small company. In this post, she shared that she was able to build this function on her own, and she was excited to share her expertise with others at this conference. She has not mentioned to me directly that she will be a speaker.

So going back to my two-part question: First, the way she describes her role and her projects in the post effectively cuts my work and guidance out of the picture. I know I’m taking this too personally, but how “too personally?” I want to be a supportive manager and I want her to feel empowered, but frankly, this makes me less excited to be a cheerleader for her because it feels like she just took the credit.

Secondly, I think there is some genuine feedback to give here, but I’m struggling to parse it out from my personal feelings. She misrepresented her goals for the conference in her proposal and she’s misrepresenting her expertise to conference attendees (who are paying thousands of dollars!). However, it’s not affecting her work at our company, so is it even something I should be addressing? If so, how? If not, advice on letting this go?

Is she misrepresenting her expertise to conference attendees? It’s pretty normal for speaker bios to present the speaker in the best possible light, and usually they don’t include things like “under the tutelage of ManagerName” (unless the manager is so well-known that their name would be a draw). Granted, I don’t have all the facts that you do, but it doesn’t sound that outrageous for her to frame her work as building out your social media function; it sounds like she was hired to lead those projects. That doesn’t negate the work you did before she came on board or undermine you as her manager. If there’s something specific about the way she’s framing things that feels truly fraudulent, you’d of course want to address that — but otherwise this sounds like pretty standard conference speaker stuff.

It’s not clear to me whether she knew she was speaking at the conference when she asked you to fund her attendance. If she did, it’s a little surprising that she didn’t mention it, but not necessarily nefarious. You could just raise it with her and see what she says! For example: “I saw you’re leading a session on X! That’s great. You didn’t mention it when you asked for funding, so I wanted to make sure you know that’s something we love to see and would always appreciate knowing about.” (And if there are details that make this weirder that weren’t in the letter, you could change that to, “I was surprised you didn’t mention it when we talked about funding to attend — any reason for that?”)

2. Our manager favors our rumor-spreading, two-faced coworker

I work in a small team within a big organization. The team has been fairly close, but that all changed recently when we found out that one of our coworkers, Sam, has been spreading malicious rumors about another coworker who had to take time off for personal and family issues (miscarriage/sickness/vacation), saying things to the management team like how they’re always out or calling out sick whenever. They also spread rumors about people “taking advantage” of the hybrid schedule whenever we were not on-site. We confronted Sam privately (and separately) and they said there was no malicious intent. We later found out multiple other teammates had asked them to stop spreading negative rumors about their own teammates.

Then we realized our direct supervisor was privately emailing Sam for assignments and projects, and none of the rest of us would ever be included in the communication. So whenever Sam would call out for a broken fridge or car troubles, we would suddenly be asked to do double work because there had been no communication previously about the work. As time went on, we found out that Sam had also been stealing credit for the team’s work, which we also asked them to stop — but they believed they were right to do so, based on “last person to touch” logic.

We spoke with management about the lack of communication and respect from Sam, but also the lack of transparency from our supervisor funneling all communication to Sam. The resolution was that the supervisor would speak directly with Sam.

A few months after their conversation (which no one else was present for) the supervisor continues to privately message Sam, who now informs the team that they’re working on “something else” for the supervisor, but never shares the information with the us, likely out of spite. Sam also gets super passive-aggressive whenever the team decides to work on projects and not include them. I’ve tried pushing for collaboration and open communication, but so far nothing has improved. What can I do? Should I just look to transfer/promote to another team?

Yes, or even look outside the company altogether. Your managers know about the issue and, for whatever reason, aren’t acting on it. There’s too much drama around Sam and your supervisor, and you don’t have the power to fix it. Your best move is to just get out.

3. How did I make this terrible hire?

I’m an in-house recruiter in a medical start-up. About three weeks ago, I made a job offer to someone I felt was an excellent fit for a sales role. They happily accepted. Well, the hiring manager informed me two weeks ago that I might have to find a replacement because the new hire had been rude to her and to the trainer her first week. Very odd as these are both friendly and professional people. I don’t know the specifics but was told that the hire was very rude and mean during training, which is done over video (we’re a fully remote company), and in several emails to the manager. This rather shocked me as the candidate was perfectly lovely to me, behaved professionally, and was very well qualified for the role.

Last week, this hire resigned suddenly, claiming they hadn’t been paid. We pay bi-weekly and the deposit had not yet hit their bank account. I always go over the specifics of pay during the screening so they were fully aware of this.

Nothing like this has ever happened to me before and I’ve made hundreds of hires over the years. I’ve been in HR for many years and thought I had developed a thick skin, but I can’t shake the idea that I’m partly to blame for not seeing something during the interview. I can’t recall a single red flag either during the screening, formal interview, or afterwards in our emails. And no, we didn’t contact references. My company doesn’t do reference checks. Maybe we should start?

Sometimes you are going to make bad hires because it’s not a perfect science! If this is your first hiring mistake after hundreds of hires, you’ve been very lucky … although I suspect previous bad hires might have been more along the lines of “can’t do the job the way we need it done,” whereas this person just seems like a jerk and so you feel like you should have spotted that earlier.

