Ask a Manager

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

1. My boss embarrassed me at a department meeting

My company is being bought out for a larger organization. Our jobs will no longer exist in four months. We’ve been encouraged to review the job postings and apply to jobs for which we might qualify. I reviewed the postings and selected two to apply for — one that would be very easy for me to move to as it’s tasks I already complete daily. The other was a stretch position, something that I’ve done but haven’t dabbled much in while at my current organization. I got an interview for the stretch job and, while I didn’t hold out hope, I gave it my best shot.

Thank goodness I didn’t hold out hope. My current boss was notified by the new org that I applied and interviewed. I was promptly told that I wasn’t a good fit (by my current org, mind you), and I haven’t heard from the new org. Then, in our departmental meeting with my entire department, my current boss told everyone they need to tell him what they’re applying for so he can tell them if they’re a “good fit” because “we don’t want a llama groomer thinking she can be a llama whisperer when she’s never been involved in llama whispering here!” And looked directly at me. (Job titles made up for anonymity, obviously.)

I’m embarrassed. He could’ve just said, at that point, that I shouldn’t have applied for the job, but it’s a good next step in my career and something I’ve wanted to do for a while. I’m not sure how to even act around him now, because I know that was directed, embarrassingly, at me, and now all my coworkers do too and some have even come up to me to tell me how inappropriate it was.

I know I need to leave the org because I can’t move up here and they have no interest in developing my career path, but I’m not sure how to act until I do leave.

Your boss is an utter ass. First of all, it obviously wasn’t far-fetched for you to apply to that job because they interviewed you for it — which means that they reviewed your materials and thought you could be a plausible candidate. Second, and more importantly, there was zero cause for him to embarrass you that way at a department meeting. If he felt he needed to give you feedback (which is possible, given that the new org isn’t entirely separate from your org but is buying it out), he should have done it in private, and he should have offered something more constructive than to just essentially accuse you of hubris (which, again, wasn’t even grounded in reality, since the other org thought you worth interviewing).

Your boss is a jackwagon, he revealed himself as a jackwagon to others at that meeting (although that probably wasn’t a new discovery for them, and I bet it’s not a new discovery for you either), and ideally you’d try to reframe your thinking to see it as much more embarrassing to him than to you. What he did is evidence of his lack of character/leadership/judgment, nothing else.

2. How to refer to a basketball sex scandal at work

I was discussing the upcoming March Madness tournament with some coworkers, and the conversation turned to St. John’s coach Rick Pitino, and his previous stint at Louisville where he was stripped of a national championship due to supplying recruits with prostitutes to induce them to attend the school. My coworker was unaware Pitino’s team had been stripped of a title, only that he had won one (and that he had had similar success at other schools). I was unsure of how to reference the scandal in a way that was appropriate for work, but I eventually settled on saying that he offered the recruits “certain impermissible benefits” (which is more or less the official wording of the charges from the NCAA) and noted that even in today’s era, where you’re allowed to offer basically unfettered NIL (Name, Image, & Likeness) benefits to induce players to attend your school (which wasn’t the case at the time of the scandal), “that particular benefit that he offered is still not permitted, and I’ll just leave it at that.” Was this an appropriate way to reference what happened?

It’s unnecessarily coy. It’s okay to just come out and say, “He supplied recruits with sex workers to try to induce them to attend the school.” That’s what happened, you’re alluding to it anyway, and it’s better to just say it rather than to dance around it with something mysterious sounding. Otherwise, it’s would probably be better to just say “unethical recruiting practices” rather than “certain impermissible benefits”; the latter just sounds very cryptic.

3. How should I handle a company’s pre-hire drug and alcohol testing?

I am in the late stages of the interview process for an entry-level admin job at a manufacturing company. This company requires a pre-employment drug and alcohol test across the board for all new hires. Is there an appropriate way to inquire about this test? I would like to know the philosophy behind the request, particularly for an entry-level admin position, which is largely answering phones with some data entry. It is unclear to me how my nightly glass of wine would be any of their business.

In addition, I have a prescription for a drug that is also recreationally legal in my state. I would like to inquire without giving too much information, but also not raise undue suspicion (I’m happy to say what my medical condition is in general, but overall it sounds like self declaring this stuff when you don’t otherwise need accommodations is a no-no). Or maybe I should just take the test and see what they say? Honestly, at this point I am wondering if this is a sign of a cultural mismatch.

