Ask a Manager

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

1. I went over my (bad) manager’s head and she’s upset

I work in a very specialized field of medical research, on a very small team. Shortly after I was hired, upper management filled the vacant role of my team’s manager with someone who has no direct experience in this type of research (though she does have a background in a scientific discipline related to what we do). It’s been a nightmare. Aside from having to train my own manager in a complex field, she is also a weak leader, and a lot of things go right over her head. One of her major oversights was not arranging for coverage while she and all the other members of our team were traveling internationally for 2-3 weeks (all PTO that she approved); this meant that I was the sole person providing coverage for nearly two weeks. As a result, I am nearing burnout from overwork.

When a change in upper management resulted in more support for our team, I started to talk to my grandboss about the issues that I feel stem from my manager’s lack of management skills and absence of relevant background. I guess the grandboss had a meeting with my manager to discuss a number of unacceptable issues that had occurred, including the lack of a coverage plan for absences. After this, my manager called a 1:1 meeting with me. She told me, in pretty specific detail, about her meeting with management. She was visibly upset and asked if I had anything I needed to talk to her about. Even though I have already brought up some of my concerns with her in the past, I (delicately) went through them again, and she was incredibly defensive. She kept saying that the criticism she got was just a matter of opinion, and it was unfair to receive discipline for it. She said there were no bad outcomes as a result of the issues they discussed, so she didn’t understand why they were problems. I had to explain that her lack of a holiday coverage plan meant I had to work every day for 17 days straight, and it made me miss out on time with my family; I consider that a bad outcome. The meeting ended with her in tears. It was incredibly uncomfortable.

I like her as a person, and I feel bad for going above her head, especially now that I’ve seen how upset she was … but she really just sucks as a boss. I was already resentful of the extra work her ineptitude has created for me, but now I feel super awkward at work too.
How do I move forward with this? I have a suspicion that she was put on a PIP, which would make anyone upset. I want to support my team and the research we do, but this is too much for me to take.

It sounds like you were absolutely right to go over her head since when you did, her boss agreed these were serious issues that needed to be addressed. Your boss’s meeting with you afterwards was further evidence of lack of management skills; she shouldn’t have put any of that on you — and I suspect her boss would not be happy if they knew she did that.

In any case, her feelings about her boss’s feedback on her work are hers to manage; don’t let her make them yours. If you have decent rapport with your grandboss, I’d seriously consider filling them in on what happened, and definitely keep them in the loop on any additional problems that occur. It sounds like they’re on it, and that’s a good thing.

2. Senior colleague disparaged self-defense training for women

Yesterday I was at a legal department meeting and mentioned I was taking advantage of some of the great training courses my company has offered lately – an AI boot camp, a CPR class, and a self-defense training course.

I’m a paralegal, and a senior attorney asked why I’d want to take self-defense training. At first, I thought he was kidding and I said, “Take a look at me, I’m tiny and getting old.” (I’m female, almost 60, and weigh about 110 pounds). He persisted though, and I realized he was serious. He started into this rant about how people are “so afraid of everything these days and for no good reason.” I was incredulous that he would have to ask why a woman might be interested in learning to defend herself and said, “Attorney, if you have to ask me that question, I don’t think I can have this conversation with you.” He kept pushing so I said, “I’m a woman, Attorney.” He responded that it has nothing to do with being a man or a woman. I said, “Of course it does” and repeated that I couldn’t have that conversation with him.

Then he says, “Seriously, who do you know that’s ever been attacked?” I just turned and walked away from him. I wasn’t going to tell him in front of all those people that I have been attacked and I personally know several women who could have used self-defense training in real life (who doesn’t??), not just to ward off an actual attacker, but to learn to avoid danger and to gain confidence that you can take with you going forward. I was so angry I was shaking!

After that, he ignored me. He wouldn’t make eye contact or anything even though he was sitting near me. He’s acting like I disrespected him or something by walking away from him. I’ve known this attorney for eight years. He’s very adversarial and loves a good argument, but we previously had a pretty good relationship so this saddens me — but I’m also super pissed. I don’t know if I should try to get through to him to salvage the relationship, or wait for him to apologize to me (because really that’s what I think should happen). The hierarchy also plays into it, as he is very senior to me and it would serve me to stay in his good graces. I’m not sure where to go from here.

Can you just leave it alone and see if it resolves on its own? It’s possible that the reason he wouldn’t make eye contact with you afterwards is because he realized he’d F’d up. Simply proceeding as if everything is fine may let you both move forward, especially if you look for an opportunity to have a normal work-related interaction soon, where you can demonstrate that you are behaving normally, which may make him more inclined to as well.

To be clear, he should apologize to you. With the hierarchy and politics of a law firm, he may not.

