Ask a Manager

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

1. I found weird “detox” propaganda in the office kitchen

I work at a small nonprofit of under 30 employees and we share one small kitchen. Articles relevant to our field or other interesting items are often left in the center of the table for us to read. I walked into the kitchen the other day and found a seven-page printout about “superhuman brain shakes.” I looked into the group that published it and the doctor behind it, and what I found did not sit well with me.

The guy talks about “detoxification” and peddles supplements, all while vilifying prescription drugs and doctors. As someone who takes a prescription drug every day for my mental health, I don’t feel comfortable with something like this in the work kitchen. Would whoever put this information in the kitchen be appalled or look down on me because I take a prescription drug (which is needed in part due to the job, but that’s another story for another day)?

On top of this gross pamphlet, we generally have a problem with people vilifying sugar, fatty foods, carbs, etc. I know these topics are pretty common but these beliefs are starting to feel endemic.

Obviously this isn’t formal-HR-complaint level, but is it out of line for me to say something to the person who serves an HR function in our office? Or do I just conveniently hide this somewhere in the kitchen when no one is looking? I would love to just toss it right in the bin, but I know that’s not the way.

Tossing it in the trash is the way. Someone left something gross in the kitchen, and putting it in the trash is appropriate.

It sounds like the bigger issue in your office is the culture of moralizing about food, but that’s much, much harder to address. (You can still try, though! Advice on how is here.) But this one pamphlet? Trash it and be done with it.

If you start finding more materials left for general reading that push a particular agenda, at that point it would be reasonable to suggest to your HR person that they put a stop to that, since common areas shouldn’t be used that way (and if they don’t stop it at diet moralizing, it’s very quickly going to spread to other topics as well).

2. I made a huge political mistake at work

I’ve done something worthy of a Corporate Idiot of the Year award, and I’m mortified about my spectacular misstep with my new boss.

I’m a team lead (no HR responsibility) who was recently told I’d be focusing on one shiny new initiative while giving up a current team. The colleague inheriting my team already juggles two teams and, to put it diplomatically, isn’t a strong team lead. Instead of gracefully accepting fate, I launched a one-woman crusade for “better alternatives” – suggesting other names, directly approaching my colleague (who was predictably uninterested), and escalating to both my boss and his boss.

When communication about these changes moved at glacial pace, I prodded about timelines in a group chat, accidentally triggering a premature announcement from a Scrum Master rather than leadership. Brilliant move!

This morning, my boss (who has only recently joined the company) pulled me aside and essentially lectured me about inappropriate meddling and how influence works in large organizations. He’s right, of course, and I sat there wondering if my keyboard shortcuts included “undo career damage.”

I’ve scheduled a meeting with him to address my corporate mutiny, but I’m so ashamed and genuinely concerned about lasting damage. Is this relationship salvageable, or should I start looking for a new job? What specific steps would you recommend to repair trust while still eventually establishing myself as someone with valuable input?

I’m going to take your word for it that this was really as bad as you say, but I think it’s worth considering that your boss sees this less as Devastating Mistake That Should Haunt You Forever and more as just a misstep that required some coaching.

But if it’s really as bad as you think, then it’s worth reflecting on how you got there: do you have a pattern of overstepping your role or was this a one-off? If it’s a pattern, what is it stemming from and how can you manage those impulses differently in the future? Did any of this stem from legitimate frustrations with how your organization or team runs and, if so, are there conclusions you should draw from that (which could be anything from “if I’m going to stay here, I need to accept X” to “X is so messed up that it’s ruining my professional norms and I need to get out”)? Do you need better mentors to bounce things off and, if so, is that something you can put energy into cultivating? Have you had bad role models for how to handle this kind of situation and that played out here? There are a zillion interesting questions that could stem from this, all of which have the potential to turn this into something pretty useful for you!

Assuming you do that, I see no reason why this wouldn’t be salvageable. Tell your boss you heard him loud and clear, you see where you misjudged, and you appreciate him pointing it out to you so candidly. When someone messes up, those are the things a halfway decent manager is listening to hear, and hearing them without prodding can be extremely reassuring.

