Ask a Manager

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

1. My boss is paranoid that I have a secret email account

I’ve been with a small business for 20 years, handling office duties as the secretary and bookkeeper. The owner, an elderly man who has peculiar habits and is paranoid about various matters, once misspelled my email address on his phone back in 2019. Instead of the correct format firstname@mycompany.com, he added an “A” – firstnameA@mycompany.com. Therefore when he emails me from his phone, he is mistyping my email address.

Despite my explaining the mistake and clarifying that it was saved incorrectly on his phone, as well as showing him that he has been mistyping it, every few months he questions how many company email addresses I have (just one!) and accuses me of manipulating the company email settings to create a second, secret address.

It’s worth noting that our email server is configured to route all incoming emails, even those addressed to incorrect company addresses under mycompany.com, to his email. He requires that he be CC’d on all incoming and outgoing emails, and insinuates I have created this second, secret email to hide company things from him. I can show him the email server settings that prove each employee only has one account, and prove that firstname”A”@mycompany.com does not exist at all, but he doesn’t understand. His conspiracy theories persist despite the facts, and he can talk circles around me. What should I say?

I don’t think there are magic words that will solve this! You work for someone who is paranoid, doesn’t understand email, and thinks that you want to deceive him. The paranoia on its own makes this unsolvable.

You’re 20 years in. Has he been like this the whole time or is he getting worse? If he’s getting worse, that trajectory is likely to continue and you could end up in a truly unpleasant situation. To be frank, it sounds like you’re already in one — and I suspect this is a boiling-frog situation where things have gotten worse so gradually that you haven’t looked around and realized how very bad it is.

I hope you’ll take this as a nudge to think about what you’d like to come next for you, and what a quality of life improvement it would be to work for someone who doesn’t believe you’re lying and deceiving him.

2. My new coworkers keep talking about how expensive my grad school was

I’ve just finished my master’s program, after 2.5 years! About two months ago, I was hired at a city agency. The job is specifically for people who were already in a grad school program for this degree, and on completion of my master’s I get a title bump and a raise.

Since I just started this job, I’ve been introduced to everyone in my office (some of whom have the same role as me and also the same degree). Three times now, when I’ve been introduced to a coworker and mentioned what school I’m attending, their first response is to exclaim how expensive my school is.

Some context: In my city, three universities offer this degree, two private and one public. Because we’re all working in a city agency and not making the big bucks, many of my coworkers went to the public university to get their master’s. But I chose the private program because they gave me a 50% scholarship! My master’s cost less than the public option, and my university offered evening classes so I was able to work full-time. The result is that I paid off the degree before I graduated and never had to take out loans.

I have only shared this with my supervisor and her supervisor — because again, on the first day I met them, one of the first things my grand-boss said was how expensive the private university is. I figured it would look good to my supervisors for them to know I’d been awarded this scholarship, so I told them.

I haven’t mentioned the scholarship to anyone else when they bring up the cost, because 1) it would feel like unnecessary bragging; 2) contradicting them in our first encounter would make me feel awkward; and 3) I don’t want to share information about my private finances. But it keeps happening! Literally the cost of my master’s is the first thing people want to discuss when they find out I just graduated (not the specific number, but that it’s expensive compared to the local public university). The next time it happens, should I mention that I went to school for half off? Or just let them assume what they will, that either I had help paying for the degree or I’m drowning in student loans? Is this just idle office gossip and I shouldn’t let myself be bothered by it?

I don’t think you need to clarify anything. This is likely to fade into the background once they know more things about you.

But given that people keep bringing it up, there’s nothing wrong with saying in response, “Yeah, I had a scholarship or I couldn’t have gone there.” That’s not terribly private info and it sounds like you’re feeling uncomfortable with your colleagues not having that context. You don’t need to get into all the details (that it was 50%, that you worked full-time, etc.) — that’s likely to sound defensive, and you don’t owe anyone all of that. But a brief “yeah, a scholarship made it possible” would probably give you peace of mind that it sounds like you don’t have right now.

