open thread – October 4, 2024 by Alison Green on October 4, 2024 It’s the Friday open thread! The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers. * If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer. You may also like:my coworker passes me messages "from the CEO" ... that I think are really from hermy employee sent me a "letter of intent" to look for another jobneed help finding a job? start here { 956 comments }
coworkers won’t help me cut expenses, colleague owes me money, and more by Alison Green on October 4, 2024 I’m off for a few days. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives. 1. My coworkers won’t help me cut expenses A few months ago we received an email from the Big Boss (head of our business unit) that we are entering a “cost cutting” exercise due to business needs and they need everyone to make efforts to ensure our costs/expenses are “as close to zero as possible.” I’m in an internal role that doesn’t deal with contracts, purchases, software licensing, travel, etc. so there’s only a limited amount I can contribute to that cost cutting. But I’ve done what I can — e.g. I walked five miles with heavy equipment rather than take public transport which the others did. I “forgot” to claim for overtime payments that I should/could have claimed (not in U.S. so those laws don’t apply), didn’t claim mileage for driving two hours out of my way multiple times, etc. It’s galling every month the department admin sends out the emails asking for “overtime forms” and “travel expenses” and I know I have a lot I could claim and don’t. We have to work late a couple of times a month due to client deadlines (the company usually orders food in) and I’ve gone on “hunger strike” conspicuously refusing to eat or order, and working through while others eat the company-paid pizzas, etc. (we know in advance when we’ll have to stay late – why didn’t they bring their own food?!) because I don’t believe that’s a legit business expense. I’ve tried to convince the others but without success. I’ve now asked to reduce my retirement contributions (matched by the company) which will save them thousands a year. I’ve indicated to HR that I want to opt out of the healthcare insurance at the next renewal date. I’ve done pretty much everything I can at this point other than asking for a pay cut (which I could — I’m senior, single and have enough money but I realize this could affect my prospects in the future) but I’m becoming more and more resentful of coworkers who haven’t even considered the things I’ve done. They still submit overtime, travel expenses, etc. At some point we all have to pull together but I feel like I’m the only one pulling. Whoa, you are making way too many sacrifices here. You should not be walking five miles with heavy equipment or not getting paid for time you worked, and conspicuously not having a slice of pizza isn’t going to make any practical difference. As for reducing your retirement contributions and opting out of health insurance (!!) — NO. Is it too late to undo that? “Help us cut costs” means “watch for extraneous spending and be frugal with business expenses.” It does not mean “take on great personal sacrifice for the benefit of a company someone else owns.” What you are doing is way beyond the realm of anything that would be expected, some of it won’t even matter (the hunger strike), and the rest of it is so extreme as to be entering the realm of the absurd unless this is your own personal business and you get all the profits. You should of course respect requests to watch expenses, but it’s actually not helpful to do what you’re doing because it creates a false idea of what various projects cost. It’s also going to look incredibly weird to your coworkers, especially when you pressure them to join you, to the point that it could reflect on your judgment long after this is over. Leave your retirement account and your health care alone. Submit for the money that you’re owed. Quit the hunger strikes. Be responsible with expenses, and leave it there. – 2019 Read an update to this letter here. 2. Inviting all coworkers except one to a personal party I’m the manager of a small retail team, there are nine of us including myself, and we mostly get on really well. Recently we were struggling as we were understaffed and couldn’t find anyone suitable, so I took on the best candidate that had applied, let’s call her Sam. Even though she was far from ideal, we were really that desperate. Although Sam’s performance hasn’t been great and she hasn’t integrated into the team at all, that’s not why I’m writing. Another of my team, Cat, has recently got engaged and is throwing an engagement party with her fiancé. Cat is excellent at her job, is well liked by everyone, and would like to invite the team, except for the fact that she cannot stand Sam and doesn’t want her there. I have a feeling I already know the answer, but is there a way to invite all but one of the team? (This isn’t a work event. It’s a personal event, but she’ll probably give out the invites when she sees us at work.) Because it’s Cat’s own personal event outside of work, you can’t dictate who she does and doesn’t invite. But inviting everyone but one person is a pretty unkind act, and it has the potential to be a toxic act, by making Sam feel clearly excluded and making others feel that excluding Sam is now a thing that happens. While Cat can invite anyone she wants to her private event and you can’t control that, you do have standing to point out the problem to her and ask her to consider handling it differently. You could, for example, say something to her like, “Inviting the entire team except one person is exclusionary and is the sort of thing that could impact the team dynamics here in a negative way. It will look like you deliberately singled out Sam, and that’s unkind, even if you don’t intend it that way. I’d ask you to take that into account when deciding how to handle your invitations.” And certainly if she proceeds with her plan, you can tell her she needs to keep it out of the office. – 2018 3. My rude coworker owes me money and won’t pay me back A coworker owes me a not insignificant sum of money and won’t pay me back. I realize it’s not wise to lend money to your coworkers but our situation was a little different in that I haven’t technically given her anything directly. Let me explain. One of our office mates (we share an office with four other people) was celebrating a major professional accomplishment and invited us all over to her house. The Rude Coworker suggested we all spring for a nice gift for her and suggested a sum each of us should pay. I won’t give you the dollar amount since we’re not in the U.S., but it was about a week’s worth of groceries per person. It was quite a lot for my budget but I wanted to be a good friend to my friend, the celebrating coworker, and so I agreed. So the four of us agreed on a gift, and it so happened that it was available in an online store I have