Ask a Manager

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

1. If you’re a successful gamer, should it go on your resume?

My son is in college and needs to find a job while he’s home for the summer. He hasn’t had much luck so far, and his experience is limited to stocking shelves at a grocery store for two years, and some volunteer work. He didn’t work at all last summer — I had surgery and was out of commission for quite a few weeks, so he took care of me, the yard, the laundry, shopping, etc. (It’s just the two of us.)

This spring break, he went on a trip that I didn’t know he could afford so I asked him where the money was coming from, and he told me that he had earned it through online gaming. I knew he had done this once in the past, but I didn’t understand he was still doing it, and that it had added up to thousands of dollars. Through skill or luck, you can earn things like weapons for playing, and the ownership of them is transferable, so they can be sold. As best I can tell, it’s legal.

Should this go on his resume? Would it help him find a job, or turn people off? It’s unusual, but would maybe be looked at as entrepreneurial? If he should add it, how should he list it?

Leave it off. Most people seeing that on a resume are going to think “how is this relevant to the job you’re applying for?” and a lot of them will judge him for including it, unless he can really spell out in concrete and credible terms how the skills transfer … and even then he’d encounter a lot of skepticism.

Related:
can I put World of Warcraft leadership experience on my resume?

2. Complaining to a manager after an employee corrects you about her gender

Was my sister-in-law wrong to complain to someone’s manager?

While I was visiting my sister-in-law, she asked my opinion on a situation she recently encountered. She was calling a customer service line and the person on the phone sounded male so when they asked if they could put my SIL on hold, she responded, “Yes sir” (she’s southern) The rep responded with, “I identify as female, please address me as such,” then placed my SIL on hold.

My SIL was incensed by this and send a nasty email to the customer service manager about how the behavior was rude and the rep made my SIL feel as if she had committed a cardinal sin, but my SIL had no way of knowing their gender other than by their voice because they were on the phone.

My response was that if the rep had said “my name is X,” then you should address them as X and not use sir or ma’am. Am I missing something?

Whether to address someone by their name or by ma’am/sir or by nothing at all is deeply cultural/regional.

But if you use gendered greetings like “ma’am” and “sir” (like much of the American south does reflexively), then occasionally you might get someone’s gender wrong and you should handle a correction politely. Sending an angry email to complain was out-of-line; even if the rep sounded irritated, it didn’t warrant a complaint to the manager. Any chance your sister-in-law is responding to something other than what happened … like is she affronted by issues around gender identity more broadly?

3. Our director left while my coworker was on vacation

I have a colleague who left for a long vacation in their home country (five weeks). In the middle of her vacation, my former director announced that he would be leaving, did his two weeks, and has now left. I was previously a peer to the colleague and now I am the acting director. My colleague is a very anxious person and I think she will feel really troubled by coming back to him having left and me being in charge. My former director has an office in town near the colleagues house in a workspace/coffeeshop-type place. Do you think we should aim for her first day back to meet there so he can break the news himself?

I really want her to have a smooth transition back after such a long time away and I don’t want her to be overwhelmed by the changes. She really likes and trusts our old director and I think she would ultimately be okay with me being the acting director, but I think the whole thing will come as a shock! She is back on Monday. Any advice?

I think asking her to meet at a coffeeshop before coming in risks setting off her anxiety on its own. And it’s too much to ask your former director, who doesn’t work there anymore, to do a Monday morning meeting at his old job just to break the news to someone delicately. That’s just … a lot of handling of someone else’s feelings for them.

Just share the news with her once she’s back and figure she’ll be surprised and need some time to process, and she’ll handle that however she handles it. Otherwise I would worry about (a) signaling to her that it’s a bigger deal than it is by setting up a special off-site meeting just for her, and (b) the precedent you’d set by trying to manage her feelings to that extent about a fairly normal workplace change.

4. “Free” company gifts that aren’t free

This is a very low-stakes, probably no-stakes question that seems unlikely to come up, but I’d like to get your take.

I started a fully remote job this week. One of my orientation tasks was to pick some standard starter items (branded notebook, water bottle, etc.) from the company’s online store, which are free and will be shipped to me for free.

