Ask a Manager

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

1. My boss keeps pulling on my ponytail

I started a new part-time job at a restaurant a few months ago. I like it, for the most part, and I like the managers. But one of them, Phil, has a rather odd habit. He semi-regularly tugs (hard!) on my ponytail, which I am required to wear by policy and sanitation standards. The context of when he does it comes across as playful/friendly, for example when saying hello upon first seeing me that day or while laughing after I made a joke. I was extremely shocked the first time it happened and thought I’d gotten my hair caught on something before Phil made a comment (it was a “hi, nice to see you” hair tug as while I was passing through the kitchen).

This has happened six times since I started in March, which now that I write that down seems excessive for my short tenure and part-time status. I don’t know how to go back and reset this completely bananas boundary without it making things awkward. I suspect he doesn’t realize how hard he’s pulling and would at least be more gentle if I asked him to be, but I also think he’d be offended if I asked him to stop all together. I’ve definitely heard him complain about other staff members behind their backs, although usually for justifiable work reasons that I’ve seen firsthand, so maybe he’d take it in stride and I’m just catastrophizing. The power dynamics and gender roles make it feel so daunting to bring up. Do you have any suggestions?

Hopefully you’re just catastrophizing, because someone who takes offense to being asked to stop causing someone else physical pain … would be a serious problem as a human, let alone as your boss. Right now, though, there’s no reason to think Phil will take offense to a perfectly reasonable request. The fact that he complains about other employees’ work means he’s indiscreet (and maybe sucks at managing people), but not that he’s a bully who will ignore a direct request to stop pulling your hair.

(Of course, one could argue that the fact that he’s pulling your hair at all means he’s a problem — that’s not okay behavior — but if I’m reading your letter correctly, he thinks it’s playful and being well-received. Which is bad judgment, but not inherently the sign of a bully.)

So, the next time he does it: “Ouch! That really hurts — please stop.”

That’s the soft version. If Phil is a decent person, he’ll be mortified that he hurt you and will stop.

If the soft version isn’t enough to stop the hair-tugging, move to “Stop touching me.” Say it in a serious tone and don’t soften it with a smile. You need to remove any ability for him to read it as playful jesting in return; make it clear you mean it.

Assume that will take care of it. If it doesn’t, there’s a bigger problem with Phil — but so far, we have every reason to assume that simply telling him to stop will take care of it.

I do want to flag that there might be a bigger issue playing out on your side: you’re concerned you might offend someone if you ask them to stop causing you physical pain. Any chance you tend to be overly deferential to people with power, or to men, or to some other dynamic in play here? Because that’s not something you should ever need to worry about without the person giving you a specific reason to fear it.

2. My boss hates babies, and I’m pregnant

I have a good relationship with my boss and we work closely together. They are very staunchly child-free, which I have no issue with, but they have shared some very anti-baby/anti-mother sentiments that have made me worried about how they will react to my news. As a specific example, when another member of our department said they will never have kids, my boss responded “oh good, I hate kids!” My boss has also made comments about how pregnant people are always making excuses and are lazy.

I’m early in my first trimester and am not telling anyone yet, but when I eventually have to say something, I’m worried about how my boss will react. I have tried to lay the groundwork over the past year of mentioning that my husband and I will “eventually” have a child so the announcement won’t be a huge shock. Do you have any advice on how to break the news? No one in my department has kids, so I don’t have anyone to turn to for advice. To clarify, I don’t think my boss would become retaliatory, I’m more worried about making things awkward around the office if I approach this wrong.

You shouldn’t need to walk on eggshells around your pregnancy announcement! So first and foremost, your boss has seriously messed up by creating an environment where people working for them dread announcing a pregnancy. (Particularly those comments about how “how pregnant people are always making excuses and are lazy.” First, WTF? Second, great way to create a legal liability for the company if someone happens to bring a pregnancy discrimination claim down the road. Third, WTF?)