These may help too:

how to rebuild your credibility after messing up at work

how should you decide which battles to pick at work?

3. My coworker got an expensive baby gift and I got nothing

I am part of a work group with two offices in different cities. Our group is around 10 people and we have the same boss who works in my office. We do some work with the other group and hold monthly Zooms together, but around 75% of the work my office does is independent of the other office. I am well-respected in my organization and love my job and like my team a lot.

I had a baby about 10 months ago, and a colleague at the same level as me in the other office just returned from maternity leave. I found out during our latest monthly Zoom that before her leave, her team had collected money and given her a several hundred dollar gift. I don’t know for sure, but because of the cost, I suspect that people she manages gave money toward the gift. Knowing the team, I doubt they felt pressure to donate, but as I learned from you, it’s still not appropriate and gifts should not go up!

I did not get a gift when my baby was born and I can’t help but feel a little hurt by finding out about my colleague’s gift. Small gifts aren’t completely unprecedented in my office so I figured at most, I might get a branded onesie, but didn’t really care when I didn’t. I would not have wanted my team, especially my reports, to give their own money for a gift for me. But considering the price of her gift and my experience buying *a lot* of expensive shit for my baby over the past year (why do so many things I can only use for a couple of months cost an arm and a leg!?), plus finding out about the gift during a call with our entire team, it just kinda stings.

I’ve been considering raising my feelings with one of my trusted superiors/mentors, but I can’t figure out what I’d say without sounding greedy and hurt and I don’t even know what, if anything, I’d want them to do about it. I know with certainty that my bosses wouldn’t have deliberately decided to give one person a gift and exclude me. Honestly, they may not even know/remember that I got nothing since it’s been almost a year at this point! So I figure maybe it’s worth a reminder about being fair with gift-giving within our team?

What do you think? Do I leave this alone and just get over it? Or is it worth bringing up and if so, what the heck do I say?

The difference is almost certainly just because you’re in two completely separate offices. Different offices have different customs and norms; one might have bagels in the kitchen every Tuesday and a cherished costume contest every Halloween, while another has no weekly bagels but provides ice cream sandwiches every Friday in the summer and a “talking shrimp” at every meeting. Gift practices differ from office to office too, and that’s almost certainly all you’re seeing. The best thing to do is to chalk it up to that and leave it alone.

4. How do I brag about myself to my boss?

I am in upper management at a smallish (~80 employees) company. I recently was featured in a vendor’s quarterly publication about successful folks in our industry. My bosses know I was asked, but now that I have the completed article back, I’m freezing on what to say when I share it with them! But I do want them to see it because, well, I want to be valued, and it would be silly not to!

What’s my script? And can I ask that it not be shared company-wide? I cringe at the thought of staff reading it, even though I make several references to our staff and their feedback being a source of success. I can’t help but compare it to “manager wins the prize raffle at the holiday party” snafus (even though this publication came with no monetary reward).

I just don’t want anyone to think I’m shouting “look at how great I am!” (Except maybe my bosses who sign my paychecks.)

Forward it to your managers with a note saying something like, “Wanted to share this with you!” You’re allowed to be excited about it, they’ll likely to be happy to see it too (it reflects well on them as well as on you!), and it won’t look self-absorbed to simply send it along in a matter-of-fact way.

But I would not ask that it not be shared company-wide unless you can point to some specific reason for that (like there’s currently tension over something you talked about in the interview or it reveals some specific detail about your private life that you’d prefer not to be circulated). This isn’t anything like managers claiming the best prizes in company raffles! You didn’t elbow other employees out of the way in order to get coverage for yourself (I assume). It wouldn’t be cringey for your company to share the article internally, and it’s normal for companies to share employees’ successes. That said, if you’re really uncomfortable with the idea of it, you could say, “I feel awkward about sharing this more broadly but wanted you two to see it.”

