Ask a Manager

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

1. Grieving employee won’t come back full-time

I’m writing as a a manager of an academic department in a state institution of higher education. I manage a staff of two in a small department and one of my employees tragically lost her husband after the new year very suddenly, and about 5 years before she was set to retire. My department and I are very empathetic to her circumstance and despite some “cut and dry” rules around bereavement, we have allowed her three weeks off and then 11 weeks where she only worked half her scheduled week, utilizing vacation and personal time for the difference.

We have advised her she will need to return to her regularly scheduled full time hours in May, but we are encountering a unique (to us) circumstance. She is refusing to work full-time again. Anyone who works for a state agency knows that if you give up a full-time line, there is no guarantee you will ever get it back, nor can you hire another part time person to compensate. Since neither of those are an option and we are a small office looking to eventually grow, I feel like there is no other option but to write her up for unauthorized absences and eventually terminate her. This feels horrible, given her circumstance. I’ve tried to reason with her, I’ve even offered FMLA if she had documentation showing she needed treatment for mental health, but she is just outwardly refusing to help herself. Any advice?

What about just sitting down with her and explaining that? You could say, “I really appreciate you being candid with me on where you’re at with this. I’ve tried to figure out if there’s any way that we could make part-time work, because I value you and want to keep you, but we really do need the role to be a full-time one. If you’re sure you don’t want to do that — and I definitely understand if you don’t, as much I want you to stay on — we need to figure out a transition so that we can hire a full-timer. I’m sorry that I’m not able to make part-time work; I would if I could.”

If she says she won’t return to full-time work but isn’t resigning either, then you say, “I understand. Given the circumstances, will you work with me on making this a resignation so that we can do this in a way that’s as easy as possible on you? I don’t want to go down the path of framing this as this unauthorized absences, because that doesn’t reflect the real situation. What makes the most sense to you?” If she still holds firm at that point, then I’d talk to HR to see if there’s a way to move her out of the role without going the unauthorized absences/firing route. There should be.

I think you’re going to get a lot of readers urging you to see if you can make part-time work for your team a while longer, which I’d agree with, but I’m assuming you’ve considered that and you really do need someone doing that work full-time by May.

2. We need to make up any time we spend at conferences or workshops

I just started a new job a few months ago, and recently discovered that if we go to any workshops or conferences for PD during work time, we need to make that time up on evenings and weekends. To me, the simple solution is not to attend any PD, but my boss says that it seems I lack passion for our work if I’m unwilling to use personal time to get better at it. I’ve expressed that work-life balance is important to me, but my boss says that the personal-professional line is grey for those who truly love their jobs.

What am I supposed to do? There’s a 5-day conference in a few months that my boss wants me to attend. It’s in another city and my work won’t pay for accommodations, let alone a per diem!

What?! That’s ridiculous. I’d say this to your boss: “I’d be glad to attend this, but I wouldn’t be able to make up the five days of work on top of it. If we can agree that it counts as work time, then absolutely.”

More broadly, it could be worth you (and ideally a group of coworkers) pushing back on the policy as a whole, pointing out that it’s wildly out of sync with how most organizations handle professional development and that the policy is going to make your employer much less competitive (use that word, since it implies all sorts of useful things without you having to say them, such as that they risk losing employees over it and/or having a much less invested staff).

3. My coworker announced all the reasons I shouldn’t get a promotion, in front of our coworkers

At my work, we are currently in-between team leaders, and the position is being advertised. I have been performing many of the functions of this role for some time now, as we had a part-time person who was only “acting” in the role. I decided to put my name forward, but haven’t been very vocal about this to the wider team. My reasons for this are both that I don’t think they need to know at this stage, as well as wanting to save face, should I not be successful (having to explain it to everyone while also dealing with the disappointment, etc., no thanks).

Anyway, today one of the more vocal team members asked me point blank if I had applied for the role. They did so very loudly in a room full of other colleagues. At that point, it felt like my options were to fess up or point-blank lie to them and say no. I chose to acknowledge that I had applied, and this person then proceeded to list off reasons why they thought I wouldn’t be suitable. I felt I did a reasonable good job at responding, but I’m feeling quite annoyed to have been put in that position in the first place. Am I overreacting, was my colleague out of line, should I say something, and could I have handled the situation better?

Your coworker was definitely out of line. The initial question in front of others — well, not great, but sometimes people are really thoughtless about this kind of thing. But then listing off all the reasons why you weren’t right for the job? Really rude and really inappropriate.

