Ask a Manager

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

1. My coworker uses the office snack budget on expensive snacks only she likes

I work on a pretty small team with only three people in the office on a regular basis. We have about six other people who come in once a week or less. Our office admin is in charge of ordering snacks for the office, and she has very specific food tastes. Since I’ve worked here, I’ve tolerated the fact that she buys things that only she eats. Think expensive organic vegan yogurt, kombucha, dried figs, etc. She has been asked to buy more mainstream snacks like Cheetos and Coke multiple times, but she flat out refuses in a very judgmental way. Multiple people have complained to me about it. I’m a big snacker, but I just buy snacks with my own money and typically leave them out for everyone to share. I’m non-confrontational by nature, so I prefer not to fight about things that seem petty to me.

I’ve recently been promoted to office lead, which means that I control our office’s pretty meager discretionary budget. When I looked at the budget and expenses from the previous year, she went way over our budget. She literally buys $60 bags of dried fruit for herself! I feel I have a responsibility to rein in her spending (and honestly I think what she’s been doing borders on unethical). I also see an opportunity to improve office morale by making sure that there are things that everyone eats. I think she’s used to me being a doormat and is a pretty combative person when she feels attacked. How can I approach this with her in a constructive way?

Note that I’m not her supervisor. I would say I’m above her in a largely symbolic way as office lead, but I do manage the office budget and am responsible for office morale.

Wow, that’s some audacity. The snack budget presumably isn’t “to provide Jane with the snacks she wants,” but “to provide the office with snacks.” This wouldn’t be okay even if all Jane’s snacks were inexpensive ones, but the fact that they’re pricey on top of being only enjoyed by her makes it even more ridiculous.

Luckily, yes, since you now manage the discretionary budget and that includes the snacks, you have the standing to tackle this (and should). However, since Jane responded badly when approached about this before, I strongly recommend looping in her manager before you do anything. You could just issue a decree that you’re changing the snack process, but it’s likely to go a lot more smoothly if you first make Jane’s manager aware of the problem and that you’re expecting resistance from Jane and get them onboard in making it clear that the kombucha and fig train is ending.

If you can, try to include something Jane likes in the new regime, as long as it’s not more expensive than what the rest of the office gets. If necessary, ask her for suggestions of what would work for her within a budget of $X/month. $X should be her portion of the snack budget (so $X divided by the number of people the budget needs to serve), not the entire thing.

2. Thin office walls and an eavesdropping manager

The walls in our office are very thin, and I share a wall with my manager. She can hear every meeting that I have and any and all phone calls.

She has felt the need to critique things that have occurred in my meetings that do not involve her that she has listened to through the wall. My role is very autonomous and she doesn’t have the typical managerial role and is not a mentor. While I accept any and all advice and criticism, I find it odd that she sits in her office and listens and, for the most part, doesn’t hear the entire story or is involved with the program I am working on. I try and schedule meetings now when she is out or when I am working remotely to avoid the eavesdropping. I do feel the need to say that her former employees have all asked to be under another manager because of these types of behaviors.

If everyone else is getting moved out from under her because of her behavior … is that an option for you too?

But if it’s not, or if you have reasons for wanting to stay where you are, would you be comfortable addressing it directly? For example: “I always welcome feedback, but it’s tough to have phone calls knowing that you’re listening and only hearing my side of the conversation and forming impressions based on that. Obviously I want to know if you overhear me saying something wrong, or if you’ve heard a pattern that concerns you, but assuming you agree that my work and my judgment are generally good, I’m asking to be trusted to manage my meetings and phone calls without that kind of constant observation. It’s hard to do good work otherwise.” You could also ask point-blank: “Is there something about my work that’s making you feel you need to supervise my meetings in this way?” … and then assuming she doesn’t indicate there is, “It’s tough to do good work and exercise the autonomy my job requires when you’re managing my meetings so closely.”

Also, would a white noise machine make it harder for her to hear you? It might be worth trying one.

Related:
I can hear everything my staff says — should I pretend I don’t?

3. “Anything else we can think of” in job descriptions

As I am looking for work and weeding through hundreds of job listings, I keep seeing the phrase “and anything else we can think of” when listing duties expected of the prospective employee.

It always raises my hackles when I see “and anything else we can think of” tacked on to a long list of what they expect of their employee, but wanted to know what a professional thought of the phrase. Maybe I’m overreacting?

