Ask a Manager

It’s four answers to four questions. Well, three questions and one story. Here we go…

1. My employee keeps venting to me about his divorce

I manage a team of 20. I have two supervisors on my team and one is going through a divorce. He (male, 55) calls me (female, 33) constantly wanting to vent, and he sends me long-winded emails telling me how great a manager I am and how much he feels valued and appreciated. It’s gotten uncomfortable. I try to redirect conversations and only keep them about work because he will consume my time and end up telling me all about his wife and their troubles. I don’t want to hear about it, it’s a waste of my work day, and I’m not his therapist. He often asks for advice and what I would do in a relationship, which I try to deflect.

I don’t want to be mean and I try to support everyone on my team, often letting staff cry in my office when they are going through a tough time (death in the family, difficult customer, project failures, etc.) but he is draining, I feel like he’s crossing boundaries, and honestly the guy has an unhealthy crush. He’ll call multiple times a day asking if he can vent about his wife! He even started texting me after hours! I never respond to the texts and only halfheartedly say things like “that sounds tough, I’m sorry you’re going through this.” How do I professionally let him know that I’m not his sounding board without damaging the professional relationship I need to maintain?

“I know you’re going through a tough time, but since I need to be your manager I’ve realized I can’t be your sounding board about this. I need to keep our conversations focused on our work.”

And then if he keeps bringing it up after that: “I’m sorry to interject, but I’ve got to keep my manager hat on here so we can’t delve into this. But I did want to ask you about (work topic).”

You might feel awkward saying this — it’s inherently a bit of an awkward message to deliver! But the only way to address it is by saying it and getting it out there … and it’s in his best interests to have you clearly set that boundary before he goes even further with it.

Also — keep in mind he might be waylaying other colleagues with this as well (especially female ones, if he’s the type of guy who sees every woman as a potential therapist) and keep an eye out for that too.

2. Trust-building activities that actually work?

My fully remote department is about to have its first-ever in-person retreat. The pandemic has been a roller coaster for my team in many ways (high burnout and turnover, abrupt changes in leadership, crises of values/mission, etc.), and our department lead has asked us for suggestions for activities. I am hopeful that this might be an opportunity to restore trust, build comraderie, and create a more sustainable foundation moving forward. However, I am well aware that many team-building or trust-building exercises are ineffective, invasive, or inappropriate (having read as much from others who have written in over the years), and would like to avoid that. Do you or other readers have any suggestions for trust-building activities (or other types of team-focused exercises) that actually work?

I honestly don’t think they do. Trust-building exercises won’t fix the damage from the sorts of things you describe; your organization needs to address the core issues themselves. Even in companies without those kinds of deep-rooted problems, the only real way to build cohesion and morale is by creating a positive, cooperative culture year-round, not just for the duration of a team-building event. In fact, when companies try to use these events as a substitute for more meaningful work, they can end up lowering morale instead.

One thing you might try instead is using some of the retreat time to listen to what people think is needed to move forward in a more sustainable way, and coming up with actionable steps from that. (But if realistically nothing will change as a result of that, doing it is likely to add to the existing problems by just increasing people’s cynicism.)

3. Should I ask interviewers if they have internal candidates?

I’ve seen some viral posts on social media advising job candidates to ask interviewers whether they’re considering any internal candidates. The idea is to have a more realistic idea of your chances, or possibly to know whether you should emphasize traits an internal candidate might not have. Do you think this question is a good idea? It’s definitely tempting, but I don’t know if hiring managers would appreciate it.

Most of the time it won’t tell you much. Sometimes there are internal candidates who have no chance of being hired (see yesterday’s letter about that). Sometimes there are solid internal candidates but the company wants to hire someone external with a fresh perspective, or they’re committed to hiring the best person regardless of whether they’re internal or external. So the answer won’t really tell you much about your chances, even though a lot of candidates are convinced it will.

4. A cautionary tale about using your internet username on a resume

A humorous horror story and healthy reminder to never use your personal username/email on anything related to your professional persona:

A few years back, I had a friend who made an impressive amount of money through her side hustle of making custom Funko Pop toys. She was very good — people got Pops of themselves to use as wedding cake toppers, of their favorite characters from old shows, of people they knew to give as gifts, etc. It took up all her free time, so if I wanted to hang out with her, it made sense for me to learn to make some, too.

To make them, you pick the head and body that most closely resemble the character you’re building (typically two different Pops), boil the dolls to soften the rubber, pull their heads off, swap them, cut off unwanted parts with a heated knife, sculpt new accessories in clay and attach, and then paint the whole thing. Kinda cool. I did three sets before I lost interest, and saved the photos in some Picasa-style online album (not a social media site) so I could show other people.

Fast forward to this year, and I was making some new business cards for an upcoming conference. I’ve always used the same email address and username for everything and it’s never been a problem. I’ve googled the email address to make sure that nothing bad came up, and it was always fine. But this time, I decided to google just the first part of the address (the part before the @) just to make sure.

