Ask a Manager

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

1. My professor wants me to ask my new employer to send me to an awards banquet

With the help of a professor who mentored me in college, I just got my dream job! When I told her I got the job, she strongly suggested I ask my future boss about attending an annual awards banquet for people in our field. My problem here is twofold: first off, I’m not sure I’m comfortable making this request. My professor (who is very involved with the nonprofit I’ll be working for) has told me the organization usually buys a table and brings their senior staff only. For one thing, I’m not coming into a senior position by any stretch of the imagination, and for another, my actual start date isn’t until the day after this event takes place. I was volunteering with this organization before being hired, so I don’t have to worry about first impressions, but I still don’t want my first actions as an employee to be asking for special treatment and money to be spent on me. Is this just my social anxiety talking or do I have good reason to feel weird? If I were to ask, how could I do so without seeming entitled? And if I don’t ask, how can I explain my decision to my mentor without insulting her judgement?

Regardless, one way or another she’s determined to get me there: she’s even offered to buy me a ticket as a “congratulations on the job” gift if my new employer isn’t willing or able, though it will probably be at a different table. That social anxiety I mentioned is far from thrilled by this prospect. I’ve never been to anything like this before and I have no idea what to expect. It’s a $60 per plate fundraiser and I’m a recent college grad. Do you have any tips for how to handle it, in general and if I’m seated with either my superiors or strangers?

Your instincts are right: Don’t ask your new employer to buy you a ticket. If they only bring senior people, it’s going to come across as tone-deaf. Even if that weren’t the case, it’s just an odd thing to ask to attend before you’re even working there (it could be different if it were a workshop or helpful conference in your field, although I probably wouldn’t even ask about those if you’re entry-level).

I’d just tell her that you appreciate the encouragement, but you’re going to wait until you start working there and can scope out the culture before asking to attend things like this. If she tells you not to worry, just thank her for the advice and stick to your plan.

It would be fine to let her buy you a ticket if you want to go, but it would also be fine to thank her and decline. If you’re willing to go and talk to people, though, it could end up being interesting and useful to you professionally — but I don’t think it’s the end of the world if you choose not to, and if you know that realistically you’re unlikely to make conversation with strangers, I’d sit it out without any guilt.

2. Should I let a mediocre employee work remotely?

I manage an employee who wants to move soon and has asked if he can become a remote worker. We’re a company that is primarily in-office, but we do have some employees in his position who are remote.

He has previously not been the best performer, but in the last six months or so has really improved. I am inclined to let him stay on, as I think replacing his knowledge of our teapots would take a while and he is an acceptable, if not standout performer. My boss wants to let him go, as my boss I think hasn’t seen the improvements made recently.

I’ve tried to make the case for his improvements to my boss, but I don’t seem to have made an impact. Do I continue to push my point of view? Or, do I accept my boss’ point of view, and who should tell the employee? If I tell him, do I tell him that this wasn’t my choice?

I’m with your boss. Why go out of your way to keep an someone who’s at best “acceptable,” when you have such a natural opening to part ways on good terms? Let him leave and fill that spot with someone who’s better. Plus, if you’re going to let someone work remotely, you really need to be able to trust them to consistently work at a high level. It’s also more work to manage someone remotely, especially if they’re not a high performer, and it doesn’t make sense to take that on unless the person is really worth it.

You should be the one to tell the employee your decision because you’re his manager, and you should own it, not say that you disagreed, since you’d be undermining your own boss by doing that.

3. Leaving a job after three months

I recently started a new job at a new company, which I really like a lot. I even have a supportive manager. However, I recently have been invited to enroll in an amazing post-graduate opportunity which sounds amazing. I had no idea that a program as good as this could have existed, and it will definitely help in my career long-term. I’d have to be a full-time student and it would last just over one year. And at this point in my life, I don’t think I’ll ever have another opportunity to have the luxury of taking a year out of the workforce to pursue something like this.

The “problem” is that I work for a major financial services firm that I’d like to rejoin at some point. If I leave after about 3 months on the job, even crossing all my t ‘s and dotting all my i’s, will I still be guilty of the proverbial “bridge burning?” If I’ve been getting good feedback so far, but leave after this short period of time, does that mean that I’ll be blacklisted from ever rejoining the company in the future?

