Ask a Manager

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

1. Should my company have more men’s bathrooms than women’s bathrooms?

I am a woman working at a software company of about 10,000 people. Like many software companies, we have about twice as many male employees as female employees.

As our hiring increases, there started to be an occasional wait for the men’s restrooms. One solution that has been thrown out to fix this is to convert some of the women’s restrooms to men’s restrooms. This would mean every other floor has a women’s restroom and some floors have two men’s restrooms. I don’t have any sway in the decision, but I want your take on whether this is ridiculous. I go back and forth on understanding that building more bathrooms is unrealistic and expensive but also feeling like, in an industry where women already feel marginalized, this just adds to the feeling that software is a male industry. Not to mention, it sends a poor message to our women candidates who come to our building for interviews.

Yeah, I don’t think it’s a great idea to make half your women employees walk to another floor to find a bathroom, and you’re right that it’s especially bad messaging in an industry that’s already dealing with a gender problem.

I don’t suppose unisex bathrooms with individual stalls would be an option? That would solve the whole issue, although I understand some people are squeamish about them.

2. New hire can’t work the schedule she agreed to

I’ll start by saying I’m a new manager — six months. I just hired for a PRN position that I desperately needed. I consider my interview style to be blunt and straightforward; I don’t tip toe around the hours or responsibilities of the job. During the entire interview process, I reiterated the hours needed and what would be required in the job, and the candidate was eager in her affirmation that she would be able to meet those requirements. When I called her in again to formally offer her the job, I reiterated the schedule required before having her signing any papers, and again she confirmed that it was no problem.

I schedule her for orientation, and during orientation the HR Director calls me into the office because the new employee is now saying that she has a second job (that was not once mentioned during any of the interviews or the day of signing the offer) that conflicts with the schedule that she agreed to. In fact, she said that the day I had her sign the offer, she was heading to her second job. I told her, in front of HR, that if she is now feeling as though she can not work that particular schedule, she needs to tell me now because that is the schedule that the position requires. She confirmed that she could make it work and that she’s excited about the job.

The next thing I know, after she’s signed all of HR’s paperwork and completed orientation, she comes to me and tells me she can’t work those particular shifts and that she doesn’t want to get stuck with “crappy shifts” because she’s the new person and she knows how they do the new person. I am floored and at a complete loss on how to deal with the situation and, to be honest, her attitude. I’m her supervisor and while I consider myself open with my employees and encourage them to speak their minds and try to be flexible with them, this woman is already trying to take advantage and being, in my opinion, disrespectful before she’s even worked her first shift. My first instinct is obviously not the professional one: unceremoniously show her the door and move on to the next candidate. Any kind of advice on how to handle a new hire who has already lied and tried to throw me under the bus before her first day of work?! Am I an idiot for being completely fooled during the interview process?

No, you’re not an idiot. You were careful to spell out the schedule requirements and she assured you multiple times that she could meet those requirements. However, she’s now telling you that she can’t meet those requirements, and she’s displaying a really bizarre attitude, so I’d end it here. Say this: “It doesn’t sound like you’re able to work the shifts that we need, and I’m concerned that we’ve gone back and forth about this so many times. At this point, it doesn’t make sense for us to keep moving forward with your employment.”

3. What things should I carry to work in my first office job?

I am hoping to transfer from retail to office work sometime this year and was wondering what kind of things should I carry to work. For my retail job, all I needed to bring was my wallet, phone, and lunch.

I am planning to bring a notepad, pens, and just a purse, but the list seems too short and I feel like I’m missing things. Should I get a briefcase to carry my belongings in (and would a rolling briefcase be weird)? What do you recommend?

You actually don’t even really need the notepad and pens; your office will supply those, although it wouldn’t hurt to bring your own, especially if you have a particular pen style that you like.

