Ask a Manager

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

1. Putting up a sign about abusive patients

I am a long time manager of a multi-location health care group. Our staff can’t work from home because –you know— patients! With the exception of a few weeks in April of 2020, our staff worked throughout the pandemic to take care of our patients. In the past year, protocols have changed as the pandemic progressed. We started with locked doors and patients texting when they arrived. Our staff took temperatures and asked 10-15 Covid questions of every patient who entered the office. They sanitized door handles, waiting room chairs, counters and those nifty Lexan shields at the front desks. They couldn’t eat together in the lunch room so some ate lunch in their cars. They met patients in the parking lot (in the northeast in the winter) to deliver items that needed to be picked up. They were rock stars!

Amazingly, almost all of our staff stuck with us through this entire time — which is great because the labor market in our area was challenging before the pandemic and is much worse now. The people who work here are stressed and exhausted. Some have lost family members during the pandemic. Overall our patients have been grateful for our services and complementary of our efforts to keep them and our staff safe throughout the last year. In the past month, however, we have had an astounding increase in patients who have been downright abusive to our staff. For example, patients who interrupt staff members and threaten to “talk to the owners” and “get them fired” over a minor communication issue. On more than one occasion, staff members have been brought to tears by these patients. We have lost two wonderful employees in the past few months because they can’t deal with the rude patients! In these cases a manager or the physician contact the patient directly and dismiss them from the practice, but I don’t feel that is enough to show our staff that we support them.

Normally I am squarely opposed to posting signs in the office (for all to see) to correct a problem that is caused by only a few, but I am seriously considering posting something in support of our staff. What would I say? We are doing our best? We appreciate your patience? Don’t be mean to the staff? As we were discussing our options we thought we could add, “We can’t believe we have to post this either…” We certainly don’t want to offend the 95% of our patients who are appreciative and just a joy to deal with. How do we show support for our staff and address this situation in a positive way?

I don’t think the 95% of your patients who are polite would be offended by that type of sign; they’d probably just be disappointed that it’s necessary (disappointed in their fellow humans, not in you). But I’m also skeptical it would work for the other 5% (in the same way that group emails about one person’s problem behavior tend to go right over the head of that person). They’ll either ignore the sign or think it doesn’t apply to them or think their behavior is justified anyway. People are abusive to others aren’t going to read “please be patient / we’re doing our best” and change their behavior.

But firing abusive patients — as you’ve been doing — is a powerful way to show your staff you support them. You can also empower them to deal with abusive patients on the spot; let them know you’ll have their back if they tell a patient they’ll be asked to leave if they don’t speak more politely/wait their turn/etc.

2. My incompetent coworker needs too much help from me

I share a cube with a perfectly nice, but mostly incompetent coworker. She and I are peers, but she is the admin to four different managers and I’m in a non-support position that reports to her managers’ boss. Whenever one of her managers asks her to run a report or do a project for them, five minutes later she’ll be whining (yes, literally whining) for me to help because she barely knows the basics of Microsoft Office and the company’s database software. Besides not being familiar with the programs, she’s also afraid to ask clarifying questions, so a good part of my time helping her is spent trying to figure out what exactly she was asked to do in the first place. And the process is repeated every time she gets a new project because she retains none of what I teach her. And I’m not talking about trickier things like pivot tables and macros, I mean basics like how to change font size or sort a spreadsheet.

I love being the person in the office that everyone goes to when they want to learn something new, like a cool time-saving Excel trick, or how to do a mail merge. But when I’m repeating myself every single time she asks for help, it gets frustrating, and I’m afraid it’s starting to come across in my tone with her. (“Oh, I see the problem — you need to sort your spreadsheet. Sort it. By the first column. Column. Click anywhere in Column A. The A at the top of the spreadsheet. Column A. Now choose ‘sort’ from the Data tab. Data. At the top where it says ‘Data’…”)

It’s not outside my job description to do these kinds of reports and projects for her managers. Can I just train them to ask me to do them in the first place? It would take me less time than trying to teach my coworker how to do them over and over again.

