update: coworker has drama-filled calls with his girlfriend 10 times a day

by Alison Green on December 8, 2015

Remember the letter-writer who shared an office with someone who took 10+ drama-filled phone calls from his girlfriend every day, sometimes as often as every 15 minutes? Here’s the update.

It took a while for the whole situation to play out. Just after I wrote in, I wrote myself a script, based on the one you provided, and planned to ask Wakeen if he could take personal calls away from his desk the next time he took a personal call, but the personal calls stopped.

Weeks went by and I figured he had broken up with his girlfriend or otherwise got her to stop calling constantly. Then, the personal calls started again, with the same frequency as before. So I steeled myself to ask him to stop, but before I got a chance, HR called me in and asked if I had been having problems with Wakeen oversharing his personal problems to me. I said he tended to overshare and it did make me uncomfortable, and I also mentioned the many personal phone calls he was taking on his desk extension.

Apparently Wakeen was oversharing to other people who brought it up with HR and his boss, who told him he needed to not share so many personal details of his life (he was sharing really personal stuff), and they also told him not to take personal calls at his desk. Again, the calls stopped for a while.

One day he took an obviously personal call at his desk, and when he hung up I asked if he could possibly take his personal calls away from his desk. He apologized and explained that his new cell phone had gotten turned off, and the calls have since stopped. He does occasionally get calls on his cell phone, which he takes outside.

To be clear, I’m not of the opinion that one can never take or make personal calls at your desk, but you really need to use discretion when doing so. Calling the plumber or talking to your significant other about mundane dinner plans are way different than having fights on the phone in your office. I really appreciated your advice, and it was helpful to hear the readers’ perspective, because part of me wondered if I was just making a big deal over nothing.

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how to spot burn-out on your team — and what to do about it

by Alison Green on December 8, 2015

If you see a good employee’s work starting to plummet, or someone suddenly getting frequently emotional, or someone having a noticeable drop in enthusiasm for their work, you might be looking at burn-out.

Here are four key signs of burn-out to watch out for on your team, and what to do if you spot them.

1. A good performer’s work plummets – and the drop is sustained. Everyone had bad days, even bad weeks. But when a good employee’s work quality or productivity dips and stays there, something’s wrong. It’s not necessarily burn-out; it could be something going on in their personal life or even a medical issue. But it’s worth reflecting on whether burnout could be at the heart of it, and talking with them to see if you can figure out what’s going on. For example, you might say, “You’ve always been an excellent performer. For the last few months, you’ve seemed distracted and your work hasn’t been the same as it used to be. I know you’re talented and your work ethic is excellent, but I also know lots of things can impact people at work. Is something going on that you’d be willing to share with me?”

2. The person looks exhausted all the time. Hey, we all get to look tired now and then, and when it happens, we usually don’t want people commenting on it. But when someone is consistently looking worn out, take some time to think about their workload and the last time they had a vacation (meaning real time off, where they truly disconnected – no answering work emails while away). You can also talk with them about how they’re prioritizing projects and how they might push some things back if needed.

3. The person has a noticeable drop in interest and enthusiasm. If someone who used to be engaged in meetings and seemed invested in their work starts to seem disengaged and uninterested, something’s wrong. Burn-out often manifests like this because the person no longer has the emotional energy to stay invested – sometimes because they’re convinced it won’t matter (possibly because they feel that in the past it hasn’t made a difference) and sometimes because they’re just exhausted. In this case, you might check in and see how the person is doing, and try to make it safe for them to open up if they are indeed feeling burned out.

4. The person gets much more emotional, and more often. If an employee who used to have a relatively even keel is suddenly getting easily upset, frustration and burn-out could be the cause. Burn-out can make people’s “immunity” to normal workplace stresses very low, which can leave them upset or even teary much more easily. If you notice that someone is getting emotional and upset more often, try asking what’s going on. You might say something like, “I’ve noticed that a few times lately you’ve seemed very upset by things that I don’t think would have impacted you that way a year ago. I know that can be a sign of frustration or fatigue, and I’m worried about how you’re doing.”

So what if you do have a burned out employee?

