my interviewers interrupted my timed interview presentation

by Alison Green on July 23, 2024

A reader writes:

I’d be really interested to hear your take on a situation that cropped up for me while I was attending an internal job interview this week.

I’d been asked to prepare a presentation of “no longer than” 10 minutes. I practiced plenty in advance and was generally coming in at 8 minutes, 30 seconds, so comfortably within.

On the day of the interview, I was halfway through presenting my slide deck when one of the interview panel interrupted with a question, which I answered. This turned into three or four minutes of other queries and broader chat amongst the panel members — all very positive about the content — before they asked me to continue. I’d barely got any further when I was warned that I had less than a minute left: They hadn’t stopped the clock for their conversational detour. As a result, I had to push through the final couple of points far more swiftly than I’d intended.

Fortunately the rest of the interview went well, though ultimately I didn’t get the role. During the call to inform me, the interviewer explained that another candidate had more management experience than me (fair). But upon asking for any other feedback, I was told that I should have had more confidence when presenting, particularly during the last minute or so, and that I could have planned the timing better.

I thanked them for the feedback but I’ve been left wondering what I can really do with this for next time? I was hardly in a position to ban any questions, but putting my foot down and demanding extra presentation time to make up for their interruption sounds like a guaranteed way to lose the job. How can I work on this feedback?

It’s unlikely they wanted you to demand extra time to make up for the interruption.

But it’s very possible they assessed you in part on how well you handled the interruptions, like whether you were able to diplomatically regain control over the presentation and keep going — especially if presenting was a core function of the job. (In fact, if it was, they may have even interrupted intentionally to see how you handled it.) This isn’t necessarily 100% fair, because a lot of job candidates wouldn’t feel comfortable redirecting their interviewers — and if they wanted to assess that, they’d get better results by telling you beforehand that they wanted to see you demonstrate those skills, so you’d understand they were role-playing audience members and not worry as much about “interrupting” your job interviewers.

Or, if not that, they might have assessed you on whether you were able to recover smoothly and adjust on the fly in the time you had remaining.

Or they might not have intended to assess you on any of that, but a different candidate handled those things really well and that gave them an advantage.

It’s also possible the feedback means nothing at all — that when you asked for additional feedback beyond what they’d already offered, the person you were talking to just grasped for something without it being a factor that mattered much in their decision.

It’s hard to know whether there’s really anything here that would be useful to work on — but if you’re looking for something, I’d say it’s planning for audience interruptions and adapting in real time when they happen.

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my job wants me to do public speaking … I don’t want to

by Alison Green on July 23, 2024

A reader writes:

A few years ago, I accepted a job as a director of strategy at a small agency. One of the perks of this job was that I would deal with clients less, because this company had client managers to do that, and wouldn’t have to do things like public speaking. To be clear: This wasn’t a promise, just the way the job was laid out, and I liked it as I have never been a big fan of formal corporate work. But now that is changing.

For a while, I was able to minimize my direct client relations work and time spent leading meetings, which was great. Unfortunately, in 2023 we had to downsize. Many of the roles that were buffers between me and clients have been lost. Now I am leading a ton of client calls, which I begrudgingly tolerate.

In addition, though, my company has started pushing me to give huge strategy presentations, appear on panels, lead trainings, present at conferences, etc. I do not want this! I do not want to get better at public speaking, or learn how to teach more effectively — I just do not want this, full stop.

Whenever I talk about how stressed I get when I have to speak, they tell me, “We could never tell! You did such a good job!” and say I am good at it. Which, great! I do not care! All I want is to work quietly. I get that I can’t always avoid client meetings, and I have no problem with presenting internally. I’m not trying to never speak in public, but this has branched way out of my comfort zone.

Besides this, my company is wonderful, and I’ve worked at enough places to know that I have it good. I don’t want to work full-time anywhere else. Ideally, I would move back to freelancing, which I used to do, but the market is imploding and I have a baby and toddler in daycare. I am very familiar with the types of full-time jobs that are available in my area, and they are not a good fit.

