Ask a Manager

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

1. My husband’s boss didn’t alert me when he had a medical episode

My husband works for a small, family-owned business. The owners of the business are three siblings. The oldest brother used to be in charge, but he retired a year or so ago. The next oldest sister, Tina, is now trying to run the show. Tina is a mess. She doesn’t even show up for work until around 4:30 pm when they close at 5:30 pm. She claims she is working at home, but with nothing to show for it. They are struggling financially, but that is not the real question here.

My husband has some serious health issues. It is under control and he seems high-functioning, but it’s still there and he is dealing with it. He recently has been having a bad run of luck with continuity of care and refilling needed medications. He will have “episodes” and need to sleep them off. One of his episodes hid a stroke, so they are nothing to laugh at. He hasn’t had one in a few years since he started on medication.

Today he was sent out to do a pick-up and delivery in the company’s poorly-maintained, aging semi-sized delivery truck, a round trip of around five hours. He had an episode while driving today, and he pulled over and slept for a few hours. When he woke up, he called me and told me what was going on and said he was going to call Tina and then sleep some more. I gave him an hour or so to feel better and was thinking that Tina would call and let me know what was going on and what the plan was should he need assistance. Nope! I finally called him and he was back on the road and feeling a little bit better. Tina finally called a few minutes later, but she only called because he wasn’t answering her calls, not to tell me there was an issue. Oh, and she wanted to ask him a work question.

I told her I was about to call her and tell her to send someone to go get him and take him for medical evaluation. She had the nerve to be defensive with me. She was more worried about her empty truck than whether or not my husband was having a medical emergency.

Am I overreacting? How should this have been handled? What is an employer’s responsibility when this happens? I would have left my job and driven two hours or further to try and find him. I am really just stunned at the lack of … anything. It’s not even his job to do the deliveries.

Without knowing what your husband told Tina, I don’t think this necessarily warrants outrage. Did she know he was potentially having a medical emergency and could be in need of help, or could she have had the impression it was something more minor that your husband had under control? If the latter, it makes sense that she didn’t call you.

I’m guessing you have a lot more background on your husband’s health situation than Tina does and so you’re able to see that the situation required XYZ, but an employer wouldn’t necessarily have the info to make that call themselves. Going forward, can your husband work out a more official plan for these episodes with his employer, including them calling you if that’s a step he wants them to take? Otherwise, if he hasn’t given them clear guidance on how it should be handled, and especially if he just said he needed to rest before continuing the drive, it’s understandable that they wouldn’t know to alert you.

2. When can I ask about morning start time in an interview process?

You’ve written a few times about when you can bring up salary during an interview process. But what about office hours?

It seems like a lot of places have moved to starting at 8am instead of 9am. That is a deal-breaker for me. An otherwise perfect job that requires me to get up an hour earlier is an automatic no, the same way an otherwise perfect job that’s a $20,000 pay cut would be an automatic no. So, it seems to me it should be discussed around the same time, very early on in the interview process.

However, there is a weird, persistent stigma around night owls being viewed as lazy, despite the fact that we’re doing the same amount of work as the early birds, just later in the day. And while there has been growing acceptance of discussing salary earlier on and including it in job postings, there doesn’t seem to be the same discussion about scheduling.

Yeah, it’s BS and I imagine at some point it will change, but it hasn’t changed yet. Asking to work a schedule of, say, 11am – 7pm often does trigger an “indolent layabout” bias that asking about working 7am – 3pm doesn’t. It’s irrational — it’s the same amount of work, and there’s nothing inherently more virtuous about early hours versus late hours, but that bias persists in our culture.

I do think you can ask about hours fairly early on — as in, “What hours do people generally work?” That’s not asking about starting time, but about hours overall. If you don’t get clear info on starting time, you can follow up with, “Do most people start at 9 or 8 or…?”

Where it gets trickier is that if you hear 8 am, you won’t necessarily know if you could negotiate a later start time at the end of the hiring process if they conclude you’re they one they want to hire. You could ask about it on the spot (“I’ll be up-front, starting earlier than 9 isn’t a good fit for me — are you open to later schedules or would that be a deal-breaker?”) but sometimes it’s easier to get agreement at the offer stage than while you’re early in the interview process. Still, though, if you’re going to bow out at that point anyway, you might as well give it a shot and see what happens.

