Ask a Manager

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

1. My neighbor, her nephew, my kid, and her dogs

My question has to do with kid work. I recently found myself in an uncomfortable situation with my middle-schooler, Falcon, and I’m wondering if I handled it badly. My neighbor, Jane, asked Falcon to check on her dogs and take them for a walk while she attended an event. She offered $15/hour, and since Falcon loves dogs, he agreed. The request was for him to spend two to three hours walking and playing with the dogs, starting between 5 and 6 pm.

On the afternoon of the event, Jane texted, asking if Falcon could instead stay at her house until she returned around 11 pm. She also mentioned that her adult nephew, Hank, would be at the house with Falcon. This change was … unexpected. We only saw the text after returning home from Falcon’s soccer game, by which time Jane had already left for the event. Neither of us had ever met Hank before, and all we knew about him was that he had learning disabilities.

Falcon was uncomfortable with the idea of spending several hours in a house with an adult stranger. But, since Jane had already left, we felt obligated to fulfill her request. I accompanied Falcon to the house at 6 pm. We walked the dogs, played with them in the yard, and greeted Hank, who was sitting in the dark and ignored us. Falcon was afraid of him. We played outside with the dogs for a couple of hours until it became too dark and mosquito-y to reasonably remain outdoors. We then brought the dogs inside and waited together in the front room with them until Jane returned, as neither of us was comfortable leaving Falcon alone with Hank.

When Jane got home, she noticed dog poop in the kitchen, which we hadn’t seen because Falcon was too scared to go in there (it was attached to the room where Hank was hanging out in the dark). It appeared that Hank and/or the dogs had stepped in the poop and gotten it all over the place. Our best guess is that the pooping happened before we arrived, as we were with the dogs fairly consistently from 6 pm until Jane’s return. Jane handed Falcon $75 as payment, but I texted her the next morning, offering to return the money since we hadn’t prevented the dogs from soiling the house. Jane asked us to return $50, which we did.

I feel terrible about the whole situation. I don’t think Jane should have put my son in the position of being alone for hours with a man he didn’t know. Falcon feels guilty for not doing a better job with the dogs. I’m wondering how could I have handled this better. Beyond letting the dogs out earlier, of course. I feel like I’ve both traumatized my child and let down my neighbor.

This is 100% on Jane. Falcon agreed to a specific job: playing with the dogs for a couple of hours, on his own, ending no later than 9 pm. Jane unilaterally changed that to “stay at my house for six hours with an adult man you don’t know.” Even if Hank had been friendlier/less intimidating, this wasn’t an okay thing to ask of a middle-schooler, particularly without checking to see if he’d be comfortable with it and possibly talking with you as well. (Frankly, even if Falcon were comfortable, I don’t think it would have been an appropriate ask. If Hank isn’t capable of taking care of the dog himself, and is someone who might smear dog poop all over the house without cleaning it up, an unprepared middle-schooler isn’t the right person to be alone with him.)

If we could go back in time, ideally you would have coached Falcon to tell Jane that he couldn’t stay later than the time he agreed to (or even told her that yourself). You say you felt obligated to fulfill Jane’s request, but you weren’t obligated; the request wasn’t the one Falcon had agreed to. I don’t think you needed to offer to return the money although I can understand the impulse, given the poop situation. But Jane should have refused that offer and should have apologized for how things unfolded.

2. I submitted a time off request 3 months ago … and am still waiting

I work at a small company, about 50 employees. Last year, the owner turned over day-to-day operations to a VP who has been with the company for the past 10 years. I report to the VP and am one of four people with the company in a managerial position.

Over three months ago, I submitted a leave request for the week of Christmas. I have been in this industry for over 20 years and that week is historically the slowest week of the year. I usually do not take off that week so that my staff is able to travel to see family (my family is small and local). Last year, my brother-in-law died on Christmas and my husband does not want to be home due to the bad memories from last year. Because it is Christmas, I submitted my request early to make sure it was timely and before any other requests were submitted.

