Ask a Manager

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

1. My job changed to something I never signed up for

About eight months ago I was hired as a marketing coordinator for a fairly small office. About four months into my position, our office manager was fired and has not been replaced. Since then, everyone has picked up the slack to some degree. I was given one of her tasks – handling accounts receivable – which is something I NEVER wanted anything to do with, and was never presented to me as something I might be responsible for. If I had known this would be something that now takes up about half of my time, I would not have taken the position. In addition, there are regularly inaccuracies (not on my account, our managing partner apparently has a long history of not keeping accurate accounting information on her end) and this causes me a great deal of anxiety, as I do not want the ax to fall on me as it conceivably could, if there is a big enough goof-up.

That sucks. You’re absolutely right to be frustrated and unhappy about this.

You could try talking to your manager and saying something like: “Could we talk about the long-term plan for handling accounts receivable? I was happy to help out while we were in a pinch, but I’m spending about half my time on it, and I’d really like to focus on the marketing work I was hired for. Is there a plan to replace Jane, or is this something you see me doing long-term?” If she says that this is the long-term plan, you could say, “Would you be open to talking about handling it differently? I hadn’t envisioned the job evolving like this when I took it, and it’s not something I’d like to make a permanent part of my role.”

It’s possible that if she hears that you feel strongly about it, that could nudge her to come up with a different plan. But it’s also possible that this is just the way it’s going to be, and that you’ll have to decide if you still want the job under these terms. It’s unfair, but in small organizations, sometimes things like this do happen (which is a reason to be wary of small organizations — on the other hand, the flip side of that is that sometimes it works to your advantage, if you get to take on new stuff that you like and wouldn’t otherwise have had a chance at).

If you do decide to leave over it, you can explain to future interviewers that after a colleague left, your job ended up being 50% accounts receivable, which wasn’t what you’d come on board to do.

2. Should junior staff have to train others?

To what extent should junior/entry-level-ish workers be expected to train other staff members? I ask because I’ve done a fair amount of this – on technical tasks, not just procedural “here’s how to fill out this spreadsheet” kind of stuff. My friends say that this is unusual considering my level of job. What do you think?

It’s pretty normal. If you know how to do something that’s reasonably within your job purview, and someone else needs to be trained in doing that thing, it makes sense to have you train them.

It sounds like your friends are thinking that training is some highly senior task, but it’s reasonable and normal for the lowest-level person who can train someone effectively to do so, so that more senior people (whose time costs your employer more) spend their time on the work that only they can do.

3. Employer expected me to travel seven hours for an interview with three days notice

Is it unreasonable for an employer to expect me to travel over seven hours for an interview?

I recently applied for a teaching position in my home town, which is about a seven-hour drive from where I currently live. I got an email saying that I was scheduled to interview at 2:30 on Friday (less than three days notice). I wrote the interviewer back and asked about Skype or phone options, since this is the first interview in a longer interview process and I am currently a full-time employee at a high school. The interviewer responded by saying that they didn’t hire people over Skype and asking me when I could come up. When I moved to central California from where I grew up, all of the jobs offered a long distance interview option and assumed I wouldn’t be able to drive down.

It’s not unreasonable for them to expect you to travel to them for the interview at some point, although ideally they’d be open to doing a phone call or Skype interview for the first step since it’s a multi-step process. However, this is a teaching position, which means that it’s likely that their interview process is highly regimented and that they have internal rules that prohibit them from deviating from that (because they wrongly think they need to treat all candidates exactly the same).

It’s also pretty silly to just send candidates an announcement of when they will interview, without asking them if the day and time works. (Again, see heavily regimented interview processes with little thought about how candidates experience it.)

In general, though, if you’re applying to places long-distance, and if employers have plenty of strong local candidates, you’ll often need to deal with the inconvenience of making yourself as accessible to them as a local candidate would be. Otherwise, unless you’re head and shoulders above their local candidates, there’s not really incentive for them to change what they’re doing. (In fact, this is why some employers refuse to consider non-local candidates at all.)

