Ask a Manager

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

1. My sister might apply for a job in my two-person department

I’ve got a dilemma and I feel like I can’t be objective. My mid-sized company is hiring another person with my job title due to company growth. My sister is considering applying. She has the same (really rare) degree I have, from the same school, but had always been more interested in another focus within our degree. At first when the topic came up, she wasn’t interested but now she is after weighing things out. To be clear, neither of us would be managing each other and we would be working on separate projects. My problem is that we would be the only two people in my department. My sister just graduated and needs more job experience, and a little more confidence her work (she is very talented), which she may find here. We wouldn’t be the only ones who have relatives here at work. One salesperson had a sister here for the summer, and we have a mother and son pairing who are in different departments.

We worked together last summer at my company on the same project, but with different but similar roles. The project was a mess due to poor planning, a short deadline, and the inexperience of the salesperson who was handling it. My sister feels miffed that a chunk of her work wasn’t used, but in all honesty, this salesperson wasn’t willing to try clearly communicate with us and the client and that affected the outcome. I did explain to my sister that was the case, and I often do work that isn’t used and it’s just part of this industry. To be fair, my sister and I worked well together. My manager has also asked about how her schooling has gone and when she graduates, so I do not think he’s opposed to the idea as he has hinted that he would consider hiring her after graduation.

I do have some influence in the hiring decision, and it was always going to be someone from my alma mater in the first place. Now I feel very conflicted because A) if she doesn’t get the job I will feel guilty and B) if she does, I don’t want the perceptions of her work output (good or bad) to be tied to mine. I don’t feel like I can tell her not to apply either. I don’t know what to do. Please help!

I don’t think you should work in a two-person department that will just be you and your sister. That’s not like having a relative in another department. It’s much more fraught with the potential for all sorts of complications. For example: what would happen if your sister’s work wasn’t great and if you felt pressured (either by her or yourself) to cover for her, if you got tainted by association, if there were problems that you could resolve with a coworker that will be harder when it’s your sister, if there’s competition for projects or other rewards/recognition, if your sister had a problem with someone else (would you feel obligated to take on her beef as your beef, or would she by annoyed if you didn’t), not being able to escape each other, and so much more.

It’s just an awful lot of complications and potential for problems. Since this isn’t the only possible job out there for her, it’s hard to see a compelling argument in favor of doing it.

2. My coworker turns down new work but isn’t doing much work now

I’ve been in my position longer than my new coworker who has the same title, and therefore I typically delegate the tasks between the two of us (but I am not her manager). Because I am more senior, our manager recently assigned some other tasks to me and suggested that I delegate more of the job-typical tasks to my coworker.

My coworker has started pushing back and asking if I can take on some of the newer projects instead of giving them to her. However, her door is right next to mine, and I can’t help but notice that every day she’s only in the building between 6-7.5 hours, which includes one-hour lunches with other coworkers, so 5-6.5 hours working. It’s not my job to police other people’s work schedules, so I’ve said nothing to our manager. I’m okay with my coworker saying she’s too busy to take on extra tasks, because in that case I’d just stay later and take them on myself, but she’s not even working 40 hours per week. Is it possible for me to fix this without bringing to my manager and sounding whiny? If so, how should I approach it?

Well, you can try being firmer with your coworker: “Jane, I need to divvy this up, so I’m going to take X and you should take Y.” And then if she tells you that she doesn’t have time, you could say, “Hmmm, I won’t have time to do this either, so if you don’t either, I should go talk to (manager).”

And yes, you will probably end up needing to talk to your manager — but that’s not going to sound whiny. Part of your job is to flag it for your manager when things are impacting your work, and you especially have standing to do that here because your manager has asked you to delegate to your coworker. I’d say this to your manager: “You’ve suggested that I delegate more to Jane, but when I’ve tried to, she’s told me that she doesn’t have time to take them on. Has she by chance worked out an abbreviated schedule with you? I’ve noticed she often doesn’t work full days, but I wasn’t sure if that was something official she’d worked out with you, and I don’t want to put her in an awkward position by pushing if she has.” On the off chance that your coworker has worked out a shortened schedule, that’ll be helpful to know — but if she hasn’t, you’ll be flagging what’s happening for your manager, who will probably ask you for more information about what’s going on or start paying more attention to it herself.

“It’s soooo unfair that Jane takes long lunches” is whiny. “I’m not able to delegate work to Jane because she says she doesn’t have time to do it, but she’s also not working full hours” isn’t whiny; it’s factual information that your manager needs to have in order to oversee the workflow in her department.