an account with, so I was the one who ended up ordering it. The other two coworkers paid me back immediately but the Rude Coworker didn’t. I asked her twice about it. The first time she said she didn’t have any money. I suggested she could pay me back with her next paycheck but we have since been paid, and still nothing. I asked her a second time and she said she didn’t have the money, in a bored and dismissive tone of voice. For context, she is well paid, wearing designer clothes and going on fancy vacations. She also buys takeout coffee every day. We are peers but because she’s so abrasive and at times bully-ish that most of our colleagues walk on tiptoes around her. How do I get my money back? We do not really have a manager — we are all professionals who technically report to a coordinator but are left alone to do our work 99% of the time. I could really use the money right now, and it makes me really angry to essentially have to beg her to do the right thing. Ugh, she’s being horrible. It’s possible that you may not get your money back because there’s no way to force her to pay you, but you can up your chances by being even more direct. Instead of just asking her for the money, say something like this: “Jane, that money was a week’s worth of groceries for me. I need you to pay me back as you agreed. Can you Venmo me right now?” If she says she can’t, then say, “I really need the money paid back; I have bills I need to pay. Can you pay it tomorrow?” And then you have this conversation with her every single day until she pays you back. There’s a decent chance that she’ll get sick enough of having to talk about it that she will, in fact, pay you back. (Right now, I think you’re using too light of a touch for the situation. You need to follow up on it every day; make it uncomfortable for her not to pay you back.) If that doesn’t work, you can also try enlisting your other coworkers in shaming her. If all three of you sit down with her and say, “We agreed to each pay $X for a group gift, and Jane, we still need your contribution — it’s really unfair to stick to Miranda with the bill for your share,” she may be sufficiently shamed to actually pay you. Jane sucks. Read an update to this letter here. – 2018 4. Explaining religious Plain Dress in a job interview I have a question about interviews and my unusual clothing. I’m a member of a church that practices Plain Dress (think Amish or Old Order Mennonites). However, I’m interviewing for jobs where my clothing stands out. Most people have only seen Plain Dress during the obligatory Amish episode of their favorite TV series, and have a lot of wildly inaccurate ideas regarding people who dress like me. Because of my beliefs, I won’t be showing up in traditional interview clothing, but my clothing is still businesslike. I’m worried that some will think I’m just dressed down. I also wear a hat, which I don’t remove. Do you have any suggestions for diffusing the situation without coming across as a “religious nutter”? I’m actually not so concerned about you needing to explain your clothing, which still reads as fairly conservative. It’s the hat that I think you might need to explain, since it will stay on during the interview. For that, I think you could simply say, “I leave my hat on for religious reasons,” and that should be enough. Even if people aren’t familiar with Plain Dress in particular, they’re probably familiar with the idea of religious head coverings, and I think you should be fine from there. And I don’t think you have to worry about the “religious nutter” thing. People will usually take their cues from you, and if you’re low-key and matter-of-fact about it, it shouldn’t be a big deal. Read an update to this letter here. – 2017 You may also like:my coworkers won't cut expenses, pop culture references in interviews, and moreinterviewer said if you get a raise, the workload will go up for the entire teamwhen I asked for a raise, my boss went through my bills { 266 comments }
my coworker is setting toilet paper on fire in the bathroom by Alison Green on October 3, 2024 I’m off for a few days, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2019. A reader writes: I work in a small office (about 20 people at this branch of our company) and we have two individual restrooms (as opposed to stalls) in our central hallway. There is certainly a smell situation because the hallway leads to all major sections of the office, but in general, people try to control this with air fresheners, PooPourri products, etc. Sometimes a book of matches is left there, which seems to help the most. In the last few months, however, a coworker has begun to — from what we can best understand — light clumps of toilet paper on fire, throw the burning toilet paper into the toilet, and flush. Ashes often skitter down the hallway, like smoky tumbleweeds. The whole office begins to smell like a poop barbeque. This has begun happening at least twice a week, often more. Now, I thought people understood that matches work to mask odor because of the sulfur released, not because of the fire. Clearly, this individual does not realize this. We all know who it is, because he’s one of the few smokers (i.e., carries around a lighter) and also has been seen walking away as the ashes go flying. I have asked my boss (not this person’s direct boss) to speak to him, but he deflects and says we don’t actually have proof, and nothing wrong has technically happened yet. This person’s actual boss is the least confrontational person in our company, so I know he won’t do anything either. My boss said, “We’d have to email the whole company and ask them to stop lighting toilet paper on fire,” and I said, “That’s fine! It’s dangerous and disgusting! Explain the science of matches to them!” but my boss keeps deflecting. Do I need to just let this go, or should I continue pushing my boss to do something? I’m seriously worried this person is going to accidentally set our building on fire from the bathroom out. I am picturing your coworker striding out of the bathroom with smoke and ashes billowing around him as strobe lights flash and Metallica plays. It is magnificent. But only because I do not smell the poop barbecue. I don’t see any reason you can’t just say something to this guy directly the next time you see him emerging from the bathroom in a cloud of ash. Like, it’s totally reasonable that you might comment on that! In some ways, it’s actually weirder not to say anything when you see that. You could say, “Holy crap, did you light something on fire in there?” or “Whoa, are you okay? What’s with all this smoke and ash?” … followed by, after whatever weird response he gives you, “You’re not actually lighting anything on fire in there, are you? That would be dangerous. The matches aren’t intended to start fires, they’re just supposed to be lit and immediately blown out.” Your boss’s reluctance to address this in any way is weird. You don’t need “proof” to say to someone, “Hey, are you setting toilet paper on fire in the bathroom? Please don’t do that if so; it’s dangerous.” (And this wouldn’t be based on just a hunch; you have seen the ashes.) In many offices, if you hadn’t already talked to your boss about this and explicitly been told that he doesn’t want something sent to the staff email list, you could have just sent that message yourself (assuming your office is small enough that it wouldn’t have been bizarre for it to come from you rather than an official facilities spokesperson or so forth). But now that your boss has vetoed it, that’s more complicated. Really, though, if no one around you is willing to take this on, you can just say something to the guy yourself. You may also like:my coworker is setting toilet paper on fire in the bathroomthe men in our office use the women's bathrooms ... only for poopingmy boss follows me into the bathroom to talk about work { 156 comments }