You could, but it would be covering up the problem. Another option is to stop letting her rely on you so much so she has to figure things out for herself or get more guidance from her manager, which is going to be more helpful in the long run. (What’s she going to do if you’re out for a week, after all?)

Why not start saying, “Sorry, I can’t help — I’m swamped today” and see if she becomes more self-sufficient? You could also have a big-picture conversation with her about the pattern — “I’ve been spending a lot of time helping you figure out X and Y and it’s keeping me from focusing on my work. I’m going to be more disciplined about not doing that, but you can check resources like A and B or talk to (manager) directly with questions.”

3. I’m supposed to say “your services are no longer needed”

During Covid, my organization hired an additional two dozen people to help with our busy season, which ends very soon. The organization has decided to retain half these positions into the not-busy season. When asked, almost all of these temporary hires were interested in staying on.

During the one-on-one meeting where I talk to each person who is not being retained, my organization will only permit the phrase “your services are no longer needed.” With that constraint, what’s the best way to communicate this information with empathy?

Are you sure they mean you can literally only use those words or might they mean you should stick to that overall concept? If they really want you to use those exact words, you should push back because that’s going to come across really badly — gratuitously callous and just weird. Instead, normally you’d say something like, “We had more people interested in staying on past the busy season than we have positions to offer, and unfortunately we’re not going to be able to offer you work past (date).”

If you really that you’re not allowed to say that or something similar, please push back and advocate for more human-sounding messaging than “your services are no longer needed.”

4. Do I have to give notice in person when I’ve been working from home?

I have been trying to leave my company since last June, when they were critical of me for being less productive when I was caring for my child at home because daycare was closed due to Covid. I had been forced back into the office through last fall, and the majority of employees disregarded the company’s mask mandates. I got Covid even though I wore a mask … which I gave to my husband and child … which my child gave to his daycare teachers. Which caused the daycare to totally shut down for two weeks … and all the while I was again criticized for my lack of productivity when I was sleeping round the clock due to COVID fatigue.

I finally found a new job that I am excited about and suffice it to say that I would be thrilled to never see these jerks again. I have been working remotely since I got Covid and would love to give notice over the phone rather than having to go in and listen to my boss’s commentary on it. My friends in the same field are split, with some saying I don’t need to go in to give notice since I have been there less than two years, and the other half saying that I should to avoid leaving on a bad note. I will be leaving on a bad note anyway — they already have deemed me lazy and uncommitted because I had to care for my child and then got COVID. What do you think?

You work remotely, so it’s fine to give your notice over the phone. There’s no reason you need to go there in-person for this one business conversation when you’ve been doing everything else from afar. (That said, I don’t understand your friends saying that it’s okay because you’ve been there less than two years — length of employment doesn’t really enter into it.)

5. Reapplying for a job I was a finalist for before Covid froze hiring

Last year, just before COVID hit, I was interviewing for a dream job at an organization I’d love to work for. My interview process started in March of 2020 and by April they had moved me to the final stage of the process. By May of 2020, they let me know that they had paused all hiring until further notice.

Well, it’s been a year and it looks like they are picking hiring for that position up again, and I’d love to reapply. I want to reach out to the recruiter and see if they’re still interested in me and If I can pick up where we left off or if I should apply through the usual channel. (I did check LinkedIn to see if he was still working there as it’s been a while.) If I do reach out, should I include a bit about what I’ve been up to professionally the last year? Should I apply and then send an “FYI I’m still interested” type of note? I’m not even sure he’s the recruiter working on this particular position. Should I be reaching out at all?

Go ahead and reapply to get yourself officially in the ring, and mention at the start of your cover letter that you were interviewing with them last year before they froze hiring. (Update your cover letter so it’s not the same one you submitted last time.)

Then email the recruiter or hiring manager you were working with last time, remind them of where things were left last year, and say you’re still very interested in being considered and you’ve submitted a formal application and would welcome hearing from them if they still think it might be the right match.

I wouldn’t assume they’ll definitely want to pick back up right where you left off; the position may have changed in the last year or they might want to start fresh and see where you fit in relative to the other candidates in the pool this time. Or they might be thrilled you’re still available and want to move you back into their process quickly. But doing both things above should position you as strongly as possible. Good luck!

