Ask a Manager

can my husband hang out in my office, asking coworkers to treat me like “the talent,” and more

by Alison Green on August 14, 2024

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

1. Can my husband hang out in my office at night until I’m ready to leave?

I am a woman in my early thirties. If I am going to stay late at night at work, would it be possible to bring my husband to stay somewhere in the office until I finish my work? Is it an unusual request to make?

It will vary by office. Some offices would be fine with it. Others have security policies that could make it tricky.

Are you wondering about it for safety reasons or something else (like, I don’t know, you carpool to work and your husband needs to wait somewhere until you’re done so you can drive home together)?

If it’s safety reasons, I’d raise that with your manager directly; if you need to stay late at work, you need to feel safe doing that and your employer should work with you to make that possible.

If it’s more “my husband is bored and needs somewhere to hang out until I can leave,” it would be better for him to find somewhere else to do that until you’re done (especially if it would be a regular thing).

2. How do I get my coworkers to treat me like “the talent”?

I work in an industry where there’s crew (the production peeps) and talent (people in front of camera or behind the mic). I’ve been crew for maybe 10 years now. But I’ve pitched a project of my own and will be behind the mic for it. Exciting!

Usually, the production peeps take a lot of care briefing the talent — what happens when, who’s handling what, next steps, etc., etc. But because I’ve been on the team and am part of the company and someone from outside, they are skipping all these steps with me.

Classic slippery slope. Initially, I didn’t mind, because we were still in my area of preproduction expertise. No need to brief. Now we are reaching post and I feel totally lost and worried about who’s handling what and is somebody handling it at all or must I be sorting it out, etc. It feels dramatic to now hit them with an email saying KEEP ME ABREAST AT ALL TIMES. And how do I transition from being a mellow fellow coworker to a fussy client with lots of pointers about editing and marketing and such? (I don’t go overboard with fussiness, I swear.)

“Hey, I know I didn’t initially need everything talent normally needs, but now we’re at a point where I do need the same level of support we give to people without experience in production. I’m realizing I feel lost about things like XYZ, so going forward, can you give me the same level of briefing you’d give anyone else, even if you think I won’t need it?”

As for moving from a mellow coworker to a fussy client with lots of notes … there’s just some inherent awkwardness in there that you probably can’t entirely avoid, but if you just jump in and do it, it’ll feel more natural in time. That said, your knowledge from being on the other side can inform your approach — be as detail-oriented as you want, but be kind about it. Think of it as taking the work very seriously, rather than taking yourself seriously; that usually helps with humility. (At the same time, I bet seeing the process from the talent side is going to make some things talent does that were annoying when you were crew seem less annoying now. That always happens when you do this kind of flip, and that perspective-broadening can be useful if you return to the crew side at some point.)

3. What feedback should I give to a temporary worker who didn’t get the job?

I became a first-time manager within the past year, so this is all new to me. My first act was to make a temporary hire for my old role until our organization could fill it full-time. I hired someone I knew from a similar org who had recently been let go for budget reasons. I am completely confident she knew it was a temporary position. Within a year, I got the greenlight to hire full-time. She applied and was a finalist out of a pool of several hundred applicants. But she lost out to someone with extensive specific past experience that made them a unicorn-level fit for the job.

I told her that she did not get the job, and that it honestly wasn’t anything she did wrong; we just had a candidate we couldn’t pass up. She has been professional about it but is taking it hard.

This surprised me. Even during interviews, she did not seem very excited, but rather like applying was the expected thing to do. Even so, it was a close decision because she is very good. I have honestly told her I will be a glowing reference for her. I told her, if she wants, she can stay through end of the month. (She doesn’t know this yet but I’m also trying to get the budget to give her some cover for the next month.) We also lined up some short projects that I hope she can use as examples in future interviews. I genuinely want her to do well in a job she cares about.

In our last check-in, she started crying and asked for more specific feedback. Like anyone, she isn’t perfect and I have a couple of things I could suggest. But none are why we didn’t hire her. Do I give her honest feedback? Does that include telling her she didn’t seem to want to be here? Or does that rub salt in the wound? As a newbie manager, I try to start with empathy, but I clearly misread her enthusiasm and am doubting my instincts now.

Give her feedback because she’s asking for it, but frame it as, “I can give you some feedback on things that will strengthen your work generally, but I want to be clear that they weren’t the reasons you weren’t hired. You were a very competitive candidate and the decision was about hiring someone who was an unusually good match; it wasn’t based on any concerns about you or your work.”

I would not tell her she didn’t seem enthusiastic unless she seemed so disengaged that you’re concerned it will be an obstacle for her in future interviews. But it’s useful data that people don’t always wear their hearts on their sleeves in interviews and can be much more invested than you can see on the surface. (Not always! Some people genuinely aren’t that enthused. But it’s good to be aware that there’s a wide spectrum of “normal” on this.)

4. Can I ask for my own office?

I work for a large nonprofit that is mostly remote, but has an office from the days when folks were expected to come in. The building sits mostly empty. On my floor, for example, there are about 20 cubicles and 15 enclosed offices. There are maybe five of us that come in at some point during the week, and of those, only two of us are in every day. Of course, all five of us are in the same cube area, and the two of us in every day sit right next to each other. This leaves over 15 offices empty and unassigned.

This is frustrating! All of my meetings are on video calls, so I spend a lot of time going in and out of enclosed offices. My colleagues often take their videos and calls in the open area, which results in unnecessary sensory overload and frustration for me. (If it matters, I likely have sensory processing disorder from some combination of anxiety/ADHD/etc.)

