coworker constantly changes her schedule, interviewer refused to let me meet the job’s manager, and more

by Alison Green on June 27, 2024

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

1. My coworker constantly changes her schedule

I am member of a small team with four core staff, including my manager and me. One of my core colleagues is part-time, three days a week. My manager gives her flexibility on this, so she changes her hours to suit her needs every week, to the point where I feel it is negatively affecting all of our work.

Last week, we needed all hands on deck for a major event Wednesday/Thursday/Friday, but she decided to come in on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, leaving us extremely short staffed for Thursday/Friday (which were communicated to her as core days three weeks before). This week, we had to cancel a staff photoshoot the day before, as she had previously told us she would be in and available for it in our weekly team meeting. She changed her hours the afternoon before the shoot and we had to cancel the photographer.

Her job is working one-on-one with clients, and oftentimes they will come in looking for her/calling for her, and she will not be in when she told them she would be. My manager does not relay her weekly schedule to us, so I am left scrambling to help her urgent clients or telling them to come back another day she is in (which I never know! because her schedule is so irregular!). She refuses to set an autoreply stating when she is in office and when she is out (even for vacation), leaving clients to complain to us that she is ignoring their emails. None of these are one-off events — these happen regularly.

My manager is very insulated from the problems. Oftentimes he is off-site at meetings, and is overall passive and laissez-faire. However, he had did address this issue a year ago and she committed to fixed shifts for a few months, but since then she has reverted to changing her schedule throughout the week.

I am not her manager but some work projects she has negatively affected (such as the major event she missed/thephotoshoot) are ones that I am in charge of. How can I bring up my concerns to my manager, without it coming off catty?

It’s not catty to point out a work problem that’s interfering with your own work and causing chaos with clients. That’s a very normal thing to do — always, but especially if your manager isn’t around to see the issues himself. I suspect you’re worried about it being catty because you’re so frustrated with your coworker that your aggravation is at a level that feels catty in your head, but this really is normal to raise.

So talk to your manager! He may be assuming his conversation with her last year mostly solved the issues and doesn’t realize the problems have returned in full force. When you talk to him, stick to the facts and the impact on work. For example: “When Jane changes her schedule at the last minute or doesn’t let us know in advance when she’ll be working, it causes a lot of problems, like XYZ. We also often get clients looking for her because she’s not in when she told them she would be, and clients complain to us that she’s ignoring their emails. Could you ask her to stick to fixed, scheduled shifts?”

2. Is it a red flag if your interviewer refuses to let you meet the person who would be managing you?

My son recently was offered a job after interviewing with a group of HR people, but without talking to the person who would be his boss or any of his coworkers. After he was offered the job, he asked if he could set up a Zoom with his would-be supervisor so that he could at least meet him. HR said no, they did not want him to meet with the person who would be supervising him.

This seemed weird and a big red flag to both of us, and with my encouragement, he turned the job down (the job was also nothing special and located in a not-terribly-desirable place to live). It seems strange enough for the department head to play no role in hiring someone who will report to him, but then prohibiting them from meeting even on Zoom for a few minutes just seemed odd. It makes me wonder if they’re trying to hide something. Were we right in thinking this is weird and a red flag, and that it’s better to wait until something else comes along? Or is this more normal than I realize and I gave my son bad advice? I might add that my son just graduated from college last spring and this was his first job offer, and it was with a small public college.

Did they literally say they didn’t want him to meet with the manager? Or could that have been a misunderstanding — like could they have meant the manager was on vacation and the hiring needed to be finalized before he was back, or something along those lines? If so, that’s not ideal but would make more sense. In that case, your son could have asked to speak with someone else on the team instead.

But if they literally said they didn’t want him to meet with the manager, that’s extremely weird and a huge red flag.

There’s also an option in between those — something more like, “Cecil’s schedule is packed and he’s not involved in the hiring for this role.” That’s still a red flag, because asking to meet the person will be managing you is such a reasonable request that generally employers find a way to make that happen, even if it wasn’t originally planned. (Assuming, of course, that there’s not some reason for it, like that the manager is hospitalized or otherwise truly unavailable.)

3. I scream when I’m startled at work

I get easily startled at my desk, and I want to know how to stop. It only happens at my computer when I’m laser-focused on my work and don’t hear someone coming up behind me. A coworker will walk up behind me for something, and I scream. Yes, scream. Not Psycho-shower-scene screeching, but the type of sudden shriek that startles everyone around me, and then we all have a good laugh about it afterwards.

Two people (in this job and my last job) have told me that me being startled has startled them in turn. I don’t want my coworkers to walk on eggshells around me. They’ve kind of already accepted this as a “quirk” I have and do their best not to scare me (which has helped, and I let them know that I appreciate it), but I want to know what I can do to alleviate this. The good news is that my cubicle is set up on a machine shop floor instead of a quiet office area, so my occasional screams go out into a void of equipment noise instead of disrupting a quiet office. Nonetheless, I don’t want to jumpscare any nearby coworkers!

I already have a little mirror at my desk that shows the opening behind me (although I wish I could install one of those fisheye shoplifter mirrors you find at pharmacies). If I want to listen to something while I work, I only put one earbud in. My friends outside of work suggested that I should ask for a desk that doesn’t have my back towards an opening, which I think would help a lot. However, I’m a junior employee who doesn’t feel like I’m in a position to ask for much, and I know that the reason the cubicles are set up the way they are so that everyone can see your computer screen.

I was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and Level 1 autism two years ago. I also have childhood trauma from an abusive parent. I have never told anyone in my professional life or sought any sort of accommodations for these because I otherwise can perform my duties just fine. I see my conditions as my responsibility to cope with, and I just want to excel in my job without others feeling like they have to give me special privileges. If nobody knows about my conditions, then they can only address my behavior and performance. I also just wouldn’t know how to navigate that conversation because aside from maybe the desk positioning, I wouldn’t really know what to ask *for.*

I’ll actually be moving to a different location next month to work in a project I’ve been asking to be involved in, so I want to see what I can do differently.

Talk to your manager and ask if you can change the way your desk is positioned. You’re not saying “I want to move my desk so no one can see what’s on my screen.” You’ll be saying, “With the way my desk is positioned, I’ve been getting startled when people come up behind me — and I have such a strong startle reflex that it’s been making me involuntarily scream. I’m embarrassed when it happens, and it’s disruptive to people around me. I’ve tried putting up a mirror but it hasn’t solved it. I’d like to angle my desk differently so this stops happening. Is that okay?”

Maybe they’ll say no, all the desks need to stay exactly where they are. But it’s reasonable to ask. If the answer is no, at that point you can decide if you want to go the formal accommodation route — but a conversation might take care of it.

Also, in advance of your move next month, say a version of this to whoever’s in charge of where you’ll be sitting before the move, and ask for your desk to face outward. Again, this is reasonable.

4. My boss showed up at my house and banged on the door

I work for a golf course, which is supposed to be relaxing job. Although I have never been late to work, I was supposed to meet my boss at the bank one day out of work and overslept. He has had been dead against me since then.

