Ask a Manager

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. Two coworkers are attacking people over grammar

At my company, we have a couple of grammar fanatics who go out of their way to correct people even when they’re not in the conversation. Sometimes this will even occur during important one-on-one meetings on projects that have tight deadlines. These two people will interject to say exactly what we said wrong, and how we should have said it. It annoys everyone, and we tried several times to get them to stop correcting everyone to no avail.

We have tried several things like stating that we don’t care if we are saying it wrong, throwing the logic out that if you understand what I am saying there is no need for correction, and some of us have even started changing our speaking habits so that we can stop being pestered over little mistakes. We have even found that sometimes they’re actually wrong on how they corrected us. When we confront them with this, they get extremely defensive, and more or less call all of us stupid for trying to look up something we clearly can’t understand.

I am at a loss of what to do here. At first I didn’t mind the occasional feedback, but they are starting to get more and more aggressive with their corrections and starting to blatantly call people under-educated, unprofessional, or just outright stupid. Half of me thinks its time to go to their manager (they have the same manager), but in the past when other coworkers would go to the manger over other issues with these two people, there would be a backlash from them. They would say that everyone is too “sensitive” and “can’t pull up their big boy/girl pants so they had to go to management.”

Is this something we should even bring up, or are we being too sensitive? Would just ignoring it be better to keep the relationship up with two people who I really don’t see leaving the company any time soon? (Seriously, several people have gone to their manager over similarly obnoxious things and nothing has come out of it.)

Normally would this would be something to address with their manager, because not only are they being annoying by weaponizing grammar like this, but they’re actually insulting people. Regularly, it sounds like.

But if your experience is that their manager won’t act, then you might be better off just ignoring them. They interject to correct something, and you just going right on talking as if you didn’t hear them. Or, when they correct you, you can say “I’m not interested in grammar corrections while I’m in casual conversation” — and repeat that as needed. There’s also, “It’s so weird that you think that’s appropriate” — but with the way you’ve described their hostility, I’d lean away from anything that might spur further engagement or attacks.

It’s also pretty messed up that their manager is allowing aggressively hostile behavior like insulting people, and you might consider whether there’s anyone else you could bring this to — your own manager or, ideally, someone who’s senior to their manager and has a track record of being willing to take on problems. If you do, part of the message to that person needs to be that these two have a history of attacking anyone who complains about them, and so part of addressing the grammar weaponization has to include laying out clear prohibitions on that as well.

– 2019

2. My boss’s wife wants me to organize their house

A few months ago, I started a job as a paid intern at a small marketing start-up. When my boss (the CEO) hired me on, he did say that the job sometimes involved not-so-glamorous tasks that everyone, including me, would complete, like cleaning and sorting the company’s storage unit, maintaining office space, taking out trash and recycling, packing and shipping, etc.

But recently, with his blessing, his wife has asked me to help her clean out all of her two children’s toys and sort them, organize a massive closet space including replacing shelves, clean out and organize her children’s art cabinet, clean out their “drop off” bench where they throw together jackets and purses and dirty socks, hang a bunch of hooks, and clean and organize her office. This is all at my boss’s home. The wife said this work would take three days to complete, and that I wouldn’t be able to do her work and the office work at the same time.

I feel like this work clearly crosses the line of what my job entails me to do. This isn’t for the company, this is my boss’s family’s personal, home life. On the other hand, I would (presumably) be getting PAID to do all of this work. Am I right in thinking this is wrong? Am I being taken advantage of? Or do I need to check myself? If it’s a problem, how would you mention it to my boss?

Yep, this is ridiculously inappropriate. You didn’t sign on to be a personal organizer in someone’s home. It’s true that jobs can sometimes shift, and sometimes you’ll be pulled into something you didn’t explicitly sign up for — but being asked to help someone with their personal tasks in their home is way outside of that.

It would be entirely reasonable for you to say to your boss, “I’m going to tell Jane that I can’t help with the personal tasks at your house. I really want to focus on the work I took the internship to do. I of course understand that tasks may shift and that I’ll need to do some cleaning and organizing here, but I’m not comfortable doing that for someone’s personal home rather than for the company.”

