Ask a Manager

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

1. We’re supposed to say grace at the start of team meals

I work in government. Fairly new to job, first time in government. Been in private sector and higher education before this. Every time my department has a group meal, they say grace. Led by either the director of the department or the staff member who is also a pastor. This is weird, right? I’m an atheist. We have at least one other on staff who practices a religion other than Christianity. In nearly any workplace this would be weird, but again, I work for THE GOVERNMENT, which makes it even more uncomfortable. Having group staff grace where it’s expected everyone is just fine with this is not inclusive, not considerate, and seems highly problematic. If you personally want to say grace over your meal, have at it! But the expectation of everyone participating or acquiescing and it being led by the director?

If I were to report this to HR or even our EEO, I know it’d get traced back to me for pretty obvious reasons (I am definitely the odd one out in the office on any number of things), and I can imagine it becoming something people will “jokingly” comment on … which again, isn’t a welcoming work environment. I don’t know what to do, or if I should do anything, but every time it happens I continue to just think “WTF.”

Yes, this is weird and inappropriate. It’s also not terribly uncommon in some parts of the U.S. Any chance you’re in the south? Surprisingly, it’s not illegal even though this is a government employer; government meetings are permitted to include prayer as long as they don’t force anyone’s participation in it (Supreme Court, Town of Greece v. Galloway, 2014).

Whether or not to say anything is really a personal decision; you need to weigh any likely blow-back and how much you care about that against how much it bothers you, especially as a new person.

If the director and/or pastor seem like decent people, you might have better luck talking with them privately rather than complaining to HR (since it’s not illegal) and asking them to reconsider the practice. A lot of people don’t realize grace isn’t some sort of non-denominational religious practice and think of it as almost secular in nature; it’s possible that by explaining that it’s not, you could get some traction (and even more so if you’re joined by any other coworkers who feel similarly).

Related:
I’m a public employee and the governor pushes religion at work

2. Is it unethical to automate people’s jobs away?

I’ve recently been lucky enough to snag the kind of job I’ve been looking for over months — relatively stable part-time data science work, which is very rare. Currently this is a side hustle, but eventually this could allow me to quit my full-time job and stay at home with my kids more. I am also going to learn a lot on the project that I’ve been assigned to and pick up some very desirable skills.

Here’s the problem. I am certain that the AI project I’m working on will eventually lead to other part-time workers losing their jobs, or at the very least reducing their hours. I am positive that the work people are doing by hand can be done really well by AI, and I’ve been hired to implement it. My project manager isn’t so sure — she said it’s a boring task and that whole “I want AI to do the dishes and not make art” tagline I’ve seen on social media — but she’s older and I worry she’s naive about the impact this can have. But maybe I’m younger and naive about the speed of change in public sector contracting.

I am a religious person, and the idea that I may be taking away part of people’s livelihoods is haunting me. But this work absolutely will be done by somebody eventually, and for me it’s my dream job. Is it unethical to do this kind of work?

I can’t answer that without more details about exactly what you’re going to be working on. But ultimately it doesn’t matter what I think about it anyway; it matters what you think. From the oil and gas industry to law enforcement to lobbying and on and on, people have all kinds of jobs that someone else might not feel ethically comfortable with, and many of our actions (both at work and not) unavoidably leave footprints in the world that we might prefer not be there. At the same time, many types of progress that we generally feel good about mean that some types of jobs are left behind as things evolve. (We don’t have knocker-uppers tapping at windows anymore either, although most of us consider alarm clocks an improvement.) But we all draw our lines in different places. You need to figure out where your lines are and what you will and won’t feel good about. I know that sounds like a cop-out, but it’s really so, so individual.

All that said, though, I’m not sure your project manager’s response quite gets at your concerns. Just because it’s a boring task doesn’t mean that people won’t suffer if they’re displaced from it.

3. How can I find out if my vacation time will be paid out when I leave?

My question is about how to give notice when it’s unclear whether banked PTO will be paid out—and there’s no way of finding that out without giving up the game.

My company is very small (nine employees) and does not conform to a conventional (or, really, any) organizational structure. HR is handled by one of our two owners, and by “HR” I mean stuff like dealing with benefits, payroll, and resources. I have virtually no contact with this guy, so it would be highly irregular for me to ask him anything — and all but an admission that I am looking to skedaddle if I asked about a possible PTO payout. There’s no other person I can ask who (A) would know the answer and/or (B) I can trust. (My state does not require vacation payout, so it’s up to individual companies.)