updates: former coworker stole my work, employer is revoking work-from-home, and more by Alison Green on October 3, 2024 Here are three updates from past letter-writers. 1. Former coworker stole my work and keeps contacting me for help Thank you so much for publishing an answer to my question! I appreciated your advice, Alison, and the advice shared by the commentariat. It was validating to see that others agreed Lulu is, well, delulu. I do have a small update to share! I ended up just ignoring Lulu’s emails. I haven’t heard anything else from her. But – a coworker told me they’d contacted Lulu about a system she still had access to. It was an external tool that my coworker needed to take ownership of, which required Lulu to remove herself from the account. She did, but only after being rude AF and unhelpful to my coworker, ignoring them for weeks instead of just performing one simple action. I did “soft launch” the issue of stolen IP with my boss (the one who coddled Lulu) by asking if Lulu was working for a direct competitor. She is not, but my boss did ask why I wanted to know, so I told them. They did not really react, but that is in line with the “Lulu can do no wrong” behavior I witnessed for many years, so I was not surprised. In the comments, people were incredulous that meetings would be moved at Lulu’s insistence…believe me, I agree with you! It’s very difficult to explain the chokehold Lulu had on management. It’s the most dysfunctional and frustrating vocational experience I’ve ever had. Imagine someone claiming they need information to do their job, only they are not really doing that part of their job, but when anyone offers to HELP with that part of the job, they throw a tantrum…it was exhausting, but the only person who was ever in the right was Lulu. We all just did what we could to avoid the blow-ups. Lastly: I don’t work there anymore! I realized that while problem children like Lulu were gone, the systemic issues and gaslighting that allowed her to be a problem for so long were not going away anytime soon. A recruiter contacted me with a great opportunity, and I jumped at it. This all happened right around the time my question was published, so I didn’t get to interact with the comments much. However, I read every single one of them and took all the information as a lesson learned should I ever encounter another delulu Lulu! 2. My employer is revoking work-from-home but I live 300 miles away (#2 at the link) The question of whether my inability to comply with the new hybrid standards would result in me being officially let go, or if I’d have to resign, never came to a head. HR called me to let me know I was being laid off, but instead of invoking the remote work policy (which I was prepared to challenge), they instead cited the fact that they’d recently (~2 months ago) hired an additional person in my department and the business couldn’t keep both of us. I can’t help but think this was a very obvious attempt to avoid me pushing back on the new policies that conflicted with the terms of my hiring, as this new person’s job and mine did not overlap at all (e.g. I’m a graphic designer and she is a copywriter). I will also perhaps uncharitably, but truthfully, say that this person—let’s call her Susan—is very bad at her job. For the first publication she contributed to, Susan submitted an article that was so poorly written that I took it to our shared boss and told her it was unpublishable. While writing/editing was not currently within the scope of my responsibilities at work, the article was so incoherent I felt I couldn’t in good conscience not say something—especially as we were an educational institution and I felt it reflected really badly on us! My boss agreed and re-wrote the article herself. It wasn’t a matter of grammatical errors or anything like that; it was a very clear lack of understanding of how to communicate in the written word. A month after I was laid off, my boss, true to her word, contracted me to do another publication, and here’s the catch: in addition to doing the design work (my job), she also wanted to hire me to write the copy as well (Susan’s job). I quoted double my freelance rate for the additional work, and they agreed. So, for those keeping track, here’s where it stands: they laid me off because they allegedly “couldn’t afford” to keep on both me and Susan, and now they’re paying me a much higher rate than they were paying before, to do both my job and Susan’s job, while also still paying Susan. Make it make sense! 3. I have no idea who to give my resignation to (#5 at the link) Thanks for publishing my letter and confirming that I was definitely overthinking this! (Thanks also to Manic Pixie HR Girl for their comment advice too.) I gave my resignation to our Chief HR Officer, who managed all of the comms across their C-suite level — including telling my brand new manager. (Fun fact! When I wrote in, I didn’t have a manager, but in the interim they hired someone who actually ended up starting the exact same day I gave my notice.) I haven’t left yet, but your site continues to offer a wealth of resources as I close out my notice period. Thanks again, Alison! You may also like:former coworker stole my work and keeps contacting me for helpmy coworker cries over tiny things, using a nickname at work, and moremy favorite posts of the decade { 44 comments }
let’s talk about times when someone righted someone else’s wrong by Alison Green on October 3, 2024 Today’s “ask the readers” is for my mom: let’s talk about times when someone righted someone’s else wrong (a favorite pastime of my mother). Maybe a colleague stood up to the office bully on behalf of a more junior colleague, or a new manager flagged a pay gap and got it fixed, or any other time a brave person said, “This isn’t right, and I’m going to fix it.” Please share your stories in the comment section. You may also like:the plum liquor, the free lunches, and other times people used their power for goodmy coworker is upset that I didn't tell her I'm pregnanthow to tell an employee he needs to figure some things out himself { 566 comments }
