Ask a Manager

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

1. My coworker constantly derails meetings

I have a coworker, Mary, who does not know how to stay on topic or when to stop talking. It’s like she thinks a meeting is a time to discuss everything and anything tangentially related to a person’s position in our org, and so I have to plan that any meeting with her will run over unless I cut it off.

In meetings I’m leading, I’ve learned to say, “We will need to table that for another time” when she gets off track. But what do I do in meetings where I’m not the one leading? For example: we’re on the same committee for fundraising for an event. That is our job. We meet once a month. Every month, Mary derails the meeting with suggestions for the event, ideas for activities (many of which are absurd, like making vendors wear costumes, etc.). Usually the actual agenda for this meeting is handled in 20 minutes, so the next 40 are dedicated to this coworker and her questions. My boss is the one leading this meeting, and I want to support her in her work but I also want to offer to step up and say, “Do you need help with shutting Mary down?”

It’s not really your place to ask your boss if she wants help shutting Mary down. There are some manager/employee relationships where you could ask that, but they’re very much the exception rather than the rule, and generally if you had one you wouldn’t be asking.

But there are lots of ways where you can nudge your boss in that direction herself. For example, when you’re done with the agenda but Mary starts to go off-topic, you can say, “Before we get too far off-topic, is there anything else on the agenda we need to cover or should we wrap up?” You can also say at the start of the meeting, “I’ve got a hard stop at (time) but I think that’ll be enough for everything we need to cover.” And during the meeting itself, if Mary begins a tangent, you can say, “I think that will take us pretty far off-topic” or “Could we focus on X and Y, which I think are the highest priorities to sort out right now?” (You can’t say that if you’re the most junior person in the room, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case.)

Also, if your boss is scheduling one-hour meetings when a half hour would do, you can point that out to her: “We’ve been scheduling these for an hour but typically cover our agenda items in much less time and the second half never seems as productive. Could we experiment with scheduling for 30 minutes and see how that works?”

2. Company wanted me to interview on a weekend for a Monday-Friday job

I am a research scientist currently looking for new roles. One company I applied for called me back to wanting to discuss my resume in detail before potentially scheduling an interview. It was late on a Friday afternoon. I was in a meeting and missed their call. They sent me an email asking me when would be a convenient time for a chat. When I saw the email, I responded saying I would be free Monday. They then emailed me back saying that if I wanted to, they could phone me on Saturday or Sunday.

These are standard 9 to 5 jobs I am applying to, so is wanting to talk on a weekend a red flag that they will have poor work/life boundaries? I am fine working overtime on some occasions but not all the time.

It’s not a red flag screaming at you not to proceed, but it is a sign to gather more information as you do.

It’s possible that this is an indicator that everyone there works horrible hours and work will be constantly bleeding into your evenings and weekends … but it’s just as possible that the person who emailed you works non-standard hours themself, or is about to go on leave and is trying to squeeze in a few interviews before they go, or thinks candidates appreciate interviewing during non-work hours so they don’t have to take time off, or they’re a rare workaholic in a culture of people with better boundaries.

It would be foolish to ignore what this could represent, but at this point you don’t know which of these possibilities is most likely, so your job is to take note of it and ask questions about the culture and typical hours as you progress through their process. It also would be fine to ask during the interview, “I recall you asked about doing our initial interview on the weekend. How often do people on this team work on the weekends?”

3. Talking at work about an emergency gay wedding

I was originally planning to have a wedding next fall. However, due to recent events, my fiancée and I have decided to get married in late November. The reasons are twofold: (1) My fiancée is currently employed by a federal program that the incoming administration is planning to eradicate, and I don’t want her to be left without insurance. (2) We are both women living in a conservative state. The federal ruling on gay marriage has also been named as a possible target in the next four years. This was always our plan if the election went the way it did.

I have a reputation for, let’s say, non-impulsivity at work. Also, I have mentioned that part of the reason we were waiting until next fall was that my only sibling is currently abroad. So this will likely come as a shock to anyone we didn’t share our plans with beforehand.

I like my coworkers; I like my job. The atmosphere is a friendly one, where good news is comfortably shared. I don’t want to vanish for a week and a half and come back with a new last name like it’s a secret, but I’m also not comfortable “bringing up politics” at work.

I was wondering if you could provide a script for how I can tell people I’m going to get married without it seeming like a rushed, secretive caper, and what I should say when people ask why I’m doing it this way? (They have asked.) I want to be able to enjoy the fact that I’m getting married, to share it with the people I see every day, without it being a dirty little secret or political landmine.

The fastest, simplest explanation: “We want to get married while we know we still can.” That’s not bringing politics into work in an inappropriate way; it’s a clear statement of the situation you and many others are in.