Then, early one morning, I was about 20 minutes late for work (I had just done a closing shift the night before and was sick and had a fever) when my husband hears banging on the door so loud that it wakes him up out of a dead sleep on the second story of our home. (You normally can’t even hear the front door from upstairs.) I come running downstairs to see the owner of the golf course standing there with his arms folded. When I opened the door, I told him, “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry, I’ll be right into work.” When I got into work, he proceeded to try to call someone else to have my shift covered even though he had already banged on my house door. My question is, is it against the law for managers to show up at your private residence and bang on your door, demanding you come into work, and then once you get into work have somebody come in to replace you?

It is legal for your boss to show up at your house and bang on the door (because it’s legal for anyone to show up at your house and bang on your door, at least unless circumstances occur that would make it trespassing or harassment, like if they refuse to leave when told to). It’s also legal for him to get someone else to cover your shift, even after demanding you show up. Some states do have laws requiring employers to pay you a minimum number of hours simply for showing up. But in states without those laws, you’d only need to be paid for whatever amount of time you were there after clocking in.

Separately from the law, there’s also the question of whether your boss is a jerk, and the answer to that is yes.

5. Listing a target position on LinkedIn that you don’t actually have

I am job hunting after being laid off. I recently took a LinkedIn workshop and the instructor told us to put in a placeholder position if we weren’t actively employed, on the grounds that we won’t come up in searches by recruiters without an active job title. This placeholder would basically be full of SEO. Roughly, the idea would be:

  • job title: number one preferred job title
  • company field: target industries
  • description field: “seeking” other relevant job titles and whatever other search terms that might apply

This obviously wouldn’t look like an actual position to any human reading it, so it’s not quite the same as lying about one’s job history. It still seems dodgy to me, and like the sort of thing a recruiter might reject immediately. Am I just behind the times? Is this an accepted practice now?

No, this is crap advice. Ignore it.

Humans will look at your LinkedIn profile and this will be a weird thing to have there.

You may also like:
{ 404 comments }

do I have to refuse to use first names because my manager won’t?

by Alison Green on June 26, 2024

A reader writes:

I just started with a new organization three months ago. I was hired to lead a newly-formed team. In case it matters, I am the team leader but not the supervisor — there is a vacant supervisor position, and my boss has made it clear she would like me to fill that role, but there are rigid eligibility requirements that I won’t meet for several more months.

I greatly admire my new boss and love working with her. However, she insists on calling everyone by a gendered title plus surname (Ms. Smith, Mr. Jones, etc.). She applies this to every single person, regardless of age or position, and if someone requests that she use their first name she outright refuses (her exact words are “it’s not gonna happen”). She is from an older generation and from the south, so this may be a cultural thing. I will generally address a stranger this way in the workplace, but as soon as they ask me to use their first name, of course I comply.

I don’t feel too strongly, but if I had the choice I’d prefer to be called by my first name, especially by my peers and the team members under me. I have privately told my team that they are welcome to do so and asked how they would like to be addressed. Most said they do not care either way, but two are adamant that they want to be called by their first names. Some others in the organization, including directors far above me, have insisted on first names as well. When out of earshot of my boss, I address people however they are most comfortable.

However, I’m not sure if it’s a bad idea to use first names in front of her. We speak frequently throughout the day, and she usually joins my daily meeting with the team. When she is present, I find myself using her method of address for everyone because I don’t want her to think I lack decorum, especially as a leader. On the other hand, I had a team member reiterate to me again today that she would prefer her first name, and I want to respect her wishes (and everyone’s). Can I freely use first names in front of my boss, or will she find this inappropriate?

As a general rule, you should use the names people have asked you to call them, including in front of your boss. And using Ms. Smith/Mr. Jones will come across as antiquated and stuffy in most workplaces (with a small handful of exceptions where it’s still the norm).

But in reality, you may need to adapt this to fit your boss. I don’t know if she’s going to find your use of first names inappropriate or not — you’d have to ask her that — but it’s certainly possible that she might.

If you’re worried, why not talk to her about it? You could say, “I know you prefer to address people by titles and surnames. I want to respect what people ask me to call them, so I prefer to follow their lead and use their first names if they prefer it. But I wanted to make sure you don’t feel strongly about how I handle that.”

There’s a pretty good chance you’ll hear that she’s well aware that most people around her use first names, and this is simply her own practice and not a mandate for others. But if it is going to bother her, it’s better that you know that. And if that turns out to be the case, you can tell people that up-front so they know where you’re coming from — “I prefer first names too, but Jane prefers we address people more formally, and I’m choosing not to go against that when she’s in the conversation.”

But honestly, I’d probably skip the conversation with your boss and just address people the way they’ve requested. It’s unlikely she’ll be shocked; she’s got to be aware that most people’s norms have evolved on this.

You may also like:
{ 432 comments }

when a job candidate reschedules their interview at the last minute

by Alison Green on June 26, 2024

A reader writes:

What’s the best way to ask a job applicant why they need to cancel or reschedule their interview at the last minute if they don’t offer an explanation? My company hires a good number of people who are fresh out of school and may not have much professional experience, so I don’t want to hold it against them if they don’t realize that missing an appointment for a genuine emergency won’t disqualify an otherwise solid candidate, but I also obviously don’t want to recommend an unreliable candidate.

How can I ask what happened in a way that’s not overly invasive or accusatory?

I answer this question — and three others — 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.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

  • Should you mention an employee’s smell during a reference check?
  • When people say their boss yelled at them, do they mean it literally?
  • Should I contact my strongest candidates before our application deadline closes?
You may also like:
{ 205 comments }

was it unprofessional to say I was angry?

by Alison Green on June 26, 2024

A reader writes:

This year, I was put in a difficult position by my HR representative. My work requires a licensing process with the state, and I’ve moved to a new role whose laws regarding those licenses have recently been updated. Despite having conversations with my HR about these changes and working to navigate them, my HR rep filed the wrong paperwork for me and insisted that I was flaunting compliance by not submitting the outdated paperwork that was provided and contacting the wrong people for required letters of evidence. This error was really stressful to me — not only was my HR emailing me that I could lose my job if I didn’t come through with the license, but argued that the rejections from the state were my fault, CC’ing my manager.

At one point, I spelled out the correct process to the HR representative, citing the state guidelines provided to us both, and she argued that I was essentially dragging my feet on doing what was necessary, and that she would not hesitate to post my job as open to hire someone who would meet the correct guidelines.

I eventually followed the state’s correct process against my HR’s guidance, only to discover that I had been misinformed by my HR over months when everything fell back into place and my license was quickly approved. When I contacted HR again in my long email chain with my supervisor, I said as kindly as I could that I was angry that my HR had not only called me out for not doing due diligence, but had not done their own, and had threatened my position over what was their own mistake.

Which brings me to my question: When my supervisor talked to me recently for an annual review, he suggested it was unprofessional to state that I was angry about how this had shaken out. I was pretty shocked to hear this — I had in no way been unkind or hostile, had limited this expression to a statement in one brief email wrapping up the issue, and my HR had been without question in the wrong with how they handled my situation.

Is it always unprofessional to say you’re angry in a business situation? Am I off the mark here?

Yeah, anger at work is … tricky.

There are lots of times when anger at work is justified.

