Ask a Manager

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

1. My coworker said his boss kneed him in the groin

This is a bit of a doozy, and now I’m worried that I might have screwed things up.

My partner works in security, and has a coworker we’ll call Fergus. He also has a boss, “Jane,” and grandboss, “Marshall.”

Fergus had purportedly been on vacation for three weeks prior to today. But he told my partner that he had actually been on mental health leave. Fergus said that after an incident where he accidentally let someone in when they shouldn’t have been (though he said it was quickly resolved and no one got hurt), Jane pulled him aside and and assaulted him with a knee to the groin (!) while Marshall watched and did nothing (!!) A very serious matter, certainly, and according to Fergus, he is working with both their union and HR about it.

Here’s the thing: I don’t think it happened. Why? Because Fergus is a known problem employee, according to my partner, and has a pretty bad reputation among most staff. He is, by reputation, pretty lazy and has been previously reported for showing pictures of graphic violence around the workplace (I know this because it happened to my partner; he reported it to Jane, who mentioned that she has been putting together a file on Fergus’ bad behavior.)

Given all of that, I advised that my partner report what Fergus had told him to HR and let them know what he claimed. My rationale is this: If it isn’t a lie, then HR can assure him that they’re handling it. If it is a lie, though, HR should know that Fergus is spreading a malicious rumor, and work to protect Jane and Marshall (and my partner, who didn’t ask and didn’t want to know!) from any damaging fallout.

Having advised that, though, I’m now second-guessing myself. Is that the right action to take?

Yes. Either scenario — a manager responds to an employee’s mistake by kneeing them in the groin while their own boss stands by and watches, or someone is falsely accusing them of that — is HR-worthy.

If Fergus is telling the truth, then he’s already working with HR on it and your partner won’t be breaking any confidences by relaying it to them. If he’s not telling the truth, then this is a highly damaging thing for him to say about Jane and Marshall, and HR should be aware of that too.

Read an update to this letter. 

2. I was asked to give extra feedback to a colleague’s son when we rejected him

This is something that happened to me several years ago but I’ve always wondered about its appropriateness. I work as a professor for a privately-owned, religion-sponsored institution of higher education that focuses on teaching rather than research. The organizational structure mimics that of our religious organization, which is very hierarchical (basically, if someone above you tells you to do something, you do it). If you’re a member of our religion, it’s a good place to work (not sure if you’d like it if you weren’t, but we don’t hire “non-members” as a rule).

I was our department chair at this time (a revolving appointment) and we were hiring a new faculty member. Three candidates were invited for the final stages of the process, which involves interviews with the the department chair, the department as a whole, the dean, the provost, an academic administrator, a representative from HR, a member of our religion’s leadership, and the president of the university. So it’s a fairly grueling process. Our department meets to make our recommendations and then I take that to an administrative committee.

The three candidates were as follows: Tom was already working for us on a temporary contract but was applying for a full-time position. Jane was a bit older, working in private practice but had a varied academic background. Harry was much younger, had just finished up his Ph.D., and I believe it was his first time applying for a position. Significantly, Harry’s father already worked for us but in another department with very little interaction with ours. Each candidate had strengths and weaknesses and it wasn’t an easy call, but in the end the department recommended Tom. I took that to the executive hiring committee and, after a little discussion, everyone agreed that Tom would be a good addition.

Our president, perhaps trying to be sensitive to Harry’s father (who had no part in this hiring process), said to me, “It’s a shame we can’t hire Harry. After the candidates have been notified, I’d like you to meet with him privately and discuss how he could improve his application if he applies again.” I was taken aback as this was not something that we had ever done before. I tried to catch the eye of the HR director but he remained silent. So I agreed and contacted Harry to set up a meeting where I tried to do as I was asked. It was a bit awkward, but Harry was quite courteous, though obviously a bit disappointed. And that was that. I think Harry did try to apply one more time, but the position wasn’t a good fit and he didn’t get an interview. But I’ve always wondered … isn’t this a little strange? Harry hadn’t requested it and there was no talk of having a similar discussion with Jane who, I assume, was also disappointed with the outcome.

It’s not terribly unusual to offer extra feedback to someone who has a personal connection to an employee. Often that’s for political reasons — to keep the employee feeling like the candidate connected to them was treated well and that the connection was recognized and treated thoughtfully. People can feel like the personal connection should give the candidate an extra boost (it shouldn’t in the case of kids, but people often feel it should) and so it can smooth things over politically if they feel like extra care was given.