Related:
should I stop using my office’s flex hours since my coworkers have earlier schedules?

3. Should I correct my boss about someone else’s pronouns?

I have an absolutely wonderful boss who is super compassionate, smart, takes care of her employees, and has a spine with the higher-ups. She’s been in this job for a few years) and we’re around the same age.

We’ve been working with someone in a related department, also our age and at about my level, who uses they/them pronouns but goes by a traditionally feminine name, let’s say “Emma.” Our company’s internal directory displays people’s preferred pronouns, but not everyone fills this section out, and not everyone knows to look. I’ve noticed my boss talking about Emma using she/her when we are discussing our common work. So far this hasn’t happened while we’ve been talking to Emma one-on-one, but I worry that my boss might inadvertently misgender Emma to their face without meaning to do so.

However, she’s still my boss, so I don’t want to issue a corrective if it’s not my place to do so. Should I say something to her? Should I enlist another colleague who is at her level to say something? Should I make it less about my boss and more about “hey, everyone should know about this pronouns thing in the directory?”

It’s reasonable to assume a decent person would appreciate a heads-up, and your boss sounds like a decent person. The next time she uses the wrong pronouns for Emma, just say matter-of-factly, “Emma uses they/them pronouns” and continue right along with the conversation. Ideally it shouldn’t be a big deal — you relay the needed info, your boss hears it, and you move on, just like if you were letting her know Emma’s title recently changed or that they have an unusual pronunciation to their name.

4. Should I try to grow in my current job or leave for more money and more PTO?

I’ve been in my position for nearly three years. After a particularly rough season, I decided I would not stick around for more than another year. I started working on my résumé and putting out feelers. I knew that one possible pivot would increase my pay and get me some benefits that would matter a ton to me right now, specifically increased PTO. But then things changed at work. There were some personnel changes, and I ended up in a role where I was needed and thriving. Things were so busy as well that I totally dropped my own career planning. I started to think as well that I perhaps wouldn’t need to move on, things could work here.

Recently things have started to feel the way they did during the very bad season, and I am full of regret that I am facing down another one here. When I felt like things had changed, I was glad to try to make it work. Now I fear I’ve trapped myself.

I believe that my rough season was caused by multiple factors. Some are on me. I should have demanded better training and guidance. I shouldn’t have been afraid to ask for what I needed. When the training was not adequate, I should have been open and forthright in order to get the training I needed to be the employee they needed.

I’m struggling with whether I’m jumping ship because I’m lacking confidence and afraid, or whether it is the right choice. The prospect of more money and better benefits sounds wonderful. I also think that this pivot will be a better fit for me. I fear I’ve never been a good fit for this position. I believe I could grow better at it, but I wonder if I’m capable of growing fast enough to make it a less difficult place to be. I worry that I’m letting my sensitive nature make me quit something that I could grow at. On the other hand, maybe my sensitive nature will help me get more money at another position where I am a more natural fit!

Do you think there’s a way to know clearly whether my motivations are adequate for leaving or whether I should stick it out and find a way to be strong enough to grow? It has been hard to grow in this position, because I just feel stupid. Things that come easily to other people do not come easily to me. I am learning and I am growing. But the fact that I’ve disappointed people has never been hidden from me.

I suppose my worry is that I only think the pivot would be a better fit for me, and that actually I’ll just be at least a bit of a disappointment everywhere I go. So I may as well try to make it work here.

Wanting more money and better benefits is enough! You don’t need to try to contort yourself into something that doesn’t feel comfortable for the sake of “toughing it out” or showing that you’re strong enough to do it. You’re not happy in your job, you see a path that would get you more money and better benefits … that’s enough. Maybe you could stick it out and grow in your current position. But there’s no special merit in doing that, and you’re not failing by choosing not to. You’re allowed to leave whenever you feel like leaving, and it sounds like you feel like leaving.

As for your worry that the next job won’t be a better fit … maybe it won’t be! There’s never any guarantee. But you’ve been at your current job for three years, and that’s a reasonable time to move on if you’re not satisfied. Try something new, do your due diligence before accepting it, and give yourself the gift of not feeling tethered to a place that you already regret not leaving earlier.

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

1. My boss encouraged me to apply for a promotion, then said I didn’t have enough experience

My boss encouraged me to apply for a promotion. It’s something that I feel like I could do but don’t have a ton of experience with, but my understanding was that it was something my boss thought I could do successfully.

