Ask a Manager

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

1. My coworker won’t stop talking about a war that’s endangering my loved ones

I work for a medium-sized nonprofit with a diverse staff, including many recent immigrants to the country (we are in Europe). A colleague with whom I work closely in my team of six is a recent immigrant from a country that is currently at war with a country I have close ties to, including family and friends still living there. This would be fine, as I feel able to set this aside and work with her as normal, but for the fact that she Will. Not. Stop. Talking. About. The. War. In a one-to-one catch up to discuss a project she’s assisting me with? She wants to talk about the war. In a department or team meeting with a clear agenda? Somehow she brings the conversation back to the war.

From my name and what few personal details people at work know about me, you wouldn’t guess that I have ties to the country that hers is at war with, so I wonder if she just doesn’t realize when she’s saying these things that they’re directly impacting me (although, from what I know of this colleague, she can be pretty oblivious to how things come across regardless of who she’s talking to).

I am finding the constant discussion about the conflict triggering, but I also can’t find the words to say “please stop.” I’d prefer it if work was a place where I could (as much as possible) forget about what is happening to those I love and focus on, well, work. But she’s making it impossible. We have a very open, collegiate, and friendly workplace where it’s considered the norm to talk about family, where people come from, etc., so it feels difficult to challenge her when she’s basically just doing what others do — just with added war talk. But it’s so upsetting to me that I’ve started to avoid meetings where she’ll be present (we work remotely so I can mostly manage to have a schedule clash). How can I address this, either with her or our team manager?

Would you be comfortable saying, “I have family there, so this is a really distressing topic for me and I’d be grateful if you wouldn’t bring it up around around me”? And then if she brings it up after that: “Like I’ve told you, I can’t talk about this at work. Thank you for understanding.”

If that doesn’t solve it, it’s reasonable to say something to your manager like, “I have family living in (region) who I’m deeply worried about so the war is a very upsetting topic to me. I’ve asked Jane to keep that in mind and not bring it up with me, but she keeps talking about it regularly, and it’s distressing and distracting. Would you be able to intervene since my speaking with her directly hasn’t worked?”

2. Can I back out of a chaotic freelance project?

I’m a freelancer in a fairly small industry. Recently, I was invited to be part of a project with nine other, more established peers. They had someone back out and would I like to step in and participate? The project would involve all 10 of us doing approximately the same work and then bundling it all together. For example, say we’re all submitting a piece of art and putting together an art exhibit. How successful we are will determine how much business this drums up for each of us for the future and how much money we’ll make from our efforts.

Well, the art show was supposed to have happened this month, and … it didn’t. Half the artists chime in vaguely when directly asked to share ideas but didn’t actually start on their work until the last minute, and then the decision was made to push the project back several months, and two more people dropped out (in addition to the one I replaced). Now there’s talk of some people simply painting two pieces instead of continuing to recruit replacements. The organizer is still gung ho about how awesome the show will be and is sure it will be a huge success.

Everyone involved is a bigger name in the industry than I am, and I don’t want to cause problems for myself professionally in my small and often catty industry, but I think I want out! I’m not convinced this art show will happen at all, and right now it feels like I’m back in high school doing 90% of the group project while hoping that somebody notices how little the rest of the group is contributing. *If* the show happens, it would be a great way to get my name out there, but if it doesn’t — or if it flops because no one else makes an effort — I’ll be sinking a ton of time and work into it for nothing. Is there a professional way to back out of my commitment? (No paperwork was signed, it’s all an informal thing.) If they’re saying snarky things about the work ethic of the people who already backed out, I’m sure they’ll do the same for me, and I can’t afford that in a field where freelance jobs come by word of mouth … but I don’t particularly want to spend the next six months deferentially herding cats either!

You could take advantage of the fact that the timeline has changed and say, “I was able to participate when the show was slated for this month, but I won’t be able to be involved on the new timeline because of other commitments in the next few months.”