Unlike drug testing — which can pick up drug use days or, for some drugs, even weeks later — alcohol testing is testing for current impairment. So they’re not looking to see if you have a nightly glass of wine; they’re trying to catch people who are showing up to a daytime work appointment with alcohol in their system. It’s probably more relevant for their manufacturing jobs (for safety reasons), but they’ve made it part of their standard new hire testing.

Marijuana testing is more complicated; those tests pick up longer-ago use (potentially weeks-old use if you’re a regular consumer). Some states that have legalized marijuana, but not all of them, have prohibited employers from taking action against employees who use it outside of work. Those laws vary in details; some bar employers from testing for it at all, while others permit the test but say employers can’t deny you a job based on a positive result. Some cover only medical use, while some cover recreational use as well; all make exceptions for safety-sensitive positions. This also gets more complicated for federal contractors, who are required to comply with drug-free workplace laws set at the federal level (where marijuana is still illegal). So in your shoes, I’d look up what your state law says about employment testing for marijuana and go from there.

But as for inquiring about the philosophy behind the testing: they’ll almost certainly tell you that they want to have a drug-free workplace … which sounds like a perfectly reasonable stance for a manufacturing company, except that non-alcohol drug tests will detect private use in your own home in your off hours last weekend. Which is really why workplaces that care about safety should be using impairment tests instead; impairment tests check if you’re impaired for any reason, not just find out that you smoked a joint before bed a week ago. Performance tests measures things like hand-eye coordination and response time and are designed to catch multiple types of impairment, including legal ones like fatigue, and are used by NASA on astronauts and test pilots, and in other cases where safety matters more than drug testing theater.

4. Can I ask a nonprofit if they’re dependent on federal grants?

I’m a displaced federal employee — I had exceptional performance reviews, but I was fired for “performance” with 28 days remaining in my first year. I’ve started my job search and have been frank about my situation with prospective employers — “I was terminated as part of recent mass firings, but I am happy to provide performance documentation as well as references from supervisors.”

Now I have a possible interview. The position aligns with my abilities and interests, everything I’ve encountered feels positive, and it’s at a nonprofit with a mission that I would feel good about supporting. But after losing my beloved former position to the current administration, I’m nervous. Would it be appropriate for me to ask if/how their organization relies on federal grants? If so, would it be appropriate in the interview? How?

(Additional complications I don’t even know where to start on: my former position might be reinstated, my former office might have a new opening that is exempted and also a good fit for me … but I don’t feel like I can count on either. I loved my workplace and the good we did, but I have to explore other options!)

Yes, you can absolutely ask whether the organization, and this position in particular, rely on federal grants. That’s not an uncommon thing to ask about in nonprofit interviews, even before the current chaos, and it’s even more understandable right now. You can word it this way: “Do you rely on federal grants at all, and do you expect your budget, or this position itself, to be affected by what’s going on?”

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

1. Is swiping on a coworker on a dating app grounds for an HR meeting?

Asking for a friend: They absent-mindedly swiped on a coworker in a dating app (whom they asked out once two years earlier). Said coworker was uncomfortable with that and went to HR, and they all had a sit-down about leaving said coworker alone.

I am all for not harassing people you work with romantically, but I am also conflicted — is swiping right on a coworker on Bumble or Tinder grounds for an HR intervention?

They are both on a dating app, after all — a place where you are opening up yourself to these kinds of interactions explicitly. And then the interaction has to be mutual anyway — both people need to “initiate” conversation here, without knowing if the other person has done so. (Apparently in this case their coworker was paying for premium rights to see who was swiping on them, and spoke with HR without initiating.)

Dating apps also location-based, and so a lot of coworkers might show up there. Having worked at a 500-person office, I probably have swiped on several without realizing! A lot of people also use these by quickly swiping, not necessarily making a researched decision every time.

I might be utterly off-base here, but I want to be sure not to alienate people I work with. What would be the correct etiquette here?

This doesn’t sound like someone who reported a coworker to HR simply for swiping right on them on a dating app. Their perspective is likely that the coworker had already asked them out and been told no, now they’re making another overture, and they work together so it’s extra aggravating that they weren’t respecting the original no.

It still could have been overkill to involve HR — but so much of this depends on how your friend handled the original rejection and how they’ve treated the coworker since then.

Related:
I matched with a coworker on a dating site
if you’re thinking of asking a coworker on a date…

2. Our bosses gave a perk to their spouses instead of to other employees

Our company is very small, three joint owners and three employees.