  • First, be brutally honest with yourself about your management style and whether it might be contributing to the problem. For example, do you email people at all hours and expect quick responses, say things like “just find a way to get it all done” when someone is concerned about their workload, or discourage people (explicitly or more subtly) from unplugging from work on weekends and in the evenings? Do you create a positive culture where input is welcome, or are people working in a tense environment where over time they might become cynical?
  • If the person’s workload is too high, help the person re-prioritize. Can you delegate tasks to someone else, shift due dates back, remove work from their plate altogether, or otherwise find them permanent breathing room in their schedule?
  • Push people to take time off – real time off, where they fully disconnect from work.
  • In extreme cases, consider whether it’s possible to give the person an extended break – longer than the typical one or two weeks of vacation.
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when an employee is consumed by news of mass tragedies

by Alison Green on December 8, 2015

A reader writes:

I supervise someone who subscribes to news alerts on his cell phone and via email, and he kind of obsesses about news when it’s something like the California shooting. While it’s a tragedy, especially considering it’s workplace violence that could affect any of us, I don’t think it’s worth dropping everything to follow. It usually takes hours or days for the full story to come out anyway. A person can watch CNN on their computer, or keep newspaper sites open and refresh every few minutes, so it really can be a distraction. These things are unfortunately far too common so it’s not exceptional enough to allow it to interfere with work, in my opinion.

If it were within driving distance, I’d be on alert, but if it’s hundreds or thousands of miles away, I don’t think we should let it affect our workday. 9/11 was special because it affected multiple cities and potentially every airplane until we knew it was only four planes. But for localized things far away, I’d rather wait until the 6:00 news, or do my job and then check the news during break. I wouldn’t stop working and sit in front of a TV or stare at a cell phone.

Is that unreasonable?

Oooof. Honestly, my answer to this is different right now than it would have been a few years ago. In general, I think that employers should make allowances for these kinds of shocking events. We’re all humans, and processing this stuff is tough. You can realistically expect people to be unaffected.

But in the current atmosphere in the U.S., where this kind of thing is happening so frequently? With two separate mass shootings just last week? There is a point where someone being consumed by each and every one would start having a real impact on their work and where it’s reasonable to ask people to at least try to return to work.

But the key is communicating that in a way that doesn’t sound terribly callous and insensitive. You don’t want the message to be “work is more important than this tragedy” because work isn’t generally more important (emergency workers, etc. excepted). Rather, the message is more “this is awful and I so understand the impulse to follow it closely throughout the day, but we also need to find a way to keep work moving.”

That’s why the language in your letter probably isn’t the language to use with your employee; when you talk to him, you want to sound more sensitive to why he’s finding it tough to turn away. (Some of the framing is also open to debate. For example, I’d argue that 9/11 was different because it was a large-scale terrorist attack on our cities, not for the reasons you cited, but it’s better to stay away from that kind of thing anyway because it’ll distract from your point.)

I think, too, you want to use your judgment case-by-case. If a tragedy is close to home or hits an employee particularly hard for a personal reason, you might handle it differently. And if someone is visibly shaken and can’t return their focus to work, you could suggest they use PTO and leave early, as well as suggesting that they get in touch with your EAP if you have one. If their work truly doesn’t allow for leaving early (and some jobs don’t), you could say, “I’d love to be able to give you the rest of the day off, but unfortunately I can’t because X. But here’s what I can do (excuse you from that meeting, let you leave as soon as Y is done, or whatever).”

And one more caveat: If this person is an exempt employee whose productivity isn’t significantly affected by this and who can generally be trusted to manage his own time (and who may be working extra hours the rest of the week/month to get everything done), I wouldn’t even address it.

But it’s sickening that we even need to figure this out.  What other thoughts do people have?

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my friend is blackmailing her boss, employee is overlooking emails, and more

by Alison Green on December 8, 2015

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

1. My friend is blackmailing her boss

I have a friend who works as a server for an upscale hotel in a large city. She recently told me about a “deal” she made with her supervisor that has resulted in her making a lot more money. A little background — she’s been at this job for about five years now. The hourly wage for her position is very low (with no raises in those five years) and most of the money she makes comes from gratuities. At this hotel, all of money made in gratuities is divided evenly among all of the full-time servers. About a year ago, my friend was getting really fed up with her job and threatened to report her supervisor to HR for making frequent racist and sexist comments to his staff. Her supervisor got scared and told her if she kept quiet, he would find a way to give her that raise she had been requesting for so long. From then on, her paychecks were considerably larger. Because her base hourly wage hadn’t changed, she knew he must have been doing something different with the gratuities. It turns out, he found a way to manipulate the division of gratuities so that she would always receive a significantly larger percent than the rest of the servers. I don’t know the exact figures here; all I know is she bragged about how she ended up making over $10k more this past year than previous years, so I assume it must be a pretty significant increase.