That said, it can be a problematic practice! It gives an extra advantage to a group of people who may not need it (by definition, those with better networks), while denying those extra advantages to people without strong networks, and it can reinforce and add to disparities by race (because there are racial disparities in who has access to those sorts of connections in the first place).

3. Talking to my boss about feeling unappreciated

I wonder if you have any advice or scripts to use with my manager to broach the subject of feeling unappreciated. I report directly to our small company’s CEO, who freely admits to not being a “touchy-feely” people manager, attributing that to her background as an engineer. I don’t expect constant praise, but I want to feel valued, especially as she can be a demanding boss. She often doesn’t include me in key meetings, makes decisions that impact me and my team without looping us in, focuses tightly on tactical execution even when I bring up softer issues like culture or burnout, etc. Maybe this is something to suck up and not bother mentioning at all? I am job-searching diligently but no luck yet and I expect it to take some time.

Can you come up with two specific things that you’d like to ask for and focus on those? I think you’ll have better luck if you go to her with something specific you want — like being included in a particular type of meeting — rather than a more general complaint of feeling unappreciated. (It’s not that “I feel unappreciated” isn’t good info for a manager to have — it is — but based on what you wrote about this specific manager, I think you’re likely to get better results if you translate that into more narrow and concrete requests.)

4. Old job keeps contacting me with questions

I left my old job about seven months ago. I very much enjoyed that job but my boss and my boss’s boss left, leaving me the only person in the department. The organization was unable to give me a raise or hire anyone else due to financial issues. I didn’t feel I had enough experience (or desire) to do the work of three people so I left.

Right after I left, I got one or two follow-up questions, but in the last month or two I’ve gotten two different texts, an email, and a request for a phone call. They aren’t contacting my old boss (I’ve spoken with them), I guess because he left before me. I want them to consider my time valuable so I want to tell them any further communication will require a fee, but I feel weird charging for a text exchange or quick call. Any ideas how to handle this?

“I was happy to answer one or two quick questions after I left, but it seems like the questions are increasing. Would you want to set up a short-term consulting agreement where I’d continue helping out for up to X hours per month?” (X should be a very low number like three so they don’t think you’re offering to come back part-time.)

Reasonable people will understand that means “pay me or stop contacting me.” But if they don’t take you up on that offer and keep contacting you anyway, at that point you can say, “I really can’t keep answering questions on top of my regular job for free but wish you all the best with it.” And then feel free to stop responding.

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

1. Coworker says she loves shoplifting

I’ve been angsting over a coworker interaction that I just let go by. I am the oldest and most domesticated person in my workplace, but I try hard not to give off “work mom” vibes. Maybe I have been too successful?

“Jane” works full-time in an admin role at our public library. She is fresh out of high school, so new to the workplace. She was chatting with “Cindy,” who shares my work space, when she started talking about how much she loves shoplifting. She hastened to add that she takes things only from large corporations and obviously would never steal from the library, where all our things are free. She concluded, “I love that I can say that here.”

She emphatically cannot say that here! She definitely can’t say it in front of me! I do not supervise her work but it’s hardly outside the realm of possibility that someone would ask me for an opinion on her and now I have major doubts about her integrity and her judgment.

What, if anything, should I have said in the moment? She wasn’t even exactly talking to me. Was I right to ignore it? I’m worried I gave the impression that I DO think shoplifting is okay.

“You really can’t say that here” would have been a fine response. Or, “Definitely do not say that here, or at any job.” Or, “Whoa, no, that’s not something you should say at work.”

But it’s so normal that you were too surprised to say anything in the moment! And I don’t think anyone observing would come away assuming you condone stealing.

2. How do I talk about where I went to college without people assuming things about me?

I’m in a phase of my career where people are, rightly, often asking where and in what I received my undergraduate training. I went to a not super well-known college, but when people know it they are very aware that it is deeply religiously affiliated (mandatory chapel, extensive religious coursework, strict behavioral code, etc). I was religious when I attended there but am not anymore and am uncomfortable with people seeming to assume that I still follow that faith when I tell them where I went to school. But I feel equally awkward launching into an “I was religious but I’m not anymore” spiel when I see that people recognize the school. I am proud of the education that I received there and believe it was sound so I don’t feel the need to hide it overall, I just want to avoid the assumptions. Any advice for good verbiage to navigate these situations?

“I’ve changed a lot since I chose it.” Leave it there; it’s short and sums it up without going into defensive-sounding detail.

