Ask a Manager

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

1. A candidate said “you shouldn’t hire me” at the end of our interview

I wanted some feedback on the interview I conducted with a candidate earlier today. Overall, the candidate performed exceptionally well during the interview process, showcasing their skills and experience effectively. However, towards the end of our discussion, they made a surprising statement that gave me pause.

During the closing remarks, the candidate said, “I’ve got to be honest — you shouldn’t hire me. I am not the perfect candidate for this job.” I asked for further explanation, to which they cited concerns about competition from other candidates and mentioned feeling awkward. While I appreciated their honesty, it left me uncertain about how to proceed.

On one hand, their self-awareness is commendable, and it’s important to consider their perspective. On the other hand, I believe the candidate has a lot to offer and could potentially excel in the role despite their concerns.

I would appreciate your input on how to interpret this feedback. Should we take their advice into account and reconsider their candidacy, or should we proceed with our evaluation, considering their nerves and lack of confidence during the interview?

That’s a pretty weird thing for a candidate to say. It would be different if they were raising specifics — like if they’d said, “It sounds like you really need someone with strong skills in X, and that’s not an area of strength for me. To meet the goals you’ve laid out, I’m concerned you’d need someone with significant experience in Y and Z.” That’s the kind of honest conversation that can make for a great interview — not necessarily one that leads to an offer, but one that leads to a good outcome for both sides: the employer doesn’t hire the wrong person for the job and the candidate doesn’t end up in a job they’ll struggle in … and if X, Y, and Z actually aren’t so important, it’s an opportunity for the interviewer to clarify that.

But if this person was just feeling awkward about who they imagined the competition was, that’s different.

So: My advice is to think about whether someone without a lot of self-confidence will be able to thrive in the job. In many jobs, it wouldn’t matter. In others, it would make things hard on everyone. This is a situation where I’d bet a nuanced reference check would tell you a lot more. (As might an additional conversation with the candidate where you ask to hear more about what they’re thinking, saying explicitly that you thought they’ve done well in the hiring process so far and you want to hear more about their concerns.)

2. Manager plays inappropriate music in a family-friendly store

I work in a store meant to be family-friendly. Parents bring their children in all the time. I’m a stocker and help unload trucks and put things on the shelves. My shift ends when the doors open for business, but I’ve stayed over a time or two, and even come back in during business hours to shop for myself.

Our stock manager is an absolute piece of work. She has thrown fits at employees for not working as fast as she wants them to. I had to report her to the company hotline for demanding that we do unpaid overtime as “punishment for not working fast enough to get your job done in the allotted time of your shift.” A corporate bigwig personally paid a visit to the store to reprimand her.

She got really quiet for a while, but now a new problem has come up. This manager has access to the store’s music system, and she puts in her own music. Some of it is okay, and you wouldn’t raise an eyebrow walking into any other store. But one particular song is on the music list, and it’s a doozy. Once an hour, every hour, a guy starts singing about how he spotted a random beautiful woman. He has no relationship with this random woman; she’s just someone who is attractive and who rejects his advances. So he spends the entire song blaming this woman for making him want to kill himself so now it’s all her fault, how could she do this to him, and he wouldn’t be like this if she would just date him. The song is sick, manipulative, and downplays real depression and mental health issues.

The manager refuses to remove the song from her playlist. She insists that corporate okayed the music, despite complaints from staff and customers alike. Several parents with children have made their opinions known and have been brushed off. Those who ask for corporate numbers are refused with, “You don’t need the corporate number because corporate okayed the music we play here.” Then she walks away from them and refuses to discuss it anymore.

I have serious doubts that corporate okayed the music, but I also am not sure if I’m being overly sensitive, since it’s a single song. Having already filed a complaint over things that I know for sure are illegal, it might sound like I’m whiny to file a complaint over store music. Customers seem willing to complain to the manager in person, but are not offended enough to Google a phone number on the internet when a direct request is denied. (The information is there if you bother to take 10 seconds on your phone.) I’m afraid to hand that hotline number out myself since the manager has been giving me the side eye through most of my shifts and none of the other managers will lift a finger or even acknowledge the issue themselves. Am I being overly sensitive, or is this wildly inappropriate?

