Ask a Manager

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

1. Can you be fired for making a pass at your boss’s spouse?

I am a longtime watcher of the CBS soap The Bold and the Beautiful and recently a plot line came up that I thought would be fun to run by you!

On the soap, Steffy runs Forrester Creations (an international fashion house that seems to only have three rooms in its office space). She has long-standing enmity with her stepsister Hope, who is the main designer of one of their fashion lines. Steffy and Hope have fought over men in the past (and have been married to and had children with the same guy), and Hope is now single and was crushing on Steffy’s husband, Finn (who’s a doctor but seems to spend a lot of time at his wife’s work). She made a pass at him at a non-work event and he turned her down, but everyone found out. Steffy told Hope that if she made another pass at Finn, she would be fired.

Hope moved on to a new guy (Carter, who’s the COO — this place has terrible work boundaries) and while attempting to have sexy times with Carter at work, she accidentally ended up in a compromising position with Finn in her lingerie due to mistaken identity. Steffy walked in on them and fired her on the spot, despite Hope saying it was a miscommunication and she wasn’t attempting to seduce her husband.

Many of the characters are saying it’s wrong for Steffy to fire Hope for a personal non-work reason and I’m wondering how you would advise Steffy or Hope if they wrote into you!

Of course it’s reasonable to fire your sister for continually hitting on your husband. There is no obligation to continue to employ a relative who tries to personally betray you in that way. Steffy would also be on solid ground in firing Hope for stripping down to lingerie at work and attempting to have sex in the office, regardless of who she hoped to have the sex with.

It would also be reasonable, and legal, for Steffy to fire Hope if Hope tried to kidnap her child, was secretly sheltering an evil twin, or was blackmailing their long-lost uncle after he came out of a coma. (I watched Days of Our Lives as a child; I know how this works.)

2. Volunteer dropped the ball and wouldn’t respond to any messages

I belong to a professional organization that has a national branch as well as state chapters (sometimes more than one per state). For my state, we have three chapters and we hold one large statewide conference every year. I am a chair of a subcommittee of the main chapter. These aren’t paid positions (it’s more something that looks good on resumes).

The same woman has always handled our submission to the statewide conference every year. This year, she was going to record a podcast with former chairs of our subcommittee and then post them to the chapter’s social media so everyone attending the conference (not just our session) could listen. (She also hosts a professional podcast related to our profession in her spare time.)

About a month before the conference, we still had no work product from her, despite this starting three months prior. She emailed a week or so later, saying she had never imagined her work would be this busy this year, but she would make the deadline.

So we went on to assign co-hosts to eight tables, telling the co-hosts where the podcasts would be posted and to listen so they would be able to help direct any conversations.

Not only did this woman not post anything to the social media accounts until the morning of the conference, she would not answer any phone calls or emails asking where these podcasts were, or what she needed help with, despite several of us inquiring.

I’m wondering how we could have best handled this situation. Looking back, I think more check-ins might have helped, especially with hindsight, knowing we should have taken stuff off her plate. I just don’t know how to handle it when people are not answering any communication — for all we know, she could have had a family emergency and not been able to handle any of this, so we were also worried.

Yes, more check-ins! If you’re counting on having something by a particular date, you don’t want to just leave it for months and not check in until the end; you want to check in at least a few times throughout so that you can ensure things are on track and course-correct if they’re not.

If someone in this context (an unpaid volunteer) isn’t responding at all to inquiries, then at some point you assume they’re not doing the work and make other plans — and you let them know that with a message like, “Since we haven’t hear back from you about X, I’m guessing you don’t have time to do it this quarter. Because we’d need know for sure by the 15th, if we haven’t heard from you by next week, we will assume X isn’t happening this year and will make different plans.” And then the next week, if you haven’t heard from them, you send another message confirming that you’re moving forward without their work on X.