If your boss is at all reasonable, he should accept this. But if he’s not reasonable, there’s a chance that he’ll be unhappy, so you’ll want to go in knowing that’s a possible outcome. If it does happen, you can say, “I’ll certainly do whatever you need me to do here as part of my work, but I’m not comfortable helping anyone manage their home.” (Frankly, I also kind of want you to say “I would charge significantly more for that kind of work than what I’m being paid as an intern” — because I bet you’re getting a much lower hourly wage than what personal organizing normally costs.)

– 2018

3. I don’t want my manager to email my team when I’m out

I work in the accounting department, and I called out sick because my kids were sick. I came into work the next day and saw an email that was sent out by my boss to the whole accounting team with the subject line “Jane Smith will not be in today.” I was just wondering if that is really anyone’s business but my own and obviously the person to whom I called out (in this case being my direct boss). Every manager in my department sends out emails like this, but when a manager is out, I have noticed that no email is sent out.

I would think that putting an “out of office” reply to my email would be enough to notify people that I am out. Also, if it’s someone in the same office that is looking for me, if they notice that my computer is not on and it looks like I’m out, they should just be able to go to my boss directly if they needed something. I have heard people make comments about others who have been out, and I know other coworkers like to “track” that stuff, but in the end, I feel like it’s really no one’s business. The only person who should know if I’m out is my direct manager. And I also think that if an email has to be sent out, then it should be for everyone, not just a certain department, or a certain “level” of employee.

What your manager is doing is very, very normal. There’s no real expectation of privacy that your coworkers won’t be alerted when you’re out; to the contrary, many offices like to proactively inform people so that they’re not left guessing. (Having to judge from whether your computer is off or on isn’t a particularly efficient or effective method.) As for why not emails go out when managers are out, who knows — but you’re fighting a losing battle on this one; it’s just not going to be seen as a privacy violation. If someone is tracking your time off who shouldn’t be, address that directly — but it’s reasonable to send “Jane is out today” emails to your team.

– 2015

4. Making a special request for a staff photo

I’m hoping to get some outside perspective. I was just informed that my work will be taking professional photos of a bunch of positions, including mine. The problem? They take them from the left side, which is the side of my face that has a lot of scar tissue from a childhood accident. It’s not like I’m walking around with a very noticeable deformity (though it is visible enough for some people to feel the need to comment on it), but when I smile, very deep creases and puckering appear on that side of my face, and if I wear lipstick, I essentially have to redraw part of my lip. My family says I’m being overly self-conscious, but I don’t want the photo of me that gets put in a yearly publication or sent out to other organizations that I routinely work with to be one that draws attention to the fact that I have a scar and that it causes half my face to smile differently than the other half.

Am I being unreasonable in wanting to make this request? I fear I will get push back from some management (because my photo would be different than everyone else’s) and the photographer (because he comes in and sets up everything for photos from the left side). To add to the worries, I would be quite embarrassed if the person that was organizing the photo session told my coworkers about my request (not maliciously, there’s a lot of idle gossip and chit chat at my work) or, worse, felt the need to give me a pep talk on self love. I guess I’m torn on if this is something to worry about or just vanity.

No, it’s completely reasonable to want to take a photo from your other side! You don’t need to make a big deal about it. You can just tell the photographer, “I know you’re photographing people from the left side, but I have a lot of scar tissue there from an accident. So let’s take mine from the right and then, if they want them to be consistent, we can flip the image.” That’s a thing they can easily do. If you get any push-back, you can say, “Because of my accident, I’m really not comfortable having the focus be on the the scar tissue, but I think this plan will solve it nicely.” Because it will.

I hope you don’t get preached to about self-love, but if you do, you can shut that down with a withering look and a “That’s really not something we need to address here.”

– 2018

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. Coworker tags our CEO on Twitter to point out my mistakes

I’m part of an incredibly progressive, supportive team, where one of my responsibilities is my organization’s social media. In six months, I have made three errors within tweets, two of which were mixing up the dates that two very similar events were happening on, and one of which was just a formatting error.