It’s wildly inappropriate. You’re right, she’s wrong, no question. But you’re also not really in a position to do anything about it. You’re feeling like this is on you to solve, but it’s not. It’s the definition of “above your pay grade.”

But this manager is so deeply out of her gourd that something’s going to blow up at some point.

3. How do I set boundaries with my building’s cleaner?

How do I maintain boundaries with my building’s cleaner? I started a new job at a university as an office assistant. The building cleaner is very nice but she has started to try to spend a lot of time with me at work. I am a private person but also a people pleaser and feel a lot of pressure to make sure people walk away from conversations feeling comfortable and happy. However, it has many times caused people to monopolize my energy and time, and my alone time is very precious to me.

The cleaner asked me to have lunch with them one day but then asked to go for a walk during my lunch the next day and to do something else the day after that. I only have an hour lunch and they want me to spend it with them every day and will constantly visit my office throughout the day asking if we are still on for our plans. I feel a lot of pressure and they seem to get their feelings hurt easily if I seem less than happy. I want to be left alone but I don’t want to hurt their feelings or to discourage them from being friendly. I am frustrated as I really value having alone time to myself to read or listen to music and to decompress from masking all day. I don’t know what to do. Can you please provide me with some tips or key phrases that I could use to set up certain boundaries without hurting their feelings?

The easiest way to set a boundary is to cite a different commitment — which can include commitments to yourself. For example:
* “I made plans with my sister to call her at lunch today.”
* “I need to start using lunch to get caught up on reading for my book club.”
* “I made other plans, but I’ll see you later!”
* “I’ve got a bunch of personal stuff I need to take care of at lunch.”
* “I can’t today, sorry!”

Since they’re asking you daily, it will help to come up with a reason that covers you indefinitely, not just for one day (so the reading one or a new standing call with a friend/sibling could be useful).

In an ideal world you’d get comfortable saying, “Most of the time I use my lunch hour to decompress on my own and if I don’t, I have a harder time later in the day.” But for now, whatever lets you set a boundary will get the job done.

Caveat: You can’t guarantee this won’t hurt the person’s feelings. If that’s your measure for “actions I’m allowed to take,” you’ll always be at the mercy of other people and your time will never be your own (especially when you’re dealing with anyone who’s more assertive about what they want than you are). Instead your goal should be “I’m polite and respectful and asserting something I’m reasonably entitled to assert.” How other people feel about that is up to them.

4. Should I bring up that our in-office rule is enforced inconsistently on our team?

I was hired in the pandemic and have worked in my position remotely for two and a half years. This year we were required to return to office two days a week.

My team is only five people, and everyone except one other person is based out of a different location than me. I do not work directly with anyone in my office day-to-day. My manager does not go into an office location even though, according to them, they live within a reasonable distance to commute. The one teammate who is also in my location only comes in once a week. No one else on my team is close enough to an office to reasonably go in.

I know there may be arrangements going on that I don’t know about, but when I tried to bring up a different arrangement with my manager they quickly shut it down and said it was above their head.

Performance reviews are coming up and we also get to review and have a discussion with our managers. I’m thinking of raising this issue that there seem to be differing expectations for in-office attendance across the team. Is this inappropriate? Should I just deal? I’m finding it hard to take this policy seriously when management will not follow it or appear to enforce it equally across the team.

It’s not inappropriate to raise it — you’re being held to a rule others aren’t being held to — but you might not be reading between the lines correctly. It sounds to me like your manager is saying they don’t have the authority to make any official arrangements for differing schedules, but they’re also clearly not enforcing the in-office days with your team. So you could just see what happens if you go down to once a week like your coworker has.