Our company has a business relationship with another company, and as a result they’ve offered tickets to the F1 Grand Prix in our area this year. Both bosses immediately planned to use the tickets on both themselves (this is understandable) and then both of their spouses. My question is about the latter — is it actually appropriate for them to share this perk with spouses instead of employees? It just struck me as a bit weird and self-interested for the initial instinct to be to share it with their spouses, who are unaffiliated with the company in any way outside of being their romantic partners, instead of with the very few employees they actually have.

I would love to have some insight on whether or not this is appropriate or normal behavior, as I don’t know if I should speak up and say that it bothered me that romantic partners who don’t work here were going to be seeing perks that employees are not.

It’s definitely a thing that happens with certain perks. It varies by company, but in a lot of workplaces there isn’t an automatic assumption that this sort of perk will distributed equitably, or that executives’ spouses won’t be included ahead of employees. You see it particularly with tickets, but you also see it with dinners out and trips (where spouses might be included too)

I don’t think it’s an outrage that warrants complaining about it, but it’s also not particularly gracious of the owners, and it’s something really good leaders wouldn’t do. Good leaders see that kind of gift as an opportunity to reward people, build morale, and make them feel like a valued part of the team (and that’s true even if the tickets were specifically a thank-you to the owners for choosing to give their business to the other company).

But while I don’t think you should complain, per se, there’s also nothing wrong with asking if employees can be included the next time something like that is offered.

3. My manager is from a country at war with mine

I am living in Europe but I have a lot of family in Ukraine. My job just hired a new line manager for my team, an external hire. Today was their first day on the job and we had a team meeting where we were all being introduced for the first time. After a round of introductions, they said, “I noticed that there are multiple people from Ukraine on the team. I am from Russia, I wonder how that will go.” My internal reaction was, “Yes, I wonder as well, and I really wish this wasn’t sprung up on me in a team meeting.” Obviously, we should all treat people as individuals, I don’t know what their position is on the war, and good for them for noticing the inherent trickiness of the situation. But they didn’t follow up with any explicit comments about what they believe, and even just that makes me worried about how I’d have to phrase things about them. My job has been happy with my performance so far but there has been periodic impact on my day-to-day work when family and friends had various losses, injuries, and close calls that affected me as well, and I generally gave context to my manager about what was going on without thinking too hard about how to phrase it.

Do you think my company should have done anything differently (other than not hiring a good candidate, which seems unreasonable)? Are there things that I should consider for dealing with this? In the past all my managers checked in with me on how things were going and while I don’t rant about my personal life, I haven’t had to worry about saying something controversial before, I guess I had the good luck of working with people who had similar views on political events that affected me personally.

It would have been odd if your company had done anything differently. People aren’t their countries, and there’s no reason to assume anything either way about the new hire’s stance; the only thing it makes sense to assume is that they’ll behave professionally no matter what political differences they might have with team mates (on anything, not just this). If that turns out not to be the case, that’s something you’d need to escalate, but that would be an aberration, not something anyone should go in expecting will happen.

The new hire’s comment was a little awkward, but it actually doesn’t reveal much and likely was borne out of feeling awkward about things themself.

I think, too, that if you’re affected by something affecting your family’s safety, it’s still fine to share that! It’s likely to go better if everyone proceeds from the assumption that all involved are decent people with empathy for others. If that turns out not to be the case, you’ll find out soon enough (and is something you’d need to escalate, per my first paragraph), but don’t ascribe that to them prematurely.

I hope your family is safe.

4. How to say “this was your idea” to my manager

I have a new skip-level boss who is making me insane. There are a number of ways she’s not good at managing and working for her is incredibly unpleasant, so I’m trying to get out even though I love my job. In the meantime, I need to survive a recurring dynamic.

“Andrea” will tell me to create a spreadsheet showing X, Y, and Z information. All this is available in our reporting system, but she wants it in a spreadsheet format. Then she’ll tell me to add on A and B. This will take me days to create. I’ll send it to her, and then wake up with comments all over the sheet: “Why are we reporting on B?” “How did you define X?” “What is this A column?”

The answer to all of those is… you asked me for it. You told me you wanted to see B so there it is. X is defined as exactly what you told me to pull. Column A is the column that you said you needed. I feel like either I’m stupid because I can’t understand why this keeps happening, or she’s forgetting what she asked for. She is unpleasant and does not take feedback well, so I am very hesitant to name the dynamic; my direct manager is kind but not able to shield me.

What’s a professional script for “I have no idea why you wanted this, but you asked for it so I gave it to you” when I get asked about things like this?