I’ve only been here a month, and I’m the lowest role in our structure. Still, with so many offices sitting open, I would love to move into one. Would it be okay to request? How should I approach it?

“I’m spending a lot of time going in and out of the enclosed offices since I have so many video calls. Since it seems like a lot are unused, would it be okay for me to regularly work out of one of them?” They might say no — a lot of offices have intense politics around who gets an office and who doesn’t, even the people they’re assigned to are never there to use them — but it’s reasonable to ask. (Those politics are why my suggested wording is “regularly work out of one of them,” which sounds less permanent than “can I have my own office?” even if that’s what it turns into in time.)

If the answer is no, you could ask about moving to a cubicle that’s further away from the current cluster so that you’re not in the middle of so much action.

Also, depending on how much the sensory overload is interfering with your work, you could also consider going the formal accommodations route — but in a lot of cases it makes sense to start with a less formal conversation first.

5. Should I tell my over-performing employee to leave?

I have a superstar employee. She was fairly fresh out of university when we hired her, but I have never had a regret about her performance. She’s now been working for us for almost two years and doing more work than I would expect someone at her level to perform, it’s at an exceptional quality, and she consistently takes on bigger and newer challenges.

Obviously, I’ve been advocating for her to get a promotion. Recently, HR told us that for her to get that promotion, she’d have to have had three years of experience in her current (or any equivalent) role. But she’s performing at a higher level than what her title indicates! She deserves the promotion. She did get a decent raise, which I am happy about, but I know from experience that the title can make a big difference as well. Honestly she could leave and do so much better for herself. I’ve made the case again for her and hope that HR will change their mind (or find some combined level of experience that will help her qualify for it), but what else can I do?

Do I tell her that she should start looking elsewhere because she deserves a role that recognizes and pays her what she is worth? This is the first I’ve heard of the title structure that bases things off of years of experience, but I assume I should just lay it out for her so that she knows what the logic is? Do I have to make it sound like I agree with this because I am her manager?

It’s not terribly unusual to have experience requirements for promotion. It’s also reasonable for you, as her manager, to argue for an exception to that policy, based on her extraordinary level of performance and the possibility that the company may lose her entirely if you don’t reward that performance sooner rather than later.

That said, what’s your employee’s take on all this? Is she happy to wait another year for promotion or is she pushing for it to happen sooner? If she hasn’t shown any unhappiness with the situation, there’s no reason to encourage her to start looking outside the company. If you had the sense that they’d never promote her, that would be different — and you’d owe it to her to be relatively candid about that — but that’s not the case here. You should still share with her what the promotion timeline is so she has it, and you should lay out for HR why you think her accomplishments in two years are the equivalent of the average candidate’s accomplishments in three (or longer), but the three-year timeline isn’t inherently outrageous (as long as it’s real and they don’t kick the can down the road once people get there, and also as long as it’s not at odds with the norms of your field).

is it bad to request the top of the salary range?

by Alison Green on August 13, 2024

A reader writes:

I am interviewing for a job at a different company. It would be a lateral move, but worth it to me given that the new company is more stable and has greater opportunity for advancement. This is a salaried professional position. I think I am well qualified for it, perhaps a little overqualified, and though the interview process isn’t done, it seems to be going well.

I was discussing this interview with my rather old-school corporate father (boomer generation). I mentioned that since I currently made $100,000, and the job listing for the new position quoted a range with a max of $110,000, I planned to ask for $110,000. I justified this in my mind because the new job would require substantial travel, and my current position is underpaid relative to market. I had not yet decided what was the lowest I’d go, but I wanted to open with $110,000.

He pushed back. He said it was a bad idea to try to be at the top of the salary range because 1) you would not get as large future increases and 2) your head would be first on the chopping block if layoffs came. I said, I assumed at some point someone would ask me to state a number to open negotiations. He said I should politely refuse to give a number and instead emphasize that I wanted a “meaningful increase over my current compensation” when salary, bonus, benefits, etc., are all considered.

It makes sense to me to consider all forms of compensation together instead of fixating on a single aspect (salary). However, the rest of his argument doesn’t make much sense to me. If people who start more towards the middle of the range get larger raises to bring them up to the top of the range over time, they’re still worse off at the end than someone who was at the top of the range to begin with, right? Also, I feel it would be really annoying to try to negotiate with someone who says they want a “meaningful increase” but won’t tell you what they consider “meaningful.” As for being higher on the range opening you to layoffs, well, I’m not sure what to do about that, given that in general most people’s goals are to try to make more money rather than less, and I guess I’ll just have to prove I’m worth the cost.

What do you think? Does he have a point?

He does not. You should ignore his advice on this.

You’re of course right on the math: even if you get lower raises in future years because you started at the high end of the range, you’re still better off than someone who started at a lower number and then got raises to bring them into the high end of the range over time.

Plus, it’s not even necessarily the case that the salary range advertised is the full range for the job; in many cases it’s the range for the starting salary, not the full band for the position itself.

As for the advice to refuse to name a number and instead just say you’re looking for a “meaning increase,” I can tell you that as an interviewer, it’s incredibly annoying when people won’t talk in real numbers. It comes across as game-playing and it doesn’t make you look like you’re in a position of strength.