But there is very much an expectation in many parts of white-collar American work culture that you will not declare yourself “angry.” Instead, you are “concerned,” “alarmed,” “surprised,” maybe “taken aback.” (I use “concerned” in scripts here a lot. It gets the point across without flouting that cultural convention.)

Some of that’s because part of white-collar professionalism is supposed to be not taking things personally. Some of it’s because anger is a fairly aggressive, even threatening, emotion to declare. You’re expected to be more even-keeled in how you express yourself.

Is this a sort of fake gentility? Sure — especially because not announcing your anger doesn’t mean you won’t actually be angry. But it’s a cultural convention in many workplaces.

To be clear, your HR person was an ass. Not only did she continually get the process wrong, but she threatened your job?! (Saying she “would not hesitate” to post your job and replace you?! Does she even have the authority to decide that on her own? I doubt it, not that that’s the point.) Your anger is warranted. She owes you an apology — and more than that, someone above her needs to look into what happened and whether it’s part of a pattern of incompetence from this colleague.

But yeah, you violated a cultural expectation that you’ll be more buttoned-up about it.

I can’t in good faith write about this topic without acknowledging that some managers traffic in anger pretty regularly. However, that’s bad management, and it’s unprofessional of them too.

There are, of course, industries where this doesn’t apply. But I’m guessing you might not be in one of them, based on your manager’s feedback.

You may also like:
{ 327 comments }

interviewing with a manager who wanted to lay me off, customers who make religious comments, and more

by Alison Green on June 26, 2024

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

1. Interviewing with a manager who wanted to lay me off

My manager at my last company had me on his layoff list. Another manager showed me the list looking for the name of someone who got laid off not realizing I was on it, and I saw myself listed with the three who had gotten laid off. Seeing that was a huge blow. Up until then, I’d considered myself valuable, with years of knowledge and experience. To be laid off over people with less experience, education, and dedication filled me with doubt. It was a large factor in me quitting that job with nothing lined up to take time off to reevaluate my career.

Ultimately, I decided to stick with it since I’m almost 50. I’ve been at my new company for two years now. My previous manager started here a year ago and, since he started, has twice asked me to apply for roles on his team. Both times I’ve asked, surprised, if I would be considered. He replied that of course I would be considered, seeming surprised and confused. After he hired someone for his most recent opening, he asked why I hadn’t applied after he suggested I should. Again, I asked if he would have considered me, and again he replied that of course he would since he asked me to apply. He said he’d let me know when he had another opening and asked why I keep asking if I would be considered. I gave some vague reason.

I can tell my continued questioning is confusing to him. I’d love to work with him again. He’s the best manager I ever had, but I can’t stop this nagging doubt that he doesn’t value me enough to keep me on his team. I guess people get laid off for different reasons, but the other three people on the layoff list with me, well, everyone expected they would go. It was very disheartening to see myself listed with people who worked another job while at work, watched sports for hours on their work computers, repeatedly violated safe protocols, and lost customer parts and lied about it. I can’t help but feel there is some massive mistake I made or some major flaw or failure that I’m unaware of. If there is, I want to know what it is and fix it.

Should I just come right out and tell him I know I was on his layoff list, explain what a blow it was, and ask him why? Or, if I were to interview with him, would it be strange if I asked what he sees me contributing to his team or what experience/knowledge gaps he thinks I have? The fact that he keeps asking me to apply makes me think he sees more value in me than I thought after I saw my name on that list, so maybe the risk is low if I were to get hired on his team. I don’t want to work for him again with this nagging doubt. I distrust my security with him and that would lead to me second-guessing everything I did.

I think you’ve interpreted this wrong. People get laid off for all kinds of reasons that don’t necessarily have to do with their work, like that their position is the one the team can most afford to lose, or a program they’re working on is slated to be cut as an additional cost-saving measure, and tons of other things. Yes, if you’re doing layoffs, it generally makes sense to include the lowest performers, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be role-based cuts too. (Also, note that you weren’t actually laid off while the other three people on the list were, which likely means something.)

In any case, your manager has asked you repeatedly to come work for him again. He wouldn’t be this insistent and asking this often if he were offering out of pity; he means it. If you can’t feel comfortable working for him again, so be it — but it doesn’t make sense to keep doubting him. (And I hope you’ll reconsider your reluctance, too, because “the best manager you ever had” is not something to turn down lightly.)

I do want to point this out: you quit a job with nothing else lined up rather than be laid off (thereby forfeiting the chance for severance if you did eventually get laid off, which you might not have) and now you’re refusing multiple invitations to work for someone you really liked because you doubt they really like you, despite all signs to the contrary. You’ve been leaping to the worst possible conclusions and then acting on those conclusions in ways that are counter to your own interests — ways that harm you (perhaps so that you can do it before anyone else can?). Any chance that’s been a pattern before?

2. Responding to customers who make religious comments

I work in a customer-facing position in a very religious part of the country. I am an atheist. Generally this isn’t an issue, but lately I’ve had several interactions where I’ll be checking out a customer and making small talk and the customer will make a comment about how some people “need Jesus” or their relative needs to “read the Bible.” Whenever this happens, I’m at a loss for how to respond. I don’t want to agree or disagree with their statement but it always seems to turn awkward, even when I try to stay friendly but neutral. I don’t struggle with all references to religion; if they say something like “god bless,” I just responded with “thank you.” But in these other situations, it feels like they want me to affirm their judgment about the necessity and value of the Bible and Jesus, and I don’t want to offend them but I also don’t want to pretend to agree with them. Any suggestions for a script that will end the interaction less awkwardly?

I don’t know that there is a way to keep it from being awkward! They’re making the interaction awkward by assuming their religious beliefs are universal, which is rude (though also very common in some regions).

I’d stick with friendly but neutral, even if it does make for a slightly awkward moment. Exactly what that looks like will vary by interaction, but don’t underestimate the usefulness of a random subject change: “did you want to take one of our sales flyers?” / “I love your necklace” / “can you believe how hot it is out there?” I also wonder if in some of these interactions it’s possible to mentally reframe comments like “he needs Jesus” or “she needs to read the Bible” to “I’m worried about him” / “I don’t understand her” and respond the way you would if they’d said that instead? Don’t do that in cases where it’ll make you feel like you’re agreeing with something you don’t agree with, but there might be times where it’ll work.

3. My coworker made me wait a long time while I was standing in her office

I work at an agency in a senior management role. I have a colleague, a peer, with whom I don’t work together often, but sometimes I need her expertise on projects for my client. She is an added value asset I can sell to clients, essentially.

This colleague and I were working on a project, and I needed her input on a response to my client. I messaged her on Slack twice with no response so went to her desk. When I asked if I could have quick word with her, she asked me to wait while she finished an email. She then put her headphones back on and made me wait 3-4 minutes while she finished typing. I felt really uncomfortable standing there in the middle of the office — we are open plan — but knew if I asked her to find me when she finished, it would never happen and I needed this info.

Is this rude and disrespectful or am I being overly sensitive? I have asked people to wait myself when I’ve been in the middle of something but the length of time and the fact she put her headphones back on just seems really off to me. I also wonder if she would behave the same way with other colleagues she has a longer relationship with.