People who are determined to be snarky will always find something to snark about, but you wouldn’t be giving them ammunition; you committed to a specific scope of work in a specific time period, and you’re allowed to say that the new timeline clashes with other stuff you’ve already scheduled.

(That assumes that you’re sure you want to drop out. It certainly sounds reasonable to! But only you can balance that against whatever benefits could come from participating.)

3. I won’t supervise smoke breaks for minors

I won’t supervise smoke breaks, so I am the “bad shift leader” where I work. I work in a small restaurant doing fast food, often with only four staff on during dinner, and most of those are under 18. Problem is, some of them smoke or vape. Policy is that if they are under 18, they are not allowed to leave the building unsupervised except during their 30-minute break, even to take out trash! Their 15-minute breaks are expected to be taken in the break area inside the restaurant. So these employees need to convince another employee to stand outside and watch them smoke. This becomes a giggle chat time and leaves the other two employees swamped and unsupported, often for much longer than a single smoke. I don’t want to be the bad guy, but I don’t want to be understaffed or charged with supporting underage smoking!

(Technically them just having the smokes or vapes on their person under 21 is illegal. Our store often has police who patrol our location, so them out smoking and giggling while in work shirts could become an issue. Those between 18 and 21 can go outside alone, so a 10-minute “taking the trash out” smoke break is not as hard to deal with, but still allows illegal activity on our work premises.)

You need to talk to your store manager because they really need to be setting policy about this. But absent that, as a shift leader you should have the authority to tell people they can’t take another employee outside with them on their break since it’s leaving the store short-staffed. You also should have the authority to say that employees can’t break federal law on store property or while in their work uniform (although it will really help to have your store manager backing you up on that one). Talk to everyone and say, “I know we’ve allowed this in the past, but we’re not allowing it going forward because it’s leaving us short-staffed and it’s a violation of federal law.”

If that makes you the bad guy … well, that’s because you’re dealing with minors who don’t fully understand how work works yet, and it’s going to be part of the job. It’ll help, though, to have your manager backing you up because if you’ll get more pushback if you’re the only shift leader who enforces those rules — which is why they should be involved.

Related:
will smoking hurt my promotion chances?

4. My employee needs repeated reminders to get his work done

I run a team of project managers and technical consultants. I have someone on my team, Bob, who does an adequate job. He is the most junior on the team. I find myself having to remind him of tasks he said he’d do or follow-ups he needs to make with a customer. None of them are huge issues. I feel petty bringing them up individually but, I feel like if I don’t remind him, they won’t get done. Really, the impact is that everything takes longer with him. It gets done, but it’s dragged out. I have given him feedback that he needs to be more proactive to move his projects forward. This feedback didn’t change this behavior.

I don’t like it. I feel like I’m micromanaging his to-do list.

Yeah, that’s a really big deal! You need to be able to rely on him to track his own work and do what he says he’s going to do without someone hovering over him and monitoring him that closely. It’s time to treat this as a serious performance issue — meaning sitting down with him, naming the pattern and what needs to change, offering recent examples so you’re sure he’s clear on the problems, and then giving him some short amount of time (weeks, not months) to show he can meet the expectations of the job. You can offer coaching and support (for example, does he need help figuring out organizational systems?) but he’s got to demonstrate that he can do this piece of the job. If he can’t, treat it the way you would anything else where someone wasn’t meeting the requirements of the job after clear feedback and coaching. Here’s advice on doing that: 1, 2, 3

Also, this is a big deal for any job, but if Bob is one of your project managers, that adds additional urgency since these skills are so fundamental to that work.

5. Interviewing when I need time off for regular fertility appointments

I am currently job hunting and have found a job I am interested in. This is a great opportunity to jump into a new career and get started in something I am passionate about. There is just one thing that is holding me back: how do I talk about the fact that I am currently in fertility specialist appointments?