The reason this all came up is because now she’s scared this all might end because the hotel is switching to a new payroll system which will make it harder for her supervisor to do this manipulation. However, he promised to still try to make it work. She’s gotten so used to her new paycheck amount that she can’t imagine going back to what she was being paid before. I told her she should also be worried about what will happen if HR ever finds out this is going on, because to me it seems like grounds for immediate firing of both her and her supervisor. She truly believes she’s innocent in this situation and there’s no way it could/would be held against her (“I’ll just pretend I didn’t know it was going on”). Listening to all of this seriously irritated me me because aside from this being just plain wrong, she’s been cheating her coworkers out of money in order to make more herself. I honestly don’t know how no one has caught on yet. I agree that her supervisor sounds like a racist/sexist jerk, but blackmailing him in this way is not the answer, right? Just because I’m curious (I’m not going to turn her in or anything), do you think if /when this arrangement is found out, she would also be subject to discipline in addition to her supervisor?

Being paid wages she doesn’t deserve in exchange for staying quiet about racist and sexist comments? Yes, I think she’d likely be fired. No sensible manager would want that kind of lack of integrity on her staff. (The same goes for your friend’s boss too, of course.)

I suppose it’s possible that they won’t know why she’s been getting paid more, and it’s certainly not in her supervisor’s best interests to explain it; he may just play it off as a mistake. But if they do find out what was going on, then yes, I think your friend should assume she’ll be out of a job.

Perhaps more importantly though, why is your friend okay with screwing over her coworkers (literally taking pay that’s meant for them) and protecting someone who makes racist and sexist remarks to his employees? She needs to do some serious soul searching about her ethics, and you probably should think about whether she’s a friend you want.

2. What to say to an employee who’s overlooking emails

What’s a good response to an employee who said they “missed” an email you sent? I’ve already stressed the importance of reviewing all incoming mail and provided resources on organizing and managing your inbox. This has happened a few times now with negative business consequences (late payments) and I don’t want to jump right to write-ups.

“This has happened several times now, and it’s causing problems like X and Y. What can you do differently to ensure that it doesn’t continue to happen?”

If you’ve already had that conversation, then this instead: “We’ve talked in the past about how important it is to manage your email so that you don’t miss messages, but it’s continuing to happen and it’s causing real problems. I’m concerned that whatever system you’re using isn’t working, and we need it to.”

3. How to stop our employees from giving us gifts

My husband and I operate a home care business (think elder care, senior care, etc.). This business started as a one-woman operation (me) and grew to 85 part-time employees and eight office and support staff. We are very friendly with the entire office and support staff, as those are the people we interact with every day. We have birthday lunches for them and occasional working meeting lunches (just office and support people). At Christmas we try to get something for each of the caregivers (the other 85 people) and recognize their birthdays with a birthday card (no gift).

Every year, no matter how kindly we ask them not to, the eight-person group pools their money and buys us a Christmas gift. We already do the potluck thing at Christmas (they get together and bring everything; we are told to just show up). We don’t want to come across as ungrateful for their generosity, but always feel uncomfortable being on the receiving end. Do we give up and just be thankful for the great people we have hired? Put this discomfort aside and appreciate their generosity?

It’s smart to say something early on like, “We’ve so appreciated the gifts you’ve given us in the past, but we’re really uncomfortable with you spending your money on us. The best gift you can give us is to do your jobs well, and please don’t worry about any gift beyond that. We want your money going to you, your families, and your savings.”

However, if they give you a gift anyway, at that point you should just accept it graciously so as not to make people feel bad.

4. I get dizzy and pass out on first days at work

I’ve started applying for office jobs recently and have started thinking about how to properly handle an issue that has come up at several of my previous jobs.

Essentially, something about orientations has always made me get dizzy and nearly pass out. I don’t think its nerves, because it happened once when I worked for my mother, and it also happened once on the first day of archery lessons I took with some friends. I think it has to do with standing in place while concentrating on instructions someone is giving me. I’ve gone to my doctor and haven’t been able to determine a medical issue for it.

I’ve tried just working through it before, but it’s not really a good plan because its hard to concentrate while actively trying not to pass out, and eventually I become noticeably pale and generally unwell, to the point where people ask me if I am okay and tell me I should have said something sooner. It also causes a bit of an interruption in the training because once it reaches that point, I have to sit and take a few minutes to stop feeling sick.

I just worry that, especially because I am a young, healthy, fit-looking woman, people will think that I am faking it and just being lazy and not wanting to stand. I’ve also had employers get concerned I won’t be able to do the job if I can’t even be on my feet, but even when I was a cashier at a grocery store, it only ever happened on the first day because the light amounts of moving from bagging was enough to stop this from happening, and I doubt I’d need any other accommodations made for me aside from the first day because I’ve done a few very “stand in one place” sort of jobs that have not been a problem. Any ideas on how to explain this without seeming lazy or fragile?

“I’ve learned from orientations at past jobs that I sometimes get very dizzy when I stand very still and concentrate on learning something new, so would it be okay if I sat during this? It’s never a problem to stand once I’m actually doing the work, but it’s something about standing so still and listening intensely for a long period.”

