Ask a Manager

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

1. My employer won’t give me free parking to help with my sprained ankle

I sprained my ankle last week outside of work, and while it seems to be healing quickly, it’s difficult and painful (not to mention slow) for me to walk long distances. I live about a mile from my work and normally walk or bike to work. Not having to pay for parking or a bus pass is the main reason I live where I do and definitely something I consider a perk of the job.

I asked HR if they’d be able to accommodate me by issuing a temporary free parking pass (it’s normally around $40/month to park in the company garage) and they said they can’t – I’d have to pay for it. There’s no way to pay per day if you don’t end up needing a full month of parking; it’s one lump sum deduction.

HR suggested I get a temporary disabled parking permit from the state so I can street park for free, but I don’t have a primary care doctor and the urgent care clinic I went to doesn’t provide documentation for those permits as a rule. A bus pass would also get me to work, but that costs about $25.

It’s not impossible for me to bike or walk with this injury, but it’s slow and is going to make the healing process longer. I’m a news reporter and my actual job can involve a fair bit of walking when I’m out in the field, so I don’t want to prolong the injury and further delay me being able to do my job well. I get that $40 a month for parking isn’t a ton of money, but it’s not in my budget and money is a bit tight with me supporting a partner who’s a full-time student. Am I off-base in thinking my company should accommodate my injury by temporarily providing free parking? Do you have any suggestions for other steps I could take, or do I just need to suck this up?

Yeah, I think they should give you a temporary parking pass, because smart employers (a) try to make their employees’ lives easier in situations like this, especially when there’s such a cheap, easy way to do it, and (b) don’t want to demoralize employees over 40 bucks. That said, it’s possible that they know that if they do it for you, they’ll have to field a bunch of requests from other people too, and maybe they don’t want to have to be in the position of explaining why your sprained ankle qualifies but Fergus’s gout and Lucinda’s bad back don’t. Or maybe they’ve denied some of those requests in the past, and so can’t do it for you without pissing off people they haven’t done it for in the past.

Anyway, I don’t think there’s much more you could or should do here. You’ve asked, they’ve said no, and that’s probably the answer you have to live with. Injuries do cost money sometimes, and I’d try to just look at this as one of those costs, although I know it sucks when it feels like your employer could make it a non-issue for you.

2. Client wants me to submit time sheets even though I’m a consultant

About six months ago, I started working full-time as a consultant for a tiny organization (as an independent contractor, not an employee.) I work remotely, with significant travel, and make my own hours. I get paid a yearly fee, spilt evenly over 12 months, based on 40 hours a week. For the first two months of my job, no mention was ever made about submitting time sheets.

After a couple of 80-hour weeks, the ED suggested that I keep a time sheet so that I could take time off later in the year. I said I’d keep an eye on my hours and but that it’d probably balance out in the end, as my work load fluctuates a fair bit. I never heard anything more about time sheets and I have continued to be paid on time each month (I don’t invoice, they just pay me.)

Today I received an email from the admin person asking me to submit time sheets for the last five months. I’m not sure how to respond to this. I have a rough idea of the hours I’ve put in but I haven’t been keeping detailed records and this request includes a period of time before time sheets were ever mentioned at all.

I’m frustrated by this request, so many months in, when time sheets were presented as something optional up until now. I was already feeling a bit strained about my relationship with the ED – there have been a couple of situations where he approved things that were incorrect, or followed directions and then expectations changed, and I felt blamed for the error. So I’m not thrilled about bringing this up, when I think there’s a possibility that he will say I was told to start submitting time sheets months ago.

I can start tracking my time from here on, though it’s a bit of a pain as I work when I feel productive or am needed rather than sitting down to put in clearly delineated blocks of time, plus lots of time spent thinking before I can actually produce deliverables. I might be able to make up five months of time sheets but it would be extremely time consuming and probably far from accurate. How do you suggest I approach this?

Tell them you’re concerned about running afoul of the regulations on independent contractors, since the IRS says that requiring regular time reporting by a worker can infer employee status. If the IRS were to determine that you were in factor an employee, that would be a very big deal for your client since they’d owe back taxes and penalties.

I’d say this to the admin: “I don’t want us to get in trouble with the IRS for violating their regulations on independent contractors or have them determine I’ve been misclassified and should have been treated and paid as an employee, which requiring time sheets can do. (They have a bunch of rules governing ways that contractors can’t be treated as employees.) I can include a total number of hours worked on my invoices if that would be useful, but we should avoid the kind of detailed time logging that employees might do.”