3. My voluntary task has suddenly become mandatory

I’ve been working as a system administrator for a small company (less than 500 employees) for about a year and a half now. I’m one of four team leaders in my department with no direct reports, so I’m a sub-department of one. Nearly all of my essential duties require a specialized skill set that only I possess, and these duties can’t be placed on the back burner if we want to continue to have a functional system. In fact, my job description has zero language about “other duties as assigned,” and I was told when I was hired that that was intentional.

Last summer, I volunteered to participate in a large-scale project with another department that doesn’t require any specialized knowledge but does involve two-hour blocks of time that require a lot of physical and mental stamina. Over the next few months, I was assigned to four different time-sensitive projects that can’t be done without my skill set, and I know of at least two more due to begin in the next few months. I realized near the beginning of the holidays that my workload was becoming unsustainable, so it made the most sense to me to step down from the large-scale project, especially considering the fact that our company hired six temporary staff specifically for this project, bringing the number of participants to twenty-five people.

To my great surprise, my supervisor was and is adamant that I continue to participate in this project. I reminded them as diplomatically as I could that my participation was voluntary and that they now have six new staff to help. When that was met with a shrug, I finally asked why one person stepping back from a project that involves the majority of two departments would make a significant impact, they struggled for an answer and just said, “People might not like it.”

I was told that the only way I would be allowed to step back from this project is to get a medical exemption, which I’m now pursuing, but my question is this: is it standard for a task/project that was taken on voluntarily to become required without notifying the employee and/or revising their job description? If there was any way for me to continue helping with this project, I absolutely would, but at this point, I’m putting my physical and mental health in jeopardy by trying to juggle it with everything I was actually hired to do.

Yeah, that happens. It can be for legitimate reasons, like that once you volunteered they planned around you and it would cause problems (budgetary, staffing, political, other) to have you suddenly pull out. Your manager’s explanation of “people might not like it” doesn’t sound like this is necessarily in the “legitimate reasons” category, though (although who knows what more there might be to it that she didn’t or couldn’t explain).

Separately, it’s very common for people to get assigned work that isn’t in their job descriptions (whether or not they have an “other duties as assigned” line in there) and for job descriptions not to be regularly updated.

Related:
what to do if your workload is too high

4. Would dressing down help me better support my coworkers?

I’m a 37-year-old, not unattractive cisgender heterosexual white man. I’ve spent my entire (still-youngish) career in female-dominated vocations and workplaces. This feels completely normal to me at this point, although I try to stay self-aware and reflective about my behaviors at work.

I overdress slightly for my job, always have. I’m very good at what I do, but my responsibilities are not overly difficult, nor do I manage anyone. My comfort zone is the Jim Halpert look: dress shirt with sleeves rolled up, khakis, and an unassuming tie. It works for me, I like it, and it helps me distinguish between Work Me and Home Me.

I am also regularly assumed to be in charge — or at least much more influential than I actually am. This happens with coworkers of all tenures, community partners, and even just contractors who show up at the building. When addressed in this way, I work hard to redirect or clarify my role.

Should I dress down a bit in order to reduce my apparent level of authority so that my coworkers are more likely to be addressed in a way that aligns with their professional status? Is harm happening here? My coworkers and I have joked about this common dynamic before, but now I’m (finally?) wondering if this has been a hint all along, or at least if there’s more I can be doing to support others.

I think you’re likely to be assumed to be in charge some of the time no matter what you’re wearing, simply because you’re a man and people are still programmed to assume authority figures are men … but it’s also true that if you’re the only one dressed at “tie” level, that could be contributing. I hate to say that you should change what you’re wearing when you’re happy and comfortable with it … but yeah, if you want to be an ally to the women you work with, it could be interesting to see if anything changes if you dress slightly down.