Anyway. Sometimes the best way to share news that you think the other person will react to inappropriately is by just proceeding as if of course they will have a normal and reasonable reaction because you trust them to be a normal and reasonable person (even when you don’t). Sometimes that sends cues to the other person about how they need to respond if they wish to be seen as normal and reasonable. Your boss may not be in that group, but it’s a reasonable place to start. So: when you’re ready to announce, don’t tiptoe around it; be matter-of-fact, direct, and cheerful. “I have news I’m excited about. I’m pregnant and due in December. We can talk about my plans for leave closer to that time, but I want to let you and the team know.”

If your boss says anything inappropriate in response, feel free to let your face convey “that was wildly out of line.” Out loud say, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that. Moving on…” Or even, “For the sake of HR and legal, I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.” But if there’s anything inappropriate from them after that, talk to HR. It’s illegal for your boss to create a hostile workplace based on your pregnancy, and any decent company would be grateful for the chance to know one of their managers is this out of line so they can shut it down.

3. How do I accept praise when I don’t think it’s warranted?

I started consulting after only a couple of years in the workforce once I realised my autism and severe ADHD makes it impossible to hold down a permanent job. This has worked out really well. I specialize in project work and short-term contracts (if it were up to me, I’d never take a role longer than eight weeks). This means I’m not usually anywhere long enough to get really bored and it doesn’t matter that I don’t fit into the office culture.

The last couple of years there have been fewer of these very short-term jobs and less project work available, meaning I’ve been in jobs four or five months at a time. This is definitely long enough to get bored. Once the interest of learning a new job wears off, I stop trying hard at work. I always get things done, but I don’t put any extra effort in.

But my clients keep praising me. Even though the work is easy and I’m not trying very hard. I hate getting praised, especially in front of other people, double-especially when I haven’t done anything to deserve it.

I’m finishing my current contract soon, which will mean a morning tea and the GM talking about how great it’s been to have me. This GM has been so lavish in his praise I’m wondering if I actually have done well; it feels more like the patronizing “Oh well done, aren’t you clever” that adults trotted out when I was 10 and had gotten my coat on without help. But assuming he does mean it, how should I respond? I know I shouldn’t say “It was easy for me” or “But that’s just what you hired me for.” So far, I’ve just said “Thanks” and sat there like a potato. Is that enough? What do the neurotypicals want from me in this situation?

Some options:

• “It was my pleasure.”
• “I’m glad it was helpful!”
• “You’re very welcome.”
• “I was happy to help.”

Any of those will be appropriate and received well.

Also, keep in mind that clients aren’t necessarily thanking you because they think the work was incredibly hard. They’re thanking you because it was very helpful to have you do it.

Related:
I don’t know how to accept compliments graciously

4. I met a candidate’s counteroffer and they asked for even more

I’ve made an offer to a job candidate who is a compromise candidate — not the best in the list of finalists, but the one who makes the most people happy. I’m not fully comfortable with this, but I’m trying to think of the long-term buy-in by my team. All the finalists were deemed acceptable, but the team had strongly conflicting preferences, and this is the person that checks the most boxes for the most people involved in the search and on the team.

My question, though, is about negotiations. I offered a competitive salary. The candidate came back asking for a modest increase. I was able to secure this increase and change the offer to the exact amount they asked for. Instead of accepting the revised offer, the candidate is coming back now asking for more. (I’m fudging the details a bit to keep this anonymous, but they gave a personal reason, along the lines of “my kid is going to college in the fall and I need to make a deposit on their housing fees this summer.” This strikes me as a good reason to want more money, but maybe not the best argument for why someone deserves a higher salary.)

How long is it prudent to continue to negotiate with a lowest-common-denominator candidate that I feel lukewarm about? If someone asks for more, gets it, and then asks for more beyond that, should I continue to entertain these incremental salary request increases? When does a job candidate’s request for a better offer become tantamount to declining an offer?

I wouldn’t continue to negotiate at all. You made an offer, they asked for more money, you came up to the exact amount they asked for. That should be it. Their request for even more makes them look flaky and like they weren’t negotiating in good faith the first time. I’d be hesitant to continue at this point even if they were a great candidate, but for someone you’re already lukewarm about? The only reasonable answer is, “We’re not able to go up any further. If the offer doesn’t work for you, I of course understand.”

