Ask a Manager

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

1. No-show employee wants a bonus

We had an employee who stopped coming to work with no call, no text, no warning, nothing. After two days of not hearing from her, we called the police to conduct a welfare check. They told us that it appeared that she was at home, but she wouldn’t answer the door.

After another week of not hearing from her, we assumed she had voluntarily quit. We sent her a letter her know she violated the employee policy and that she should return the key.

Then we received a phone call from someone saying he was her friend and she was in a debilitating accident and had to be transported back to Phoenix to be taken care of by her family. He asked for a bonus for her. We told him she was not eligible since she voluntarily quit. We never heard back. Now two months later, she is emailing back threatening to show up to our office to pick up a check for a bonus that she is not going to get. The bonus is not part of any written contract and we give bonuses on a discretionary basis for employee appreciation.

Please advise on how to proceed. We don’t want her to show up when we have patients and causing a scene.

Send her a letter by certified mail outlining the facts: She stopped showing up for work without contacting you, after two weeks of hearing nothing you sent her a letter confirmation her separation from the organization, you issued her final paycheck on X date for $Y, no further wages are owed, bonuses are given at the discretion of the employer, and she is not eligible for one. You can email her back with the same statement too.

If she shows up at your office anyway (unlikely, but worth being prepared for), someone should be prepared to escort her out. If she makes a scene, that’s on her, not on you.

And yeah, it’s very unlikely that someone who was truly in a debilitating accident would handle it like this.

2. I’m terrible at PowerPoint

I started six months ago at a management consulting firm, and I love the job. The company is great and really takes our development seriously. We have a lot of opportunities for professional development and a really good on-boarding program.

But I have come to realize that I’m absolutely terrible at PowerPoint, i.e. the most important tool in a junior consultant’s toolbox. I realize everyone sucks in the beginning but the colleagues that started with me are getting really good and I’m still stuck in mediocre territory. I try to improve. I try to take projects where I’ll have to do a lot of presentations to get more practice but frankly, it’s going very slow. Am I doomed in my career since I’m so bad at this super essential program?

If PowerPoint is a big thing in your work, then yeah, sucking at it isn’t good. But there are zillions of classes and online tutorials in PowerPoint. Take some! If you’ve already tried that to no avail, then I’d (a) ask for advice from coworkers who are good at it — see if they’ll look at some of yours and give you specific tips and (b) raise the issue with your boss and ask for her help in putting together a plan to help improve your skills. (Most bosses will be glad you’re identifying the issue yourself and actively taking steps to address it.)

As long as you do the above, I don’t think you’re doomed. There are some pretty basic rules that you can follow that should get you at least into “acceptable” territory.

3. My coworker keeps pressuring me to get a different degree

I have recently decided to go back to university after several years in the workforce. I don’t have any qualifications except high school, as well as a few work-based qualifications such as a fork lift license. The career path I want to go down is complete a bachelor’s degree in law, yet my one of my coworkers is insisting, almost pressuring me, to complete a bachelor’s degree in social science with a major in criminology.

I have explained to my coworker that I am simply not interested, yet my coworker keeps pushing. Their logic is that while sociology jobs don’t pay as well as a law degree, it will give me a wider range of career opportunities (even though this coworker has no university qualifications herself and no background in career advice/job searching).

How do I politely yet firmly tell my college that I am simply not interested in a social science degree? I have nothing against social science degrees, but I have never been interested in this field of study.

“Jane, I have my plan of study set, so let’s not keeping discussing it.”

And if that doesn’t work: “It’s not something I want to continue discussing. Let’s move on.” Repeat as needed.

All that said … at least in the U.S., undergraduate programs in law (as opposed to actual law school) have a reputation for not being particularly rigorous. Depending on what you want to do with the degree, that could be worth factoring into your thinking.

4. Does my new employer know that I’m only available for the summer?

I recently got a full-time job as a management trainee for a marketing firm. On my resume, it clearly states that my graduation date is in 2018, but my dad is telling me to make sure that the firm knows I’m going back to school in September. My thoughts tell me that it’s clearly obvious that I am going back to school since I put my expected graduation date as 2018 on the top of my resume and the people in charge of the hiring process were all given a copy. What do you think? I don’t want them to think I am second-guessing the opportunity at all and I have April-September to do a great job for them. I think that my dad is trying to be overly cautious, but I want them to know I’m coming in with a sense of urgency to get my job done. I was picked amongst a lot of people for the job so I don’t think that they would overlook the first point of my resume.