If they think it’s a little odd, you’re quickly going to replace that impression in coming days once they get to know you better (and they see that you are not lazy or trying to get out of standing), so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

5. Asking to delay a move for a job in another city

I live in Chicago but have always wanted to move to New York. I’m a copywriter and have applied to jobs in NYC in the past, and, nothing, but just now, I have one job offer and one interview offer. The problem is, neither company offers relocation. They both told me up front, and when I did get the first offer, I tried to negotiate for relocation but still, nothing.

Moving right now (in a month, in January) is looking impossible. Besides the fact that I don’t have the money to up and move to New York, I live with my partner in Chicago, in a one-bedroom apartment. Our lease isn’t up till May, and she can’t afford the rent on her own. So she’d have to move out and we find a subletter. Or I’d have to pay the rent on the Chicago apartment + the New York apartment (also nearly impossible). She’s unwilling to move to New York until she has a job (and has been reluctant to even look for a job in NYC). It’s a frustratingly impossible situation. Moving to New York has always been my dream, but it hasn’t been hers, and I’m so close and yet so far…

We are going to be in New York in just a few days for a three-day weekend, so this Friday I’ll be interviewing in person at the other job. My one hope is… they have an office in New York, and one in Chicago, where I live. IF they offer me the job, do you think they might allow me to work from the Chicago office till May, and then relocate to New York from there? After May we’d be off the hook with our lease, and I’d have 5 months to save for the move. Is this something a company might be willing to work out, or is this a long shot?

It’s possible. It’s reasonable to ask, although I should give you the caveat that some (not all) companies might be alarmed by you even asking the question, since they may worry that it indicates cold feet about moving and that you won’t really want to move come May. But if you explain the context about the lease, a lot of companies would be open to at least considering it, especially since they do have a Chicago office that you could work from.

For what it’s worth, though, I’m more worried about your partner. I realize this isn’t what you asked, but someone who doesn’t especially want to live in New York is a lot less likely to be happy there than someone who’s always wanted to. Despite its awesomeness, New York is also really expensive and comes with other drawbacks. Make sure she’s really on board with those, thinks she can find work there at a salary that won’t lower her standard of living, etc.

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update: our museum volunteer is out of control, part 2

by Alison Green on December 7, 2015

Remember the letter-writer who managed a museum that was saddled with a rogue volunteer who no one could control (and who was protected by the board of directors)? She wrote in with an update about a year ago, and now here’s another update.

In February, we decided to combine our two half-time positions into one full-time position. Jean (the person hired to replace the rogue volunteer) was laid off during this process, since she was one of the half-time people. The other half-time person, Jennifer, got the full-time job, because of her experience with volunteer management (the new job is volunteer management plus collections, and Jennifer also has her degree in collections management). Jean was sort of relieved, because she had been wanting to take on more hours at her other job at another museum.

Steve (the rogue volunteer) trusts Jennifer much more with the management of the collections. He announced his retirement once again in August. This one seems to have stuck more than other “retirements.” He hasn’t been coming into the museum very often, but still attends events and seems supportive, although I hear through the grapevine occasionally about negative comments he’s made about the way the organization is currently being run.

We still have collections storage at his home. In April, our Museum Assessment Program reviewer came for a two-day visit. She toured all of our collections storage, including Steve’s basement. She came away very impressed, and said that although she was initially reluctant about us storing things there, she does believe it’s one of our best storage locations and doesn’t see a reason for us to move it. (Humidity and temperature are well-controlled, everything is archivally stored and well-organized, and Steve has a clear inventory showing what belongs to the museum and what is in his personal collection.) We do have a committee forming in early 2016 to take a look at options for fully consolidated storage.

As alluded to in my other letters and comments, the board has a whole host of other problems (some of which were addressed in the MAP review). I’ve made incredible progress at moving the organization forward in the three years I’ve been here, but I’m starting to get tired of the lack of respect from the board. I’ve been looking at job postings, but a job move would require relocating my family, so it has to be the perfect job. The museum in my hometown is starting an executive director search after the start of the new year, and I’m planning to apply for that.

The person who’s been board president for 20+ years is planning to retire from the board when her term is up in 2017. So if I do decide to stick it out here, things may change for the better after that. A lot of the micromanagement and resistance to new ideas comes from her. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to plug away at things that may or may not be able to be fixed.

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how to write a self-assessment for your performance review

by Alison Green on December 7, 2015

If your company is one of the many gearing up for year-end performance reviews this month, you may be asked to write a self-assessment as part of that process.

Lots of people freeze up when asked to assess their own performance, worried that they’ll come across as braggarts if they rate themselves highly, or that they’ll undercut themselves if they’re too modest.