Well, ideally she would have told you she needed several minutes in case you didn’t want to wait, or simply said she was in the middle of something, but I think you’re being overly sensitive (and you did show up without warning, after all, and after already getting some cues she might be busy when she didn’t respond to your messages). She might have been in the middle of a back and forth with someone, or been downloading info from a conversation she’d just had and didn’t want to lose the details, or just needed to finish a thought. Who knows. I wouldn’t worry about it at all!

4. My promoted manager won’t accept help with his old job

My manager was promoted to a vice president position from his prior director role. This promotion is an interim appointment since our C-level executive would like to do a formal recruitment for the VP position, but needs someone to fill it now for at least the next year. My manager is now doing two jobs, his new interim VP role, plus his director role. He told everyone on his team he has to operate in this dual-role fashion for the next year. I meet with him biweekly for our one-on-ones, and I see and hear the toll this is taking on him. He is visibly more tired and he shared with me that he feels inundated with the increased workload.

I am a manager on his team and in the past I’ve shared with him that I have a desire to expand my responsibilities as a people and organization manager. He has been supportive of this and has given me chances to manage additional projects. We have a good working relationship and I want to see him succeed, especially in his new VP role.

I sent him an email offering to serve in an interim capacity in his director role as he gets acclimated to his new position. I provided a proposal for how I could achieve this alongside my existing responsibilities. I also outlined how this works toward achieving my career aspirations and alleviating some of the load to allow him to focus on his new responsibilities.

I didn’t receive a response to this offer. During our next one-on-one, I brought it up. He didn’t address it and just said he’s keeping everything as-is for the next year. In my mind, there are a two possibilities for why he’s doing this: 1) there are things going on at his level that he’s not at liberty to share or 2) he is having a difficult time transitioning away from his prior role. While scenario 1 is certainly possible, based on his past behaviors it is more likely scenario 2 is in play — delegation has been a struggle for him. Many times in his director role, he got a bit too far into the weeds on projects where it would have served the team more efficiently to delegate to his team leads. Should I continue to offer this assistance to him or just let this go and let him do whatever he feels he has to do?

Let it go. You made the offer twice — once in writing and once in person, and he told you clearly that he’s keeping everything as-is for the next year. That’s a no! It’s possible that the explanation is one of the two you came up with, or it could be something else (including that he might not think you’re a shoo-in for the interim promotion). Regardless, you asked, and he declined. You should leave it there.

5. Did I make a mistake by leaving my passion field?

About a year ago, I left my notoriously abusive, high-stress passion role for a more stable field-adjacent position. Think if I was previously a math teacher for several years and now I’m an accountant for the school district. My stress level is way down, I have more energy for my personal life and the role has a surprising amount of flexibility.

The problem is, I don’t … like it? I knew it would be less public-facing and more administrative than my previous job. I did not consider how much of my day would be “take two PDFs and make them one PDF” or “let’s have three meetings to decide which icebreaker to do at the next training.”

I made this change in hopes that work would be less of a rollercoaster — while I had a lot of fulfilling moments in my last role, there were a lot of hardships and people in my role aren’t always treated well by the public or by their colleagues. But now it’s like I traded that for all the boring parts of a job and none of the dopamine. And the thought of logging into the email factory every day for the next 20 years kind of makes me nauseous. I’ve talked to my therapist but, as you’ve pointed out, therapists are not always the best at giving career advice. I would love to just follow my heart and dive back into my old job, but I need to be realistic about how much that level of emotional involvement affected my personal life and health. How do I find the line between engaged and healthily detached to ride out to retirement?

The choice isn’t just between this one soul-deadening job and the exhausting role you were in previously. It might be that your current job isn’t right for you, but that doesn’t mean you have to go back to where you were. You could see the current job as data that’s helping you refine what you do and don’t want, and go out and look for a job that’s closer to what you do want. The choice doesn’t have to be binary.

You may also like:
{ 518 comments }

I’m getting a promotion — with mystery pay

by Alison Green on June 25, 2024

A reader writes:

I’m a senior-level individual contributor at a large organization, and I’m in a bit of a pickle. About a month ago, I was informed that I’m being given a promotion, and my role is expanding to include managing a team of people doing work similar to what I do, in addition to still doing the core technical work I was doing before. I’m excited about this change and the opportunity to move up in my organization!

Here’s the problem: My promotion is supposed to be effective starting less than two weeks from now, and I’ve received exactly zero information on how much I’ll be paid in this expanded role. Every time I ask, I’m told that HR needs to review the new position description, and they’ll recommend a salary based on that. This is to ensure pay equity across our large public organization, which makes sense. But I truly have no idea what to expect, since there’s not a matching role anywhere in the organization.

Now, the change has been announced to the people who will be reporting to me, and to higher-level folks in my department. On the day my new role officially begins, I will be on vacation, off the grid and out of cell range. They also plan to announce the change to an even broader group of people at a big meeting that I’ll miss while I’m on vacation. It’s feeling like this train is hurtling forward without a key part of the equation being squared away! I’m getting increasingly concerned that they’re not going to come back with a firm number until, say, right before I leave on vacation, or even worse, while I’m on vacation and truly unreachable. At that point, I won’t be able to negotiate or push back at all.

I can’t make HR go any faster (probably), but I’m trying to figure out how to navigate this. I’d never accept an actual job offer without knowing the salary! And based on the draft position description, I think this new role will be a big increase in work, responsibility and stress. In order to take that on, I really want at least a 10 percent raise from my current salary — especially since our standard annual raises are quite small and don’t keep pace with cost of living increases. Is there a way I can tactfully raise it with my boss, without making it sound like I’m only in the job for the money? How do I effectively advocate for myself here?

Agggh, this is so frustrating. You’d never accept a job with a new company without knowing what you’ll be paid, but somehow companies get existing employees to accept promotions all the time without first agreeing on a pay rate.

If we could go back in time to when the discussions were progressing without pay having been nailed down — and definitely when you realized it was close to being announced/considered final — ideally you would have said, “I’m very interested, but I can’t say yes until we’ve had a chance to discuss pay.” And if that didn’t work: “I’m concerned things are moving forward without us having agreed on pay. I understand HR needs to make a recommendation, but I don’t want to finalize things until we’ve been able to have that discussion.”

But sometimes the way companies handle internal moves makes it hard to realize that the train is leaving the station … and once you do realize it, things have already moved forward to the point that people think it’s a done deal.

That makes it harder to negotiate when pay finally does get discussed, because (a) you’ll have less leverage since there will be a lot of political pressure not to say “oh, never mind” at that point, (b) it might be unclear whether staying put is even an option at that point, at least without torpedoing all future chances for advancement at this company, and (c) you risk your employer feeling misled, like you should have raised this earlier if it was going to be an obstacle. (To be clear, the latter point is BS. They should have raised it earlier, and it’s on them that they didn’t.)

But you can still speak up now — and should, because otherwise you’ll have close to zero leverage when they do finally give you a number. Say this to your boss (or to the manager of the new position, if that’s a different person): “I didn’t realize we’d still be waiting on HR to come back with a salary offer, and we still haven’t had a chance to discuss pay. I don’t feel comfortable moving forward without knowing what the salary is, since this is a significant increase in responsibility. Can we either get that number in the next few days, or is there a way to slow this process down until we have it?”