Oooooh, no, if that hasn’t been explicitly discussed, you need to make sure that they know that, and you need to do it ASAP. There’s a decent chance that they figured it out from your resume, but it’s also possible that they assumed that you’re taking classes in the evening and that you wouldn’t have applied for the job otherwise. You must, must, must make sure that they know, because if they assumed wrong, it’s going to be a real problem when they figure it out.

This has nothing to do with whether you’re coming in with a sense of urgency or how many other candidates there were for the job; if it’s intended to be a normal staff position rather than a summer job, you’ve got to clear it up right away. And if you’re right that they know, it won’t be a big deal to verify it.

5. I can’t find a job with the certifications I just got

I am having a very hard time finding a job. I am trying to start a career in medical billing. I have just finished my education at a local technical college. I have certifications relating directly to the jobs I’m applying for. I have no doubt that I have received the right education for the job I want. The problem is that I have no experience what so ever in working in a medical office. Every job posting I come by says under requirements:
Education: High School Diploma/GED
Experience: 2 years or more working in medical office

The education part is incredibly frustrating because it almost seems like I just wasted two years on education that means nothing! Also, I have to be able to find a job that support two people, myself and my fiancé (my fiancé cannot work at the moment). Some of these jobs provide that but not all. I am extremely worried for our future. Is there any way that I can overcome the lack of experience? Is there something I can say in my resume or cover letter?

I’d apply anyway and write the strongest cover letter you can about why you’d be awesome at the job. (I can’t tell you what that is because it will need to be specific to you, but you might get ideas from the cover letter section here.) It’s possible that the two years of working in a medical office is a rigid requirement that they won’t budge on, but it’s also possible that it’s not — and you won’t know until you apply for a bunch and see.

Also, talk to your school. They presumably led you to believe that the education they gave you would help you get a job in this field, so tell them what you’re encountering and ask for their advice. (Also, it may be helpful for them to hear that their graduates are having trouble finding work and that they need to do a better job preparing people for the realities of job requirements in the field.)

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

1. Should I contact a fired employee to see how she’s doing?

I am in the middle of a very difficult dismissal of a probationary employee. She was well liked for the most part in our office but she did have some interpersonal issues and, more importantly, she just wasn’t able to perform her job at the level we needed. She tried really hard though and I liked her, which is why this is so difficult. We’ve done performance reviews and she knows it’s coming and HR is being very helpful. She is probationary, so the dismissal is somewhat easier from a procedural standpoint and she’s eligible for rehire, etc.

My main concern is that I really do care about her well being and I know for her in particular it’s probably going to be hard to find a new job, and she really needs an income. I feel awful. After our meeting where she’s officially dismissed, is it okay to follow up with her via text to check how she’s doing or is it kinder to leave her alone? I don’t want to appear that I don’t care, but don’t want to rub salt in a wound either.

I’d leave her alone. It’s just too likely to sting, and it’s really not your role to do that. It’s possible that she’d appreciate it, but it’s at least as likely that she wouldn’t. She’s not likely to be annoyed that you don’t, but there’s a good chance it will be salt in the wound if you do.

Look at it this way: You do have a way to support and help her, and it’s actually something that you alone are uniquely positioned to do — and that’s making sure that you handle her dismissal and the process leading up to it as kindly and as fairly as possible. Other people can play different roles in supporting her, but this is the part that’s yours. Focus on doing that well, and limit your role to that.

2. When a coworker claims you smell

I have a question regarding claims of bad hygiene in the office … but not in the usual “my coworker smells bad” way. A few weeks ago, my husband’s bosses asked him to stay after a meeting. Someone had complained that he “smelled like unwashed ass” repeatedly. My husband has never been approached by anyone previously about smelling badly. He showers daily, uses personal hygiene products, brushes his teeth, etc. Even the bosses in the meeting said they haven’t noticed any objectionable odor coming from him, but because this complaint has been made multiple times, they feel that it must be dealt with. His immediate coworkers have all claimed that he doesn’t smell badly. We think it may be one coworker in particular who has decided she doesn’t like him.