There, on the top of page 1: doll parts. Vats of boiling dolls. Dolls with their heads ripped off. Dolls getting body parts chopped off with hot knives. Tubs of dismembered doll parts that had been cut off but saved, just in case they fit the need of a future custom. I looked like a full-blown psychopath.

I wasn’t in the photos, and it was my friend’s home instead of mine, but the username is distinct enough that there could be no mistaking whose account it was. The photos have all long since been deleted and I had thought they were all set to private, but the internet has a long and pervasive memory. I guess they’re going to stay on Google indefinitely, despite the files not actually being hosted on the site anymore. I have to wonder, now, how many hiring managers took one look at that and decided to file my resume directly into the trash.

So let this be a reminder to all: select a unique username for all your weird hobbies, and make sure no part of it (no matter how small) is re-used in your email or on your resume!

Oh noooooo. Consider the reminder issued.

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

1. My predecessor keeps taking over the event that’s supposed to honor my work

I’m in year 2 of being a support clerk with my city’s planning office. Every year we celebrate the huge numbers of applications we’ve processed. The very extroverted person who held the position before me created the role from scratch and was very effective. Therefore, she has been invited two years in a row to attend our celebration dinner. The problem is that she takes over the dinner and praises all of her past work accomplishments and very little, if any, space is left for me to be given credit for the work I’ve done keeping everyone on track since (which includes modernizing all of her paper-based processes). Trying to speak up for myself at this event or prior seems like being petty as she’s retired and was a staff favorite. Am I just being a small person here? Could this mean I’m not as effective as I think in my job and should just suck it up and accept that this party will forever be a downer and leave me questioning my value there?

I wouldn’t take this as any indicator of your own performance; it sounds like it’s about her, not about you — and she’s being allowed to run roughshod over you, possibly because of the strength of her personality or possibly because people are just happy to see her and aren’t thinking too deeply about it beyond that. (It’s also possible that a third year of this will start to seem strange to people, who knows.)

Can you take some control of the agenda ahead of time? Approach your boss or whoever organizes the event with a list of the program’s achievements that you want to make sure are recognized at the event (you can call them “the program’s achievements” even if they’re all yours; there’s an event being held to celebrate the work, so it’s completely normal to frame it that way). Frankly, if you have decent rapport with your boss, you could also say, “The last two years, Jane ended up running the presentation and focused on the work she did while she was still here. Since we have two years of new accomplishments to talk about now, I’d like to propose we do X this year.” (X could be you running the event, having a set list of speakers that doesn’t include a long-gone employee, having a slideshow focused on this year’s achievements, or anything else you think would work well.)

And ideally someone would be ready to intercept Jane if she does try to take things over and/or to tell her in advance that the program for the night will be X and the org will be hosting her as a guest but not a speaker since the focus will be on more recent work. Arranging that would require a pretty candid conversation with your boss, but if you have the kind of relationship with that allows for that, it’s a very reasonable thing to raise. It’s not petty in the least to point out that the event should honor the team’s current work.

2. My team lead spends hours venting to us — but tells our boss he’s training us

After being at my job for one year, things have started to go sideways. I recently rotated to a new team with a different team lead, Henry. Henry will video call me without notice and without asking if I’m free to chat. He is an absolute chatterbox! One of these unscheduled video calls will last around 30 minutes to an hour, usually multiple times a day. The meetings turn into a vent session for Henry while I sit there quietly until he stops talking.

We bill our clients and set a budget before we start an assignment, but with these unscheduled, long, irrelevant meetings, my work has been severely affected. Unfortunately, Henry “cold calls” each of us on the team (there are 3 of us) and our budget is severely dwindling.

Due to the budget problems, Henry mentioned to my manager that the reason the assignment is taking so long is because “there are three new people on this team who ask a lot of questions.” I feel like Henry is completely throwing the team under the bus and not realizing that his ineffective meetings are part of the problem. My manager is unaware that Henry is conducting these calls to each of us. The other two people on my team are new as well and we are afraid to mention something to our manager. Should we say something or are we overreacting?

Whoa, no, speak up! Frankly, you should talk to your manager about Henry’s calls even if he weren’t throwing you under the bus, simply because they’re so numerous and distracting. But with him claiming the budget shortages are due to your training needs, you really need to say something. (And if you’re worried about being believed, your manager probably already knows Henry is a talker and it’s likely to ring true.)

You could say, “I feel awkward raising this but Henry calls so regularly to chat — usually multiple times a day, for up to an hour each time — that it’s significantly slowing down my progress on the X project. These calls aren’t for training or to answer questions, and we don’t accomplish any work during them. I can see how much it’s slowing down our work, but I haven’t been sure of how to handle it.”