Ideally, I would tell my company that I want to walk back on all this public speaking — but their growth strategy includes the person in my position doing this, so if I were to say “no thank you,” I would very much risk losing my job. It’s a small company, so there’s no one else on my team I can punt to.

I feel like there’s no solution between “leave my otherwise good job and try to cobble together some kind of freelance career again” (which, *gestures wildly at our capitalist hellscape*) or “spend the rest of my career doing something I really don’t want to do.” Is there?

If it’s true that you’d risk losing your job by declining to do public speaking, that actually makes this pretty simple: You need to choose which of those unpalatable options you find the most tolerable. But I’m not convinced you’ve reached that point. Obviously you know the internal workings of your company better than I do, but unless the goals of your job have shifted so significantly that public speaking is now the most important thrust of your work, it’s unlikely that your company will toss you out simply for raising the issue.

So talk to them. After all, if someone you managed was this unhappy with a new element of their job, wouldn’t you want to know about it? Even if ultimately there was nothing you could alter about their work, wouldn’t you still want to hear their concerns and have the opportunity to at least consider whether you could make any changes? You might be thinking, But I’ve told them I don’t like it and find it stressful, but a lot of people say that about public speaking and still continue to do it. In fact, it’s such a commonplace thing to say that your colleagues may have no idea that you dislike it as much as you do, to the point of you’re considering whether you need to leave your job over it.

If it does turn out that the speaking gigs are truly nonnegotiable, it’s extremely unlikely that a company you describe as “wonderful” will fire a good employee solely for broaching the question. For the sake of being thorough, it should be noted that (in the very worst-case scenario) it’s technically possible that they could conclude, “Wow, we really need someone who’s actively excited about this new direction and that is not Jane, so let’s starting thinking about a transition” … but it’s far, far more likely that the worst outcome from this conversation would be, “We hear you, but we do need the person in your role doing this, so please think about whether you’re up for it or not.” If that’s the case, you’ll be no worse off than you are right now, because you’ll simply have confirmed what you already suspected. In fact, you’ll be better off, by virtue of the additional clarity.

And there’s a chance that the answer will be something entirely different than what you fear! You might hear, “We didn’t realize this was a deal-breaker for you. The speaking work is important, but we’d rather keep you on doing XYZ than to lose you entirely.” Or you might hear, “Well, we can’t cut it out altogether but you don’t have to do as much as you’re doing now. Let’s talk about what’s truly necessary and what’s optional.” Hell, who knows what you might hear — maybe there’s a junior person who would leap at the opportunity to raise their profile by engaging more with clients, maybe there’s a new hire coming in who loves public speaking, maybe they’ll conclude the return on the speaking gigs hasn’t been as high as they’d hoped, and on and on. You won’t know until you talk to them — and they won’t know where you stand until that happens, either.

If it does turn out that this is now a core part of your job, no exceptions, then at that point you can decide if you want to stay, knowing that this is part of the package, or whether you want to look for openings elsewhere. Having it good at your current company doesn’t mean you need to stay there forever, especially if your job changes into something you don’t like. When you say you wouldn’t want a full-time job anywhere else but you also don’t feel equipped to jump head-on into freelancing right now … well, then you’ve got to pick between a handful of less-than-perfect options, but that’s true of every job search anyway. Locking yourself into “it’s this job or nothing, and this job is making me miserable” is setting you up to believe there’s no way out when in fact there are opportunities beyond those.

Originally published at New York Magazine.

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can I report my boss for getting me sick?

by Alison Green on July 23, 2024

A reader writes:

I want to go to HR about my boss coming in sick, resulting in me using all my vacation time for an upper respiratory infection, but I’m not sure I should.

We work in a cafeteria, so we have an HR but we also serve food.

My boss came in Wednesday and Thursday last week with a sore throat, no mask, just Neocitran to handle it. We didn’t see each other for more than 20 minutes each time.