I currently go to the specialist twice to three times a month and make up the time with my current role. I am usually no more than one hour late to work for these appointments unless there is an exception. I want to bring this up in the hiring process (without mentioning that it is for fertility) so they do not feel like I have done a bait and switch on them.

Can you help me with what I should say or if I should bring this up to them at all? I am worried that they will make the connection if a few months in I announce I am pregnant and the appointments slow down.

It’s normal — and recommended — to wait until you have an offer and not bring it up before then. Medical appointments that make you late an hour late a few times a month are such an easily-accommodated thing that no reasonable employer will feel you baited and switched them by not raising it earlier (it’s not like you’re suddenly announcing, “By the way, I only work two days a month” or “I will need to work from Argentina”) and it’ll actually feel premature if you bring it up sooner.

Once you have an offer, say this: “I have medical appointments two to three mornings per month. Would it be possible for me to start work at 10 am on those days?” You don’t need to say what it’s for (and shouldn’t — it’s none of their business, and there’s no expectation that you’ll share details). If they make the connection once you announce you’re pregnant down the road, so be it; that’s not a big deal. (But also, people are remarkably oblivious and I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t.)

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

1. We’re required to work in-person, but my coworker doesn’t come in

I work on a team that is separated into two teams: one with about 12 people and then my team of five. Our larger team works in the office three days a week. These days were chosen to align with other cross-functional teams that we work with who are also in those same three days.

I’ve been with this company for about a year and a half and early on, I learned that one of the people on my smaller team rarely came into the office due to an HR-approved reason. I did not find out the reason until, unfortunately, her husband passed away from cancer early last year. Now it has been nearly a year and she still rarely comes in. She will come in for a special event like our team holiday event and then leave directly after.

I have talked with our manager in the past about some of my frustrations, but she has indicated both that she will never make this employee come back to the office and that our VP thinks that “things are working.” She also has said that it might be an HR problem. Shortly after that conversation, she mentioned integrating this person back into the office, but did not give any other details. This was all prior to the holidays and nothing has really changed.

We recently had a small event on-site that this person came in for and then, maybe 10 minutes after it was over, left. She was then on a team call later that afternoon. Our boss also never seems to know when she will be in the office or be leaving right after an event.

Is it time to go to HR? I try to be understanding that this person has lost their partner, but I’m also struggling to balance that with the reason we’re given for being in the office.

Is it affecting your work? If so, talk to your manager about the impact it’s having on your work and ask for her help in solving that.

But if it doesn’t impact your work and it’s just a matter of what seems fair, you should leave it alone. You don’t have the standing to raise someone else’s schedule if it’s not affecting you, and there could be all kinds of info you’re not privy to — like that she has an ongoing medical accommodation for something unrelated to her husband’s illness, or she’s so excellent at her work that the company negotiated a different arrangement with her, or a bunch of other explanations.

But even if there’s nothing like that and it’s just plain unfairness, you still don’t really have the standing to object to someone else’s schedule if it doesn’t impact you — and when you’re new to a company that clearly wants to accommodate her, you risk looking callous and like you’re overstepping. (To be clear, if your boss wrote in and said they were exempting one team member from a policy everyone else had to follow and they had no real justification for it, I’d give them different advice. But you’re in a different position.)

2. Do I have to use the phone for my freelance client?

I am a freelancer. I balance multiple projects for a variety of clients. Almost all my clients reach out by email, which allows me to get to them when I have a minute while also providing a written reminder of project specifics that I can consult as needed.

However, one client prefers the telephone. Edwina is the nicest person, and chatty. She calls whenever she has a project and will explain at length what she needs, sometimes going into tangents on somewhat unrelated things. The calls can take up to 10 or 15 minutes, sometimes more. They are also out of the blue (any other client I have will schedule a call by email).