Yeah, leaving after three months is pretty likely to burn the bridge. It’s not an absolute certainty, but at this point they’ve invested more in you than they’ve gotten back (as far as training, etc.) and they’re unlikely to welcome you back with open arms in the future. Basically, you committed to them to stay in the job for a reasonable amount of time (you’re understood to be agreeing to that when you take a job) and not leave after a few months because something else sounds better, so they’d be understandably annoyed and wary that you’d do that again.

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do the post-grad thing. You should do what’s best for you — but assume that this will indeed close this firm to you in the future.

4. Should I disclose bad faith business practices to a client?

I currently work with an account team for a multi-million dollar client who has a verbal agreement with my employer(field is risk assessment) that none of their work will be sent offshore. This verbal agreement was put into place when a venture capital company bought out my previous employer and started closing U.S. offices and sending work to India. Three years later, management is quietly training workers in India to take over work for this client. They are supposedly “working” on coming up with a way to divulge this to the client. Based on my poor experience with management in this company, I am certain they are planning to lay off the U.S. teams and then tell the client about the offshoring once it’s too late and the only people trained to do the work are in India. Needless to say, I’m looking for other employment, not only because I feel this company is unethical but also because even if they keep me on I know these short-term money saving decisions will result in the client firing our company, as they’ve come close to doing so in the past for much less.

On my way out the door, is it completely unethical to shoot my contact with the client an email letting her know what is going on? I don’t plan on staying in this industry and would be required to sign a non-compete so this isn’t a case where this could affect my future employment in this field. I’m also not interested in “getting revenge” on my company for offshoring–I honestly just feel that what they are doing is severely unethical even if the agreement was verbal and not in writing, and furthermore, I know management’s confidence in the workers in India to do the work correctly is misplaced; all they care about is saving money in Q 3-4. They’re not capable of doing the work and supervisors saying as much are being ignored by management and assigned to do training anyway. Am I way off-base even considering “tattling” to the client? I’ve worked closely with this client for many years and I feel much more loyalty towards them than I do towards my own company, which is why I’m reaching out to you. My judgment may be clouded here; perhaps I am contemplating something unthinkable.

I don’t think it’s unethical. I mean, obviously your company wouldn’t want you to do it, but that’s not the standard for ethics. I suppose someone could argue that you have a duty of loyalty to your company, but I’d argue that you do not have a duty to turn a blind eye on bad faith practices.

However, I wouldn’t put it in an email — no need to create a paper trail that could hurt you with your current employer. Call her instead.

5. Have I lost my follow-up chances?

I had a question regarding following up and I am getting mixed advice from everyone, so I decided to ask you to be the tie-breaker. I had an interview on Monday and they hit me with “You should be hearing from us by the end of the week to set up a second interview.” I shamefully forgot to ask for a business card or contact email, so all I have is one of the interviewer’s numbers. So here are the reactions:

Me: I want to follow up, but if I call I will seem stalkerish. If I mail a card, their mail room is so busy they may not get it until next week.

Friend: Welp! I’ve been told that before and they never called. Wait until Monday to call so you don’t look desperate.

Boyfriend: If they don’t call you by Wednesday, then move on. No need to follow up.

Mom: Call them Wednesday. (Then she proceeds to send me multiple articles about the need to follow up.)

I don’t know what to do because I know how annoyed I am when I get a bothersome call while at work. The interviewer was not from HR; she is the direct supervisor of the department so I am sure she is very busy! I was thinking of leaving a voice mail before she made it to work so as to not interrupt her. But she arrives at 7 a.m. so calling at 6:30 a.m. seems a little weird too.

So what do you think? Are phone calls okay? Have I lost my “follow up” chances?

Don’t call to follow up at this point, and definitely don’t do it at 6:30 a.m. If you look around their website and find any email address for someone at the company, you may be able to figure out your interviewers’ email addresses by following the same general format (for example, first.last@company.com, or FirstInitialLastName@company.com or whatever).

If that doesn’t work, then once it’s been a week past the point they said they’d contact you, at that point I suppose you can call to say that you were hoping for an update on their timeline, and apologize for calling but you realized you didn’t have email contacts for any of them. (I’m saying “I suppose” because it pains me to direct you to call instead of emailing, but in a case where you truly don’t email and it’s past the time they said they’d be in touch, it’s not a terrible crime.) I might call around 6 p.m. when she’ll probably be gone for the day (given her early arrival time) and just leave a voicemail.