Moreover — and very significantly — your dad’s advice to reference “a meaningful increase over my current compensation” anchors the new job’s salary to whatever you’re making currently, which is none of the new employer’s business, and is especially to your disadvantage when you’re already underpaid. You don’t need to name your current salary at all.

As for the worry that negotiating for a higher salary means you’ll be the most attractive employee to lay off if they need to make cuts … it’s possible, but it’s not a reason not to try to negotiate for the best salary you can get yourself! They’re not going to agree to pay you more than they think the job is worth, and you shouldn’t artificially depress your own wages out of a fear that some day your employer might change their mind and decide you’re too expensive. By that logic, we should all ask for less than we think the work is worth, which makes no sense.

There are times when you shouldn’t ask for the top of the salary range, like when you’re clearly under-qualified and the role would be a stretch and so asking for the top of the range would make you look out-of-touch and like you don’t understand how salaries work — but that’s not your situation.

You may ignore your dad with impunity.

my employee keeps commenting on my looks

by Alison Green on August 13, 2024

A reader writes:

How can I best respond to an employee of mine about his frequent inappropriate comments about my body and looks? I’m worried about inadvertently devolving into “you think I’m hot” territory or drawing even more attention to my body, which makes me very, very uncomfortable.

Some recent comments/actions include “You’re bringing sexy back!” (said because I was wearing a completely office-appropriate wrap dress) and “You definitely look like you work out a lot” (said after I made an innocuous gym-related statement).

I’m completely at a loss about how to address this without making myself feel more uncomfortable than I already am about this, or making him feel defensive.

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

my company secretly gives parents thousands of extra dollars in benefits

by Alison Green on August 13, 2024

A reader writes:

I work for an organization that prides itself on being generous and flexible to parents. I fully support that, despite the usual gripes among the childless employees you might imagine (e.g., we are asked to work more weekends and nights). A colleague of mine, a parent, is leaving the org and invited me to coffee. I thought it was just to have a farewell chat, but it turns out they feel that the difference in parent vs. non-parent benefits is so drastic they “don’t feel right” leaving without telling someone. They let me know how stark the difference is and … it’s way beyond anything I’ve seen before.

It turns out parents in my org are offered, when they are hired or become parents, are offered a special benefits package called “Family Benefits.” This is not in any paperwork I have access to (including my onboarding work and employee handbook) and those who partake are asked to not share information about it with non-parents, ostensibly to “avoid any tension” with childless employees. But the real reason is far more clear: it’s because they don’t want us to know how bad the difference is:

* The Family Package includes 10 extra days of PTO (three sick, two personal, five vacation).
* We have access to specific facilities (gym, pool, etc.) and the Family Benefits package gives free gym membership and swim lessons to you, your spouse, and your children; I can only get those at a 50% discount, and my spouse gets no discount at all.
* Officially, we’re a “one remote day a week” organization; those with children are allowed to be remote any time schools are out (this includes staff members whose kids aren’t school-age yet, and the entire summer).
* We have several weekend/evening events we volunteer for, where volunteering gives you comp time; if you’re a parent who volunteers and calls out day-of due to childcare, you still get your comp day (as you might imagine, every event usually has about 25-30 people call out due to childcare). If the special event is child-focused, parents are exempt from volunteering and can attend with their family as guests, and they still get comp time.
* There’s an affiliate discount program that includes discounts to major businesses not offered to child-free employees — not just child-specific businesses, but movie theaters, ride-sharing apps, and chain stores.
* We get a card we can add pre-tax commuting funds to, but parents in this program get a bonus $100 a month.
* We get retirement matching up to 2.5%, but parents get up to 5%.
* If you need to leave to pick up kids from school, you don’t have to work once you get home; as you might imagine, when given written permission to pass tasks off to others and log off at 2:30 pm, almost everyone does.

All told, my colleague estimates that as a parent of two children, they saved upwards of $18,000 worth a year in benefits that are not available to me, in addition to the non-monetary benefits (like time saved not having to commute any time schools are out, basically free comp time).

I’m all for flexibility for parents but knowing that my organization is secretly (SECRETLY) giving parents this volume of bonus benefits has me feeling disgusted at my org and disappointed in my colleagues who have kept it quiet. How do I approach this? Do I reach out to HR? Do I pretend it never happened and move forward? Is this even legal? I’m already planning to leave, and was considering telling my fellow child-free colleagues before I left, but right now I’m just feeling so lost.

Tell all your coworkers.

If your organization considers this defensible, they should have no problem with everyone knowing about it.

The reason they’ve tried to keep it secret is, of course, because they know people will have a problem with it.

So share the information.

It’s not uncommon to see parents granted some extra flexibility that non-parents don’t get, even if they have a similar need for it. That’s a problem itself; when employers can offer flexibility, they should offer it across the board, not only to one class of people.

But this goes way beyond what’s typical. Higher retirement matching? Extra vacation days? Policies that formally transfer the burden of working at weekend and evening events to people without kids? Charging you for a gym membership while your coworker pays nothing simply because they have a child? It’s pretty wild.

To be clear, there are ways to do some of this that wouldn’t grate. For example, if they offered extra “dependent care” days, they’d probably be used primarily by parents staying home with sick kids, but it would be great for morale that they’d also be available to someone who needed to, say, take care of an elderly relative.

Also, if you’re wondering about the law: In most states, discriminating on the basis of family status is not illegal. But a small number of jurisdictions do prohibit family status discrimination, so it’s worth checking to see if yours is one of them. Typically those laws are framed to prevent discrimination against employees with kids and I’m not sure that any have been tested in the other direction, but it would depend on the exact wording of the law.