Obviously that’s not ideal since you could potentially be called out for breaking the policy. But it’s not unreasonable to conclude your team has different norms, based on what you’re seeing, and to just quietly follow those norms yourself. (Frustratingly, if you take this route, you’re better off not raising it with your boss again, because then it can become “we specifically talked about this several times and I told you that you couldn’t” … whereas if you just follow your boss and coworker’s lead, it’s “I was calibrating myself to the rest of the team.”) This doesn’t work if your job involves tasks that truly require more in-office time, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case.

5. What to say in an email that has your resume and cover letter attached

My boyfriend is applying for jobs. After a lot of work, he’s ready to email his resume and cover letter to his current first choice. As his cover letter will be an attachment, does he need to include anything in the body of the email besides:

Dear hiring manager,
Please find attached my cover letter and resume.

He should say what position he’s applying for. And it’ll look more polished if he adds a closing sentence and a sign-off. For example:

Dear hiring manager,

Please find attached my cover letter and resume for the X position. I hope to hear from you.

Sincerely,
Barnaby Plufferton

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

1. Management talks to us like we’re children

I am a healthcare professional who works for a home health agency. We are all nurses, rehab therapists, or social workers — educated people with specialized skillsets. We rarely meet in-person but have daily phone calls, so I hear from the office staff very frequently.

There seems to be a culture in the office of using infantilizing language — referring to everyone as “friend,” as in “hi friend, have you finished your documentation?” and the use of “we” when the speaker actually means “you” — e.g., “did we finish the evaluation we started yesterday?” (The main offender of “we”-ing is not a clinician; this may be why this irks me so much.) I don’t know if this is intentionally condescending, but it certainly comes off that way. I have verified that I am not the only one who is bothered by this.

Is it worth it for me to mention it to my manager? I have thick skin but for some reason this REALLY rubs me the wrong way!

Nope!

It sounds like you’re taking that use of “we” as akin to saying to a toddler, “Can we finish our milk?” … but it’s far more likely that it means “did we, the team, finish the evaluation?” That’s a pretty common workplace usage of “we,” and complaining about it will look excessively nitpicky. That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be annoyed by it; you are. But it’s more of a pet peeve than something worth bringing up.

However, if there’s something I’m missing about the tone — like if it’s said in a patronizing way — that’s different, and that could be worth raising. But what you’d be raising is the condescension generally, not that one specific linguistic construction.

As for “hi friend” … I’m not a particular fan, but again, it’s the “pet peeve” category of annoyance, not “this is unacceptable.”

All that said, it’s interesting that you’ve found other people are bothered by it too, and that makes me wonder if there’s more infantilizing going on than just the language itself.

2. How can I make sure my coworker isn’t left in the lurch when I leave?

I work at a usually small and rural branch of a global company. It’s open seven days a week and closes on two major holidays a year. I only have one full-time coworker, with our manager being off-site and visiting once a month at most. I’m planning on moving in with my girlfriend in July, which is very exciting, but due to the distance I’ll no longer be able to keep this job. I’ve been heavily considering quitting for a while now, so this is a good chance for a clean break — but I have one major concern (outside of the painful purgatory of finding the next job, of course).

Before I was hired, about two years ago, my coworker was the only desk employee at the branch for a period of several months … meaning for those months he did not get a single day off. This was obviously awful for him! The company had such trouble finding a candidate for his position that he was the one who ultimately recruited and recommended me to management, in a large part so he could finally get a dang break.

I know ultimately this isn’t my responsibility, but I’d hate to wreck his vibe by indefinitely leaving him without weekends when I leave, and the guilt over the thought has kinda discouraged me from putting in the time to send out new job applications. I highly doubt that the standard two-weeks notice will be enough time to find a replacement, but don’t trust in my continued job security if I mention these future plans to my manager any earlier than that. (It’s also pretty awkward now when he makes jokes along the lines of wanting to keep us happy and reliably running the branch — he’s great, my disgruntlement is with the broad company and the specific work not being a great fit for me.)