Also, if you’ll be the person managing this hire, you should make the final decision on who you think will perform best in the role. Absolutely take other people’s input into account, but if you’re the one ultimately responsible for their success, you’re the one who should make the call you think is right.

5. Interview identity flub

I was recently in a second (and final) round interview on Zoom for a team lead position at the parent organization for my field, and when the interviewer put a long, multi-part question in the chat I saw that there was another candidate’s name listed in the title of the Zoom meeting!

I am in a very small and tight-knit field (there are about a thousand of us total in the U.S. and Canada), so I’m familiar with this other candidate (who has a unique not Jane Smith-y name).

Because it happened mid-interview, I feel like a floundered a bit on my next answer, sort of waiting to see if anyone else in the interview (three interviewers) was going to acknowledge what was there. They never did, and I re-centered eventually and moved on.

Should I have said something in the moment when it was throwing me for a loop? Or after the fact? Or is this one of those things that it’s most polite to just pretend isn’t happening? I have no doubt it was just a copy/paste error when creating the calendar invite for my interview, but I keep second-guessing myself about my decision to just ignore it. (And, if this context matters at all, this is a very relationship-oriented field with high expectations around collegial behavior and interaction.)

Is there any chance they had a scheduling mix-up and thought you were actually the other candidate? You probably know if this is or isn’t the case — if they called you by your correct name, referenced things that wouldn’t be on the other person’s resume, etc., then they know you are you and not the other person. And in that case, it’s just a clerical error, like that someone copied over the info from the other candidate’s interview when setting up yours and forgot to change it. That’s no big deal and doesn’t require you saying anything.

On the other hand, if looking back you realize that absolutely nothing was said that couldn’t have been said to Morgana Bumbleberry too, then ideally you would have confirmed in the moment — “I just want to make sure you know I’m Nicolina Warbleworth, despite the name on the screen.”

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

1. My employee never remembers to save things on our shared drive, no matter how many reminders she gets

I’ve been having an issue with one of the people I manage, our document processor, Ashley. I like Ashley; she is bubbly and friendly, which is a breath of fresh air on an otherwise introverted team. But Ashley is a mediocre worker. She gets her tasks done well enough, but requires me to check in on her more frequently than anyone else on my team. I can’t just trust she will get every step every time, I have to check. That was all well and good, until a few months ago when we decided, per her suggestion, to start saving our documents in a shared drive. I loved this idea; using a shared drive is better document processing and acts as a central backup location for a team that’s very hybrid. I was excited that Ashley came up with this improvement because it shows she is taking ownership of her work.

Except she just forgets to do it. Days will go by and nothing will get added to that shared drive. I check in with her and it turns out the documents are in her download folder. She moves them where they are supposed to go when I ask about it, but she does the same thing a day later. It’s completely unnecessary since you can just download things directly into the shared drive. She doesn’t need to do the extra step of moving it, something I’ve shown her many times, and yet it keeps happening.

It’s driving me crazy and influencing how I feel about all of her work now. It’s such a small thing that I feel weird about putting her on a PIP or anything like that, but it’s such a small thing that I can not wrap my mind around why she won’t process documents the way I have asked her. I’ve talked to her about it a few times, and last month asked her to give me one week where I didn’t have to remind her to move things to the drive. She gave me four out of five days, and then the next week was back to forgetting every other day.

Am I being crazy about this? What advice do you have to get an employee to embrace a small but fundamental change in workflow?

I don’t think this is about the shared drive. I think the shared drive issue is just the most noticeable aggravation among the broader problem that you can’t trust her work and have to check every step she does. That would be a huge issue even if the shared drive had never come up. (And conversely, if she were otherwise excellent and reliable, I bet the shared drive situation wouldn’t irritate you nearly as much, although it would still be a problem.)

Take your aggravation as a sign that you need to address the broader pattern with Ashley: that you can’t trust her to follow your processes across the board and that her work requires an excessive amount of oversight. You can use the shared drive as one example, but you should provide others too. Have a serious conversation about the pattern, and treat the pattern as a serious performance issue (because it is).