Anyway. Share what you know, and then consider organizing with your coworkers to advocate for a broader array of benefits being available to all employees.

Since you mentioned you were already considering leaving, you might not want to take this on more directly, but if that’s the case you should still definitely share the info with your non-parent colleagues before you depart.

And kudos to the coworker who told you, and boo to all the rest of them who chose to stay quiet.

employer wants us to “volunteer” for groundskeeping, snubbed by a mentee, and more

by Alison Green on August 13, 2024

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

1. My employer wants us to “volunteer” for groundskeeping and cleaning

I work in a faculty position at a private university that is struggling with all the challenges that higher education is facing right now, including declining enrollment. We have not had raises in years, and positions are only replaced if they are determined to be absolutely necessary. Even though housekeeping and groundskeeping are deemed necessary, they are having trouble filling those positions because they either can’t or won’t pay a competitive wage for the area.

Recently the administration sent out an email asking all employees to participate in a voluntary workday to make the campus beautiful before students arrive. Staff who would be working that day can count it toward time worked, but faculty, who would typically not be working that day, are expected to do it with no additional compensation. Tasks include power washing buildings, planting flowers and laying mulch, and cleaning. I had planned to use that day to prepare for my fall semester classes. Part of the reason they are asking for help is because they don’t have an adequate number of groundskeeping and housekeeping staff, although the email didn’t say that. I do not think it is my responsibility to do tasks outside of what I was hired to do because the university failed to hire people to do them.

I’m planning to not sign up for a time slot, but do you think this is something that we should push back on? Also, do you think that those who don’t participate could face backlash for failing to be a team player?

Yes, it’s something you should push back on. It’s bad enough that you’re being asked to pick up extra work from unfilled jobs similar to your own (for no additional compensation), but now you’re supposed to “volunteer” for manual labor that has nothing to do with your job at all? No. If they want to cut positions, they need to deal with the consequences of cutting those positions — not add power washing and cleaning onto your already full plates so that you’re the ones shouldering those consequences.

Will you face backlash for “not being a team player”? Maybe! But the more of you who decline to sign up, the less feasible that will be — so encourage your colleagues to sit this out.

2. People ask if my hair color is natural

I’m a woman in my late thirties and I work for a company of approximately 600 people. My role has me connecting with people across many departments. I have found my hair to be a frequent topic of conversation at work and I’m looking for a script to politely shut people down.

My hair was dark blond most of my life, but I started going gray early. I think gray hair looks lovely on many people, but it made me look washed out and ill so I had fun trying out lots of different hair colors. For the last five-ish years, I’ve dyed my hair red (Cowboy Copper, to be precise). It’s bright, but not outside the realm of natural hair colors.

My problem is that I get asked approximately once a week if my hair color is natural. I think it’s rude and would never ask someone whether they dye their hair. I’ve tried different answers — a joke, the truth, lying and saying it’s natural, and they always respond with compliments, but every exchange leaves me uncomfortable. I don’t think the people asking mean to be rude (they all legitimately seem to like the color) but I never know how to respond. How do I politely shut these people down?

Yes, it’s rude. Welcome to life as a redhead! People constantly ask redheads if our hair is real. A friend’s mom once poked around in my hair looking for roots because she didn’t believe it was real. I’m pretty sure adults asked me if it was real when I was a child.

That said, most people who ask are just interested because it’s unusual. You certainly don’t need to tell them it’s dyed if you don’t want to, but it’s also not a shameful secret and you could simply respond, “No, I just like it.” But if you don’t want to answer on principle, some options for you:

* “Why do you ask?”
* “I don’t think you’re supposed to ask people that.”
* “That’s between me and my hairdresser.”

Still, “No, I just like it” is likely to make it less of a big deal.

3. I was snubbed by a mentee I’ve given countless hours of my time to

I am a seasoned professional in a niche spot in my field. Early on in my career, I spent some time talking to my alma mater classes about my niche area of work, and took to mentoring a student who was interested in my field.

I have spent hours over nearly a decade giving advice to this person, editing his resume, and providing extraordinary amounts of input for which positions would be a good fit.

Recently I had a question for this mentee. He had accepted a job at an agency I cross paths with very infrequently, and I thought he could provide me very general information on a topic. Instead, he immediately discussed billing my agency for work over 30 minutes, and even mentioned an unwarranted inspection of my facility. I was floored. I told him to forget about it, reached out to a consultant, and worked out the question on my own.

I do not plan to give my time to this person ever again. Should I tell him how disrespectful he was, and why I plan to separate myself from his future advice needs? He contacts me only when he needs career advice. He has stolen countless hours from me and gave nothing as a show of thanks.

Nah, there’s no point. You’re right to be unavailable to him in the future now that he’s shown his interest in the relationship is so one-sided, but there’s little to be gained by spelling it out for him. (And really, you’ve already invested a ton of time in coaching him! You don’t need to do this final bit of it on your way out the door.)

For what it’s worth, though, I don’t think it’s useful to look at this as him stealing your time. You presumably mentored him voluntarily. And sure, you assumed the relationship would be a two-way one, but he didn’t engage with you under false pretenses. He’s just selfish and apparently sucks at networking. Now you know!

