Ask a Manager

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

1. Can my husband hang out in my office at night until I’m ready to leave?

I am a woman in my early thirties. If I am going to stay late at night at work, would it be possible to bring my husband to stay somewhere in the office until I finish my work? Is it an unusual request to make?

It will vary by office. Some offices would be fine with it. Others have security policies that could make it tricky.

Are you wondering about it for safety reasons or something else (like, I don’t know, you carpool to work and your husband needs to wait somewhere until you’re done so you can drive home together)?

If it’s safety reasons, I’d raise that with your manager directly; if you need to stay late at work, you need to feel safe doing that and your employer should work with you to make that possible.

If it’s more “my husband is bored and needs somewhere to hang out until I can leave,” it would be better for him to find somewhere else to do that until you’re done (especially if it would be a regular thing).

2. How do I get my coworkers to treat me like “the talent”?

I work in an industry where there’s crew (the production peeps) and talent (people in front of camera or behind the mic). I’ve been crew for maybe 10 years now. But I’ve pitched a project of my own and will be behind the mic for it. Exciting!

Usually, the production peeps take a lot of care briefing the talent — what happens when, who’s handling what, next steps, etc., etc. But because I’ve been on the team and am part of the company and someone from outside, they are skipping all these steps with me.

Classic slippery slope. Initially, I didn’t mind, because we were still in my area of preproduction expertise. No need to brief. Now we are reaching post and I feel totally lost and worried about who’s handling what and is somebody handling it at all or must I be sorting it out, etc. It feels dramatic to now hit them with an email saying KEEP ME ABREAST AT ALL TIMES. And how do I transition from being a mellow fellow coworker to a fussy client with lots of pointers about editing and marketing and such? (I don’t go overboard with fussiness, I swear.)

“Hey, I know I didn’t initially need everything talent normally needs, but now we’re at a point where I do need the same level of support we give to people without experience in production. I’m realizing I feel lost about things like XYZ, so going forward, can you give me the same level of briefing you’d give anyone else, even if you think I won’t need it?”

As for moving from a mellow coworker to a fussy client with lots of notes … there’s just some inherent awkwardness in there that you probably can’t entirely avoid, but if you just jump in and do it, it’ll feel more natural in time. That said, your knowledge from being on the other side can inform your approach — be as detail-oriented as you want, but be kind about it. Think of it as taking the work very seriously, rather than taking yourself seriously; that usually helps with humility. (At the same time, I bet seeing the process from the talent side is going to make some things talent does that were annoying when you were crew seem less annoying now. That always happens when you do this kind of flip, and that perspective-broadening can be useful if you return to the crew side at some point.)

3. What feedback should I give to a temporary worker who didn’t get the job?

I became a first-time manager within the past year, so this is all new to me. My first act was to make a temporary hire for my old role until our organization could fill it full-time. I hired someone I knew from a similar org who had recently been let go for budget reasons. I am completely confident she knew it was a temporary position. Within a year, I got the greenlight to hire full-time. She applied and was a finalist out of a pool of several hundred applicants. But she lost out to someone with extensive specific past experience that made them a unicorn-level fit for the job.

I told her that she did not get the job, and that it honestly wasn’t anything she did wrong; we just had a candidate we couldn’t pass up. She has been professional about it but is taking it hard.

This surprised me. Even during interviews, she did not seem very excited, but rather like applying was the expected thing to do. Even so, it was a close decision because she is very good. I have honestly told her I will be a glowing reference for her. I told her, if she wants, she can stay through end of the month. (She doesn’t know this yet but I’m also trying to get the budget to give her some cover for the next month.) We also lined up some short projects that I hope she can use as examples in future interviews. I genuinely want her to do well in a job she cares about.

In our last check-in, she started crying and asked for more specific feedback. Like anyone, she isn’t perfect and I have a couple of things I could suggest. But none are why we didn’t hire her. Do I give her honest feedback? Does that include telling her she didn’t seem to want to be here? Or does that rub salt in the wound? As a newbie manager, I try to start with empathy, but I clearly misread her enthusiasm and am doubting my instincts now.

Give her feedback because she’s asking for it, but frame it as, “I can give you some feedback on things that will strengthen your work generally, but I want to be clear that they weren’t the reasons you weren’t hired. You were a very competitive candidate and the decision was about hiring someone who was an unusually good match; it wasn’t based on any concerns about you or your work.”