Here’s how to take the mystery out of the process and write an effective self-assessment.

1. Instead of dreading the self-assessment, see it as an opportunity. Writing a self-assessment is a chance to remind your manager about key highlights of your work that she might not otherwise have at the forefront of her mind as she sits down to assess your performance. After all, you’re more intimately familiar with the nuances of your work than your manager likely is, especially if she manages a large number of people. See this as a chance to make sure that you’re both working with the same data. And many managers will even pull language directly from a self-assessment and put it into their own evaluation of you.

Additionally, self-assessments can be a valuable way to spot areas where you and your manager have different perspectives on your work. That’s important. If you think you’ve been doing a great job at account management, and she thinks your work in that area has been lackluster, you need to know that. That information can help you figure out what’s causing the discrepancy.

2. Keep your focus on what outcomes you achieved this year. People often focus their self-assessments on soft skills, such as how they get along with colleagues, how well they communicate or how much initiative they take. Those things matter, but a performance evaluation, including a self-assessment, should look at what you achievedthis year. So, start by listing out what your major goals were for the year, then reflect on what progress you made against them. And be specific. Don’t just say, “The X project was a success.” Instead you should say, “The X project came in under budget and ahead of deadlines, garnered enthusiastic praise from the client – who called it ‘one of the smartest campaigns I’ve seen’ – and resulted in a 15 percent increase in sales.”

3. Don’t be falsely modest when it comes to rating yourself. Your manager isn’t looking for false modesty. She’s looking for your true assessment of how your work is going. If you rate yourself lower than you think you deserve, you risk influencing your manager in that direction, too. You also lose much of the value of the entire exercise.

If you have trouble tooting your own horn, try this exercise. Pretend that someone accused you of not playing a very valuable role on your team. What would you point to as refutation of that? What specific contributions have you made that would be evidence of your value? Your answers should point you toward how you should be describing your work in your self-assessment. To be clear, the point here isn’t to feel defensive, just to get you into a frame of mind where you’re comfortable talking about your own achievements.

4. Don’t give yourself falsely high ratings either. If you give yourself the highest rating in every category when you’ve had some significant failures, or your manager has been coaching you to improve your work, you’re likely to come across as out-of-touch or lacking self-awareness. Strive for honesty. Try asking yourself how your manager or a trusted colleague would likely rate you.

5. Be straightforward about areas where you need to improve. If you’re struggling in a particular area or with a particular skill or goal, use this opportunity to reflect on what’s going on and how you can improve. If your manager is doing her job, she’s going to bring it up anyway. It will be a much easier conversation if you’ve already acknowledged the problem. Of course, this assumes that you have a competent and fair manager. If your manager is the sort to punish this kind of honesty, modify accordingly.

6. Don’t forget to look back at last year’s performance evaluation. If there were issues raised there, or goals set out that you’ve been working on, your self-assessment this year should reflect on your progress in those areas. Reviewing last year’s document might also help you ground what you’re writing in some historical context. For example, you might note that you were still working to master skill X last year, and you’ve successfully used that skill to accomplish Y and Z this year.

7. Start planning for next year’s evaluation early. This is a good time to ask yourself what you want next year’s evaluation to say about you, then plan out what you need to do throughout the upcoming year to achieve that. You might also set up a “kudos” file that you add to throughout the year, storing emails with praise for your work, notes about project successes and other specifics that will help you when you sit down to write your self-assessment this time next year.

I originally published this at U.S. News & World Report.
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employee resigned but now wants to stay

by Alison Green on December 7, 2015

A reader writes:

We hired an employee, Jane, in August to take over a management position, and I was to partially oversee her, along with my boss, Lucinda. There were some issues on both sides (she had issues with Lucinda and vice versa), and about a month ago Jane told me she was considering giving notice. I talked through the issues she was having with my boss, and moderated some disagreements. From my point of view, it seemed like Jane was having trouble taking direction and criticism from Lucinda, and had gotten her feathers ruffled when Lucinda tried to manage her. Everything seemed to be back on schedule, and drama had subsided.

Last week, Lucinda informed me that Jane had in fact given notice, with no reasoning. Jane informed me of giving notice by text message with a frowny face. I was shocked by the lack of professionalism by Jane, and immediately jumped into plan B mode and made an job offer to a current employee to take over the position. Currently, said employee is still considering the offer. It would be a lateral move for this employee, and she had expressed interest in it previously.

Then, Lucinda told me Jane asked if she could rescind her resignation. She shed light about why she gave notice, and it turned out to be very minor and a further example of Jane’s inability to communicate well and to let her ego drive situations. I don’t believe it was another job offer that instigated the resignation, as Jane had told me several times that she didn’t need to work and was working only because she loves to. She has told me several times how much she loves the work here, but that working with Lucinda was difficult.