boss got invited to our rowdy beach weekend, coworker is uncomfortable around my service dog, and more by Alison Green on October 3, 2024 I’m off for a few days. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives. 1. One of our bosses got invited to our rowdy beach weekend I am good friends with three of my coworkers, let’s call them Billy, Goat, and Gruff. The four of us are distributed across three different teams, but we work together a lot on various projects and also hang out with some regularity outside of work. As such, we are planning a big beach weekend getaway in August. We’ve all invited various friends, booked a giant house for the weekend, and have been making plans for a super fun, rowdy weekend of drunken shenanigans (as beach excursions tend to be). Billy is also friends with Goat and Gruff’s boss, Gabby. Like us, Gabby is in her 30s, friendly, fun, lively, and would logically be friends with all of us if she weren’t Goat and Gruff’s boss. She has been to dinner and drinks with us, and on one occasion the whole group went back to Billy’s house to drink more beer and eventually play a well-known boundary-pushing party card game. We all had fun, but Goat and Gruff both left early-ish, and didn’t drink much (as you’d expect). This is where it starts to go sideways. Billy, in a fit of generosity, invited Gabby to the beach weekend. Since then, Gabby has asked me for additional details and if there’s room for her to join. My hostess/planner self is screaming that Gabby really, truly cannot come. That there’s a world of difference between the equivalent of a rowdy happy hour with coworkers and a whole weekend of road-tripping, mostly-naked (swimsuits!) heavy-drinking shenanigans, communal living, and collective reckoning with rampant hangovers and sunburn. Regardless, what was a smooth-sailing fun weekend is now embroiled in office hierarchy drama. It seems to me like my options here are a) ask Billy to tell Gabby not to come, and run the risk that he’ll blame it on Goat and Gruff for being spoilsports, b) be the bad guy myself and tell Gabby that she can’t come, blaming it on my delicate/old-fashioned sensibilities about mixing work dynamics (possibly damaging our relationship in the process), c) pray that she won’t attend, either because her schedule will prohibit or because her sense of decorum kicks in and she decides to bow out, or d) be a terrible hostess, stew in my own stress, and let things play out as they may. I could use some help figuring out how to approach this. Gabby can’t come. It’s crossing too many professional boundaries for a manager to attend a “rowdy weekend of drunken shenanigans” with two people who report to her. Presumably, Goat and Gruff are going to have to be on guard if she’s there, and it’s just not the weekend you planned. Ideally you’d do choice A — have Billy tell Gabby he didn’t think it through and since it’s going to be a rowdy weekend, he shouldn’t have invited two of the organizers’ boss. If you don’t trust him to do that without blaming Goat and Gruff (despite your explicit instructions), then you need to move to choice B — deliver that message yourself. Do not just hope she won’t attend or suffer in silence. But really, Billy messed this up and he should fix it. Read an update to this letter here. – 2019 2. My coworker is visibly uncomfortable around my service dog I recently started bringing my service dog to work with me. I went through all the required processes with my supervisor and HR, and found out that one of my neighboring coworkers (I’ll call her Carol) is very scared of dogs. I said I was willing to move desks, but they said it would not be necessary. However, Carol avoids me and my dog, and even refuses to walk within a few feet of my dog. If we’re walking in a hallway towards each other, I have to duck behind a wall or Carol gets visibly scared. I would like to help her be more comfortable around my dog, but don’t want her to feel pressured or coerced. Do you or your readers have any suggestions? For context, my dog is about 65 pounds and tall. So she doesn’t exactly blend in. I keep her well groomed to make sure she doesn’t smell or shed excessively. She’s very quiet and doesn’t make any fuss. I don’t know that it’s your place to try to help Carol be more comfortable around dogs unless she expresses an interest in that on her own (although I certainly understand the impulse to want to!). But you could tell her that you’ve noticed she’s uncomfortable around your dog and ask if there’s anything you could do differently to make her more comfortable, or if there are any questions you can answer about your dog that might help put her more at ease. You could also mention that you’d offered to move to a different desk but HR didn’t think it was necessary — but that you’d be willing to bring it up again if she’d like you to. – 2018 Read an update to this letter here. 3. My coworker has panic attacks, and it’s affecting my work I share an office with my coworker. She has panic attacks. When she has one, I have to leave the office until the attack passes. If I’m there or she isn’t alone, the attack won’t stop. We work with financial information and can only do work with the computer inside our offices. When I have to leave, I can’t do work because my computer is in the office (we all work in offices with doors and there is no way for anyone to ever bring work outside of their offices), and when she is having an attack she can’t do any work. We are always behind on work because she has an attack every two or three days. Our boss says if we don’t start delivering more work on time, he’ll put us both on a PIP. My coworker asked me not to tell anyone about her attacks. I don’t want to out her but I don’t want to end up on a PIP. There aren’t any empty offices for me to move to and there isn’t room anywhere else because everyone, including my boss, is already sharing. The last thing I want is to out my coworker. No one else here knows about her anxiety or panic attacks and she feels bad about disrupting our work. I don’t want to make it worse. But I also don’t want to keep getting in trouble or ending up on a PIP. I can’t think of any way to get my boss to understand without outing her. Yeah, you’re going to have to out her. It’s not reasonable for her to insist that you leave your work space like this, and one of you needs to let your boss know what’s going on. I’d say this to your coworker: “Because this is now affecting my performance and is at the point where I could lose my job over it, I need to talk to Bob about another solution for our office space. To do that, I’ll need to explain to him what’s going on. Would you prefer to talk with him yourself first? I’m planning to talk with him tomorrow, so I wanted to give you a chance to speak with him first about your panic attacks if you’d like to.” But then you do need to disclose to your manager what’s happening, and quickly (because the longer you let this go on, the more it’s affecting your work and the harder this may be to come back from). This isn’t gossiping about someone’s private health information. This is letting your manager know about a major reason for your slipping work performance. It sounds like your choices are to do that or risk getting fired for low performance, and it’s not reasonable for your coworker to expect you to do the latter. – 2018 Read an update to this letter here. 4. Interviewer insisted I was uninterested in the job A friend got me an interview with his company. It was going well until I met the senior manager; towards the end of the interview, he dismissed one of my questions about the work by saying “I don’t think you’re actually interested in this, I think you just want a job.” I didn’t respond very well, as I sat there in stunned silence while he gave me “job-hunting tips.” Should I have argued back with him? I’m in a field where getting in someone’s face is an acceptable negotiating tactic, but it felt out of place at an interview. There are three possibilities here: (1) You really were coming across as if you weren’t that interested, and this guy was candid in response; (2) he’s just a jerk, or (3) he wanted to test you to see how you’d react (which is jerky if there was no reason for it but potentially not so jerky if the field really does require the ability to stay cool under hostile questioning, and if you don’t yet have a professional track record proving you can do that). You might be able to get a sense from your friend of which category this guy might fall into. I don’t think you should have “argued back,” but I do think you should have calmly asked, “What makes you say that?” and then responded calmly to whatever he said. – 2011 You may also like:our boss got invited to our rowdy beach weekend, cold-contacting strangers on LinkedIn, and moreshould I organize an all-men beach weekend for my coworkers, asking for time to process things before responding, and…my boss and my employee won't stop asking me to spend the night at their houses { 140 comments }
I get angry when my coworkers make mistakes by Alison Green on October 2, 2024 I’m off for a few days, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2017. A reader writes: I’ve got a question regarding how much “mistake tolerance” is expected in the workplace. Just to give you some background, I’m a (tech) team lead, which, in my case, means my daily job is not very different from that of other team members, except for the part that I get to make technical decisions concerning the projects we are doing. That includes deadlines, technologies, methodologies, features to be included, etc. and most importantly, I decide whether a piece of work by any team member is acceptable. However, I don’t “manage” people; that is, I don’t give time off, I don’t give them feedback, I don’t decide their raise, etc. There’s a manager to do that. Now to the main question. I have very low, almost zero, tolerance for mistakes. Whenever I see a mistake in anyone’s work, especially trivial ones, I will get very angry. The rationale in my head is always “We have ONE job and one job only, and that’s to get this done! No excuses.” As such, I will remove the person from the project, in addition to having a detailed (sometimes heated) conversation with both the person and our manager on why such mistakes are not allowed in my team. So how bad is this? I know my intolerance could probably be attributed to some sort of OCD, and sort of know it is not good. But I just cannot forgive mistakes easily. Do you have any advice? Yeah, what you’re doing sounds pretty bad. I see two issues here: First, your expectations about normal amounts of errors are off. And second, you’re taking it really personally when mistakes happen and you’re having an emotional reaction where one isn’t warranted, rather than handling it professionally. (Which, as people are pointing out in the comment section, is a mistake in itself! So there’s some irony there.) On the first issue, people are going to make mistakes because you work with humans, not robots, and humans make mistakes. If someone makes a mistake occasionally, that is normal — and you should see it as normal and not an outrage. Perhaps you’re the very rare person who truly never makes mistakes in your work. If so, you’re something of a unicorn. That’s not typical. If you are that unicorn, good for you — that’s a rare talent. But if you want to work with other people, you have to recognize that you’re not normal; if you expect others to be unicorns too, no one will want to work with you, because you’ll be out of touch with reality. Now, obviously there’s a point where someone is making too many mistakes. And that brings us to the second issue, which is how to handle it when that happens. Right now, you’re reacting very emotionally: you’re getting angry and having heated conversations. There should rarely be any need for that at work, and by doing it, you’re almost certainly alienating people and making no one want to work with you. That’s a big deal — not only are you making working with you a bad experience for other people, but you’re also impacting your own professional reputation. That will matter when you’re looking for a promotion, a raise, or a new job, or even just when you want to be included on something that other people don’t want to work with you on. Here’s the thing that you’re losing sight of: At work, you have the tools you need to solve problems calmly and rationally. Getting angry and emotional says to other people that you don’t know how to do that. It makes you look out of control, and it can make you look inept. You don’t want that. Your goal needs to be to solve the problem, not to punish people or let them know how wrong they are or how much they frustrated you. Instead of having a heated reaction, you just need to deliver information calmly and clearly. That means that if someone makes a single mistake, all you need to do is say something like this: “I found mistake X. Can you take a look at it and fix it for me today?” If relevant, you can add, “Let me know if you’re not clear on what I’m talking about and I can walk you through it” and/or “Can you figure out how that happened so we can make sure to avoid it in future rounds?” And if someone makes mistakes regularly, that’s a pattern you need to talk to their manager about, since their manager is responsible for addressing it. And that should be a calm, matter-of-fact conversation — as in “Fergus is regularly making mistakes like X and Y. I’ve pointed it out to him, but it’s continuing to happen and I’m concerned about the pattern. It’s causing me to have to redo his work and making me reluctant to keep him on the project.” But there’s almost no reason to ever have a heated conversation over a mistake. This stuff shouldn’t be so emotional. If you find that you can’t control your emotions about mistakes, it’s probably worth exploring with a competent therapist — because a pattern of strong negative reactions to something that doesn’t warrant that intensity is usually connected to something more deeply rooted, and likely isn’t about work at all. You may also like:I feel betrayed when employees quitI sent my boss a long, angry email ... but I turned out to be wrongwas it unprofessional to say I was angry? { 226 comments }