Read an update to this letter. 

3. I overheard coworkers spreading damaging gossip

I work in a community hub-type location. It’s a place where many service providers spend time in order to reach vulnerable people, which means that I have regular but brief contact each week with employees from many different community locations. Everyone generally plays well together in the sandbox, and we pride ourselves on collectively problem-solving on behalf of participants. There is no hierarchy and no one is in charge.

Here’s the problem. I recently overheard two service providers (Jane and Barb) talking smack about another service provider (Ann) to each other and to someone else in the community on speakerphone. What they were saying was petty, untrue, and could be damaging to Ann’s professional reputation. (Think: taking something vulnerable that Ann shared during a moment of extreme emotional overwhelm and making it a defining point of her character.) I despise drama and tend to stay out of anything that could turn into a brushfire, but I am wondering if I have some sort of moral responsibility to warn Ann that these two might not be trustworthy and it might be a good idea to keep some walls up when interacting with them moving forward. Also, I am on the fence about whether or not I need to bring this up to Jane and Barb as well.

I have a very good relationship with all three, but now I am questioning whether or not I misperceive my relationship with Jane and Barb. Ann will be blindsided by this, so there is a good chance that I have also been, um, discussed. I love our working environment and I don’t want to cause problems by stirring anything up, but ignoring it feels icky too. Thoughts?

I’d be most inclined to say something to Jane and Barb directly, pointing out that what they said was untrue and harmful to Ann’s reputation (just as you’d presumably hope someone would do if they overheard something similar being said about you).

Talking to Ann herself is more of a judgment call, and it has the risk of creating more drama … which doesn’t necessarily make it the wrong choice, but you’d want to factor it in. If this seems like a one-time thing, I might just call it out with Jane and Barb directly … but if you see repeated evidence of them using things Ann trusts them with to trash-talk her, then you do have more of a responsibility to discreetly clue her in.

4. How much notice to give when you’re the only employee

How much notice should you give if you’re leaving as the only employee in a small department or business? And does it change if the business has a hiring process long enough that there’s very little chance of being able to directly train a replacement?

Two weeks. The purpose of a notice period isn’t to give your employer time to hire and train a replacement; very few professional jobs would be able to do that in only two weeks! It’s to give you time to transition your work to whoever will be covering in the interim and answer questions about key projects.

Obviously many employers would like more notice, but two weeks is standard even in this situation. (And that’s a good thing because otherwise it would make job-hunting much more difficult; lots of jobs won’t wait months for you to be able to start.) That said, the manager of anyone in a position like this should be making sure the work is always documented and the employee isn’t the sole repository of crucial knowledge — since job changes aside, anyone could be hit by a bus tomorrow and no notice is ever guaranteed.

5. Announcing a pregnancy when you’re remote

I read your advice about announcing a pregnancy at work, but I’m having trouble applying some of it to my situation because I work 100% remotely. Telling my boss was straightforward since we have regular 1:1s, and I told HR after that. But now I’m not sure how to tell my coworkers.

My work is very project-driven and involves close collaboration with another team. I do not have regular meetings with this team where I could share the news, and sending them a random Teams message seems rather unnatural and attention-seeking. If I worked in an office, I would tell each team member in person (e.g., at lunch or when we’re arriving to or leaving work). Is an email appropriate or is that too attention-seeking? Should I ask each team member for a quick Teams call? In case it isn’t clear, I do not manage this team, some of them are peers and others are diagonal to me in the hierarchy.

An email isn’t attention-seeking, and it’s easier and faster than setting up separate calls with everyone. An email is a very normal way to do it (and you could even do one group email to everyone you want to tell).

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

1. Candidate’s mom keeps emailing to follow up on her behalf

I’m in a position to hire older teens (usually just graduated high school) for a summer job. I have a question about how to handle an applicant’s mom. The child applied, but their mom keeps emailing to follow-up. At the beginning of my career, I worked in higher education (freshman orientation) for several years. In all of our parent programming, we were very clear that contacting your child’s professor wouldn’t help and no one can give you information anyway due to FERPA laws.

Everything in me wants me to respond to the mom and say that it’s not appropriate to email potential employers on behalf of your adult or soon-to-be adult child. To date, I have ignored the mom and only reached out to the applicant. Honestly, the thought of dealing with or making our manager deal with a helicopter parent as an employer makes me not want to hire this applicant. Is it my place to give this parent (or child) feedback?

At a minimum, you could email the mom back and say, “We do not discuss applicants’ candidacy with anyone other than the applicant themselves. We’ll respond to her directly.”