Your boss might be annoyed that you didn’t say this earlier, especially if you knew they were planning to announce the promotion. That’s legitimate, and all you can really do is own what happened — “I did ask several times earlier, but I didn’t realize how quickly things would move or that it would be announced as final before we’d discussed pay.” You could add, “We wouldn’t expect an external candidate to take a job without nailing down the salary, and I don’t think we should with internal moves either.”

You mentioned that you’re concerned about seeming as if you’re only in it for the money. Frankly, we’re all only in it for the money. That’s why we work! But you can express excitement about the job itself while still asserting your need to be paid fairly for a significant increase in responsibility.

You may also like:
{ 138 comments }

I’m the weakest link on my team

by Alison Green on June 25, 2024

A reader writes:

I work with a very talented team of individuals, and I feel like I can’t operate at their level. I consistently complete fewer tasks than the rest of the team, and I need guidance on things I’ve been working with for years. I’ve improved greatly from where I was when I started two years ago, but I am still frequently lost and unable to complete my work independently. I was never hired to this team; I was placed here as part of a corporate reshuffle. I could never have passed the interview process to land this job.

I’m not smart enough or dedicated enough to be on this team. This sounds like I’m being overly self-deprecating, but every two weeks we review metrics that show I am completing less work than anyone else. My work receives the most corrections and I’m generally given easier tasks. Last month, a new hire was assigned to redo my work.

There’s no training available outside of asking each other questions. I do ask questions sometimes, but not every time I’m confused. It’s humiliating to admit I don’t know something basic and it feels too late to be demanding that time from everyone else. I don’t think I can ever catch up enough to be a peer to my teammates.

My manager has been positive about my work and praises my progress. My teammates are all very kind and supportive and show no sign of being unhappy with me. But even if they are satisfied, I am not. I hate feeling like a dead weight. Every day I am reminded that I am the least competent and useful person around, and it really hurts my self-esteem.

I’m lucky to be where I am because I am well-compensated and have learned so much from being around smart people. It’s also a fully remote position which has been a godsend. For these reasons I think I should stay put and just do the best I can. But I question if I am in the right job, since I don’t have the talent for it, and I find it so difficult to cope emotionally with being the worst. I’m curious what you would recommend in this situation.

When I started reading your letter, I initially was going to tell you it isn’t always a terrible thing to be the lowest performer on a team. Someone has to be, after all, and that doesn’t mean that person is incompetent. It can mean they’re good but just not as good as others. Sometimes that’s absolutely fine; many teams need someone to take on the less complex tasks to free others up for work only they can do. If you can play that role capably, it can be very valuable.

But reading further in your letter, it’s so clear you’re unhappy that I question why you’re staying! Just because you were moved into the job doesn’t mean you need to stay in it. You have at least as much input as your employer about whether a position is the right fit for you. If you decide this job isn’t, there’s no shame in moving on to a different one.

I say this because it sounds really awful to regularly feel the way you’re feeling! I’m confident you’re generally capable; the fact that you can see where you’re falling short says you’re a fundamentally competent person — maybe just not at this particular job. So why not look for one where you’ll feel more confident and be better suited to the work, a role where you can bloom and feel successful, rather than constantly worrying that you’re failing?

That said, I do want to urge you to be open to the possibility that things aren’t as bad as you think. You’ve got a manager who praises your work and a supportive team that doesn’t seem unhappy with you. Isn’t it possible that they’re assessing your work differently than you are — maybe evaluating it with different metrics altogether? It may be worth having a candid conversation with your boss in which you share that you feel behind the rest of the team and ask for a blunt assessment of how you’re doing.

Truly, though, if you’re unhappy and the job doesn’t feel like a good fit, you get to move on — no matter what anyone else tells you about how you’re doing. That’s not a failure, and it’s not even a sign you couldn’t cut it. There’s no special merit in staying in a position that’s making you unhappy and where you don’t feel you can thrive.

Originally published at New York Magazine.

You may also like:
{ 172 comments }

is it discrimination that all the moms in the company have to have childcare but the one dad doesn’t?

by Alison Green on June 25, 2024

A reader writes:

Over the past few months, I’ve found myself increasingly frustrated and resentful, and I fear it’s clouding my judgment. Any advice, even if it’s simply to let go, would be appreciated.

I work for a nonprofit that operates across several states. We have a predominantly female workforce, many of whom are mothers with young children. During the pandemic, our organization was extremely flexible in terms of work schedules and remote work, especially for parents managing childcare. However, once child vaccines became widely available, the organization implemented a remote work policy that required full-time childcare during work hours. While there are still allowances for occasional childcare-related work-from-home days, the general rule is that you can’t be the sole caregiver for your children while working.

Overall, the policy has been adhered to, and most employees have found suitable childcare arrangements. However, there’s one exception: a senior manager with a significant portion of the organization reporting to him. During the pandemic, he was allowed to care for his children after school without formal childcare arrangements. When the new policy came into effect, he requested and was granted continued flexibility, which wasn’t communicated to the rest of the organization as an option. It’s been explained that he makes up for missed meetings by working in the evenings and adjusting his schedule, although I haven’t experienced that happening in practice.

While this arrangement may work for him, it’s causing disruptions for the rest of us. We struggle to schedule meetings with colleagues across different time zones because he’s unavailable for half the day. Additionally, his engagement during meetings suffers when he’s multitasking with childcare responsibilities, and he often goes unresponsive after his pick-up time and never replies in the evenings even though he’s supposed to be flexing his time. This situation has led to increased workload for others and has raised questions of fairness, especially when considering the financial burden of childcare that many of us are bearing. I also question if it’s discriminatory to hold all the female staff to the policy and grant the exception to a male staff member only. Additionally, there’s a safety concern that makes me extremely uncomfortable. He frequently takes work calls or communicates on slack while driving his children home, a commute that spans about 1.5 – 2 hours due to living in one metro area and having his kids attend school in another. It’s evident that his attention is divided during these calls, and given the importance of safety while driving, I question whether this should be allowed. I think it has only been given the okay because otherwise he would be completely out of contact for a huge amount of time each day.

I’ve raised these concerns with his manager and my own, but it seems there’s little willingness or ability to address the issue due to the previously granted exception. I’ve also discussed this with several female colleagues who are in a similar situation, and we share a sense of resentment and frustration.

I’m considering reaching out to HR about this but would appreciate guidance on how to approach the conversation. Should I request a similar exception to avoid feeling unequal, or should I focus on the impact this situation is having on our work and propose solutions?

It could be a gender discrimination issue, but it’s also possible (and your company would likely say) that he’s been granted an exception because of seniority and the nature of his role. They’re allowed to give different perks and different privileges to different classes of employees, such as management above a certain level, etc. Of course, if any moms at his level have requested and been denied the same accommodation, that would change things.

It is weird that they’re saying “we already approved this and thus can never walk it back in the future, no matter how poorly it’s working.” They absolutely could say to him “This isn’t working for X reasons and we need to either modify it in Y ways or we need you to find childcare by (date).” That happens all the time. The fact that it isn’t happening here says that either his manager (a) is too weak to deal with it or (b) has decided that they’re willing to pay this as the price of keeping this senior manager.