New employees also get a $20 credit toward anything else in the company store. It’s a very expansive store with everything from golf tees and fridge magnets to high-end jackets and camping gear, all covered in the company logo. We also “partner” with an NFL team, so there’s some pretty cool co-branded stuff too.

However, with the exception of, like, some stickers, nothing in the store is under $20. AND shipping is $8, minimum. AND you can’t bundle your “gift” with the mandatory items. So unless you’re so into free stuff that you want $12 of bland logo stickers, this “gift” is effectively a way for employees to pay to advertise for their employer.

I realize this is pretty common practice and barely even registers on the scale of corporate grossness, so my solution is to just not buy anything and forget about it. But if someone (my boss, who probably has to promote this “perk,” or the marketing department, who almost certainly has to budget for it) asks why I haven’t used my credit, is there a tactful, professional way to say “This is icky” or should I stick to some fluff about not needing another t-shirt?

Yeah, that’s poorly thought-out!

I doubt your boss will even notice, let alone ask you about it if you don’t order anything. But if it does come up, as a new employee I wouldn’t get into it; just go with, “Oh, I’m trying to have less stuff around” or something similarly bland. However, once you’ve been there longer and have accumulated more capital, feel free to point out to whoever manages this stuff that there’s no way to use the credit without dropping a bunch of cash along with it. They might be well aware of that and fine with it — who knows, maybe a bunch of employees love the company-branded hoodies and so the credit is super popular — but it’s reasonable to point out once you’ve been there longer.

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

1. Is the kiss emoji appropriate at work?

This is a low-stakes question, but I keep wondering: Is the kiss emoji 😘 ever appropriate in work communication?

Most of our team are in our thirties and forties. Our work environment is fairly informal — few emails, but lots of Slack messages, so of course emojis are everywhere. I enjoy using them, we even have silly traditions among coworkers. (Think: one of them writes that a famous llama groomer from France will be visiting next week, and instead of 👍🏼 or ✅, people will react with 🥖 and 🍷.)

It’s a lighthearted way of joking around, but for some reason, when people use the kiss emoji, it rubs me the wrong way. I helped a coworker out with something the other day and they wrote back, “Thank you so much! 😘” I like them well enough, but this felt odd. A different coworker recently put a kiss emoji underneath a Slack post in which one of our grandbosses announced a small perk (think additional parking spaces for our team in the company lot).

Obviously I would never say something, I’m not the emoji police. But just so I know whether my gut feeling is right or I‘m being overly literal: This is weird, right?

You’re taking it too literally. People aren’t using it to mean “imagine me kissing you.” They’re using it to mean “you’re awesome” or “this is great” or “I like this.” I can see why you’d be weirded out by it if you considered it in a vacuum … but you’ve got to take it in the cultural context, where it’s just a more effusive version of the thumbs-up.

To put it in much more old-fashioned terms, think of opening a letter with “dear” — you’re not really saying the stranger you are writing to is dear to you. Language, and now emojis, evolve in strange, non-literal ways.

(Only slightly related to this, I recently came across this old post and what.)

2. I misspelled the company’s name throughout my cover letter

I spent the last hour putting together a detailed cover letter and tailored resume for a job that I thought was a great fit for my skill set. Right after sending it, I realized that I’d consistently misspelled the name of the company throughout my application materials. To give myself a little credit, it is a kind of weird name, and my brain is pretty fried with applications, so somehow I didn’t notice the error in the many times I proofread my materials and checked them against the job description. Of course I noticed right after sending instead, and now I can’t stop cringing.

This is a fatal error and I should just write off the possibility I’ll ever hear from this job, right?

Well … it doesn’t look great. If it’s a job where attention to detail is important, it’s probably going to take you out of the running, or at least move you down the list. That said, it’s not going to put you on a do-not-hire list there or anything like that, and you can try again in the future without it being held against you.