Start preempting the question when you initially send the work. For example, when you send her a spreadsheet with edits she requested, write this in the email: “You asked me yesterday to add A and B to the C spreadsheet, so I’ve done that here. A is defined as ___ and B is defined as ___. Please let me know if you want me to do it differently.”

If you miss the chance to do that and end up getting questioned later about why you did something she asked you to do, it’s fine to say, “My understanding from your feedback on Tuesday was that you wanted me to add A and B. Did I misunderstand what you were looking for?” Say this neutrally, like you’re genuinely curious if you misunderstood something, not with a subtext of “how do you not remember this?”

You can also try shooting her a quick summary of your take-aways when she requests things from you. For example: “To recap, I’ll add A and B to the C spreadsheet, defining A as ___ and B as ___, and will have it back to you tomorrow.”

5. Should I list myself as currently employed?

I am/was a federal probationary employee (i.e., I have less than a year of government service). Just over a month ago, I was swept up in the mass termination of probationary employees across the federal government. This week, I was reinstated as part of a temporary restraining order in a court case challenging the legality of that mass termination. However, in the intervening month, my entire unit was subjected to a reduction in force (also of questionable legality and about to face legal challenge). Therefore, when I was reinstated, I was immediately placed on paid administrative leave, which will continue until the reduction in force takes full effect and I am completely separated from federal service (in the absence of legal intervention).

I am of course applying for other jobs, but now that I’ve been reinstated, I don’t know how to represent or how much to explain my current circumstances in application documents. How do I list my employment status while I’m on paid administrative leave? Do I just use “present” as the end date of my government service and leave it at that? Or should I list the date I was terminated, which was the last time I did any substantive work as a government employee? If I list myself as presently employed, do I need to explain in my cover letter why I’m looking for alternate employment after less than a year on the job? Or do employers understand why federal employees are all searching for jobs at this point, regardless of their exact circumstances?

You’re still legally an employee there, so go ahead and list your employment as “to present” (so “May 2024 – present” or whatever). That’s reasonable to do regardless, and it’s especially reasonable given how much uncertainty is surrounding all of this.

You don’t need to explain the situation in your cover letter — hiring managers know — but it’s also fine to allude to it in a single sentence if you want to; just don’t use any more cover letter real estate on it than that. (More about that here.)

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

1. Should I say something about past allegations against a colleague?

I started a new position about six months ago, working with partner organizations across the state on community projects. On a recent call, I was surprised to see someone I’ll call Brad.

I knew Brad from my time teaching in a different city, where he was an activist in the reproductive health rights space. A few years ago, Brad had to leave that work and relocate after being accused of grooming minors. Two friends who work in that space told me about it at the time.

Now, Brad is working in a different community-focused role, and while it’s unrelated to reproductive health, they are still in a position of influence. My role is to provide technical assistance to help make a project feasible for the community Brad works with. Brad is actively facilitating conversations with our partners. It feels surreal to be in meetings with someone who had to leave their previous job due to allegations of being a sexual predator. However, everything I know is secondhand. I don’t know if Brad’s new role involves minors.

Do I have an obligation to say something to my boss? Should I bring this up, even if I don’t have firsthand knowledge? Or is this one of those situations where I just have to compartmentalize and move on?

I don’t think you have an obligation to say something to your boss since (a) Brad isn’t working for your organization and (b) you heard about the allegations secondhand. But I don’t think think you’d be wrong to have a quiet word with your boss about it either — framed as, “I only have secondhand knowledge of this and no idea if his current job involves minors, but given that minors were involved previously, I felt uncomfortable keeping it to myself. Is this something you think we need to do anything with?”

2. HR unilaterally changed our performance reviews

During our most recent performance review period, managers were told that they had to score 75% of employees as 3s on the overall 1 through 5 rating scale (5 being the best), with the remainder split between 1/2/4/5s. Apparently, despite this, there were too many high scores given so HR went in and — seemingly randomly since they most certainly don’t have insight into people’s day-to-day performance — knocked people down to 3s. They also asked managers to change their comments on the reviews of people who had this happen to reflect the new scores. I was among this lucky demoted group, and since confirming that neither my manager or grandboss had any input on this change, I’ve felt increasingly frustrated by this situation since it has the potential to affect future promotions as well as this year’s salary increase and bonus.

Ranting about it to a friend who works in a different industry I found that his company had done the same thing! Is this a new trend? Can you think of any way to push back against this? One further complication is that it’s unclear if HR realizes that everyone knows what they did (a lot of managers were not happy with the changes).