A briefcase isn’t necessary unless you’ll be carting a bunch of paperwork back and forth; you probably won’t be, especially in an entry-level job, but wait and see if turns out to feel like it would be useful. But I wouldn’t buy one before you start; there’s too much chance it’ll end up going unused. (If you’re thinking a briefcase is a default part of the business world uniform, it is not! Lots of people don’t carry them — in fact, these days more people don’t carry them than do.) If you do get one, though, a rolling briefcase would be unusual unless you’re doing a lot of traveling.

Just your wallet, phone, and lunch will probably serve you just fine in a professional job. You might end up wanting a laptop bag — but again, wait and see what feels useful once you start.

4. Wording to avoid being scheduled for early morning meetings

I need help in wording something. I work 9-5, but get scheduled for a lot of meetings at 8 a.m. or even 7:30 a.m., quite often for the next day. We work internationally, so I understand that there is a small window of overlap in business hours and these meetings must be held sometimes. The problem is that I’m carpooling and commuting from 7:30-9 a.m. and can’t really change that due to my children’s school schedule. Once a week or so, my husband can do the carpooling, but not often and he needs advance notice to clear the extra time on his schedule. I’ve tried joining by phone while in the car, but with kids in the car that did not go well (and even with hands-free, I found it scarily distracting).

I want to put a recurring appointment on my Outlook calendar (which is public by default) saying something like “Please ask before scheduling meeting — carpooling/commuting but can sometimes make exceptions with advance warning” but that seems very wordy. Any suggestions?

By the way, I compensate a LOT on the other end to accommodate the time differences when it’s just me on the U.S. end. I often take calls and exchange emails at midnight and beyond. The meetings are when there are other U.S.-based people who need to be involved.

I’d just mark the time off as busy and not include the explanation. If you want to convey that you can occasionally make exceptions, I’d use this wording: “Can occasionally schedule in this period with X days advance notice.” There’s no need to explain the reason.

5. Two-column cover letters

I’ve read about using a T-style cover letter with “Your Requirements” on one side and “What I Offer” on the other. This is supposed to save the hiring manager time because they can see exactly how you match their job ad. What do you think of this approach? Worthwhile, or it is better to stick to a conversational tone and conventional paragraphs?

Spelling out your qualifications in a chart feels a little unsophisticated, and I’d rather see how you communicate in a traditional letter. There are certainly some hiring managers who like it, but I think you can write a stronger and more effective cover letter without it.

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

1. My boss wants me to work for someone who was imprisoned for Medicare fraud

For the past 18 months, I’ve worked full-time for a physician. I am her only employee, so I’m responsible for not only general office work, but I also create and submit claims to insurance companies for patient visits. I work from the office Monday-Thursday when she sees patients, and on Fridays I work from home.

She recently proposed the idea of letting another doctor, who was responsible for hiring her after medical school, use her office on Fridays when she does not see patients. As part of that, I would need to come in on Fridays to assist this doctor. Long story short, this doctor was recently released after spending three months in prison for Medicare fraud and was also placed on probation by his state’s medical board. She considers this doctor a friend and she says she would be helping someone out who was “stupid” as opposed to acting criminally.

Because I am a chronic people pleaser and was caught off-guard, I basically said yes and even suggested a few patients we could send his way. Upon further reflection, I really do not want to get involved with this man and his business in any way. I do not know him or the circumstances of his imprisonment, but I really do not want my name tied to his work in the future. I also am kind of annoyed that she offered my services to this man whom I’ve never met and would not agree to work for if he offered me a job. What is the best way to approach my boss about this?

How’s your rapport with your boss? If it’s pretty good (and hopefully it is since it’s just the two of you), I’d say this: “I’ve given this more thought, and I’m not comfortable working for Bob, given the Medicare fraud. I certainly respect your desire to help him out, but I don’t feel comfortable doing work for him. I’d like to ask that I continue the work I do for you on Fridays from home and not alter the arrangement we’ve had so far.”