Alternately, you could scratch all of the above and just call their main number and say, “I interviewed with Valentina Mulberry recently for the X position and wanted to email her about next steps but realized I don’t have her email address. Could you give it to me so I don’t need to bother her with a phone call?”

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

1. Pregnancy, deli meats, and working lunches

I just found out I’m pregnant, and I’m really excited and happy about it. I have told my direct supervisor, who is very supportive, and we have a great parental leave policy. But for a number of reasons (it’s still very early, there are some potential risks, I’m not quite ready yet) I am not sharing the news with my coworkers and would prefer not to until I am much further along. I’m not showing and not getting sick at work, so there is no way they would know.

My question is around working lunches. Frequently, we have business meetings that either run through lunch or start / end with lunch, and the usual fare is sandwiches and chips. I’m not a huge fan of sandwiches, but hey, free food and networking, so I always eat them. Now, though, my doctor has said I should avoid deli meats due to the risk of listeria. How do I handle this? For the start or end with lunch options, I could always duck out and get my own, but I will miss out on valuable networking and “shop talk” over lunch. For the meetings that go through lunch, there really isn’t time to go get food on my own. Is my best option to bring my own? What do I say to coworkers, who will inevitably ask since this is an abrupt change in habit for me? Also, it would be hard to say I’m going vegetarian or trying to eat healthy salads only. Due to mild nausea, bread, crackers, and a few proteins like chicken are the only things I eat right now (veggies are out).

(Side note – I know that the deli meat / listeria thing is controversial for some, and many women eat sandwiches and are fine. For me, I’m not a huge fan to start, and other than this one issue it doesn’t impact my life, so I would rather just avoid deli meat at my doctors request.)

Can you talk to whoever’s in charge of food for these meetings and just ask that they include a sandwich that you could eat? You don’t need to cite the pregnancy; you could just matter-of-factly say that you’re dealing with some diet changes, could they please get you X, thanks. It’s pretty reasonable to ask the person in charge of ordering food to order something that you can eat. The more matter-of-fact you are about it, the better.

If for some reason talking to that person directly doesn’t make sense, I’d explain what’s up to your manager, since she already knows about your pregnancy, and ask her her support in broadening what’s being offered, without tying it to you. (If it’s all deli meat sandwiches, you’re probably not the only one who would appreciate other options.)

If you don’t like either of those options, you could also just bring your own food and if anyone questions it, say something vague like “I’m experimenting with some diet changes, nothing too interesting” or “I’m on a major crackers binge” or whatever you feel like saying. Again, the more matter-of-fact you are about it, the less people will pry.

Read an update to this letter here.

2. Internal candidates need not apply

I work at a small, struggling nonprofit whose board recently abruptly fired our executive director with basically no transition plan in place. Although I spent two years working very, very hard, doing the jobs of two people to keep the place open, I have been told by the board that I need not apply for the interim executive director position, that external candidates will only be considered. This despite the fact that our personnel manual explicitly says that all open positions must be advertised internally first.

I am angry, resentful, bitter, and hurt that the organization I have given basically everything to for the past five years is so dismissive of me as an asset and an advocate to return us to solvency. I also found out we won’t even be getting paid on time (this has been a recurring theme) and to me, the message from the board of directors is “we will be happy to let you work even harder with no title change, no raise, no support, and no chance for advancement.” In other words, “we invite you to continue being exploited. Thank you for all your hard work.” What should I do?

Well, you could job search.

The decision to look only at outside candidates for an ED role could be sensible, if the board specifically wants to go in a different direction than what the organization has been doing (and the firing of the old ED might indicate exactly that). Or they could want someone with skills and experience that no one on the current staff has (also very possible when it comes to an ED role). So I’d try not to be too irked by that element of it — but certainly if you’re not getting paid on time and you’re unhappy and you don’t feel you’re being paid appropriately or given the resources to do your job, you should look at other jobs. Any one of those would be a reason to find something else and leave — taken altogether, they’re a screaming neon sign telling you to.