If it’s (b), HR probably isn’t going to overrule that.

That said, you could try! There’s no reason you can’t share with HR what you’ve shared here, and say that at a minimum the gender optics are terrible. Who knows, something might come of that.

You’re likely to have more luck addressing it from that angle than by advocating for a similar exception for yourself and others. His exception is working so poorly that it’s a pretty strong argument against letting more people do it. And “you can’t care for young children while also working” is a very common — and very reasonable — policy that most companies have. The issue is that he’s not holding up his end of things — but if his management doesn’t care, that might be the end of it.

It’s reasonable to raise the work impacts and the optics and see what happens, though.

You may also like:
{ 212 comments }

managing an interruptor during urban foraging, offering to consult for my old job, and more

by Alison Green on June 25, 2024

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

1. Managing an interruptor during an urban foraging class

A dear friend of mine teaches classes on urban foraging for edible weeds, such as dandelions, creeping wood sorrel, and stinging nettles. She’s written a book on how to identify, ethically forage, and cook common urban weeds. Before teaching the classes, she does a neighborhood walk-through to see what plants are growing in the various public right-a-ways, so she gets an idea of which plants she will feature and how to time and plan the walk/class. I’ve taken her class, and her style is fascinating and engaging. Plus, I know where to find the best sweet pea tendrils in the neighborhood.

Recently, she told me about a class where a know-it-all was in attendance. My friend would be in the middle of discussing a plant, when this person would divert the discussion to another plant nearby, and start talking about it. It happened repeatedly and was frustrating for my friend and probably for the other students who came to learn from my friend. My friend never experienced what felt like a hijacking of her class, and tried to handle it as graciously as she knew how, but ended up wishing she knew a better way of handling the situation. What might she do if she encounters such a weedy situation again?

Once, you let it go. Maybe even twice. But the next time it happens, you say, “Let’s hold that discussion for now so I can finish explaining about this spotted bee balm.” Or another option: “Let me ask you to hold that for now since I don’t want us to run out of time.”

If it happens after that: “There are a lot of plants out here that we could talk about, but with our limited time, I try to focus on the ones I think will be most of interest to the whole group. We can talk after the walk ends about others you’re curious about if you’d like.” Depending on her read of the room (street? field?), she could say that to him privately or to the group.

She probably should build in some time for extemporaneous discussions when people have thoughts or questions about something they’re seeing (and your friend probably already does that because she sounds great at this). But that’s different than continually accommodating off-topic interruptions when she’s in the middle of talking.

2. How can I offer to consult for my old job when I quit?

I have worked at my small nonprofit for almost four years. Due to poor leadership, negligence on the part of the board, and a difficult working environment, I am job searching and think/hope I will have a job offer very soon. I believe strongly in the mission of the nonprofit and I like everyone here, but it’s just such an oddly toxic workplace with very little support that I have to go.

I oversee almost everything operational here, though. I plan on giving a couple weeks notice and do my best to get everything prepared to hand-off to others, but I am sure I will get regular calls, texts, and emails with questions. I would like to set the boundary that I am willing to assist within reason and as a paid contractor/consultant. Would you suggest that be part of the resignation letter or how would you suggest going about that and what would the wording look like?

It shouldn’t be part of the resignation letter; that should be very short, just one or two sentences, as it’s simply to document a decision that you’ll hopefully have already relayed via a conversation. If you want to make that offer, it can be part of the resignation conversation, or one later as you’re discussing the transition. For example: “If it would be helpful, I’d be happy to set up a short-term consulting arrangement for the first few months after I’ve left. If that might be helpful, I can propose rates and other details.”

If they say they don’t think they’ll need it, you could say, “My sense is that I’m likely to get a lot of calls and emails with questions, so I want to make sure have a plan for handling that. But if you don’t think it’s needed, I’ll just flag it for you if it does indeed happen.” (And then if that happens and they’re not paying you, email your former boss about what’s happening and make the offer a second time. If they decline, then so be it — but also don’t answer more than one or two questions if so.)

All that said … I urge you to reconsider offering it. It’s going to keep you tethered to your old job right when you need to pour your energy into the new one, and it will deny you the joy of a clean break (a particular joy, and mental health relief, when you’re escaping a dysfunctional environment). It really is okay to just leave and be fully gone; they will figure things out. I know nonprofit work often makes you feel an extra obligation (and I have been there myself) but, truly, it’s okay to just be gone when you go. Leave behind reasonable documentation (95% of which no one will ever read, but it will make you feel better) and just go. They’ll survive. (And if they won’t survive because of that, they weren’t going to anyway and you’re just prolonging the inevitable.)

3. I want to return to the office — but I’d need a salary increase to move

I’ve been working at my company for a little over two years as a salaried employee. Previously I had freelanced for them for another two years before that.

I am remote, and have been since the beginning, and for the most part I really like it. All of our work is via Slack internally or involves working with freelancers internationally, so it’s not like I’m needed in the office … but I am so lonely!

Freelancing and then remote work has been a very isolating, quiet experience for me. I’m grateful for the freedom, but I would really like to be in the same city, at least, as the rest of my team, who are all young, creative types who I really respect and admire. They have events, hangouts, team dinners, and meetings, and I feel like I’m missing out on networking and relationships. People come into the office when they like and the company is not asking for anything more than one company-wide day a month, so I could still pick and choose the days I came in and worked in person.

I’m in a low-cost-of-living area, literally across the country from everyone else (and so my salary reflects this), compared to the coworkers who are located in a very high-cost-of-living area where the office is. (I’m not 100% sure of the pay difference in terms of having hard numbers from coworkers, but when I was hired they did mention that they do a lower salary range for different areas.)

I would love to move — and coworkers have said that they would love to have me in the office if I did — but I have no idea how to ask for a potential raise or pay bump when they’re not asking me to come back to office. I’m pretty young, with no kids, and a long-term partner (who is seeking work in the same industry), so I’m in a decent position to uproot my life if I need to. Am I just taking my remote freedom for granted here? Am I crazy?

Talk to your manager! Say it this way: “I’m really interested in moving to (city) so that I can be on-site in the office more often. When I was hired, you mentioned that the company pegs salaries based on the cost-of-living in the area where an employee is located, and that I’d have a lower range while I was in (current city). How would that work if I moved to (new city)? I’m interested in being there in-person but couldn’t do it on a salary that isn’t pegged to the area.”

4. Banning smoking on breaks

I’m not a smoker, but my company has strict rules banning smoking. I understand they can ban it from the premises, but they go so far as to say that you can’t smoke on your unpaid meal breaks, at all. Can they do this? Do they have the right to enforce that policy and say my coworkers can’t leave the property and go down the street to smoke?

It depends on your state and your industry. In many states, employers are free to refuse to hire smokers at all (although some states have passed laws making that illegal) and in those states they could indeed mandate no smoking during work hours. Even in states that protect smokers, employers can generally enforce anti-smoking rules if not smoking is an important part of the job (for example, a health care job might ban smoking during breaks so that you don’t come back smelling like smoke around patients).

5. Should I tell this employer why I’m withdrawing from their hiring process?

I am a military spouse job-hunting from across the country as we prepare to move from one coast to another. I recently had a bizarre interaction with a prospective employer and wanted to know what you think.