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

1. Names that make a religious statement

I was reading an article about unusual baby names and two of the names included were “Christ is the Lord” and “Jesus is our Savior.” If, when these kids grow up, they continue to go by their full first names, how would that be handled in a work environment? It’s their legal name so they obviously have a right to be referred to by it, but wouldn’t their coworkers have a right to not make a religious statement they don’t believe in? I would have no problem calling someone Christ, but Christ is the Lord feels very different.

I don’t know how the law would handle this one! Possibly it would be considered a required legal accommodation to let people shorten the names to “Jesus” or “Christ” so they didn’t have to say words contrary to their faith or lack thereof. On the other hand, I can also imagine a situation where it becomes just their name in your mind and you stop hearing the individual words or their normal meaning.

(Realistically, I am semi-confident this won’t often come up as an issue, as those kids are likely to adapt their names themselves by the time they’re adults — as do most people with four-word first names — unless they have been raised to Make A Religious Point.)

2. HR keeps sending vague, anxiety-provoking emails

I work at a mid-sized nonprofit that finally hired HR personnel for the first time. She has over a decade of HR experience and is well-versed in the nonprofit sector. However, she is not very tactful, nor is she open to suggestions. Over the past two months, she has sent numerous emails that just say, “We need to meet at (insert time and date) to discuss something.” They’re so vague I have to double-check that they aren’t phishing attempts, and when I ask her for more context, she declines and says “we can discuss further in person.”

In our last unplanned and opaque meeting, I told her that I find these emails unsettling and anxiety-inducing and that it would be helpful to get some kind of context so I can prepare/feel more at ease. She responded by laughing at me and told me something like, “Ugh, people always think the worst about HR. I’m trying to fight that stereotype” and then changed the subject.

Was my request unreasonable? I not only felt dismissed, but also embarrassed asking for something and getting laughed at. Should I relay my feedback to my manager and see if feedback through official channels is better received?

No, your request wasn’t unreasonable. This HR person is failing at her goal of making people think well of HR. There might be legitimate reasons why she can’t give you a topic heads-up in advance, but then she should explain that, not laughingly dismiss your request.

How much capital/standing/influence/seniority do you have relative to her? If a fair amount, you could go back and say, “I raised this before and you didn’t seem to take it seriously, so I want to reiterate that I prefer a heads-up about meeting topics when you ask to meet. Can you please do that going forward?” You could add, “I think you’ll find a lot of people prefer that.” But if you don’t have the capital to deal with her directly yourself, then yes, it’s worth letting your manager know the HR person is laughing at employee requests.

3. Should I give feedback on an overly involved application process?

I saw a job yesterday that I liked the look of. The application process was a form (fair enough, some places don’t want resumes) but some of the questions on the form made me wonder if this company is asking more at this point than they should.

They wanted a complete employment history “from leaving secondary school onwards.” I’m 40 years old, it would take me hours to list that, and do they really need to know that I worked at a supermarket between age 17 and 19, and then in a factory for a few weeks?!

Then it asked for “all gaps in employment during this period, and their reasons.” I don’t really want to divulge that I left a job in 2006 that was seriously affecting my mental health, and had a further three months off with depression, nor that I had another year off work at the end of my maternity leave while my daughter was small. I feel these are things that will create bias against me in my application.

Finally, it asked for three references and wanted to know whether all of these could be contacted prior to first interview. I know this is standard further down the process, but I don’t really want my referees bothered without good reason, especially as I’m applying for lots of roles at the moment.

I don’t mind most of this being asked at interview (apart from the maternity question), but it seemed very intrusive at the first application stage, like they wanted to know far more about me than would be necessary for recruitment purposes. I will probably give this one a wide berth, but should I bring this to the attention of the agency promoting the job, or is this a normal (if very involved) process?

Yeah, that’s overkill. It sounds like they’re using an old-timey application from days of yore and haven’t adapted it to fit what they actually need to evaluate candidates at this stage of the process and in 2021. They don’t need to know every job you’ve held going back to high school (!) and they don’t need every person to account for every single gap. If they have a question about a particular gap, they can ask that candidate directly. Acting as if any gap in providing labor, even gaps of a month or two, requires explanation is bizarre and not aligned with what good employers care about. And asking to contact references before you’ve even been invited to interview — no. (And a huge waste of their time if they really did that.)

