Ask a Manager

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

1. My office lights turn off every 10 minutes and my manager doesn’t care

I am hoping for your perspective on this workplace issue. I just started a new job (yay!) where I share an office with my manager. He often works out in the field so I’m usually the only one here. The lights in this office are on a motion sensor so they turn off automatically if no one is in the room. When my boss is in the office, this doesn’t affect anything, but when I’m alone (which is often), the sensor can’t detect me and the lights turn off every 10 minutes. There are no windows in this office, so I’m sitting in total darkness. It’s very silly!

I brought this up to our office manager, who looked at the sensor but wasn’t able to turn it off/fix the issue. The only solution seems to be for me to get up and walk across the office every 10 minutes to activate the sensor when it turns off. This breaks up my workflow and has become a distraction. When I told my manager and office manager that this solution wasn’t really working out because it was a frequent distraction, the office manager said, “I know it’s impacting you but honestly it’s a pretty low priority to me.” My manager offered to get me a small desk lamp, but again there are no windows so I would still be sitting in a dark room with just the tiny desk lamp until I get up to activate the sensor. Because of our equipment, I do not have the option of reorienting my desk in the room to be in the view of the sensor or moving elsewhere in our building.

Would you consider the solutions they have offered reasonable/workable? As a manager, is the distraction of office lights turning off every 10 minutes something that you think an employee should/could live with, or is it something that demands more attention to be fixed?

This isn’t any kind of high drama situation, I just wonder how you would approach this since, if I was a manager, I would find it unreasonable to ask an employee to work in a space where the lights turned off every 10 minutes and they had to get up out of their chair to turn them back on. The people in this situation are not otherwise uncaring or inattentive, I just think no one knows how to fix the sensor and it doesn’t affect anyone in the office but me so they don’t care about it.

Nope, that’s silly — they should take care of this. Any chance that bringing in a fan would create enough motion that the lights would stay on? If not, I’d find the brightest floor lamp you can (not a desk lamp) and ask them to purchase it for you.

2. My boss is refusing to pay a nonprofit money we owe them

I am an entry-level employee for a small company. We do community outreach with a lot of different nonprofits and I am the liaison between the nonprofits and my company.

We sponsored one of those nonprofits and were supposed to send the check a few months ago. I was told it got sent to the wrong address, and supposedly accounting sent it again (after I verified the correct address). I was informed by the nonprofit that they still haven’t received the check.

Now when I bring it up, my boss (the CEO) ignores me when I mention it and I feel as though he’s avoiding the topic. This may not be the case; it just may be on the back burner because this is the busy season for the company, but this is a simple matter and can be resolved easily, in my opinion. This also doesn’t sit well with me especially because the nonprofit put the company logo on their marketing materials, so the company got free publicity that they have yet to pay for.

I’ve been thinking about leaving for a while, but when this happened it was the last straw and I began the job hunt. I found a new job and I gave my notice (yay!), but I think I have even less ground now to advocate for the nonprofit. I get the feeling that my boss is pretty upset that I’m departing from the company so he’ll be even less likely to listen to me. I’ve already apologized to my contact at the nonprofit multiple times and while they are being very kind and patient, I want to see them get the money they were promised soon. I plan on letting my contact know that I’m leaving but other than that I’m not sure what my next steps should be. What should I do?

Your boss is being a jerk. You don’t have a lot of options here, but there are two things you can do: First, say to your boss, “I want to ensure Teapots United gets their check before I leave. What can I do to get it taken care of?” Second, send your contact at the nonprofit your boss’s contact info and say that they should follow up with him directly since you’re leaving, so that they at least know exactly who to contact.

3. Company wouldn’t let me resign instead of being fired

I was terminated last Friday for cause. I do not dispute the termination. I was informed at the end of the day that my supervisor’s supervisor wanted to see me. My supervisor was on vacation. I asked the acting supervisor what the meeting was about. She said she didn’t know. When I went to the meeting, I asked what the meeting was about. I was told she would rather wait until her supervisor showed up. When she did, I asked what the meeting was about. She then proceeded to read the letter of termination.

Afterwards, I asked if I could voluntarily resign instead. I was told no and that after the letter had been read, resigning was no longer an option. I had believed up until then that I was improving and was not expecting to be terminated that day. My question is: Is she correct that I cannot resign after the termination letter was read, or was it still an option? Also, can HR change the termination to a resignation if they were so inclined?

It’s really up to the employer. They can decide to allow you to resign after all, or they can stick with calling it a firing. Technically, it was a firing; you were resigning only because they were firing you. So this is really about how it will be recorded in their files and possibly what they’ll tell future employers. But ultimately, that’s up to them (as long as they’re not lying about it, and they’re not).

For what it’s worth, they sound pretty weirdly rigid; firing someone by reading a letter to them is pretty odd.

4. Can I get a second chance after this rejection?

Just this week, I had an interview for a dream job at a company which I admire. I feel that I fit many (if not all) qualifications stated on the job description, so I was determined to land this job. I applied to the position through the application portal and submitted my resume to the recruiter directly, as I had her email address from a previous interview. The hiring manager very quickly (within a week) scheduled a phone interview for a couple days later. She was very impressed with my background, which including much direct and hands-on experience in the field. She was excited to bring me in for an in-person interview, which was scheduled for less than a week after the phone interview. I went in for the interview, met the team, and discussed the opportunity. Many of them mentioned that it’s difficult to find someone with my background for the role. I left the interview feeling pretty solid — maybe weak on a few points, but overall a good interview. The next day, as I was writing my thank-you emails, I received word that they will not move forward with my candidacy.