I had my first interview on a Monday via Zoom and was contacted the next day to request a second interview … that same Friday, in person. I was concerned that they were not willing to do a Zoom interview a second time given the distance, but I understand some information is easier to gather face-to-face. That said, this was not a situation where they needed me to fly in because I was a finalist; the first round interview was basically a screener so I know I was one of several candidates for the second round. I should also note that this was not for a senior-level position; it pays about $45K and is an administrative role.

I was also concerned when they declined to reimburse me for my flight costs. It’s standard in my industry (higher education) to do so, but I sort of waved it off because it is a smaller school that probably does not interview non-local candidates very often, if ever.

Finally, they called me again on Wednesday that week canceling the interview citing unforeseen circumstances; this was about 18 hours before my flight was set to leave. Thankfully, I was able to get everything refunded.

Despite all these issues, I did end up taking a second interview when they called to reschedule (side note: the people in the second interview were the same people from the first interview) because I had some moving tasks that could be done while I was in town. However, from this process I inferred that this team was not going to be a great fit. I felt like they were asking for a lot of flexibility on my part while being very inflexible on their part. I have small children so a workplace that is understanding of the demands that go along with school calendars and constant sickness is very important to me, and I just can’t reconcile that with “please pay out of pocket for a flight on a holiday weekend in 48 hours.” My question is whether there is a way to offer this feedback or just leave it at a “I don’t think this is a good fit” if they contact me again. Or if I’m totally off-base and this is a normal amount of commitment to expect from a candidate!

You’re not off-base. If you ask someone to pay their own travel costs for an interview and then cancel that interview at the last minute, you at a minimum should inquire about whether their ticket will be refundable and cover it if it’s not.

That’s leaving aside the question of whether they should have been paying for it in the first place and there are a bunch of factors that go into that. Ultimately, if they have plenty of strong local candidates, I don’t have a problem with them declining to cover travel for long-distance ones, but it’s inconsiderate to ask you to fly out before you’re a finalist.

But I don’t think there’s much to be gained by telling them this unsolicited. The interview process worked as it’s supposed to: you learned enough to determine that the job wouldn’t be a good fit for you. If they contact you again, it’s enough to just say you’re withdrawing from consideration. (Although if they ask why, at that point you can certainly say that you’re looking for a workplace where flexibility goes both ways and your sense is that it’s not a good fit in that regard.)

You may also like:
{ 249 comments }

the coffee revolt, the blue spoon abduction, and other wild overreactions at work

by Alison Green on June 24, 2024

Last week we talked about wild overreactions at work. Here are 10 of my favorite stories you shared.

1. The cups

At my company, we used to use paper cups at our cafe (where we get lattes for 50 cents). When we switched to reusable cups, it was OUTRAGE.

The announcement post on our internal social media page about the change got 153 comments, about half of which were along the lines of: “But then the mugs will get mixed with water mugs, and our water will always taste like coffee! Is your plan for employees to dehydrate on company premises?” “But paper is important for carbon sequestriation!” “The real issue is the plastic salt grinders! What are you doing to get rid of those?” “What we really want is sparkling water!” “You removed our Mentos last month, and these were critical for cleaning my teeth. What are you doing to fix this?” “Every time we have a birthday in the office it breaks my heart to see people blowing up balloons.”

It was … a lot.

2. The field color change

I worked at a hospital where they decided to make a very small change in the electronic medical record. It literally was changing the color of mandatory fields from pink to blue. That’s it. No workflow change, no extra work. But you would think they implemented a whole new EMR. People were throwing tantrums and there was even a picket in the hospital lobby to change the color back to pink. And for months afterwards in the quarterly town hall, there would be a passionate person always asking if the color could go back to pink.

3. The subpar coffee

The year is 2003. My office is responsible for coordinating an annual meeting for all staff that has traditionally taken place off site. This year, for various reasons, we try a new site that none of us has been to before, but has a decent reputation and comes well recommended.
The day of the meeting arrives. All is in readiness. But! The coffee is … subpar.

Disaster! EVERYONE is talking about the crappy coffee. The company director MENTIONS THE CRAPPY COFFEE IN HIS WELCOME SPEECH. People are coming up to me all day, griping about the coffee. Post-meeting evaluation forms start rolling in: “Site was okay, presentations were great, coffee sucked.” And I mean, not just one or two. I mean, like, most of them. “Please, let’s never go back there. The coffee was so, so bad.” Fifteen years later, I was STILL getting complaints about That Year When The Coffee Was Bad from my fellow old-timers. We no longer go off-site for our meetings, but I guarantee that there are people here who, if you asked, would remember 2003 as the Year of the Bad Coffee.

Thing is, I had the coffee! It was … not great, but drinkable. Like, I’ve had much better, but it wasn’t the complete bilgewater my esteemed colleagues made it out to be. I guess I’m just surrounded by people who take their coffee very, very seriously.

4. The angry resignation

My then-boss, who was director-level at our organization. He went into the weekly directors meeting (held on Tuesdays), announced he was quitting (with nothing else lined up), and that his last day was the following Thursday (because our office is closed on Fridays in the summer).

He then took two vacation days (Wednesday, Thursday), we were closed Fridays, and he was off-site Monday and Tuesday for a pre-contracted thing. He came in on Wednesday to begin packing up his office and decided to peel all the tiny barcode labels off ALL his equipment (laptop, monitors, keyboard, docking station, etc.) and throw them away, then put his computer equipment in different drawers and cabinets in his office, all separate. I have no idea why he did this, because his beef was with the executive-level people and the people he screwed over with those actions were our help desk people, most of whom were summer (paid) interns.

He also factory-reset his work-issued phone, then set it back up with a passcode just to screw with people.

Then, having done all of that on Wednesday, he sent an email to our executive director that was time-delayed to be delivered AFTER he’d returned his access badge in which he told her, “I’ve turned in my badge, cleaned out my office, and I’m leaving at 1:30 forever. Don’t try to contact me, don’t try to reach out to me, forget you know me.”

Which … overdramatic, yes. But also, we work in an industry (education) with mandatory reference checks from previous places of employment because most of our staff has state-issues professional licenses that are tied to employment. After he left, it came out he and the director of HR, whom he oversaw, were sleeping together and later got married. She quit the week after him and when he was hired at another institution she misrepresented that she was still working here, provided the reference checks, he got hired, and then it came out that he had lied and she had lied, and he got fired.

It was WILD.

5. The blue spoon abduction

The blue spoon abduction of 2005.

I worked with a woman who was known for being rather peculiar. Our company did not stock the kitchen, so we all pitched in or brought things from home. One employee had brought in these blue plastic spoons left over from a party they had hosted on a weekend. Just cheap plastic disposable spoons, nothing fancy. In due course they were used up, but this woman, “Jane,” kept her dark blue spoon and would reuse it. Fine, nobody cared.