5. When should I tell prospective employers I’ve been laid off?

Until two weeks ago, I worked for a federal contractor. All of the contracts I worked on were DOGEd at the beginning of February, and I was laid off, along with hundreds of other employees, about a month later. Between the contracts being terminated and my being laid off, I applied for a number of positions with my former position listed as current since it was current at the time. When should I tell prospective employers that I have been laid off? I am assuming it is unnecessary to send an email if I haven’t heard anything from the employer, but should I tell them during the interview? I don’t want to be misleading.

You don’t need to proactively announce it, but you shouldn’t talk about the job in the present tense in interviews or otherwise imply you’re still there. If it comes up, you’ll just matter-of-factly explain what happened. You don’t need to go out of your way to hide it or to make sure they’re aware of it.

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

1. My boss embarrassed me at a department meeting

My company is being bought out for a larger organization. Our jobs will no longer exist in four months. We’ve been encouraged to review the job postings and apply to jobs for which we might qualify. I reviewed the postings and selected two to apply for — one that would be very easy for me to move to as it’s tasks I already complete daily. The other was a stretch position, something that I’ve done but haven’t dabbled much in while at my current organization. I got an interview for the stretch job and, while I didn’t hold out hope, I gave it my best shot.

Thank goodness I didn’t hold out hope. My current boss was notified by the new org that I applied and interviewed. I was promptly told that I wasn’t a good fit (by my current org, mind you), and I haven’t heard from the new org. Then, in our departmental meeting with my entire department, my current boss told everyone they need to tell him what they’re applying for so he can tell them if they’re a “good fit” because “we don’t want a llama groomer thinking she can be a llama whisperer when she’s never been involved in llama whispering here!” And looked directly at me. (Job titles made up for anonymity, obviously.)

I’m embarrassed. He could’ve just said, at that point, that I shouldn’t have applied for the job, but it’s a good next step in my career and something I’ve wanted to do for a while. I’m not sure how to even act around him now, because I know that was directed, embarrassingly, at me, and now all my coworkers do too and some have even come up to me to tell me how inappropriate it was.

I know I need to leave the org because I can’t move up here and they have no interest in developing my career path, but I’m not sure how to act until I do leave.

Your boss is an utter ass. First of all, it obviously wasn’t far-fetched for you to apply to that job because they interviewed you for it — which means that they reviewed your materials and thought you could be a plausible candidate. Second, and more importantly, there was zero cause for him to embarrass you that way at a department meeting. If he felt he needed to give you feedback (which is possible, given that the new org isn’t entirely separate from your org but is buying it out), he should have done it in private, and he should have offered something more constructive than to just essentially accuse you of hubris (which, again, wasn’t even grounded in reality, since the other org thought you worth interviewing).

Your boss is a jackwagon, he revealed himself as a jackwagon to others at that meeting (although that probably wasn’t a new discovery for them, and I bet it’s not a new discovery for you either), and ideally you’d try to reframe your thinking to see it as much more embarrassing to him than to you. What he did is evidence of his lack of character/leadership/judgment, nothing else.

2. How to refer to a basketball sex scandal at work

I was discussing the upcoming March Madness tournament with some coworkers, and the conversation turned to St. John’s coach Rick Pitino, and his previous stint at Louisville where he was stripped of a national championship due to supplying recruits with prostitutes to induce them to attend the school. My coworker was unaware Pitino’s team had been stripped of a title, only that he had won one (and that he had had similar success at other schools). I was unsure of how to reference the scandal in a way that was appropriate for work, but I eventually settled on saying that he offered the recruits “certain impermissible benefits” (which is more or less the official wording of the charges from the NCAA) and noted that even in today’s era, where you’re allowed to offer basically unfettered NIL (Name, Image, & Likeness) benefits to induce players to attend your school (which wasn’t the case at the time of the scandal), “that particular benefit that he offered is still not permitted, and I’ll just leave it at that.” Was this an appropriate way to reference what happened?

It’s unnecessarily coy. It’s okay to just come out and say, “He supplied recruits with sex workers to try to induce them to attend the school.” That’s what happened, you’re alluding to it anyway, and it’s better to just say it rather than to dance around it with something mysterious sounding. Otherwise, it’s would probably be better to just say “unethical recruiting practices” rather than “certain impermissible benefits”; the latter just sounds very cryptic.