3. Will background checkers see every company I’ve worked for?

If/when a company does a background check, will they see any and all companies that I worked for? Or do they only look for companies that are listed on my resume? I recently left a company after working there only a few months and I want to know if potential employers will be able to see that (since I do not have it on my resume).

It depends. In most cases, they’re likely to only know about the jobs you tell them about. However, a thorough background check can turn up others. For example, a background checker might ask Former Job A why you left and might hear in response that you left to go work for Job B, which you happen to have left off your resume, or a reference might refer to it some other way (“I know she was working at Teapots Inc at one point but I’m not sure if she’s still there”), or it could come out in some other way.

Also, there’s a service called the Work Number, which is a online database for employment verifications, which may list every job you’ve ever held, if those employers use the service themselves (but many employers don’t, especially small employers, so it’s by no means comprehensive).

But if it’s a standard reference check (as opposed to a more thorough background check), it’s probably not going to come up. And if it does, well, there’s no requirement that you list all jobs you’ve ever had on your resume, and most people don’t — so that in and of itself isn’t a big deal.

Do keep in mind, though, that if you’re doing a background check for a government job or security clearance, you’ll be required to list every job you’ve ever held and sign attesting to its truth.

4. Applying for a job with someone who interviewed me three years ago

Approximately three years ago, I applied for a job at an up and coming company. They had just moved into a new space and called me in for an interview. I didn’t get the job. I have more experience now, and they’ve obviously grown and I have grown and they just advertised for a job that I am more suited for. I am going to apply, but the materials are sent to the same woman I interviewed with. Do I mention in the cover letter that I have gained experience since we last met and have grown as a professional? Or do I not say anything and assume she has interviewed so many people that she won’t recognize she met me before?

Assume she’ll remember you at some point — maybe not at the application stage but definitely at the interview stage if it gets that far. (I’ve interviewed a lot of people, but I think I’d recognize any of them if they showed up for another interview.)

So that means you should mention it in your cover letter. Otherwise you risk appearing like you don’t remember it, and that won’t reflect well on you. You can just say something like, “We talked in 2012 about your X position, and I was really impressed with Y and Z from our interview.”

5. Hearing the other side of the story

I was wondering if you have ever heard from someone an OP has written about. I often wonder what people are thinking that would prompt so many of the scenarios I see on your site. It would be so fantastic to hear both sides of a story from the first person perspective!

It’s happened a couple of times, actually! Twice people have written me and credibly argued that the facts in a situation were actually very different than what was presented by the letter-writer, and this post generated some really weird and confusing emails from someone who claimed to the person being talked about.

It would be awesome to be able to print both sides of a situation, but of course the nature of what most people write about means that they usually don’t want the person being discussed to know about their letter. (But if anyone ever has a situation where they’d be willing to let the other party write to me, by all means make this happen!)

Update: In the comment section, people are remembering and linking to other times this has happened. If you’re not usually a comments reader, you may enjoy it today.

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

1. We don’t want my grandson to return to the family business

When you have a “family business” and have other employees, it creates a mass of interaction emotions. We have a small office. My son runs the business my late husband and I started. I work with him. We have two sales employees. We all get along well.

Enter the grandson. At 21 years old, he has completed one year of college and has no interest in going back, so his dad placed him in the office temporarily to work during a peak work time.

A year has passed and the two salespeople and I were told that my grandson was available to help again. The three of us expressed the opinion that we’d rather work a little harder and a little longer than have him come back. He’s a very personable, likeable, capable, neat person. But when assigned a task, we found that we had to constantly nag him or remind him to get it done and then often had to resort to doing it ourselves because he hadn’t followed through.

Were we right in vetoing his coming back to work with us? And why is he not embarrassed by this rejection?

Sure sounds like you were right. If he doesn’t actually do the work you need without nagging, it doesn’t make any sense to bring him back on board, at least not unless he demonstrates that he’s able and willing to do better. He had a shot, and he messed up. In a non-family business, he wouldn’t get another chance. In a family business, it’s possible that he could in the future, but he needs to give you reason to think that he grasps what the problems were last time and won’t repeat them. (And frankly, I’d argue you’re doing him a favor of not overlooking this stuff; it’s going to help his future quality of life if he learns this lesson quickly.)

As for why he’s not embarrassed — I’d guess for the same reason that it happened in the first place: he doesn’t yet have the work ethic or maturity to quite understand what it means to have a job and people depending on your work.

2. My office has banned sleeveless tops

I have had my current job for seven months, and it was announced today that sleeveless tops are not appropriate for the office.