The VP has not made a decision on my leave request and advised me he is still “thinking about it.” I’m very frustrated. I feel disrespected and unappreciated. I only earn two weeks of leave per year, which isn’t much and often causes issues as my husband has considerably more leave and we are unable to travel due to my lack of leave. It is also use or lose, so if I do not use my time by the end of the year, I will lose it. I feel like my vacation time is being held hostage. Never mind that I have to pay for the AirBNB and flight and my husband has to request leave as well for that week. Everything is in limbo over this and the costs are rising each day. The difference in the cost of the flights between early June and September is nearly $1000. I’m so angry and disappointed.

I’m willing to quit over this. My issue is that I don’t think the owner is aware of the issues with the VP, and I’m not sure how to bring it up as he has stated multiple times that he has complete faith in the VP and trusts him 100%. I do not think it is appropriate to withhold PTO approval (or denial) for over three months, all while the cost of my vacation plans are now increasing and I will not be able to use the leave before the end of the year if this vacation request is not approved. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated in how to address with both the owner and VP.

Talk to the VP first! Say what you’ve said here — the costs are rising with each day that you wait, the time off is use-or-or-lose it, and you need to be able to plan. Ask what he needs to give you a definite answer by next week.

If he doesn’t do that (or if he denies the request), talk to the owner. “Having complete faith in” the VP and “trusting him 100%” doesn’t generally mean “I believe he will never miss anything / could never benefit from help changing his perspective.” And you’re a high-level employee who’s been there for a decade; the owner probably would want to know that you’re on the verge of quitting over something so easily solvable.

All that said … two weeks of vacation time is very stingy for a management level position, and even more so after 10 years. I’d also find it grating to be in a high-level management role but still be required to get approval for a meager amount of time off during a slow period. No one should need to wait this long to have PTO approved, but typically PTO approval for managers at your level is much closer to a rubber-stamp; making you wait months for no discernible reason is ridiculous. Is this the only thing where your company is stingy and overly rigid? I’d be inclined to reassess how well this place treats you (in money, in benefits, and in respect) and compare it to other options that might be out there.

3. What do I do when my company firewall blocks a website?

On occasion I will open a safe-for-work link but it will be blocked for various reasons. Sometimes it’s because it’s a “advocacy website” (which, my job is in advocacy, so I don’t totally get) but sometimes it’s for pornography. This is absolutely mortifying! (And I must stress, there’s no reason to believe these links are actually NSFW!) What should I do when this happens? I usually do nothing, but I am very embarrassed at the idea of our IT team getting an alert that I tried to access porn at work. Do I need to email them about it and clear the air?

Nah. They’re probably well aware that the software misfires, and you’re undoubtedly not the only person it’s happening to. However, it would be fine to message them, “FYI, OatmealAlliance.com is being blocked as ‘pornography,’ which it obviously isn’t.” That way you’re informing them about a problem (their blocking tool needs refinement) and if it happens to bring you peace of mind in the process, so much the better.

If these are sites you need to do your job, you should add, “Can you please unblock it? I need it for a project I’m working on” (or similar).

4. Greeting people you’re not sure you’ve met before or not

Low stakes question, but do you have a favorite way to acknowledge people who you’re introduced to and aren’t sure if you’ve met before? Or you know you have, but they don’t remember and you don’t want to put them on the spot?

I’m usually in the latter category, but may be moving into the former. The default seems to be “nice to see you,” to cover all bases, but honestly I hate it. Curious if you have anything better?

“Nice to see you” is a classic among politicians and others who do lots of glad-handing for a reason: it covers you in case you’re forgetting that you’ve met the person previously. You could go with “hello, how are you?” but there aren’t many other options for this specific context.

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

1. My doctor’s office constantly leaves me on hold — how do I deal with this at work?

Do you have any advice on how to handle important personal phone calls with LONG hold times when you’re working in a client-facing position?

My doctor’s office has developed a fun new habit of either leaving me on hold for extremely long times if I call the central scheduling line or never picking up (and then never returning my voicemails) if I try to call the specific reception desk of my specific office, even when I’m returning a call from that same reception desk.