3. My coworker road-raged at me and now she’s trying to be BFFs

Last year I was involved in a road rage incident. I cut someone off (not my proudest moment, mea culpa) and she followed me closely, occasionally pulling up next to me at intersections to scream threats and obscenities at me, until I pulled into the parking lot of a police station. I made a report but there was never any follow-up. It was really scary, but I was unharmed.

Recently, I changed jobs. On day one, I was being introduced to my new team, and wouldn’t you know it, the woman who road raged at me is on my team! She didn’t recognize me at first, but a few days after I started, she told me she’d recognized my car in the employee parking lot. She apologized and let me know that the incident had been part of a very low point in her life that she’s been working hard to recover from. I thanked her for apologizing and have since been polite to her at work.

However, she seems to have gotten it into her head that this has brought us closer together, and is now making overtures of friendship towards me (asking for my socials/contact info, asking me to hang out after work, etc.). I appreciate that she apologized but I’m really not interested in being her friend. I’m worried that not going along with this will set her off somehow. What do you think is the best way forward here?

Treat her like you would any other colleague who was making social overtures you weren’t interested in — meaning set clear boundaries and politely decline: “You’re kind to ask but I keep work and social media separate.” / “I’m not able to socialize after work.” / “No, thank you, but I hope you have fun if you go!” / etc. Alternately, you can say more directly, “I appreciate your apologizing for what happened last year, but I prefer to leave it there and simply work together as colleagues.”

It sounds like you’re worried about a volatile reaction because you’ve already seen her have a volatile reaction once before. Hopefully we can take her at her word that she’s working hard to not repeat that behavior, and she has more incentive not to blow up at a colleague than at a stranger … but if she does blow up again, you’ll have more recourse this time and can escalate it to your employer to manage.

Related:
I don’t want to be friends with my coworker

4. How to ask people who want free advice to pay me for it

I am a technical expert in a niche field and have accumulated some contacts from a previous position who I assisted with some brief, but free, advice in the months after I left, knowing that it was very hard to fill my spot. My previous employer hasn’t replaced me in a year (and counting).

Things were quiet for some time but they came back with a very big issue and copied a number of high level staff, attached documents, and asked me for help beyond a few quick questions. I’ve also had other people I’ve previously worked with ask me questions regarding my expertise to use for their own jobs for paying work for other clients. This is work I would need to be paid for, not free advice.

How do I either politely deflect freeloaders who are profiting off my niche experience, or potentially broach a discussion of having them pay a consulting fee? I was a public employee previously, but I am not willing to work for free now that I have moved on to another position, but am interested in a consulting side job.

“The scope of this is more than I could answer quickly, but we could set up a short-term consulting agreement if you’re interested in that.” Include an estimate of what you think they’d need and what you’d charge.

Alternately, if you’re not interested in doing a particular piece of work even if you’re paid for it: “The scope of this is more than I could answer quickly. I sometimes do this kind of thing on a consultant basis but realistically wouldn’t have the time to take it on right now — my apologies!” If you can easily refer them to someone else who might do it for pay, refer them for the good will it will generate on both sides.

5. “Gotcha” instructions in an applicant’s cover letter

I’m a hiring manager for the first time and wading through applications and cover letters. Today one of the letters had a postscript: “I’m not sure if recruiters read these until the end. If you did, write ‘Booyah’ at the beginning of my follow-up email. Because you did what most don’t!”

I understand that job seekers are frustrated with the rise of AI and job application systems that seem like black holes. But yes, a person reads the applications at least some of the time — especially at smaller places, or for jobs where writing is important. And I’m not sure if there is a job or company where a statement like that would help your case for getting the job. At the very least it seems like a big risk to turn people off.

I put this applicant in the no pile for not only this reason, but wonder if I should respond, not with “booyah” but with some version of feedback that their P.S. was unprofessional. Or is it not worth it and I should just move on and let them get the form rejection email?