Obviously we need to see if the current employee wants to change departments, but if she doesn’t, should we let Jane continue working? This is our absolute busiest time of the year, and training someone new would be miserable, and staff is already stretched very thin. Also, if Jane stayed, the teams morale would be better than if she left, and that is very important to me. However, if we let her stay, I’m worried it may reinforce the dramatic behavior. At the end of the day, Jane is talented and capable, but she does not like being managed, which is inevitable, especially when one is still very new to a job. Help!

Do you want Jane in the position? Were you disappointed or relieved when you heard about her resignation initially? And while you’re worried about dealing with re-hiring during your busy period, will you be excited to have her there once that busy period is over, or will you feel like she’s a problem that you’re stuck dealing with?

I can’t answer those questions for you, but I can tell you that what you’ve described is an awful lot of drama for someone only four months into a new job, and a manager who bristles at being managed herself is … not a good thing. It might make sense to use this as an opportunity to end things with her cleanly and get someone else into the position who’s easier to work with.

If that turns out to be your conclusion too, it would be entirely your prerogative to say that you’re going to let the original resignation stand and that you’ve already begun moving forward with other plans for the position. You could also say that given the back and forth and the issues that have come up in her first few months, you want to let things stand as they are now and not flip things back again.

But if you’re convinced that keeping Jane in the position would be the best thing for the organization — really convinced, not just panicking about the next couple of months — then I’d sit down and talk with her before officially keeping her on. Be clear about how you’ll need things to work going forward and ask her to really consider if that will work for her. For example: “We’re going to need you to take direction and feedback from Lucinda, which is something I know you haven’t been thrilled about previously. That’s an aspect of the job that isn’t going to change, and if we move forward, it’s going to be important that you find a way to work more harmoniously with Lucinda so that we don’t keep revisiting those issues. Why don’t you take a few days to think about whether you’re up for the job with that as an essential part of it?”

And to be clear, you’re not leaving this totally up to Jane — if she says that yes, she can agree to that but she qualifies it with a bunch of caveats or otherwise gives you the sense that she’s going to be raising the same issues a few months from now, you can say, “I really appreciate you talking this through with me. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and ultimately I think there’s a fundamental mismatch between what we need in this role and what you’re looking for, so I’d like to have your original resignation stand.”

And if you do decide to keep her in the role, it might not be a bad idea to agree to revisit how things are going in a few months, so that there’s an easy opening to bring it up if problems continue.

But again: this is lots of drama, and you’re being given a clean path out of that.

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Legacybox: all your memories, digitized

by Alison Green on December 7, 2015

And now a break to talk about a sponsor…

Do you have a bunch of non-digitized photos and old VHS tapes laying around that you have vague ideas of converting to digital at some point, but have never bothered to actually do it? And meanwhile, your footage of your parents’ wedding or your sixth-grade talent show performance or your sister’s prom preparations are all sitting in your basement, unwatchable, while their quality degrades with each passing year?

You need Legacybox – a mail-in service that will do it for you. Legacybox is an all-in-one mailed kit for converting your recorded moments into shareable, digital files.

Here’s how it works: Legacybox sends you a crush-proof box. You gather everything you want digitized – videotapes, audio tapes, film, photos, slides, camcorder reels – whatever you have. You label each item with an individual, bar-coded sticker that they provide, so that everything can be tracked and nothing gets lost. Then you send it back, with their pre-paid shipping label. It’s really simple.

If you are feeling anxious about having shipped off your priceless memories, they give you a personal concierge so that you can check on the status of your order at any time. And Legacybox digitizes everything by hand to make sure it’s all done carefully and with real quality. I took comfort in knowing that they’ve been around 10+ years, they don’t outsource the digitization process, and they’re experts in handling valuable, fragile materials.

A few weeks later, you receive your originals back, along with DVDs. As an add-on option, you can also order a thumb drive to make it really easy to load and share your videos from your computer. You upload, you play, you gawk at your old-timey footage. If you’re like me, you show your 11-year-old niece footage of your mom in a bikini and pigtails in her early 20s, and your niece is shocked to discover that people other than she had a youth and a time without wrinkles. You feel old but amused. (Old but amused is pretty much my permanent state now.)

You should try Legacybox! And if you use code MANAGER at check-out, you’ll receive 40% off your order.