4. How do I manage an overwhelming number of passwords at work?

I am wondering if you have any advice for password management at work. I am an executive assistant and I have a large number of passwords to keep track of:
– accounts for various services that I use for the office (ordering supplies, ordering food, website management, project coordination software etc)
– accounts that I use on my supervisors’ behalf (airline accounts, customer accounts like opentable, etc)
– personal accounts at work (email, HR portal)

It gets to be a bit much and I need to balance functionality with security. Do you have any recommendations?

Are you allowed to install third-party tools? If so: LastPass. It’s changed my life.

It’s a secure password manager where you only need to remember your one master password, and it fills in and remembers unique passwords for all your sites. I now have highly secure passwords for every site I use (like “g6vjXg4Ep7Wm” type passwords, as opposed to “apple17” or whatever) and I don’t have to remember any of them. I love it.

5. Should I list my blog on my resume?

Is it a good idea to list my blog on my CV/Linkedin? (Note: I understand that in North America, there are both CVs and resumes, but we just have the one document). My blog is tangentially related to my field … for example, let’s say that I work in higher education and my blog is about 19th century literature. I’ve been posting consistently for a few years and it’s generally good quality content (among other things, I present original research, and things that aren’t well-represented in English-language writing). As a data point, does mentioning this kind of thing show passion and commitment, or does it just seem a bit trivial?

You should absolutely include it. It demonstrates extreme interest in a subject, which is always a good thing, and it demonstrates your writing and thinking and communication abilities.

It doesn’t seem trivial. I get excited by candidates who are excited about their fields.

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

1. My employees complained about the reward I gave them

I work as a manager of a division that recently underwent a huge system change. As a result, all of our employees had to work two hours of overtime per day for three weeks. They were all paid triple their hourly rate for their overtime hours and were given two weeks extra PTO for their efforts. In addition, all meals were catered during that time, and every imaginable beverage was served to them (think baristas, fresh smoothies, etc).

I decided that in addition I would give them all gift certificates (paid for by our company) as a thank-you for their hard work. These were all in different amounts, based on their respective levels of responsibility, but they ranged from $100-200. In order to give them these gift certificates, I had to spent a lot of time getting permission for the funds and ordering them for the employees, all on top of my already demanding work load. I was hurt when it got back to me that employees were grumbling that the gift cards weren’t enough.

My visceral reaction was to just say that they are being ungrateful for something extra that I did for them and that I will not be giving out gift cards next time they are required to work overtime for a special project. But do you think they were treated unfairly? How should I handle these sorts of things going forward?

It sounds like you really went out of your way to ameliorate the inconvenience of the overtime — two weeks of extra PTO is huge, to say nothing of tripling their rate and bringing in all that food and drink. That was more than most people would expect, and then to do gift cards on top of it was extra thoughtful. So yeah, they’re being unreasonable and unrealistic in their expectations. I almost wonder if they saw all the other stuff as par for the course (which it’s not) and the gift cards as their only thank-you; that’s the only thing I can think of to explain the reaction.

But I’d skip the gift cards next time — no point in doing them if that’s the response.

2. Should I try to get my old job back after being fired for pushing a coworker?

Back in 2013, I was fired from my first job after an episode of physical violence with a coworker who had been bullying me for a while. (We threw shoes at one another and pushed each other. He’d been calling me names and bullying long before the incident though.)

Afterwards, I moved on and worked other jobs. But now, after having my son, it seems like no matter how many jobs I apply to, I always get rejected. A couple days ago, I ran into another coworker from my first job and she suggested that I try to re-apply and come back. She knows what happened to me and agrees that I should be given another chance. I tried to re-apply and actually got an interview and I was doing great, until they discovered I used to work there and the circumstances under which I left, or was terminated as they say, thanks to a jealous coworker who is still there. They pretty much trashed my interview and stopped looking at my application afterwards. It’s really been bothering me and I really wanted to go back and work there. Should I try again by calling corporate and explaining what happened or should I just leave it be? And the jealous coworker, what should I do about her?