It’s not worth it. They’ll figure it out from the lack of employer response, or they’ll find the one employer who thinks it’s amazing, or they won’t figure it out and will just stay bitter … but it’s not your job to coach them. (I understand the impulse! I used to have it myself. To the point that I started a blog to try to help. But it’s really not your job.)

Interestingly, occasionally employers have used this tactic too — including instructions in ads like “please put ‘kumquat’ in the subject line of your email in order to be considered.” It’s as infantilizing (and a bit insulting) when they do it too.

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

1. I manage a manager who dislikes his new, qualified employee

I run a small nonprofit. I’m less than six months into the position and have inherited some HR challenges. One of the directors I manage, Dave, is, frankly, a terrible manager. He only manages three people, but in the six months I’ve been here, one person quit and one was fired after a dramatic meltdown. Dave just hired a new person, Julie, who he wants to fire within the first 45 days. She has excellent experience, more than he does in the program he is running. She has raised some concerns directly to him about the quality of the work via email; I saw the message, and she approached it professionally.

He said she has been late three times and refuses to do the data entry that is a part of her job. She says she hasn’t been adequately trained. My assessment is that they just don’t like each other and are now looking for things to justify their positions. She thinks he’s incompetent and he thinks she’s rude and undermining his authority.

They both came to me about this situation last week. I’ve been sitting on what to do next because I do not want to lose the new employee. While Julie is not perfect, she does have excellent skills that we need. How do I deal with this situation?

You need to manage Dave much more closely — and you need to lay out for him very explicitly that you’re concerned about the situation in his department and that, having just lost two people in quick succession, you’re not going to fire a third simply for being late a few times. Moreover, given that you know Dave is a terrible manager, I’d be inclined to believe Julie that she hasn’t been adequately trained and that her frustrations with Dave are well-founded — which means that you’re going to need to get much more involved in the situation than you’d normally be doing, including reviewing the training plan with both of them and coaching Dave pretty intensely on your expectations for how he manages people. Plan to spend at least a few weeks intensively involved with both of them, so that you’re setting expectations about how you want things to go and also so that you’re getting a more detailed sense of exactly how Dave operates and what’s going wrong. Stay open to the possibility that you shouldn’t have Dave managing people at all, but you’ll have a better sense of that once you spend a few weeks more enmeshed and have a stronger feel for exactly what’s going on.

If you’re thinking you don’t have time to roll up your sleeves and dive in like that, the alternative is letting Dave keep cycling through employees, which will slow the organization down more in the long run. If you absolutely can’t make time for that in the next few weeks, consider having Julie report to someone else temporarily until you do have time to dig in more.

Related:
how do I get my direct reports to be better managers of their own teams?

2. Firing an employee who went viral for attacking football fans

I just saw an article about a Baltimore Ravens fan who was seen in a video attacking two men who supported an opposing football team. He was identified and fired from his job the next day.

This happens regularly when moments go viral. But can companies do this? Is it because there is video proof? I thought we couldn’t necessarily let someone go even from an arrest. They are still innocent until proven guilty, right? In this case, the guy hadn’t even been arrested, just had a really stupid, violent moment go viral. Can he come back and say he was unfairly fired, as the moment didn’t even happen at work?

In most states, employers can legally fire you for behavior you engage in outside of work, as long as the firing doesn’t violate a specific legal protection you have. (For example, most people couldn’t legally be fired for attending a union protest, because unionizing is a protected right.) There’s no legal protection for physically attacking an opposing team’s fans. In this case, the company likely figured that they don’t want to be associated with someone who publicly engaged in vile behavior that went viral, and that’s their legal prerogative.

You mentioned laws that prohibit firing someone for being arrested, but federal law actually doesn’t prohibit that; it’s dependent on state law. Some states do limit what an employer can do in response to an employee’s arrest, depending on the nature of the crime and how it might relate to their particular job. But in this case the firing was about the behavior itself, not an arrest.

3. My employee is accessing files from our previous employer

In my industry, movement between companies is fairly common. So I am now supervising someone who used to be a peer at OldCompany, which is a direct competitor of NewCompany.