In the time since my coworker’s awful unbroken string of work, we’ve had changes in our two directly higher levels of management, so it’s entirely possible the new guys will be able to actually arrange people to cover his shifts, and I’m worrying about nothing. But if not, is there anything I can do to make this transition smoother without jeopardizing my existing income? Or any leverage he can pull to make it clear working seven-day weeks is unacceptable even with the overtime pay?

First, assume that your coworker is aware that you could leave (or be hit by a bus or trapped at the bottom of a well or all sorts of other disasters) and what happened last time could happen again. He knows! He’s choosing to stay regardless. If he wants to, he can hold a firmer line about his availability this time (like by saying that he has family commitments outside of work that he can’t move). He will have a ton of leverage because it’s really unlikely they’ll want to replace him right after they replace you.

That said, if you have time between now and when you give your notice, you could think about whether there are things you can do to smooth the workload if he does end up covering both roles for a while. Are there things you can automate/clean up/simplify? If the answer is “not really,” then so be it — sometimes this is just how it goes.

3. Can I use the wellness room to nap?

My office is now requiring everyone to be physically in the office at least three days a week. Before the end of last year, I was working primarily remotely. When working remotely, I’m expected to be available from 8:30 am – 5:30 pm, which I have no problem with, even though I have a lot of trouble getting to sleep at night. However, generally I took my lunch break from 11 am – 12 pm, and I would go back to bed during this hour. Only after I got up after my lunchtime nap did I dress and actually get ready for the day. Now, I have to be up and dressed and out of the house during a time period when I’m used to still being in my pajamas. As a result, on my in-office days I’m up earlier and miss the lunchtime nap.

My office offers a “wellness room” that nobody else ever seems to use. It’s an empty room with some lockers and a recliner. I assume it’s mostly intended for nursing mothers. I was told about it as an accommodation for my ADHD and autism — I can go there if I’m overwhelmed. But if I don’t get my lunch break nap, I become overwhelmed much more easily. Is it a misuse of that space to reserve it for a 30-45 minute nap on the days I have to be in the office?

It really depends on your office culture. There are some offices where this would be fine, and others would it very much would not be. If no one else is using the room at all, I’m worried your culture is more likely to be on the “not all that okay” side of things.

However, since the room was mentioned to you as a possible accommodation for your ADHD and autism, there’s probably some space to experiment. Could you wear headphones while you’re in there, so that if anyone comes in you don’t necessarily look like you’re napping but rather just zoning out/centering yourself (which is close to what was offered to you)?

4. People get my name wrong in email

People get my name wrong. Often. The last letter of my first name is the same as the first letter of my last name, so in person this error makes sense to me. (Think “Elena” getting mistaken for “Elaine” when I’m introduced — a different name, not really a nickname.) That’s easy enough to address in the moment, but email is what I find troublesome. People keep addressing me as “Elaine” in their response to my email, where I’ve clearly signed off as “Elena.” How can I politely correct this? When I email back, I usually say something like, “So you know, I go by Elena. It’s a common mistake, so I wanted to point it out.” I may be overthinking it, but tone feels hard to get right in email, and sometimes I have to make that correction in the context of an otherwise unpleasant email (it’s the nature of my job!).

Too many words! Shorten it to, “It’s Elena, not Elaine!” Or in an otherwise unpleasant email, you can warm it up a little: “By the way, I’m Elena, not Elaine!” Throw in a smiley face if you’re not an emoji-hostile field.

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

1. I was fired during my probationary period

If you are fired during your probationary period, should you expect it to be without warning? This just happened to me, where I was let go of at the 60-day mark. I had a 30-day check-in, where the only feedback given was that my boss appreciated that I was at work every day, that she was “frustrated” with something I had done on my second day (when she was gone, as she worked part-time), and that I needed to do more things independently. None of this was put in writing. It’s unclear to me if my firing was budget-related, as the grant funding for my program ran out a few months prior to my hiring, and I was hired at a significantly higher wage than the position had initially been listed at.