3. How can ask about family leave policies while interviewing?

I’m in the process of moving back to my home state after a couple years living elsewhere, and I’ll be looking for jobs soon. This is nerve-wracking enough, as I hate job hunting, but throwing a wrench in the works is the fact that my husband and I are hoping to get pregnant this year. If I was staying at my old job, this wouldn’t be too much of a big deal, but we’ll likely be trying to get pregnant within six or seven months of me starting at a new job. I know the best option is to just wait to get pregnant, but we both think now is the right time.

How do I bring up what kinds of family leave policies are in place without raising flags with a potential employer? I know they’re technically not allowed not to hire me because they think I’m already or about to get pregnant, but if the offer gets pulled, there would be no way to know if that was the case. Do I wait to get an offer and ask explicitly then? Do I raise this at a second or third interview? Having some kind of maternity/family leave policy would make a potential job much more attractive, and if they don’t offer any kind of paid leave, that might be a deal breaker, so I don’t want to waste anyone’s time by going all the way through the process and having to pull out at the end.

Wait until the offer stage. I know it’s annoying to have to go through the whole process without knowing if there might be this deal-breaker waiting for you at the end, but that’s true with other aspects of offers too (like salary). But waiting until you have the offer, you’ll eliminate the risk of them not hiring you because of your pregnancy plans (even if only unconsciously on their part). They’re very, very unlikely to pull the offer over this — first, because pulled offers are rare in general, and second, because pulling an offer after someone asks about family leave is a really, really shady maneuver legally and most employers are going to realize that.

4. Why should managers conduct reference calls rather than HR?

What is a good argument for future managers to conduct reference checks, rather than HR?

Well, if reference checks are just being used as employment verification or rubber-stamping a hiring decision that’s basically already been made, then sure, let HR do them. But if you’re a manager who’s using them the way I’d argue they should be used — to gather information that will truly aid in your decision-making — then you want to do them yourself, because you want to be able to really probe into the areas that matter to you, hear tone of voice, and ask follow-up questions.

In fact, it’s kind of similar to the reasons that you wouldn’t delegate interviews to HR — in both cases, those conversations are a crucial part of your ability to make the right hiring decision.

5. Update: New accountant says I’m not eligible for a bonus

I am the original poster of #3 at the link above and just wanted to let everyone know how it played out. I did in fact receive a “retention” payment that started me at the three years full-time salary mark. I brought it up to the president who said, “These rules are in place to make everything even across the board on paper, but every rule has an exception, with you being the case for this one.”

To the person who said it would be better to approach my manager than the president directly, this made me laugh a little because (due to my relationship with the president) he explained absolutely everything to me and said the accountant was unaware of my situation and it will be handled correctly, blah blah. After explaining the bonus I will get, etc., he said, “Now go ask your manager so she can ask me and reiterate all of this to you so she doesn’t feel you went above her head.” Thanks for the comments and all went well and it was worth raising the question!

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

1. I’m addicted to job searching

I have a weird problem. I can’t stop looking for new jobs.

I spent nearly all of 2014 job searching, applying, interviewing, etc. I was barely making enough money to make ends meet at the time, so finding a new job was crucial. I had success in landing a lot of interviews, but it took time to find a good match. It was a draining, emotional, exhausting, and invigorating year. I did eventually find a new job at a well-known firm, and I received a $20K raise and a senior title. I just celebrated my one-year anniversary at this new job, and overall I’m happy.

But…. I just want to keep looking. Job searching was such a huge part of my life that I don’t know how to turn it off. Now, even though I am financially comfortable and doing exceptionally well in my new role, I just want to keep looking for more money, and new exciting roles in other interest areas. It’s as if once I realized how much I can do, my value, and how many jobs are out there, I just want to keep moving up up up.

I have a pact with myself to stay in this job for two to three years before leaving, and I will stick to it. But do you have any advice on how to “chill out,” enjoy this stage in my career, and stop looking elsewhere for more money and more senior roles?

Chill out, enjoy this stage in your career, and stop looking elsewhere.

Good employers are going to want to know why you’re already looking to leave a job that you’re still fairly new in, especially after being out of work for a while before that. Bad employers won’t be as concerned — and, being bad employers, they’re also much more likely to be companies that you’ll be looking to leave quickly too if you take a job there. Which will give you two short-ish stays in a row, following a period of unemployment, which will make you job-hopper-ish and a decidedly less attractive candidate. If you’re happy where you are, why would you do that to yourself just because you’re having trouble turning off the job-search habit?