It sounds like you handled it fine. You were put on the spot, and you don’t want to say you didn’t apply when you did. He put you in an awkward position, and then behaved like a boor.

I wouldn’t do anything further at this point though; I don’t think there’s anything to gain by bringing it back up with him.

Read an update to this letter here.

4. My references are being asked to provide more references

I recently moved into the final round of interviews, and my references have been called. However, the person checking my references (not the hiring manager but another employee) has been asking my references if they can give them contact information for another person who can speak to my work ethic.

I don’t want to disqualify myself as a candidate by speaking up about this. With that said, if my job search is confidential, what is the ethic and/or legal code about this practice?

It’s not an unheard of practice. Asking “who else should I talk to in order to get a full picture of Jane?” is a question that shows up in lots of advice to reference checkers (like here, here, and here). I don’t think it’s super commonly used, but it’s definitely a thing that can happen.

There’s no legal issue with it; you’re not required to give legal permission for a prospective employer to ask around about you, and employers are allowed to call people who know you who aren’t on the list you give them without getting your okay first. I don’t think there’s an ethical issue with it either; of course employers have an interest in getting as much information as they can about the person they’re contemplating hiring.

That said, should employers do it? I think it’s a bit much for most positions unless the job is very senior (makes total sense to me to do it before hiring a CEO, for example, but not for your new accountant).  I’ve never done it personally (but I do ask candidates to put me in touch with specific people I want to talk to, generally managers who may not have been on the list they gave me — because I think due diligence means more than “call three people handpicked by the candidate”). But I wouldn’t be outraged if I learned an employer was doing it.

5. Looking for my next job while the end of my internship is several months off

I’m currently in the third month of a six-month unpaid internship. The possibility of there being available paid work at the company in the near future is unlikely, and I’m wondering how soon I should start looking for my next job. Prior to this internship, I was unemployed for the better part of last year, and as a result I’m very anxious about ending this position with no prospects and ending up stranded for god knows how long.

I know it’s unlikely for companies to be listing positions so far ahead of time in my field, but would contacting a few places I’m interested in and introducing myself and perhaps asking a little about their business and the possibility of a chat or some advice too much? Last week a business I would love to work at listed a couple of jobs that are exactly what I’m looking for and would be great at, and of course I know they won’t still be open when I’ve ended my internship, so could I perhaps email them showing my interest in working with them and enquiring if there will be anything available in the near future? This is all rather new to me and I don’t want to step on any toes while also being proactive.

I would actually just apply. Three months isn’t terribly far away, and hiring can take a lot longer than you think it will. It’s possible that it’ll be close to the end of that three months by the time they make an offer, let alone for the start date.

And if that’s not the case and you get an offer with a couple of months left in your internship — well, most employers totally understand if an unpaid intern needs to leave early because they got a paid job in their field. Unless this is a highly competitive, prestigious internship where they explicitly told you up-front that it was crucial that you work the full six months before they agreed to take you on, this really shouldn’t be a big deal.

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

1. My manager is terrible at PowerPoint

My manager creates PowerPoints that are very bad. Is this likely to hurt us in clients’ eyes, or am I nitpicking? The presentations are visually cluttered, filled with mismatched font pairings and cheesy stock photos, and spattered with inconsistent capitalization. This would be fine if they were internal presentations, but they’re exclusively for clients and prospective clients. Our website is similarly overwhelming and outdated, but because it was clearly professionally made, my manager thinks it’s good enough that it won’t hurt us.

He’s brilliant, of the overlooking-the-mundane variety. I used to make the presentations, but since sales have been down, he’s taken over significant parts of my role. (That’s a separate problem.) I’m afraid that it looks unprofessional, that our prospects will think, “You guys can’t create a professional-looking powerpoint, why would I trust you to create a $100k Specialized Tea-Pouring Analysis?”

We’re a nerdy company, so it’s probably not the end of the world, but is there anything I can do other than pointing out typos? Do you think it’s hurting us?

I can’t say from here whether it’s hurting you (they might not be so terrible, you might do the sort of work where clients don’t care, who knows), but it’s certainly a possibility that it is.

I’d say this: “You know, PowerPoint trends have really changed in recent years, and everything I’ve read says people increasingly judge them harshly if they don’t do X, Y, and Z. I actually like doing these — could I hold on to them as part of my role?” (You could skip that first sentence entirely and just use the second if you think it’ll go over better.)