This is not a new trend, but it’s a ridiculous practice. There have always been companies that insist on a certain distribution of performance evaluation ratings, which has always caused problems for managers and teams whose performance didn’t line up with the required distribution of scores. But the idea of HR randomly changing ratings and then demanding managers rewrite their comments to justify those ratings is an extra level of ridiculous; typically they’d just tell managers that they need to change their ratings and leave it to them to decide how to do that.

I do wonder whether it’s true that HR chose the new ratings randomly or whether it was based on anything (including conversations with managers). Managers wouldn’t necessarily disclose the latter to you, and might even prefer to let HR take the blame.

As for pushing back — if you’ve had glowing feedback all year (especially if it’s documented, but even if it’s not) and/or if you’ve met/exceeded the goals that were laid out for you, you could certainly highlight that and ask how your rating squares with your performance and the feedback you’ve received from your manager. They might not care, but it’s a reasonable avenue to pursue.

3. Do I have to announce my pregnancy at work?

Would it be extremely weird if I just didn’t widely announce my pregnancy at work? My boss and grandboss know, and a few other individuals I chose to tell, but I just really don’t want to make a big email announcement. I have a lot of anxiety about this pregnancy and it feels like a jinx (even though logically I know it’s not). But people will be able to tell I’m pregnant soon. Will it be weird if I go around with an obviously pregnant belly without ever having said anything? Am I inviting gossip and/or nosy questions? Do I just need to get over myself and send the darn email?

In some office cultures it might be a little weird. That doesn’t mean you have to announce if you don’t want to, though, and it sounds like the people who need to know already do.

For what it’s worth, in the offices where it would be unusual, I do think you could be inviting more speculation and gossip by not sharing it with the people you work with the mostly closely. Again, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, obviously it’s no one’s business, etc. etc., but realistically on closer-knit teams, people may notice and wonder if they missed an announcement. In fact, an advantage of sending a brief announcement is that if you want to, you could explicitly say, “I’m nervous about the pregnancy and would prefer not to be asked about it at work, thanks for understanding.”

Related:
my employee didn’t tell anyone she was pregnant until she was about to give birth

4. Was this training’s explanation of discrimination correct?

I had to take a training on workplace discrimination and harassment that was mandatory for all employees at my company. As part of the training, we were asked a series of hypothetical questions and had to answer whether they constituted discrimination or harassment. One example involved a graphic design company that had a project to design a logo for a football team, and gave the project to a male employee over a female one because “men know more about football then women.” The explanation given was that it was discrimination because whether someone knows about football is not relevant to their job performance.

It seems to me that if you’re designing a logo for a football team, your knowledge of football is indeed relevant to your ability to do so. The issue here is that they assumed the male employee must know more about football than the female employee solely because of his gender. Therefore, it does indeed constitute discrimination but the provided explanation is wrong. Whose explanation is correct?

Yours. It’s illegal discrimination to assign a project based on gender (“men know more about football than women do”) but not to assign a project based on a specific person’s knowledge or interest (“Lucas knows the most about football”).

Whoever presented this training (a) doesn’t have a good grasp of the material and (b) probably got sidetracked by the gendered nature of the sport and hopefully would recognize that “I’m assigning X to Lucas because he knows a ton about frogs” would be fine.

5. Are non-competes still legal?

I had a recruiter reach out to me for a job at a direct competitor. I’m not looking to leave, but I also mentioned that I have a non-compete.

He told me those “aren’t a thing anymore” and it wouldn’t hold up in court anyway. But I’ve been tracking them and saw that the FTC was trying to pass a law in September to stop non-competes nationally but it was being challenged by two different Texas courts and now the law is in limbo.

The recruiter said I was wrong, so I wanted to ask you since I know you have reported on them in the past. Can you give us an update? Again, I’m not looking to leave, but if I was I wouldn’t be comfortable with “it wouldn’t hold up in court.”

Yes, non-competes are still legal at the federal level.

In April 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced it would ban them for most U.S. workers, saying they stifle wages. But before that could take effect, two federal courts (one in Texas and one in Florida) issued injunctions blocking it, saying the agency lacked the authority to issue the rule. The FTC was originally expected to appeal those rulings, but that’s much less likely to happen under the new administration.

In addition, in 2023 the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) general counsel issued a memo stating that non-competes violate the National Labor Relations Act in most circumstances. However, that general counsel has been removed by the new administration, and that directive is very likely to be rescinded.

So for the time being, non-competes remain legal federally.

However, four states ban non-competes completely (California, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Oklahoma), and 33 more plus Washington, D.C. restrict them (generally via banning them for hourly wage workers or workers below a salary threshold).