It’s possible they’re just using a horribly outdated form. Or maybe this is the stuff they put weight on when they hire, who knows. Anyway, I’d just move on — no need to spend time explaining this to them … unless you’re itching to address it, in which case go for it. You could be doing other job seekers a favor. (In the early days of this site, I encouraged more of that kind of feedback to employers because as a hiring manager, I wanted to hear it! 14 years of writing this column has made me more cynical about employers, but there is a chance someone will listen to you.)

4. Interviewer had no available slots — should I have waited until one opened up?

I recently applied for a job and heard back a week or so later from a recruiter wanting to set up a phone call. He sent a scheduling link, but it showed no open time slots over the next several weeks.

I emailed him back to let him know, and he responded (sounding annoyed) that he could try and make something work. I sent my availability and never heard back.

Now I’m wondering if I was supposed to just periodically check the link to see if spots opened up in the future, as opposed to returning the email directly. I honestly thought it was a mistake in the scheduling software. Is this some new hiring trend I’m unaware of? I’d love to know how to respond in case this happens again.

Nah, he probably just didn’t realize all the slots were booked up. He shouldn’t have sounded annoyed with you about it, but he was likely annoyed with the situation, not with you personally. It was rude of him not to get back to you after that, but I’d bet since he’s not used to have to schedule anything manually it slipped through the cracks (or he just had enough solid candidates lined up and by that point figured he didn’t need more interviews, which is a thing that happens.) You handled it fine.

5. Telling interviewers I’m leaving my new job because of laxness over Covid

I recently began a job that I’d been so excited about. My one reservation was about COVID-19 regulations (I live in an area where many people have never taken it seriously) but I was assured in the interview process that everyone wears masks and social distances. I came in to my first day to find about a 50% masking rate, no social distancing, and one coworker who seems to actively enjoy getting in my personal space because of how uncomfortable it makes me. I can’t stress enough how disturbing the dismissiveness about it all was, and I would never have accepted this offer had I understood how poorly these protocols were followed. My attempts to raise concerns were ignored. And so I did what I never thought I would do and began trying to find a new job almost immediately after starting one.

I’ve had two interviews, but both times the interviewers asked about why I was leaving my new position so soon and I found myself becoming unprofessional-levels of frustrated about the situation. This is all extremely upsetting to me and talking about it makes me more emotional than I’d like to be during a job interview. I’ve been trying to strike a balance between expressing that these are serious factors affecting my decision to leave so early into a new job (and make sure they know I’m not just a job-hopper) without sounding too negative about my current employer. I’m especially worried that if I go too far into details they’ll think I’m lying because of just how nonchalantly this is handled. Do you have any advice or scripts on how to walk that line?

They’re not likely to think you’re lying, because what you’re describing is really common. But you don’t need to get into details and make the case for it being bad enough! All you need to say is, “They’re not adhering to safety protocols like masking and social distancing, and I’m looking for a company that is being more careful about safety during the pandemic.” That’s it!

That said, this is going to be complicated by the CDC’s new guidance that people who have been vaccinated don’t need to mask or distance in most situations — something that wasn’t the case when you sent in this letter 12 days ago. If their in-office staff has all been vaccinated, they may not be enforcing those protocols anymore either.

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

1. My manager excludes me from social events

I have a manager who likes to keep things professional with her direct reports, but she takes it a little too far. She’s very cold and non-communicative in general (her general management skills are another issue) but the biggest thing is her approach to socializing.

She is really friendly with a lot of people in the office and is a key part of the only real social group that like to go out to pub quizzes, Friday drinks, etc. With them, she is really outgoing and friendly. However, she likes to keep things professional with me, her direct report, and the way she does that is just by kind of excluding me from these events. She makes it clear she doesn’t want me to be there if I tag along (I’m friendly with others in the group so get invited by them) and generally acts really standoffish. I like to have a professional boundary with my manager too, but wouldn’t a better way to enforce this be to not attend every single event so I get a chance to make friends too? I think there’s an element of “she was here first,” but I want to socialize as well. It’s really affecting my morale.