3. My job wants me to find coverage after I quit

I put in my two weeks at work (food service job) because I’m going to be moving for the summer. After I did, I got an email back from my manager saying I needed to find someone to cover my shifts for the week after I quit because they’re “going to be really busy.” Are they allowed to do that? Isn’t that their responsibility?

I’m literally going to be moving and I don’t want to deal with the stress of finding someone to cover me for a whole week after I QUIT.

Haha, nice try, manager. They can propose anything they want — they can ask you to find coverage for the entire next year if they want to — but they have no way to make you comply.

I suspect what you’re worried about is less “can they make me do this?” (they can’t) and more “will I be violating some kind of professional convention if I refuse?” And the answer to that is also no. Finding coverage for after you’re gone is not your responsibility. (To be clear, if they want you to spend some of your time on-the-clock searching for shift coverage for dates after you’ll be gone, they can assign that as a work task. But it sounds like they’re expecting you to do it on your own time and … no.)

Respond with, “That’s not something I can do, but you can certainly schedule me through the 24th” (or whatever your last day is).

4. My friend applied for a job reporting to me and I don’t want to hire her

I’ve recently accepted a new job where I’ll have a small team reporting to me. I’m due to start next week. The organization is growing and this week my boss advertised a role that I’ll take over the hiring for once I start, and that will report to me.

Not knowing this role reported to me, a close friend of mine applied for it. She sent me a message saying she was applying at (company) and it was only when she told me the job I knew it was the one in my team.

The problem is, I don’t want to hire her. I’ve worked with her before — it’s actually how we know each other — and she’s a good worker. She gets stuff done, is pragmatic, and people tend to enjoy working with her. She’s also incredibly emotional, has very few boundaries, and has struggled a lot over the years with work stress, which I think is often created because of those boundary issues. While we used to share a lot of “work chat,” like sending funny memes or venting about our bosses, since we last worked together (~2 years ago) I’ve really worked on myself to have a better experience at work. I got a promotion into people leadership and had a massive perspective change about what it means to be the boss, having so much more appreciation for what my ex-bosses would have likely been struggling with. I’m excited to go into this new company with that perspective change and am actively trying to stop the cynical humor that I used to think was just a bit of a laugh, and I now see can sometimes be uncomfortable for colleagues. The old memes don’t really resonate anymore, but she sends them still. And to be honest, I don’t want someone reporting to me who complains about their job all day long. How should I handle this?

A talent acquisition team will do first round screening, and I’m concerned she’ll ask me why I didn’t tell them I want her to interview.

Even without the issues with her work style, it’s smarter not to manage a close friend. Would you be comfortable being up-front with her about that? You could say, “I know you do great work, but I don’t feel equipped to manage a close friend, and I especially don’t feel comfortable hiring a friend as one of my first moves there.”

If you don’t think she’ll get it, it could be easier to simply explain that the applicant pool was highly competitive and a lot of really qualified people didn’t get interviews. (It’s also quite reasonable that you wouldn’t want one of your first moves to be overruling the talent team to secure an interview for a friend.)

5. I’m grossed out by our potlucks

Our director has made potlucks an office tradition. The last one we had, I found multiple dishes with hair in them. I’m choosing not to participate in the next one and not consuming any dishes. I’m bringing my own lunch. Am I wrong?

No.

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

1. My company won’t do anything about our horrible coworker

I have a very problematic coworker, Alex, but everyone, including HR, seem to be unable to fire them. And when I say problematic, I mean it. Earlier this year Alex outed me at work as gay (that’s a whole other letter), lied about another coworker sexually harassing me and minors (which I promise never happened), tried to get our managers fired, has been actively scuttling interviews with possible new hires when we are understaffed, gets into heated debates in public discussing confidential information (we’re customer-facing most of the time) while withholding that same info from those that need it, and lots of other smaller things. And that’s what I am aware of.

Recently Alex has begun an attempt to try and oust our department head because they claim the department head “doesn’t listen to them.” Besides the obvious reasons above that our department head has for taking everything Alex says with a grain of salt, our department head has talked to HR about it and they are trying to work with Alex to make them feel heard.