Today, my direct report shared a “helpful” reference document that I know for certain is a proprietary document from OldCompany. We are working on a project very similar to what we worked on at the previous employer, so it’s sometimes tempting to bring in ideas from our old work. However, this was not simply referring to an idea, but sharing a link to an internal, unpublished document from OldCompany. The relative obscurity of the file she shared makes me think that either she somehow saved everything we worked on at the old job, or else she might still have access to her old account somehow.

I told her right away that we cannot have access to documents from OldCompany at NewCompany. I also let my current boss know, since I don’t want there to be legal issues with it somehow coming out that NewCompany employees are accessing competitors’ IP. Do I need to notify my old boss from the previous employer that my current employee still has access to their files? With my employee, does this warrant more than one clear conversation about this being not okay?

To me, this feels like a big violation, but my current boss didn’t respond as if this is a huge deal. For example, my boss didn’t ask which employee of mine it was, just told me to make it clear it’s not okay. In my mind, though, this is a serious judgment issue with my employee. My employee apologized and said it won’t happen again, but I’m not sure if this is something I should drop. What do you think?

You addressed it and she said it won’t happen again. You don’t need to go back and repeat yourself unless something about her response made you think she didn’t take you seriously or didn’t understand that you meant all OldCompany documents, not just this one. If either of those is the case, then yes, go back and say you want to make sure you were clear about the scope of the prohibition and how seriously she needs to take it … but otherwise, it sounds like you’re equating repeating yourself with pounding in the seriousness of the message and, assuming you communicated clearly the first time, you don’t need to do that.

4. I don’t want to be called by a shortened version of my name

I’ve been at my job for over five years now and everyone there calls me by a shortened version of my name. I didn’t say anything at first because it was only some people, some of the time. Gradually everyone shifted to the nickname, even people who were meeting me for the first time. Is there a way I can get people to call me by my actual name?

Yes! “I actually prefer Valentina, thank you.” You’ll have to say it a lot, but eventually it will stick with most people. Just be straightforward and prepared to have to reiterate it. If you want, you can also acknowledge that you didn’t speak up earlier — “I don’t know why I didn’t say this earlier but I go by Valentina.”

5. Should I tell a recruiter I’m pregnant?

I’m currently 16 weeks pregnant (yay for secondary fertility!) and in a job where I’m really not happy. A recruiter from a placement agency reached out to me for a general interview. I know talking to a recruiter doesn’t mean I’ll actually be offered a job, but I was wondering if the advice to not tell an employer before you’ve received an offer still stands if a recruiter is involved.

I feel like if I tell them they’ll be less likely to try to place me, but I also don’t know if having them involved would change what happens if I do get an offer. If I were to get an offer and then disclose my pregnancy to the company, is it easier for them to pull the offer and say it has something to do with the agency even if the real reason is I’m pregnant? Not sure how to proceed but I would really like a new job, even if it means changing while I’m pregnant.

Nope, working with a recruiter doesn’t change the advice. Wait to disclose until you have an offer. The company will have the same legal risk pulling the offer at that point that they’d have without a recruiter involved.

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

1. Is it unprofessional to ask to change desks because you don’t like someone?

Two years ago I started a job as an engineer at my current company and was assigned a mentor, “Rob.” My cubicle is directly adjacent to his. For various reasons related to his behavior towards me, Rob will no longer be my mentor going forward. I’m not sure yet who management is going to assign as my mentor, but I’m confident they’ll be better than Rob, who has caused me a lot of stress over the last year.

Would it look unprofessional or immature to ask to move seats? Rob’s behavior has mostly consisted of giving me really bad feedback to the point of gaslighting, not anything like harassment, but I’d still like to move seats to make it a clean break.

