Ask a Manager

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

1. Our intern was working two full-time jobs

I work at a nonprofit and manage our internship program. I handle the administrative side of things, while our program teams handle the day-to-day/substantive work assignments and management.

I received a message from one of those teams this morning sharing that, through social media, they found out one of our paid interns has had another full-time internship this semester on top of her classes. She did not share this with us previously, to my knowledge. The director is very disappointed and wants to remove her from the internship.

The internship is hybrid (in office 2-3 days a week). She’s committed to working a set schedule for us and has been working those hours. I have less insight on the quality of her work day-to-day: she’s always responsive to and thorough with me on the admin side, and her team hasn’t given me any hints of performance issues. My understanding up to this point is that she’s been doing a good job in helping the program keep things on track for the semester (they’re very events-based and do a ton of planning and logistics).

While I’m concerned about the lack of disclosure, I’m wondering if there have been other performance issues I’ve been kept out of the loop on that are fueling the suddenness of this. I’m surprised she’s managed to balance two full-time internships and a full class load without anyone noticing prior to this, which is partly on me. Our program has three weeks left, and I’m unsure if this warrants a full removal given that we don’t have an explicitly stated policy against it. I’m new to both running this program and managing generally, so trying to get a sense of if I’m reading this right.

If she worked the hours she committed to working and there haven’t been concerns about her work quality or responsiveness, and if she hasn’t violated any policy about second jobs … why on earth does your director want to fire her? If there have been concerns about her work quality or responsiveness, by all means address those — and if they’ve been severe, this new info feels like it explains them, and it’s just the last straw, then sure, end things. But otherwise, there’s nothing here to be upset about, let alone to fire an intern over. If your organization doesn’t want people working other jobs, it needs to say that when it hires them— and it definitely needs to say that to interns, since it’s not uncommon for interns to have a ton of things going on. But based on what’s in your letter, it doesn’t sound like she’s done anything wrong, other than apparently violate an unwritten secret rule that lives in your director’s head.

2. Employee makes patients feel unwelcome

I have an employee who comes to get her clients from the waiting room and it’s hit or miss on how she greets them – with great enthusiasm or, more often and more likely, as Eeyore. She’s going back to school to get a terminal degree and, having done it myself, I know that’s draining, and she’s got some medical issues so I know there are days she doesn’t feel great. However, clients are asking to switch off of her schedule because they feel she is disengaged and uninterested in their care. It’s definitely affected our business – and it’s worse when she’s enthusiastic with one client and then dragging the next. Because of the nature of our business, there is some overlap between clients and they see how she acts with someone else and then comes so begrudgingly to them, like her feet are made of lead and her dog just died. (This is not always the case, sometimes she’s just an Eeyore all day.) This understandably makes the client uncomfortable and feel like they are unliked and/or a burden. Overall, we try and have a fun, positive environment in our office.

We’ve discussed this before, but is there anything we can do? I don’t want to tell anyone to “smile,” but how can we handle this when it’s affecting our business?

If clients are asking not to see her, that’s a serious problem. I agree you shouldn’t order anyone to smile, but it is reasonable to say that clients need to be greeted warmly and made to feel welcome and appreciated. How she achieves that is up to her; some people do that by being smiley and bubbly, but plenty of non-bubbly, more reserved people also manage to make clients feel welcome. She can adapt her approach based on her own style, but the outcome — that clients feel welcomed — shouldn’t be negotiable. (I’m also wondering what she’s like with her clients after she takes them back from the waiting room. I’m guessing you don’t see that part, and who knows what’s happening there.)

It sounds like it’s time for a heart-to-heart where you say that you know she’s juggling a lot but clients are experiencing her as gloomy and unwelcoming, and that can’t continue. Does she need time off? Fewer hours? Be open to hearing her out on what might help. But if she continues to make clients feel unwelcome, you’d need to treat it as a pretty serious fit issue.

3. My manager is upset that I’m paid more and get a benefit she doesn’t get

I work for a large international company and am one of the 20% remote associates. I am based in a high-income area, which most employees are not. I recently got a pay raise and a new manager. The raise pushes me over the high earner threshold to where I now get unlimited PTO. This pay discrepancy makes sense, as the cost of living is approximately double in my area.

My manager only was aware of this benefit because I brought it up to her, and it is clear she does not have it — she was totally blank-faced. She looked extremely upset on the call, and has repeatedly expressed how unfair this is. I agree with her and am actually being negatively impacted by this (it means I lose my banked PTO I wanted to use in addition to maternity leave), but don’t know how handle this with her.

Your manager shouldn’t be complaining about this to you! If she has a problem with it, she should escalate it to someone with the power to do something about it, not put someone she manages in the awkward position of hearing how unhappy she is about a perk they receive.