I would not tell her she didn’t seem enthusiastic unless she seemed so disengaged that you’re concerned it will be an obstacle for her in future interviews. But it’s useful data that people don’t always wear their hearts on their sleeves in interviews and can be much more invested than you can see on the surface. (Not always! Some people genuinely aren’t that enthused. But it’s good to be aware that there’s a wide spectrum of “normal” on this.)

Related:
how to show passion for your work when you’re not a demonstrative person

4. Can I ask for my own office?

I work for a large nonprofit that is mostly remote, but has an office from the days when folks were expected to come in. The building sits mostly empty. On my floor, for example, there are about 20 cubicles and 15 enclosed offices. There are maybe five of us that come in at some point during the week, and of those, only two of us are in every day. Of course, all five of us are in the same cube area, and the two of us in every day sit right next to each other. This leaves over 15 offices empty and unassigned.

This is frustrating! All of my meetings are on video calls, so I spend a lot of time going in and out of enclosed offices. My colleagues often take their videos and calls in the open area, which results in unnecessary sensory overload and frustration for me. (If it matters, I likely have sensory processing disorder from some combination of anxiety/ADHD/etc.)

I’ve only been here a month, and I’m the lowest role in our structure. Still, with so many offices sitting open, I would love to move into one. Would it be okay to request? How should I approach it?

“I’m spending a lot of time going in and out of the enclosed offices since I have so many video calls. Since it seems like a lot are unused, would it be okay for me to regularly work out of one of them?” They might say no — a lot of offices have intense politics around who gets an office and who doesn’t, even the people they’re assigned to are never there to use them — but it’s reasonable to ask. (Those politics are why my suggested wording is “regularly work out of one of them,” which sounds less permanent than “can I have my own office?” even if that’s what it turns into in time.)

If the answer is no, you could ask about moving to a cubicle that’s further away from the current cluster so that you’re not in the middle of so much action.

Also, depending on how much the sensory overload is interfering with your work, you could also consider going the formal accommodations route — but in a lot of cases it makes sense to start with a less formal conversation first.

5. Should I tell my over-performing employee to leave?

I have a superstar employee. She was fairly fresh out of university when we hired her, but I have never had a regret about her performance. She’s now been working for us for almost two years and doing more work than I would expect someone at her level to perform, it’s at an exceptional quality, and she consistently takes on bigger and newer challenges.

Obviously, I’ve been advocating for her to get a promotion. Recently, HR told us that for her to get that promotion, she’d have to have had three years of experience in her current (or any equivalent) role. But she’s performing at a higher level than what her title indicates! She deserves the promotion. She did get a decent raise, which I am happy about, but I know from experience that the title can make a big difference as well. Honestly she could leave and do so much better for herself. I’ve made the case again for her and hope that HR will change their mind (or find some combined level of experience that will help her qualify for it), but what else can I do?

Do I tell her that she should start looking elsewhere because she deserves a role that recognizes and pays her what she is worth? This is the first I’ve heard of the title structure that bases things off of years of experience, but I assume I should just lay it out for her so that she knows what the logic is? Do I have to make it sound like I agree with this because I am her manager?

It’s not terribly unusual to have experience requirements for promotion. It’s also reasonable for you, as her manager, to argue for an exception to that policy, based on her extraordinary level of performance and the possibility that the company may lose her entirely if you don’t reward that performance sooner rather than later.

That said, what’s your employee’s take on all this? Is she happy to wait another year for promotion or is she pushing for it to happen sooner? If she hasn’t shown any unhappiness with the situation, there’s no reason to encourage her to start looking outside the company. If you had the sense that they’d never promote her, that would be different — and you’d owe it to her to be relatively candid about that — but that’s not the case here. You should still share with her what the promotion timeline is so she has it, and you should lay out for HR why you think her accomplishments in two years are the equivalent of the average candidate’s accomplishments in three (or longer), but the three-year timeline isn’t inherently outrageous (as long as it’s real and they don’t kick the can down the road once people get there, and also as long as it’s not at odds with the norms of your field).

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

1. My employer wants us to “volunteer” for groundskeeping and cleaning

I work in a faculty position at a private university that is struggling with all the challenges that higher education is facing right now, including declining enrollment. We have not had raises in years, and positions are only replaced if they are determined to be absolutely necessary. Even though housekeeping and groundskeeping are deemed necessary, they are having trouble filling those positions because they either can’t or won’t pay a competitive wage for the area.