Am I being too picky about these calls? They require that I stop the project I am on, which is unfair to the client I’m currently working for. These calls are also unbillable hours, as they are essentially project requests. I also hate being on the phone, especially unplanned, and the whole thing leaves me anxious. Then I have to find my way back into the focus of the project I was working on in the first place.

Letting her calls go to voicemail is even worse. Then I have to listen to a long message and then call her back, making the time spent on just establishing if I can do the project even longer. Plus I have to make myself a reminder to check my messages (I never ever get calls so it’s not a habit) and knowing I have to call back leaves me feeling anxious until I do. I really do hate the phone.

That said, Edwina is lovely, her projects are important, she trusts me which I am grateful for, and her intentions are only ever helpful. I would not want to lose her, and if this is the extra cost of having her as a client, that’s fine by me. But every time the phone rings I go through this whole thought process.

Some people are phone people and feel they communicate better over the phone, just as some people are email people and feel they communicate better that way. As a freelancer you have the power to decide you’re going to funnel all clients to email, but it does mean that some people may decide you’re not the right fit and you’ll lose their business. Some freelancers are fine with that! But it sounds like you’d rather keep Edwina if that’s the price.

I can’t tell whether you’ve tried asking Edwina to initiate new projects by email. If you haven’t asked yet, you could. In fact, why not create an online form that collects all the info you need and ask her to fill that out? You’ll be less likely to sound like you’re just saying “I don’t want to talk to you,” plus you’’ll get the benefit of collecting all the info you need.

But also, 10-15 minute phone calls are not terribly lengthy when you work with clients! I agree you shouldn’t interrupt work you’re doing for another client to answer them, but you’re choosing to do that rather than (a) coming up with a system to remind you to check your messages  later or (b) asking Edwina to stop leaving details on your voicemail and instead ask you call her back when you can talk. By choosing to interrupt other work to take her calls, you’re making it harder on yourself but not fully owning that choice, which makes me think you’re letting your dislike of the phone color your actions too much.

All of which is to say … yes, the price of keeping Edwina is a client might be that you have to talk to her on the phone, but there are things to try that could make it easier.

Related:
can I tell clients that I don’t talk on the phone?

3. My old high school started a mentoring program and it sucks

I’m in a specialized field that requires a graduate degree, and I work at an organization that’s viewed as very desirable. I mentor a lot of different ways: through my college, graduate school, and as an official resource at my organization for people looking to learn more about joining the organization.

My high school (!) set up a career networking site and invited alum to join, to both seek and offer mentoring, networking, post jobs and internships, etc. Standard stuff, though for high school students and alumni. The head of the new career networking site, Allan, emailed me, asking if I would mentor students and I said sure. Then, the weird part comes: Allan emails me and dozens of other alumni, cc’ing one student (Bertha), saying, “Hello alumni in [field]. I have cc’d Bertha who is interested in your field. Please reach out to them.” Over the next few days, I received more emails (and so did my fellow alumni) for more students, though eventually we were all added to the bcc line, so I couldn’t see how many of my fellow alumni were on the emails.

This is all really weird, right? I get that they’re high school students, but doesn’t it seem like it 1) totally defeats the purpose of teaching them how to network, and 2) seems a little creepy? I’m a man, and I feel uncomfortable reaching out to high school students, where as far as I can tell, they haven’t indicated they want to talk to me. It’s one thing if they message me first, another thing for me (and 50 of my friends!) to reach out to them. I sent a message to Allan outlining my views: I wrote that I am happy to speak to students, but I do not want to be one of 50 alumni sending unsolicited emails to students. But Allan’s messages continued. Thoughts? Shouldn’t this career networking guy be teaching students how to send emails to request networking? What’s my responsibility here? This seems like a horrible program, but I’m just one alum, and I’m not particularly involved in my high school. Should I contact someone above Allan?

Yes, this is a bad program. It puts too much of the onus on the people who are offering a favor and too little on the student seeking it, and it doesn’t teach those students about how networking actually works. It would be a far better program if Allan kept short professional profiles of each of you, helped students decide who they should contact, and then taught them how to do that.