That said … if the school is known for bigotry (something like Liberty University or similar), there’s a high risk of people assuming you’re aligned with its anti-LGBTQ and anti-civil-rights views. If you’re not, I’d make a point of looking for other ways to demonstrate that.

3. Can I ask an old employer to take over a specific person’s job?

This question is purely theoretical, as I intend to be at my current job forever, but what are your thoughts on calling up an old employer and asking to take over a specific person’s role? I normally wouldn’t dream of it but there are a few things in this situation that make me think there’s an outside chance this might be okay:

1. My boss had been preparing me for a supervisory role, and I only didn’t move into that position due a company acquisition where they retained all their staff and someone higher up the chain decided to keep on the supervisor from the new company.
2. I had been routinely doing multiple tasks that should have been done by this new supervisor, but she never got the hang of it. While I was working there, I could not have told you what she did on any given day, and she never seemed very knowledgeable about routine business operations.
3. From what I understand from employees I’m still in contact with, she’s routinely unavailable for hours at a time, mishandles routine technical issues, and still can’t give basic answers. The duties I’d been handling that should have been under her umbrella got passed on to a different employee who is on the same level I used to be.

I admit that she may have very time-intensive duties that keep her away from her phone, Teams, and email and may have extensive knowledge of some other part of the business that others are not aware of. That said, I’ve heard from a few people that it looks like she does nothing all day aside from occasionally micromanaging employees about minor issues, and you’d generally expect a supervisor to be more available to their employees and to be more knowledgeable about the business (especially since she’s been there for going on four years now).

With all that in mind, would it still be an overstep to call up and say, “I’d like to come back and have so-and-so’s job”?

It would be overstepping. You can’t call up a company you no longer work for and say, essentially, “Fire Jane and hire me instead.”

But what you can do is talk to whoever’s in charge of that role and say, “If Jane ever moves on, I’d be really interested in talking with you about moving into that role.” And if they’re unhappy with Jane’s performance, that might nudge them to get moving on it (and knowing they have a person they know and trust to take over can sometimes get people over the hump of “who will we ever find to replace her?” if that’s something they’re stuck on).

But for what it’s worth, for someone who doesn’t work there anymore (and who intends to be at your current job forever!) you sound too invested in what’s going on at your old company. You don’t need to think or care or even know about any of this anymore!

4. Is this the one time I should accept a counteroffer?

I have read all of your columns about not accepting counter-offers from your current employer. I love my current employer, but I applied for another job somewhat on a whim. See what I’m worth in today’s market. New Company offered me a job with a 24% increase in salary.

My current employer and I have been discussing promoting me to a manager in the next 2-3 years. When I gave notice, they tried to counter-offer but the CFO would not increase my comp at this time. But they said the manager role would be included in next year’s budget and the salary in the manager role would be the same as what this new job offer is.

The new job is more money now, but it’s a consultant role and not as safe from layoffs. My current job is very safe. Does it make sense to stay?

That’s not really a counter-offer. They’re not paying you more! They’re promising they will next year … but they’re not doing it now, and all sorts of things could change between now and then. How will you feel if next year rolls around and they tell you, whoops, there’s no money in the budget for it now? (And to be clear, they wouldn’t need to be planning on screwing you over for that to happen. Something could come up that they consider a higher priority or the budget could be tighter than anticipated.)

Choose between your job and salary as they are now and the other offer. The option they’re trying to convince you will exist next year isn’t real right now. If they want to convince you it is, the way for them do that is to actually make those changes now.

Relevant horror stories:

my company made a counter-offer to keep me — and now is attaching strings to it

my employer made me a counteroffer, then rescinded it

5. How can I get more info on maternity leave without starting a conversation I’m not ready for?

I just found out I’m pregnant (YAY!) and am struggling to get clarity on maternity leave policies for my organization. I’m about a year into my role. Knowing that starting a family was in my future, I had made a point of asking about the culture around family planning during the interview process. I was assured that it’s a very parent-friendly workplace, as someone on my team was able to take six months of leave recently. They didn’t share the specifics of how she was able to do that, though.

Now that I’m pregnant, I’m on the hunt for information about the leave I can take. I’ve searched our benefits site, but all I’m seeing are state-mandated 12-week parental leave policies. I also dug up the benefits documentation I was provided at the time of my hire, which doesn’t spell it out clearly either. It’s possible that parental leave may be part of the short term disability coverage (which would be up to six months), but I just can’t tell! We have about 10,000 employees so it’s a big company.