If you’re not comfortable with that, you could also just say, “Our plans changed and we decided to do it now!” People may be surprised, but they’re unlikely to be shocked; people move up weddings for logistical reasons all the time. They’re also likely to take their cues from you; if you’re cheerfully matter-of-fact about it, they likely will be too. And you really don’t owe any more explanation than that — I don’t mean that in a chilly way, but at the end of the day these are work colleagues and it’s normal not to get into the level of personal detail that you might share with close friends or family.

And as for announcing it initially — “We’re moving our wedding up! I’ll be out (dates) and when I’m back I’ll be Valentina NewLast Name.”

I’m sorry you’re dealing with this.

4. My company is not prepared for the overtime change in January

I work for a pretty small company (about 20 employees), all remote workers around the U.S. Most of us are salaried, making around $45,000-$50,000 per year, so the exemption threshold change in July did not affect anyone but the change in January will affect almost everyone.

I asked our HR about this over the summer, and they said that I shouldn’t be working overtime, so it won’t affect anything. But our company does multiple conventions and events every year; it would be a huge logistical change to prevent anyone from working overtime during these. They are easily 50-60 hour weeks under the current set-up. And my understanding of the law is that even if we aren’t working overtime, we’ll need to maintain timesheets.

What should or can I do? Is this worth pushing, or should I just wait until January 1 and see how it plays out?

Background for readers: An increase to the salary level that makes you exempt from overtime is set to take effect on January 1. If it goes through, it would mean that your employer would be required to pay you overtime (time and a half for all hours over 40 that you work in a week) unless you earn at least $58,656 annually — up from the current threshold of $43,888. (Exceptions include teachers, doctors, and lawyers, who are always exempt.)

For now, though, wait and see what happens. A group of states are suing to stop the increase and if a court puts it on hold, the incoming new administration is highly likely to scrap or significantly scale back the whole thing (as they did the last time they were in the White House). On the other hand, if courts don’t stop it, it’s scheduled to go into effect January 1, while the old administration is still in charge, and the new administration is unlikely to be able to roll it back immediately so it’ll be in effect for at least a while.

In other words, it’s pretty up in the air right now, but it’s something to keep an eye on. If we get to December with no signs of it being halted, raise it again at that point. This time you should specifically point out your concern about overtime during conventions and events — and it would be useful to calculate how many hours you worked each week during those events in the past, so that your company has hard numbers to look at.

Related:
what the hell is all this talk of exempt and non-exempt about?

5. You never know what’s happening behind the scenes of a hiring process

I’m a relatively new manager hiring for my third permanent position. I read your blog regularly and I was excited to apply everything I’ve been learning to the hiring process. I’ve been thinking through my requirements vs nice-to-haves, challenging my internal biases, everything. The position was posted a month ago, and I brought in four external people to interview after a phone screening. I was really excited for them and the opportunities they presented for the position. I was planning to be checking references next week and hopefully making an offer shortly after that.

And then on the day of the last two interviews, I got an email from HR that there was an internal candidate who we needed to urgently consider because they will otherwise be laid off next month. My supervisor told me that we pretty much have to hire them unless there are massive red flags, as it is in the agency’s best interest to retain staff. Of course I am happy to help someone keep working and not be laid off, but I also feel for the external candidates.

This radically altered the entire hiring process in a way that none of us could predict, and it was the worst for the external candidates who were now going to be rejected through literally no fault of their own. There is nothing they could have done differently.

I know it is cold comfort for job seekers, but I wanted to share this story to illustrate that when you say “you never know what is happening on the hiring side,” it is really true.

Thanks for illustrating exactly the sort of thing that can be going on behind the scenes that job seekers often don’t have a window into. When you’re agonizing over what happened with a job you thought you were perfect for, keep in mind that things like this can happen and you might never know about it!

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

1. How to tell an employee his pants are too revealing

I need some guidance! We have a new high school teacher who wears pants that show the imprint of his penis. Several students have gone to the principal to share this information. We recently had to remove a picture from our school’s Instagram page because after someone pointed it out, it was obviously very visible.

We’re planning to have a conversation with him to tell him that he hasn’t violated the dress code policy but we do need to bring it to his attention and suggest that he wear a different fit (loose), pants made with a heavier fabric and less stretch or maybe darker colored pants.

It’s refreshing to get a letter where this issue is about a man’s body rather than a woman’s! I don’t know that you’d need to address this in most workplaces, but in a high school? Yeah.

I’ve never contemplated what I’d say in this situation before! My best stab at it is: “I’m sure you don’t realize this is the case, but a lot of your pants are too revealing for our environment and a couple of students have mentioned it. I think you can solve it with looser clothing, or at the very least heavier fabrics or darker colors.”