(That said, there can be some amount of value in people who make socially-programmed assumptions hearing a man reject externally-conferred authority and saying, essentially, “Nope, talk to her, she’s my boss.” Is that small record-scratch moment a seed that helps their brain make fewer gender-based assumptions in the future? I don’t know and I’m probably over-thinking it, and in a female-dominated field it might not make a difference anyway … but I think this is more complicated than it looks on the surface.)

5. What to say if interviewer asks if I know my (now fired) former bully

Soon I will be interviewing for a position in a different company than I currently am at but one that I have worked for previously, for an entirely different department and location than I worked at previously. The department I’m interviewing for is the same department that my former lead went to. This former lead was not a nice person and bullied me and another coworker for most of the time we worked together. She also was fired from the department I’m interviewing with about a year ago. I don’t have any of the details on why she was fired, but knowing how hard it is to get fired at this company and how quickly it happened, it must have been pretty bad.

There’s a good chance that if I get past the first round of interviews and interview with the hiring manager, someone is going to notice that we overlapped and ask if I knew her. I don’t want to lie and say no. But I also want to distance myself from sounding chummy with her because we certainly were not friends or even friendly. I know that it’s probably not very professional to tell an interviewer that I knew her but we didn’t get along. So if someone asks if we knew each other, what’s the best way to answer?

“We did overlap some of the time I was there, but I don’t know her well.”

You’re not likely to be quizzed on what you thought of her; you’re just acknowledging that yes, you did overlap.

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

1. I got flowers for an employee whose mom died — and my boss is hurt

I just had a bizarre conversation with my supervisor. Her grandmother, who was 102 years old, passed away a few weeks ago. I offered her my sincere condolences when it happened, both verbally and in an email. A couple weeks afterwards, someone I supervise lost their mother very suddenly and at a fairly young age (this employee is in their 20s). My co-team lead and I had flowers sent to this person we supervise. I asked my supervisor if she would like to contribute, and she said no, that she is still grieving her grandmother. I thought this was a little odd to decline to contribute, but whatever. My co-team lead and I sent the flowers.

Well, today my supervisor pulled me into a conference room and told me that she was taken aback that I would ask her to contribute to flowers for my team member, when she had lost her grandmother a few weeks ago and I had not gotten her anything. I told her that I have always thought that monetary gifts should trickle downwards, and also while other folks on my team have had losses throughout the time I have supervised them (including grandparents), I thought that the loss of a parent warranted an extra degree of care. I reiterated that I was sincerely sorry about the loss of her grandmother. She took this as me saying that the loss of a parent is more significant than a grandparent (I mean, I think in many cases it is) and that while she doesn’t expect gifts, it was inappropriate for me to ask her to contribute. She also said that gifts should be given evenly, regardless of if you supervise someone or they supervise you. We ended up not really agreeing or coming to a great conclusion.

I should add that I work in government, so there is no administrative budget for gifts like this. Things are kind of done on a team-by-team basis, and contributions come from individual resources.

So did I make a huge misstep here? Should I have gotten my supervisor flowers, and should I also be getting flowers for everyone on my team who loses anyone? Just stop the gifts entirely? Only cards? And, how should I move forward with my supervisor?

Your manager is being weird. Maybe it’s because she’s grieving, or maybe she’s always weird; since you know her, you’ll probably have a hunch which of those two it is.

It’s typical for the loss of a parent to be treated differently than the loss of a grandparent (with some exceptions, like if the grandparent raised you) and in fact, many/most bereavement policies do treat those losses differently (offering more days off for an immediate family member such as a parent). It was not inappropriate to ask if she wanted to contribute to the gift for your employee. It also was not inappropriate to not get flowers for your supervisor when her grandmother died; the relationship is different and, as you point out, the reporting relationship is different. You definitely should have offered your condolences, which you did.

As for whether to do cards, flowers, or nothing for people you supervise in the future: Do cards at a minimum. Flowers can be tricky because then you do get into needing to decide which deaths “warrant” them and which don’t, and you won’t always know the nature of someone’s relationship with extended family. So I lean toward either sending flowers for anyone who reports to you who experiences a death (which might be hard to do when you’re paying for them yourself each time) or just sticking to cards for everyone.