I want to ask someone in HR for more clarity and alleviate some of the stress I’m feeling about this, but I’m still a few weeks away from being ready to share the news with them, my manager, or any of my colleagues. If I were to reach out to HR, what kind of confidentiality can I expect? I know that they work for the company, not for me, and I’m worried that they could bring it to my manager’s attention even if I frame it as a question “for the future.” Can you advise?

Generally speaking, the larger your company, the safer it is to ask — the less chance an HR person will mention it to your boss (and also the less chance they’ll see it as a significant disruption since they’ll have plenty of experience with people taking parental leave). At a 10,000-person company, I’d just go ahead and ask. Frame it as, “I keep meaning to look into our parental leave policy. I’m not able to find it on our benefits site.”

They’re likely to just forward it to you without inquiry the same way they would if you asked about health insurance open enrollment or similar. But if anyone does ask you anything, respond with a breezy, “No current plans, just curious for now.”

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

1. My coworker won’t stop talking about how young I am

I’m 27 and working at an international nonprofit (very touchy-feely) that’s fully remote. I’ve been here three years and I think I do fairly good work. I was recently visiting a city where one of my coworkers lives (she’s 42) and she kindly showed me around and we got a few meals and drinks together. We’re in the same position and work very closely together and talk pretty much every day over Slack, so it would have been odd if we didn’t get together. She’s lovely but also a lot.

On our weekly calls, she unabashedly shares a lot of personal info and often disparages people in their 20s. I’ve kept silent during these rants. I normally try to keep pretty strong boundaries at work and don’t share much about myself, so no one knew how old I was or much about my personal life. When I visited her, she asked about my age and I couldn’t outright lie so I told her. Most of my friends are in their 30s–50s+ and I can confidently say she talks about age more than anyone I’ve ever met! Over the three days I was there, she brought up my age numerous times and made comments about how I’m a “baby” and can’t understand things because I don’t have enough life experience. At one point, I was at lunch with her and her friend (who has volunteered for our company a few times), and she announced I was a “spy among us” because I’m in my 20s.

Ugh. I get that there is wisdom that comes with age, but this is exactly the reason I had not mentioned my age to anyone at work. I’m feeling incredibly anxious now. I know the solution is just to keep performing highly and keep my head down but do you have any advice for how to assuage my anxiety or get her to tone it down? Is this normal coworker banter? I know I can’t put the cat back in the bag but I’m regretting the trip and worried it will affect my credibility at work with the rest of the staff if she starts making these comments in meetings.

No, this isn’t normal. This is your coworker being obnoxiously hung up on age. But even if she makes comments like that around other people, it’s not likely to affect your credibility; these people have already worked with you for years and formed opinions abou your work. That’s not likely to suddenly be undone because she reveals your age or calls you a “baby” (WTF).

That said, if she keeps harping on it — and especially if she comments on it in front of anyone else — you’d be on solid ground in saying to her one-on-one, “Could you please stop commenting on my age? I know you don’t mean harm by it, but comments like that undermine me professionally. I want people to know me for my work, not dwell on my age.” If you want to mix it up, there’s also: “You seem really focused on my age. It’s getting weird — can we drop it?”

But you definitely don’t need to be anxious about this. She’s the one who looks bad, not you. (Also, 27 … is not an age you need to feel weird about. It’s not an “OMG, she’s brand new to the work world and will need to guided through everything” age. People will assume competence unless you give them a reason not to.)

Related:
how should I handle questions about my age at work?

2. How to ask if off-site meetings will provide food and coffee

Is it unprofessional to ask if lunch will be provided at an off-site event or training happening over lunchtime? Same question for events happening first thing in the morning and asking about breakfast/coffee.

When I’ve asked this question in the past, my coworkers and manager have chuckled, like I’m focusing on the wrong things. I definitely do NOT want colleagues or external contacts to think I care more about free food than about the work! But I’m someone who likes to plan ahead. I’d rather not show up having already eaten if I’m expected to eat with everyone, or packing my own food that will have to go bad in my backpack. Or, having assumed coffee would be available at an 8 am event and wind up not being my sharpest because I didn’t buy my own somewhere else and bring it. If it is acceptable to ask, is there phrasing you recommend?

It’s not unprofessional to ask! That said, while it should be fine to say “given the hour, do we know if they’re providing lunch?” I can see why it feels weird if you’re always the only one who asks and people are chuckling.

Does your organization ever provide meals or coffee at these events? If the answer is never or almost never, you’re better off just assuming that will continue to be the case, or that they’ll mention it if they’re going to (since it would be a change).