how can I tell if I’m a good manager? by Alison Green on October 2, 2024 A reader writes: I’ve recently started managing a team of several employees. While I love the work, I’m not oblivious to the fact I’m still very new at managing people and have lots of room to develop. I once heard a speaker say that bad bosses are typically clueless about how they are perceived by their teams. Since employees don’t provide feedback in the same way a boss does, how can you actually tell how you are doing as a manager? 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. You may also like:advice for new managersis it a bad idea to work for a first-time manager?my terrible intern is a VIP's son and can't be fired { 19 comments }
I walked in on employees having sex — and I think there’s a sex club in my office by Alison Green on October 2, 2024 I’m off for a few days so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2015. Is it real? Is it fake? I honestly don’t know. I normally don’t print letters that I think are likely fake, although the update made me less sure. Ultimately I don’t think it matters (as Carolyn Hax has said, every letter in an advice column is a hypothetical except to the person who wrote it) and the advice can be extrapolated and applied to other, less salacious situations regardless. A reader writes: I am the manager of a customer service team of about 10-12 members. Most of the team members are right out of school and this is their first professional job and their ages range from 22-24. I am about 10 years older than all of my employees. We have a great team and great working relationships. They all do great work and we have established a great team culture. Well, a couple of months ago, I noticed something odd that my team (and other employees in the building) started doing. They would see each other in the hallways or break room and say “quack quack” like a duck. I assumed this was an inside joke and thought nothing of it and wrote it off as playful silliness or thought I perhaps missed a moment in a recent movie or TV show to which the quacks were referring. Fast forward a few months. I needed to do some printing and our printer is in a room that can be locked by anyone when it is in use (our team often has large volumes of printing they need to do and it helps to be able to sort things in there by yourself, as multiple people can get their pages mixed up and it turns into a mess). The door had been locked the entire day and this was around noon, and as the manager I have the key to the door in case someone forgot to unlock it when they left. I walked in, and there were two of my employees on the couch in the copier room having sex. I immediately closed the door and left. This was last week and as you can imagine things are very awkward between the three of us. I haven’t addressed the situation yet because of a few factors: This was during both of their lunch hours. They were not doing this on the clock (they had both clocked out, I immediately checked). We have an understanding that you can go or do anything on your lunch that you want, as long as you’re back after an hour. Also, as you mentioned in your answer last week to the person who overheard their coworker involved in “adult activities,” these people are adults and old enough to make their own choices. But that’s not the end of the story. That same day, after my team had left, I was wrapping up and putting a meeting agenda on each of their desks for our meeting the next day. Out in broad daylight on the guys desk (one of the employees I had caught in the printing room) was a piece of paper at the top that said “Duck Club.” Underneath it, it had a list of locations of places in and around the office followed by “points.” 25 points – president’s desk, 10 points – car in the parking lot, 20 points – copier room, etc. So here is my theory about what is going on (and I think I am right). This “Duck Club” is a club people at work where people get “points” for having sex in these locations around the office. I think that is also where the quacking comes into play. Perhaps this is some weird mating call between members to let them know they want to get some “points” with the other person, and if they quack back, they meet up somewhere to “score.” The two I caught in the copier room I have heard “quacking” before. I know this is all extremely weird. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to write you because of how weird this seems (plus I was a little embarrassed). I have no idea what to do. As I mentioned above, they weren’t on the clock when this happened, they’re all adults, and technically I broke a rule by entering the copier room when it was locked, and would have never caught them if I had obeyed that rule. The only company rule I can think of that these two broke is using the copier room for other purposes, preventing someone else from using it. I would love to know your opinion on this. I tend to want to sweep it under the rug because I’m kind of a shy person and would be extremely embarrassed to bring it up. What?! The bad news is that I think you’re really, really off-base in how you’re looking at this. This is not at all like last week’s letter about the coworker who had sex in a private hotel room after work hours. This is people having sex in the office while people around them are working. It’s not okay. It doesn’t matter if they were on a break or that the door was locked and you weren’t supposed to walk in. It’s totally, utterly unacceptable, and you absolutely cannot sweep it under the rug. You don’t need to be able to point to a specific rule in order to be able to say a particular behavior isn’t acceptable. You’ll never be able to think of everything you need a rule for, and you definitely don’t want to work somewhere that attempts that. It’s enough to say that you expect people to behave professionally and exercise common sense. And it’s perfectly acceptable to take people to task — or you know, fire them — for having sex in the office during work hours. (Or outside of work hours, for that matter, but it’s particularly egregious that it was during work hours, with people around.) You’ve got to talk to them, and very soon. By putting it off, you’re signaling that you’re okay with it. You need to tell them in no uncertain terms that what you saw was unacceptable and never to happen again, and you need to take that sheet you found at the printer and find out what on earth is going on with that — and put a clear and direct stop to it too. I would call them both into your office and say this: “I should have