Friday morning, I started getting a sore throat. I’d originally called off for a mental health day but ended up in bed the whole day plus Saturday. Sunday morning, I go to urgent care after coughing so hard I wake up my neighbors in the house next door. Doctor assures me I’m not contagious based on when it started, gives me a steroid, and says I’m fine to work if I feel better. I got back in time to take my 11pm shift, so I worked while wearing an N95 mask. I worked one more shift before I suddenly lost my voice. Went back to the same clinic, get told this time it’s an upper respiratory infection and I’m contagious until it clears.

I text my boss about it because I literally can’t speak. After some thought, she canceled the rest of my shifts this week and we’ll see how I feel for my Sunday night shift. I had been using my vacation days because I can’t afford to just miss work, but now all of them are gone. I had seven.

I kind of want to complain the HR about my boss getting me sick, resulting in my losing my vacation days I was going to use to visit my parents in August. She probably won’t even believe she got me sick since I’m so much worse, but I had just finished a round of strong antibiotics for something and that can make viruses worse.

I worked every overtime shift except two because I had nothing going on, it was going to be tight because of car issues but at least with the vacation days it wouldn’t have been impossible to go up north, but now I get to use them to sit at home in pain. This also resulted in me pushing back an important appointment a month, as well as pushing back looking at new places for rent.

On top of that, HR was supposed to visit me and my coworker about a customer who’s harassing my coworker (asked her out and is not taking the no well) and to a lesser extent me (just bullying) and they won’t ban him from the cafeteria until they talk to us both, so she’s still dealing with him while I’m gone.

Is it worth it to contact HR over this? There’s been a lot of other stuff going on too but I think this is my final straw. I am looking for new jobs for around the end of the summer, but this one has benefits which I really need and are hard to get in kitchens.

I’m so sorry. I would love to tell you that you have recourse here, but you probably don’t.

Part of working around other people is that you’ll sometimes be exposed to germs. The only real way to protect yourself from that is for you to wear a mask — because if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the last few years, it’s that you can’t count on other people to wear them themselves when they should. Even when they’d be willing to, though, people don’t always realize they’re sick until it’s too late. So if you absolutely don’t want to pick up something at work, or when you’re just out and around other people, wearing a mask yourself is the safest option (although I realize most of us don’t do that anymore, including me).

Should your boss have taken more precautions herself? Absolutely. Coming into work sick and not masking was a crap move. But reporting her for getting you sick isn’t likely to be seen as actionable by the company. They (and we) can’t actually know she’s the one who got you sick, and food service (unfortunately) has a culture of people working while sick. They’re not likely to address it with him.

At most you could push for a policy that people who don’t feel well need to mask at work — which would be a really good policy for every workplace to have anyway. (If you’re thinking the policy should be that sick people should stay home, sure. But in practice, things like colds can take weeks to fully pass and most people can’t afford to miss work for that long. If employers considered offering more sick days though, it would be a step in the right direction.)

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getting called a Nazi at work, coworker didn’t tell me he was applying for a promotion, and more

by Alison Green on July 23, 2024

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

1. Getting called a Nazi at work

I work for local government in a region that is currently experiencing a drought. Part of my job involves working with people who break drought restrictions, with engagement ranging from education and outreach to levying fines or outright limiting their water. Sometimes people are not happy with this and call me a water Nazi. I am Jewish. I lost family in the Holocaust. This is an extremely homogenous population, many of whom have never met a Jew before. Can you help me come up with some responses that are professional but make it clear that this is not an okay thing to say? My managers fully support me pushing back and are willing to take calls if things escalate, but currently I just end up sputtering incoherently in rage.

I don’t think there’s a great response here. I mean, you could say “Nazis killed my family and that’s not an okay thing to say” … and some people might be chagrined, but others will just get defensive and escalate further. You could leave off the first part and just say “that’s not an okay thing to say” but lots of people won’t understand why or will think you’re being overly delicate.