Nope, this one isn’t going to work out. Being fired for pushing a coworker is a really big deal. It sounds like you might have been pushed to the brink by his behavior — but when you resort to physicality with someone, no matter what the provocation was, that’s going to be a permanent deal-breaker for most employers. They’re not going to want to take the risk that it will happen again. Write this one off, and focus on other employers.

As for the jealous former coworker, there’s nothing to do there. Move on mentally from this company and start fresh somewhere else.

3. I’m worried that moving into my own office will hurt my coworker’s feelings

I started at a job I love two years ago. I came into a department with one other person who was there two years before I started and our boss. My boss got a promotion and now wants to promote me instead of my coworker. I love my coworker to death, and don’t want to hurt her feelings. At the same time, though, I can’t hold myself back just for the sake of my coworker’s feelings.

We sit in a cubicle separated by a wall. Two offices opened up and ideally we should both get into them. My boss asked us if we want to move over. My coworker said she doesn’t, and I want to. Should I go ahead and do it? My coworker doesn’t know about my promotion yet. I don’t want to seem like I’m trying to be above her (although my title will be). I just don’t want to create a hostile environment.

Good lord, take the office! It’s very, very normal to take an office when it’s offered to you, totally aside from the promotion. It’s not even like you’re being offered something your coworker isn’t; she’s been offered one too, even though she’s not taking it. (But even if she hadn’t been offered one, there’s no reason for that to stand in the way of you accepting yours.)

There’s absolutely nothing hostile about that. If she’s sad that you won’t be sitting with each other anymore say, “Yes, I will miss it too — but I’m really excited to have an office.” If she thinks about your feelings half as much as you seem to be thinking about hers, she’ll understand and be pleased for you, even if she’s a little wistful about losing the camaraderie of your cubes.

4. My office keeps emailing me at my personal email address rather than my work address

I recently started a new job at a university. I had used my personal gmail account while interviewing and had lots of correspondence through that account during the process. When I was hired I was given an @teapots.edu email. (Coincidentally we use a Gmail system for that account.)

Since I started, my boss always emails me work requests to my personal email. At first I just responded and then added my work email to the cc line. It continued happing a lot into week two. I kindly mentioned to my supervisor that I would prefer she use my university email for work correspondence. She explained it was an accident and that when she types my name into our work Gmail, it populates my personal email first. She said she would try to be more careful. Well, it keeps getting worse now. Many coworkers (who I never interviewed with) now are being cc’d (and replying) on emails to my personal email.

I started forwarding emails to my work email and responding to work requests with “I will respond from my work email; please try to sue that for future requests.” Everyone is very apologetic and realizes they are just typing my name in and it is the first item because of how frequently it is used.

Now my personal email is being sent around by accident to students and they are emailing me directly, thinking that is my email. I don’t know how to quell this madness – I just need people to take a second before typing my name into Gmail and look to see that it populates two options and choose my work one. Any suggestions? I don’t want to ignore people but it seems being polite and pointing the error out, isn’t enough.

I have to admit to doing this to a people a few times — for the exact same reason (that I’d been corresponding with them at their personal email address from the hiring process). But I always took action to fix it when they pointed it out! Maybe your coworkers don’t realize that they can fix this in their email, and it would help to send them specific instructions about how to fix it.

I’d say this: “Your emails keep going to my personal email address instead of my work address. To stop it from happening, can you delete it from your Gmail contacts altogether so it doesn’t keep auto-populating that one in messages? To do that, go to contacts.google.com, view all contacts, and delete my personal email. That should fix the problem!”

Since everyone sounds apologetic, they’re likely to be grateful to know how to stop this.