My termination letter only says that they could let go of me at any time if I was deemed to be the wrong fit. Obviously, I’m terrified of this happening again and I’m wondering how common it is.

Yeah, it can happen. The purpose of probationary periods is to allow companies to let an employee go without doing a ton of coaching, warnings, etc. (It’s not that firing someone without doing those things first would be illegal, but many companies have their own internal policies that commit them to specific cycles of coaching and warnings after probationary periods are over.) Whether or not that’s reasonable in any given case depends on what the issues are; if something can be corrected with clear feedback or a little coaching, generally that makes more sense to do. In other cases, it’s clear there’s a fundamental mismatch with the role, or the amount of coaching required to get the person where they’d need to be isn’t practical. In others, you get a manager who just doesn’t know how to manage effectively or overreacts to minor things and ends up making the wrong call. Regardless of which category it falls in, though, ideally managers wouldn’t blindside employees with it — ideally they’d be giving feedback along the way, not just letting you know one day that it didn’t work out. But some don’t operate that way.

None of which really answers your question about how common it is. I’d say you don’t need to go into every job terrified that you’ll be fired out of the blue during your probationary period, assuming you know yourself to be reasonably capable … but it’s useful to be aware it can be a thing that happens.

2. I’m in charge of DEI because I’m a woman

My manager has suddenly decided that, because I’m one of the only women on our team of 20 or so men, it’s my responsibility to become an expert in accessibility and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). I don’t necessarily mind leading this initiative (well, a little — I’m irritated as it’s increased my workload and this feels like exactly the thing DEI efforts are supposed to mitigate), but the problem now is I’m being given very vague tasks with zero direction to “make everything we do accessible and DEI-friendly” — by people who can’t be bothered to learn about accessibility/DEI themselves. And I’m getting in trouble now because I’m not implementing it exactly to their vision. What exactly is their vision, I’m not sure, but some of the ideas they have either don’t match the reality of how it works, or require resources I don’t have, or simply don’t make sense to me.

Now my whole team is looking to me for guidance on this very vague, nebulous thing that I’ve been trying to grasp with no help. I’ve tried to explain my situation, and offered up some basic frameworks and processes to follow, as well as links to documentation, but apparently that’s not enough — they want every last thing spelled out for them. They appear blind to the irony of the whole situation. I’ve been considering leaving this job for some time, and this may be the final straw. What can I do?

DEI is an incredibly challenging job under the best of circumstances — and that’s when you have a receptive team, committed leadership, and someone leading the work with expertise in the field. Expecting you to do it without any of those things is a recipe for failure and frustration. Honestly, I’d wash your hands of it entirely — tell them it’s work that needs to be led by an expert, that expecting the women on the team to do it is itself a DEI problem, and that you’re not equipped with the expertise, resources, or team buy-in to do what they need. Hold firm on the “I’m not doing this simply because I’m one of the few women” point in particular, and consider pointing out it’s illegal to assign work based on gender.

And yes, let it be the final straw and get out.

3. How to explain a family crisis to very demanding clients

I work directly with clients in a niche of a touchy-feely-warm-fuzzies industry. I’ve been lucky to have really warm, friendly relationships with most of these clients for years — we trade book recommendations, I get to hear about babies in their families, they sent well-wishes ahead of my first triathlon last year, etc. The downside is that they tend to take things very personally. If I don’t respond to an email as quickly as usual (we’re talking within a few hours) I’m liable to get a message asking if I’m too busy for their projects, or even occasionally asking if I’m annoyed or ignoring them. I try to shut this down when it happens, but I mostly just avoid it by being very responsive and always giving them a timeline of when they can expect progress, so they never have to worry in the first place.