As for your manager, don’t ask her for contributions to future gifts, given the weirdness around this one.

2. A coworker I barely know is hitting on me

A few months ago, we hired a new person into a lower level position in the company. I’m several levels above him, but he doesn’t work directly on my team. I’ve probably had less than 10 interactions with him. Most have been directly work-related, but we’ve also had a few friendly, casual conversations in the office.

A few weeks ago, he sent me a email asking if I’d like to check out a new restaurant over the weekend. This seemed out of the blue. I politely declined and said I had other plans but to let me know if he liked it. This is where I probably went wrong, and I should have shut him down more firmly.

Recently, he sent me another message with his personal number and asked if we could start talking offline. We’ve had really limited interactions in the past, so I’m not sure where this is coming from! I’m not interested in dating anyone from work. Even if I’m reading too much into this and he’s just interested in a friend, this was the wrong way to go about it. I’m uncomfortable at this point and want to politely but firmly tell him to back off. I could really use some help on how to deliver the message!

You didn’t go wrong when he suggested he let you know how he liked the restaurant. He went wrong when he didn’t respect your first soft no (something that’s really important to pay attention to when asking someone out in a work context).

Some ways to respond to the second overture:
* “No, thank you.”
* “I’d rather keep our relationship a work one.”
* “No, thank you. I try not to mix work and personal relationships.”
* “I don’t date anyone from work.” (With this one, there’s a chance he’ll accuse you of misinterpreting his interest — not because you did, but because some people feel responding to rejection that way helps them save face. That’s fine! You’ll have delivered the message regardless.)
* Or just ignore it if you don’t feel like dealing with it head-on (although that means he might make a third attempt).

If he takes a rejection badly or if he continues his pursuit, talk to HR. Even if you feel you can handle it yourself, guys who hit on colleagues they barely know tend to do it to multiple women (including those with less power, like interns, who may feel less comfortable shutting it down firmly), and it’ll be useful for HR to be aware in case it becomes a pattern (or already is, for that matter).

3. Sharing photos and hobbies in meetings when I’m more private

I am concerned about my participation in team meetings. We are often asked to share photos of our holidays and weekends and talk about what fun things we did. Of course, this is entirely optional, but I never speak up because I don’t have anything to add. My hobbies feel personal to me, and honestly, they’re not something I’d want to share with my coworkers anyway. I spend my weekends searching for good deals on alternative fashion items via overseas auctions, writing fiction, and playing video games. I don’t have children, and I rarely travel. I am the youngest person on my team (but still very much an adult), so I feel like there’s almost an expectation for me to have a “robust” social life, but I usually just stay at home with my cat. I am perfectly fine living this way!

Is there a way to participate in these meetings more without revealing too much of my personal life? Do I need to get a neutral, safe hobby, such as cooking or biking? I am afraid it is making me look bad if I am silent, especially on such a small team.

Are you up for photos of your cat being the thing you share? Pet photos go a long way toward adding the humanizing touch of warmth that people are usually looking for in this context. Share a cute cat photo each week, and it’s highly likely that no one will notice or care that you’re not sharing anything more personal.

Also, you may not feel inclined to do this, but it can be very enjoyable to lean into an enthusiastically-delivered “I didn’t do a thing this weekend! I stayed at home with my cat and it was glorious” narrative. I have been saying this for years and people are normally more supportive than you might expect. If you do it a lot, it does tend to become a thing you’re known for (in a funny way), which you might or might not be up for, but it’s good for your quality of life not to feel pressured to report on more exciting doings.

4. I was promised a bonus but am getting ghosted when I ask about it

I’m an executive at a finance company which serves a rather niche market. I have been at my company for about two years.

There was an area between sales and the underwriting team that was proving to be a challenging disconnect, so I made some suggestions on how to improve that and was asked to set up a whole new division and team. Mind you, I was doing this on top of my regular job. I approached my leadership about appropriate compensation for this and they indicated if the new team was successful, there would be a substantial bonus paid out to me based on what I could bring to our bottom line.