But since you’ve shared your views with Allan and nothing has changed, why not just opt out of the program? You can explain why and be done with it. If you want to, you could certainly share your concerns with someone above him, but you don’t need to (unless you’re fired up about this and want to try to get it fixed).

4. Should I tell my interviewer I plan to retire in two years?

I work for an engineering company typically working on projects for various customers while working from home. The last few months I have been located at one of our customer’s sites filling in doing general support work because their engineer left the company. I was originally scheduled to be there until they hired a replacement for the engineer who left. They are having trouble finding a person to fill the position and have asked me to interview for the position and I have agreed to talk with them.

I am planning on retiring in two years. Should I reveal that to them when I interview? I am reasonably happy with my current company so I don’t need to move on but it could be a good opportunity so I am willing to at least interview. Would it be ethical to take the job and then leave after just a couple of years?

That’s not unethical. It’s super normal to leave a job after a couple of years! It would be different if you were planning on retiring in six months, but a couple of years is a reasonably solid amount of time that doesn’t require ethical qualms or disclosure in the interview. (The exception would be if it were a set of circumstances where that timeline would clearly would be an issue — like if you were interviewing to be the dean of students at a school that had had a lot of turmoil and was looking for long-term leadership stability. But that’s not this.)

5. I’m worried my manager will challenge the title on my resume

I’m preparing to leave a field I’ve been in for decades, and an organization I’ve been at for almost 10 years. Because I’m changing careers, I’m trying to highlight all of my transferable skills so they’ll be recognizable on my resume by employers in my new field.

My concern is with my current director, who is unpredictable. He’s controlling and demanding and does not like to be crossed. For three years, I served as the de facto interim assistant director of my department, under him. This was not an official position, and I did not receive any additional money or a title that reflected what I did; I simply did the job because he demanded it and it was good experience. (I stopped when they finally made this a new, official position and hired someone for it; I declined to apply.) Now, I’d like to highlight that on my resume under a subsection that calls the position what it was: interim assistant director, or something close to that. The duties for this position were so different from my regular job duties that it doesn’t really make sense to lump them together on my resume — imagine being an office manager for a construction company versus operating the bulldozer.

However, I worry that if I ever have to get a reference from this supervisor, he’ll freak out if a potential employer mentions this. I also worry, though less, that he’ll see this on my resume if he ever stalks my LinkedIn or my personal website (I wouldn’t put this past him). I wouldn’t ever go out of my way to list him as a reference, but I think it’s possible that I’ll have to give a supervisor’s name and contact information for certain jobs.

You can’t really give yourself an official job title that you didn’t have. I know that’s frustrating when your job was so different job from what your title indicates, but it’s common for reference-checkers to verify titles and if your employer (correctly!) tells them that wasn’t your title and it looks like you tried to inflate your role, it could cause a bunch of problems. You might eventually be able to straighten it out by explaining all the circumstances, but it’s not a good risk to take.

But you can still put all the work you did on your resume! You just can’t imply you held a title you didn’t actually have. But you could put all those duties under a section for that job called “team management” or something similar (so you’re describing the area of work, just not giving yourself a title) and then have bullets that explain exactly what you achieved in that area.

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

1. My boss announced layoffs while wearing sunglasses (yes, it’s Anna Wintour)

You may have seen the reports last week that Anna Wintour wore sunglasses throughout the indoor, in-office Zoom meeting in which she announced corporate consolidation and immediate layoffs of many of those in attendance. I was in this Zoom meeting and as a regular blog reader, I’m curious to know your thoughts. This is not done, right? Right??

In my opinion, the way in which this news was announced (midweek, as gossip with no official statement, while wearing sunglasses) has only propelled a raft of well-deserved unflattering press coverage. Probably not coincidentally, I’m told a number of comms staffers were laid off last month.