But if it’s a crapshoot, it’s reasonable to address that pattern — so you’re not asking before each individual event, but instead are saying something like, “It’s hard to predict when events and trainings are going to provide breakfast or lunch and I’m always eating beforehand when I shouldn’t or going hungry over lunchtime when there’s no food. Could we start letting everyone know ahead of time when food will or won’t be provided so we can bring our own if we need to?”

And if they’re not reliably providing coffee for off-site morning meetings, just always plan to bring your own (and feel free to suggest that they rethink that).

3. Hiring manager told me to “harass the hell out of him” for another interview

I’ve been interviewing at a place I really like. During the second interview, the hiring manager said he wants to schedule me for a third interview with the manager of my sector, who is the person I would interact with the most on a day-to-day basis should I get an offer. He gave me his personal number and told me that he is trying to manage various interviews with different departments all across the company. He said, “I’d like to promise I’ll remember to call you next week, but with all I have going on, there’s a chance I won’t, so please call and text. Harass the hell out of me because I really do want you back in for a third interview.”

What does that mean? How often should I call or text in this situation? I know he said to harass him but I don’t want to run the risk of harassing him too much and losing out on the job opportunity. At the same time, I don’t want to sit back and risk being forgotten about.

He’s just saying that you shouldn’t be shy about following up if you don’t hear back from him. If we’re in “next week” now and you haven’t heard from him yet, call or text today. If two more days go by with nothing, follow up again (and change the way you do it; if you first called, then text this time, and vice versa). If you don’t hear from him at all this week, try again on Tuesday. After that I’d wait for a full week to go by before trying again … and at that point I’d stop because that would be a level of disorganization that I wouldn’t be eager to take on as his team member.

Crucial note: This would be too much follow-up in most situations! I’m advising it here only because he asked you to.

4. I mixed up Passover dates

After a long job search, I finally had an interview in a field I really want to get back into. It went pretty well and I have reason to be hopeful. However, there is something that is making me anxious. I had just bought a new planner and fully expected it to contain Passover since it had the daylight savings changes of three different countries. So when they asked about upcoming days I would need off, I flicked through to check but it wasn’t there so I told them from memory and I got it a bit off in a way that I worry will be hard to explain to non-Jews.

I said April 22 … which is not exactly right. It starts at sundown on the 22nd … and I would want that day to cook and such but, I don’t exactly need it. The 23rd is the holiday, plus it will have been a late night. It doesn’t help that my “level” of religiosity means I wouldn’t feel terrible about being flexible around it but would prefer not to.

I am anxious about looking disorganized and being an inconvenience before my first day, especially as I am likely to ask for religious accommodations again. Also, there are very few Jews where I live, and I don’t expect there will be any others on the team.

Is there a script I can use to deal with it elegantly? Am I entirely overthinking this? Should I just be glad I have the day to cook and go to work given that I otherwise would have probably decided I was too tired to spend the next day in shul anyway?

You are indeed overthinking it! If they make you an offer, as part of that conversation you can simply say, “When we talked about upcoming days off, I realize I told you I’d need April 22 off but it’s actually April 23 — will that work?” You don’t need to get into Passover at all; this is the relevant info they need. If they push back for some reason, at that point you could say, “Unfortunately I don’t have flexibility with the date since it’s for religious observance.” That’s it! (And the idea here isn’t that you’re deliberating hiding anything; they just don’t need many details to get this handled.)

5. Joint retirement party

Employee #1 (of 34 years) decides to retire. Employee #2 (of 15 years) (who is back-up to #1) decides to retire at the same time because he doesn’t want to fill #1’s role. #2’s wife, who works in the same company and knows employee #1, has offered to plan a party for both, which no one asked or wants her to do. Should the party be joint or separate? Employee #1 has external vendors who he’s worked with for many years and who want to make it special for him (but not #2).

Do employees #1 and #2 both want retirement parties? And if so, do they have any feelings on whether they’re joint or separate? Does the company? Ultimately this should be driven by what the employees and the company want to do, not what one person’s wife is willing to plan. Moreover, it might be smart to take her out of the planning regardless; it’s presumably not her job and there’s someone else whose role makes them the more logical choice. As for the external vendors, that needs to be the company’s call too and should depend on what “making it special” means. If it means one person gets a lavish event with pony rides while the other person gets cookies in the break room, that’s not something you should permit. If it means they give the guy they worked with for 34 years a special award, that’s fine.

But right now it sounds like all of this is being completely driven by people who don’t have the standing to be driving it. The company needs to step up and take some control.