Normally, I’d not sweat this issue: I’d just give my two weeks and either be pleased that I got a payout or bummed that I didn’t. But — malcontent alert! — I am one of three employees who are still on board after launching this company as a startup 11 years ago, and in that time I’ve had ZERO raises despite the fact that the company has been increasingly profitable. Add to that some other cultural/role issues, and my inclination to be charitable here is … right in line with my raises. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable giving two weeks’ notice, learning that I was not going to get a payout, and then just cashing in (some of) my banked time to serve out those weeks. But I’m not sure I wouldn’t. Do you see some option or alternative I’ve overlooked?

Any chance you’re in touch with anyone who’s left who could tell you how it was handled for them? With such a small company, that might not be an option — but that’s one thing to check if you can.

Otherwise, I’d be inclined to simply ask when you resign whether vacation time is paid out. It they say it’s not, you can say, “Ideally I’d like to set my final day for November 6 (or whatever) but if that means I’ll lose all the vacation time I’ve accrued, I’ll need to take it before I leave since it’s part of my compensation.” Do be aware that some companies have policies against taking vacation time during your notice period (especially a big chunk of it as opposed to a day or two) so it’s possible that could become a point of contention — but it’s a reasonable stance to take, and you can try negotiating from there.

4. Am I cheap for seeking mileage reimbursement for business dinner travel?

I’m wondering about mileage reimbursement. Maybe six or so times a year, I have to drive about 60 miles round-trip for business dinners. These aren’t client meetings, but meetings for my professional organization city group. Very much a networking thing on behalf of my firm. I always put in for mileage reimbursement, and my firm gives it to me without questioning, but I’m wondering if this is a “cheap” thing of me to do. Is the mileage cost something that I should just eat?

Nope, you should continue submitting for it. It’s a business expense, not a personal one, and it’s not cheap to expect your company to cover the costs of business activities, as they’ve been doing.

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

1. My new boss has a different work style than my old boss

I’ve been in my job for three years under James. I’ve liked working with him and have learned a lot. The work is fairly strategic in nature, and James often asked for multiple approaches to be tested and a lot of workshopping before making decisions. He prioritized creativity and thoroughness over speed. Mostly this worked out fine and he was never unhappy with my work, but sometimes it took a month to do something that I felt could have been done in a week. I would have preferred a little more independence and decisiveness, but overall it was fine. He would also sometimes assign projects and then forget about them when I was finished, which wasted time or resources.

James has recently been promoted and is no longer my supervisor. I am now supervised by his former boss, Michael. Michael approaches the role very differently. He is much more focused on getting results and while it’s been a bit more hectic, overall it’s a positive and I’ve been getting a lot more done and feel better that projects aren’t dragging out any longer.

Michael has not said anything negative to me but has occasionally queried why something from a while ago was never finished or why an earlier version of something took much longer. I’ve just said the priorities at the time were different but haven’t elaborated. I’m not sure if I should ask for a meeting to explain that I worked at a particular pace because that was what James wanted and I wasn’t slacking off or struggling before. Michael would not previously have known a lot about what I do but I don’t want him to have a negative impression so I’d like to clear the air, while also not blaming James for the previous slower turnarounds.

I’d love some advice on how to approach this or if I should even say anything. James still works here, and he and Michael are good friends.

I don’t think you’ll necessarily need a specific meeting to address it; it’ll probably be enough if you just add a bit more information each time Michael asks about one of these things. For example, rather than just explaining that X didn’t happen or took a long time because the priorities were different, you could say, “James wanted me to test X, Y, and Z before making a final decision about it, so that added a few weeks to the timeline.” Or, “I did X and Y on project Z but James ultimately decided not to pursue it.” This isn’t throwing James under the bus; it’s giving your current boss factual, relevant context about why things were done. At some point if it comes up organically you could also say, “James preferred to test a lot of angles and his style was to prioritize that over finishing more quickly. I actually really like finishing things quickly and find it more satisfying, so I think my style meshes more with yours in that regard.”