As for what to do, if she brings it up again, you could say, “I’d support you in pushing for it for everyone” (or if true, “If you decide to advocate for a policy change, you’d have my support”). And if she keeps bringing it up, it’s reasonable to say, “You’re putting me in a tough position since I didn’t choose this. Is there something you want me to do differently?”

4. I’m taking an extended break from work and my dusty LinkedIn profile is haunting me

I unexpectedly fell extremely ill in March 2023. I was a new grad (just got my MSW!) working a few part-time roles and searching for a full-time position when I totally dropped off the map to deal with my new fangled health mystery and profound disability (think daily cardio routine to a wheelchair overnight level of intensity). It’s a year later and I’m doing much better! I have a diagnosis and I’m improving every day, but it’s going to be a while before I’m back to full strength, probably another year or more.

My LinkedIn has just been sitting untouched this whole time and it’s haunting me. I’m still listed as “currently employed” at places I haven’t worked since the onset of my illness and that feels … So. Icky. Not being able to contextualize why I left my jobs so abruptly makes me feel absolutely batty. Even if I could get my head around that, I genuinely don’t know what cessation date to put down. Should it be the day I went on sick leave, or six months later when I finally resigned? Truly, there are more important things I could be thinking about I’m sure, but this is bugging me SO MUCH. Please help.

You are overthinking it! LinkedIn is a cesspool anyway and we should all deeply resent its existence. You don’t need it update it at all until you’re ready to start job-searching, but whenever you want to, your end dates can be the dates your employment formally ended (so not when you went on sick leave, but when you parted ways with the company; that’s what their records will reflect and yours can too).

5. Speaking Spanish in front of someone who doesn’t know the language

Is it legal for a boss to speak Spanish to someone who can speak English in front of someone who knows no Spanish, especially if there is an issue at hand?

Yes. No law requires people to use any particular language in their workplace.

In fact, legally, employers can only prohibit employees from speaking in another language if it’s justified by a business necessity, like when they’re waiting on English-speaking customers or doing team projects where an English-only rule will promote efficiency, or to allow a manager who only speaks English to monitor the performance of employees whose job involves communicating with others.

That doesn’t mean it’s polite or smart to speak in a language someone else doesn’t know, particularly in a small group where only one doesn’t know the language. But it’s certainly legal. (And there are times when it might make perfect sense, like when it’s the fastest/most efficient way to communicate something.)

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

1. I work in a sleep clinic and some patients want to sleep naked

I recently changed careers and now work as a sleep technician for a well-known medical facility. I’m still a student so I only work part-time until I graduate from my program. Technicians are not nurses, unless they have additional, specific training. We are machine operators who happen to work with patients. My job is to attach electrodes to the patient’s body for the purpose of monitoring and recording the body’s electrical signals during sleep. Nudity is not required for me to do my job, which is partially why I chose sleep.

Here’s the issue: some of my patients do not bring/wear pajamas for their sleep studies. You would think it’s common sense to wear pajamas to sleep in, but, apparently, as I am now learning, it’s not. And some patients report, “No one told me to bring PJs.” The biggest issue for me are men (it’s mostly men who do this) who strip down to their tightie-whities or state they sleep naked. In my opinion, this is incredibly inappropriate. Not only is it creepy, unprofessional , and plain weird (seriously, it’s one night away from home), it forces the workers into a situation that could be easily misconstrued. We techs already record all interactions to protect ourselves from erroneous accusations.

As a newbie in a new field, would it be out of line to ask the lab manager if the night crew could have a package of hospital gowns in inventory for patients who don’t have pajamas with them? I don’t want to hurt my chance to move into a full-time position here, but I also can’t hand off every creepy dude to my coworkers. I don’t know if this matters, but the majority of people at my facility are female-presenting. I think besides a few of the doctors the rest of the staff is over 95% women. It’s rare to have a male tech on crew.

Not only would be it reasonable to ask to keep hospital gowns on hand for patients who don’t bring something to wear, you could also suggest that patients be informed ahead of time that they should bring something comfortable to sleep in “or a hospital gown will be provided.” If the answer is no, then so be it, but asking about it shouldn’t look out-of-line.

If you want extra cover (ha) because you’re new, you could talk to some of your coworkers about it, see if anyone shares your discomfort, and raise it as a group (or have the person with the most influence raise it). But it’s entirely reasonable, and sometimes it takes a new person to see that something everyone else has gotten used to is off and/or could be improved.

2. Upgrading business flights and hotel rooms at my own expense

I work for a nonprofit that requires a decent amount of travel. I am very well compensated compared to others in similar positions in my field, though I could make double or triple doing similar work in the private sector (which I used to work in).