If she pushes you to change your mind, you could say, “I really do feel strongly about it. I wouldn’t have accepted a job with Bob, and I don’t feel comfortable ending up working for him now.”

Ultimately, she’s your boss and it’s her prerogative to say that this is now part of your job. If that happens, at that point you’d need to decide if you want the job under those changed conditions or not. But it’s reasonable to open up a conversation about it.

2. Asking for a partial telecommuting or flex schedule

I am currently employed in Baltimore, but my dream job at my dream nonprofit organization in northern Virginia has just opened up. They contacted me about this opportunity.

I’ve been through two phone interviews – one with HR and one with the person who may be the supervisor for the position (due to restructuring, it could be her boss). They have told me they are more than impressed with my experience, etc., and the topic of where I live and where they are headquartered did come up during the initial HR phone screening.

This organization does allow employees to telecommute. The HR person danced around a possible policy that states an employee must be there for a certain amount of time first; she wasn’t sure if that was the case or if it was up to the manager for the position. I suggested an alternative for the first several months of employment, should I be the candidate they choose. Baltimore to northern Virginia isn’t an impossible drive during non-rush-hour times, so I suggested a schedule that would allow me a few hours to work from home in the evening and/or morning, and avoid rush hour traffic. I would be in every day at first and we could work on a telecommuting schedule. She left it open, and said it’s something that could be discussed. During the second interview, it was never mentioned.

For family reasons, I would not be able to work full-time in northern Virginia so a flexible schedule is a must. The commute would add hours to my day that I can’t afford to give up. I am 99.9% sure they are going to invite me in for a face-to-face. Should I bring this subject up if they don’t during the next interview or wait to see if an offer is made? I am flexible with being in the office, but can’t do 8+ hours AND potentially 4+ hours in the car too.

Well, they know this is an issue and they know your proposal for handling it. I’d leave it alone for now and just see how the rest of the process plays out. If they make you an offer without addressing this, you can raise it again then. But for now, I’d assume that the HR person has passed it along to the hiring manager, and the hiring manager is keeping it in mind as an issue that will need to be resolved. If the HR person sucks and hasn’t passed it along, that doesn’t really change my advice — I’d still wait and bring it up at the offer stage, and you can mention then that you had some preliminary conversation with the HR person about it.

Whether they’re likely to agree totally depends on them. For some employers and some roles, this wouldn’t be a big deal. For others, it might be a disadvantage to your candidacy but not a deal-breaker, or they might agree only if they think you’re unusually strong. For others, it could be a deal-breaker. There’s no real way to know, and I don’t think there’s a lot to gain by trying to hash it now, before they’ve even figured out if they want to make an offer. Once they do, they’ll have more incentive to get into the details of how this could work.

3. Name change when you’re in public relations

I work in public relations and do on-the-record media interviews for my employers.

I recently divorced and changed my name back to my maiden name. The thing is, I did a lot of interviews using my old name that I’d like future employers to know about when they google me to see old interviews.

How can I note that on my resume? Would I put under a job when I had that name? Would I put it at the top of my resume? Or is this information better to explain on LinkedIn (which it seems a lot of potential employers are looking at?)

I’d put a parenthetical on your resume that briefly explains it. Maybe something like this under the most recent job where you had that name:

“Generated media coverage in the Teapot Times, the Llama-Gram Express, and dozens of other national publications (many interviews done under my previous name, Lavinia Montblanc)”

I wouldn’t just explain it on LinkedIn, as most employers will be primarily looking at your resume.

4. Online degree programs from nonprofit schools

I read some past posts about for profit school models, specifically University of Phoenix and the criticism they face. I wonder if you might initiate a post with your thoughts on nonprofit online degree programs.

I’m working on my second bachelors degree online at ASU (already have a theatre degree and wanted to study information technology). I live in a city with a reputable university that has a similar program in their adult education school. I sometimes wonder what an employer will think of an online degree, especially from ASU (where admission was very, very easy). I’m sure they will put two and two together when they see I’ve been working in one city for many years and my degree date coincides. They may raise eyebrows too when a great university was right at my doorstep.