Should you say more? You’re not obligated to but you can if you want to, and you’d probably be doing both of them a favor if you spelled it out more explicitly. For example: “If I can give some advice that will help Jane, I recommend that you not contact employers on her behalf. We want to see that she can manage work-related communications independently, without a parent’s involvement, since she would be expected to do that if we hire her. You risk hurting her chances if you contact employers on her behalf.”

2. How do you evaluate “flourishing”?

I work as an administrator in an academic department in a public university. It’s basically the same old story of being overworked and underpaid. We are guaranteed a 3% raise at the end of the fiscal year and normally up to 5% with merit. Merit is based on the annual performance review, which is two parts: a self-evaluation and your supervisor’s evaluation. Even if you receive “Exceeds Expectation” on all parts of the evaluation, you don’t really see a raise beyond 3.9% (and that’s if you’re lucky).

This year, HR is shaking things up and wants us to answer five open-ended questions. Four of the questions I don’t really have a problem with, it’s the first one that I do: “How did you demonstrate [University’s] core values?” One of those core values is “flourishing.” The university website talks about “flourishing” as being able to make choices for a healthy and fulfilling life.

First, how do you prove or demonstrate that you’re flourishing? I’ve sardonically told others that I’ve taken fewer sick days due to burnout. I don’t think that is what HR or the dean’s office wants to hear.

Second, how do I evaluate if someone is flourishing? I am a supervisor, and I want to make sure that my supervisees get the best evaluation that they can get.

Can you just … ignore that value and focus on others that seem more relevant? Unless there’s something that specifically states you must address every value individually, it’s not uncommon for evaluations to pull out specific values that the manager (or evaluee) wants to talk about, rather than doing a full inventory of all of them.

But it could also be interesting to ask HR if they can give some examples of what employee alignment or misalignment with that value would look like in a work context. I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t have good examples.

3. My employer wants us to list our dietary restrictions publicly

I have a situation at my job where there is a mandatory all-hands meeting that lasts all day and we will be fed. Thankfully, my workplace is willing to accommodate dietary restrictions (I have Celiac and cannot eat anything with gluten), but the way they are collecting this information gives me pause. Instead of a private form that only goes to the person ordering the catering, we were all sent a shared Google spreadsheet where we are expected to put in our name and dietary restrictions in order to RSVP. I don’t like the idea of anyone and everyone RSVPing for the meeting being able to see my restriction, but I’m not sure if this counts as private medical information that shouldn’t be shared. Is there a way I can push back against this public form and still be able to get my gluten-free lunch?

There’s no legal issue here (except maybe in some very narrowly defined circumstances) but it’s still not information that needs to be public. Try sending the organizer (or their boss, if you don’t trust the organizer to be responsive) a message that says, “Could you arrange for us to submit dietary restrictions privately instead? I’d rather not broadcast my medical restrictions to the whole company, and I imagine there are others who feel the same.”

4. Pimple patches vs visible pimples

I am a middle career professional office worker, who occasionally gets large facial pimples. (Like, about once a month, one pimple on my chin or mouth. Hormones, I assume, though regular mask wearing probably doesn’t help.) I don’t usually wear makeup, and don’t really have the skills to cover up such a large spot without it looking really weird. (And I worry about further inflaming it by piling on makeup, plus getting makeup all over the inside of my mask.)

When I’m working from home, I usually use a hydrocolloid pimple patch, which is not visible on video calls. But what’s the best thing to do for in-person days? I feel like pimple patches have gotten more mainstream, but I’m not sure if it ends up calling more attention to it, since even if I use the “clear” ones, they’re still visible. What do you think?

If you’re wearing a mask, can you just let the mask cover it?

I tend to think pimple patches draw more attention to it in person, especially for people who are unfamiliar with them, which is still a lot of people. (You also wouldn’t want to use one at work at the stage where it’s drawing out gross stuff from the pimple and trapping it under a clear patch.) But it’s a perfectly valid option to just let the pimple run free! You’re a human who occasionally get blemishes. It’s fine.

5. Leaving a job to care for an aging parent

I took a new job late last year to be closer to my aging parent. At the time, my parent was showing signs of worsening health but was still functioning well. Unfortunately my parent’s condition has been deteriorating rapidly over the last few weeks. My job requires a rigid work schedule and offers minimal flexibility, though my boss has done their best to support me within this structure.

I’m wondering if I can try to advocate for a part-time schedule in the interim or if I should rip the bandaid off and quit, knowing this is where I am likely headed as my parent requires more care? My position was unfilled for over a year before I arrived and there is a shortage of people with my skills. I’m also open to other advice from readers who have navigated similar situations.

If you’re going to quit otherwise, you might as well ask if what you want is possible first! If it’s not, it’s not — but there’s nothing wrong with inquiring. I’d say that in other circumstances too, but it’s especially true when there’s a shortage of people who can fill your job.