Think of it this way instead: Job searching isn’t just about looking at other jobs; it’s also about making yourself an attractive candidate. This current stage of your “search” is about establishing a solid history in your current role, so that you’re well-positioned at whatever point in the future it does make sense to start looking. After only one year, that time is not now.

2. Is my former temp job treating me like a door mat?

I worked at a multimillion dollar industrial company for about five months as a temp receptionist while a coworker was out of the office dealing with major health issues. Now that the coworker is back to work, I am out of a job.

I loved the job, for the most part. I really miss all of my nice coworkers. I used to get to plan fun parties for everyone in the office every week. I would order food for everyone or I would cook special lunches for about 50 people in the office while still managing my receptionist duties. Everyone really seemed to enjoy the office parties. I noticed that the parties really helped people open up to each other and build new friendships, and it helped make people more productive at work because the parties made everyone so happy. Sometimes coworkers would even cancel taking off work for a day because they wanted to participate in the special lunch day.

My former company now calls me occasionally to ask me to fill in for my old coworkers when they are out of the office. There is always an abundance of work to do when I fill in from multiple departments. I like to get the extra money by filing in, but I feel like if I am so great, then why don’t they offer to hire me full-time? I feel like I am being used if I continue to fill in for my former multimillion dollar company only when they need me.

I was told after I was hired as a temp that they wanted someone who was bilingual. The job posting for the temp position did not say anything about being bilingual. I was told that not being bilingual was keeping me from working with the company full-time. The odd thing is, only a handful of the people in their office are bilingual.

Could you please provide me with some advice as to what I should do in my situation? Is stringing someone along like this normal in business practices? Does it look good to other employers that I still help my former company when I am needed or does it just make me look like I tolerate being treated like a door mat?

It doesn’t sound like they’re stringing you along — unless they’ve made promises to hire you that they’re not fulfilling, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case. And they’re not using you. They’re offering you paid work when it’s available and if you want it. You temped for them, and they’re occasionally offering you additional temp work. This is all normal and not weird or wrong.

It’s perfectly plausible that they want to hire someone bilingual — maybe especially because not many other people there are (which could make it more important for a future hire). Or it’s possible that that’s code for “your total package of skills isn’t strong enough, and this is one area of weakness, but if you were stronger in other areas, it wouldn’t be as important to be bilingual.” Or maybe they don’t think you’re the right full-time hire for other reasons and are using this as an easy-to-understand reason rather than getting into more awkward ones. Who knows. But they can like you for temp roles without that obligating them to want to hire you for a full-time one.

Offering you additional temp work that you’re free to accept or turn down is not treating you like a door mat.

3. My friend wants to interview for jobs she won’t take “for practice”

Yesterday my friend told me that she will be applying to jobs this week even though her contract will not end until September. She just wants the interview practice and has no plans to tell the interview team that she is only available in September.

As a recruiter myself, I highly advised against this. I told her that she was playing with fire and that if she were to get an offer that was a lot more glamorous than her current salary, and they were not flexible on a September start date, she will resent interviewing for fun. I also let her know that if that’s the case, she may be inclined to tell them about her September start date and they will hold a lot of resentment against her for not telling them sooner. I really fear, most importantly, that she will forever have a bad reputation with them. Is this advice sound? (I think she’s also hoping to buy a lot of extra time and land a position that is willing to wait for her for six months.)

Yeah, if she gets an offer and then mentions at that point that she’s not available until September, most employers are going to rightly annoyed that she didn’t bother to mention that earlier in the process, and it may be a strike against her if she ever applies with them in the future. (The exception to this is if she’s an industry where start dates many months away are normal, but that doesn’t sound like it’s the case.) Also, many employers set aside a specific number of interview slots, often just three or four. She’ll be taking that slot from someone who’s actually interested in accepting that job, and who might have been offered it if she didn’t bump them out for her own interest in “practicing.”

And really, the whole thing is operating in bad faith — obviously if she told employers that she wasn’t available but just wanted to talk to them for practice, they’d decline.

4. How should I tell my remote team that I just got engaged?

My significant other and I got engaged over the weekend. It is very exciting! We are taking our time contacting family and close friends before announcing publicly. We have a plan all worked out…except I am not sure what the etiquette is for telling coworkers. My whole team is remote and works from home, including me, so I can’t just flash my ring around and let the news float. I have only been working here for the last seven months, so I’m not totally sure on the company culture regarding these things.