One coworker from a different department — who does not work with social media in any capacity — replies to the errors from her personal Twitter, tagging in our CEO’s personal Twitter to shout about the mistakes. She then emails a screen grab to my entire team (the person I manage, my manager, and my grandboss) demanding that my grandboss check all of my social media communications before they are posted, which would be ridiculous.

Obviously in an ideal world I would not be making any errors on social media. But three tweets in six months does not seem like a bad hit rate (also, our social tone is playful and conversational, and usually quite informal). Should I ask my manager to ask this woman to lay off me? Or do it myself?

That’s incredibly obnoxious. Ideally your manager would have already seen this and told her to cut it out, but since that doesn’t happen, it’s reasonable for you to say, “Jane, if you spot any errors in our tweets, please bring it to my attention directly and I’ll get it fixed. Commenting about it on Twitter brings more attention to it to people outside our organization, which reflects badly on us.”

That said … while your coworker is in the wrong in how she’s handling this, three errors in tweets in six months does strike me as a lot for public communications (especially for dates of events). If your coworker is involved in marketing or events or anything else that your social media work supports, she’s right to be concerned. I’d hold off on bringing your boss into this and instead focus on figuring out a system to catch errors before anything gets posted.

– 2019

Read an update to this letter here.

2. My employee quit smoking and is being a pain

I am the general manager for a retail location. I have an employee, “Joy,” who is a lifelong smoker. She’s been smoking for longer than I’ve been alive! Joy is a member of my leadership team, and has been a great asset for the three years I’ve worked with her. Recently, she decided to quit smoking. As far as I know, this is the first time she has attempted this since I have known her. I’m really proud of her, and she’s been doing an awesome job — she quit cold turkey over two weeks ago, and hasn’t had a single cigarette since.

However, while the first week was great, this week I have noticed a sharp dip in her performance/attitude. Joy admits that this is because she is severely craving a cigarette, which has always been her main form of stress relief. While I sympathize, and am still proud of her for taking this step towards bettering her health, I am getting frustrated at her performance. She actually called out sick today, and again, told me this was directly due to the fact that she is craving a cigarette so badly. The team has noticed her change in attitude, and are getting frustrated as well. How can I approach this as her manager, while still remaining supportive?

How cranky is she being? If she’s a little cranky, cut her some slack — everyone goes through things in their personal life that impacts their demeanor at work now and then. But if it’s extreme — if she’s being rude or hostile to people — then articulate that for her and tell her she needs to rein it in. (As in, “I know this is a tough period for you and I sympathize, but you’re starting to be openly rude to people here and I need you to stay civil.”)

Same thing with performance — if she’s slipping a bit but is still doing an overall okay job, cut her some slack since you know what’s causing it and you know this is short-term. But if it’s more serious, then you need to say something like, “I know this is a tough period for you, and I don’t expect you to be at 100% right now, but you’re making some pretty serious mistakes in your work. What can we do during this period to help keep your work quality where we need it?” (And since she’s normally a good employee, you should try to find ways to accommodate her for the next week or two, like moving deadlines around if you can or giving her projects that require less mental presence if that’s possible.)

And if she wants to use sick leave to help her get through what should be a relatively short-term withdrawal period (it’s supposed to last about two weeks, right?), let her do it. As long as it’s not impacting any crucial projects which she absolutely must be there for this week, that’s a pretty great use of sick leave and it means she’s keeping the withdrawal impact out of the office.

– 2017

Read an update to this letter. 

3. I don’t want to carpool with a coworker

I’ve carpooled with one coworker for over a year. A new coworker has come and also wants to carpool with us. The two coworkers do not have a good relationship (but can tolerate each other). The new coworker is also incredibly annoying and inconsiderate (but not a bad person). I am technically her superior at work (although not her direct manager), and on Sunday she needed to be disciplined but as I was driving her back and forth, I asked my colleague to talk with her instead.

I really would prefer to stop driving her, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I like carpooling with person #1, so an excuse of like “I need some time to myself” doesn’t work. I’m unsure what to do, or how to navigate this, without putting myself in an even more uncomfortable position at work.

Oooh, this is hard. It might have been easier to say no from the start, but now that you’re carpooling together, it’s harder to get out of it without dropping out of the carpool with the original coworker too.