2. Having my employees’ backs against racist clients

As the only white person in my office, I sometimes run into white clients who, for vague or microaggressive reasons, don’t want to work with my employees or partners; they want to deal with me. (“You don’t seem to understand English,” to a native-English-speaking employee is a classic, for instance.)

I let my partners handle their own clients, of course, but with employees I take an active role. Generally, I tell them that my employees are excellent (they are) and that I don’t have time to deal with them directly, and tell my employees that they have my permission to get strict with the clients, right on up to the point of saying “you can go hire someone else, then” if they want or need to. Most often, the employees handle the racism aspect of it rather than me doing it; if they do raise it, the client generally denies (“I have [race] friends!”) and then is apologetic and less unpleasant for a while, so that works reasonably well.

Is there a better way to handle this? I generally expect my employees to deal with a certain amount of unpleasantness from clients (albeit with free reign to be unpleasant right back, if need be) because that’s part of the nature of the profession. For this reason, when the employee feels confident in handling the microaggressions with my back-up, I’ve been encouraging that–but should I just be jumping on the phone with these clients, making it clear I know exactly what they really mean when they say I just “seem more competent,” and firing them?

Possibly relevant: many such clients are severely impoverished and we’re providing services to them via government assistance, which can be hard to get again if the client is fired–this is the source of a lot of my hesitance about jumping to that option.

I’d love to hear people of color weigh in on this, but my initial thought is that the best thing you can do here would be to ask your employees how they’d like you to support them in this situation and let them tell you what they prefer. In doing this, I’d make it clear that you’re willing to call out clients yourself and/or fire them, since your staff may not know that that’s on the table.

Given your last paragraph, I can see why you’re hesitant to cut ties with clients altogether, but that might be an option that you save for particularly egregious or repeat offenders. Or you might give them the option of firing themselves, by making it clear that a requirement of working with your organization is that they treat your staff respectfully and explaining that if they decline to do that, you’ll be unable to help them.

But ask your staff what they’d like; they’re going to give you the best answers on this.

3. Should I warn another organization about a terrible hire?

I am a director of a department in a mid-size city in an academic library. I inherited a really bad department manager. Cersei was a charming compulsive liar. She did not take direction. She did not complete her work in an accurate and timely manner. She blamed others for her shortcomings and lied about work completed, reassigned her work to inexperienced students, did not reply to email requests, and was rude to researchers and our friends group board. She was on a year and a half PIP. During that time, she filed multiple unsubstantiated greivances. (These were a time suck) In the end, we found almost $4,000 in donation checks un-deposited in her desk and a few hundred dollars in cash still in the donation envelopes, as well as valuable materials not returned to their secure location. (It was her responsibility to deposit these monies and return items to their appropriate secure locations.) She resigned the day she would have been terminated. I was at a conference, and the HR director and my supervisor held the termination meeting and made the choice to allow her to resign. This all happened around two years ago.

Today I discovered that she was hired a month ago in a position of responsibility in an academic library in a nearby private college where I teach as an adjunct.

I have concerns. It is a small world. My dean at that school has had negative interactions with Cersei at my library. Do I have any obligation to inform my dean that Cersie was now working at her college library?

Everyone deserves a second chance, yes? The hiring manager did not call or email me for a reference. Perhaps this is a case of “not my circus, not my monkeys.” On the other hand, if she has not changed during this intervening time, I have great pity for her manager (who I do not know) who should be extra alert for issues during her probationary time. Do I do anything? Nothing?

Ooof. Ultimately, I think nothing. If you were very close to the dean or the hiring manager, then yes, I’d speak up. But assuming that’s not the case, I’m coming down on the side of “not your problem” and also “no reason to poke at a possibly litigious former employee” (which I’m extrapolating from the multiple unsubstantiated grievances).

They should have done more due diligence and checked references (especially if this is a field where it’s standard to have year-and-a-half-long PIPs — whoa).

4. Surprise travel for work, every week

I have a question concerning my long-term boyfriend’s employment situation. For the record, he is less than five years out of college and this is his first professional position.

He works in culinary development for vegan food startup, a role that he previously had no experience in before taking this job. He started with the company by providing temporary help through another firm (think Task Rabbit), and was eventually brought on as a full-time employee with excellent pay and benefits, although he never had an official interview or received a job description or title. He started the position last summer.