Is it appropriate to just send out an “exciting news!” email? Should I send a picture of the ring with it? What is the appropriate thing to say?

Congratulations! If you have a small-ish team, yes, it’s totally appropriate to just send out an “exciting news to share!” email. (If it’s a huge team, I might send just to the people you work most closely with.) Ring photo: your call. Assuming you have reasonably warm relationships with your coworkers, people won’t think it’s weird if you include it.

Read an update to this letter here.

5. An Ask a Manager job board?

I was wondering if you would ever consider expanding your site to help your readers connect with each other/other good companies that generally follow Ask A Manager approved processes?

Specifically, I was wondering what you thought of hosting a jobs board for your readers? You get a lot of letters from people who are looking for work and more than once I’ve thought to myself “Hey, we have a position like that open!” It would be awesome for your readers to be able to non-anonymously connect — I know I’d be more interested in a candidate who follows you.

I don’t know if you’d want to open your jobs board to companies too, since of course it would be hard for you to vouch for whether or not they are non-toxic places to work. (Although man would it be AWESOME if you had an AAM certification system for management!)

Weirdly, a friend just suggested this to me recently too. My response to her was that it felt too much like mission creep to me — that it’s pretty far outside the scope of what I’ve set out to do here.  I also wouldn’t be able to screen companies enough to vouch for them. That said, I’m putting this out there in case someone has a brilliant angle on this, preferably an obscenely lucrative one.

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

1. My office smells like a corpse

My office is an older building and half of it is up on a small crawl space. Every winter around this time (late February to early March) is what we call the dead animal season. Something (rat, feral cat, mouse) ends up finding its way into the crawl space and perishing – for whatever reason. And then the smell begins to permeate the office. There are always one or two locations where the smell is worse – different every year – but the smell comes right up through the floor and is rank enough that people are nauseated and have a difficult time working. The smell will last for 2-3 weeks.

And nothing is done about this. The manager doesn’t usually notice unless it’s brought to his attention – he works in the part of the building that has a basement below it so he doesn’t often experience this. This has been going on for the eight years I’ve been working here, and the response every year is that we have no way to prevent animals getting under there and no way of getting them out. When we bring in air deodorizers or air purifiers (electric or natural) we are told that those emit a scent he can’t stand and we need to get rid of them – and we make a point to get ones that are fragrance free.

What are our options? And we can’t always take vacation then!

What?! Every year for two to three weeks, the smell of a decomposing corpse fills your office and makes people nauseated, and your manager doesn’t care and won’t even let you bring in an air purifier?

Something here stinks worse than the dead animal, and that something is your boss.

I doubt this violates an OSHA rule (although I’d welcome someone finding out differently), which means that your best bet is to demand as a group that this be solved, including going over your boss’s head (again, as a group) if he won’t budge. You have the legal right to organize with your coworkers about your working conditions; use that right to make it more of a pain for your company to ignore you than to keep letting this happen. (Note that the law protects you when you push back as a group, but not if you do it on your own. So speaking as a group matters here, if you care about the legal protection. But it’s also just probably going to get you better results in this case.)

2. I’m worried my fired coworker blames it on me

A coworker I was previously on good terms with was fired recently. She worked in my department, and I had to take a step back from our personal friendship due to her negativity and an array of other reasons. Nevertheless, I remained professional at work and didn’t broadcast our falling out.

She recently made some huge mistakes, and our boss more or less hinted to me she would be let go about a week before it happened, and then confirmed it with me and another person in my department the day before – and the day of – her firing. The issues of my boss letting us know early aside, the things I said in my conversations with my boss about my coworker’s performance didn’t exactly do her any favors, and in hindsight I should’ve kept my mouth shut. But it was clear the higher-ups had already made up their mind.

When she was fired, she made a point of not saying goodbye to me, and I was deleted and blocked from social media hours later. I’m wondering if it’s wise to send her a text after she’s cooled off to let her know I had nothing to do with it and apologize for not communicating our personal issues earlier? Knowing her fragile ego, how she operates, and how much it felt like she resented me toward the end, I’m pretty sure she’s using me as a scapegoat so she doesn’t have to acknowledge her own mistakes. I’m uncomfortable with someone out there thinking I played a role in their firing or thinking I stabbed them in the back, but I also don’t know if it would just make things worse if I reached out to her.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with reaching out to her if you’d genuinely like to wish her well. I’d keep the messaging on “I’m sorry to hear what happened, and I wish you the best in whatever you do next” rather than “I didn’t have anything to do with this.” The latter sounds oddly defensive (since it would be a weird thing for to assume, at least without more details that aren’t included here), and it potentially could be twisted as “I disagree with the company’s decision,” which isn’t useful for you to have out there, especially in writing and especially if that’s not true.