2. Can I have a picture of the president on my office wall?

I have a picture of the sitting president and vice president on the wall of my private corporate office. It is not in a common area like the break room, conference area, or hallway. Is this a violation?

That’s up to your company! But it’s definitely reasonable for them to say that people can’t put up partisan political messages at work, and they can have a legitimate interest in doing that. It might be more intuitive if you think about how you’d feel about a colleague who had a portrait of the previous sitting president in their office and how that could potentially affect your working relationship or simply be a distraction.

(This assumes you’re at a private employer. In the federal government, office buildings frequently hang portraits of the sitting president, although they’re typically in common areas. This is a weird tradition.)

3. “Have a great day!” in email signatures

A few people who report to me use an email signature that includes the words “have a good day” or “thank you and have a great day!” before their signature. Emails may include external or internal customer support, as well as day-to-day internal emails.

I find this off-putting. Emails could be anything from a neutral customer question, to a very serious problem with a customer account, to responding to a coworker who emailed about their mom being sick. Sometimes it just doesn’t fit with the rest of the email. I think I am also personally annoyed by being told to have a good day.

So far, I have not said anything. I assume they have added this to their email template out of kindness. In at least one case, I don’t have the best relationship with the person, and I don’t want to unnecessarily increase tension. Is this just a personal annoyance that I should get over? Is there a legitimate business case in asking them to remove it?

It’s mostly a personal annoyance that you should get over. There’s one exception: if they’re not editing that out of emails where it would be inappropriate (like a response to someone saying they’ll be out for bereavement, for example), you have standing to tell them to be vigilant about doing that. Otherwise, though, let it go — after all, if they were manually writing that out every time, it would be too micromanagery to tell them to stop. (This assumes that you’re working in a fairly typical environment where people have some autonomy over the way they write emails beyond this.)

4. Coworker keeps sending timecard reminders to our team’s social group text

My team recently doubled in size, and many of the new hires are in their early 20’s, either in their first or second job post-school. We also hired two leads, a brand new position for the expanded team. Both of the leads were outside hires, neither of whom had direct experience in our field, and it seems like one of them, “Taylor,” is struggling a bit to figure out what being a lead means. In their defense, one of the team managers is a huge micromanager and power hoarder who I suspect has not been sharing power well and who I know has pushed back on both leads when they’ve come to management with suggestions for what they might contribute. Neither management nor coworkers with more seniority know what the lead roles are either. (That’s part of the reason none of the existing staff applied for them.)

One way this has displayed for Taylor, though, seems to be trying to assert their authority as much as possible in ways that I and other coworkers I’ve chatted with find annoying and counterproductive. The most recent manifestation of this involves a coworker group chat of about 20 people started by one of the other new hires. Now, I don’t want to be in a 20-person group text in any context, but especially not for work. It’s mostly social with people sharing fun photos (followed by a dozen notifications of “Elliott liked this photo”), but recently Taylor has started using it to remind everyone to submit our timecards. They’re doing this by making memes about it, so not only do I get the text from them (before I’ve even clocked in that morning) but also the requisite 5-10 follow-ups that someone slapped an emoji response on the meme.

Taylor is not my (or anyone else’s) supervisor, and I do not need or want timecard reminders from them. I’ve muted my own notifications from that group but apparently my phone will neither allow me to leave the group entirely nor prevent notifications from showing in the status bar. Can I just respond in the group chat after the next timecard meme just saying, “Hey, can I request we keep this chat social and leave work messages for email or Teams?” I do like my colleagues and don’t want to seem crotchety, and I think for Gen Z a huge group chat is a pretty innocuous thing, but I am genuinely annoyed. Should I say something to Taylor in person so I’m not calling them out in front of everyone else? Should I just keep dismissing notifications and relax?

It’s reasonable to say, ““Hey, can I request we keep this chat social and leave work messages for email or Teams?” And actually it makes it less of a big deal if you just say it casually in the chat rather than having a whole one-on-one conversation with Taylor about it. If you want, you could add, “I don’t always check here and I don’t want to miss anything work-related that I need to see.”

But also, this would be A Lot for a lot of people. Could you suggest moving the whole thing to a Slack channel or something else that’s easier to mute/ignore and where you can turn off push notifications altogether (or only have it on work devices)?