Since then, he has traveled extensively throughout the U.S. and abroad for his job, usually with no more than a day or two of notice. He’s usually gone about two and a half weeks per month, and since taking this job, he’s basically become a traveling chef. He was never given any indication that travel would be part of the job when he first started, and when I’ve urged him to discuss this with his company, they tell him that it’s just the nature of working at a startup. I’ve also worked for a startup so I understand that job duties are rarely set in stone, but this has been going on for nearly a year and it looks like it won’t be stopping any time soon. Is it fair for his employer to make him travel so extensively if it was never mentioned with the job offer? Also, is it normal for an employer to require international travel with virtually no notice? All this unexpected travel has placed an enormous strain on our relationship, and I want to make sure that I’m not in the wrong for thinking that this is all pretty absurd. What do you think?

It’s not fair of them to spring this on him without mentioning it before he accepted the job — assuming that they knew then, which they may not have. But it’s the position he’s in, and he’s unlikely to be able to change it just by arguing fairness. If this is the job they need done, this is the job. That means that he needs to decide if he wants the job under these conditions or not. It’s probably not an option to keep the job minus the travel, since that it sounds like he’s raised the concern and not gotten anywhere (although if he hasn’t been clear with them that he would like to cut back, he should try that).

But is he upset about the situation? It’s clear that you are, but if he’s not, then the question of whether the employer is being unfair is less relevant than how you want to navigate what this means for your relationship.

5. Disclosing a pregnancy to my manager ahead of my start date

A company made me an employment offer when I was 21 weeks pregnant, I disclosed the pregnancy to the recruiter/HR and we hashed out the details of leave. I accepted the offer and have a start date in two weeks. I am now visibly pregnant and was not at the time I was interviewed by my direct supervisor. I asked HR but they didn’t confirm whether they passed the news to my supervisor and said I could reach out to her if I wanted prior to my start date.

We don’t have a pre-existing relationship and haven’t spoken since my interview. The suggestions I’ve gotten range from asking to meet for coffee and disclosing then, to sending an email or making a phone call to disclose, to meeting in person on the first day to disclose. Primarily my worry is that if she sees me visibly pregnant before I speak to her, I may come off as having pulled a bait and switch. On the other hand, I wonder if spending a special email or making a specific phone call to disclose is making the situation seem like it’s a bigger deal than it is. Primarily I wanted to disclose as a courtesy and for the chance to discuss PTO and flex time for routine doctor appointments. What is the best way to communicate this information while starting on the right foot in this new employment relationship?

I definitely wouldn’t ask her to coffee just to disclose this; it’s making too big a deal out of it and may be annoying if she has a busy schedule. I’d just send an email that says something like this: “Hi Jane, I’m so excited to be starting in two weeks, and wanted to touch base to see if there’s anything I should know about logistics for that first day. Also, I wanted to make sure that HR passed along to you that I’m X weeks pregnant. I talked with them about this at the offer stage, but realized that I didn’t know if they’d shared it with you, and I didn’t want you to be surprised on my first day if they hadn’t!”

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

1. I was invited to a group interview

Several days after submitting a job application, I received this response: “We will be conducting a group interview for the [title] position on [date and time]. Kindly confirm your attendance via email.”

This is a professional job requiring a specialized master’s degree and 4+ years of experience, so the invitation strikes me as slightly insane. I haven’t attended a group interview in years, and definitely not after getting my master’s. Is it normal to conduct group interviews for these types of positions? What does this say about the organization?

That they suck at hiring and don’t mind putting candidates in demeaning positions. No, group interviews are not normal for professional positions, nor are they sound practice. (I’m assuming this is an interview of you and a group of other candidates, not a panel interview where you’re meeting with a group of interviewers. The latter isn’t weird; the former is. This sounds like the former.)

Oh, and maybe it’s this! (If it is, maybe just go so that you can report back to us?)

2. I made a mistake that I didn’t discover and no one has talked to me about

I was responsible for putting together a file with performance metrics for bonus payout purposes. I guess I made a copy-paste error, which resulted in incorrect payouts. I’m assuming a person whose bonus wasn’t correct brought this up to my boss. I only learned of the mistake while overhearing his conversation with his boss about the errors he uncovered in the file I was responsible for putting together. He spent the better part of the day double-checking the numbers in the file and submitting the revised file to payroll.