I fully accept Alex might be on a PIP and I wouldn’t know, but I doubt it. They continue to terrorize most of the staff with no known consequences. I’ve been told our workplace rarely, if ever, fires people (which is yet another letter), but I feel like we’re at that “rarely” point. But every time I talk to my boss, HR, or department head, they are all very reluctant to act. And it’s not that they don’t know the issue or share my feelings. One of them nearly cried to me due to how frustrated they were.

I just want Alex to stop terrorizing all of us. I work closely with Alex and know they have struggles and issues and I am sympathetic, but I feel like they’re using it as an excuse to make everyone else’s life also miserable. Ideally Alex could reform, but they have burned so much I think they would have to become someone entirely different for everyone to keep effectively working with them. It might be best for everyone if they were let go.

I know it is wishful thinking, but I was wondering if you had any ideas I could try to get something to change or be less stuck in this spot of frustration? Like can I bring up that Alex outed me again? (It was never handled because it was tied up with the accusations of the other coworker but that all got dropped when that person left as they had another job all set and was out the door before Alex started that circus). Should I as a subordinate bring up my concern about Alex’s attack on our department head? Or maybe something else you can see from what I wrote that I can’t.

What I see is that the problem isn’t Alex. Or rather, they aren’t the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that your management is aware of all the problems with Alex and is choosing not to act. Whether that’s from wimpiness or incompetence, I can’t say (although they’re really the same thing here). But they’re not doing their jobs and they’re letting the rest of you continue to suffer under Alex’s reign of terror. Alex has done so many fireable things at this point that not acting is a deliberate choice your management is making. They’re the problem.

I’m deeply skeptical that there’s any magical argument you can make that will get them to act when they’ve declined to so far. If the rest of you make such a stink that it becomes more painful to keep ignoring you than it is to deal with Alex, maybe that might move things along. But I’d rather you go somewhere that functions with a bare minimum level of managerial competence instead.

2. Eating tiny lunches in a group

I usually eat a very small breakfast and lunch, with a large dinner. This is just how my body has always worked. Often this might look like one buttered slice of bread for breakfast, a protein bar for lunch, then something like a large lasagne for dinner.

My office often has impromptu “team lunches” where we all kind of gravitate together at 1 pm. I get comments about my meagre portions and I honestly feel a bit out of place eating a single bar while my teammate is having beautiful homemade chicken risotto.

This extends to official company-paid work lunches, where I order $5 appetizers while others are ordering $50 steaks, which really feels quite awkward. I’m often encouraged to order the more expensive or larger items on the menu, even after explaining my eating preferences, and receive significant side eye as I slowly nibble on my salad.

Is it bad optics to eat cheap or small lunches in a group? Or are others being weird about my food habits? I’m worried I might be coming across as a cheapskate or appearing to be hiding an eating disorder.

In theory, what you eat at a group lunch is no one else’s business, and no one should have feelings about it in any way. In reality, in some contexts it’s something people will notice and which might feel out of place. That doesn’t mean you should change what you’re doing, though.

The impromptu team lunches where you’re all gathering with your own food are fine. Bring your protein bar, explain that’s what you like for lunch, and give it no further thought. But when it’s a more official, company-paid lunch where other people are ordering $50 steaks and you’re having a small side salad … it’s still no one’s business, but it’s likely to come up. Mostly that’s because people will worry you’re eating a side salad because there’s nothing else suitable for you and they’ll want to ensure you’re getting taken care of. It can also look a little … well, not like you’re rejecting the company’s hospitality because it’s not that, but something in that neighborhood? That’s wrong-headed, but so many social customs and rituals are connected to food that it’s something to be aware of.

That does not mean that you need to eat food you don’t want. You don’t! And people will get used to it over time. But realistically, yes, it may stand out as noticeably different from the norm. You may or may not care about that; you’re not required to. But if you do, one option is to order a reasonably palatable entree and take most of it home with you to eat later (or just use the time-honored practice of pushing it around on your plate while not eating much of it).