However, all that only gets at the constant notifications problem, when it sounds like your real issue is with Taylor asserting authority that they don’t have. If that’s the piece you really want to address, that’s a one-on-one conversation with either Taylor or your manager — although if you go that route, focus on examples other than the timecard thing since, while that’s annoying, it’s likely to seem a little nitpicky. If you have more substantive examples, those will be more effective to use.

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

1. Disgruntled ex-employee keeps contacting current employees

We had an employee, Lark, who served as a director in our business for about eight months. She chose to put in her notice and leave the company this summer. During her tenure, she repeatedly told several members of leadership that she was unhappy, looking for another role, and hoped we would just walk her out. She never said anything like this to me or my husband (the owners of the business).

At the end of the first week of her notice period, we told her that she seemed stressed and was dealing with a lot and she could just take the following week as paid vacation time and not return to the office.

After she left, we found out that she was routinely inserting herself into situations that a director should not have been in (such as sorting out daily tasks for entry-level employees) and was constantly telling people that she was the only one who got anything done and she was their “buddy” or “champion.” She never raised any of the issues she was supposedly advocating for in any management meetings.

Now that she has been gone for six weeks, we are hearing that she is regularly contacting current members of the management team to ask how project X is going or if they completed project Y — work-related issues that she has no business being involved in at this point. It is causing team members to mistrust senior leadership or not be honest with us.

She doesn’t work here, so what can we even do? Everything is hearsay right now because the people she’s contacting won’t show us the evidence (one told us before he quit, which is how we know). We need our team to see how toxic it is for any former leader to be inserting themselves into private business matters and undermining the leadership team. But we also know that if they don’t trust us and we tell them to stop sharing this information with people outside the company, it may give them more reason to mistrust us. What do we do with this toxic behavior?

This is bizarre! Why on earth is someone who no longer works there asking people whether they’ve completed specific tasks? It almost sounds like a continuation of the problems when she was there and wanted to be seen as everyone’s champion, and now that she’s gone she can’t let go of her identity as Extremely Involved … but it’s pretty wild to see that happen when she was only there for eight months, and it’s quite weird that the rest of your staff doesn’t find it odd.

In any case, it’s not strange or suspicious to remind employees that they can’t share internal info outside the company; that’s a very normal policy to have.

The fact that people don’t think it’s weird that a former employee is still inserting herself in this way makes me think that you might have deeper cultural issues than whatever’s up with Lark. The only way to solve this is to lean in hard to good management right now — meaning make sure managers are appropriately engaged with the work their teams are doing, hearing people out and ensuring people have opportunities for meaningful input that you take seriously, being as transparent about possible about decision-making, ensuring people are recognized and rewarded for good work, and otherwise demonstrating through your actions that you’re operating with integrity and openness. That’s the best counter to a toxic former employee like Lark who’s trying to undermine you — but it will take sustained commitment on your end to doing that.

Related:
my toxic former employee is still spreading negativity on my staff

2. When a toxic ex-BFF joins your company

This question is for a very dear friend of mine, Marlie. Marlie works in a very competitive industry. We are both still at the beginning of our careers and are close with a lot of friends from college. Marlie had a close college friend, Amanda, who she bonded with over their shared field and similar backgrounds. After college, they both landed jobs in major cities. They stayed in touch and traveled together, and I joined them on a few of these trips.

They had some personality clashes, but things really started to fall apart about a year ago during a vacation. Some of Amanda’ bad behavior included: not bringing her wallet and making us pay for most things (this happened almost every time we’d go out with her), lying and calling Marlie names behind her back, almost abandoning my friend when she decided to hook up with a guy my friend had expressed interest in (this has happened more than once), calling Marlie desperate and criticizing her taste in men, cursing us both out while drunk, and unfollowing Marlie on social media and leaving her texts on read.

Fast forward, Amanda lost her job a few months ago and has been searching for a new one. Meanwhile, Marlie is thriving in her job and is very happy. A few weeks ago, after a year of no contact, Amanda reached out asking for interview advice, as she’s interviewing for an open position at Marlie’s company. Marlie never responded.

The interview was last week, and there’s a real chance she’ll get the job. Marlie is nervous about the potential of Amanda joining her company and worried she will disrupt the positive work environment. They wouldn’t be on the same team, but she would still see her regularly. Amanda would also likely try to reconnect, especially given the social dynamics at the office. If Amanda gets the job, how should Marlie handle this situation? How can she maintain boundaries with minimal drama and questions from coworkers?