2. Working during a weather day that everyone else gets off

I work in a small outpatient clinic, which is part of a very large healthcare system. In January, our clinic was closed down for a day due to severe weather. As soon as we got word from upper administration that we were going close, my manager texted my coworker and asked her to log in and work from home that day. At that time, my coworker was the only one of us who had access to be able to work from home. She worked very hard that day, as we had a lot of patient questions and concerns come in, due to being closed unexpectedly.

The next day we were back at work, and upper admin informed us we’d be paid for the weather day, rather than having to use PTO or go without pay, which we were all happy about. But here is the problem — my poor coworker worked a full day that day, alone, and yet she got paid the same as the rest of us (just her normal, hourly wage), while we sat in our PJ’s drinking coffee and watching movies all day. I feel like she is owed some type of compensation beyond her regular pay for that day. Our direct manager agreed, but unfortunately the decision is not up to her. She has tried to advocate for my coworker to upper management. This was to no avail, as here we are now in April and my coworker still has not been compensated and has heard nothing on this matter from anyone.

Am I being unreasonable here for being furious about this? In my eyes, she basically worked for free and was completely taken advantage of, since she got paid the same as the rest of us who did not work that day, through no choice or fault of her own. My coworker is a very sweet, mild mannered person and would never “ruffle feathers” or stand up for herself, so she has not aggressively followed up with anyone on this. Whereas if I were in her shoes, I would have probably resigned in anger back in January.

I understand it is ultimately my coworker’s decision whether to pursue this, and I should probably mind my own business. However, I now have the ability to work from home as well. If we have another day where we close unexpectedly and my boss asks me to log in, what should I do? Would it be unreasonable to refuse until I am told how I will be compensated as compared to others who do not work that day? Am I being too inflexible or rigid in my thoughts of how this should be handled?

Your coworker didn’t work for free. She was paid for that day. She did, however, miss out on the free day off that everyone else got. But the day off wasn’t a reward or a bonus; it was a logistical response to a last-minute weather emergency.

This is a thing that happens with some jobs, where people who are able to work from home on snow days are expected to, and those who can’t are given the day off. Does it suck for the people who are expected to work those days? Sure. Is it something to quit over? That would be a pretty unusual reaction. (It’s also worth pointing out that there can be benefits to being able to work from home when others can’t; if often means, for example, that you don’t need to use PTO to wait for the cable person when others do, and so forth.)

Now, might a thoughtful manager consider offering comp time or similar to the one person who got stuck working while everyone else got the day off? Sure. But it’s really common not to do that. You’re still allowed to be upset about it if you want, but temper it with the knowledge that this is a relatively widespread practice.

3. A disgruntled fired employee says he’s coming to a work event I’m planning

I’m a middle manager in a small, quasi-governmental institution open to the public. About a month ago, my workplace fired an employee I did not supervise, Sam. There were many obvious issues with Sam, but the last incident I’m aware of was one in which he lost his temper with me on the floor.

The ensuing meeting with administration left me rattled, as he made several false statements and tweaked details to make me look bad, tried to paint me as “emotional,” mocked me, and seemed to be trying to manipulate me into getting angry. Overall, he demonstrated a level of entitlement and narcissism that I have never seen before. I don’t know all of the details, but he was fired the next day.

Since then, he has made multiple public statements about the firing on Facebook, including claims that he was bullied, and he’s showed up at my workplace twice, including once last week. Because we’re open to the public, I’m told we can’t ask him to leave unless he does something to violate our rules.

The problem is that, in a couple weeks, my workplace is holding a major public event, which I was tasked with planning. Now I’m told that a colleague, Jane, said that Sam told her he will show up to the event and do something to “stick it to management.” I’m particularly concerned because I’ve looked up warning signs for mass shooters, and he’s demonstrated a lot of them — just not, to my knowledge, threats of violence (although I’ve heard a rumor of a suicide threat directed at someone not at our organization).