3. How should I handle a company’s pre-hire drug and alcohol testing?

I am in the late stages of the interview process for an entry-level admin job at a manufacturing company. This company requires a pre-employment drug and alcohol test across the board for all new hires. Is there an appropriate way to inquire about this test? I would like to know the philosophy behind the request, particularly for an entry-level admin position, which is largely answering phones with some data entry. It is unclear to me how my nightly glass of wine would be any of their business.

In addition, I have a prescription for a drug that is also recreationally legal in my state. I would like to inquire without giving too much information, but also not raise undue suspicion (I’m happy to say what my medical condition is in general, but overall it sounds like self declaring this stuff when you don’t otherwise need accommodations is a no-no). Or maybe I should just take the test and see what they say? Honestly, at this point I am wondering if this is a sign of a cultural mismatch.

Unlike drug testing — which can pick up drug use days or, for some drugs, even weeks later — alcohol testing is testing for current impairment. So they’re not looking to see if you have a nightly glass of wine; they’re trying to catch people who are showing up to a daytime work appointment with alcohol in their system. It’s probably more relevant for their manufacturing jobs (for safety reasons), but they’ve made it part of their standard new hire testing.

Marijuana testing is more complicated; those tests pick up longer-ago use (potentially weeks-old use if you’re a regular consumer). Some states that have legalized marijuana, but not all of them, have prohibited employers from taking action against employees who use it outside of work. Those laws vary in details; some bar employers from testing for it at all, while others permit the test but say employers can’t deny you a job based on a positive result. Some cover only medical use, while some cover recreational use as well; all make exceptions for safety-sensitive positions. This also gets more complicated for federal contractors, who are required to comply with drug-free workplace laws set at the federal level (where marijuana is still illegal). So in your shoes, I’d look up what your state law says about employment testing for marijuana and go from there.

But as for inquiring about the philosophy behind the testing: they’ll almost certainly tell you that they want to have a drug-free workplace … which sounds like a perfectly reasonable stance for a manufacturing company, except that non-alcohol drug tests will detect private use in your own home in your off hours last weekend. Which is really why workplaces that care about safety should be using impairment tests instead; impairment tests check if you’re impaired for any reason, not just find out that you smoked a joint before bed a week ago. Performance tests measures things like hand-eye coordination and response time and are designed to catch multiple types of impairment, including legal ones like fatigue, and are used by NASA on astronauts and test pilots, and in other cases where safety matters more than drug testing theater.

4. Can I ask a nonprofit if they’re dependent on federal grants?

I’m a displaced federal employee — I had exceptional performance reviews, but I was fired for “performance” with 28 days remaining in my first year. I’ve started my job search and have been frank about my situation with prospective employers — “I was terminated as part of recent mass firings, but I am happy to provide performance documentation as well as references from supervisors.”

Now I have a possible interview. The position aligns with my abilities and interests, everything I’ve encountered feels positive, and it’s at a nonprofit with a mission that I would feel good about supporting. But after losing my beloved former position to the current administration, I’m nervous. Would it be appropriate for me to ask if/how their organization relies on federal grants? If so, would it be appropriate in the interview? How?

(Additional complications I don’t even know where to start on: my former position might be reinstated, my former office might have a new opening that is exempted and also a good fit for me … but I don’t feel like I can count on either. I loved my workplace and the good we did, but I have to explore other options!)

Yes, you can absolutely ask whether the organization, and this position in particular, rely on federal grants. That’s not an uncommon thing to ask about in nonprofit interviews, even before the current chaos, and it’s even more understandable right now. You can word it this way: “Do you rely on federal grants at all, and do you expect your budget, or this position itself, to be affected by what’s going on?”

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

1. Is swiping on a coworker on a dating app grounds for an HR meeting?

Asking for a friend: They absent-mindedly swiped on a coworker in a dating app (whom they asked out once two years earlier). Said coworker was uncomfortable with that and went to HR, and they all had a sit-down about leaving said coworker alone.