Polite professional distance.

Some behavior is bad enough that it would warrant Marlie talking to the hiring manager and sharing her experience with Amanda, but the stuff on this list doesn’t rise to that level. Amanda sounds like a bad friend and not someone you’d want to hang out with, but it’s all pretty solidly stuff that points to just not renewing the friendship rather than anything more.

If Amanda does get hired, Marlie should be polite but distant. If Amanda makes overtures to grab lunch or otherwise hang out, Marlie should politely decline, saying she’s too busy or so forth. If Amanda pushes the issue, Marlie might need to say, “I want nothing but the best for you, but I don’t think the friendship was good for either of us so I’d rather just be colleagues with different boundaries than we used to have.”

3. Are these interview red flags?

I’ve been interviewing for a new job for the past two months. I thought I had gone through the final round (with the head of HR and the managing director) and then was told last minute that there was one more interview with a senior member of the team, who sits across the country from where this position is based.

As soon as we got through the pleasantries, she proceeded to tell me that they had to fire the last person in the role, their name, the dates of their tenure, and the fact that they failed multiple performance improvement plans before they were let go. We work in a niche and small field. While I don’t happen to know this person who was fired, I very well could.

I’ve never experienced anything like this before, and it is giving me very serious pause about the role. Is this a major red flag? There were other parts of the conversation that were alarming to me, namely, that this person relayed very different information about the annual sales targets (she said they were three times what I had been told by HR), bragged about leaving for the office at 5 am in the morning during the summer months, and gave me conflicting information about the in-office expectations. More seriously, a job can be the wrong fit for any number of reasons, especially at this phase of my career and I would hate to think that if I decided to move on in a year or two, I would be badmouthed all over town about it.

Run. This is going to be a clusterfudge.

If it were just the discrepancy in the sales targets, I wouldn’t be so worried (as long as the numbers sounded reasonable to you) because HR often doesn’t have the nitty-gritty info about a job in the way a manager will. But all the rest of this = huge red flags.

4. My manager gave me her personal money for a work item I bought

My company has a $300 cost limit for a certain type of equipment, but the internal website said the limit could be overruled by higher management approval. My equipment was failing, and the cost for a new one of the exact same brand, specifications, etc. was about $315. My manager approved the purchase, as did her manager, so I purchased the equipment. My reimbursement request was rejected for going over the $300 limit. When my manager and her manager got involved, they were told by the expenses team that despite what the website said, there was in fact no way to go over the cost limit.

In the end, I was reimbursed $300 by the company, and my manager insisted on Venmo’ing the remaining $15 from her personal account, which she was not reimbursed for. I felt really uncomfortable taking her personal money when it was our company that caused the error, but she insisted. The expenses team also promised to update the website to make it more accurate. How should this have been handled?

The company should have covered the full $315 because it had been approved by your management in accordance with their written policies. They can update the policy, sure, but your manager shouldn’t lose her own money because a written policy was inaccurate. (And really, $15? That’s a de minimis amount for your company to eat in the interests of staff morale.)

Don’t feel weird about taking your manager’s $15, though; I’m sure she would have felt far worse if you were the one out the money because of what happened and she probably felt partially responsible. I would have wanted to cover it myself too.

5. Starburst curation

My office has a communal candy dish that includes the little two-packs of Starbursts. A coworker has taken to opening these packets, eating only the Starburst flavors they like (pink and orange), and leaving the remaining Starburst squares (red and yellow) behind for others. On the one hand, this strikes me as absolutely unhinged behavior. On the other hand, this unhinged behavior means I also have a whole slew of red Starbursts (my favorite) at my disposal, without even having to gamble for them. Am I obligated to say anything about this behavior, for the greater good? Or, with two Starburst-happy employees in balance, am I in the clear to continue letting crime pay?

I’m not sure there’s anything unhinged happening here! If your coworker is opening all the packages and removing the pink and orange Starbursts so there are none for anyone else, then yes, this is boorish behavior. But if they’re just taking a reasonable amount of candy and putting back the individually wrapped ones they don’t like so someone else can have them, this is what top minds consider a classic win/win.

Either way, you are under no obligation to speak up and may continue enjoying the red cast-offs without qualms.