Ask a Manager

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

1. My coworker interrupts everyone’s conversations

I have a coworker “Josh,” who has a habit of interjecting himself into conversations. Frequently. And, of course, he sits right next to me in our open-office floor plan.

It’s frustrating enough when he joins personal conversations so that he can insert his opinion. For example, “Which gynecologist do you go to?” (He has no children.) But I can tolerate that since the conversation is not work related.However, it’s even more frustrating when he invites himself to join certain work conversations, particularly on projects that have nothing to do with him or his work. For example, I recently had to correct him when he answered my teammate’s question about when an assignment was due. She was asking me, since we were working on the assignment together, but apparently he felt the need to chime in even though he isn’t involved in our project. And, of course, his answer of “sometime next week” didn’t exactly match our actual deadline of this Wednesday.

The problem is so much worse when we have someone from outside our team come by to ask questions or seek expertise regarding my projects and research. Even though he works on entirely separate projects and doesn’t share my areas of expertise, he will try to answer questions himself rather than redirect the question to me or someone on my project.

This behavior really bothers me and, while I haven’t witnessed any major consequences yet, that could just be a matter time. After all, clients won’t know he doesn’t work on the project, and it could give our team a bad reputation. We report to the same boss, so I have no authority over him. We are essentially peers, but Josh was just promoted last month, so he is now technically more senior. What can I do?

Step one is to address it in the moment when it’s happening. When he jumps into answer a question that isn’t in his area, don’t be shy about asserting yourself and saying things like “Actually, that’s my project — come talk to me about it and I can answer your questions” or “No, that’s not correct. The deadline is Wednesday.”

And after these incidents, there’s no reason you can’t say to him, “Hey, if someone comes in asking about X, please let me handle that since I’m working on it and know all the details.”

This doesn’t work with the interruptions of social conversations, of course – but those are sometimes unavoidable when you’re working in an open office. Most of the time you may need to just roll with those — although if a conversation is truly personal (like the one about gynecologists — WTF?!), it’s fine to say, “Actually, I just wanted to talk to Jane about this.”

2. Should I accept a beverage at a business meeting if no one else does?

This is definitely not a very serious question, but one that I’ve been wondering about nonetheless. I, a super junior person, recently attended a meeting with an external vendor, along with my boss and his boss (who’s at director level). We were asked the standard “would you like something to drink?” question and both bosses asked for coffee so I felt comfortable doing the same. I was thinking, though, if neither of them had asked for something, would it have come across as strange/demanding/out-of-touch for me to ask something? Intuitively I feel like I should be following more senior people’s lead when it comes to that sort of thing, but I don’t know if I have a strange preoccupation with blending into the background in these types of situations. What are your thoughts/how would you feel as the senior person in this situation (assuming we’re talking about a standard water/coffee request, not anything over the top)?

It’s always fine to say yes to water, even if no one around you is requesting it.

With other beverages, though, yeah, because you’re very junior, I would follow the lead of more senior people in the room. It’s not that it would be demanding to say yes to an offer of coffee if no one else does. But when you’re very junior, you’ll usually make a better impression if you follow the lead of people senior to you, and it can look a little off if the one very junior person in the room is the only one accepting amenities. I can’t fully defend this — a cup of coffee really isn’t a big deal — but you’ll fit in with the meeting better this way.

(That said, if anyone is reading this and wondering if they committed a horrible faux paus by accepting a coffee or a soda at a meeting where no one else did, it’s not anything to be terribly worried about either.)

3. My contact added me to a Facebook group for moms in my field — and it’s horrible

I work in a field in which women are still a big minority. Early on, I met a woman who was slightly ahead of me in her career who has become a friend and occasional mentor. One thing we had in common was that we were both still figuring out how to balance our careers and family lives.