But really, it’s an unacceptable thing to say to anyone, Jewish or not. So I’d argue you’re better off skipping the whole thing and moving straight to “I’m happy to work with you on this, but if you’re going to be abusive, I’ll need to disconnect this call.”

2. I’m in charge — how do I punish myself for a mistake?

I messed up. I’m the GM of a restaurant. There is no one above me. I constantly harp on my staff about responsibilities and paying attention to what they are doing. And I made a huge mistake.

I left a money bag out and stashed in a drawer. I went to fill in for someone who called in sick, and the opening supervisor forgot to load money in the drawers. So I hurried and loaded money in one drawer and made the change I needed. Because I had guests in front of me, I just quickly stashed the bags and didn’t put them back in the safe. Whelp, another supervisor found them and I had to fess up to the mistake. But how do I now create a punishment for myself so that they understand no one is above doing things the correct way?

As a manager, you shouldn’t be meting out punishments — that’s not the job. You should be ensuring people are well trained, coaching them when you see it’s needed, and holding people accountable for doing their jobs well. If an otherwise good employee did what you did, “punishing” them would be inappropriate. You’d talk to them, find out what happened, and talk about how to ensure it doesn’t happen in the future. If they seemed unconcerned or cavalier and you didn’t trust them not to do something similarly careless again, you’d address that part of it — generally through feedback and coaching — and if that didn’t solve it, you’d need to decide whether you could keep them in the job or not (which would be a natural consequence, not a punishment). Punishing really isn’t part of the job, at least not if you want to be a good manager.

If you’ve been managing via punishment up until now, you’re right to worry that you’ll seem to have a double standard for yourself. In that case, this should function as a humbling reminder that everyone is human and everyone makes mistakes. That doesn’t mean you should ignore mistakes! But your job is to talk with people when they happen and create systems that minimize/mitigate mistakes, not to punish.

3. My coworker didn’t tell me he was applying for a promotion in our sexist company

A long-time male acquaintance of mine, who I have known for 13 years, recently rejoined my industry after an eight-year hiatus and was swiftly promoted to the director of sales and marketing within just three months. Meanwhile, my male director was promoted to general manager. It has become apparent that my director has a preference for working with men, as he has openly expressed.

Despite my qualifications and proven track record of generating significant revenues for the company, I did not apply for the director position due to my aversion to male-dominated hierarchies.

I can’t help but feel that my friend should have checked in with me before pursuing the director position. I have been at the company longer and hold a senior sales manager title, he was hired at entry-level manager position, and I trained him. A simple conversation to gauge my thoughts or intentions would have been considerate and respectful. Instead, I feel as though he went behind our backs in an attempt to conceal his ambitions. This has left me feeling undervalued in the workplace. Should I be feeling this way or should I say something to him?

You should absolutely take issue with the fact that your new general manager says he prefers to work with men. That’s a declaration of intent to discriminate that gives you enough to talk with a lawyer if you ever wanted to go that route.

But your friend didn’t do anything wrong. He just applied for a job — one that you didn’t even apply for yourself! He may be merrily benefiting from a sexist system, but he didn’t really owe you a conversation before applying for the role. (That’s extra true if you are more acquaintances than friends; you used both words in your letter so I’m not sure which one is more accurate.) Lots of people don’t run their plans to apply for a promotion by friendly coworkers, and that’s not deceitful; it’s just that colleagues aren’t inherently entitled to that information. (There are some exceptions to that, like if you’d been open about applying yourself and he’d deliberately misled you about his own intentions in an attempt to gain an advantage or so forth.)

There are problems in your workplace, but your friend’s pursuit of the director job doesn’t sound like it should be near the top of that list.

4. References

I have two questions regarding being a reference. First is the “Is this person eligible for rehire?” question. I supervise student employees at a university, so as I complete their reference checks for their post-college full-time job, I am forced to answer “no” as technically they are not eligible for rehire once they graduate. I always try to add a comment if the form allows explaining why, but I’m wondering if this question is an automatic “no” for prospective employees, even if there is a comment explaining the logic behind the “no”. Should I be answering “yes” meaning “they parted on good terms” even if technically they cannot work a student employment position once they have graduated?