Well, one fateful morning we arrived to find her in a full-blown rage demanding to know “who did it?” She finally clarified that “her” blue spoon was missing, nay, TAKEN by some dastardly villian. She interrogated us one by one, challenging us to account for our whereabouts the previous afternoon. Desks were searched. Drawers emptied. She even insisted we would show her our bags (no). A few of us pointed out that perhaps the cleaning crew, rightly considering a used disposable spoon garbage, threw it away. She got very still and hissed, “THEY. WOULDN’T. DARE.” Her inquisition lasted a solid three days before management, determining just how many company resources were being devoted to a blue disposable spoon, shut it down and replaced the missing plastic spoon with a package of assorted white disposable cutlery. This sent her over the edge. Nobody, and she means NOBODY, will make her use a white spoon. Also, plastic knives? Who would deign to bring that in … nobody wants that!! She would rather quit than work in “this lawless hellhole, where people think stealing is okay.”

She didn’t follow through on this promise (oops, I mean “threat”) and just sort of gave us all the silent treatment for the next couple of weeks.

We were in the process of digitizing decades worth of files, which were stored in the basement. During one shift down there, a coworker and I were moving new stacks of boxes towards the staging area. Lo and behold, what should fall off one of the stacks but the wayward spoon. My coworker and I knew no good would come from being caught with the contraband spoon, so we stashed it out of sight in the ceiling tiles (by this point Jane was daily checking everyone’s garbage in case Spoon’s corpse was being disposed of … or possibly for trace evidence, I don’t know). It became a running joke, a Tell-Tale Heart of the sound of spoons coming from the basement.

I left the company about six months later. Jane left about a year later. My old coworker reached out to tell me: as a parting gift, he came in early and slipped the spoon back into her desk drawer all the way at the back. He said watching her empty out her desk just to discover it was priceless. He said she looked around surreptitiously, slid the spoon in her packed box of belongings, and never said a word.

I hope Spoon is happy, reunited with its devoted mistress.

6. The travel itinerary

My boss hosted a mandatory seven-hour meeting (SEVEN WHOLE HOURS) with the entire staff to discuss a flight time change to her upcoming trip. She was headed to a conference, and the airline changed her flight so she was traveling through a different connecting airport and arriving two hours later than originally planned.

But I was young, naive, and flattered that the boss convened a seven-hour meeting with all of us to discuss the “ethics” of her going. Yes, she used that word because she wanted to make sure she was always available to us no matter what (this was in the days before cell phones) and she wanted to “do right by [her] staff.” She wanted to hear from me!!!

What if the flight was late? What if she missed it? What if she missed her connection? What if she got stuck somewhere? What if there was an emergency landing? What if the conference started a day earlier? What if traffic made her late to the hotel? This flight change “disrupted” all of her mental plans, so she needed staff to “band together” and brainstorm as many ideas as possible so she would be prepared no matter what happened. She needed our help because she didn’t know which choice to make! Every time we came up with a plan, she’d start up with, “Maybe I shouldn’t go at all. Can we talk about that? What would happen if I didn’t go?” Then when we exhausted that topic, she’d start up again with “Maybe I should go then. You all make a great argument. Can we have a reset on that conversation?”

The punchline? Her assistant missed that seven-hour meeting because she was sick. When I told the assistant about it, she laughed and said, “Seven-hour meeting? Rebooked flight? Brainstorming? What? Boss had me cancel her travel plans two weeks ago. Her stepdaughter is in town so she wanted to spend time with her instead. She was never going to go to that conference!”

That’s how I learned that Boss looooooooooooooooooved to be babied and fussed over. That was the real purpose of staff meetings.

7. The supplies

I had a coworker (and I say “worker” lightly, as she had a severe truancy problem that HR and my terrible manager didn’t want to deal with) freak out because the after-hours cleaning staff threw out some of the office supplies that she was hoarding. She kept the office supplies not in a drawer, but in an additional TRASH BIN UNDERNEATH HER DESK. With a little sign that said “Don’t throw away” taped to it. She would scavenge empty desks and keep excess supplies in there. It should be noted that we both worked for a large company that was never in a shortage of anything, with well-stocked supply rooms.

Anyway, the morning that her second trash bin/supply hoard (that she never touched, by the way) had been emptied, she had a full-scale meltdown. Screaming, crying, and got the head of facilities to come to her desk and calmly explain to her that mistakes happen, and maybe she shouldn’t store random pens in a trash bin. All of this went over her head, as she had a sign to not throw away. I wish I could say that was the craziest that she had ever behaved, but it was one of her biggest overreactions.

8. The plan

Worked for a small association (think Llama Growers of Medium Size State). My boss would often blow up at people for small things she had misunderstood. She was also notoriously late to meetings, so she would miss context and become enraged about something she didn’t hear right.

So we’re in a meeting, she is late, comes in when I’m mid-explanation, and is clearly peeved. But we’re at a large meeting, where we will be for several days. It quickly becomes apparent that she is mad at me, but will not explain why. She ends up screaming at me in public that I have been lying to her for months and she’s tired of it. I have no idea what she’s talking about and she won’t explain further. The meeting ends and we go our separate ways. And then she refuses to speak to me for six weeks. Like, won’t return phone calls (we were 100% remote), answers emails in one or two word replies. After six weeks, we agree to meet with a mediator so she can tell me all the ways I’m a terrible employee. At one of the meetings, I get the opportunity to ask again, “Why were you so mad at me?” And she finally tells me: She walked in to the meeting late and heard part of the conversation, which she completely misinterpreted as me talking about her behind her back (I was not). Plus, she doesn’t like it when I use the phrase “my plan.” As in “my plan for the day is to brush the llamas.” She thought it was exclusionary and I wasn’t including her. The mediator had clearly already heard all of this and just sat there looking embarrassed.

I finally left that job a year later. On my last week, she desperately tried to get me to teach her all the things about my job that she’d refused to learn earlier. I told her it wasn’t my plan to do that.

9. The bad customer list

(I don’t know if this is an overreaction exactly, but it’s hilarious so I’m including it.)

I had a coworker who kept a list of “bad customers” and posted it on their wall. While this was clearly less than professional, what drove it over the line was that our customers were all internal customers and could have seen it if they visited our department (which happened from time to time).

10. The HVAC system

I used to work for a public library. It was a pretty old building with a run-down HVAC system that faltered pretty frequently. One day it broke down entirely; it was a relatively mild day, so it wasn’t too bad, but it got pretty stuffy and warm in there, and customers and staff both started to complain. So Mac, one of the librarians, opened the windows — they were about 10 feet off the ground and needed a pole to open, and that helped a lot. Like I said, it was mild, not cold, maybe in the upper 60s.

Five minutes after he opened them, though, the other librarian, Jon, got up, got the pole, and closed the windows. Mac opened them again and told Jon that the customers and most of the staff wanted them open; Jon said he didn’t care, he was freezing. Mac offered to let Jon off the desk and go work elsewhere in the building that didn’t have windows; Jon refused. Mac patiently said that the windows were gonna stay open, so Jon stormed away and came back a few minutes later wearing a heavy winter coat, scarf, hat, and gloves. He refused to take them off and was very surly for the rest of the day, occasionally saying things like “Well, I guess I’LL help you find this BOOK you want because MOVING AROUND is the only way to STAY WARM.”

Once the HVAC got fixed a couple of days later he asked very loudly if he could close the windows; once he had done so, he took off his winterwear while very smugly looking at anyone who’d make eye contact with him.

You may also like:
{ 309 comments }