The thing is, I’m independently wealthy. When I travel, I book within my employer’s guidelines for airfare and hotels, but then upgrade myself to first class or a nicer room. I use my personal credit card and then submit for reimbursement, but only for the originally booked expenses within guidelines. I’m probably spending a few thousand dollars a year making my work travel more comfortable. It’s worth it to me and doesn’t impact anyone I work with. If other people from my organization or a partner organization are also on the trip, I don’t do those things.

Is there anything wrong with this? Should I stop? I did tell the admin assistant who processes my expenses that I will sometimes upgrade myself with miles, just so they are not surprised if my ticket receipt shows first class. I have also decided not to get a corporate card (even though it means I may have a few thousand dollars of unreimbursed expenses for two to three months) because I want the points and don’t want to deal with finance.

Nope, you’re fine. It’s not uncommon to upgrade yourself at your expense or using your own personal miles. With nonprofits, you do need to think about what the optics could look like to donors so if you were, like, arriving at a donor meeting in a golden palanquin, that would be an issue. But upgrading your flight and room? You’re fine. (Just make sure to keep documentation of what you’re covering versus what the org is covering in case anyone ever questions it.)

3. How to ask for grace during a personal crisis

You published a letter a short time ago about someone who broke their leg and wasn’t getting sympathy/understanding from coworkers. I really liked the comments suggesting that we should do a better job of self-publishing our challenges so that others have a better opportunity to support us.

Unfortunately, I find myself in need of some support/understanding and I’m struggling with how to share it. I work with a huge number of internal customers who have urgent/time-sensitive requests. It’s already a big source of stress in my life that I can never afford to have an “off” day. It’s a very intense environment where people are often curt with each other, and I thrive in that usually, but some days I just have a lower tolerance.

My best friend died yesterday. I had urgent work so I couldn’t really call out today without burdening others, and didn’t want to sit at home staring at a wall anyway. But I’m also clearly not myself and am not keeping up with some important work.

I also found out that a coworker’s teenaged child tried to commit suicide two weeks ago, and she didn’t let anyone know and didn’t ask for time off. I’m obviously unspeakably horrified for her and rehashing every conversation, panicked that I was less than patient with her at any point, but trying to respect her request that we keep business as usual.

In both cases, I’m wondering how we can explain that we need some grace, without randomly blurting out “something awful just happened to me” to the 50+ people we interact with on a daily basis?

One option: “I’m dealing with a personal crisis so I might not be at 100% right now.” Another: “I’m dealing with a family crisis — just letting you know in case you notice I seem off.” Or if you’re willing to share more: “Someone close to me died this week, so I’m only taking care of the must-do’s right now.”

But also … “a very intense environment where people are often curt with each other” is pretty much guaranteed to be hard on someone most days. At any given point, someone in your office is probably going through something hard that’s being made worse by colleagues speaking to them curtly. It can be challenging to hold that awareness in the front of your mind all the time, especially in a really hard-driving environment, but ideally we’d all strive to.

4. My manager wants “get shit done” meetings

Is it appropriate for a line manager to put GSD meetings on your calendar? This line manager told me they were “get shit done” meetings.

Sure. It’s a term you see in some corners of business space. It’s a little tech-bro-ish, but it’s a term some people use. If it grates on you because of the profanity, you can ask to call it something else.

5. Did I accidentally misrepresent a job on my resume?

I have been unsuccessfully job searching for a few months after a cross-country move. I finally got an offer last week and am super excited about it! Here’s my problem, though. I was filling out their information for the background check, and realized they are confirming employment for all of the jobs listed on my resume. No problem! Except the oldest relevant work experience on my resume was not actually a paid job — it was an assistantship where I earned college credit. Obviously, this should have been noted on my resume, but I put it on there as “relevant experience” when I was applying to my first job in my field, and just somehow never thought to update it over the years. So when the third party background check company checks my employment, I won’t show up as a former employee, because technically I wasn’t. What should I do here? Should I preemptively reach out to HR to alert them and explain? Should I wait to see if it even gets flagged? Help!

This is not a big deal. An unpaid assistantship is still legitimate work experience, and you didn’t do anything wrong by listing it without noting that it was unpaid. There’s no expectation that you’ll flag unpaid internships and similar as being unpaid.

If you’re worried about it, you can include a note in the background check paperwork (or send it separately to them now) to the effect of, “The position at X in 2011 was an unpaid assistantship for college credit so I don’t know if I’ll show up as a former employee or not. If you need another way to verify it, please let me know and I’ll put you in touch with the person who managed me there.” But you could even leave off that last sentence and it’ll almost certainly still be fine.