Yeah, I don’t like it; it comes across as “we will pile more and more work upon you, whether it’s logically within your role or not.” However, that’s not necessarily what it means; often it’s just someone using more casual wording in place of the old standby, “other duties as assigned.” But it’s sloppy language that doesn’t consider how it sounds from the candidate’s perspective.

4. I left my old job years ago but my old boss still asks for my help

About 12 years ago, I landed my first job, where Mandy, the manager, was incredibly supportive and taught me a lot. When the office software was upgraded, I received training on the new system and was tasked with teaching other employees. Every year, the software requires an initial setup to function properly.

Three years after leaving that job, Mandy reached out to me, asking for help with the software configuration since those who knew how to do it were no longer working there. I went back, set everything up, and trained a new employee.

The following year, Mandy contacted me again with the same issue, as the employee I had trained had left. I went back, trained Mandy, and provided step-by-step notes on the process.

The next year, Mandy mentioned losing the notes. Once again, I visited and created a detailed document outlining the steps (and I’ve been sending this email every year explaining the process). Despite this, Mandy asks me to handle the configuration every year.

I no longer remember the training details; I simply follow the saved instructions. Although it only takes two days to set up, I feel uneasy about declining, but I no longer wish to bear this responsibility. It’s not about money or time; I just don’t want the annual responsibility of configuring this software. Is there a way to communicate this without sounding ungrateful?

Oh my goodness, you could have refused the very first request! It’s absurd to ask someone to do this three years after leaving a job — let alone every year after that! Is Mandy paying you for this work, or have you been doing it out of the kindness of your heart? Because if you were going to do it, you should have been paid for it.

But you absolutely can and should put a stop to it now. Say this: “I’m not going to be available to do it anymore, but here’s the document that outlines the steps to follow and anyone should be able to take this over.” If you’re more comfortable giving a reason, say your schedule no longer allows it (that doesn’t need to be true — and you don’t need to supply a reason anyway). If she pushes or asks for just one more year, hold firm: “I’m really not available to do it anymore.”

Also, you don’t need to show gratitude to a great boss by continuing to work for them after you’re gone! You show gratitude by doing a good job while you’re there, and maybe telling them in words what you appreciate about the relationship and staying on good terms afterward. The latter means things like if they ask whether you know any good candidates for job X, you might refer them someone from your network; it doesn’t mean you continue to do the job you resigned from! It’s not ungrateful to assume your resignation means you don’t work there anymore, period.

5. Explaining a firing to a recruiter

I know you sometimes share good examples of cover letters, but I had something a little different … a script I’ve written addressing the fact that five years ago, I was fired from my job, and lots of people from that job now work for a company a recruiter wants to put me forward for (it’s a pretty small industry). I very much wrote this with my “what would Alison say” hat on, so I hope you approve! Here it is:

“I wanted to be up-front, as lots of my former colleagues from X now work at Y, that my job there ended with me being let go. There were lots of timing factors around this, including a major and sudden bereavement in my family, company issues which have since become pretty public, but I also have had a chance to reflect, own and improve on the things in that job that I wasn’t suited to, and didn’t realize until it was too late how to fix them. In the five years since, the issues I had at that job have been a major focus of my personal and professional development, and I’m pretty proud that people who know and work with me now say those things are strengths of mine. It has not affected my references, but in case anyone that worked with me at X is working on recruitment for this role, I didn’t want it to seem like I was withholding that aspect of my tenure there.”

Yes, this is great! It explains why you’re raising it (lots of former colleagues work at the company the recruiter would be putting you forward to, so it might come up and you don’t want the recruiter to be blindsided), it’s straightforward about what happened, it’s not defensive, and it affirms that you’ve done the work to fix those issues, while stressing that others agree with that. Well done.

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

1. Our “neurodiversity awareness panel” was just about dyslexia

I work for a large engineering firm that has an active Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee, which recently organized a Neurodiversity Awareness Panel webinar. As someone who was diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) at a young age and who for various reasons has not disclosed this to my manager or others at my firm, I was very interested to attend. I was somewhat surprised when the panel then turned out to consist of four people with dyslexia.

I don’t mean to minimize the issues people with dyslexia can face in the workplace (some of the panelists spoke very eloquently on this) but I came away from the panel feeling very disheartened. The discussion was very much focussed on “tell everyone! Be proud of who you are!” which is advice that, frankly, just doesn’t apply to everyone who is neurodivergent. The stigmas around dyslexia, though definitely real, are very different than those around ASD. One particularly tone-deaf piece of advice was to disclose your diagnosis in your email signature. My role means I’m regularly contacting people for the first time, both within and outside our company, and I can’t imagine emailing external clients with a line in my signature saying, “By the way, I’m autistic!” as my first impression.