3. Should I try to set up meetings with prospective coworkers when applying at a new company?

My wife and I are relocating from Seattle to Phoenix. She has already found and started a new job, and, although I still work in the Seattle area, I am fervently looking for a new job in Phoenix. At my current employer, whenever an employee was applying for an internal transfer or promotion, one thing that was expected was for you as the employee to interview your next potential boss, the person leaving the position for which you are applying, coworkers of that position, and anyone else with knowledge about the position, thus giving you pertinent knowledge of the applied for position prior to an internal interview.

Although I have searched, I cannot find any articles addressing this when a person is applying to another company. For example, I will be applying for a manager position at a municipal government this week, and I wanted to try to set up a meeting with the potential future boss, the outgoing or interim manager, and maybe a subordinate to find out some details like what is going well, what needs to be fixed, why is the position available, etc.

Is this practice I am describing frowned upon or not encouraged (my prior industry was law enforcement and that is not the new industry in which I trying to get a job)? Even if the potential future boss says he or she cannot speak with me as he or she is part of the decision-making process, would I garner any points for trying? I am talking about trying this very soon after applying, especially to maybe help get an interview.

Nope, that’s absolutely not a thing you do when applying from outside the company — and definitely not before they’ve invited you to interview. You’ll look like you’re overstepping and trying to use their employees’ time inappropriately (in part because they may not even be interested in your candidacy, and in part because even if they are, they’re going to want to structure the hiring process themselves, not have you try to do it yourself). Do not do this.

4. Does this email from an employer mean I’m being rejected?

I got the following note after an interview. Does it mean I am out? I thought the interview was short but good. How should I respond? I have never received a response to a thank-you note. This is from the CEO:

“Thank you very much for your email. It was a real pleasure speaking with you today. I appreciate your enthusiasm and desire to help us make an impact. We will be in touch with you soon, but no matter how it works out you have my thanks for taking the time to come meet with me and for your passion for what we do.”

Nope, it means that they’ll be in touch soon and appreciate you coming in.

Employers, for the most part, don’t speak in coded messages about this kind of thing. If they were ready to reject you, they’d just reject you.

I know it’s tempting to try to read into stuff like this, but it will do you no favors. Take it at face value and believe that all it means it what it says.

If this was a response to your thank-you, don’t respond at all — you thanked them, they responded, and that’s the end of this particular exchange. If this wasn’t a response to anything you sent, then just reply with something like, “I really enjoyed talking with you as well and appreciated your time. Looking forward to hearing back from you.” Or, if you haven’t already sent a thank-you, now is the time to respond with the kind of thing that would normally have gone in that. (Keep in mind that post-interview thank-you’s should really be less about thanking and more about following up on the conversation you had in an interview. More on that here.)

5. Does management experience have to be current?

I work part-time as a Teapot Painting Assistant under a full-time Teapot Painter, and am currently job-searching for a Teapot Painter position of my very own. In my current role, my boss and I jointly supervise a few Teapot Cleaners, which I’ve been identifying as supervisory experience in my resumes and cover letters. I’m going to be relocating for various reasons in a couple of months, and if I can’t find a Painter position before that relocation, I may need to take another Assistant position to fill the gap.

Do hiring managers expect to see unbroken chains of supervisory work when they look at a prospective candidate? In other words, if I say “I have X years of supervisory experience,” and then the hiring manager looks at my resume and sees that that experience was at a prior job, would that reflect poorly on me? (I realize the answer to this probably varies by profession and position, but can you give a general sense of the expectations here?)

No, generally speaking, your management experience doesn’t need to be unbroken, and it’s fine to say “I have X years of doing Y” when it’s from a prior job. That said, depending on the job and what they’re looking for, recency could matter. If I’m hiring for a job where I really care about management experience, experience from 10 years ago isn’t going to be as compelling as something more recent. But if you’ve managed teams in the past for some reasonable amount of time (i.e., not six months) and just haven’t done it in a couple of years, that’s not really an issue.

For what it’s worth, “jointly supervising” people always raises some skepticism for me, and if I see that on a resume, I’m going to want to know details — which elements of managing people were you doing, and were there some that you weren’t doing? Generally if management experience is a key qualification for a role, I want you have done all the parts of managing people, not just some of them, so that’s potentially an issue, depending on how that job worked.

