Ask a Manager

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

1. My coworker doesn’t want to report our boss for harassment

Recently a coworker shared information with me about some pretty egregious sexual comments our mutual boss made. My personal feeling is that she needs to share this with HR and/or our company leadership team (we are a small startup with less than 50 employees, going to leadership would be fine). She has said she’ll consider it but she just needed to tell someone. Then she asked that I tell no one.

I want to tell our HR anyway because there should be an investigation and/or consequences. What are my obligations in this scenario? If I make an “anonymous” tip, it will be easy to figure out it came from me since (I believe) I am the only person she told. And if it comes out and I don’t tell, am I in trouble for knowing but not reporting (I am not in any sort of legal mandated reporting situation)? Basically, what do I do here?

If you’re a manager, you’re legally obligated to report it; not reporting it would expose your company to legal liability. But if you’re not a manager, that doesn’t apply — and in that case I’d argue that you should respect your coworker’s wishes. While it shouldn’t be this way, the reality is that reporting harassment can have real repercussions for the victim. Hopefully that won’t be the case at your company, but there’s a risk that your coworker’s life at work would get worse, not better, and/or that she’ll be put in (further) uncomfortable situations she doesn’t want to be in, miss out on professional opportunities, or even be pushed out. That’s not a decision you should make on her behalf. I understand the impulse to report your boss, but your coworker is the person who will be most affected if you do, and you should err on the side of respecting her wishes.

2. I accidentally let a contact think my dad is still alive

My dad was born and grew up in another country, let’s say Narnia. After moving here, he continued a very deep interest in and connection with it all his life and made sure it was part of my life growing up.

Flash forward to today: I work in sales and am developing a relationship with a very prominent Narnian company, and in the course of chitchat with my contact it came up that my dad was born in Narnia. He was delighted and now mentions it often when introducing me to other Narnians as a kind of fun fact, and says things like “you’ll have to show X to your dad” or “your dad must be proud you’re working with Narnians” and so on.

The problem: my dad is in fact dead. He passed away about a month before I first met my contact, and I did (and still sometimes do!) habitually refer to him in the present tense, and it simply didn’t occur to me until after the meeting. I realize that sounds sociopathic, but I just … forgot. My contact is so pleased about this Narnian connection and is generally such a lovely man that I don’t know how to clear up this misunderstanding — which has now been going on for about four months — without actually saying, “I forgot that my dad died.” Help!

(For what it’s worth, I think my dad would indeed be very proud that I’m working with Narnians, and would also find this situation extremely funny.)

The next time it comes up and your contact refers to your dad in the present tense, just say, “I should have mentioned — my dad died last year. But you’re absolutely right that he’d be so happy that I’m working with other Narnians!”

There may be a brief moment of awkwardness, which is okay — but it’s likely to just seem like something that got misunderstood in the past, not like you were purposefully hiding anything from him. It’s also possible that he won’t even think about the fact that the previous conversations had been in present tense and will just think there hadn’t been an opportunity for it to come up yet. Mostly he’s likely to be focused on telling you he’s sorry to hear it. And then it will be handled and you won’t have to feel weird about it anymore!

3. My coworker got angry that I gave her time-sensitive info at the start of her shift

Today at work we had a few call-outs. This meant last-second game plan changes. Everyone adjusted just fine, except my coworker Elizabeth.

Elizabeth came into work and started small-talking with people right away. As soon as a supervisor spoke up (after giving her time to finish her conversation) to let her know about workflow changes for the day, she became incredibly frustrated and seemed to be holding back from saying something. I joined in the conversation and let her know I had taken care of some extra work to so she wouldn’t have to adjust from her normal workflow and gave her some follow-up info to make her workday easier. In the middle of us talking to her, she stormed off.

I figured she might be having a hard day so I gave her time to cool off and half an hour later checked in on her. She was still angry and said she couldn’t handle talking about work that early in the day. Her shift just started. This seems unreasonable to me. We work in medical care and if we drop the ball, patients can suffer. We have plenty of time to chat once we get our work done, but much of the work we do is very time-sensitive.