I feel dyslexia is one of the less “spicy” neurodivergences, borne out by the fact that during the discussion several listeners added their thoughts about their experiences with dyslexia, but no one with another condition said anything (I wonder why?). As is often the case, the most socially acceptable neurodivergence seem to be the ones getting the airtime.

How should I handle this? The organizers of the webinar asked for feedback and I want to tell them that this event made me feel more excluded, not less. At the same time, it wasn’t all bad — I was glad the organizers described the phrase “everyone’s a bit autistic” as a microaggression to be avoided, as this phrase does make me pretty cross when I hear it. Still, though, I don’t know how I can raise the topic without disclosing my own diagnosis, and would welcome your thoughts on if this is even a battle I should fight.

Yeah, that’s a panel on dyslexia more than it’s a panel on neurodiversity more broadly, and I can see why you were disappointed; it’s one small and fairly specific piece of the neurodivergent universe.

I’d love for you to give candid feedback about this because your organization clearly needs to hear it, and they’ve requested it. But if you haven’t chosen to disclose your autism at work, I’m hesitant to tell you to do it in service of this.

Is there any avenue for anonymous feedback? I’m not usually a huge fan of anonymous feedback, but it’s actually pretty well suited for something like this.

2. My coworker is stonewalling me

I have a colleague who I cross-collaborate with in a different department. I have supervisory authority within his department but don’t manage him directly. He came to me with a special request for their staff, which I denied because it didn’t make sense for all departments and would have been a logistic nightmare.

After I declined his special request, he moved forward with the request anyway, causing a lot of stress and mistrust across departments. I spoke to my boss and his boss about the issue, and he was reprimanded. He has since decided to stonewall me: sending my calls to voicemail, not responding to my emails, and now walking out of rooms I enter. I attempted to communicate with him, but he refused to acknowledge that I was speaking with him and pretended to be busy. I even said his name and that we needed to have a conversation and he just blinked and continued to type on his computer. I walked away and dropped it.

We still have areas we need to communicate about and collaborate on. I understand this professional relationship cannot be repaired, but how do I move forward and continue to do my job?

Go back to your boss and explain what’s happening. Be specific about the ways in which he’s freezing you out and the effect it’s having on your ability to do your job. Your coworker’s stonewalling is unacceptable; he doesn’t need to like you, but he does need to treat you professionally and not ignore your work requests. But based on his behavior so far, you’re not going to be able to resolve this on your own; someone with authority over him needs to intervene.

3. My friend accused me of getting him fired, but I didn’t

I’m a freelance writer who works for various companies, along with some colleagues who I also consider to be my friends. One of these places has a strict policy against receiving free products from companies in exchange for favorable coverage, which is made clear to contributors like me. There have been instances of people being found out or caught by the company, in ways I’m not entirely aware of. (Supposedly writers are monitored or word gets around and management puts two and two together. It’s also possible that other people rat them out.)

A writer friend of mine was fired from this place because he violated this policy. He sent me a message saying that I was two-faced. At the time, I didn’t respond because I was shocked by it.

I still feel wary around him. My non-work friends say he’s not my friend if he thinks that about me. I reassured him that I had nothing to do with it, but I’m wondering if I should have at the time reached out to the company or asked my friend further about why he thought that.

You definitely shouldn’t contact the company about it since you’re not involved in whatever happened, and this is between them and a different freelancer.

But yeah, if a friend accuses of you of something and you have no idea what they’re talking about, it makes sense to try to clear up that miscommunication … unless the friend has a pattern of that sort of thing and you’re just done investing energy in it. In this case, I’m curious about whether your friend is normally hot-headed/jumps to conclusions without getting all the facts/is quick to blame people for things they didn’t do. If not and this is out of character for him, it makes sense to try to straighten out whatever the confusion is.

Also: if your friend was indeed taking comps in exchange for media coverage, that’s a huge deal and can destroy a publication’s credibility (as you know). If someone reported him for that, it’s awfully un-self-aware for his response to be anger that someone shared it rather than looking at his own actions.