3. How should a male manager handle inappropriate behavior from a female employee?

This sounds cliche, but I really am asking advice for a friend. I’m not a man, nor do I manage anyone, so this is beyond me. There are a lot of forums and regulations on how to treat your women counterparts in the office in order to not harass them, but it’s often dismissed or laughed at when it is the other way around. In this situation, it’s not sexual harassment at all, but it’s inappropriate.

Situation: New woman employee likes male manager, although he tells her he is not single and happily tells her about how wonderful his girlfriend is. She gets him gifts for his home and otherwise, writes notes, and prints out pictures from work and work outings and writes adoring notes on them. She does not do this for any of her coworkers or any other manager, and he isn’t the the senior officer. Of course there are loose non-fraternization policies within the company. How does he get her to stop without being “the problem”? Is there an an issue when saying “I’m not romantically interested in you,” that it could possibly bring the harassment accusation onto him? It stopped for a while because he managed a separate office, but now she’s been promoted/transferred to his office and it has started again. Bringing in the girlfriend would be unprofessional, but letting it continue will create a personal and professional issue for him.

The answer here is no different than it would be if the genders were reversed: He should tell her clearly that the behavior is unwelcome and to stop. For example: “Jane, please do not give me gifts, notes, or photos. I’d like to stay focused on work topics.” If she keeps it up after that, then he’d escalate to, “Jane, I asked you to stop doing this, but it’s continued. What’s going on?” He can also enlist HR if he needs to, but since he’s her manager, he has really clear standing to address this, to tell her it’s not acceptable, and to ensure that it stops. Unlike many victims of harassment, he’s got real power in this situation, and he should use it.

He also should stop discussing his personal life with her … and bringing in the girlfriend is so very much not the way to handle this! The message shouldn’t be “The fact that I’m not single is why I’m not interested,” but rather “I’m not interested and this behavior is unwelcome, period.” (Especially since he’s her manager, holy cheese balls!)

If he’s concerned that she could somehow turn it around and accuse him of harassment, he should talk with HR before he talks with her, to explain what’s going on and how he plans to handle it (and that’s probably a good idea for him to do anyway, because they should be in the loop on anything harassment-related). But beyond that, he should handle it in the same way a female manager would handle it coming from a male employee.

4. Are one-page resumes the new trend?

We were discussing resumes today during a meeting, and someone mentioned that the current trend is now a one-page resume. I am having a hard time fathoming such a thing – it was hard enough to bring my four pages to two for a staffing agency. A one-page would make it difficult to put anything more than my address, phone number, work history and competencies. Is this trend for real?

Nope. You will also hear people tell you that the new trend is video resumes, or graphic resumes, or five-page resumes. None of these are true. They are the brainchildren of people who need to fill article space and thus make up new trends, based on a small handful of people doing it (and you can find a small handful of people doing anything — that doesn’t correlate with effectiveness).

The rule continues to be one page if you’re recently out of school, and up to two pages if you’re more experienced. (Some industries, such as tech and academia, allow for more pages. Most do not, at least not if you want to come across as a strong candidate.)

5. Questions from coworkers after returning from short-term disability leave

I am meeting with a couple of different doctors and will probably end up taking short-term disability for a few weeks. I’ve been having a very tough time with depression, and the idea is to take some time off to try and get better. I’m also afraid that my irritability at work is increasing and my ability to focus is very poor, so I think it’s the right move. My current boss is aware of what’s going on and is very supportive, thankfully.

How do I handle questions when I return to work? I will not have any obvious physical issues, and I think a lot of people will ask how I am, what happened, etc. out of genuine concern. How do I answer in a way that’s polite without giving information about why I was gone? I don’t want to discuss my mental health issues with my coworkers. (Also, if you could toss this out to your readers, I would be grateful for any coping strategies for work in the meantime.)

Be vague: “I’m doing okay now, thanks.” “Just some medical stuff I had to deal with, but I’m doing okay.” “Thanks for asking! I’m feeling better.” If someone doesn’t get the hint and asks directly what was wrong: “Just some medical stuff I don’t want to get into.” That’s really okay, and it’s the sort of answer that you can use for a whole range of medical issues so it doesn’t give anything away.

Also, this Captain Awkward post has great advice on the broader question about coping strategies at work while you’re going through this. Good luck!