I can’t keep transferring from program to program wondering who is the most legitimate, but after getting a degree in theatre I want to land with something that I perceive as more solid.

I can’t speak to ASU specifically, but the really key thing when it comes to online degrees is whether the school is nonprofit or for-profit. For-profit schools generally have terrible reputations and often terrible practices to accompany said reputations. The reputation of nonprofit schools is much, much better.

As for online degrees more broadly (assuming we’re talking about nonprofit schools), they’re much more accepted than they were even a few years ago, especially if you pick a rigorous program and can talk about it in a way that demonstrates its rigor. There are certainly still people out there who are wary of them, but there are far fewer of those people now.

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

1. Farewell party for everyone but me

I’ve recently left my old team to transfer to an international office and received a promotion. Before I left, we had quite a few people from our team (maybe six?) leaving for various reasons over a few months time. Most went to other departments/teams within the company but two left the company altogether. All of them were given their own small party/happy hour to say goodbye and usually a gift card or small gift. However, when I left that didn’t happen.

We were all of the same level of seniority (some even less than me) and it’s not as if they had give more notice than I had – in fact, the opposite. I had been planning this move for over six months before I actually left (the legal/visa process took a long time) and my direct manager was super supportive of the move. She was really helpful in my interview process and gave me a glowing internal recommendation, so I can’t imagine there was ill will about the move or even shock that I would leave.

The last four weeks I was in the office, I had training for my new role but one of my coworkers had mentioned to me that they would have to plan something for me – since everyone else had a party. And she seemed excited. We even talked about times/days after work that would work for me. Obviously I didn’t want to send an email asking about my “free party/happy hour in my honor” or anything that made it seem like that was my expectation. Regardless, when that never happened, I was quite frankly offended and felt singled out. I still feel as if maybe these coworkers or maybe our management didn’t like me as much as the others or no one felt i deserved it.

I still get emails from some of my old team asking for work-related advice or the mass emails sharing some personal news (births, weddings, etc.) and I am but professional. However, I feel as if some of the friendliness has left those exchanges because I’m still angry/hurt. How should I handle this going forward? Do I have no right to be upset in general? Is this normal to single out one person like I have been?

I’d write this one off to the old saw about how you shouldn’t attribute to malice what can be explained by ineptness. It’s much, much more likely that your coworkers just forgot to do this than that it was a deliberate slight. Maybe the people assumed that the person who mentioned planning something to you had it covered, but it fell through the cracks for that person, and then it never happened. Also, if you being in training for your new job the last four weeks meant that you weren’t physically in your old department, it’s all the more likely that it just slipped people’s minds.

It doesn’t feel good to be forgotten, certainly, but I’d try not to let it cause bad feelings. It sounds like they treated you well while you worked there and are continuing to try to stay in touch, and that your manager was really helpful and supportive — those things matter so much more than the lack of a goodbye party. I totally get that it stings, but that’s such a small part of the larger picture — try to focus on the other things you know about these relationships.

2. Company wants me to pay to upgrade my work email storage

Our company uses Google for just about everything, including email. My free drive storage is full and I can’t clear enough space out for new emails! I am a long-time employee and keep track of emails that hold sensitive information for numerous people. There is a plan with increased storage that is only $1.99 a month, but they have told me to buy it myself. Why would I do this? I don’t have the time to keep cleaning out my email and shouldn’t be deleting some of the things I already have. I feel like they aren’t hearing me out or paying attention to the real issue here. What should I do?

They suck; of course they should pay for this. Of course, that’s assuming that they agree that you shouldn’t be cleaning out your email; it’s possible that do want you to clean it out. Sometimes employees stockpile way too much email, and it’s reasonable to tell them to at least archive some of it.