Can you come up with a reason that’s not related to Rob? Ideally it would be something like there being less noise at the open desk down the hall, sitting closer to someone you collaborate with a lot, preferring not to sit right under a vent that blasts cold air, or so forth — not “I’d rather have a clean break from Rob.” The latter isn’t impossible to say, but there’s pretty high risk of it reading as more drama than you’d ideally want. Exceptions would be if (a) “for various reasons related to his behavior towards me, Rob will no longer be my mentor” means Rob behaved so egregiously toward you that anyone would understand the discomfort of remaining where you are, and/or (b) you have the kind of rapport with your manager where you could say, “The situation with Rob has been rough; any chance I could move into that open desk in the corner just to have a clean break?”

2. Are typos in a draft a huge deal?

I work at a not-for-profit that relies heavily on volunteers. I manage one staff member and around 30 volunteers across two sites. Recently, our on-site graphic artist designed a sign for one of my sites, and I sent it to one of the volunteers to get her thoughts on it, and also as a second pair of eyes as I was slammed.

This volunteer called me and went off about the design, saying it was sloppy and had two spelling errors (typos) in it. To me, typos in a draft are not a big deal — that’s why we check drafts before they go to the printer. Also, we are seriously understaffed and I know everyone is doing several people’s worth of work, so small things are bound to slip through the cracks (I have no power over staffing). I’ve been guilty of forgetting to do small things because I’m constantly trying to stop the sky from falling in, so I’m not going to criticize someone else for the same thing.

I told the volunteer this and it all seemed fine — but then I was telling the story to someone else, and they said any spelling errors/typos are unacceptable. I just don’t think they are a big deal unless, of course, they get printed.

Basically I’m looking for a third opinion! Are typos in a draft unacceptable, or are they not worth getting stressed about?

It’s a draft! In most contexts, typos in an early draft are not a big deal, as long as you have a reliable process in place for proofing and ensuring any errors (typos or otherwise) are caught before it’s finalized.

Did you proactively make it clear to your volunteer what stage things were at when you sent the draft and what kind of feedback you were looking for at that point in the process? It can help to say, for example, “This hasn’t been proofed yet and is in rough form but I wanted to get your thoughts on the content and overall framing.” Or, conversely, “This is close to being finalized so if you see anything we missed, please flag it.”

But also, any chance your volunteer was reacting to something more than this one draft — like that they feel there’s been a problematic amount of sloppiness overall and they’re getting fed up with the big picture, more than truly thinking typos in a not-yet-proofed draft are a big deal? That might explain what’s otherwise a pretty intense reaction.

3. Did I put my foot in it about my company’s post-election plans?

I work for a large consulting firm that mostly works in the U.S. We do a lot of work for all levels of government. People are tactful about not crossing professional lines about politics at work, but our office has a pretty relaxed and friendly culture, and lots of people do express their feelings to other like-minded people in indirect ways. As someone who at different points in my life has been in both major parties and has in both cases been at times a minority in the office, I appreciate the importance of maintaining a fairly neutral environment, though I believe some things are beyond the pale.

The morning after the election, our area manager, who I have have a very friendly relationship with, sent out a thoughtful and appropriate email acknowledging that this may be a stressful moment, reminding us that there are different views in our company, reiterating our commitment to being a client-centered company working to improve humanity, and inviting us to follow up with any questions. I thought this was a perfectly good precautionary email to send out, but I did reply directly to just my area manager to ask about how to get a better sense of what our leadership’s bright lines are for maintaining our commitment to both the client (the government) and our moral obligations. I have pretty mainstream politics, and there’s nothing specific worrying me about any of my company’s current work, but my concern is just to know that senior management has some sort of plan or internal moral standards to limit what kind of things we will work in support of, should the incoming administration go in a worst case scenario direction.