You are correct: laying off people while wearing sunglasses is rude and bad management. It sends the message, “I don’t take this seriously, even though it’s very serious to you, and I’m definitely not invested enough to pay you the respect of looking you in the eye.”

As someone whose whole career is built on understanding the messages clothes and accessories send, Anna Wintour knows this.

2. I suspect our writing job candidates are using AI to write their applications

I was recently involved in recruiting a new copywriter and editor for my team. As part of the application process, we asked applicants to answer a few short written questions. We use this to find out about how their experience meets the essential criteria for the role, as well as seeing their writing style and grammar skills.

We got applications from some brilliant candidates, but there were a couple that gave me pause. The first thing I noticed was a lot of American-English spelling in their answers (think ‘prioritize’ rather than the British ‘prioritise’; we’re based in the UK). There could be several reasons for this, but it did set off a couple of alarm bells for me, as I know most AI generators use American-English. I also just got a bit of an odd feeling from their answers — they felt very stilted, impersonal and “buzzwordy” in a way that just felt strange compared to other applications.

On a hunch, I copied and pasted a few answers into an online AI detector, which said that AI content was likely present. (I also copied some other candidates’ answers into the program and those came up as “no AI content detected.”)

I mentioned my suspicion to the hiring manager, who said she’d take a look. In the end, we didn’t bring these applicants forward as we had lots of candidates with far more relevant experience and knowledge. We sent out our standard email rejection to them, just like the other candidates we didn’t move forward.

But how would you handle this if the candidate was a possible frontrunner? I had no concrete proof that they’d used AI for their answers but it did look like a real possibility. Is this just the way things are going these days? Would you have mentioned the possible AI use in your rejection or just left it? I don’t know if I’d have felt differently if the job wasn’t so writing-focused.

There’s no reason to mention your AI suspicions in the rejection letter (which most of the time don’t contain specific reasons for the rejection, especially when the person wasn’t even interviewed).

I think the question about how to handle it if the candidate was a frontrunner is a bit of a contradiction — because you were assessing these candidates’ writing skills and the thing that tipped you off was that their writing was bad/weird/stilted, so by definition they already weren’t frontrunners for jobs where writing is a central focus. But if you had a candidate whose writing was good but something was still screaming AI to you and the person was otherwise strong, a good next step would be to give a writing test during an interview, so you could see their writing skills in real time.

(Of course, unless the interview was in-person, they could still use AI. But at some point, it’s reasonable to conclude they’re either a good writer or they’re good at using AI to generate good writing. You’d need to decide if it matters for your context if it’s the latter. If it does — like if they won’t be able to use AI once on the job for legal/proprietary reasons — you’d want to make that very clear and ideally invest in assessment processes that rule it out, like in-person testing.)

3. Employer is blowing up my phone after firing me for “misconduct”

My small, family-owned employer of four years let me go in early November. I had had a disagreement with the owner and, having seen them fire many employees out of the blue, I suspected I’d be let go at the next opportunity. They opposed my unemployment claim on the basis of “misconduct,” stating I’d made “too many mistakes and had been warned.” In my opinion, I made a normal number of mistakes (two, in the entire year), and had never been warned, in writing or verbally, nor put on any PIP. In fact, I’d always received excellent performance reviews and had been told I’d be receiving a performance bonus the following week and my metrics were up.

Naturally, I appealed the unemployment decision, and the day after I received notice of my hearing date, my former employer began blowing up my phone (three to five times a day, every business day since then). They never leave a message and it’s causing me considerable anxiety. How do you suggest I handle it? Ignore it? Document it for the hearing? Email them to please let me know, in writing, what they need?

You’re under no obligation to talk to them; feel free to block their number if you want to. Personally, I’d answer one of the calls because I’d be curious to see what they wanted and they have no power over you anymore — but if you’d be happier blocking and ignoring, that’s a fine way to go. It would also be fine to email them, say you’ve seen them calling you repeatedly, and email will be the best way to reach you.