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

1. How to turn down networking requests

Today I received two networking messages, to which I’m not sure how to respond. The first I received via a former classmate from college introducing me to a grad school friend of hers. The second a cold email from someone with no connection to my personal email address. Both emails are asking for informational interviews as they are applying for an open position on my team. I honestly don’t have a lot of time right now — I’m managing several projects as well as my team and I am a new mom. I know I should write these folks back, but I’m worried it’s going to come off cold and blunt for me to go “sorry, can’t. Oh, btw you’re overqualified for the position” (no, that’s not what I’d actually write, but it’s what I WANT to write). What would your suggestion be to help redirect these job seekers?

If they have a current job application with you, they’re not asking for informational interviews; they’re asking for actual interviews, even though they’re using different terminology to try to distract you from that fact. I’d just say this: “I see that you’ve applied for the position. We’ve found that the best way to get to know people and explore things on both sides is to use the formal hiring process we’ve set up, but of course I’ll be glad to talk further if we move forward.”

If this were truly a request for an informational interview, you could still decline. In that case, you could say something like, “I wish I could help, but the reality is that my schedule is packed right now, and I need to turn down some requests in order to be able to ever see my family” or “Unfortunately, my schedule is really packed right now, so I’m not able to meet, but I’d be glad to answer a quick question or two by email if that would help.”

2. Company is taking credit for the events my coworkers and I organize outside of work

I’ve been working at my current company for just over a year, and although I really enjoy the work I do and the people I work with, I have a bit of a problem with corporate culture. I work in a creative field, and while there are certainly exceptions, many creative agencies pride themselves on their corporate culture. Great corporate culture is often balanced out by crunch times and long hours, but I love the work I do and am happy to put up with crunch times and longer hours as long as I enjoy coming in to work every day.

When I took this job, they acknowledged that they had a lot to do regarding corporate culture, but mentioned that they had just hired a director whose main focus would be to improve the company culture and work on implementing new programs (work from home! giving back through volunteering! etc. etc.). I took this as a good sign and took the job.

It’s been a year now and there hasn’t been any change in the corporate culture – none of the promised new initiatives have passed muster and I would argue that it has gotten worse.

To counter this, my coworkers and I have decided to organize our own events, outside of work and with our own money, because we get along well and like working together. I honestly don’t mind that we have to do this on our own and have a lot of fun when we go out together, but I recently learned that when recruiting new employees, management has been using our gatherings as examples of how great our corporate culture is and that the company is committed to culture and culture events.

Are the gatherings we are organizing culture events? Can we push back against management using our independently organized events as recruiting tools? Should we stop holding these events? Do you have any recommendations for helping to foster company culture with management?

That’s annoying. That said, “our employees regularly organize events together outside of work” actually is something about the culture, and you can’t really insist that your company not mention it. You can, however, say, “We started organizing these events because we really wanted them and the company wasn’t doing them. Since it sounds like you do see them as valuable, can we turn the organizing responsibility over to (insert name of logical person here) or otherwise have the company take these over?”

If you wanted to push it further, you could say, “We were actually really disappointed that we had to organize these on our own, especially since we were told that new culture initiatives were a priority for the company when Jane’s role was created. That’s still something many of us would like to see. Could we get an update about how those plans are going?”

As for changing the culture more broadly … it’s unlikely. You have a large degree of control over the type of relationships you have with each other, but beyond that, you really need buy-in from the top and it doesn’t sound like that’s there.

3. My boss wants me to travel with her

I am a special needs PCA for a child. His mother, my boss, is telling me that a month from now she is planning on going back to her home state to visit her sick father, and she would like me to go to help her with her children because her husband cannot go. I’ve been working with her for four years now and I told her that I do not like to travel because I am claustrophobic and get motion sick easily. I will get motion sick just driving 20 minutes away to the grocery store. So how could I deal with nine hours in a van with a dog and four screaming children, and while being in heavy traffic? Not only that, but I would be staying at her vacation/childhood home, with no private room of my own. I work Monday through Friday and I work 40 hours a week, sometimes maybe even more and the only time I get to rest is on the weekends, but at the time I am always on the go with cleaning my house and taking care of errands that I put off for the week. I am her only employee so she relies heavily on me and I get so tired and burned out, but she doesn’t see it and always pressures me to work.

How can I tell her that I would like to take that time to rest up and focus on myself, without her getting mad like she always does whenever I tell her no?