5. Can nonprofit employees volunteer for their own organization?

I’m on the board of a small nonprofit. I was just informed that one of our full-time salaried employees is actually volunteering his time on one of his scheduled work days. Apparently this was an arrangement he made with the former board president, for reasons unknown to me (the former president took many employee issues into her own hands). I believe this employee is non-exempt, but the extra day does not put him over 40 hours a week. And the former president instructed him to do “different” work from his paid work on the extra day, but the truth is, it’s not very different at all (for example, if your regular job was cooking hamburgers, and your volunteer position was cooking french fries at the same restaurant). I haven’t spoken to the board or the employee yet – this information was passed on by a volunteer who is a friend of the employee. So, what do I do about this situation? Is it completely above-board, too hinky for words, or somewhere in between? What if I’m mistaken about the hours involved, and the employee actually *is* spending more than 40 hours a week on site? How does that impact the situation?

While nonprofits are generally allowed to use volunteers (unlike for-profit businesses, which must pay at least minimum wage), the law is different when it comes to the employees of nonprofits, because otherwise employees could feel coerced to do unpaid work. Employees of your organization are allowed to volunteer for you in some limited situations, but the law is clear that the volunteer work can’t be the same type of work the person does in their regular job for you. So for example, your I.T. person could volunteer to run a community outreach booth over the weekend, but she couldn’t volunteer her time to upgrade your server.

However, the case you described, what exactly does it mean that he’s volunteering on one of his scheduled work days? If he’s salaried and being paid for a full week of work, the law doesn’t care if he’s doing task X instead of task Y during that week (and so you don’t need to and shouldn’t call it “volunteering”). However, if you mean that he’s taken a cut in his pay for that day (like he now earns 80% of what he used to earn and the remaining 20% is considered “volunteer work”), you’d be on shaky ground.

Also, if he goes over 40 hours for the week, he’d need to be paid overtime, and the organization can’t avoid that by calling it “volunteering.”

It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on here, but as a board member you have a legal and fiduciary responsibility to check into it, and act if the organization isn’t complying with the law.

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

1. New employee keeps trying to go over my head

My team has a new employee, and as part of my responsibilities (I am a team lead) I have to tell her about regulations and policies that impact what she is allowed to do at work. We’ve also discussed things like what type of schedule flexibility will be possible with our work schedules. Everything I tell her is either clearly spelled out in written policy or something I’ve discussed with our manager beforehand, but she reacts as though I’m on a power trip and “appeals” things to our manager.

How do I say “Tywin and I are in agreement on this and I need you to discuss your concerns with me rather than wasting his time” without sounding like I’m saying “you need to respect my authority and I don’t want you to talk to our manager”? I feel like this is undermining my ability to effectively manage my team’s workload, as well as making me look bad to our manager.

You need your manager involved in this one. When she goes to him to appeal your decisions, he needs to say to her, “I’ve asked Lucinda to manage these sorts of things, so you should speak to her rather than to me.” That should shut the behavior down pretty quickly.

If he doesn’t seem to see the need to say that to her, say this to him: “Jane has established a pattern of going to you when she doesn’t want to accept guidance or decisions from me. Can you start redirecting her back to me when she does that, and explain to her that you’ve asked me to handle these things? I’ll explain that to her too, but I think she needs to hear it from you as well, or we’re just training her that she can routinely go around me to you.”

And then as for talking with Jane yourself — once you’re positive that Tywin’s got your back on this — say this: “I’ve noticed that you’ve been talking issues like X and Y to Tywin. He’s asked me to handle those things on his behalf, and I need you to bring those things to me, not him. Can you do that going forward?”

2. Getting employees’ attention when they’re wearing headphones

What’s a good way to get someone’s attention when they are listening to music with headphones or earbuds?