I am the sole receptionist in a busy office, and my doctor’s office is only open during my own work hours. There’s no one else at home who can make these calls on my behalf. It’s really not feasible for me to be sitting on hold for ages while clients are trying to talk to me – there’ve been times I’ve had to lose my place in line to hang up and focus on a client, and times when I’ve been hung up on because a scheduler finally picked up my call and I couldn’t get my personal phone to my ear fast enough – but obviously my doctor’s office doesn’t care. It feels ridiculous stepping into a private office to sit around listening to hold music while there’s work to be done (not least because I might be asked to use some of my limited sick or vacation time to make up for the lost work time), but if this is going to keep happening, I’m truly at a loss for what else to do.

Any advice for managing the actual calls AND the stress of trying to deal with Important Health Stuff while at work would be deeply, deeply appreciated. (It’s not feasible for me to switch healthcare providers for a variety of reasons right now.)

Oh, this sucks! Ultimately your only option might be to save the calls for lunch time, but that’s not always easy to do.

If you did use the conference room plan, is there any work you could take in with you so you wouldn’t be expected to use PTO for that time? And is there someone who could cover for you at reception while you did? If the calls are daily that’s probably not realistic, but if they’re only occasional, you might be able to simply explain the situation and ask for help. Otherwise, I think you’re probably stuck with confining them to lunch.

2. My rude coworker sends me the most bare-bones emails possible

I have a coworker who is known within the organization to be prickly. I have worked here for seven years and dealt with her for the first six of these years with little issue (besides hearing about how difficult she is from others).

As part of my job I have to ask her to create invoices on occasion. I make these requests via email, always with a friendly “Hi Julie” and provide the information such as client details, budget line, cost, and details of what I need to be created. I thank her and invite her to come back to me if she has any questions.

About a year ago I had to ask her to regenerate an invoice she provided me (due to my manager changing the way she wanted it worded). I explained why I needed it altered and apologized that we were causing her to re-do something we had asked for. (My manager is a GM and it’s very rare for him to cause inconvenience, but on this occasion we did.) Ever since, I’ve noticed Julie has dropped any “niceties” and begun interacting with me with a curt tone.

The last three times I’ve asked for an invoice, I’ve had to do a follow-up “just checking you got my request” style email after no reply a week later. Then I received blank emails with no salutations or acknowledgement — she is simply replying to my emails with what I’ve requested (invoice) attached. I ignored it the first two times, but this last occasion I am finding it rude and inappropriate.

Compounding the lack of communication is that this last time is I needed to go back to her because a small detail was missed. I politely replied with, “Hi Julie, thanks for sending me the invoice, unfortunately this one has tax included. I believe this will need to be amended before I send it out. I’ve attached the details again in case there’s something I’ve got wrong — let me know :)” Again, no reply or answer or acknowledgement, just a reply email with the amended invoice attached.

Saying hi/thanks and acknowledging me doesn’t feel too much to ask for. A simple “Hi Jane, invoice attached, regards” would suffice, even if she does choose to never respond to my questions. I want to raise this with her and give her the chance to keep her behavior in check so I drafted this: “Hi Julie, thank you for the amended invoice. Should I be reading into the fact that all the emails I receive from you don’t greet me and lack any content or answers to any questions I ask? Regards, Jane”

I thought by writing it this way I am giving her the chance to either (1) reassure me she has no issue (whether she does or doesn’t, it will prompt her to do better; sometimes with a bully you knock the wind out of their sails by talking about their passive-aggressive behavior up-front) or (2) ignore it because she does want to send a message. If she ignores it, I would like to elevate it to my manager. I don’t care if it is through gritted teeth, I’d like some courtesy of basic salutation (hi and regards) going forward. Are my expectations too high? How would you approach this?

Your expectations aren’t unreasonable, but you should let it go. Some people do send very bare-bones emails with no text and only an attachment. It’s not a very polished way to communicate, but it’s a thing people do and it’s not egregious enough in a coworker that you’d have grounds to address it. In Julie’s case, it’s notable that she didn’t start doing this until after you committed the terrible offense of asking for a minor modification that it’s her job to make, so clearly she’s expressing some Feelings by emailing the way she does … but it’s not a big enough thing to act on.

That said, if she’s not responding to requests at all until you follow up, that part is something you could bring to your manager — although even that depends on how much of a problem it poses to your work.