Well, the success is clearly there. We’re expanding the team, it’s become a marketed part of our services to clients, and has helped increase our revenue by over 30%.

I approached my leadership to discuss the bonus and I’m more or less being ghosted. Other items are being addressed together, but they aren’t acknowledging the promised bonus in any way. No “let’s have a chat” or “we need time to discuss in leadership.” It’s very frustrating.

How do I approach this again? I am genuinely prepared to leave my job if they back out on this (I’ve been fending off other offers for months now) but I’m not sure if threatening to leave is the right way to go. If I do end up leaving, I will absolutely be bringing this up in my exit interview. How can I make it clear this can’t be ignored?

I don’t like this. Address it head-on: “You told me in August that if the new team was successful, you’d pay me a bonus based on what I contributed to the bottom line. By any metric we envisioned, I think I’ve met that mark: we’re expanding the team, it’s become a marketed part of our services to clients, and has helped increase our revenue by over 30%. Can we nail down details about the bonus?” If they put you off, ask for a timeline. And if they’re evasive, there’s no reason you can’t say, “I’m really disappointed in this. This was a clear promise made to me and I’ve been turning down other offers for months because I took you at your word.”  (And if it has to come to that, I’d be inclined to leave anyway once they do pay it out because you shouldn’t have to push them so hard to get what they promised you.)

5. Executive with no online presence — is it a scam?

I’m job searching for an executive level role and was contacted by a seemingly legitimate internal executive recruiter at a well known global company. I completed introductory interviews with this recruiter and the hiring manager (VP level) over the past few weeks and believe they went really well. They both appear to have company email addresses and their LinkedIn profiles didn’t raise any red flags for me (500+ connections, VP has nearly 2,000 followers).

I just received an email and text from the recruiter about next steps, and the next person they want me to interview with is an SVP. Great news, except when I looked them up on LinkedIn they have basically no presence. Under 10 connections and followers — which doesn’t seem possible in this day and age. This global company has thousands of employees and this person holds a global SVP leadership role. I’ve also conducted a Google search with almost no results. Under 10 LinkedIn connections and no press to me are huge red flags, and I am considering backing out of the whole process immediately over it. The job seems incredible, but there is no way in my mind that this could be legitimate.

I emailed the recruiter and called her saying that I want to ensure I’m prepared for the interview but I can’t find an online presence for this SVP and to please share more information. I also asked her to lay out the reporting structure to their leadership team, which I found online. I’ve given the recruiter my resume and cell number only, and had a video interview.

My mind is racing over if this is a scam, and since it seemed so great I’m heartbroken. I’ve heard about people who use voice and video recordings to impersonation purposes. What are your thoughts on this and how to proceed?

You are reading way too much into the lack of an online presence. Some people don’t use LinkedIn. Or maybe they set up years ago and haven’t bothered returning to the site since then. Maybe they just joined last week. Maybe they’re in the middle of purging their account because they find LinkedIn a depressing wasteland. Who knows. It’s not so unusual! You are having a very, very strong reaction to a very mundane situation.

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

1. I was asked to take down a family photo

I was called into a one on one with my manager today. Someone anonymous has complained about a photo of my son I have at my desk and has asked management to have me take it down. The photo is a very cute black and white photo of my son at one year old. He has no clothes on but there is no butt or genitalia showing. To me, it’s an adorable photo of my son as a baby. Some anonymous person sees it as pornography.

I agreed to take it down, but I increasingly feel angry and attacked. I am the only gay man in our department, and I feel that a woman having a photo of her naked baby with no genitalia showing would not be asked to take the photo down because it was offensive to someone. I feel like I want to defend myself and not just meekly censor my own family photos out of fear for my job. I want to make a statement to my co-workers of some kind to defend myself from accusations of inappropriate photos of my child. I am a very popular and productive newish hire (2+ years). Do I have any recourse?