I am furious over this! I’ve worked in a few offices over my 12-year receptionist/administrative assistant career, but this is the first time I’ve ever come across this. I can understand short skirts, sheer fabrics, leggings, flip-flops, low-cut necklines, facial tattoos, and unkempt beards being inappropriate for the workplace, but what exactly makes the mere absence of sleeves “inappropriate”?

I have a few sleeveless tops, and by tops, I don’t mean tank tops or tops with spaghetti straps. All of mine are cut up to the collarbone in front, the arm hole comes all the way up to the armpit, the chest and back are completely covered, no bra strap shows at all, and these tops are not tight in any way, shape or form. What the heck is the problem with that? I have yet to hear a good reason for this.

I feel this is an antiquated view on dress based on personal biases and hangups. I cannot believe that in 2015, this still exists! Can you please explain to me why employers consider this inappropriate???

Indeed I can, because I’m someone who doesn’t like to see sleeveless tops in the workplace, or more accurately, tops that expose your armpits when you raise your arms (which not all sleeveless tops do but far too many are guilty of). I believe with all my soul that exposed armpits don’t belong at work.

Different workplaces have different standards on this; there are certainly plenty where sleeveless tops are acceptable (although interestingly, only for women; I’ve never seen a professional workplace that allowed it for men). But it’s very, very common to prohibit them, so your office isn’t doing something outrageous or weird here.

3. My boss said my coworker’s culture is the reason she’s unhelpful

I work with a woman who hardly talks to anyone (she is a manager) and doesn’t respond to emails, and other staff complain she isn’t helpful. I know she frustrates our boss because he has told me so. He gets very frustrated with her as well, but then he dismisses it as being because of her her culture (she is Native American). Since when is an individual’s culture to not do their job and not be willing to help? Is this a valid reason not to address issues with her?

What the hell? No. What a racist and gross thing for him say and think. He’s doing a disservice to her, her colleagues, and Native Americans.

He should be giving her straightforward feedback about what she needs to be doing differently, not letting problems fester while he badmouths her behind her back.

Culture can play a role in different approaches to work — but in a situation where someone isn’t meeting reasonable expectations (whether cultural differences are playing a role or not), the way to handle that is by helping them understand what those expectations are, not just sitting by while they perform badly and not stepping in to coach them.

4. My boss keeps pressuring me to work more hours and do work outside our agreement

I’ve been at my job for three years, and my boss expects me to be her superwoman. I work in her home, taking care of her special needs son. My job requires I take care of him and do light housework. But I do more than that. I practically take care of everyone in the house and clean/mop the whole house.

I work 40 hours a week and have Saturday and Sunday’s off. But lately my boss has been wanting me to give up my free time so that I can take care of her family while she does other things. I’ve told her no, because when will I have my own free time? Just recently, a friend of hers had her fourth child, and she and her husband want to have a date night and my boss suggested me. I told her no when the same question was asked last year, but they will not listen. How do I tell her nicely that I’m not interested and that I also don’t appreciate having to do her housework?

About the requests you to do additional work outside of your regular hours: “I’m not available outside my regular hours for you because of other commitments. Sorry I can’t help!” If she presses: “I’m really not available beyond the regular hours we’ve already agreed to. You’ve been asking me for additional hours more frequently lately, so I want to make sure that we’re on the same page that I’m not able to take work outside of my regular schedule.”

About the added housework: If you’ve let it go on for a while, it might be harder to put a stop to it now. But you could try saying something like, “When I came on, we agreed that I’d take care of Xavier and do light housework, like X, Y, and Z. I was willing to pitch in on other housework when you were in a pinch, but I’ve realized that it’s become the norm and I want to get back to our original agreement, which would mean not doing things like mopping the floors or doing the rest of the family’s laundry. Can we return to our agreement agreement on that?”

5. If my last day is a Tuesday, do I have to be paid for the full week?

I have recently given my company notice that I will end my employment on October 30. I also said to them that I understand that if they want to let me go sooner. I just ask that they don’t tell me on Friday afternoon that that will be my last day — that they give me a week’s notice so I can make arrangements with my next employer. If they let me go on say, a Tuesday, do they have to pay me for the full week? I work in Missouri, and I am an exempt salaried employee.

No, they only have to pay you through whatever you last day is. So if your last day is a Tuesday, they’d pay you just for two days that week. You might be getting confused by the requirement that exempt employees’ pay not be docked if they work any part of a week — but there’s an exception in the law for the first and last week of employment, if the person starts or leaves mid-way through the week.