Our administration is going to try to get more information from Jane before proceeding, but what should/can we do about the chance that Sam will attend this event? Is it reasonable to contact the police to ask them to be in attendance, even if Sam hasn’t made a specific threat? We don’t employ any security guards, and I am feeling extremely uncomfortable about the event.

You need to insist on having security there, with an explicit safety plan. That can be police if they’re willing or it can be hired security. Make it a condition of your attendance.

4. What’s up with lengthy reference questionnaires?

I work at a consultant firm, which means that I manage several teams of junior staff that do not report directly to me in a traditional way. A junior staff member who works on a few of my teams asked if I would act as a reference for her for a new position she is in the running for. I agreed and expected a phone call this week from the new company. This company sent me a form with seven open-ended questions on it. The questions are vague, like “tell me about the candidate’s working style” and “what are their strengths and weaknesses?” — questions that will require me to put a lot of thought in to writing, especially because I am not this person’s direct supervisor so I can’t speak to all of their work.

It really feels like these would be much easier for me to answer via a call. I asked the HR team if we could do this as a call instead but they have not responded to two of my emails. I want to help this staff member get a new job, but I am feeling really annoyed that the new company is asking me to put in so much work for them. This is my first time providing a reference for someone. Is this standard and are there benefits that make having a written form preferable? Or is this the case of one company that has a bad practice? Was I out of line emailing twice to see if we could do this as a call?

Some companies do references this way and it’s a terrible practice. First, as you point out, it’s a significantly larger burden on the reference; it requires a significant amount of time, versus a 10- or 15-minute phone call. Second, a lot of people won’t be as candid in writing as they will be on the phone. Third, it means that the reference-checker can’t hear things like tone of voice or spots where the reference hesitates and also can’t ask follow-up or clarifying questions.

It puts you in a bad spot because you don’t want to harm your employee’s chances, but you deserve to be able to protect your time. If she’s someone you’d enthusiastically recommend, one option is to respond, “Jane is an excellent candidate and I can strongly recommend her, but my schedule doesn’t give me the time on this form would take. I can, however, do a 10- or 15-minute phone call.” You can also explain the situation to Jane and ask her to contact the employer about it and ask if they can call you. Or you can give very brief but positive answers and add “happy to elaborate in a phone call.” But it’s a crap practice.

5. How do I decline a baby shower at work?

I’m an employee on a remote team that will be in person in a few weeks for a busy work event. I’ve recently shared with my manager and a few other key coworkers that I am pregnant, I will be 19 weeks when we are in person for this event. My manager, Stacey, told her manager, Lauren (I gave her permission because we’re managing some tricky staffing situations that we will need to resolve before I go on maternity leave) and now Lauren is planning a baby shower for me when we are together.

I know that this is coming from a good place, but I really don’t want this. First, I hate being the center of attention. Second, I am a middle-level employee and it makes me uncomfortable that she may ask lower-level employees to contribute to a gift. Third, my sister has a two-year-old and is giving me all of her things so I don’t need very much. But the real reason is that this pregnancy has come after two years of fertility treatments including pregnancy losses and I am incredibly anxious. I’m working with a therapist, but I’m sort of just hanging on and expect that it may be a little like this the whole way through my pregnancy. The thought of celebrating feels like tempting fate. Also, the 20-week anatomy scan will be the week after I return from this trip and so I expect my anxiety will be even more heightened.

Stacey has told Lauren that this isn’t something that I want, but Lauren is continuing to insist that there is a shower. How can I politely decline and stop this?

Go back to Stacey and say this: “I need you to make it absolutely clear to Lauren that there cannot be a shower for me. I don’t want to have to share private information just to put a stop to it, but I I want to point out that there a lot of reasons someone might not want a shower — including fears about the pregnancy and religious prohibitions. It’s not OK to overrule pregnant people on that. How do I ensure Lauren respects my wishes on this?” (Alternately or in addition to that, you could also message Lauren directly with a similar message.)

You might also alert HR that Lauren is planning this against your explicit wishes and tell them to intervene. That’s not a bad idea either way, since they clearly have some educating to do with Lauren re: the many reasons she needs to respect employees’ needs on baby showers.