4. How do I reject a qualified former coworker?

I am the senior director for a small firm. We are in the process of hiring a new lead engineer in a very niche field where the applicant pool is tiny in our region. We recently received an outstanding resume from somebody with 30+ years of experience, a master’s in our field, and a ton of awesome project work that lines up with exactly what we need. Great news; our months’ long search is over! Only one catch: this person used to be my boss, left on overall good terms with our organization, but also left a bad taste in the mouths of a number of current team members. He resigned 10 years ago to take a high level director position at a neighboring company.

The word is that he left his director role in an acrimonious fashion last year (forced resignation). He is currently at another company as a chief engineer, which is two steps below director but two steps above our position. Our location would save him almost an hour commuting each day and I am guessing that is at least part of why he wants to come back. But beyond the personnel issues if he were to return (people are already freaking out about the possibility), the position he applied for requires a lot of desk time and actual crunching numbers type of engineering work, with no supervisory requirements. My experience with him as my boss was that he was a super delegator — to the point of asking senior engineers to draft emails on his behalf to send to vendors, prepare his presentations for conferences, do the annual cap ex budget for him (!), etc.

We have a handful of junior engineers and my gut is telling me he will pass his work on to them even though they don’t report to the senior engineer. He also has 15 years more experience than the manager he would report to — they have very different management styles and I believe he would question/go around him constantly. HR is trying to do everything by the book and although I have relayed all of this to them, they are insisting, based on his qualifications, that we have to offer him an interview. He will ace the interview and I am sure he will outshine the other candidates we have (he’s a very good politician and is very sharp). Is there anything else I can do to convince HR to not bring him in for the interview? Or if we must interview him, how can we justifiably turn him down? I also want to maintain a professional relationship with him, as we still occasionally cross paths at industry events.

First of all, what exactly does “the senior director” mean here? If you’re in charge of the firm, HR should be working to support you, not laying down edicts that they can’t defend. Yes, they’re charged with ensuring the company complies with the law and minimizes risk, but there’s no legal requirement that you interview everyone who’s qualified on paper. If you’ve worked with the candidate in the past and know they’re wrong for the role based on that experience, you do not need to interview out of a sense of fairness. So first, push back on HR and ask them to explain exactly why they think you should ignore firsthand experience working closely with a candidate.

Second, are you in charge of hiring for this position? If so, and you’re pushed into interviewing him, you can name your concern pretty explicitly in the interview: “This is an individual contributor position that doesn’t manage anyone, and about 80% of your time will be spent doing XYZ personally, not supervising others in doing it. I know that’s different than the role you had when we worked together, so I hoped you would speak to your interest in making that kind of move and what appeals to you about it.” Who knows, maybe you’ll hear something that changes your mind. But assuming you don’t, you can simply decline to hire him based on your experience working together in the past and your knowledge of the needs of the role. And if you’re not the decision-maker, you should share your experience and concerns very candidly with whoever is.

5. Can you take back your resignation?

This is a hypothetical, but it’s made me curious: Is there any way to pull back a resignation within the notice period? I had a wild dream where I quit a job I liked a lot for a reason I regretted, and found myself having to try to un-quit. I didn’t actually do this, but now I can’t stop thinking about it! Is there a script for changing your mind gracefully?

Sure, you can always try. If they valued you and haven’t already hired someone else, they might leap at the chance to keep you — although on the manager side of that, I’d want to make sure I understood what led you to quit in the first place and why you’d changed your mind, and I’d want to feel confident that whatever led to your quitting wasn’t going to put us in the same spot a few months down the road. And of course, if they weren’t terribly sad about you leaving, you might hear, “We appreciate the offer, but we’ve already planned for the transition and are pretty far into hiring for your replacement.”

As for how to say it, you need to explain why you’ve changed your mind. For example: “I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and I’d be interested in staying if it’s not too late to change course. I’d been concerned that my job was moving to more of an X focus, but you were so responsive when we talked about it and I can see that with Jane joining our team, those projects won’t fall as heavily to my role for much longer. If you’re open to me staying, I’m looking at a lot of this differently now.” (But that’s a reason that makes sense! If it’s just “oops, I acted too hastily / in the heat of the moment,” you still might be able to reverse it, but you should expect a fair amount of concern about what happened and whether you can really be happy there or not.)

my boss is pressuring me to work more hours … I just came back from stress leave

by Alison Green on August 12, 2024

A reader writes:

I recently took a couple of weeks off work because of a work-stress-related mental breakdown, and came back today. Our project is a nightmare — toxic culture, inexperienced leadership, over-budget, understaffed.

Brian, our project manager and my grandboss, is responsible for a lot of the problems. He also can’t manage the members of our team who underperform (he has no clue what everyone below him does all day) or the ones who fly off the handle (yelling, slamming doors, walking out of meetings). I’m not the only one who’s one bad day away from resigning on the spot. It’s the perfect storm, and I was on a slow spiral for months until I snapped.

Brian pulled me aside today to “make sure you’re doing okay.” I answered that I was on the mend, and am keeping an eye on my mental health and implementing some strategies I’m working out with my psychologist. For example, taking regular breaks, and working 7am-5pm only (standard hours in my industry). I’d already had a meeting with my line manager, Sarah, to sort out workload priorities to make sure the critical work got done. Sarah is really happy with my performance, and she supports my recovery and boundaries.

Brian was shocked and insisted that I work overtime (unpaid — I’m exempt). He believes he’s been generous by “letting” the team to leave by 5:15pm and hadn’t mandated Saturdays (an old school industry norm, but definitely not the norm now), so I should “put in the hours” now. He insisted that I wasn’t performing and if I don’t work through to the evening, I risk pushing his project deeper into distress. He’s expecting everyone to “step up because the company and client will expect it” and “nobody is bigger than the project.” This is wildly out of step with our company culture/values.