I have a staff of three in a fairly small office and don’t mind at all that they listen to music on headphones while they work, but sometimes I need to get everyone’s attention for an announcement or just one person’s attention regarding a question or comment. I feel uncomfortable tapping them on the shoulder, and if I just start talking they don’t hear me. Usually I just hover until they notice me, but that feels weird and like an invasion of personal space. My employees have missed important information in the past because I thought they were listening to me but they had earbuds in. Any advice?

Usually, standing directly in their line of vision (and I mean directly — not off to the side) and making eye contact should work — but when someone is absorbed in work, it may not. I’d actually explain the problem to them and ask how they want you to handle it: “I sometimes have trouble getting your attention when you’re listening to music on headphones, and I don’t want to tap you. What’s the best way for me to quickly get your attention?”

It’s also reasonable to ask them to be alert to someone approaching them when they have headphones in — most people will be happy to try to do that in exchange for not losing your okay to have the headphones in at all.

(Depending on the dynamics and workflow in your office, I.M. can also be a solution to this — as in, I.M. them “got a minute to talk?” rather than walking over to them.)

3. Getting a manager a gift when she fires someone

About a year ago, my team added a new member. Since then, a lot of things have gone poorly, and it’s pretty clear he’s not working out. I am about to talk to my manager about a few more areas of his lackluster performance, and I have a feeling it could be one of the final nails in the coffin.

If and when this team member goes, it will be a huge relief for me. This is something that has been stressing me out almost ever since he was hired. At the same time, I think my manager is amazing, but I know that terminating an employee will be difficult for her. Would it be inappropriate to get her a small, slightly impersonal gift? I was thinking wine or whiskey – and my workplace culture wouldn’t make alcohol an odd gift.

Yes, inappropriate — don’t do it. It’s too close to celebrating something that is really crappy for another person (the fired coworker). Firing can be unquestionably the right decision and a huge relief, but it’s never really the occasion for a gift for anyone involved.

4. Can I use my network to help my boyfriend find a job?

I work in a field that is very much about networking and who you know. I am currently in grad school and doing pretty well. I left a major city to come back and get my masters, and have established many professional connections there who I regularly keep in contact with and hope to work with again, once I’ve earned my degree.

My boyfriend also works in the same field and will be moving to that same city this summer. We have worked together professionally for over a year, in multiple capacities, and I would highly recommend his work (though I might be a bit biased.) He is looking for a job in this city, and I want to use my network to help him – but I’m not sure how to go about it. It would be easy if I still lived there, and could give a casual recommendation over dinner or drinks, but it feels strange to cold email from many states away on someone else’s behalf. I don’t want to annoy anyone. How can I best approach an old boss or colleague to recommend him?

Because he’s your boyfriend, you can’t recommend him (as in vouching for his work), but you can refer him. The reason that you can’t vouch for his work is that people will assume that your relationship biases you and so aren’t likely to see your recommendation as credible, no matter how objective you actually are.

However, you can certainly introduce your boyfriend to people in your network — for example, saying something like, “My boyfriend, who’s an experienced teapot maker, is moving to Chicago this summer — would it be okay if I suggested he reach out to you to talk about what the field’s like locally?” or “My boyfriend, who makes award-winning rice sculptures, is moving to Chicago this summer — any chance he could connect with you about your company’s rice sculpting apprenticeship?”

5. Listing on your resume a task that you were trained in but never did

I was trained to do a task, but I never got the chance to do it. I include on my resume and cover letter that I was “trained to administer xyz tests.” I feel like most people would assume that I had actually done it, and I’m worried that a hiring manager might think I tried to trick them if it comes up in an interview. However, I don’t want to write that I was trained to do xyz but never did it, because writing what I didn’t do in a cover letter sounds really odd, but I also can’t leave it off, because the training is relevant. How can I phrase it so as to not mislead hiring managers?

Hmmm, are you sure that it rises to the level of being worth including if you didn’t actually do it? In general, I’d lean toward just leaving it off — but if you’re sure that it really does strengthen your candidacy, then I think the wording you have here — “trained to administer xyz tests” — is the way to go.