Second is something that I’ve started seeing, but I don’t know if it’s just one of higher ed’s many oddities. Some reference forms ask me if I would like to be contacted by the institution about future job openings at their institution. Is this just higher ed struggling to attract candidates? Is there any way I am hurting the applicant’s chances by saying yes? Would I be somehow unable to apply to work there in the future if I say no? It seems so strange to piggyback on someone else’s job search in this way.

You should answer that they’re eligible for re-hire. Because they would be if they returned as a student, right? Ideally you’d be able to explain, “We’d gladly hire them again if we could, but we only hire students.” But if you’re filling out a form and you’re forced to answer yes or no, answer in the spirit of what’s being asked, which is, “Is this person in good standing with you as a previous employee?”

Second question: It’s obnoxious for them to use a reference check to ask if they can spam you about job openings in the future, but that is what they are doing. Your answer won’t affect the applicant’s chances or your own in the future. No one is tracking your answer in a way that would reflect on anyone involved.

5. Who is on a “hiring team”?

I have a second interview with a “hiring team” and then the big boss. I’m trying to figure out who I might be talking to, or even how many, and realizing I’ve never seen a definition for “hiring team”!

This first interview was with people who would be more like my peers. When I hear “team,” I think of the people I’d be on a literal team with.

The hiring team is the group of people in charge of hiring for the job, whether than means making the final decision or just providing input. It will nearly always include the hiring manager (the person who would be your manager if you got the job) but from there it’s a crapshoot. The most likely options include would-be peers, others who would work closely with you, stakeholders from other departments, representatives of HR, and/or higher-level managers — but really, it could be anyone, just depending on how this particular organization handles hiring.

Related:
what does “hiring manager” mean and other work terms you might not know

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the napping hideout, the cat protector, and other stories of sleeping at work

by Alison Green on July 22, 2024

Last week, we talked about napping at work and here are 10 of my favorite stories you shared.

1. The hideout

I worked at a big box home improvement store for a few years, and we hired a couple young guys to work the lot. Bring back carts, help customers load heavier items or large orders, flag for the forklifts, etc. Well, these two, no one could ever get them on the radios for help. They would just disappear, then show up much later claiming they had been busy helping a customer. This went on for weeks.

Our assistant manager went looking for them one day when we were slammed and had a bunch of customers needing loading assistance. She’s walking the aisles trying to find them, and calling them on the radio over and over. As she’s walking through the insulation aisle, she hears herself calling them on the radio. About two shelves above her head. Turns out, these two had built themselves a hideout in the upper shelves of the insulation aisle, where they would climb up to nap and hide from work whenever they felt like it (which was apparently 95% of their shift).

2. The medical concern

I did a brief stint in data entry, and it was so mind-numbing and physically uncomfortable (noisy, smelly, bad chair) that I’d get sleepy. The complex was massive, and one day I found a little nook with an exit door, a sort of unused hallway off another unused hallway at the end of an unused wing. I spent my lunchtime and breaks in that nook, lying on the floor on my side. Until the day two security guys rushed down the hall, one carrying a first aid kit, and woke me up, then grilled me about what I’d eaten that morning and if I needed to go to the hospital. I’d been spotted on a security camera, and looked “sprawled out, like you died.”

3. The drywall

One day I heard a huge thud from Frank’s office. I went to see if he was all right. He said he was. But Frank was known to fall asleep at his desk. I noticed a fresh hole in the drywall by his office chair. Later when he was out I went into his office, placed his chair on its side, and gently slid it up against the wall. Bingo! The caster lined up perfectly with the new hole in wall, which was even the same distinctive shape. The thud I heard had been Frank falling asleep and flopping out of his chair, running it into the wall.