This year I went on leave to have a baby. After he was born, I experienced a lot of anxiety stemming from hormones, lack of sleep, etc. Around this time, my friend added me to a Facebook group that she belongs to for moms in my field. I imagine she viewed this as a support network, but it has been anything but that. Members of the group aggressively insult people who take time off, slow their careers, even respond slowly to emails while on maternity leave. Especially right after giving birth, seeing these attitudes convinced me I wanted to quit my field and do something else. I’m honestly still unsure about going back to work in this area.

I’m wondering if I should tell my friend about this. I don’t want to make her feel bad or come off as overly sensitive. But I don’t think she should add new moms to this group without some warning.

How often do you speak to her? If you fairly closer and speak frequently, definitely say something! You could say something like, “To be honest, the Facebook group hasn’t been for me. I’ve found a lot of the members are really insulting to women who take time off or even unplug completely during maternity leave. If you suggest it to other women, it might be useful to warn them about that element of it — I’ve found some of what I’ve read there pretty unsettling!”

If she’s a very casual acquaintance and you don’t talk much, it might not be worth reaching out just about this, especially if she enjoys the group herself. That said, since you consider her a mentor, you could ask her about her take on it, using language similar to the above but also asking, “Have you encountered a lot of that kind of thing in the field more broadly, or do you think it’s something about this particular group that brings it out?”

4. Recruiters reformat my resume

My type of job openings (technical writer) often go through a recruiter – they find my resume online and contact me about openings that might not be advertised. This is fine. However, the recruiters want my resume in Word format so they can “reformat” it. This is fine, too. But at a recent interview I noticed that the version of my resume that was given to the interviewers by the recruiter omitted the URL of the website where I store my work samples. (Oversight? Intentional? What else gets left out?) Interviewers seem surprised at this, and I always give them my version (which I bring copies of with me). Am I committing some terrible faux pas? I never tell the recruiters that I’m doing this, they probably would not approve and I don’t want to alienate them. What do you think? (Oh, I didn’t get the job anyway but I keep plugging away.)

Nope, you can keep doing that. Recruiters will sometimes reformat your resume to add their logo and/or remove your contact info, because they want the company to send all contacts through them. (This isn’t as shady as it sounds; they’re trying to avoid people circumventing paying their fee.) But some recruiters will also redo your resume to make it “better,” and their idea of “better” isn’t always great.

It’s fine to keep bringing your own copies of your resume with you and handing it to your interviewer, and many interviewers will appreciate that. It’s also okay to ask your recruiter about it if you notice that the version they sent the employer is missing key information.

5. Someone I used to manage is asking about a new job with me, and I know I won’t hire them

I am currently hiring for a position and was recently contacted by someone from my previous company that I hired and managed. They are interested in this open role but they don’t know that I am the hiring manager (the role I’m hiring for is in a different office than where I’m based). The issue is that I really struggled with this former employee. They took a long time to train and never fully grasped the aspects and tasks that the job required. When I left my former company, this employee still needed a lot of hand holding despite being on the job for 6+ months at that time. I’ve made inquiries but it appears this former employee has not made much improvement in the time since I’ve left. Coupled with the fact that I will have to manage this hire remotely, I have no interest in hiring them.

Since they do not know I am the hiring manager, the original email asked only for information on the company and role. How can I delicately handle this situation? I don’t want to be too blunt but I also don’t want to lie. Should I just ignore the email (even though my gut instinct is that would be rude)?

Don’t ignore the email; because you know this person, that would indeed be rude. Instead, answer the questions (be brief) but don’t falsely encourage them. If they’re clearly not a match in some specific way you’re comfortable sharing, it’s fine to say, “In the interest of transparency, I want to tell you that we’re looking for someone with more experience in X, so I don’t think that this would be the right match.” But if there’s not a quick and easy explanation you can give, it’s also fine to just say something non-commital like, “If you think the match might be right, I’d be glad to take a look at your application (I’m the hiring manager for this job).”