Is there anything I can do about this? There’s no concrete behavior I can point to, just an attitude, but I know I’m right because someone who used to be managed by her told me she used to be even worse, and she told them outright that they shouldn’t try to sit with her group at lunch and didn’t introduce them to anyone.

She sounds like she has some maturing to do. When you’re a manager, the job requires that you prioritize your role as a manager over your desire to be friends with people at work. You can’t call dibs on particular friends, exclude people, or be part of a clique. It sounds like her social relationships are getting in the way of her management responsibilities.

If you’d like to socialize with those same people, the best approach is probably just to initiate events yourself. If you’re the one organizing drinks, etc., she can’t complain that you’re going since you’re the one who put it together. You probably do need to accept that you won’t be able to go to everything you might like to go to if she’ll be weird about it, but organizing things yourself should let you build relationships without giving up all control to her. (Or, of course, you can go to the other events and ignore that she’s being standoffish, but I’d be concerned about getting into a power struggle with your boss. It’s not a good thing to have your boss actively resenting you, even when they’re in the wrong.)

2. Should I tell my toxic former company about my toxic former boss’s other job?

This month, I secured a new role that allowed me to quit my toxic job. My direct boss, Larry, was one toxic cog in a toxic system. He would often acknowledge the toxicity and mismanagement of the organization at large, venting to us and dumping his frustrations and issues on us.

When I told him of my resignation, he was supportive, congratulating me on “getting out.” Then he shared that he had been working at another full-time job for four months and would be resigning himself on the last day of my notice period. He asked me to keep it in confidence, which I did for to preserve the relationship. But I was really uncomfortable knowing he was working this other job, especially since a major complaint we (his team) had about him was that he talked about how busy he always was, but never had any tangible outputs and was often unavailable when we needed him. Our employee handbook did specify that holding other positions that interfered with one’s availability and output at our company was forbidden.

Well, the last day of my notice period came and went and he didn’t resign. A few days ago, I googled him to see if he had updated his LinkedIn to reflect a new role and found that he had not, but I did find a publicly available announcement of his new job. I checked with my old team to see if he had resigned yet — nope.

It would feel *so good* to send this announcement to my old company. I’d love for my old boss to be confronted with his unethical behavior, and I’d love for my old company to see what kind of dysfunction their mismanagement is causing. But I don’t work there anymore, and my old boss’s absenteeism and frustratingly poor management isn’t my problem anymore, so there’s no real reason for me to do this at this point. I could offer the justification that my old boss has asked me to lie by omission to help him cover up unethical behavior and I’m not comfortable with it (which I feel is true), but fundamentally I just want to do *something* about this situation.

Is it a bad professional move to out him? Is it unethical? Or would it be a justified move after all I dealt with? And if I did it, is doing it anonymously okay?

I don’t think it’s unethical to tell the truth about something that’s hurting other people. And you didn’t ask Larry to confide in you; he burdened you with this knowledge on his own without checking to see if you’d be comfortable keeping his secret.

I don’t love the idea of sending anything anonymously because that makes it feel like you’re doing something sketchy when you’re not. Is it an option to simply share the info with someone on your old team and let them decide now to handle it from there (since it’s much more relevant to them than to you at this point)?

But there’s also an argument for just walking away from this mess. You got out, so let yourself be fully out without your old company’s issues taking up room in your head anymore.

3. I’m leaving my job after promising not to

For the past year, my full-time employer has allowed me to work a flexible schedule so that I can teach a college class part-time. My boss has been generally supportive, but when I initially asked for approval to start teaching, my boss said, “Yes, as long as you promise not to leave us for your teaching job.” My boss has made this “joke” a couple of other times since then. I always laugh it off and say, “Nope, just a fun hobby!” but teaching is actually my dream job, and now, after using my employer’s flexibility to help me gain teaching experience, I am leaving them for my teaching job.

I know that I need to do what is best for me, but I can’t help but feel guilty. I also worry that my experience will cause them to be less accommodating to others in the future. Do you have any advice for giving notice without burning bridges?