Related:
do I care too much about email style?

3. My former coworker wants to stay in touch, but I don’t

I was recently laid off from a job after a year, rather unexpectedly. I recognize things I could have done differently, but the job description changed after I was hired and my skills were no longer a good fit. I left a good job to take this one, and I feel a lot of anger towards the company that I am working through (in therapy).

My question is about a former coworker who wants to stay in touch. We didn’t work together closely while I was there, and when we did, we didn’t particularly get along (she snapped at me more than once). Mostly I kept a cool but friendly distance from her. During my last week, she cornered me at lunch and asked a bunch of intrusive questions about why I was being fired, if I was going to move, if I planned on having kids because that would make the job search harder, etc. It was extremely unpleasant and I cried in front of her, which I really didn’t want to do. I tried to be nice and just thank her for her well wishes, assuming it was a misguided attempt at kindness.

Since I left, she has sent multiple texts checking in and asking me how job hunting is going, and sending “helpful” advice like to look at Indeed for job listings. I think she is still just trying to be kind, but I don’t want to talk to her! Even if our relationship hadn’t been difficult, I don’t want to talk to anyone from my old company, given how angry I still am. To make it worse, I don’t have any new job prospects on the horizon and I am not doing great! So far I have just ignored the messages, but that doesn’t feel like a very good response. Do you have any suggestions on what I should do and/or say?

The generous interpretation is that she feels bad for making you cry (she should! those questions were rude and unkind) and she’s trying to smooth it over / be helpful now. The less generous interpretation is that she’s a busybody, which is why she cornered you with those questions and why she’s trying to continue to stay in touch now.

Either way, you should feel free to keep ignoring her! She’ll get the message or give up eventually. Truly, it’s fine to do this with people you were never close with and have no interest in staying in touch with. If ignoring feels too rude, then answer only sporadically (maybe every third email), let some days pass before you respond, and keep your answers bland and non-informative. But seriously, it’s fine to just ignore them.

Unrelated: you’re using fired and laid off interchangeably and they have two different meanings. Fired is if you were let go because of something about your performance or conduct. Laid off is if you were let go because your employer eliminated your position. If you were laid off, make sure you’re not telling people you were fired!

4. Clarifying time zones when scheduling interviews

I’ve noticed that many recruiters frequently use “standard time” when scheduling interviews via email, even during periods when daylight saving time is in effect. For example, when setting up a phone interview in California during daylight saving time, they’ll often confirm the time as “1:30 pm PST” instead of “1:30 pm PDT.” It seems that some people either automatically default to “S” for “standard” or may not be aware of the distinction between standard time and daylight time.

Since I’m almost certain they mean 1:30 pm local time in California, I usually choose not to correct this detail to avoid coming off as overly particular. Alternatively, I might subtly confirm by responding with something like, “Great, I look forward to our interview at 1:30 pm PDT!”

Do you think it’s better to just assume they mean daylight time when/where daylight time is in effect, subtly clarify the time zone, or do something else?

It is absolutely the case that many people default to S when abbreviating time zones (to say nothing of how many of us can’t remember whether we’re currently in daylight savings or not). So yes, assume they are citing their geographical zone and ignore the Standard/Daylight piece of it. People are definitely not indicating that they use their own special time zone that’s an hour off from how everyone else in their region tells time during this part of the year. (Two exceptions: Hawaii and Arizona, with the exception of the Navajo Nation, don’t use daylight saving time at all.)

I’m a fan of leaving off the middle letter altogether and just writing “1:30 PT” (or whatever).

5. Accepted job offer but there’s no start date

I accepted a six-month temporary job with a staffing agency. However, they are still waiting for their client to give a start date. I have contacted the staffing agency, but they have not received a response yet. Should I continue looking? This would have been the perfect opportunity because it is work from home.

Yes, continue looking until there’s a start date. Right now it sounds like there’s too much chance that the job won’t come to fruition, and the staffing agency doesn’t sound like they’re offering any information to prove otherwise (like “we expect you to start the last week of the month, but the VP is on vacation until Monday so we can’t confirm for sure until then” — although even in that situation, I’d probably advise you to keep looking until it’s fully settled). I’m sorry!