3. Boss wants us to share our availability but doesn’t share his own

A year or so ago, my manager said our team could work from home one day a week. He also wanted us to communicate that day on our team’s shared calendar. My manager, however, does not follow these same rules. He works from home whenever he wants to, without consistently communicating this to my coworker and me on the shared calendar. My coworker and I also post doctor’s appointments on the calendar but my manager does not.

Our manager is sometimes needed to help with issues in-person and we never know if he will be available or not. This is especially frustrating if we are short-staffed. Consequently, my coworker and I have both experienced growing resentment and frustration. Do you think we should bring this issue up to our manager in-person and how should we discuss this?

Yes, as long as you can tie it to clear work impacts, rather than just the double standard. (The double standard is a legitimate thing to resent. It’s just not likely to go over well with your boss.)

You could frame it as, “Would it be possible for you to note on the shared calendar when you’ll be out for appointments or working from home? We’re finding that we don’t always know if you’re available when we need you — for example, yesterday with X and last week with Y.”

4. I’m worried my old abuser will harass me at work

I work in a government office for an appointed official. A lot of my work deals with external partners, many of whom have to reach out to us first, so my contact information has to remain publicly available. I love my job more than anything I’ve done previously. It’s fulfilling, meaningful, and interesting.

I’m also a survivor of child abuse. I cut off my abuser from all contact for many years, did a lot of therapy, and am in a much better place now. In those years, my abuser tried to contact me through multiple routes, including inappropriate ones, but I was able to either block those routes (particularly when I was self-employed) or keep my contact information from being publicly available.

Recently, a meddling family member gave my abuser my phone number. Predictably, this resulted in him trying to reach me every few days or so for months. I finally called him back in the hopes that that would stop the calls but they’re still coming, only with slightly less frequency. I’m concerned that if I don’t call him again, my abuser will now find my publicly available contact information and use it inappropriately.

How do you suggest I prepare my office for this possibility while still maintaining the availability I need to have? I don’t want to have to share my painful past with anyone who might screen calls (the responsibility rotates depending on who’s in meetings or not) or with an HR department that is at a different location and who I don’t totally trust based on experience. At least I have no concern that my abuser will show up at my office since he lives hundreds of miles away and is currently disabled, but getting calls, emails, and website forms from him repeatedly would be hard on me and my understaffed office.

You can share that someone is harassing you without sharing details beyond that. You can simply say that a “difficult family member”/“unhinged family member”/“past stalker” (whatever feels most comfortable to you; they all sound accurate) has recently been making unwelcome and aggressive contact, you’re concerned he might use your work contact info at some point, and if that happens you’d like them to ___. Fill in the blank with whatever keeps you safest and most comfortable. That might be always saying you’re unavailable, sending all his calls to a specific voice mailbox (that you don’t need to check), deleting his messages without forwarding them on to you, or whatever you decide on.

I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this.

5. Work won’t pay for our travel to a weekend location

I work at a small nonprofit and everyone on staff is being asked to work a couple of weekends each during the next few months at an off-site location that can only be accessed by ferry. They will not be covering the cost of travel, which makes it especially difficult for some of us who will have to drive or take public transportation over extremely long distances to reach even the ferry departure point.

In return for working these offsite weekend days, we will have the chance to take a day off on one of our work-from-home days (we are a hybrid office), but only if our workloads permit (invariably, they will not).

I think it is legal in my state for a company as small as ours not to cover travel costs. But it feels incredibly unfair to require us to work these weekends at a location so inaccessible. Is there anything the staff can do to make this a better situation?

You can all push back as a group! A group of you complaining is more effective than just one person’s voice. As a group, tell your management that the organization needs to cover the costs of doing the offsite work, rather than pushing those costs onto its employees. Frame it just like that — that these are their expenses, not yours. If they decline, say none of you are able to afford the cost of travel so you’ll need another option for getting to the location. Again, there’s power in numbers. One person saying that would be sticking their neck out; a group of you saying it has more protection.

While you’re at it, push for actual comp time, not “you can take an extra day only if your workload allows it.” (Although if any of you are non-exempt, they’re legally required to pay you overtime — meaning time and a half — for those additional hours if it takes you over 40 hours that week.)

And I’m just gonna leave this here.