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

1. My boss gave all the women at work flowers for Mother’s Day

I was hoping you could give your opinion on a situation that recently arose at work. I work part-time in a retail setting. My manager, we’ll call him Fergus, can be seen as a little nit-picky or overbearing, but he is generally a nice person and we get along well. Today, for Mother’s Day, he brought in a whole bunch of roses and was giving them to all the women at work. I’m not sure if he only gave them to the mothers or not—he did give one to me, and made a nice comment about how even though I am not a mother, I am still a wonderful woman and he knows that should I ever choose to have kids I would be a great mother, but I’m not sure if he did that for the other childless women or not.

Personally, I thought this was a really nice gesture that Fergus didn’t have to do. However, some of my coworkers were saying that it was overbearing, inappropriate, and sexist. I feel as though because they think Fergus is overbearing to begin with, they are seeing this gift in a negative way when it really seems to be just a nice thought. What do you think?

I shuddered a little when reading this — it’s really inappropriate. Lots of women would find this over-stepping, patronizing, inappropriate, and sexist. There’s an implication there that motherhood is a calling everyone should aspire to, and it’s awfully thoughtless toward people who may be struggling with infertility, or who recently miscarried, or who may have zero interest in having kids and don’t appreciate society treating them as if child-bearing should be their default, or who just don’t want their boss treating them in a gendered way. It’s just … ick.

And I’m betting that he’s not planning to give flowers to all the men in the office on Father’s Day — not that that would make this okay either, since it would still be overstepping and bringing gender into the office in a weird way — but I bet that he’s not, and that might make the sexism piece of this clearer.

2. I was demoted because my employee killed someone

Is it common for a manager to be demoted over the actions of one of their reports, when they had no knowledge or control over what happened? Two of my reports and some of their colleagues were sent to an out-of-state conference by our company. I was not asked to go since I was attending a trade show somewhere else. There was an incident with one of my reports at the conference. After things had wrapped up for the night, my report used illegal drugs, left the hotel, caused the death of a random individual, and was found with no clothes. My report has been charged with murder.

I did not hire them (they were on the team when I was hired to replace their retiring manager), did not know they used illegal drugs (I have never seen them impaired), and was not at the conference, but I was demoted to a non-management job over what happened. My (former) boss, HR, and the company say they had to do it to send a message. The person who hired my report and the managers who were at the conference were not demoted or written up like I was. I have been told the demotion is non-negotiable and to stop trying to fight it. My (former) boss says it is common for managers to be demoted when someone they manage does something wrong or troublesome to the company. I understand the company is embarrassed and is facing backlash over this but I had nothing to do with it. Is it really common for managers to get demoted over things they had no control over? I would appreciate any thoughts you might have. The demotion comes with a big title loss and pay cut. I am still reeling and my heart goes out to the victim. I had no idea what my report would do.

It sounds like they demoted you in an effort to show that they’re “doing something” about what happened. Demoting you doesn’t sound like it does actually do anything about what happened, so it’s for show, not for any reason of substance. (Assuming, of course, that you didn’t ignore previous signs of trouble with that employee.) It’s not uncommon for companies to want to play to public perceptions when something goes terribly wrong, although it’s pretty awful when they do something like this rather than taking a real look at whether they played any role in what happened and, if so, taking real responsibility that (if they had any — it’s not clear that anyone at your company was negligent here, other than the employee themselves).

Because they’ve told you this is non-negotiable and to stop fighting it, I’d say your best bet here is to work on moving on from this company, where you’re not only being treated unfairly but are likely to be held back from any future professional mobility because of this awful situation.

3. I was told to take PTO for time working from home

I’m not sure how to process the following mess. My sole job is to carefully read nuanced documents and write deeply analytical reports. It requires a lot of concentration and deep thought. At the same time, I share a small office space with two other people who love to have social conversations. A few weeks ago, they had a one-hour social conversation on a wide range of topics (babies, houses, pets). After 20 minutes, I indicated that I was trying to concentrate and they thought they solved the issue by ducking behind some walls, but you could still hear the loud talk and laughter. My nerves were so shot after an hour, I decided to go home and work there.