And just for fun, I’ll share this: I took a bunch of old family footage (late 60s) and condensed it down to this. I especially like the clip of my sister as a baby crawling straight into the ocean with no one stopping her.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Legacybox. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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I threw up on the floor during an interview, former employees are banned from our holiday party, and more

by Alison Green on December 7, 2015

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

1. I threw up on the floor during an interview

I recently had an interview with a company about a position that I was excited about. I was just getting over being sick when I scheduled the interview, so I pushed it back a couple days just to be safe. On the day of the interview, I still had an intermittent cough, but overall I felt fine.

Toward the end of the interview, which was going well, I ended up having a coughing fit, with a deep dry cough that would not go away. The interviewer got up and showed me to the watercooler and told me to take my time, being very nice about it. However, I ended up coughing so hard and so deep I threw up on the floor a little bit, right in front of the interviewer. I did not know what to do, so I said something to the extent of, “Well, that just happened,” apologized, and asked where they kept the cleaning supplies. He said not to worry about it, wished me good health, and promptly showed me to the door. Is there any chance of recovery here? Should I call them and apologize?

Oh no! This is so not your fault at all, but I can only imagine how horrified you were. For what it’s worth, only a jerk would hold this against you. People get sick, and they sometimes get sick at inopportune times.

I wouldn’t call to apologize, but in your post-interview thank-you, in addition to building on points covered in the interview, you could also say something like, “Thank you again for for your gracious response when I got ill — that was basically the last thing I’d ever want to happen in an interview.” (Personally, I would also add, “At least we now each have an interviewing horror story that can top anyone’s else,” but that may or may not fit your style.)

2. We’re banned from bringing former employees to our holiday party

I work at a medical office, and last year we had our first holiday party. It was held off-site at a hotel banquet hall. Buffet-style dinner was served, it was open bar, and there was a DJ and dancing. It was a lot of fun, but the organizer of the party, an administrator, instituted a rule last year and wants to do the same this year: No former employees allowed. We are welcome to bring a spouse, or any plus-one guest, but that guest can’t be a former employee of the company.

This seems crazy to us! We are a close-knit group, and we keep in touch with our former coworkers after they’ve moved on and we just can’t imagine why this rule is in effect and how it is justifiable. One exception is made for a current employee who is engaged to a former employee. What are your thoughts on this?

I think it’s misguided, but I bet it’s rooted in some specific concern about former employees who were fired or otherwise didn’t leave on great terms. Why not ask the party organizer what the reason is for the rule? It’s possible that you’ll hear something that makes sense to you, but if you don’t, you might consider pointing out that specifically excluding former employees when other plus-one’s are invited is likely to lower people’s morale and make them wonder about how they’ll be treated when they leave the company themselves at some point. (Not that missing out on a holiday party is terrible treatment, but it says something about how the company views its relationship with them.)

3. My reference changed her mind

I am currently interviewing for my dream job, and I made it all the way to the final interview. I gave them my three references, two of whom were contacting by my potential employer. Shortly after sending my references, one of my references emailed me AFTER she agreed to be a reference, to explain that she may have to speak to the fact that I left my job before my contract was completed. This person is fully-aware that I was working for her directly after completing undergrad, on the other side of the country, and that the job was all-around a poor fit. I contacted my potential employer to have my reference changed, and to be honest, I am both sad and disappointed by the actions of my reference, which I was forced to remove.

Can you please tell me what you would have done in this situation?

I totally get why you’re taken aback but … the flip side of this is that if the job was a poor fit, you don’t want to use this person as a reference anyway. Your references should be people who can speak glowingly of your work. As crappy as this feels, your reference did you a favor by letting you know that she didn’t feel she could do that — and it doesn’t sound like a totally surprisingly message, given the circumstances you describe at that job! It would have been better if she’d let you know earlier on and that was her big error here, but sometimes people have trouble delivering that kind of message, especially if they feel put on the spot or need to think over what their assessment really is.

I’d say just let her know that you appreciate her candor, and then reflect on who stronger references might be.

4. Employer berated me after I withdrew from a hiring process

I recently was told about a job that, on paper, sounded like it was perfect for me. I’m not in the job market, but given how interesting it sounded, I applied. An HR rep reached out to me literally moments after submitting my resume. We set up a phone screen for a week out.

The phone screen occurred and they told me they’d like to bring me in for a full day interview. But the call was odd and left me feeling like something wasn’t right. I felt like I wasn’t a fit for the culture of the company. Furthermore, the person who would be my manager is someone I felt would be very difficult to work for. This seems like a rash judgement, so I slept on it for 2 days, discussed pros and cons with my spouse, and came to the conclusion that this wasn’t an opportunity that was worth leaving my current position for. Not wanting to waste their time (not to mention, burn a PTO day) for an opportunity I wasn’t that interested in, I sent an email thanking them for their time, but unfortunately, I had to withdraw. Everything I read online says you should give a reason in these sorts of emails. I didn’t want to say, “your culture seems like a poor fit and my would be boss seems like a jerk” so I said that the timing was not right for me to make a career change. I wished them luck, and thought that was that.