3. Hiring externally when staff expect an internal hire

I am in charge of youth services and have one direct report, who has been here since before I was hired but will soon be moving on. This means I will need to hire for the first time since starting. After working for a number of years with a youth services assistant who has no experience working with children (and has frankly stated that they don’t like kids), I have a clear idea of the experience I’m looking for in a new hire and how I’d like the position to evolve, both of which will be the biggest factors when I interview.

My organization has a very strong culture of promoting within — in the six years since I started, the only external hires in my department have been for part-time entry-level jobs and a position that requires a specialized degree. The general rule is that if someone within the department is interested in an open position, they get the first opportunity to apply and interview before we open to external hires, which makes sense most of the time and almost always results in an internal hire. My issue is that there is no one in my department who has the skills or experience that I am looking for in this position. Normally, we would hire internally even if they don’t have all the requisite experience and then train them up to the level we need (that’s how my current assistant got their job). However, my service area works heavily with children and families and I can’t train people into having experience working with kids and parents or enjoying that type of work. (My director agrees with me that no one in our department would be a good fit for the position.)

I’m hoping people will self-select out, given my service area, but I’m afraid that the desire to move up within our department will cause people to apply even if they aren’t interested in family programming and don’t have the skills needed. We haven’t announced the open position yet, but most of the potential internal applicants work in the same service area and every time my soon-to-be-open position comes up in our management meetings, their supervisor makes a point of talking about internal applications and how great their reports could be at this position. If they do apply, I would be obligated to give them an interview, but I don’t want to make anyone feel bad about not getting the job, especially since I know I don’t plan on hiring internally.

How can I temper my coworkers’ expectations that I will hire internally, when I know that I definitely won’t? Besides being very clear in the job description and in my expectations for the position, is there anything I can do to keep people from getting their hopes up about this job opening?

Being very clear in the job description is the place to start, including explicitly labeling specific skills and experience as “required.” From there, be similarly clear with anyone who approaches you about the job (“I want to be up-front with you that I’m committed to hiring someone with XYZ experience, which could mean an external hire if we don’t find that experience already on staff”) and in those required interviews (“you probably saw that the position requires XYZ and I want to be up-front with you that that’s an obstacle for your candidacy — would you like to talk more about that?”). You should also fill people in on your thinking at those management meetings when it comes up — let them know you’re holding a high bar on XYZ and haven’t been able to find that in internal applicants.

4. How to quit when my two jobs are related

The short version: I work two jobs and I want to quit one of them. The sticky part: Job 1 introduced me to Job 2, and they sometimes work together on projects (but sometimes are competitors).

I’ve been at Job 1 for almost two years, and it’s … fine. It was a nice place to land after leaving a toxic job with a mercurial boss. But I’m a contractor with zero benefits and my hours are the first thing cut when times are lean. Which brings me to Job 2. When Job 1 had to halve my hours recently, they asked if I might want to go help out at Job 2, where they needed someone with my talents.

Job 2 is amazing. I’m an actual employee for the first time in my life, with some benefits even as a part-timer. There’s a real culture of appreciation there — bosses and coworkers constantly thank me and praise my work, even though I’m the lowest-level employee there. They also praise each other’s work and strengths. I keep being given more responsibilities and interesting tasks to work on. I feel like my opinions and ideas are respected and like I’m seen as a whole person, rather than a tool to get tasks done. While Job 1 has kept my hours reduced for months, Job 2 is happy to give me as many hours as I want, while remaining flexible about Job 1’s needs and my personal needs.

Every sign in the universe is pointing to me needing to quit Job 1. My spouse thinks I should quit. My friends ask why I haven’t quit yet. I got a tarot reading for the first time in my life on a lark, and even the cards said I should quit my job.

But again, Job 1 and Job 2 are friendly. They work together. I often get info from Job 1 for Job 2 and vice versa. I read enough advice columns to know I can’t control how other people react to things and sometimes there’s no way to not hurt feelings. But do you have any advice to help soften the blow for Job 1 when I leave them for their cooler, more successful counterpart?

It sounds like Job 2 is willing to offer you full-time hours or at least consistently more hours than you get from Job 1, so that’s the easiest explanation to lean on — “They’re able to offer me full-time work, which I really need.” That’s a very clear, easy-to-understand reason and people will understand the need for more hours. Plus, any job that halves someone’s hours is well aware that it means the person might seek work somewhere else, so they’re unlikely to be shocked.

5. Why are recruiters asking about where I am in my job search?

I am not aggressively looking for a job at the moment as I’m currently employed, but have recently had a few exploratory recruiter calls. They each ask some version at the end of “where are you in your job search?” or “are you actively interviewing/fielding offers that we should be aware of?” For the most part I’ve been honest: I’m still in my role currently, just starting to look, but no real urgency on my end. But what are recruiters looking to learn by asking this question, and what is the right answer for someone in my current position?

They want to find out whether you’re in the final stages with other employers/expecting an offer imminently/already have offers, so they know if they need to try to expedite their process with you. Your answer is completely fine.