For now he’s added cologne to his daily ritual to further mask any B.O. he may have and is using scented candles at work, both of which carry their own risk for causing problems with coworkers. What do you do if someone is using B.O. as an excuse to cause trouble for someone?

His bosses are really messing this up. First, passing along the “unwashed ass” wording to him was totally unnecessary; if they felt the need to address it, they could have simply said “a noticeable odor.” Second, if the complaint is only coming from one person and they don’t notice it themselves, they shouldn’t have passed it along at all. They’re risking the possibility that they’re themselves to be used as a conduit for deliberately unkind treatment from someone else.

If your husband is doing everything you list above (and is also washing his clothes regularly) and his managers continue to bring it up, he should say this to them: “I’ve audited all of my hygiene practices and spoken with many others. I’m confident that, as you yourselves both say, there’s nothing to smell. This seems like the complaints of a single person who has some other issue with me. At this point, continually being told that one person thinks I smell when no one else does feels like harassment, and I want to ask that we declare this resolved.”

(One thing to note: After writing this, I realized that I’m not positive if the bosses have confirmed the multiple complaints are coming from one person, or whether your husband concluded that after talking with coworkers. If it’s the latter, be aware that it might not be true; plenty of people wouldn’t feel comfortable telling him face-to-face that they complained that he smells. In that case, it would be worth him talking to a doctor to see if something might actually be up.)

3. Coworker calls us all Mr. or Mrs. when he’s mad

I have a coworker who will call people by their first name most of the time, which is the norm in our office. But when he is mad or did not get his way, he reverts back to Mr. and Mrs., saying he is just trying to be respectful. He has been asked numerous times to just use first names and has been told it’s actually disrespectful and limiting to him when he reverts back to Mr. and Mrs. Or he will call people “boss” instead of just addressing them by their first name. To me, it is the same as addressing someone by their first name when you should use a formal Mr. or Mrs. — disrespectful. I know that this is childish behavior, but I am not sure what else to do. Should I tell people to just ignore him when he is acting this way? Address him by Mr.? I am at a loss when a grown adult has such immature behavior.

Assuming you’re not his manager, there isn’t really anything you can do. He’s been told to cut it out, and he’s not. It’s not a big enough thing to warrant battling over.

That said, someone who’s mad or petulant at work with any regularity is a problem, and that’s something that his manager should be taking on.

4. I hate my new job’s email culture

I started a job six months ago, and while I’m happy enough, I’m really struggling with the culture. I’m at the point where I feel it may make me leave. The issue is the email culture. Emails are sent in place of having meetings, and if you miss or didn’t read an email, it’s the worst thing in the world! They also have a “reply all” culture, which means you receive lots of meaningless emails. Also they send blame emails to other departments and continue the argument copying all on each reply. It’s unprofessional.

One more thing – employee grooming is really substandard, from managers to employees. I report to the top manager but I’m afraid to bring this up to him as I feel it would be a criticism of him. This manager is one of the main email offenders.

Is the above enough or good reason to leave?

That’s really up to you, but it doesn’t sound like a deal-breaker to me. If the things bothering you most are too many reply-all’s and email arguments, I’d consider that annoying and eye-rolly but worth living with.

5. I’m qualified for the jobs I’m applying for, but I can’t get an interview

For the past several months I’ve been applying for similar positions I’m qualified for. I keep getting pulled from further contention. I haven’t worked for over a year. Could it be that I don’t have recent relevant experience and because I’ve applied too many times? This is a city position and I think the HR analyst purposely pulls my application from consideration.

It could be that, or it could be that your resume and/or cover letter aren’t as strong as they need to be, or it could be that other candidates are just stronger (which is very common). Your resume and cover letter are the best places to focus when this is happening, and there’s advice on doing that here.