I am all for not harassing people you work with romantically, but I am also conflicted — is swiping right on a coworker on Bumble or Tinder grounds for an HR intervention?

They are both on a dating app, after all — a place where you are opening up yourself to these kinds of interactions explicitly. And then the interaction has to be mutual anyway — both people need to “initiate” conversation here, without knowing if the other person has done so. (Apparently in this case their coworker was paying for premium rights to see who was swiping on them, and spoke with HR without initiating.)

Dating apps also location-based, and so a lot of coworkers might show up there. Having worked at a 500-person office, I probably have swiped on several without realizing! A lot of people also use these by quickly swiping, not necessarily making a researched decision every time.

I might be utterly off-base here, but I want to be sure not to alienate people I work with. What would be the correct etiquette here?

This doesn’t sound like someone who reported a coworker to HR simply for swiping right on them on a dating app. Their perspective is likely that the coworker had already asked them out and been told no, now they’re making another overture, and they work together so it’s extra aggravating that they weren’t respecting the original no.

It still could have been overkill to involve HR — but so much of this depends on how your friend handled the original rejection and how they’ve treated the coworker since then.

Related:
I matched with a coworker on a dating site
if you’re thinking of asking a coworker on a date…

2. Our bosses gave a perk to their spouses instead of to other employees

Our company is very small, three joint owners and three employees.

Our company has a business relationship with another company, and as a result they’ve offered tickets to the F1 Grand Prix in our area this year. Both bosses immediately planned to use the tickets on both themselves (this is understandable) and then both of their spouses. My question is about the latter — is it actually appropriate for them to share this perk with spouses instead of employees? It just struck me as a bit weird and self-interested for the initial instinct to be to share it with their spouses, who are unaffiliated with the company in any way outside of being their romantic partners, instead of with the very few employees they actually have.

I would love to have some insight on whether or not this is appropriate or normal behavior, as I don’t know if I should speak up and say that it bothered me that romantic partners who don’t work here were going to be seeing perks that employees are not.

It’s definitely a thing that happens with certain perks. It varies by company, but in a lot of workplaces there isn’t an automatic assumption that this sort of perk will distributed equitably, or that executives’ spouses won’t be included ahead of employees. You see it particularly with tickets, but you also see it with dinners out and trips (where spouses might be included too)

I don’t think it’s an outrage that warrants complaining about it, but it’s also not particularly gracious of the owners, and it’s something really good leaders wouldn’t do. Good leaders see that kind of gift as an opportunity to reward people, build morale, and make them feel like a valued part of the team (and that’s true even if the tickets were specifically a thank-you to the owners for choosing to give their business to the other company).

But while I don’t think you should complain, per se, there’s also nothing wrong with asking if employees can be included the next time something like that is offered.

3. My manager is from a country at war with mine

I am living in Europe but I have a lot of family in Ukraine. My job just hired a new line manager for my team, an external hire. Today was their first day on the job and we had a team meeting where we were all being introduced for the first time. After a round of introductions, they said, “I noticed that there are multiple people from Ukraine on the team. I am from Russia, I wonder how that will go.” My internal reaction was, “Yes, I wonder as well, and I really wish this wasn’t sprung up on me in a team meeting.” Obviously, we should all treat people as individuals, I don’t know what their position is on the war, and good for them for noticing the inherent trickiness of the situation. But they didn’t follow up with any explicit comments about what they believe, and even just that makes me worried about how I’d have to phrase things about them. My job has been happy with my performance so far but there has been periodic impact on my day-to-day work when family and friends had various losses, injuries, and close calls that affected me as well, and I generally gave context to my manager about what was going on without thinking too hard about how to phrase it.

Do you think my company should have done anything differently (other than not hiring a good candidate, which seems unreasonable)? Are there things that I should consider for dealing with this? In the past all my managers checked in with me on how things were going and while I don’t rant about my personal life, I haven’t had to worry about saying something controversial before, I guess I had the good luck of working with people who had similar views on political events that affected me personally.