In the interview, my grandboss asked about another (non-existent) position that I had previously been told had no upward mobility. I thought this was strange, but gave a generally positive response while still trying to indicate that I was really interested in the position I had actually applied for.

A month or more later, I was told that they were happy with my work and my interview went well, but I didn’t have enough experience and there was nothing I could have done to get the promotion. They have not filled said position.

If there was no way I could possibly get the job because I don’t have enough experience, but my boss obviously knows my experience, why would I be encouraged to apply and they go through the interview? It seems like someone would have said something about that sooner. And when I asked about career development after the rejection, I was just told something vague about needing to get more experience, but no specifics about training or mentoring. The “not enough experience” in this context seems like a line, kind of like “it’s not you, it’s me”, and is making me re-evaluate some things. Am I off-base with that interpretation?

The most likely explanation is that your boss rethought how well you’d fit the role at some point. That could be because they tossed out the original suggestion too cavalierly, without really thinking it through, and later realized it wasn’t as strong of a match as they need. Or they might have sharpened their vision for the role over time, and realized as they did so that you’re not quite the right match. Or they might have been open to you wowing them in the interview and you did fine but they weren’t fully convinced. It’s also possible that your boss and your grandboss simply weren’t aligned; your boss thought you were a good fit but your grandboss disagreed. With all of those, “not enough experience” could be true and not an excuse, although ideally they’d give you more specific feedback and talk with you about what you could do to move up in the future.

2. How to send a payment request to a family friend who hasn’t paid for my work yet

In April, the music teacher of my partner’s dad reached out to me to help him with a short film. He had four days to complete it. He came over and spent the entire day here, and I filmed an interview with him and then went through all of his B-roll, performances, and the interview footage to edit the video together throughout the next few days, working crazy hours into the night. Because of the tight deadline and since he’s a family friend, I never sent a contract and deposit request as I normally would do for clients. I also thought this would be a nice portfolio piece so I wanted to do it. He was submitting the film to a film festival. It ended up coming fourth and so he didn’t win the award money. However, when he came over and we discussed the film before starting the interview, he said he would pay us and perhaps we could have a dinner together with my partner’s parents.

It is now two months later, and he hasn’t reached out with his budget to pay me for the work. According to my partner, my regular rate is very high. I wasn’t expecting him to pay my regular rate since he’s a family friend; I had said I would help him within his budget. The dinner never happened and now I feel awkward reaching out about payment. Should I send a formal email or an informal text message? Normally when working for friends at a discounted rate, I send an invoice for the full amount with a line item at the end showing the discount and then balance. But for this musician, I don’t really know how much the discount should be so I’m unsure how to proceed. I want to make sure I am not disrespectful or hurting the relationship in any way since he’s a close friend and the teacher of my partner’s dad.

If I’m understanding correctly, you never nailed down a specific amount he would pay — just that he would pay something and the amount would be worked out at a later date? It’s too late for this advice now, but that was the crucial error — because you could be thinking $X would be reasonable, and he could be thinking 10% of $X. It’s more fair to both of you to iron that out before anyone does any work — so you don’t end up not getting paid fairly, and so he doesn’t end up incurring a financial obligation far higher than he realized would be involved.

At this point, you should simply propose what you would consider a fair discounted rate. Send your normal invoice showing what you’d typically charge and then subtract the friends and family discount. Email that to him with a note saying something like, “I promised you a hefty discount, and that’s reflected here.” You could add, “If this doesn’t work for you, let me know what does fit your budget” — but that’s opening the door for him to counter-propose something much lower (and again, is a conversation better had before the work took place not after). You should also be prepared for the possibility that you’re not going to get paid; the fact that he hasn’t contacted you about payment in two months is not a good sign. But you’re concerned about being respectful of the relationship, so let’s hope/assume he will be too — but send that note as soon as possible, because the more time that passes, the lower your chances of working it out.

3. HR misused my emergency contacts

I’m in upper management. I took some approved PTO time to be with a family member having surgery.

While I was gone, a HR person who I know from work texted me that they hoped all was well. I didn’t respond for few days, and in the interim she accessed my emergency contacts, called them, and left a message. She also did an internet search, located my and my family’s home addresses, and shared that with other coworkers, while bragging about what she’d found. The person she called was upset as they didn’t know about the surgery and wanted to know why they called them when it wasn’t an emergency for me. I had no answer since I hadn’t known that had been done, until that very moment. I feel violated, and my HR doesn’t feel anything wrong was done. What are your thoughts?