4. The phone call

I used to have a coworker who would go into a small closet, sit on the floor with his knees up and phone positioned just so on his ear and then fall asleep. So that if someone opened the door, they would just think he was doing the very normal action of taking a phone call in a small dark closet…

5. The family nap

I was training a group of new hires in a Teams meeting. One guy had his camera on and was working from his bedroom. At one point during my presentation, his wife/girlfriend came into the bedroom and flopped on the bed for a nap. Then their dog followed her and curled up on the bed. A couple minutes later, he got up from his chair, crawled into bed, and started napping with them. I don’t think he realized his camera was on.

I turned his camera off and continued with my presentation. He had to redo the training with a one-on-one trainer who made him leave the camera on the whole time to make sure he wasn’t slipping away for a snooze again.

6. The cover

At my first job, which was an apprenticeship program at a media company, we had a monthly rotation. So, every three months, I would be on a team that refused to give apprentices any work. Since this was a media company, we had private suites for phone/Zoom interviews. They weren’t soundproof but the doors were fully opaque, and you would usually determine if someone was in a “phone room” by listening at the door.

So! I would go in, pull up a recording of an old interview on my phone, play an “office keyboard typing ASMR” video on YouTube, and take a nap. Anyone who came to listen at the door would hear me asking questions and typing, with the interviewee on speaker. Worked like a charm.

7. The box

We found a temp sleeping in a large box on our manufacturing floor. He was angry that we had woken him up!

8. The microscope

I worked in a clinical lab one summer. The lab technologists had stereoscopic microscopes at their cubicle desks. One of the technologists apparently was on a PIP because she was caught napping at her desk. She didn’t just lean back in her chair or lay her head on her desk, though. She would sit at the microscope and would nap with her head (maybe closed eyes even?) resting on the eyepieces of her microscope in an effort to look like she was working when she actually was sleeping.

9. Chad

I work for a public accounting firm. During tax season, everyone works extra hours, but we have a lot of flexibility – we have core hours we are supposed to be there, and then you can come in early or leave late, whatever you need to do to get your work done.

Several years ago, a manager popped her head in my office door one evening about 7:00. She asked if “Chad,” who had the office next to mine, was still there, or if he had left for the day. I said I hadn’t seen him since around 6, and she said, “His light’s off, he probably went home. If you see him before I do in the morning, tell him I need to ask him something about a client and to come see me.” She went back to her office and her work. About 10, she went home. She walked through the office, noting all lights were out. She set the alarm, locked the door and left.

A few hours later, one of the partners got woken up by a call from the alarm company. There was movement in the building. The partner met the cops there, and they found Chad … who had turned off his light and laid down on the floor behind his desk about 6:00, thinking he’d take a quick nap. He woke up eventually, and decided he’d make some coffee and then work an hour or so before going home to change for the next day. He never thought about the alarm being set. Until the cops came in. Poor Chad – it took years for him to live that one down.

10. The cat protector

Previous warehouse job, was really chill, kinda miss it, but they had a shop cat, and that fluffy orange menace would hop onto my shoulder and start purring while I was eating lunch. One day I woke up four hours after lunch with the fuzzy feline purring on me non stop. It was later reported to me that each time someone came in to wake me up, they got hisses to ears and paws bapping at their face to get them to leave me be. Everyone took the hint from the orange menace.

Naturally wasn’t paid for my nap, but I really couldn’t care less if I was or not, that was the best nap I had in my life. Only time I fell asleep at work as well. And I swear that nap fixed me for at least a few weeks after.

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how to tell coworkers, “that’s not my job”

by Alison Green on July 22, 2024

A reader writes:

I have been employed with my agency for five years. Six months ago, I was promoted, but no one was hired to take over my old job. Some duties have remained with me and others were transferred to other people, primarily a great support person named Robin. We has communicated with the relevant people about tasks that have been transferred.

The issue I am running into is that people are asking me to do things that have either been transferred to Robin, or that they could really do themselves. For the former, a cheerful “That’s actually one of Robin’s duties now!” sometimes works, but other times people will really push back with things like “Oh, I thought since this related to area X and not area Y, you could still do it.” My management always backs me up on these, but is there a way to convey my point a bit more emphatically?