addressed this with you the day it happened, but I’ve been so shocked that this would happen in our office that I’ve been trying to think about what I can possibly say to you. What I walked in on the other day is unacceptable. You cannot under any circumstances engage in sexual behavior in this office. Doing that during that work day when coworkers are around — regardless of whether or not you were clocked in — is wildly unprofessional, and gives me serious pause about your judgment and professionalism.” You also need to talk to your other team members, since you have reason to think that people are having sex all over your office. For points. For points. But before doing that — and in fact, possibly before talking to the two employees who you caught in the act — you need to talk to your own manager about all of this. This is messed up enough that any good manager would want to know about it and have input into how it’s being handled (or at least be in the loop about how it’s being handled). I get that you’re embarrassed to have to talk to people about this at all. But you have to. It’s going to be far, far more embarrassing if your manager finds out at some point that you knew about this and said nothing. You will look complicit and you will look like you shared in your staff’s bad judgment. You also probably need to take a look at who’s on your team, whether they belong there, and what kind of culture is in place that has allowed them to think this is (a) reasonable and (b) something that you wouldn’t notice. It is absolutely true that when you have a team of 10+ people who are all in their first professional job, weird pack behavior can develop. But part of your job as a manager is to shape your culture and your team’s understanding of professionalism. If it’s turned into a sex club, that’s a sign that you need to revisit all of this. Read an update to this letter here. You may also like:should you create a fake workload to test how much pressure an employee can take?can bad employees and bad managers change?a creepy customer complained my employees aren't friendly enough { 239 comments }
coworker whispers a daily affirmation to me, I don’t want my boss at my goodbye happy hour, and more by Alison Green on October 2, 2024 I’m off for a few days. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives. 1. My coworker whispers a daily affirmation to me I work in a fairly open plan corporate setting. A new colleague joined another team about a month ago, and passes my station daily on his way to see his boss. Every single morning he briefly stops, wait for me to make eye contact, whispers “You’re amazing” to me, and heads on his way. It’s flattering but odd, and can take me out of my headspace. I am incredibly busy (which I don’t expect a new person on another team to appreciate), and he has probably been told that I will be a useful resource to him — which is true, if my workload allows. Some mornings I’ve turned it into a quick chat (“How are you settling in? “Plans for the weekend?”) — enough to learn he is happily married and some of his hobbies. This interaction comes across more as pleasant-but-awkward coworker rather than creepy person. I am not aware of him doing it to others: he passes about a dozen workstations and another dozen offices on this route, and he definitely doesn’t do it to the ~one third that I can see/hear. I’m generally cheerful and approachable, have a reputation for knowing the answer to whatever question people have, and always being busy (it’s true, and I’m addressing that with my bosses separately). I have a very prominent workstation on a corner, right outside our CEO’s office, so many infer I am somewhat important. Am I doing any damage letting this daily affirmation continue? I think some mornings I likely haven’t looked up being buried in some task, and he hasn’t interrupted me so I appreciate that. My neighbor is utterly baffled by it, but I don’t think it’s affecting her work much. It is building an easy opportunity to talk about work but our paths won’t cross too frequently task-wise — and if they do it will be one way, generating some work for me rather than them. This would creep me out — the whispering, ugh! — but I’m forcing myself to take you at your word that your vibe is that he’s being awkward rather than creepy. And I can actually picture this type — extremely cheerful, does things that would be smarmy from someone else but just seems … wholesomely weird from him? I mean, who knows, maybe it’s a bizarre Machiavellian maneuver to set you up to feel a higher degree of obligation to his work requests, although it doesn’t sound like he’ll have many for you — but it could also be 100% a response to you seeming like a gatekeeper to the CEO. Either way, ew. But I don’t think there’s any reason you have to put a stop to it. It doesn’t sound like it’s bugging you too much — it’s just a weird thing that can provide mild entertainment for you and your neighbor. That said, if you ever do want it to stop, you could always respond with cheerful briskness, “Okay, that’s enough of that!” or “You’re going to need to wait for me to actually earn that” … or begin your own whisper campaign of “you’re magnificent,” etc. Read an update to this letter here. – 2019 2. My annoying coworker lurks near every conversation I work in a small office, nine employees total including my manager. One staff member has a hard time separating home and work life. She has a lot of personal phone calls, with complete disregard to everyone else in the room; sings or listens to music loudly; and brings in random objects from home, including a vegetable plant, which honestly has no place in the office. This is just a list of a few things that have happened in the past month alone. But this doesn’t describe the actual issue I have with her. She has a huge fear of missing out, so much that it has made it completely uncomfortable or awkward to have both work-related or passing conversations with others. If she sees other coworkers talking, she will just stand there/linger in the back waiting to say something, even if it makes no sense to the conversation. Sometimes people just walk away, never finishing their conversation. Finally, the part that gets me the most, is when she interjects in the middle of when someone is talking to just add something, sometimes never allowing the person to finish their statement or story. It’s gotten to the point that when I see her coming, I just leave the room. How do I get her to stop, without it seeming like we are talking about her behind her back, which would be the only way to have a full conversation? First, I think it’s awesome that she brought in a vegetable plant and I want to know what it is. I hope it’s something enormous like a corn stalk. The other stuff … she does sound annoying, but I’m not sure that you’re focusing on the right stuff. The singing, loud music, personal calls, interruptions and general disregard for people around her are all