Recently the administration sent out an email asking all employees to participate in a voluntary workday to make the campus beautiful before students arrive. Staff who would be working that day can count it toward time worked, but faculty, who would typically not be working that day, are expected to do it with no additional compensation. Tasks include power washing buildings, planting flowers and laying mulch, and cleaning. I had planned to use that day to prepare for my fall semester classes. Part of the reason they are asking for help is because they don’t have an adequate number of groundskeeping and housekeeping staff, although the email didn’t say that. I do not think it is my responsibility to do tasks outside of what I was hired to do because the university failed to hire people to do them.

I’m planning to not sign up for a time slot, but do you think this is something that we should push back on? Also, do you think that those who don’t participate could face backlash for failing to be a team player?

Yes, it’s something you should push back on. It’s bad enough that you’re being asked to pick up extra work from unfilled jobs similar to your own (for no additional compensation), but now you’re supposed to “volunteer” for manual labor that has nothing to do with your job at all? No. If they want to cut positions, they need to deal with the consequences of cutting those positions — not add power washing and cleaning onto your already full plates so that you’re the ones shouldering those consequences.

Will you face backlash for “not being a team player”? Maybe! But the more of you who decline to sign up, the less feasible that will be — so encourage your colleagues to sit this out.

2. People ask if my hair color is natural

I’m a woman in my late thirties and I work for a company of approximately 600 people. My role has me connecting with people across many departments. I have found my hair to be a frequent topic of conversation at work and I’m looking for a script to politely shut people down.

My hair was dark blond most of my life, but I started going gray early. I think gray hair looks lovely on many people, but it made me look washed out and ill so I had fun trying out lots of different hair colors. For the last five-ish years, I’ve dyed my hair red (Cowboy Copper, to be precise). It’s bright, but not outside the realm of natural hair colors.

My problem is that I get asked approximately once a week if my hair color is natural. I think it’s rude and would never ask someone whether they dye their hair. I’ve tried different answers — a joke, the truth, lying and saying it’s natural, and they always respond with compliments, but every exchange leaves me uncomfortable. I don’t think the people asking mean to be rude (they all legitimately seem to like the color) but I never know how to respond. How do I politely shut these people down?

Yes, it’s rude. Welcome to life as a redhead! People constantly ask redheads if our hair is real. A friend’s mom once poked around in my hair looking for roots because she didn’t believe it was real. I’m pretty sure adults asked me if it was real when I was a child.

That said, most people who ask are just interested because it’s unusual. You certainly don’t need to tell them it’s dyed if you don’t want to, but it’s also not a shameful secret and you could simply respond, “No, I just like it.” But if you don’t want to answer on principle, some options for you:

* “Why do you ask?”
* “I don’t think you’re supposed to ask people that.”
* “That’s between me and my hairdresser.”

Still, “No, I just like it” is likely to make it less of a big deal.

3. I was snubbed by a mentee I’ve given countless hours of my time to

I am a seasoned professional in a niche spot in my field. Early on in my career, I spent some time talking to my alma mater classes about my niche area of work, and took to mentoring a student who was interested in my field.

I have spent hours over nearly a decade giving advice to this person, editing his resume, and providing extraordinary amounts of input for which positions would be a good fit.

Recently I had a question for this mentee. He had accepted a job at an agency I cross paths with very infrequently, and I thought he could provide me very general information on a topic. Instead, he immediately discussed billing my agency for work over 30 minutes, and even mentioned an unwarranted inspection of my facility. I was floored. I told him to forget about it, reached out to a consultant, and worked out the question on my own.

I do not plan to give my time to this person ever again. Should I tell him how disrespectful he was, and why I plan to separate myself from his future advice needs? He contacts me only when he needs career advice. He has stolen countless hours from me and gave nothing as a show of thanks.

Nah, there’s no point. You’re right to be unavailable to him in the future now that he’s shown his interest in the relationship is so one-sided, but there’s little to be gained by spelling it out for him. (And really, you’ve already invested a ton of time in coaching him! You don’t need to do this final bit of it on your way out the door.)

For what it’s worth, though, I don’t think it’s useful to look at this as him stealing your time. You presumably mentored him voluntarily. And sure, you assumed the relationship would be a two-way one, but he didn’t engage with you under false pretenses. He’s just selfish and apparently sucks at networking. Now you know!