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

1. My employee keeps inviting himself into my conversations

I am currently having an issue with an employee on my team who reports directly to me. Every time someone comes to speak to me at my desk, he injects himself into the conversations and turns it into a kind of group discussion. Sometimes it’s our director who wants to speak to me about work, and this person rolls around his chair and starts joining in by nodding and agreeing with what’s being said. The other day, he even went so far as making a suggestion of something I should do for the team in front of my director when the director had come to talk to me.

I have only been a manager a short time, so I don’t have a lot of experience in positioning these types of criticisms to people, but I know I need to do something. I don’t want to be too harsh with him, as I can tell that he isn’t trying to do anything, only look interested and show that he’s engaged, etc. It’s just a basic lack of common sense on his behalf, so I’m trying to think of how to approach this from a managerial standpoint. I thought about organizing a one-to-one with him and giving him some good and bad points on how he is doing in the team so far and bringing it up this way. Or should I just approach it directly as a standalone issue? And how to you tell someone to butt out in a diplomatic way?

Hopefully you’re having regular one-on-one check-ins with him, and making feedback a regular part of those. If you’re not, start doing it now — because when you already have a regular forum established for feedback and you’ve made it a normal part of your routine, it’s much easier to bring stuff like this up. So if that’s not already happening, start that now (with all your employees, not just this one); that’s going to make your job easier in the long-run and will make you a better manager.

As for how to say this, just be direct: “Bob, I’ve noticed that when someone comes to speak with me at my desk, you often join the conversation. It’s great that you’re interested and invested in your work, but I need to be able to have one-on-one conversations with people. So I need to ask you not to join those conversations unless you’re asked to.”

2. Coworker blowing her nose at lunch

How would you go about asking a coworker not to blow her nose during lunch?

I don’t think you can. Yes, etiquette says that she should leave the table before blowing her nose, but etiquette also says that it’s rude to correct someone else’s etiquette. Plus, if she has a cold or allergies, it’s not realistic to continually get up and leave the table during a limited amount of time for lunch. If it’s grossing you out, your best bet is to eat somewhere else.

3. Treating everyone differently because of one bad employee

If a coworker is doing the wrong thing, e.g. not showing up on time, too many days off, and not performing in their role, can the manager put us both on performance management so the slacking employee doesn’t feel like they are being targeted?

In theory she can, but it would be really, really terrible management. The slacking employee should know that she’s being targeted because of her performance and that she needs to change her behavior. Hiding that message is the opposite of helpful here. Plus, it’s awful for the morale of the other employee.

It sounds like you have a manager who really doesn’t want to do any of the even slightly difficult parts of managing (like telling someone, “Hey, you’re not doing what we need and X needs to change”).

4. Do I need to be paid for this increase in my commute time?

I am a non-exempt employee, and for the last three years, I’ve only worked at my company’s main office. However, my manager recently told me that I’m going to start working at a client’s office one day a week. Do I need to be paid for the time that it takes to travel to the client’s office? It will add about an hour each way to my regular commute (so about an hour and a half one way), and I will be going from my house directly to the client site.

Maybe. This is tricky. Federal law is clear that if you’re occasionally asked to travel to a different-than-normal work site, you must be paid for whatever additional travel time that adds to your commute. However, it doesn’t address a situation like this where it’s going to happen regularly. If it’s becoming a regular weekly part of your job, my hunch is that you might not need to be paid for that travel time (because now that work site is becoming part of your normal job, as opposed to an aberration) … but I could be wrong and you’d need an employment lawyer to tell you for sure.

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

1. CFO is pushing for an unfair, unethical internship for her son

Our VP of compliance emailed and my direct supervisor and me (we’re in Human Resources) to say that the CFO’s son is going to do an internship with her (the CFO). He will be doing financial auditing on behalf of compliance. She stated in her email that she didn’t think it was a conflict of interest. She also said we should amend our conflict of interest policy because it currently says that as a member of the executive team, the CFO cannot hire a relative. Also, despite the fact that we have never had a paid intern before, she said that the CFO/mom is giving up part of her budget to compensate him $13 an hour. As a side note, this is a higher hourly rate than many of our entry-level employees. She then asked us to let her know if we had any issues with the arrangement.