But if that’s not the situation, I’d say this: “This is a business expense. Can you help me understand why you’re suggesting that I should personally pay to be able to continue to use my workplace email account?”

3. My boss is having my employee do work for her old company

I have one subordinate who we’ll call Sherry. Yesterday Sherry met with me to express her concern over her overwhelming workload. She said she had a lot on her plate, and would I please help her prioritize. As we were looking over her project list, there were a few projects that were assigned to her from my boss (Jane). I was a bit taken aback by this since it was done without my knowledge.

Additionally, the work Jane has asked Sherry to do isn’t exactly work for our company. Jane has only been with us for about six months. Her previous position was for a very similar company (a competitor of sorts), which we think she still moonlights for. The project Sherry has been asked to do work for is marketing materials for that previous company. While it’s still possible that this project is tied to our company, it seems unlikely. As evidence, an email chain to kick off the project between Jane and the company was forwarded to me. In it Jane uses her personal email, not her company email…adding to the suspicion.

What should I do in this instance? While it’s possible it’s related to our company, Sherry’s priority should be elsewhere and not working on this Jane side project. There’s no real way to know if this is for our company or not, until it goes live and then I can bring it to other managers and ask if they had knowledge of it. Is there another option I can do here? What do you think?

Two options: If Jane strikes you as a generally reasonable and not vindictive person, you could ask her about it directly: “Sherry mentioned to me that she’s doing some marketing work for LlamaGrams Inc. We wouldn’t normally have someone doing work for another company, and especially not a competitor — can you tell me more about the context for this?” Nope, only one option. As I wrote the part I just crossed out, I realized this is so sketchy that you should go over her head — either to Jane’s boss if you have a good relationship with her or to your HR department. In either case, make sure the person knows that you need it handled in a way where you won’t suffer retaliation from Jane for reporting it.

Read an update to this letter here.

4. I’m hurt that my boss had a coworker fill in for me while I was out sick

Last week, I took two days off sick. While I was away, my boss had someone in a completely non-related role (who is still training and therefore doesn’t have a full workload yet) cover for me. My job is skilled, but it’s unfortunately one of those jobs that nearly everyone thinks they can do. While the person who covered has previous experience working in my type of role, I feel like this was way out of line, as it sends the message to everyone in my office that just anyone can step in and do my job, which I don’t believe to be true. I don’t feel like this would have happened with any other role in my office – the work would have to wait or people in the same role would cover. I feel deeply hurt and, quite frankly, completely devalued. Should I speak up? If so, what should I say?

What?! No. Don’t complain about this. You were out and your boss had someone else — who has experience doing this type of work — cover for you. That’s pretty normal, certainly reasonable, and not something to complain about it. The only way there anything complaint-worthy here is if the work wasn’t time-sensitive and could have easily waited for you to get back and your coworker messed something up. If both those things were true, it would be reasonable to ask your boss to let things wait for you in the future and to explain why. But otherwise? No.

I do sympathize with the part about everyone thinking they can do your job — but your boss didn’t go to just anyone. She went to a person with experience doing it.

5. Reassuring employers that a past medical issue won’t interfere with my work

In May 2014, I was signed off by my doctor with stress and depression, mostly job-related. My employers weren’t particularly helpful, and in July 2014 we decided to part ways. I had been working full-time while completing a part-time university degree, and I decided not to return to employment until my degree was completed, so that I could give it proper concentration. I am going to finish the degree in May, and I am now applying for jobs. I have a reasonable explanation for what to say when asked why I left my last job, but I am completely terrified of the reference my previous job might give me (a friend is checking this for me), and what to say if they mention the medical leave. If it comes up, how can I reassure potential employers that that situation won’t come up again?

“I was dealing with a medical issue that has since been resolved.” You don’t need to get into what that medical issue was (and neither should your former employer) and the prospective new employer isn’t permitted to ask. “Has since been resolved” are the key words here, since that gets at any worry that it will interfere with your work in the future.

Read an update to this letter here.