4. How do I reject a qualified former coworker?

I am the senior director for a small firm. We are in the process of hiring a new lead engineer in a very niche field where the applicant pool is tiny in our region. We recently received an outstanding resume from somebody with 30+ years of experience, a master’s in our field, and a ton of awesome project work that lines up with exactly what we need. Great news; our months’ long search is over! Only one catch: this person used to be my boss, left on overall good terms with our organization, but also left a bad taste in the mouths of a number of current team members. He resigned 10 years ago to take a high level director position at a neighboring company.

The word is that he left his director role in an acrimonious fashion last year (forced resignation). He is currently at another company as a chief engineer, which is two steps below director but two steps above our position. Our location would save him almost an hour commuting each day and I am guessing that is at least part of why he wants to come back. But beyond the personnel issues if he were to return (people are already freaking out about the possibility), the position he applied for requires a lot of desk time and actual crunching numbers type of engineering work, with no supervisory requirements. My experience with him as my boss was that he was a super delegator — to the point of asking senior engineers to draft emails on his behalf to send to vendors, prepare his presentations for conferences, do the annual cap ex budget for him (!), etc.

We have a handful of junior engineers and my gut is telling me he will pass his work on to them even though they don’t report to the senior engineer. He also has 15 years more experience than the manager he would report to — they have very different management styles and I believe he would question/go around him constantly. HR is trying to do everything by the book and although I have relayed all of this to them, they are insisting, based on his qualifications, that we have to offer him an interview. He will ace the interview and I am sure he will outshine the other candidates we have (he’s a very good politician and is very sharp). Is there anything else I can do to convince HR to not bring him in for the interview? Or if we must interview him, how can we justifiably turn him down? I also want to maintain a professional relationship with him, as we still occasionally cross paths at industry events.

First of all, what exactly does “the senior director” mean here? If you’re in charge of the firm, HR should be working to support you, not laying down edicts that they can’t defend. Yes, they’re charged with ensuring the company complies with the law and minimizes risk, but there’s no legal requirement that you interview everyone who’s qualified on paper. If you’ve worked with the candidate in the past and know they’re wrong for the role based on that experience, you do not need to interview out of a sense of fairness. So first, push back on HR and ask them to explain exactly why they think you should ignore firsthand experience working closely with a candidate.

Second, are you in charge of hiring for this position? If so, and you’re pushed into interviewing him, you can name your concern pretty explicitly in the interview: “This is an individual contributor position that doesn’t manage anyone, and about 80% of your time will be spent doing XYZ personally, not supervising others in doing it. I know that’s different than the role you had when we worked together, so I hoped you would speak to your interest in making that kind of move and what appeals to you about it.” Who knows, maybe you’ll hear something that changes your mind. But assuming you don’t, you can simply decline to hire him based on your experience working together in the past and your knowledge of the needs of the role. And if you’re not the decision-maker, you should share your experience and concerns very candidly with whoever is.

5. Can you take back your resignation?

This is a hypothetical, but it’s made me curious: Is there any way to pull back a resignation within the notice period? I had a wild dream where I quit a job I liked a lot for a reason I regretted, and found myself having to try to un-quit. I didn’t actually do this, but now I can’t stop thinking about it! Is there a script for changing your mind gracefully?

Sure, you can always try. If they valued you and haven’t already hired someone else, they might leap at the chance to keep you — although on the manager side of that, I’d want to make sure I understood what led you to quit in the first place and why you’d changed your mind, and I’d want to feel confident that whatever led to your quitting wasn’t going to put us in the same spot a few months down the road. And of course, if they weren’t terribly sad about you leaving, you might hear, “We appreciate the offer, but we’ve already planned for the transition and are pretty far into hiring for your replacement.”

As for how to say it, you need to explain why you’ve changed your mind. For example: “I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and I’d be interested in staying if it’s not too late to change course. I’d been concerned that my job was moving to more of an X focus, but you were so responsive when we talked about it and I can see that with Jane joining our team, those projects won’t fall as heavily to my role for much longer. If you’re open to me staying, I’m looking at a lot of this differently now.” (But that’s a reason that makes sense! If it’s just “oops, I acted too hastily / in the heat of the moment,” you still might be able to reverse it, but you should expect a fair amount of concern about what happened and whether you can really be happy there or not.)

Related:
employee resigned but now wants to stay