4. I think an employer is blowing me off — should I complain?

On January 2, I went to a job interview. It is an exciting opportunity. It pays about the same as what I am making now, but it is more related to my field of study, so I applied as soon as I saw it.

I felt the interview went well. The three people who interviewed me said they would be in touch within a week or two. They were all friendly and I felt I left a good impression on them.

Two days after the interview, I sent the HR manager a note. I told her it was a pleasure to meet her, I thanked her for the time, and asked what the next step was in the hiring process. She said they would make a hiring decision within two weeks and would get back to me.

After two weeks, I did not hear back from anyone, so I emailed her. I wanted to let her know I was still interested in the position, and asked if she had made a decision yet. She said no, they were still interviewing people, and hadn’t made any decisions yet, but told me to keep in touch. I told her I understand because they mentioned the office is short-staffed.

Last week, I emailed her again. I just asked if she had any updates about the position yet, and again she said no decisions have been made yet and thanked me for keeping in touch.

This week will will be four weeks since the interview, and I am becoming disappointed with how I am being treated by HR. I feel like I am being given the runaround, and the HR manager did not reach out in the timeframe she said she would. I am tempted to send her a polite but firm letter expressing disappointment with her lack of transparency and follow-up in regards to the hiring process.

I am willing to wait another two weeks, but my patience has its limits. I don’t like evasive people. My mother thinks I should just tell the HR manager to shove it, since she clearly didn’t keep her word and follow-up as she said she would. She feels the company is blowing me off by giving non-committal answers. I haven’t sent anything else yet. Do you think I am overreacting, or is the HR manager being irresponsible here?

You’re overreacting, and you should not say anything like this to the HR manager.

Hiring always takes longer than the people involved think it will. Things come up, higher priorities get in the way, decision-makers go out of town, budget issues have to be resolved, someone resigns and the manager needs to think about whether that changes the profile of what they’re hiring for … and on and on. It doesn’t matter how conscientious employers are about trying to provide realistic timelines; it’s really common for things to come up and cause delays. I suggest taking any timeline you’re given, doubling it, and then adding two weeks to that — and even then, don’t be surprised if it takes longer.

The employer isn’t being evasive with you. They’re not being deceptive. It’s just taking longer. They are giving you non-committal answers because that’s all they have right now. Chastising them over that might make you feel better in the moment, but it will make you look like you don’t understand how this stuff works and will probably kill any chances you had there, now or in the future.

This employer knows that you’re interested. If they want to hire you, they will let you know. You do not need to keep contacting them. The best thing you can do is to assume you didn’t get the job for now, put it out of your mind, and let it be a pleasant surprise if it turns out you did. You don’t need to keep following up with them (and the fact that you keep checking back in and are tracking it this closely is almost certainly making you more antsy about it).

Don’t take any more job advice from your mom; she steered you really wrong here.

5. I don’t want to shake hands at work

I’ve been out of the workforce for a few years, and I expect to return soon-ish. In the past, I had no problem shaking hands, but now I’d rather not — partly because I have some joint damage in two fingers (from a mild autoimmune disorder), but mostly because I was seriously ill and immunocompromised during much of the past year. I’m no longer willing to shake hands and expose myself to Covid/other ailments.

I read a February 2020 question on your site, written by “a moderate germaphobe” who didn’t want to shake hands but who didn’t reference Covid, because this was before the world embarked on pandemic precautions. Under those circumstances, you replied that it’s okay for the non-shaker to say warmly to the interviewer(s), etc., “I don’t shake hands, but it’s very nice to meet you.”

My concern is that, because most people don’t fear Covid anymore and perhaps think that no one should — and it’s become a political football rather than a public health matter — my refusing to shake hands will make me seem like some overly cautious weirdo. Will I make a bad impression on interviewers, etc. if I follow your 2020 advice even though the world is very different now? (I would hope that Covid would have made safety precautions more accepted, but that seems not to be the case.)

Covid is still a good reason not to shake hands, but you’re not wrong that some people may have Opinions about that. I tend to think you’re better off screening out any potential employer who objects to someone taking Covid precautions (what are they going to be like in the next pandemic, or about safety in general?) but I also wouldn’t worry a ton about it — because there are other reasons people don’t shake hands too (hand injury, religious reasons, other medical reasons, etc.).

So yes, this still works: “I don’t shake hands but it’s very nice to meet you.” The key — and this is really important — is to say it very warmly. Go out of your way to put friendliness in your voice, face, and body language so people don’t think you’re being chilly.