How can I adjust to Elizabeth’s responses in the future? I would like to be compassionate and try to understand where she’s coming from. However, at the moment I plan on not keeping her informed and letting her figure things out on her own, as it’s not my job to manage her emotional responses when I’m just sharing information like I would with anyone else in the workplace. I’d love your feedback on adjustments I could make or if I am being unreasonable with how to handle her.

Elizabeth is being unreasonable; you are not. “Can’t handle talking about work during work time” is a little bananas — I mean, she might feel that way, but that’s something for her to manage on her own, not to make others manage for her. And being visibly frustrated and storming off because you’re trying to update her on time-sensitive work?!

Your instinct that it’s not your job to manage her emotional responses is the right one. But your plan to not keep her informed and let her figure things out on her own might not be; that one depends on whether you have a responsibility to impart info to her and whether patients will be harmed if you don’t. If either of those things are the case and you’re finding yourself hesitant to talk to her because of her volatility, that’s a sign to bring in your manager to help.

4. Can I thank my spouse’s boss for being awesome?

After 20-odd years of retail hell that did their damndest to beat my husband’s self-esteem and sense of worth in the workplace into the dirt, he finally landed in a job that not only pays the bills (and keeps up with inflation), but has him feeling like the extremely experienced and valued employee that he really is. This is mostly thanks to his absolute rockstar of a boss.

She takes care of all of her employees, her unit is the best and most well-liked in the entire state and has won awards from the huge corporate offices, she goes to bat without hesitation for her crew, has open communication, encourages and respects healthy work/home boundaries, and is genuinely a funny and cool person! My husband has witnessed her go above and beyond for her team consistently, both in the every day and when emergencies strike.

Everyone he meets is happy with my husband’s work, and his boss in particular is very pleased, but is there an appropriate way I could pass on thanks for, well, putting an end to literal decades of toxic workplaces that my husband has had to work to make ends meet? It’d probably be weird to pass on a card that says, “Thanks for making a great workplace that I haven’t directly joined but have benefitted from!”

Nope, don’t do it. This is your husband’s relationship to manage, not yours, and it would be overstepping for you to do that (and potentially even a little undermining to your husband, depending on exactly what you shared). Enjoy and appreciate the situation from a remove.

5. Employers that ask for too much info in doctor’s notes

I’m a nurse practitioner working in primary care. I see patients for their annual physicals, maintenance of chronic conditions, and for same-day sick visits.

My question is about doctor’s notes for patients who have called out sick from work. My usual template is as follows (can be edited as needed, obviously): “Please be advised that the above named patient was seen in our office today (date) for an acute condition. They may return to work without restrictions on (date). Please excuse their absence (date range).”

I like it because it says “yes, this person had a medical thing, they’re allowed to work again on this date, their absence was legitimate” but doesn’t get into any unnecessary detail.

But I have been running into situations more often lately where an employer requires very specific things in their sick note — “diagnosis and prognosis” as one example, so they ask me to write that they had the flu and that a complete recovery is expected. I don’t have much of a problem with this in the case of common viral illnesses, but what about anxiety? Or chronic knee pain that’s flared up? I feel this violates the privacy that patients should expect when they visit their doctor. Not to mention when some employers require FMLA paperwork to be completed for any absence three days or longer … this is a huge waste of time for most situations for both the employee and their doctor.

Is there any way to push back on these kind of requirements? Should employees push back? Or should we all just do what HR has decided it likes best?

You’re absolutely right. Doctor’s notes aren’t supposed to contain specific diagnoses, details of medical treatment, or any other private medical info that isn’t directly related to the employee’s ability to perform their job. Legally, notes should be kept to the minimum necessary to fulfill their purpose: a confirmation that the person was seen on a particular date, the need for time off, and any other work-related restrictions. Anything more detailed than that puts the employer at risk of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits them from requesting information beyond what’s “job-related and consistent with business necessity.”

When an employer asks for more info than they’re entitled to, you don’t need to comply. You can provide the info you and the employee are comfortable with and ignore inappropriately invasive questions (or employ vague terms like “temporary condition” or “illness”).

Related:
what’s your boss allowed to ask when you call in sick?