For the people who are asking me things they could just as easily handle themselves, I get flustered. My own manager has made the excellent point that if I agree to help, that reinforces that these are appropriate requests when they’re not, and I get it, but I’m not the best at drawing boundaries without going overboard. Any advice?

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.

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my company says we can’t wear underwire bras

by Alison Green on July 22, 2024

A reader writes:

My company just introduced a new company-wide policy that you cannot wear an underwire bra due to setting off an alarm on a metal detector in the entrance of the building. Is this illegal in California?

It’s legal.

It’s actually been litigated in multiple states (and, as far as I know, upheld each time). It’s a particularly common policy in prisons, where it’s considered a security measure but has ended up in court because of the difficulties it has caused female lawyers in visiting incarcerated clients. There was also a case where a UPS employee was told to stop wearing bras that set off their metal detectors because it kept causing delays in moving people through security. UPS told the employee to wear a different bra or find another job.

So far, these policies seem to be legal.

They’re also really, really problematic for many women. For people with larger chests, bras without underwire often don’t provide sufficient support. And having to replace a bunch of bras overnight could be incredibly pricey; bras are expensive, especially in larger sizes.

Hopefully your coworkers can band together as a group and push back. Point out that people can be wanded if they set off an alarm, and that loads of other places with metal detectors handle this just fine without dictating people’s bra choice.

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my daughter has lost two jobs in one year, are laundry products included in office fragrance bans, and more

by Alison Green on July 22, 2024

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

1. My daughter has lost two jobs in one year

My 44-year-old daughter has been fired from two different employment agencies in the last 12 months. The first time, the company did not give a reason. The second time, the company said budget cuts were the reason.

I understand that it is entirely possible that the firings might have nothing to do with my daughter’s work performance or attitude. But how many times should this happen before it is reasonable to suspect that it is because of her work performance or attitude?

The reason I ask this is because she has appeared extremely stressed and tightly wound for at least three years. It is to the point where I spoke with her last year about seeing a therapist. I gave her examples of ways I see her stress affecting her husband and children. I wonder if her attitude at work is similar.

She has not gone to a therapist. I am concerned that if I speak to her about therapy again, she may react negatively or think I am blaming her for the these two job losses. Her husband has already spoken to her. Should I stay out of this?

Stay out of it. It’s possible that her behavior at work has contributed to the two job losses. But it’s also possible that it hasn’t, and there’s no way to know. (Twice in 12 months could simply be bad luck.) If you knew for sure — like if she told you she was fired because she had a screaming meltdown — well, even then you’d need to tread carefully unless you have a very close relationship. But in this case it would be pure speculation, and you’d be intruding into an area of her life (her career) that she hasn’t invited you into.

It’s natural to care because you’re her mom, but trying to guess at what happened at work when she hasn’t asked you for help carries a high risk of feeling invasive and boundary-crossing to her.

2. Are laundry products included in office fragrance bans?

Thankfully, this isn’t an issue at my workplace because most of us use laundry products that have little or no scent, but are the heavily fragranced detergents and fabric softeners that have become so popular included in office fragrance bans? The kind that are touted as leaving a “fresh” (read: huge amounts of chemicals) scent on your clothes for weeks? I’m asking because I went to a museum last week and ended up with a horrible headache and sore throat from being bombarded with laundry fragrances I could smell from 30 feet away. Even if I didn’t have a chronic respiratory disease, the odor would have been A Lot. At work, it would make it hard for several of us to function due to asthma and other issues. I’d love to know your thoughts on this.

Yes, typically offices with fragrance policies include heavily scented products of all kind, including laundry detergent.

Whenever this comes up, people ask how an employer can regulate what products you use in the privacy of your own home. You can use whatever products you want at home, but your employer does have the right to say you can’t come to work smelling heavily of fragrance.