legitimate issues to address, because she’s disrupting other people’s ability to focus and get work done. You get to say, “Could you please turn that down?” or even “Could you take that call in the hallway? It’s making it tough to focus.” And you get to raise it to her manager if that doesn’t work. But the lurking around other people’s conversations isn’t as clear-cut. You can’t really exclude people from social conversations being held in common areas at work, even if they involve themselves in annoying ways. Sometimes having to deal with socially annoying people is just part of the deal at work. But work conversations are different; if you’re having a work-related conversation and she’s lurking, you can pause what you’re saying and say, “Did you need one of us?” or even “Can you give me and Jane a few minutes and then I’ll come find you if you need me?” And if she’s being disruptive, you can say, “Hey, could you leave this to me and Jane to hash through on our own, since we have all the context” or “Having more cooks in the kitchen will complicate this, so I want to keep this to me and Jane” or “We have an agenda to get through, so let’s talk later.” If none of that works and she stays disruptive, you could speak with her manager about the work impacts it’s having. But try to really separate what annoys you about her as a person from what’s impacting your work. – 2021 3. Can I ask my boss not to come to my goodbye happy hour? I’m leaving a small company (50 people) after two years. When someone leaves, staff usually go to happy hour as a big group (maybe 10-20 people) on the person’s last day. I’ve made a lot of great relationships at this company and I look forward to this happy hour as one last fun social occasion with them. The reason I’m leaving is my boss, Martha, is terrible. Working for her has exacerbated my anxiety and has led to more moments crying in the bathroom than should ever happen in a workplace. I’m sad to leave this company and great coworkers but I couldn’t stand working for Martha anymore. Since I’ve given my notice, she has become even more difficult to work for (which I didn’t think was possible) as she realizes that she doesn’t know how to run the projects I’ve been in charge of. Martha has asked about my goodbye happy hour plans. I told her I didn’t want one, in the hopes of having a private gathering with a select few coworkers that she wouldn’t know about or attend. But she was pushy about it being “tradition” (in reality, a very loose/informal tradition) and for me to choose a date and location for her to coordinate. I stalled and asked for time to think about it. Many of the staff know my boss is difficult to work for and know she’s the reason I’m leaving the company. I think Martha wants to plan the happy hour because it makes her look like a good boss. (It’s typical at my company for a coworker to plan the happy hour instead of the manager). A coworker who I’m close with, Jane, has already started to plan the happy hour for me. Martha and I never had a great working relationship and it feels disingenuous for her to attend, let alone plan, this after work event. She even chastised me once for drinking at an outside networking event where alcohol was served (I’m 26). Can I ask my boss not to come to my goodbye happy hour? Nope! Not really, anyway. Not if it’s your official goodbye happy hour, and not if you’re trying to avoid burning bridges/future references/your reputation there. But what you can do if she asks about it again is to say, “Thanks for offering to plan something, but I actually prefer not to have a formal work thing.” You can then go ahead and have a small, informal happy hour with a handful of coworkers. But it needs to be small — if it’s 20 people, you can’t credibly argue it’s not a work thing, and you can’t politely keep her from coming. Keep it under 10 people and make sure that Jane doesn’t talk about it much at work, and you should be fine. If you want something larger or more officially associated with your office, then you can’t really ask your boss not to attend. But you can mentally reframe her presence as the thing you’re celebrating never seeing again. Read an update to this letter here. – 2019 4. Can we leverage our coworkers’ marriage to get work done? I have a weird one I’m not sure how to handle. I work as an admin/office manager in an office of about 15. Overall it’s one of the greatest jobs I’ve ever had but sometimes there are the typical small office conflicts. Two of my coworkers are married to each other. They are very professional and it would be easy to miss. My question is if it’s appropriate to bring in the other partner to help with an issue you are having with their spouse. For example, the husband coworker is kind of the forgetful professor type, brilliant at what he does but once a week the wife coworker must bring a large bag to office to collect all the personal belongings he leaves everywhere (commuter mugs, lunch containers, coats and scarves, etc). Recently he needed to take some equipment home and now keeps forgetting to return it. This has caused a delay in a coworker and me getting some work done, but overall its very low stakes. Our manager checked in and when we told him the reason for the delay, he suggested that we email the wife coworker to help. She has been on a conference road trip and won’t be in the office for another two weeks. If she were here, she would have noticed independently and made sure he returned everything. I said that seemed awkward and several coworkers replied they’ve done it in the past. I feel like this is getting close to a personal boundary that shouldn’t be crossed when coworkers are married. They should be treated as coworkers at the office, right? Yes. It’s inappropriate to bring a coworker’s spouse in to solve a work issue with their partner. That doesn’t mean people never do — apparently they do in your office — but it’s a really bad idea. It’s blurring boundaries in a way that might not be a problem this time, but could become a problem in time, or could become a problem when the answer is “I have no idea where he put that folder; we’re not speaking.” Moreover, it’s undermining to both of them in different ways — the husband is being infantilized by people going around him to his wife, and the wife is being asked to assume professional responsibilities that aren’t hers (and to kind of mother her husband at work, which is ick). If they want to privately have systems behind the scenes where she reminds him at home to bring in the folder he left in the living room, that’s between them. But to you, they should be independent colleagues, not a unit. – 2019 You may also like:coworker whispers a daily affirmation to me, do I have to tell people I met with about my strep throat, and morecoworker is always late because she stops for coffee, my boss told me to change my ringtone, and moremy coworker keeps whispering sexually explicit things in the office bathroom { 132 comments }