I’ve gone back and forth on whether you should include that some students mentioned it. On one hand, how mortifying! On the other hand, if you don’t mention that, you risk him thinking you’re making a big deal out of nothing.

2. Do I have to answer unannounced video calls?

I am an in-house database developer. My company handles a lot of communication via Microsoft Teams. I’ve noticed it’s extremely common for most people, including executives, to shoot a message of “got time for a call?” before initiating a call, which is awesome!

My tasks in a day run pretty much the gamut — primarily development projects, but also documentation, support, querying data, data migrations, collaborating with users, etc. I pride myself on being very responsive. That being said, there are a handful of coworkers who will randomly initiate video calls, and I find it really frustrating when I’m trying to troubleshoot a tricky issue, on a roll with a development project, or working on a time-sensitive report for management. I’ve found that sometimes is takes a couple minutes to effectively transition between tasks, like to save what I was working on or find a good breaking point if I am working on a migration. Also, most questions I receive are easier to answer if I have a little context ahead of time and do a little research if necessary.

If I’m not at an ideal spot to take an impromptu Teams call, I don’t take it, but I do follow up quickly. I will take it if it’s management, but seriously management always reaches out before calling. I would say 9/10 users will reach out first, so it feels like very much “company culture” to do so.

Part of me feels like my aversion to unannounced video calls is an irrational pet peeve. The other part of me, though, feels like my time is most effectively managed when I’m not dropping everything at the drop of a hat with zero information. Is there an appropriate, more direct way to deal with the issue? Or should I just keep doing what I’m doing — that is, ignore it and follow up within 10 minutes after I’ve hit an appropriate break point? Or am I being a little petty?

These are never critical issues, and are often random data requests. I have also noticed a very high correlation between unannounced-video-call-initiaters and misusers-of-high-importance-email-and-read-receipt-settings.

What you’re doing is perfect. It wouldn’t be if you were in a job that required a different kind of availability, but for many/most office jobs it makes sense and is what most efficient people do.

You need to manage your time in a way that makes sense for the work, which in many jobs means focusing rather than stopping whatever you’re doing every time your phone rings (or someone stops by or an IM pops up or so forth). In fact, if I managed someone who stopped deep-focus work every time a new message popped up on their screen, I’d talk to them about ways to focus better (assuming I saw it reflected in their work or stress level, which is likely). This isn’t that different.

Also, this is true of all calls, not just videos calls. The unannounced video makes it worse because you might not be in a place or condition to spontaneously appear on video, but my advice would be the same if they were non-video calls too.

3. Senior managers who try to commiserate over current events

My great-grandboss wandered around our academic (major research institution) workplace looking to commiserate and, presumably, console staff (whom they barely know) after the election. Pretty much the same thing happened after the October 7, 2023 attack. What the hell is this?

They didn’t send out a carefully worded message that said, “We know that nerves are raw and emotions may be high due to current events. Please remember to be patient with your coworkers and seek out help if you need it (link to EAP).”

No.

They seemed to be looking for co-mourners or something. I’m of the opinion that they aren’t my parent, friend, or therapist and they should not be doing this. What are your thoughts?

My thoughts are the same as yours. It’s inappropriate and likely unwelcome to many people. Managers are uniquely positioned to help people during stressful outside events — by sending out the sort of message you described, adjusting workloads, or encouraging people to take time off if needed — and they should stick to those things, rather than (a) attempting to fulfill their own emotional needs through employees or (b) assuming some sort of pastoral role that isn’t appropriate and which no one wants them to take (not to mention the assumption that everyone they encounter shares their political views).

4. Former employee’s new company is still using his old email address — should I tell them?

We had a long-standing employee resign to work for a competitor. He left his replacement a mess to fix and we spent weeks fixing his mistakes. Upon his leaving, I notified our vendors that he’d left and changed all passwords to ensure he didn’t try to keep using our systems. The new company he went to placed orders with us and he was their old rep.

I gave his replacement access to his old email, as per company policy. We wait to delete the old email for about a month or two.

His replacement informed me that his new company is still sending messages to him at his old employee email, so we are getting included in all of their emails about projects and clients. I am unsure if this is because they have yet to issue him a new email or if it’s because they are so used to autofilling his old email. Should I tell the new company he’s working with that they are sending emails to wrong place or let them reap the consequences of not issuing their new employee a new email address?

You’d think someone over there would figure it out when their new hire isn’t receiving/responding to any of their messages!

I don’t think you have any absolute obligation to inform them, but it would be a professional courtesy to do it — and doubly so since it sounds like this new company is a client of yours (although also a competitor?). You’re understandably annoyed that your old employee left a mess you had to clean up, but it would be fairly petty to let that be the reason you stay quiet. I’m feeling a bit scorched earth myself lately so I understand the impulse, but you’re nearly always better off taking the high road.