That’s a huge violation. Emergency contacts are for emergencies — like if you have a medical emergency at work, or a natural disaster kills people in your area and they can’t reach you, or so forth. They’re not for wishing you well while you’re away tending to a sick family member. Nor should they be given out to random coworkers. I don’t know what the “bragging” piece of this about — that could have been more “I was able to get this number if you want to send her well wishes” than “haha, applaud me for doing this sneaky thing” — but the rest of it is a problem. And she’s in HR?! You’d be on solid ground escalating it above her head. Use the words “privacy violation” and “misuse of confidential information.”

4. How honest to be when interviewing during a leave of absence from school

Please help save my family from endless arguments about this. My dad has been diagnosed with a terminal illness so my brother has taken a leave of absence from his PhD program to move back in with my parents (on the other side of the U.S.). He’s been applying to local jobs and internships for the past six weeks and finally got a call for an interview. My family is at odds about what he should tell this prospective employer if they ask about his leave of absence. My dad and my brother (both from STEM fields) think he should be very honest about his plans to return to his PhD program. He’s planning on saying something like, “I want to finish my PhD program but if you’d like to sponsor me, I’ll sign a contract and promise to work here again after I graduate (date of graduation very TDB).” He thinks once he has a PhD they’ll like him even more, so they’ll be happy with this arrangement.

My mom and I (humanities) think he does not owe them his entire life story in a first round interview and that saying all this will hurt his chances — since it’s very expensive to hire and train people, they probably want someone who sounds a little more permanent. I also don’t think his proposal to work there after he graduates will carry any weight in an interview before they even know if he’d be a good fit and before they know if he’s a good worker, but my brother says these kinds of arrangements are very common in his field. But it’s not like he’ll be the only candidate, and he’ll probably be up against people who aren’t planning on going back to school, and everything else being equal, why wouldn’t they hire someone who was planning on sticking around? So my questions are: Who is right? And if it’s me and my mom, what would you suggest saying in an interview so that you’re not straight up lying, but you’re also not taking yourself out of the running? He does need a job after all. Thanks for breaking the tie!

It’s possible that this is a normal thing to do in his field, and he’s better positioned to know that than I am (or than you and his mom are). In general, though, and not specific to his field, no — “I’ll sign a contract and work here again later” would be odd and unpersuasive (he’s essentially saying “believe that I’m so awesome that you’ll want to do this out-of-the ordinary thing because it’ll obviously be worth your while,” but they don’t even know him yet) and “I’ll only be here for a short time before I’m gone for maybe years” would be a significant strike against him, since they want someone who will stay in the role for a while. But again, it’s entirely possible that it would be fine in his field; I don’t know and since there’s a question about it, it makes sense to defer to him and assume he knows his own field.

Generally, though, I’d recommend saying that he’s on a leave of absence from the program (it’s fine to explain about your dad) and isn’t sure what he’s going to do next, but he’s interested in this job and could see staying in it for at least several years because ____. If his plans change, they change — but right now it doesn’t sound like he has a solid timeline for returning to school, and he doesn’t know what will happen or when. (If I’m wrong and he’s committed to returning to school in X timeframe, then he has to decide if he’s comfortable fudging this or not; I’d feel ethically uneasy about that, but he has to balance that against how much he needs a job now.)

5. Screening out bad recruiters

I get contacted by a ton of recruiters (typically three a week) and I use the following email screening: “Thanks for reaching out. Right now, I’m fairly satisfied with my job. If you have a specific opening you’re trying to fill, send me the job description, pay band, and benefits information and I’ll take a look. If the job looks like a good fit, we could schedule a call.”

About 50% never respond. 25% try to convince me I don’t actually need all of this. Only 25% send along a job description, and most of the time it’s a) not what I do, b) not the right seniority level or pay band, or c) some place notoriously awful.

Hope this helps someone!

Yep — some recruiters operate almost like spammers, spraying as many people as possible with their messages in the hope that some will be interested and the right fit. Those are rarely recruiters you’d want to work with, so screening them out is a good thing. A recruiter who’s done their research to correctly target you as a candidate and has a real opening to fill will be happy to send the info you asked for along. The ones who don’t aren’t generally worth your time.