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

1. I’m worried my coworker is abusing his wife

I know you’ve covered how to help a coworker is being abused, but what do you do when the person you work with might be the abuser? My coworker displays some very concerning behavior towards his wife. She is a stay-at-home mom, but he doesn’t allow her to drive their daughter anywhere. They have several cameras in their house that he monitors constantly throughout the day. Comments he’s made make me think he controls all their finances as well. Her sister lives 3,000 miles away and her parents are in a different country, so she’s very isolated here. I’ve met her a handful of times, but do not have any kind of substantial relationship with her. Is there any way to reach out to her without overstepping as a coworker? This doesn’t feel as straightforward as helping a coworker I believe is being abused.

How horrible. I suppose it’s possible that there’s some other explanation (like, I don’t know, she’s an alcoholic and he worries about her driving and caring for their kid), but of course you’re concerned! Ugh.

Is there any way you can develop more of a relationship with her? Can you encourage him to bring her to more work functions and try to get to know her better? It’s very difficult for even people who are close to the person being abused to get them to leave, so unfortunately you’re not  well-positioned to help her … but generally speaking, the less isolated she is and the more people treat her as a good and worthwhile person, the better off she will be.

Before you do anything, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline for advice: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).

Related:
dealing with domestic abuse in the workplace

2. Should I tell my boss about my chronically late coworker?

When and how should you do something about a coworker’s chronic lateness?

My coworker is frequently 30-45 minutes late to an early morning shift. This leaves me to deal with stuff alone, and it’s hard to plan how to handle various tasks with the uncertainty.

They have also admitted to clocking in but being away from their computer. I’ve asked for time-sensitive help during their work hours, and they haven’t responded for 20+ minutes, which is very unusual for our team.

Our team often works remotely and signs on via a team chat. The message timestamps may have tipped off my boss, but I doubt they are checking that.

I’ve said a few things to the chronically late coworker. I told them that it’s hard to plan out the morning when they’re late. I shared my sympathy and tips for waking up early when they complained that it’s hard — but it keeps happening.

I want to tell boss about the lateness. I like this coworker a lot as an human, and so does my boss. I’m worried about souring relationships by saying something, but it’s frustrating and unfair. How can I get relief?

The answer to when you should say something about a coworker’s chronic lateness is: when it’s affecting your work or the team’s work. And in this case it clearly is.

Talk to your boss. Explain that your coworker is frequently 30-45 minutes late, which leaves you deal with stuff alone, which causes XYZ problems. Say that when you ask for time-sensitive help, you often don’t hear back from them quickly enough (based on the norms of your team), which causes XYZ problems. Ask for advice on what you can do.

This isn’t “tattling” (a word you used in your email’s subject line). This is looping your boss in on a problem that’s affecting your work and asking for help in handling it. You’ve already told your coworker that their lateness is causing issues; your boss is the next logical step to figure out a work solution to a work problem.

3. Creative application materials

I’m dating someone new who has been job searching for over a year after finishing grad school. She says that all of her mentors and professors advise “creative” application materials (think a resume in the style of a restaurant menu or a cover that looks like a film script). This is for communications field jobs. What do you think?

Good lord, no.

Hiring managers want resumes that are organized so that they can be easily skimmed and with all the relevant info where they expect to find it. They do not want gimmicks that sacrifice function to form.

4. Can we tell clients work didn’t get done because our old manager sucked?

My department at work was run until last year by Zephaniah, who had no idea what he was doing (think: a math teacher who doesn’t know algebra) and who had no interest in doing better. We were all constantly fighting fires to make sure basics of day-to-day operation were getting done.

Management managed him out and now we are happier, but we’re still frequently finding important tasks he didn’t do. This year a number of clients are now wondering why jobs haven’t been done for them. Is it okay to just dump the blame for everything Zephaniah did on him? Is there any need to be diplomatic and make excuses when a client asks why some product hasn’t been delivered yet?

You’ve got to bring this to management above you to figure out how to handle it. Clients won’t be happy to  hear their work (that they were presumably paying for) didn’t get done because of a bad employee. That’s requires some kind of appeasement — like a discount or something along those lines — and your management should be involved in figuring out that messaging.

5. Can my old employer make me give them my notes binder?

I was fired from my job on Monday. When I packed my desk, I took my notes binder with me. My old manager called me today to tell me to bring back the notes binder because it might have some of the company accounts info in it. It only has my notes. Is this legal for her to want this from me?

Legally, your employer owns work you create in the scope of your employment, which includes notes about your projects. So if the notes in your binder are about work things, they can indeed make you return it.