So many managers make jokes like this without realizing that it’s probably not landing as a joke with the recipient. I think I’ve probably done it myself in the past, although I wouldn’t now. With managers who are otherwise reasonable people, it’s usually intended as a light-hearted way to express affection and appreciation, without recognizing it’s going to make people feel just as you do now.

Sometimes, of course, there’s a layer of truth in the joke — it really does mean “I will be upset if you leave us after this.” But when that’s the case, the manager should be explicitly talking through what they want from you in exchange for their flexibility so that it’s all out in the open and communicated through real conversation (and a written agreement if they’re really serious about it). It’s not your fault your boss didn’t do that.

It’s understandable to find it awkward now though! You can acknowledge that when you resign by saying something like, “I didn’t expect this to happen, but I’ve realized I really want to do this work full-time and I’ve been offered an opportunity to do that.” You can also say, “I really appreciate that you gave me the space to experiment with this” to help counter any “she doesn’t even appreciate what I offered her” narrative forming in your boss’s head. She might be a little miffed, but no reasonable boss will consider this bridge-burning. People leave for other jobs! It happens. It’s normal.

They might be less accommodating to others in the future, but hopefully the lesson they’ll take away is that if they really want specific things in exchange for offering flexibility, they need to negotiate them more directly.

4. Should my resume explain what kind of work my company does?

I’ve been job hunting and have gotten a few interviews, so I think my resume is in at least decent shape. However, I have talked to two headhunters who have reached out, and in each case they assumed from my resume that the company I currently work for is a fund administrator. This is incorrect; my company does outsourced accounting for fund clients, which is very different work.

I’m now wondering if the companies I have applied to have also assumed that my company is a fund administrator. In my industry, I could see the headhunters possibly assuming this based on the name of my company. But also, I would think you could tell that I am not a fund administrator based on the job description I included. Also, one headhunter kept forgetting key details from our first conversation, and I had to point out to him I did indeed have a certain skill even though it was in my first clearly written bullet point on my resume. And the other claimed he was very familiar with my company, but obviously he is not if he did not even know what type of service it provides. So maybe they assumed wrong about my company due to lack of attention and time spent looking at my background.

Do you think it’s worth it for me to somehow clarify on my resume that my company is not a fund administrator? How would you recommend doing this?

As a general rule, people don’t need blurbs on their resume explaining what each employer does — generally employers will be more interested in what you do (or did). But when you’re finding that people are misunderstanding the context in which you did your work, or when it’s just highly relevant to being able to explain your accomplishments, it makes sense to include a (very brief) line about what the company does. You can do that by either (a) listing it right after the company’s name like in example 1 below or (b) incorporating it into a description of your work like in example 2.

That said, you will always encounter recruiters who skimmed and missed important info or didn’t retain it or who are over-confident about their understanding of your work. That’s just part of the process, and no amount of explanation on your resume will ever ward that off completely.

Example 1
llama spiritual guide, Llamas United, June 2018 – present
Nonprofit encouraging llamas’ spiritual development through music and ancient rituals
* accomplishment
* accomplishment
* accomplishment

Example 2
llama spiritual guide, Llamas United, June 2018 – present
* Led seven-person communications team for nonprofit encouraging llamas’ spiritual development through music and ancient rituals
* accomplishment
* accomplishment

5. Dress clothes for bigger men

As the pandemic is starting to wind down, I’m beginning to job hunt to get out of my current work situation. I’m starting to interview where the attire is business professional (this is my first time having to think about a business professional attire in the workplace).

I’m having trouble finding affordable and fashionable clothes as a bigger guy. I’ve tried on clothes at some retailers but I find that most of the time they either fit poorly because they aren’t made for fat people, or I don’t feel like myself in the clothes. As someone who is queer, it’s really important that I show off the best parts of my personality and that I look and feel professional in my work attire.

I was wondering if you could ask the readers if they know of any affordable retailers or shops that specialize in fashionable clothes for fat people. This process is really putting a damper on my self-esteem since I’m absolutely desperate to get out of my current job situation. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I’m happy to throw this out to readers!