Ugh, I’m sorry. I don’t think you do have any practical recourse, largely because it’s not outrageous for your company’s stance to be, essentially, “We don’t want to get into debates about what photos of unclothed subjects are and aren’t okay, so now that there’s been a complaint we’re just asking people not to display them at all.” (Which is what you’re likely to hear if you do push back.)

But I hope you will replace the photo with at least three more super cute photos.

2. My coworker is working a second job during her hours for us — should I send HR proof?

My coworker has been using company time by lying about her activities and going to a second job while being paid by our employer for 1 hour a day a couple times a week. I recently verified this as she left her desk calendar (paid for by our employer) on her desk in plain view. I did report this to HR. Is it unethical or a violation of privacy to take a picture of the calendar with her other work schedule to show that this is indeed happening? Thus sending only to HR as proof and no one else?

I don’t think it’s unethical per se — as long as it’s being left in plain view — but you will probably look overly invested. The exception to that is if her absences are affecting you (because you need to cover her work while she’s gone, for example). However, if HR wants to investigate this, they won’t need a photo of her calendar to do it; they could simply pay attention to when she’s actually at work and not at work.

Related:
how can managers spot people who are working two full-time jobs at once?

3. Can I intervene on a coworker’s horrible, hacking cough?

I work in a large org as an EA. Due to the way the building is structured, I share an office with around six other people but am not on their team. My boss has their own office next door to ours so I can greet their visitors, etc.

One of the office colleagues, Jim, is a cigarette smoker and has a very unhealthy, phlegmy-sounding cough that goes off multiple times a day, at length. This was the case before Covid lockdown and after we returned to the office. I find the noise incredibly intrusive and distracting, and my boss has picked up on it herself and also picked up on my discomfort with it.

I’m autistic so find noise intrusion very difficult; my boss is supportive and I can wear noise-cancelling headphones in the office when I’m getting on with work (although I can still hear the coughing!). But I recently appointed an assistant who sits behind me so I can’t hunker down under headphones anymore as I want to be present for them and open to being asked queries without them having to get my attention or feel like they’re being ignored.

With my headphones off again, I’m finding the coughing absolutely unbearable and have occasions when I have to exit the office because I can’t keep listening to it. I’m worried I’m not hiding my reaction to it well and that I’m going to snap at Jim in the end or cause an ongoing issue with him.

Do I have any scope to speak to his manager about how difficult it is being around the noise and whether Jim is looking after his health? I’m aware it’s absolutely not my place to intervene and I do acknowledge that Jim is the one really going through it, I’m just sitting by and having to listen, but it’s proving to be a real struggle at this point trying to ignore it, and both the cough and my patience are getting a lot worse.

You really don’t, I’m sorry. You could have standing to ask about being moved if that’s practical, and if that’s not an option you have standing to talk to your boss about the problems the noise is posing for you and whether there might be other solutions. But you don’t really have standing to complain to Jim’s manager about the cough (there’s likely nothing that can be done about it, at least not something that an employer could direct), and you definitely don’t have standing to ask whether Jim is looking after his health.

However, if the headphones were making it more bearable, can you return to using those? You could explain to your assistant that they help you focus and encourage her to IM you or use some other system for alerting you when she needs you. Headphones don’t have to be an inherent block to being interrupted if you stress that you want the interruptions and agree on a system for doing it.

4. Can I ask my boss for feedback on my speaking in meetings?

I recently joined a nonprofit organization in a comms role fresh out of college. My manager often wants me to be a part of some cross-department meetings and contribute my thoughts. The problem is that I’m not a confident speaker and I struggle with phrasing ideas especially since English is not my first language and I’m new to the corporate world. Would it be a bad idea to ask my manager for feedback on my performance in meetings?

Not a bad idea at all! It’s great when employees ask for feedback; managers should give it anyway, but you’ll usually get more of it if you make it clear you’re eager for it, and it’s especially helpful to flag it when there’s a specific area you want to grow in. Say to your manager exactly what you said here!