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

1. My mentee was fired for using a vulgar term

I work in a regulated industry and there are specific education and license requirements to work here. My company has a mentorship program for those who are new to the industry. I am one of those with the highest non-management title at my company, and my manager encouraged me sign up for the program. I was assigned an entry-level employee from my company, “Wendy.”

I thought things were going well. Wendy was bright and on the ball. But Wendy was let go from her job and I’m wondering if I should have done more to advocate for her. I think this was a misunderstanding. Wendy had (to me) expressed her admiration for one of the managers at our company. This manager, “Caitlin,” is several levels above my own manager and is well-known in our industry. The misunderstanding happened over something Wendy said that was meant to be a compliment, but Caitlin felt it was an insult. Wendy said Caitlin was “serving C-word” (not abbreviated when she said it). She meant this as a compliment. (I’m almost 50, and I am not on social media so I have never heard this saying but apparently it is supposed to be complimentary).

Caitlin didn’t see it that way. She thought Wendy was insulting her. Caitlin felt Wendy was calling her a name to other people, clients, and online when she found out Wendy had been saying it. (Wendy never used the phrase in front of me.) I understand both sides. I completely understand why Caitlin thought it was an insult. I also see Wendy’s point of view and have never known her to be malicious. In fact, Wendy has always shown the opposite. My question isn’t about who was right, but whether I should have done more to advocate for Wendy. I feel guilty for not pushing back to my manager when Wendy was let go over this. I feel like I could have spoken up about this being a misunderstanding and how Wendy was bright, did good work, and was nice to everyone around her — basically how out of character it would be for Wendy to insult anyone, especially someone she admired. No one blames me for what happened and I was asked to participate in the mentorship program again. But I am afraid I did a disservice by not pushing back on Wendy being let go, and I’m afraid of making the same mistake again. What do you think? I would appreciate hearing what you think.

First, for people who don’t know the expression, it basically means “unapologetically feminine and powerfully badass.” It is intended to be complimentary — and it very much would not sound that way to anyone who didn’t know the meaning.

Anyway, this isn’t on you. You really weren’t in a position to intervene; mentors don’t typically have that power (unless they have significant influence and authority in general, but that would be something that existed independently of their mentor role). Yes, you could have explained where Wendy was coming from, but I imagine Wendy did that herself anyway. The issue is that she displayed pretty terrible judgment! It would be one thing for her to have said that about Caitlin once, but saying it repeatedly was just tremendously bad judgment in a work context, where lots of people won’t know the meaning of a very vulgar and insulting-sounding slang phrase. Her intentions matter, but the outcome matters too, and the outcome in this case was that she was going around using a wildly vulgar phrase about a well-known woman in your industry without contemplating that it might be misunderstood or otherwise become an issue. I wouldn’t have fired her for it (to me it’s a coaching moment, not a firing one) but I’m also not surprised that someone did.

There was no real room for you to do anything differently. If you’d heard Wendy use the phrase, you could have corrected her, but you didn’t. Your job as a mentor is to support your mentee’s growth, give advice, and be a sounding board, but the role isn’t that of a manager or a mediator. You were well-positioned to be a sort of character witness, yes, but I’m not sure it would have mattered in this case. This was Wendy’s mistake, not yours.

2. Interview question: which position in a band would you choose?

I was driving around listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and sometimes Young and started pondering a theoretical interview question: if given a choice, which member would you choose to be? I realize far too few people know that band so I started pondering a different question: assuming you would play any position, which position in a band would you choose (lead singer, lead guitar, bass, or drums)? The idea is that question could potentially give somebody an idea of just how confident in themselves a person is. A person who picks drums is someone who can keep a project moving and is reliable but is not necessarily out front leading, for example.

I am not in any danger of conducting interviews any time soon, but since I spend quite a lot of my working day on the road, I think of things like this. I’m curious what you think!

Well … it could be something to ponder outside of a work setting, but I would recommend against it as an interview question! Too many people don’t know enough about music to know how to even begin thinking about which position they’d choose. And even if they do have a well-informed answer, it won’t tell you the kinds of things you need to learn to make a good hire. You don’t want to ask candidates questions just for the sake of asking questions, or because a question seems fun — you want to get really clear on what’s needed to excel in that position and then ask questions specifically designed to get at those things. Unless you are putting together a new prefab boy band, this question won’t do that.