I strongly felt it was unethical so I wrote back and highlighted my concerns: he would be auditing work done by his mom and her department, which could cause internal control issues and may compromise the accuracy of his findings; him being paid, especially out of her budget, could be seen as preferential since we’ve never paid an intern before (we have around 30 unpaid interns at any given time); and lastly, I felt the policy should stand because nepotism can cause several problems.

She came down to my office shortly after and told me I need to work on my communication as my email was very harsh, shocking, and unsettling. I had had a colleague of mine read my email before I sent it and she had helped me soften the language considerably so I definitely didn’t think it was “shocking” or “harsh.” She stated that she was only telling me that for my own growth and development. She then proceeded to explain the situation to me again and insist it was kosher and said she would proceed. My supervisor, who had previously agreed with me, completely backed down and said she should go ahead with the internship. Am I living in a twilight zone or is this really weird and unethical? And wasn’t her reaction weird and defensive?

What?! Yes, it’s outrageously unethical for all of the reasons that you named. (And you don’t deliberately rewrite a conflict of interest policy to allow someone to commit a conflict of interest.) And yes, your VP of compliance (compliance, of all things!) is being inappropriately aggressive and defensive, no doubt because she’s trying to push through something that is unethical and wrong and she doesn’t want anyone pointing that out.

I don’t know that you have any recourse here, unless you’re willing to go to your own boss’s boss (or to someone over the VP and the CFO). But it’s unethical as hell.

2. Should I talk about my experience in therapy with my job interviewers?

I’ve had a relatively successful (high pressured) career for the past decade, but in the last couple of years I decided to start seeing a private therapist to help me deal with some of my underlying painful issues that stemmed from my childhood. I had been trying hard to block them out for years, but I couldn’t any longer. This has really helped me gain a much better perspective on my career and on life in general, as I feel that due to these “blind spots,” I hadn’t been reaching my full potential.

I have taken some time out of employment in the last few months, due to being made redundant and choosing to spend time working on myself and up-skilling. I am soon to begin job hunting again and I would like to know whether you think that hiring managers would view my post-traumatic growth (since childhood) and (more recent) transformation as positive things and whether I should use the fact that I have overcome adversity in my personal life as a positive attribute to demonstrate to them that I may have faced difficult obstacles in the past but I have learnt from them and made changes to my life to move forwards.

I am concerned they may find the whole topic uncomfortable and therefore discriminate due to this fear. Alternatively, I do not want to come across as though I am hiding anything significant from them so that they don’t feel that they could trust me or my ability to do the job.

Noooo, don’t do that. It’s too personal and doesn’t belong in a job interview. I agree that that kind of growth is tremendously important — but lots of things are tremendously important in people’s lives and are still inappropriate for a job interview (like the details of your marriage or your religious faith). It will make people uncomfortable, and it will make you look like you don’t understand professional boundaries.

3. Employer called and complained about my interview performance

I recently made my way through four rounds at a nonprofit start-up in NYC. I was confident and felt I was the ideal candidate for the role. Last week, after an intense final round interview I was told that they would have a final answer for me in relation to the job early to mid next week. Come Friday, four days after my final interview, they asked to set up a call early next week. This seemed strange to me; typically if I get offered a job they call and tell me right away or send an offer letter, and if I don’t get offered a job, they also call or send an email saying as much. I tried not to think too much of it—”Hey! Maybe they’re going to offer me another role,” I thought to myself.

Yesterday at 5 p.m., I received a call from the COO who set up the call. She had not been present at any of my in-person interviews, as she was out sick. She told me that when the six or seven people who interviewed me compared notes, they all said that I had “super relaxed body language/demeanor and almost seem disengaged” and that I had “too casual a presentation of self that could be perceived as disinterested.” She told me over the phone repeatedly that I was perceived as unprofessional and that I seemed to have stopped trying to get the job. I was also accused of texting during the beginning of one of the interviews and failing to make eye contact with my interviewer, something that I would never do during a job interview. I was very shocked by this information, as I felt that I was very professional, friendly, engaging and confident. Even more strange, they told me this information but still wanted to keep me in the running for the job, asking for my references.