It would have been odd if your company had done anything differently. People aren’t their countries, and there’s no reason to assume anything either way about the new hire’s stance; the only thing it makes sense to assume is that they’ll behave professionally no matter what political differences they might have with team mates (on anything, not just this). If that turns out not to be the case, that’s something you’d need to escalate, but that would be an aberration, not something anyone should go in expecting will happen.

The new hire’s comment was a little awkward, but it actually doesn’t reveal much and likely was borne out of feeling awkward about things themself.

I think, too, that if you’re affected by something affecting your family’s safety, it’s still fine to share that! It’s likely to go better if everyone proceeds from the assumption that all involved are decent people with empathy for others. If that turns out not to be the case, you’ll find out soon enough (and is something you’d need to escalate, per my first paragraph), but don’t ascribe that to them prematurely.

I hope your family is safe.

4. How to say “this was your idea” to my manager

I have a new skip-level boss who is making me insane. There are a number of ways she’s not good at managing and working for her is incredibly unpleasant, so I’m trying to get out even though I love my job. In the meantime, I need to survive a recurring dynamic.

“Andrea” will tell me to create a spreadsheet showing X, Y, and Z information. All this is available in our reporting system, but she wants it in a spreadsheet format. Then she’ll tell me to add on A and B. This will take me days to create. I’ll send it to her, and then wake up with comments all over the sheet: “Why are we reporting on B?” “How did you define X?” “What is this A column?”

The answer to all of those is… you asked me for it. You told me you wanted to see B so there it is. X is defined as exactly what you told me to pull. Column A is the column that you said you needed. I feel like either I’m stupid because I can’t understand why this keeps happening, or she’s forgetting what she asked for. She is unpleasant and does not take feedback well, so I am very hesitant to name the dynamic; my direct manager is kind but not able to shield me.

What’s a professional script for “I have no idea why you wanted this, but you asked for it so I gave it to you” when I get asked about things like this?

Start preempting the question when you initially send the work. For example, when you send her a spreadsheet with edits she requested, write this in the email: “You asked me yesterday to add A and B to the C spreadsheet, so I’ve done that here. A is defined as ___ and B is defined as ___. Please let me know if you want me to do it differently.”

If you miss the chance to do that and end up getting questioned later about why you did something she asked you to do, it’s fine to say, “My understanding from your feedback on Tuesday was that you wanted me to add A and B. Did I misunderstand what you were looking for?” Say this neutrally, like you’re genuinely curious if you misunderstood something, not with a subtext of “how do you not remember this?”

You can also try shooting her a quick summary of your take-aways when she requests things from you. For example: “To recap, I’ll add A and B to the C spreadsheet, defining A as ___ and B as ___, and will have it back to you tomorrow.”

5. Should I list myself as currently employed?

I am/was a federal probationary employee (i.e., I have less than a year of government service). Just over a month ago, I was swept up in the mass termination of probationary employees across the federal government. This week, I was reinstated as part of a temporary restraining order in a court case challenging the legality of that mass termination. However, in the intervening month, my entire unit was subjected to a reduction in force (also of questionable legality and about to face legal challenge). Therefore, when I was reinstated, I was immediately placed on paid administrative leave, which will continue until the reduction in force takes full effect and I am completely separated from federal service (in the absence of legal intervention).

I am of course applying for other jobs, but now that I’ve been reinstated, I don’t know how to represent or how much to explain my current circumstances in application documents. How do I list my employment status while I’m on paid administrative leave? Do I just use “present” as the end date of my government service and leave it at that? Or should I list the date I was terminated, which was the last time I did any substantive work as a government employee? If I list myself as presently employed, do I need to explain in my cover letter why I’m looking for alternate employment after less than a year on the job? Or do employers understand why federal employees are all searching for jobs at this point, regardless of their exact circumstances?

You’re still legally an employee there, so go ahead and list your employment as “to present” (so “May 2024 – present” or whatever). That’s reasonable to do regardless, and it’s especially reasonable given how much uncertainty is surrounding all of this.

You don’t need to explain the situation in your cover letter — hiring managers know — but it’s also fine to allude to it in a single sentence if you want to; just don’t use any more cover letter real estate on it than that. (More about that here.)