Really, any of these options are fine so do the one that will bring you the most peace of mind. (You can document the calls too if you want, although they’re unlikely to come up at the unemployment hearing, which is going to be tightly focused on what led to your termination.)

4. I retired a year ago and my old coworker still calls for help

I retired a year ago. Before leaving, I thoroughly trained the two employees who would be picking up my duties, which included thorough documentation of processes, logins, and passwords.

However, one of those employees apparently lost the instructions on how to terminate a company-paid cell phone account so my work phone account could be terminated. Ultimately, this person (not a manager) made a decision to just keep paying my wireless account and hope their manager didn’t notice. Over the last year, this person has called me once or twice a month to ask questions about other processes or for advice on handling a situation. I have helped as best I can, feeling that since they were paying for my cell phone, the least I could do was help if I could.

But finally in November, they figured out how to transfer the account billing responsibility back to me, and I said basically, “Okay, so now you aren’t paying my phone bill any longer, please don’t call me for work help any more. I trained you and Jane and it’s been almost a year; you should understand those processes by now.”

Now that person is calling me again, asking for help, and I refused. This is causing some hurt feelings. For example, they used to invite me to birthday lunches at local restaurants, but they’ve stopped since I refused to keep helping. It’s a tradition that retirees are also invited to the annual holiday potluck, but I wasn’t invited. When I said “no more calls,” their behavior in the moment was odd, like with a betrayed note in their voice. This person has a long history of avoiding learning how to do tasks that they don’t want to be responsible for.

Other retirees apparently continued to provide help long after leaving and I don’t want my good reputation/relationships to suffer, but there is no compensation possible, and I want my working life to be OVER. Do you have any advice?

It’s not normal to be expected to answer work questions a year after you retired! In certain circumstances, you might be willing to be consulted extremely occasionally on something very important — but not frequently, and not on basic processes the person was already trained on. Frankly, you could have declined to help even while they were paying your phone bill; you didn’t ask them to do that, and it was their decision to continue it. Their paying it didn’t create any obligation that you needed to repay.

As for what to do now … do you care about going to the birthday lunches and the annual potluck? Because if you don’t, this is easy: you’ve already handled it, and now you can ignore this person’s calls (block the number if you want!) and go about enjoying retirement. If you do want to attend those events, coordinate that with a different person in the office so you’re not dependent on the embittered guy for your invitations. (But also, don’t underestimate the value in making a clean break and letting those events stay in the past now that you don’t work there anymore.)

Either way, you’ve made it clear that you’re no longer available, and you can ignore the calls or say “sorry, I’m retired — I’m no longer a resource for this stuff” without any guilt at all. (If you really want to shut it down, you could ask that person’s manager to ensure the calls stop, which would be very reasonable to do at this point.)

5. Commuting reimbursement in a one-car family

My spouse and I have one car. I mainly use it, because I work out of the house and while my job is technically accessible by public transit, the commute would be four times as long and I have some chronic pain conditions which make that difficult.

My spouse mostly works from home, but infrequently has to travel. He does not usually use our car for work. His boss has mentioned him going to a site that is about 2.5 hours away by car.

If they ask him to drive there, would it be appropriate to either ask to rent a car or if they could cover my Uber to/from work? It would probably be in the $60 range roundtrip. I am not sure if this is an appropriate request, or how to word it.

It’s really unlikely that they’d cover your Uber to and from work, since you’re not their employee, but it would be normal for them to pay for his transportation since he is. He shouldn’t frame this as “I have a car but my spouse uses it” (since that’s too likely to raise “can’t you work out a way to use it on these days?”) but rather as “I don’t have a car” or “I don’t have a car available to me during the day.” They almost surely have other employees without cars, and it’s normal to expect them to cover non-car-owning employees’ transportation to other sites when necessary for the work. He just needs to explain he’ll need that.