I gracefully bowed out of the running for the position, as I felt if they were to offer me the role I would not be able to put my best foot forward knowing that so many employees felt this way about me. I am still shocked as to why they thought this was useful information to share with me if they wanted to potentially offer me the position. What are your thoughts?

That you were right to withdraw from consideration. If you had done the things she said, and they had drawn the conclusions they seem to have drawn, they shouldn’t want to hire you anyway … so the whole call is weird. It would be different if she had called to say, “Look, we’re interested, but some concerns came up that I wanted to talk with you about” in order to get a better feel for the situation and so she could decide if it made sense to proceed or not. But it doesn’t sound like she approached it that way; it sounds like she just called and berated you, which is never appropriate.

As I’m reading this over, I’m wondering if I’m wrong and it was more of a “hey, we’re interested, but some people who met with you felt like you weren’t interested in the position, and I’d love to know how you’re feeling about things” … and if maybe the body language, eye contact, and texting thing were given as examples of what made people feel that way. But I suspect that’s not it, because it sounds like she approached it all in a pretty aggressive way (repeatedly saying you were unprofessional, etc.).

I don’t know what’s up with the texting thing — maybe you were turning off your phone and someone thought you were actually using it to text, or a similar miscommunication, or maybe someone is confusing you with another candidate (which would be rare, but could happen).

4. My coworker asks me to cover for her so she can take lots of personal calls

The owner of my company has a son who shares the office. The son is a lawyer, and we are a service company.

My phone rings for both my company and the lawyer. The lawyer has his own secretary. However, she is not always able to be at her desk, and when that happens, I must answer their phone. When I first started here, I was told to only answer the lawyer’s phone when his secretary was not present. They had a different secretary when I started, who was fired. The new secretary is always taking personal phone calls on her cell and work phone. The lawyer is never around to notice. Lately it’s getting worse and worse, and she asks me to answer her work phone so she can continue her personal conversations. How can I handle this situation?

“Jane, I’m happy to answer the phone for you in a pinch when you’re away from the office, but I really can’t do it the rest of the time because I have other work I need to focus on.”

Alternately, you can talk to your own boss and say this: “My understanding is that I should answer the phone for Jane if she’s away from the office. Lately she’s asking me to answer it even when she’s here so that she can take personal calls instead. I’m going to talk with her about it, but I wanted to check with you first to confirm that she should be handling Cecil’s calls when she’s here rather than leaning on me to do it.”

Hell, you could even talk to Jane’s boss, the lawyer: ” I’m happy to answer your phone when Jane is away from the office, but she’s been taking an increasing number of personal calls and asking me to answer her work phone so she doesn’t have to interrupt those personal calls. I need to focus on other work and really need Jane to handle your phone when she’s here.”

5. Applying for my old job

A few years ago, I left my position at a small nonprofit. I began working for a larger company and now, as I am preparing to move on from that position as well, I contacted a former colleague to ask if I could use him as a reference. He responded to say that, if I were interested, my old job at the nonprofit would be available again soon, as the four people they have had in that position since I left have not worked out.

While I had good reasons for leaving that job when I did, I would definitely be interested in returning. It offers certain flexibility that is more important to me now than it was when I left. (My financial and family situations have both changed, so now flexibility is more important to me than salary.)

How should I go about this? Do I just apply like a regular candidate? If so, how should I write my cover letter? It was only a few years ago that I worked there and everyone knows me really well so I can’t really introduce myself and my qualifications in the same way. I feel weird writing a cover letter that basically says, “You should hire me because I already know all the staff and did an awesome job at this job 3 years ago….remember?” Should I address the reasons why the job is a better fit for me now than when I left?

Some people have advised me not to apply in the traditional way, but to contact my old boss and ask her to sit down for a chat with me and then explain that I would be interested in returning. Is that better? Or does it just put her on the spot?

I’m not a fan of scheduling meetings for something that’s easily and quickly asked over the phone or in email. I’d just send your former manager an email saying that Falcon Warbleworth mentioned to you that your old job might be opening up and that you’d love to talk with her about moving back into it, if she thinks that you’d still be well matched with it. You can add, “I’d be glad to submit a formal application if that’s the best way to proceed, but wanted to touch base with you first.”