The mistake is really nagging at me but my boss nor his boss has brought the mistake to my attention. I’m technically not supposed to be aware of the mistake, since I only learned of it while listening in on their conversation (it’s a very small office!). I’m also confused as to why they did not bring the mistake to my attention or ask me to fix it. I feel as if I’ve lost the trust of my boss and his boss and there’s no way for me to even address it because I learned of this mistake through eavesdropping! What should I do?

You weren’t listening with a glass to the wall, right? You just overheard it being discussed in the course of regular business, so it’s fine to say something about it. I’d say this: “I think I might have overheard you saying that there was a mistake in the bonus payouts file I put together. I was hoping you could tell me what happened so that I can be careful to avoid whatever the mistake was in the future.”

To be clear, innocently overhearing something doesn’t always make it okay to bring it up with the person. It wouldn’t make it okay to ask a coworker about their wart removal appointment that you overheard them making or your boss’s raise, but this is something that directly involves you and your work, and you’re framing it as wanting to make sure you’re doing the best job that you can.

3. My coworker refuses to learn how to use a computer or a printer

I have a coworker who refuses to learn how to use a computer or a printer and handwrites everything. Most people in the office are used to it since everyone has worked here for 20+ years. She has worked here for 30+ years and never learned how to use any machine. Since I am the front desk, she hands me all of her work to type up and she has me print stuff out for her all the time. In the beginning, I did not mind and was eager to help. Now, I am finding myself becoming irritated when asked to help. She usually has a million corrections and changes her mind. Plus, it’s pages and pages of things to be typed and, what is more irritating, she will put a rush on it. I honestly don’t know how someone can be employed for that long at a company and refuse technology especially working in a office. I need some advice on how to handle this situation.

The big question here is whether your manager wants you to spend your time helping your coworker like this. If she does, then yeah, it’s part of the job. But she might not, especially if it’s keeping you from other priorities. I’d go talk to your boss and say this: “Jane often asks me to type up large amounts of her work and print things for her. In an average week, it takes about (amount of time). It sometimes keeps me from X or from completing Y as quickly as people would like. Is this something I should continue helping her with, or should I be declining when I have other work that needs to be done?”

It is possible that your company thinks that your coworker is sufficiently valuable that it’s worth having to pay someone to type up her work. There are people who do fall in that category! But you should find that out for sure.

4. We all have to reapply for our jobs, and I’m worried about stealing a job from a coworker

I work as an administrative coordinator for an organization that has been very open to career development opportunities. When I was offered the job, they knew that my primary field was different from this job, but they encouraged me to pursue learning opportunities and involvement in projects related to the work I wanted to do. I also became the back-up for the person they had in the role I wanted to be in, giving me plenty of experience doing their job as well as my own. Fast forward nine months, and that person moved on to another position outside the organization, and I was transferred into that role as the acting coordinator. Because of hiring rules, they ended up having to post the job, and I will have to apply and interview for it. I have a strong chance, being the internal candidate, but of course nothing is guaranteed.

At the same time, they have also had to post the jobs for all of us in my department, including the administrative position that I was originally in (because we’ve all been on contract and union rules require this). They have another staff member acting in my former role now, and she intends to apply for it. I’ve been encouraged by the manager to apply for both positions, but I’m concerned that if I get the admin job and not the one that I’m acting in, I won’t be able to accept the position without looking like I “stole” the job from my coworker. Our entire office is very close, and I’d feel terribly about taking the job from her, but at the same time, I need to work too! Should I even bother applying if I don’t know whether or not to take the job if I get it?

Yes, you should apply for it if you think you might want it. It’s not “stealing” the job from someone any more than it ever is when you’re offered a job. Your employer has put you all in a terrible position where you have to reapply for jobs you’re already doing. Blame that system, not each other.

Read an update to this letter here.

5. Telling a new employer that I want to give more than two weeks notice

I recently received a job offer I’m excited to take, but my present job would be put in a real bind with me leaving after two weeks notice, whereas a three-week notice would allow other employees to return from their time off and make it easier for me to leave.

How much detail should I give my potential new boss about this? Should I assume they’ll care that I’d be leaving my present job in a lurch? Or would it be commendable that I wouldn’t leave a job in predicament because that would obviously mean I wouldn’t for the new job as well? I want to do the right thing without making the new job feel like I’m not respecting them enough to just run to them ASAP.

It’s really, really, really common for people to ask for more than two weeks before starting a new job. You don’t even need to get into the details of why. Just say, “I’d like to give my current job three weeks notice to wrap up some projects here. Will a start date of X work for you?”