A boring answer to a fun question, sorry.

3. I think my manager wants me to be a different person

I am a middle school teacher. I recently started at a new school with a very corporate culture.

I received an employee evaluation from my principal. Evaluations from principals are pretty normal, but this was a very lengthy evaluation with a lot of corporate jargon, which I’m not used to. Reading the evaluation made me feel like the principal dislikes me personally and wants me to change my personality. One of the things it said was that I “did not contribute to a collegial environment.” This might just mean that she doesn’t think I speak up enough at meetings, since she mentioned that when we met to discuss the evaluation, but the language makes it sound like people find me actively unpleasant. I don’t know what I could have done to make people feel this way.

I asked a friend who works in the corporate world what she thought, and she said not to ask for clarification and not to disagree — she said all they want to hear in response to these evaluations is “yes, I’ll do that.”

It’s true that I’m not very talkative or bubbly, but I don’t think I’m unpleasant. I resent being expected to pretend to be someone I’m not. This has me feeling like they don’t really want me here and I should leave this school and possibly education altogether. Am I misreading this?

Whoa, wait — that’s a big leap that isn’t warranted by what’s happened.

Your friend’s advice was bad and you should disregard it. No good manager just wants to hear “yes, I’ll do that” in response to feedback if you don’t understand what it means. They want you to implement the feedback, yes — but you can’t do that if you don’t understand it, and in that case you need to ask questions so that you do. Ideally you’d go back to your principal, say you’re taking the feedback seriously, and ask for more information so you can make sure you’re both on the same page. Ask for more specifics about what she’s asking you to do differently. You can’t evaluate the feedback without that.

After learning more, if you still think you’re being asked to change your entire personality, you can think about whether it’s a role you want to stay in. But there’s no way to assess this without getting more information — and jumping to possibly leaving the entire field over one person’s unclear feedback would be recklessly premature.

4. Interviewer wants me to tell them my current salary

During an initial job interview, the interviewer disclosed that they were originally looking for someone more junior than my experience, but they were reconsidering the experience needed to be successful in the role and believed that it may need to be a more senior position. Fast forward multiple interviews — I’ve asked for the salary range they would pay for the role, and the HR manager says they don’t know and that the team has not discussed it. They would like me to disclose my salary.

I am hesitant to share because my cash requirements would differ based on the equity package and its structure, and I don’t think this can be adequately explained with a simple number.

I likely have one more interview before we get to an offer. In this scenario, is there any advantage to me being a first mover and disclosing my salary range with the caveat that it’s flexible based on equity package?

There’s no reason you need to disclose your salary. Instead, you should tell them the range you’re looking for — the range that would make you seriously consider leaving your current job for this one, along with whatever caveats you have about the structure of the equity package. That’s the part that’s relevant to them, not what you’re making now.

5. I was fired for something my boss said was OK to do

I asked my boss if it was okay to drive a company vehicle home. He said it was okay. His boss told him to write me up and fire me, so he did. Is this legal? Also, should my boss had been fired as well for telling me that I was allowed to? What can I do? Is suing the company a possibility? If I do sue, would I win, or would I just be losing more money and wasting time?

It’s not illegal to fire you for an unfair reason (and this definitely sounds unfair). Most employees in the U.S. are at-will, meaning that you can be fired for any reason at all, as long as it’s not based on illegal discrimination (i.e., firing you because of your race, gender, religion, disability, or other protected class) or retaliation for engaging in legally protected conduct (like firing you for making a good faith complaint of sexual harassment or discrimination). There are two exceptions to this: (1) if you have a contract, which most U.S. workers don’t, or (2) if your company has an employee manual that commits to always using specific disciplinary procedures before firing someone; if it does, they’re usually obligated to follow those procedures first. But aside from that, it’s generally legal to fire someone for any reason, even if the reason is unfair or illogical.

People often hear the term “wrongful termination” and assume it means that there’s legal recourse if you were fired for a wrong or unfair reason, but it really just means that you were fired for one of the illegal reasons above.

However, you can file for unemployment, and if you explain you were fired for doing something your manager specifically gave you permission to do, your chances of getting benefits are good. I’m sorry this happened.