When I told HR I left because of the noise and that I had a super productive time working from home, they told me I had to use vacation time for my time out of the office. I complied with their instructions. But now I’m upset. So if I sit in the office and get no work done that is fine, but if I leave so I can actually get work done I have to use vacation time? That seems ridiculous and unfair. How should I feel about this and what, if anything, should I do?

You shouldn’t have to use vacation time for time you spent working at home. However, it sounds like you’re in an office where it might not be common for people in your role to work from home, or at least where you’re expected to get permission before doing it. (I’m surmising this based on the fact that you talked to HR about it afterwards, since this isn’t something that HR would normally be notified about.) I’d talk to your manager, not HR, and explain why you worked from home that day; say that since you were working, you don’t think the time should be charged to your PTO; and ask whether working from home is an option in the future when noise is making you unable to concentrate in the way your job requires. (If it’s not, you might look into noise-canceling headphones or ask about a quieter space, even if just means borrowing an empty conference room.)

4. I haven’t heard back about my raise request

Last week, I sat down with my immediate supervisor and requested an increase in my compensation. I’ve been with this company a little over a year, and have received one wage increase at my 90-day mark. So, it’s been a little over a year since I’ve had a salary adjustment . Since then, I’ve become a valuable member of my team (at times the only member!), have increased my output, get consistently great feedback from customers and coworkers, and am seem as dependable and capable. My supervisor was very receptive and said she felt like an increase was “absolutely deserved.” Of course, she had to speak with two other bosses to get it approved, so she let me know she would speak to them and get back to me soon.

Tomorrow will be one week since our meeting. I have not heard back about my request. All of the people that need to approve this have been in the office and it’s business as usual. Should I follow up? I don’t want to follow up too soon, but also don’t want to wait forever. Am I just being impatient?

I admit, I spent so much time anxiously preparing to ask for the raise that I hadn’t considered needing to follow up on it! And it’s very disheartening to feel like I need to remind my boss about this. I would really appreciate your advice.

One week actually isn’t that long; it wouldn’t be odd for it to take longer than that. So don’t get disheartened yet! But it would be fine to bring it up and say, “I know you were planning to check on approval for a raise for me. Is there any update you can share on that?” If there’s no update yet, plan to ask about it again in two to three weeks. If there’s no update at that point, then you can say, “Can you give me a sense of what timeline to expect?” And if it really drags on, it’s fair to ask for the raise to apply retroactively to when your boss first approved it.

5. I never heard back after my internship interview

After applying for my dream internship, I was scheduled for a preliminary interview over coffee with the first of two planned interns who I would be working side by side with. I nailed the interview and was told obstacles moving forward would be my schedule and start date, but they would reach back out by the end of the week to schedule a second interview with the department head. Which never happened! I followed up after a week via text (his preferred method). After no response, I waited another week and followed up again. I still have not heard anything back after a total of six weeks.

Normally I would just assume that they decided to go another direction, but the curious thing is that the job posting is still up and was up for about a mouth before I applied. Over 12 weeks to fill an internship position seems very long, especially considering this company is now at the start of the busy season. However, I also know they are in the midst of filling about 15 positions, many with multiple part-time workers filling them. Perhaps they are just swamped with candidates to vet and interview. Should I even bother reaching back out or is it time to call it quits?

It’s time to move on. They know that you’re interested because you interviewed and checked back with them twice. If they want to move forward with you, they’ll get in touch — but for now, assume that they’ve decided to focus on other candidates instead.

They told you that your scheduled and desired start date would be obstacles, so it’s likely that they decided those were prohibitive — or just that they found other strong candidates who didn’t have those obstacles. They should have contacted you to formally reject you, but lots of companies don’t bother to do that (which is rude, but also very much the reality of job searching).