You mentioned the other two don’t have a good relationship. If things are tense between them in the car, you could use that — “I need to be able to unwind at the end of the day and the tension in the car is too much.” Or you possibly could say that picking up/dropping off two people is too much (although then there’s a chance she’ll offer to drive herself to the driver’s house). Or there’s the chain of command — “I realized that since I sometimes manage your work and need to give you feedback, we should have good outside-of-work boundaries and not keep carpooling.” Or, if any of her inconsideration is about the carpool itself (being late, being rude in the car, etc.), you can explain that — “We need to leave on time every day so can’t keep carpooling.”

Anyone else have better ideas on this one?

– 2019

4. Keeping a file of personal items at work

I’ve seen some great videos on having a tidy workspace and I’ve shared them with my team (I like a clean, neat workspace and I try to lead by example). I wonder what others feel about personal items in your workspace. By personal items, I don’t mean a picture of your family or a box of tea. I’ve worked in two positions where one of my admins has dedicated an unlocked file cabinet drawer to organize their life – from healthcare claims, credit card bills, and mortgage information to court information on a divorce in progress. If I’ve discovered this drawer while looking for a copy of something, how many others have discovered this, and how many have been nosey enough to have a good read? Any thoughts on this?

It’s not something you should intervene in as their manager. But if I were advising the person doing it, I’d suggest that they not keep such a file at work, at least not if they want to keep the info private. It’s normal to have some of that stuff there temporarily, like bringing a bill to work because you needed to call your credit card company about it that day, or having some paperwork there while you were in the process of applying of a mortgage, because there’s often back and forth on that during business hours. But if they’re keeping a permanent “personal documents” file at work, there’s no guarantee of privacy, or even a guarantee that it won’t somehow get accidentally thrown out in some office purge that they’re not full control of. And it’s going to look a little odd if someone comes across it, as you did; it reads as “I’m managing my entire personal life from work on the regular.”

But it’s not really something for you as their boss to be dictating. I would also lay off sending the videos about clean workspaces; focus on the work.

– 2018

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. I got drunk and flipped out at a company dinner

Friday night, we had my company’s annual dinner, which includes all management. My husband works for the same company and we are both at the same level. I drank entirely too much, and didn’t eat at all (food was terrible). I was fine during dinner, having fun and laughing, nothing out of control. After dinner, some coworkers decided to go to the bar, so my husband and I agreed to go also. Before heading to the bar, I told my husband I needed to use the restroom.

From this point on, everything is a blur. I came out of the restroom looking for my husband, and thought he had ditched me. I looked and looked for him and finally found him at the bar, with two guys from work, one of them who I REALLY don’t like. I went ballistic. I lost it. My husband tells me I flipped out on him and apparently also said a few things (very mean things) to the two guys. I don’t remember most of this or why I was so angry. My husband got me out of there eventually.

I’m currently dealing with a lot of personal things, so maybe not finding my husband was a huge trigger for me. I think I felt abandoned. I’m filled with shame and embarrassment. I really feel like I should send an email to the two guys and apologize for my behavior, but my husband says I shouldn’t. We work for a big company, I don’t work directly with them, but I do see them every now and then. I don’t want to get in trouble either. I don’t know what to do.

It’s hard to imagine that you shouldn’t apologize if you flipped out and said mean things to these guys, so I’m curious to know what your husband’s reasoning is for that. Does he just want to not deal with this any further and worries that apologizing will drag it out? If it’s just that, I’d overrule him and apologize — it’s your name and reputation that’s on the line here.

If possible, I wouldn’t use email. Email can feel like a cowardly way out in this kind of situation, so I would talk to them face to face. (And actually, same for anyone else who may have witnessed it, not just these two guys.)

– 2017

2. How can I be less annoying when I have to follow up with people?

Do you have any suggestions for less annoying follow-up? I have a mainly back office position and don’t work with customers or external partners for the most part, but sometimes I have to request documents for compliance. It’s a pain and I hate doing it, but we have to do it.

Let’s say it’s a signed TPS coversheet. I don’t have the authority to change anything about the process, and management wants it this way. I have to hound our partners for these stupid TPS sheets and send them a million emails.