The response I got from my manager was very nice and replied to my questions in a way consistent with the original email — but on reading it, it immediately became apparent that she hadn’t actually answered any of them, and in fact the responses were so indirect that I now am worried that I am talking to the hand, and that maybe I put my foot in it and caused offense. I’m unsure how to follow up, because while I didn’t have any expectation that my concerns would actually come to fruition, the response’s lack of candor by absence of substance has now made me worried that I do have cause for concern. I’m curious about your take, and before you reply, yes, I am aware that I am an overthinker with an anxiety disorder.

You asked a question she couldn’t really answer, and you got a response consistent with that. They don’t know what’s going to happen yet, and they probably don’t know how they’ll respond when it does because the climate is shifting rapidly. Moreover, to the extent that they do have plans for worst-case scenarios or bright will-not-cross lines, they’re unlikely to put those in a casual email (and she may not be the right person to supply those answers anyway).

It sounds like you emailed her hoping for some general reassurance and you got … general reassurance, which is singularly unhelpful in a situation like this. What you really want to know is specifically how they will respond to specific individual events, but they’re probably not there yet — or since you didn’t ask about those specifics, they’re not getting into them, or the answers are ones you wouldn’t much like if they did.

You asked how to reply and I don’t think you necessarily need to; you asked a general question and she gave a general answer. I also don’t think you put your foot in it; she’s undoubtedly aware lots of people are feeling similar anxiety right now.

Depending on the nature of your concerns, it might make sense to refine them more narrowly with your colleagues and ask for strategy planning on those in particular, but that’s something bigger than a casual email exchange.

4. New manager wants me to travel and I can’t

I work fully remote, and it’s quite possibly the only thing that has allowed me to keep working. I am disabled, with chronic pain, poor mobility, and all of the fatigue that comes with that. I love being able to take a 30-minute nap at lunch! My whole team is remote, but most of them are concentrated in the same state, fairly close together.

I have a new manager, who has had one quarterly meeting and is planning the next one. For the first, he had all of the semi-local folks meet in person, with the five of us outside that area on Zoom. For this next meeting, he has gotten permission to fly all of us outliers in for the six-hour meeting. I just … can’t. Traveling is super hard for me, and flying in one day, the six-hour meeting the next, and flying home the next day may damn well kill me. The time to recover from this will be insane.

I tried gently bringing up that it would be difficult for me, but he brushed me off, saying how important it was to meet face-to-face. I’m facing the whole “not a team player” thing here, but I just can’t do it. How do I frame this and stay in his good graces?

“I have a medical condition that means I can’t do this sort of travel. Should I seek a formal accommodation with HR or is simply letting you know enough? I’m of course happy to attend over Zoom again.”

Depending on your sense of your manager and this company in general, it may make more sense to start with HR — but either way, that’s the framing you want. Since you’ve been doing your job successfully this entire time without traveling, it should be hard for your manager to argue that it’s an essential function of your position. (That doesn’t mean he won’t try, but that’s part of the legal framework around disabilities: can you successfully perform the essential duties of the job with or without accommodations?)

5. Charging extra to add a spouse to health insurance, if the spouse has insurance through their own job

My husband works for an insurance company (ironically) and it’s open enrollment season here in the U.S. for health insurance. I have good insurance through my own job and have my husband and our toddler as dependents. My husband was going to add both of us to his insurance as well, so we can have some double coverage as we’re planning to have another kid and we’ve had some health troubles recently.

Because I am employed and insured on my own, his company will charge him an extra fee each paycheck to add me to his insurance. It is not a small fee. It would significantly impact our monthly finances. If I was unemployed and/or uninsured, it wouldn’t cost him extra. Even with insurance, healthcare is freaking expensive in this country and double coverage can be life saving, and has been for us in the past. It feels like his company is essentially penalizing those employees who have families. Is this really allowed?

It’s legal, and it’s common. It’s called a “working spouse premium,” and it’s because employers don’t want spouses running up their costs if the person could instead get insurance through their own job, and they don’t want to make adding a spouse an attractive option if that person has other coverage available. (In fact, some employers won’t let you add spouses at all if the spouse has the option of being insured through their own job.)