Be clear and firm and say no: “I’m not able to accompany you on your trip. I have commitments here at home and it’s not possible for me to go.” If she keeps pushing you after that, then say, “As I’ve said, I will not be going on the trip.” And if necessary, you can add, “I’m uncomfortable with you pressuring me to change my answer. I’m not able to go, and we can’t keep trying to revisit it.” (In fact, I’d like to see you being even firmer about it — something like “I need you to stop pressuring me to work when I’ve told you I’m not available” — but I realize that when you’re working in someone’s home, dynamics can be weird.)

It sounds like this is part of a pattern — she frequently gets angry when you tell you that you can’t work extra hours — and so you also probably need to have a big-picture conversation about that. Frankly, you may need to decide if you want to continue working for her under these conditions; if you think you’d be able to easily get other work, you should consider taking a pretty hard line with her about this (“in order for me to continue on, I need you to stop doing XYZ”).

Also, if you work through an agency, you could talk to your agency and ask for their help in managing this.

4. Should being an acting manager go on my resume?

I’m part of a team of six, and one of us is the supervisor. The rest of us are at the same level. Since I’ve been at this job (1.5 years), my supervisor has gone away for three-week periods on three separate occasions. He asked me to act as supervisor during that time. That involves me serving as the point of contact between our team and the rest of the firm, delegating any work, making sure deadlines are met, etc. These were always expected to be quiet periods but something always inevitably came up–often many things did–but I successfully resolved any issues each time. Is this resume-worthy or not? And if yes, how do I phrase it?

Yes. “Served as acting supervisor in manager’s absence, including X, Y, and Z.”

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

1. Job candidate called me four times in one day

I am in the process of scheduling interviews for a new opening in our department. I called a batch of candidates this morning and left messages for a few of them. I then had a meeting with my boss and he gave me a task to prioritize over everything else. I even told him I would be ignoring emails/phone calls and would be on Do Not Disturb for most of the day. He agreed because this project is huge and it has to be done by the end of the week.

So morning passes and I get four phone calls from one candidate, who apparently was quite nervous when I didn’t pick up and immediately respond to the voicemail she left with her first call. To be fair, I don’t like ignoring people when I’ve initiated the conversation, but today is just one of those days where I didn’t have time to pause and didn’t want to break my focus on this project. So I figured, it sucks that I can’t answer her right now but I’ll call back first thing tomorrow morning once I have the bulk of my project finished.

Fast forward to this afternoon. She is apparently a current employee for our workplace in a different department, so she tracked me down via our instant messaging system rather than choosing to email me and sent me a message about how she’d called several times and thought this was the best method since “for some reason, nobody was returning my calls. : )” Yes, that is verbatim, including the smiley face.

Am I crazy for being irritated with this? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not up in arms but considering the magnitude of the project I’ve been working on and my stress levels when she messaged me, it definitely rubbed me the wrong way. I think it’s pretty common to not answer a phone call within a day if you’ve got a lot going on, and it seems to me like she’s not really understanding professional norms. I’d love to get your take on this.

Yeah, that absolutely should rub you the wrong way. Called you four times in a single day? That’s three calls too many. And then followed that up with an IM where she implied she was being ignored?

You should pass this along to whoever will be making decisions about candidates. This is the kind of thing that should make that person reconsider whether to interview her at all, or at least be on the watch for additional evidence of inappropriateness. (I think that person is not you and that you’re just doing the scheduling, but if I’m wrong and it is you, seriously consider whether the new information you now have about this candidate changes your assessment of her strength.)

Nerves are one thing, but she flew right past nerves into presumption and rudeness.

Read updates to this letter here and here.

2. My coworker might be deliberately undermining my work

At my office, we are ranked on our amount of customer contact, measured by the number of meetings logged. A colleague at work, who is tasked with logging meetings, has been leaving me out of these logs, while always adding my boss/other colleagues (even when they did not attend the meeting). It has happened frequently.

I’m trying not to take this personally, but it feels quite deliberate and unprofessional because it happened several times and the error is always the same: leaving me out of the logs (instead of other attendees). It doesn’t feel like regular, garden-variety sloppiness (which isn’t good either!).