I have frequent back and forth with several key partners. I have a decent rapport with them, but I can’t help but feel like I’m a pest when I ask for what I need. Sometimes I only get one or two TPS sheets back when I need four, sometimes it’s the wrong name, and sometimes I receive them much later than the deadline.

How can I politely ask for what I need without being annoying? I’m a young millennial woman so that is driving a lot of my thoughts here.

You know it’s a requirement, they know it’s a requirement, and it’s okay to continue checking back until you have what you need. You should do it pleasantly and cheerfully, but don’t feel awkward about the fact that you have to do it in the first place! (If anything, you might tell yourself that they should feel a little awkward that they keep not sending you something you’re clearly asking for.)

Sometimes doing this pleasantly means using softening language like “I’m sorry to bug you about this” but most of the time it’s fine to just be straightforward, as long as your tone is warm — for example, “Hmmm, I’ve got two back from you but still need two more — can you send the X and Y sheets along too?” or “Today’s our deadline for having these in, so could you send them to me this morning?”

And when someone is chronically sending them in late, it’s fine to say, “We’ve to have these in by the fifth of every month for (reasons). Is there something I can do differently on my end to make sure you can meet that deadline?”

Also! If you’re sending a zillion emails without the results you need, the very first thing to try is switching contact methods — in this case, to calling instead. Some people are much more responsive to calls, and the ones who don’t love calls may start to realize it’s preferable to answer your emails.

But sometimes this is just the job, and decent people will understand you’re not hounding them just to annoy them.

– 2019

3. My coworker complained about my burping and farting

I have a work situation I have no idea how to deal with. I found out yesterday that my coworker who works in the cubicle next to mine is incredibly offended by the fact that my body makes sounds a lot. I belch pretty constantly throughout the day, with some farts as well. I say “excuse me” frequently, and I’ve been to the doctor and it just happens. My brother and father are the same way. I told her this, and she told me to go to the bathroom. I was literally speechless.

I’m attempting to comply with her demand, but it’s making me less productive, is super anxiety inducing, and a little bit painful. Our boss is really hands-off and I don’t know what he would think if I brought it up, and I don’t think I’m capable of speaking to my coworker about it. I’m pretty sure this mostly doesn’t smell, and scented products make me completely unable to work, so even if there is there’s not a lot to be done. I feel awful and I’m afraid I’m going to lose my job because of this nonsense. What do I do?

If this is the result of a medical condition, it’s reasonable to explain that. If you truly can’t control it, you can’t control it. (I’m assuming you’ve tried over-the-counter treatments like Gas-X and so forth, and that you’ve inquired about treatment with your doctor.)

But it’s also reasonable for your coworker to be pretty miserable if she’s subjected to farting and burping all day. I don’t think you should be shocked by that — it’s understandable that it’s creating a pretty unpleasant environment for her.

If it’s a medical condition, you might be able to talk to your boss about the possibility of moving to a more secluded workspace. But if that’s not possible, I think you probably need to be understanding about the impact it’s having on your cubicle neighbor and not be shocked that it bothers her. It’s similar to if you had a constant cough or nose-sniffling problem; it’s out of your control, but you’d probably still try to be thoughtful about how it impacted others, to the extent that you could.

– 2016

4. When multiple people are selling Girl Scout cookies

I hope this is a pleasantly low-stakes question. Is there a general consensus about how coworkers should handle it when more than one wants to bring Girl Scout cookie order forms into the office? If there isn’t, what do you recommend?

We generally leave fundraising order forms in a common area, both for people’s convenience and to keep everything low-key. Should cookie-offering coworkers leave out their forms together, and communicate their hope that people ordering multiple boxes will split their orders? (Almost everyone orders multiple boxes.) Or should co-workers agree that one person will take the early orders and one take orders from the procrastinators? What’s a good way to avoid popularity contests and treat everyone equitably?

I pondered this and determined that I have no opinion on it! If anything, I’d come down on the side of being laissez faire about it and just letting people handle their order forms however they want, as long as they’re being low-key about it and not pushing cookie purchases on their coworkers. Anyone have strong feelings to the contrary?

– 2018