I flatly told Brian that I’m not planning on slacking off, but I’m planning on managing my health. Working more hours won’t solve the project’s problems, and I’d just had a breakdown because of overwork and chaotic management. If he wants me to sacrifice my health, I’ll quit. I asked him to speak to Sarah if there are any issues with this. He did this afternoon, and Sarah was supportive of everything we’d agreed to and told him he was being ridiculous and to butt out.

I don’t know where to go from here. I’m expecting Brian to retaliate somehow. Sarah, my actual boss, is happy with my performance and doesn’t want me sticking around late for the sake of it — she wants me healthy so I can do my job. I have a mentor within the company, but he’s national head of our department (my great-great grandboss), and he’s already on Brian’s case about his performance and the project culture, so I feel like that’s breaking chain of command to ask him for advice. I’m hesitant to get HR involved.

The job market is hot for this industry and I could find another job tomorrow, but I really want to stick it out because I’ve worked hard on this project and want to see it out. I just think Brian’s being completely unreasonable, and while I’m happy to quit I want to try something else first.

If you’re confident that you could find another job tomorrow, you have a lot of power here. Knowing you could easily get another job means you don’t need to feel pressure to compromise on your health or the hours you’re willing to work.

I don’t know that there’s anything you need to do right now. It sounds like Sarah has your back and made it clear to Brian that she’s happy with your work and he needs to leave you alone.

Of course, Brian is Sarah’s boss, so I don’t know if he’ll actually accept that or not. But you probably have a good idea of how much capital and influence Sarah has, what her dynamic is with Brian, and how willing or unwilling he is to overrule her — and those things are likely to play a role in what, if anything, happens next.

At this point, it likely makes sense to just wait and see. If Brian backs off, great. If he doesn’t, you’re willing to walk. Also great.

A few things I might disagree with from your letter: First, it’s not necessarily a bad idea to have a discreet conversation with your mentor. You said you’re worried about breaking chain of command, but (a) this is your mentor, so that’s less of a concern than it would be if you never talked to each other, and (b) since he already has significant concerns about Brian, he’d probably be pretty interested in hearing that Brian is actively in the process of messing up something additional. Second, it might also be wise to loop HR in — not in the “I’m here to complain about Brian” sense, but as a way to ensure the steps you’re taking to manage your health are documented (and possibly officially sanctioned, which could make it harder for Brian to give you a hard time about it).

Last, this part: “I really want to stick it out because I’ve worked hard on this project and want to see it out.” That’s understandable, and it’s a normal thing to feel if you’re conscientious and invested in your work. But you also just had a breakdown related to work stress, and you describe the culture you’re returning to as a toxic mess, and one where you’re worried about retaliation for protecting yourself. Your mental health is more important than seeing out a project. Don’t get so focused on “must stay” that you miss signs that you’d be better off leaving.

how to respond to “jokes” about age and weight at work

by Alison Green on August 12, 2024

A reader writes:

I’m a manager with several supervisors under me. A supervisor was “teased” by one team member for being overweight and by a different one for being “old.” Prior to these comments, the supervisor had told me that she’s watching what she eats and is trying to lose weight. She’s about my age and although she laughed at the comments made by the two employees, I am not okay with this. Should I say something to them, or address the entire office to let them know that comments about size and age are inappropriate? I have no problem saying something, but I want to choose my words carefully so I don’t go off on anyone.

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

Client is pushing religion on me
How do we re-contact rejected applicants with offers or interview invites?

my team has been stealing from the company

by Alison Green on August 12, 2024

A reader writes:

A few days ago, I discovered that at least seven people on my team have been stealing cash across different sites for months. It was deliberate and carefully coordinated and occurred almost daily. They took an average of $30-40 a day so I can’t see how the risk worked out financially after splitting between all of them.

Lost money aside, I am extremely upset. I see these people every day and work closely with them. I have given them emotional support over personal problems and protected jobs during potential layoffs. We regularly socialized outside of work. One of the ringleaders has a son with the same medical condition as my child’s. I went out of my way to get the family in touch with support organizations and get them free legal advice through personal contacts. I’ve advocated for (and received) better remuneration for many of them, even during tough times last year.

There are others who assisted with covering up even if they didn’t financially benefit from the theft, and others who knew but didn’t say anything because they didn’t want to get involved or get their coworkers in trouble.

I’m frantically trying to recruit new staff so we can dismiss the seven (or potentially more) who were involved.

I’ve lost sleep over the sense of betrayal. I feel stupid and gullible. It feels personal.

Given this involves so many people, how do I go about firing them? Do I need to do this all on the same day?

I’m certain there are others directly involved, but we just haven’t got the evidence. I’m not sure what to do about this.

I now feel extremely cynical about trusting or helping people at work. Do I just … not trust or help people now?

Oh no. I’m sorry. That has to feel like a gut punch.

A few things, in no particular order:

* While this feels like a personal betrayal, there’s a decent chance that they didn’t look at it that way. People who steal from employers generally see it as a relatively impersonal crime; they figure they’re stealing from a faceless corporation and it feels entirely different to them than, I don’t know, swiping your wallet or scamming a relative. Obviously this is wrong-headed thinking — they are betraying the trust of a person they work with every day and who has invested in them and worked to ensure they’re treated well. But they might not have looked at it as involving you much at all.