While this colleague and I are not close friends, I have tried my best to be cordial and professional. There’s no serious bad blood, but there have been several moments of awkwardness. He took constructive feedback quite personally and made it clear it was unwelcome, and since then I’ve tried to reduce contact with him to the bare minimum professional levels, and refrained from giving him any feedback.

Objectively, this isn’t just about me feeling slighted, but also impacts how my bosses perceive my work performance (that it’s under-reported). I just want my activity to be accurately logged without drama. I know I cannot second-guess his intentions. The straightforward situation would be to bring it up to him directly. If this is deliberate, I’m not sure how effective this would be though. I have a great relationship with his boss and could discuss it with his boss, but I feel this approach would be even more unwelcome.

Start by assuming it’s not deliberate — since the solution will be the same either way — and just ask him to correct it: “Hey Fergus, on multiple occasions, my customer meetings haven’t been getting logged. It’s important that they do — do you need me to do anything differently to ensure that they end up in your logs?”

If it keeps happening after that, then yes, you definitely do need to loop in his boss. If Fergus has an issue with that, you should mention that to his boss too — because his boss needs to know if Fergus is messing up his work in a way that impacts others and then bristling when people try to resolve it.

Don’t let his prickliness keep you from dealing with this, and dealing with it ASAP. It’s something that sounds like it could unfairly affect your professional standing, and so you have to speak up.

3. My recruiting messages on LinkedIn aren’t getting any responses

I have recently joined the corporate world and am working as a recruiter with one of the biggest IT providers in the U.S. My biggest struggle is to work through LinkedIn to utilize the talent in I.T. My In-Mails are not getting any response.

An example of what I send: “I came across your profile on linkedin while searching for Java j2ee talent and I found your experience to be very interesting. I would like to know little bit more about yourself by setting up a call or in person meeting to understand your goals and interest.”

Can you advise on this and help me get better?

Yeah, people aren’t responding to that email because you’ve given them absolutely no reason to spend time answering your questions. You haven’t mentioned a job or given any details about where the call might lead; there’s no incentive for them to respond to something so open-ended.

Instead, open with a clear description of the job that you’re hiring for and why they might be the right fit for it, and then ask if they’d be interested in learning more. Bonus points if you include things that should be additional draws, such as the salary and other incentives.

4. My new coworker takes loud calls on speaker phone with his door open

For many years, I have worked in a generally reasonably quiet office where, in the past, people who have needed to take phone calls either use a headset or handset or close their doors. My new office neighbor does neither, taking long and short calls on speaker phone with his door open. I sometimes get up and close my door, which is annoying, both because it signals to others that I’m on a call/unavailable (which isn’t true) or that I’m stand-offish, and because you know, I have to get off my duff and do it, interrupting my work. He’s at exactly my level, so it’s not a management issue, just a workplace etiquette one – is there a polite way for me to ask him to stop?

Absolutely, and if he’s polite in return, it should work. Say this: “Bob, would you mind closing your door if you’re going to take a call on speaker phone? Or use a handset if you prefer to leave the door open? It can be pretty loud and makes it hard to focus. Thank you!”

A reasonable coworker will be happy to respect this request. That’s especially true if Bob is new to your office, which it sounds like he is; he should be particularly interested in not causing disruptions in his new workplace. (Actually, you could play directly to that and say something like, “Our walls are pretty thin here, so we all close our doors if we’re using speaker phone.” In other words, This Is How We Do it Here, Bob.)

5. My company says I’m not eligible for FMLA leave because our 100 employees are spread over three states

I work at a company that has just over 100 employees spread across three offices (and three states). No single location has more than 40 employees. I recently told my boss that I’m pregnant. I’m the first pregnant employee my company has ever had, so the official policy is pretty vague. I sat down with my boss and HR to ask a lot of questions and try to put together a plan. During this meeting, I was told that since there aren’t 50 employees at any single office, FMLA doesn’t apply. This strikes me as an incorrect interpretation of that law, but I’m having trouble actually justifying that. Is this really how it works?

How far away are the other locations? To be covered by FMLA, you have to work at a location where at least 50 employees are employed at the location or within 75 miles of the location. (Or if you worked remotely, you’d only be covered if the office you report to and which makes assignments to you has 50 or more employees working within 75 miles of its location. In other words, the law hasn’t kept up with technology and the increase in remote workers.)