Unfortunately, I’ve been in and out of the office lately dealing with a family member’s unexpected and severe health issue. They’re stable and responding well to treatment so far, but I’m understandably behind on work, and I’ll likely be slower to respond and finish projects as this situation shakes out and settles down. Based on the follow-up emails currently in my inbox, my feelings-first clients are already upset. I know that if I say I’ve been out with a family emergency, they’ll want to know what happened. I wouldn’t mind telling them and, honestly, it would be a relief for me if they knew, as they’ll be less likely to send me “r u mad at me pls respond” notes if they have a better explanation on hand. But I don’t want to overshare, or start a cycle of having to talk about all this on a regular basis at work. Any wisdom for approaching these conversations with the right balance of transparency and boundaries?

How about this: “I’ve had a family health emergency — nothing you should worry about, and honestly it’s easier for me to not think about it when I’m at work, but if my responses are slightly delayed for a little while as this settles down, that’s why.” If you’re pushed for details: “It really is easier for me not to think about it too much at work, thanks for understanding!”

For what it’s worth, it’s possible to have warm relationships where you trade book recommendations and hear about new babies without people taking a few-hour delay so personally that they start asking if you’re too busy for their projects! This is weird and over-the-top! Do you know if others who do similar work all get this same treatment from clients? If they don’t, it could be interesting to compare notes and see if you can figure out what’s bringing it out in yours. (Also, what industry is this?! I’m dying to know.)

4. Mentioning (relevant) children in a cover letter

I am job hunting and looking at applying to jobs that are parent-oriented (the “Parenting” or “Family” brand/section of a media company, etc.) Is it okay to mention that I’m a mom in my cover letter? It’s definitely part of why I’m interested in the job, but it’s been pretty drilled into me not to mention my personal life in an application! If I do mention it, is it best just to keep it brief/vague (“as a mom…”) or more specific (“as a mom to a toddler and an infant…”)? Is it something I should just keep for a potential interview? Or never mention it at all?

I wouldn’t, partly because of unconscious bias (especially if you mention they’re young kids) but more because having kids is common enough that it doesn’t do a lot to make you stand out from other applicants. But what you could do is cite something more specific that could differentiate you in a relevant way — like mentioning that you’ve have a long-running interest in childhood development or experience volunteering with kids or so forth. Those are more application-appropriate and they’ll connect to the job in a more targeted way.

5. Turning down an offer

I’m in a field full of blunt crusty Massholes. I’m also a blunt crusty Masshole, so this isn’t generally a problem. But I’m currently job hunting, and I’m at a loss for interview advice because white-collar officespeak advice involves unspoken mind games and social scripts that tradespeople don’t use. (For example, I’ve found they like you better as both a candidate and employee if you’re honest to the point of being self-effacing about your skillset, rather than hyping yourself up like most people say.)

I have three serious offers right now. One is easily my first choice; it has better pay, benefits, schedule, and location, but the real deciding factor against the other two is the poor management I saw during my trial days with each, and I’m concerned about how to turn them both down. Telling the truth would be a personal insult. If I cite pay, I’m pretty sure both will offer me a competitive counteroffer. If I cite location, I think it’d be fair if they pointed out that I knew the locations when I applied. As for being vague about my reason, I was enthusiastic about all three in interviews (as you do), and since people in my field are very straightforward, I think they took that at full face value and would feel snubbed if I didn’t give a reason for rejecting them.

So, what do I say? This isn’t about abstract professionalism; the field is small and tight-knit (all three options know each other and one of my previous bosses personally), and I didn’t leave my last place on great terms, so I’m concerned about my reputation. I definitely shouldn’t be honest; what do I say instead that won’t sound flimsy or vague? I’ll probably work with these people in the future; what rationale can I give that would help me maintain connections?

My family heritage is Masshole, and you’re overthinking it! You have three offers; you’re taking one and thus necessarily have to turn down the other two. So with the two you’re turning down, just cite those multiple offers: “I had several offers and ultimately decided one of the others was the stronger fit for me.” You really don’t have to say any more than that! If they push you anyway, it’s fine to be vague — for example, “It’s a combination of a lot of factors, but I enjoyed getting to talk with you and learning more about your work.” Truly, there’s no obligation to open your heart to them (just as they don’t need to be candid with applicants they turn down either).