* When someone betrays your trust like this, it’s natural to wonder what you missed and whether you were, as you put it, “stupid and gullible.” But assuming they weren’t leaving obvious clues all over the place, you’re not stupid and gullible to have trusted people who it sounds like you were relatively close to. They’re the ones who broke the social contract, not you.

People who steal money set out to engage in deception; their whole point is make sure you don’t see what they’re doing. Should you have seen something wrong in their characters earlier? Possibly. But prisons are full of people whose friends and family members thought they seemed like lovely people. People are really good at compartmentalizing their behavior.

That said, do you need more checks and balances in place to catch theft? Very possibly! It’s something you should look at rigorously now.

* The logistics of the firings depend on details I don’t have. Ideally you should fire all the people involved ASAP and all at once, as soon as you’re able to, even if it means the rest of the team stretching for a bit to cover the gaps. Even if it’s not large enough to do that, you should look at emergency measures you could take that would allow you to fire them ASAP anyway: can you bring in temps, cut back on non-essential projects, borrow people from other teams in the interim, etc.?

* Related to that, assuming you have HR and/or legal counsel, you should seek and follow their guidance — but you can also make your preferences known. Sometimes HR and lawyers will advise the most conservative course of action but will give you different, better tailored advice if you say, “Actually the outcome I’d prefer is X — is there a way to do that instead, legally and ethically?”

* You didn’t mention pressing charges, but that’s something you should be thinking about as well.

* It’s natural to feel cynical about trusting people now. People intentionally deceived you, and this was a betrayal. It’s okay if you keep yourself at more of a remove as you process this. But the goal should be, in time, to get yourself to a point where you don’t look at everyone you work with as a potential criminal. Your response to this should be about you, not them: be a manager who supports and advocates for employees because that’s who you want to be. But it’s also natural and okay if it takes some processing time to get there.

my team has an all-male soccer betting pool, employer asks new hires to list all their prescriptions, and more

by Alison Green on August 12, 2024

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

1. My team has an all-male soccer betting pool

My team includes two women (including me) and five men, three of whom are huge soccer fans. A few months ago, the three of them decided to form a betting pool on a large soccer event. They invited the other two men on the team (who are not huge soccer fans) to join the pool, but did not invite the two women.

The first pool was a success, so the five of them did another betting pool for a subsequent soccer event, and then another one for the Olympics. It has become quite a public office event that is widely discussed throughout the day, and it often culminates in outings where the five of them go to watch the games they’ve bet on together after work.

It seems likely to me and the other woman on the team that the men did not intentionally mean to exclude the women from this pool, as they are all quite nice guys with whom we get along well with. However, we could not help but notice the optics of the decision not to ask us. It seems blatantly sexist and we feel like, principally, it is bad for the office to have so much of work chat centered around an activity that only the men were invited to join.

We have been going back and forth, however, about whether we should do something to address this. I imagine that if we spoke up and outright asked to join the betting pool, they would allow us in. The thing is that neither of us are particularly interested in soccer, so we don’t actually have a strong desire to participate in this betting pool. Is it worth bringing to the rest of our team’s attention that there’s a very visible gendered dynamic to this group they’ve formed, or should we let it go since, in this case, the organizers happen to have correctly guessed that the two women wouldn’t be interested?

I’d leave it alone. Could it have been handled better, by originally inviting everyone to participate even if you declined? Sure. Is it outrageous that they didn’t think to do that initially? Not really if they correctly knew you wouldn’t be interested, and especially because it sounds like originally it was just going to be for a single event. Now that it’s turned into something more long-running, you’re not wrong that it’s not great to have so much work socialization be single-gender … but from a practical perspective, I don’t think there’s a lot to gain by addressing it when you don’t actually want to participate (and when the Olympics just ended anyway, and perhaps this activity with it).

That said, I’m curious about the gender dynamics in your office. If you’re already dealing with sexist dynamics on your team, I can see why this would especially grate. If it’s not something that normally rears its head as a problem, I’d be extra inclined to leave this alone.

To be clear, the circumstances matter here. This is different from, for example, this company that sponsored annual golf trips that women never participated in (in that it’s not company-sponsored and is smaller, less formal, and likely shorter-running). It would also be different if any of the woman asked to participate and were rebuffed.

2. Employer asks new hires to list all their prescription medications

This is a question about an organization that I left, but still bothers me. After some turnover at my last job in a mid-sized nonprofit, new employees were being asked to list the prescriptions they used on their new hire paperwork. Some of the new employees refused to list this information, and our director of facilities — who did not process our new hire paperwork but did perform required background checks on new staff — would inform the new employee’s manager and the two would pressure the new hire to list what prescriptions they used.

I found this to be deeply upsetting since some prescriptions can identify key aspects of one’s identity, including some protected classes of individuals. Some prescriptions have stigmas attached to them, and some might be banned in the future (for example, birth control). Can employers require staff to declare any and all prescriptions they use? Can staff simply lie about these prescriptions if they do not want to out themselves?

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits employers from asking employees medical questions (including about medications) unless it’s job-related and consistent with business necessity. For an employer to legally ask about prescriptions, the employee must be in a safety-sensitive position (like if you were a bus driver using a medication that could cause drowsiness). For the vast majority of jobs, this inquiry would be illegal — but whether it was illegal in your organization depends on the nature of the jobs.