I got a pretty heated email back telling me I had wasted their time, and this is a small town and I shouldn’t burn bridges. I did not reply.

I wish I could tell you that I took this email as confirmation that my gut instinct was right on, but instead I wonder how I could have handled the entire situation better. I’m sure life will present me other opportunities I don’t wish to pursue, so I’d like be better prepared next time.

That’s ridiculous on their end; the whole point of each stage in the hiring process (including that initial phone screen) is for both sides to assess whether it’s the right fit, and at any time, either party can decide that it’s not and end the process. This employer telling you that you’d wasted their time is the same thing as an irate candidate saying that after being rejected. It’s absurd.

As for the note you sent, you handled it fine. There’s nothing you can do to prevent asses from acting like asses, and you shouldn’t take their terrible behavior as a sign that you did something wrong.

5. Company used to pay us in advance and now we need to pay it back

I work for a company that pays us two weeks in advance. They are now deciding that we need to pay it back, either by forgoing a check, cutting them a check, or taking unpaid vacation. It seems unfair. Do we have any recourse? (We are in Massachusetts, if that matters.)

Probably not; they’ve essentially been advancing you money all this time, and now they’re switching to the more traditional system of paying you after the work has been done. I’d bet they decided to do this after having employees leave with that advanced pay, not having worked the next two weeks, and realized they had no practical means of recovering it. Or it’s occurred to them that this will happen at some point and they want to avoid it. It’s a reasonable call to make — but ideally they’d give you as much notice as possible so that you can plan, and/or work with people to make this easier in other ways (like dividing the “payback” amount over a series of checks rather than all at once). You could try asking them for more notice, if that would help.

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three more updates from letter-writers

by Alison Green on December 6, 2015

Here are three updates from letter-writers who had their questions answered here this year.

1. My coworker insists that I’m mad at her

In the end, I took Alison’s advice to avoid engaging in any sort of third party coworker mediation. I agreed that it would just stir up the drama and involve additional people in a situation that really never should have gone on the way that it did for as long as it persisted.

I did not end up sitting down with the coworker to talk to her about the situation for a final time. I was reluctant to because of the constant waterworks, and also because she decided to take the drama up a notch by going to our mutual manager. She asked to be moved and was relocated to a different part of the office. This made things awkward, to say the least, as everyone was understandably curious about why she had moved. My manager never said anything to me about it, and I avoided talking about it or her to anyone else.

I ended up moving lunch tables and spending a semester working on schoolwork at lunch to avoid any further conflict. Disengaging from the situation completely didn’t resolve the issue, as the coworker decided that she could no longer work in the same office. She continued drumming up some drama with others, mostly for attention I assume, but I refused to engage in anything. She found another job after some months and moved, refusing to tell the office where she was moving to or where her new job. It’s been pretty quiet since then.

2. Working with my new manager after a demotion (#5 at the link)

After a full school year working in the new arrangement, it turns out that the “stepping on toes” concern I had never really materialized – I was able to keep to advising when asked, and keeping to my specific duties when I wasn’t.

However, in the time since, other issues have arisen due to the restructuring. My previous manager, who stayed in her promoted position and had been my manager for years, is now two steps above me instead of one. This has caused some awkwardness, including but not limited to a week-long period during the summer when no work was available for me to do (leading to unpaid time off) and my new manager trying to assign me – twice – to a site that had accused me of fraud a few years back. I eventually was able to get assigned to sites that weren’t that bad, but still aren’t great, and after both of my new sites cut half a day of my services a month into the school year, I’m not guaranteed a full four days of work each week (I stay home with my daughter on Fridays, which is a blessing and is one of the few reasons I’m not actively searching for new work).

It’s rough, but not for the reasons I anticipated, and I’m trying to stay positive in my new situation through the remainder of the school year.

3. I’m scared to resign because my boss will explode (#2 at the link)

I took everyone’s advice and bit the bullet! I steeled myself an braced for the worst. While she wasn’t the horrible storm she could have been, it wasn’t an easy and clean cut. I quit in July but wasn’t finally out of her control until the end of September. Every now and then, she still asks for help. I now of course say no but chose to look at it as a compliment and testament to my work ethic. I have the control now and can shed whatever light I want looking back and promising myself to never fall into a trap like that again.

Now I am blessed to say that I work in a professional office with a kickass boss. I am treated with respect and am lifted up versus being broken down. I learned to never let fear be a reason to not make a positive change in my life.

Thank you to you, Alison, and to everyone that posted messages of support! You all are awesome!

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