People also tend to want to know what happens if you’re, say, using the one and only affordable laundry detergent that doesn’t make you break out in hives and it happens to be scented. If you have a coworker who can’t breathe because of the fragrance, then it’s handled like any other situation with dueling accommodations: your employer needs to look for solutions to accommodate both of you (which could be things like seating you far away from each other, having you meet with each other by phone rather than in-person, etc.).

3. I need to cunningly find out 40 names

I am terrible with names. I’ve always worked in small teams where it didn’t matter that I didn’t know the name of the person in some other wing of the building. Now I’m at a smaller company with 50-odd people — been here four whole years. To be honest, I’m supposed to know more names. Most people know mine! In fact, I have long kitchen convos with people whose names I still don’t know. But it’s been so long, I simply can’t ask them! And asking someone else to reintroduce me to 40 people who think I already know them doesn’t seem like an option either.

This is my own doing. Everyone has a fatal flaw that would kill them in a Greek tragedy, and this is mine. But I am now determined to stop the wheel of fate, and figure out who is who and remember who does what. Do you have any suggestions? Alas, we don’t have a website with handy mugshots.

You need a confidant! Pick someone who you like and trust, explain the situation, and ask them to discreetly help you learn people’s names. You could even take a walk around the building together with them muttering names in your ear as you pass people. (Although it will be way too overwhelming to remember 40 names all at once, so this will need to happen slowly over a period of weeks.) I would be delighted to do this for someone, and I bet you have some coworkers who would be too.

4. Requesting vacation time with a friend/coworker

A few months ago I started a job that I was referred for by my best friend. We now work together in the same department, but we haven’t let on how close we are because I’m a woman and he’s a man and we want to avoid gossip (I’m also gay but that probably wouldn’t stop their fun if word got out).

We were hoping to take a trip together at the end of the summer but our managers are likely to try to get whoever doesn’t ask for the time first to cover for the other if we don’t admit that we’re taking the time off to spend together. Is it better for us to go in to talk to our supervisor together or should my friend be the one to speak to him since he has seniority? I feel awkward talking about our personal relationship at this point and I’m not sure what the most professional way to go about this is.

The big question is whether you can take vacation at the same time. If you’re each other’s cover, vacationing together right now might be unrealistic. But if that’s not the case — if it’s more like you’d be the default coverage but something else could be arranged if your boss knew the situation — then one of you should just tell your boss point-blank what you want to do and ask if there’s a way to make it work. That should probably be your friend since he’s been there longer and has the more established relationship with your boss.

That said, once you do that, the cat is out of the bag — people are going to know you’re closer friends than they had realized since it’s not reasonable to ask the boss to hide that for you.

(Also, in some cases it might be odd if it comes out that your friend recommended you without disclosing that you’re a close friend. If it was more a referral than a recommendation, or if he stressed that he couldn’t vouch for your work, I’d worry less; it’s hard to say without knowing more details, but consider whether that’s something to factor in too.)

5. Can I apply with a new version of my resume soon after using the old version?

I have a question about sending different resume versions to the same company. A couple months ago, I applied for a job at a large company and sent my resume. A week later, they emailed me that they decided to cancel the job posting, but to please apply to any new ones that may come up. Since then, I have revamped my resume. Everything on there is accurate of course, but it looks very different and has some different details. So, my question: If I find another job that I want to apply to at this company, would it be weird to send the new version so soon? I imagine they have my old one on file.

Totally fine to send the new version. It’s unlikely that they’ll bother to compare it to the old one, but it’s not a problem if they do (assuming the job history and other key facts match); people change up their resumes periodically.

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weekend open thread — July 20-21, 2024

by Alison Green on July 19, 2024

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: Hope, by Andrew Ridker. The ground shifts under each member of a family after one of them is caught falsifying data at work. Publishers Weekly called it a “pitch-perfect portrayal of Jewish American life.”

* I make a commission if you use that Amazon link.

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open thread – July 19, 2024

by Alison Green on July 19, 2024

It’s the Friday open thread!

The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers.

* If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer.

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