3. Is my employer gaslighting me?

I’ve been working in the nonprofit sector for the last ten years. It’s a small organization, less than 20, and I’m on an even smaller team and we are fully distributed. My question is about feeling gaslighted (gaslit?) and what, if anything, can be done.

Over the years, many micro-instances of this have occurred; I’m only flagging the most consequential ones. I’ve watched new hires come (and go) at much higher pay or with less experience and immediately move up the ranks. Others have been given training opportunities to advance or been given a voice in their career trajectory. There is a long history of nepotism at this org too. Below are two instances that bother me the most and enforce the narrative in my head that I don’t deserve better.

My manager is retiring, and at one point, I was to inherit that role as the two of us have worked together closely the entire time. A few years ago, they decided I was not the one for that role, and a good friend of management was hired to inherit that position. I was talked at when they made this decision and asked if I was okay with it (as if I had a choice or a say) and told it’s because I’m so good at bringing in the money, they don’t want me doing anything else. (It’s true that the millions in revenue I’ve brought into the org have directly contributed to making it through the pandemic.) It still felt crummy. I took it like a champ, but it stung.

More recently, we hired another person who will be on the same team as me and who, once again, is being elevated and given the opportunity, agency, and voice. At least they are not related to anyone on staff, but they look and sound a lot like my soon-to-be-retired manager, so perhaps nepo-by-osmosis is happening.

Just last week, our executive director said in a team meeting that this new person would get to do X, Y, and Z and that I would feel left out, and they asked me if that was okay. I was flabbergasted but said, “I don’t have any say in this, so yes.” But I am crushed, burned out, and tired of feeling worthless. I am the lowest-paid teammate (and have the heavy/heaviest workload) and am soon to be the longest tenured on this team.

When you add these instances up over the course of many years, I feel like I’ve lost my compass, so I’m reaching out to an outside voice. Am I being gaslit, or is this normal for an organization? I would like to have more agency and opportunity and to be seen and treated like a valuable colleague. And of course, I want to be paid what I’m worth. But each time that opportunity presents itself, the gaslighting happens.

I don’t know if you’re being gaslit or not (that would involve a deliberate intent to mess with your head, so it’s unlikely but who knows), but it doesn’t really matter. What we know for sure is that you’re not getting the advancement or recognition that you want in this job, and that’s been the pattern over a number of years. That on its own is reason to look outside the organization for a different job.

You don’t need to sort out whether this is gaslighting or normal or anything else. You’re unhappy and burned out and there is a pattern of not getting what you want in this org, even as others do. Their reasons for that could be entirely understandable each time it’s happened, but it doesn’t matter because this job isn’t meeting your needs, and hasn’t been for a long time. You get to leave for that reason alone!

4. Company wants a verbal acceptance before sending an offer letter

My husband just received a verbal job offer for a higher-seniority position from a small company in the private sector. He requested a written offer with details of the compensation, and HR sent an email with only a salary, annual bonus percentage, and “total compensation” value, with an attached booklet on medical and retirement plans available.

The thing that really got me about this was the following line: “If this fits within your scope, we’ll draft up an offer letter. We can discuss the start date after a verbal offer acceptance.”

Am I misunderstanding this, or does it seem like they want him to verbally (or by email) accept their offer before giving him an actual offer letter? That sounds bananapants to me! The process up until now makes it seem like a very inexperienced HR person. The legal mind in me says this is not a great procedure, but a verbal agreement is not necessarily binding. What say you?

This isn’t uncommon. They’ve sent him the details of the offer and they’ll formalize it once he decided if he wants to accept (and presumably after any negotiation has occurred so the details are finalized). The only part that’s weird is that they don’t want to discuss start date yet, but he could just introduce that into whatever negotiation or discussion of the offer he’s going to have — for example, if it’s important to him to have a start date that’s between X and Y weeks out, he can say that now. If there’s any other info he needs before making a decision, he can ask for that now too. Basically, this company is opening negotiations and sees the offer letter as simply memorializing whatever details are hammered out by the end of that process.

I think you’re balking because it feels weird that they’re not making it formal now. But he has an offer. If it changes when the formal letter shows up, he’s not obligated to stick to an earlier yes.

5. I announced a new job — how do I now share that I’m taking a different one instead?

In May, I accepted a job offer that I was reasonably excited about, so I announced the new job on both LinkedIn and my personal social media. I am taking the bar exam this summer, so I was not scheduled to start this new job until September.

However, a few weeks after I accepted the job, I was offered another position that was better for me in pretty much every way — better salary, much more in line with my career goals, easier commute, the works. I accepted that position and gracefully extricated myself from the first job and am on good terms with them (and I even referred someone to them that they ended up hiring in my place).

However, how do I handle publicizing that change to my personal and professional network? At the time, I quietly took down the posts announcing my acceptance of the first position and did not say anything about the second position, particularly since I won’t start there until September either. Do I acknowledge that I had previously announced that I would be working one place but have since accepted another position — and if so, how do I explain that change without denigrating the first job or making it seem like they let me go? Do I just quietly update my LinkedIn status with my new job when I start it in September and just explain what happened if anyone asks? To what extent do I need to explain the change?

Nah, just go ahead and announce the new job when you start it or just before, if that’s something you want to do. You don’t need to acknowledge that this is a change. Lots of people won’t even remember, so there’s no need to draw attention to it. If anyone asks, you can simply say, “I ended up being offered a different role that was an even better fit.” But you don’t need to get into the details; most people won’t care that much (unless they’re close to you, in which case they’re likely to already know anyway).