Except it’s not always something you can spot in a hiring process! Some people interview very well and can hold it together for a few meetings or when the stakes feel particularly high but are horrible to work with. It sounds like this person was one. (Alternately, any chance there’s something else going on, like that you and the candidate were both male and the manager and trainer were both women? It’s worth thinking about — but sometimes people are just jerks and there’s nothing deeper happening.)

However, yes, you should do reference checks. They can significantly decrease the chances of surprises like this.

4. My housekeeper’s daughter doesn’t have any books

I employ a housekeeper, Maria. I am very happy with her work. Maria is a recent immigrant who speaks only Spanish. I used to speak Spanish well; I now have a medical condition that makes it hard for me to remember words in any language, but I still do my best.

Recently, Maria had a childcare issue and brought her first-grade daughter, Katie, to my home while she worked. That is not a problem. I gave Katie the basket of age-appropriate toys I keep on hand; Katie entertained herself for a while, then went out of her way to talk to me. Katie also only speaks Spanish. Katie told me that she had a book that was teaching her to read and write before she immigrated with her family, but she had to leave it behind, and now she does not have any books at home. I pulled out my collection of age-appropriate books and Katie spent the rest of her mom’s work time reading and describing pictures to me, I think very happily. I confirmed with Katie that she goes to school; she gave me several relevant details that make me completely sure she is in school.

I know Maria is a good mother who cares deeply about her children. Also, there’s a child in my community who obviously loves reading and says she has no books at home. If Katie were any other child in my life, I would know exactly what to do: make sure the family has access to the library (which has a great Spanish section), get Katie a couple books of her own, and let Maria know I would be happy any time to help make sure Katie always has access to books.

However, Katie is my employee’s daughter. Maria is great at taking feedback about her work, but she is less open to feedback in other areas. (Once, I forgot the word for “light” when she told me something was light, so I asked if she would like help carrying it; she gave me a speech about how she is an independent woman and I should let her work.) I think I have a generally positive relationship with Maria, but I know my impression is complicated by her having to be nice to me for her job, as well as cultural barriers. I also do not think Maria working for me means she has to hear my thoughts on her parenting.

However, I would love to help Katie have access to books at home if there is a reasonable and respectful way for me to do this. (For example, my niece has outgrown several books that are bilingual in English and Spanish and her parents want to give them away – could I offer them to Maria? I would also be happy to buy Katie new books.) If there is a good script for this situation, there are fluent Spanish speakers in my life I could contact for help getting it exactly right in Spanish.

I think you might be overthinking it! Buy Katie a few Spanish-language books or get the ones your niece has outgrown and ask Maria if Katie would like them. You could say, “I saw how much she loved looking at books when she was here so I wanted to give her some as a gift.”

I suspect you’re worried there’s some inherent criticism of Maria for not supplying Katie with books herself, but that doesn’t need to be the subtext at all. After all, you could offer Katie some books even if she had her own extensive stash at home — and you can approach this just like you would then.

5. How do I correct people who call me the wrong name via email?

You recently published a letter where the writer asked how to get people to spell their name correctly, and it reminded me of a similar (and kind of bizarre) issue I’ve been having.

Our email addresses are all in the format [first initial][last name]@company.com, and we have a standard Outlook signature that contains our full name, company website, etc. Surprisingly often, clients will respond to an email from me with some form of “Thanks, [my email alias]!” instead of “Thanks, [my actual name as shown in my signature]!” Weirder still, they don’t even spell the alias correctly as it appears in my email address.

Let me try to illustrate what I mean. Say my name was Katherine Eavon. My company email address would be keavon@teapotsinc.com, right? And all of my emails are signed, in bold letters, “Best regards, Katherine Eavon.” But I have clients responding with “Thanks Kevin!” and even calling my office — having presumably gotten the phone number from the signature with my actual name — and asking for Kevin.

It’s such a small issue but I just can’t wrap my head around the logic. I could maybe understand the occasional “thanks Keavon,” but like … do they think my email alias is my first name spelled incorrectly? Are there that many people using software that purposely hides email signatures? Is my name really Kevin and no one told me?

It happens so often that it’s become a bit of a running joke in our office. One of my coworkers gave me a Hello, My Name Is Kevin name tag as a gag gift. It’s all in good fun around the water cooler, but how do I reply to clients and say, “Hey jackass, check my signature, that’s not my name” without sounding rude?

I think it’s the same basic reason as why people address their emails to Allison when my email address with Alison is right in front of them. In your case, their eyes are glancing on what they process as a version of the name “Kevin” and their brains go “noted, Kevin,” and then their brains convert it to the spelling they’re most familiar with when they type it out. They’re not thinking about any more than that (definitely not to the point of wondering why your email address spelled it differently).

I’d just include “My name is Katherine, not Kevin!” when you reply … but, similar to the letter from earlier this week, the more you can not care, the better.

Also, though, any chance your company would change your email address to katherine@? Big companies are often wed to standardized email address formats, but if you’re at a smaller company they might be willing to just change it.