I very politely followed up with the hiring manager, saying that I was sorry to hear that I was no longer being considered, but that it also opens a great opportunity to discuss any concerns she has. I included a very strong reference of someone who can vouch for my background and professionalism. She responded that while everyone enjoyed meeting me, she had a clear idea in mind for what the candidate looks like for the role and that I had a “couple areas where (I) didn’t exactly meet this profile during the interview.” She mentioned that she is traveling overseas for the next couple weeks and that she will reconsider my application and be back in touch afterwards.

Is this just false hope? Should I pursue this as a potential second chance? I still believe that I would fit in great with the team as well as the position. Do you have any recommended steps that I should take?

You should do nothing! It was pretty aggressive to respond to a rejection by telling them that it was a great opportunity to discuss their concerns; that’s not what job rejections are typically an opening for.

It’s certainly possible that the hiring manager’s response was genuine, in which case you’ll find that out when she contacts you again. But it’s also pretty likely that she’s just putting off dealing with this for now because … well, because it’s pretty annoying to have a candidate do this. She told you pretty clearly that you don’t match up with what she’s looking for, so there’s a good chance it’s the second possibility.

So for now, do nothing. If she gets back in touch with you and wants to talk further, then great. But you’ve already been pretty pushy here, and you won’t help your case by doing more of that.

For what it’s worth, it sounds like you got pretty invested in this job (thinking it’s a dream job, which is really impossible to know from the outside). Keep in mind that if the hiring manager isn’t enthusiastic about your fit for the role, it’s not usually a great idea to try to change her mind. She knows far better than you do the nuances of what she’s looking for and what it takes to succeed in the role, and you really don’t want to talk your way into a job that you’re not quite right for.

5. Should I mention that my husband works for the company I’m interviewing with?

I have just interviewed for a position in my husband’s company and in the same location he works in. Should I let the HR know my husband works for their company? There are so many couples who work together in that same company, but I’m not sure if they disclosed this to the employer. I don’t want to lose this job opportunity, but neither do I want to hide the fact that my husband works there in case they eventually find out.

Yes, you should absolutely disclose it! If it’s going to be a problem, you’re far better off finding that out now rather than later after you’ve already accepted the job. You can simply say, “By the way, I should mention that my husband, Rupert Pluffington, works at this location. I wanted to mention it in case that’s any kind of conflict.”

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

1. I offended people at a staff meeting by saying my staff works the hardest

At a recent staff meeting, I said in a light way, “My staff are the hardest working staff here!” Of course, the other managers could have immediately said the same thing about their staff, but a couple of managers were absent and the others, including the director, did not speak up or to join in with compliments. Instead of people making light of it, other staff were pissed, as if I was insinuating that they didn’t work hard. Of course, I did say that everybody works hard, but others were then trying to defend themselves on how they work hard, and the director was like “Well, you’re digging yourself into a hole.”

Obviously, I will never try and praise my staff in staff meetings anymore since people are highly sensitive. I tried to apologize to a couple of the staff who report to another manager, saying that they are valuable members of our department and are very much appreciated and that I appreciate them, but they are still upset at me. One won’t speak to me even after the apology. The more I think about it, the more this situation is like the “everybody needs to receive a trophy” sort of situation. What is your suggestion in smoothing this over?

I think everyone here is overreacting. Your original compliment to your staff was well-intentioned but not particularly thoughtful, given that it inherently meant that others in the room were not as hard-working. So that was a misfire. But the people who got upset about it are way overreacting — this should have been a “roll their eyes and move on” situation. It doesn’t warrant them not speaking to you; that’s ridiculous. And you’re overreacting by saying that you’ll never praise your staff in staff meetings anymore; that’s not the message to take away here. You can praise your staff in all kind of ways, without comparing them to other teams.

Ideally, you would have addressed it on the spot by saying something like, “That obviously didn’t come out right. Everyone here is hard-working. I’m especially proud of my team for doing X, Y, and Z.” That moment has passed, and apparently people are refusing to accept an apology now, so I’d look for an opportunity to give sincere public praise for their work in the near future. (And if they don’t drop this within a few days, you may need to go talk with their manager and ask what’s needed on your side to put this to rest, because it’s ridiculous for your office to allow this to become a thing that interferes with work.)

2. Recruiter told me to wear jeans to an interview

I just received an email from a recruiter who connected me with a job I’m really excited about. It’s a manager-level position at a tech startup, and the interview is with the co-founder. The recruiter (who is quite young; I’m 34) told me to “ditch the suit jacket” and to just wear flats, a blouse, and jeans.

Now, I’m not a jeans person normally, although I do have a cute pair I can wear, and while I’ve had plenty of experience with startups, my understanding is that jeans should never be worn to an interview. I’m afraid they’ll think I’m too corporate if I show up in interview attire (a valid concern in this situation), but I’m afraid I’ll show up in jeans and they’ll wonder what on earth I was thinking. Any thoughts on what I should do?

There are indeed offices — often start-ups — that will judge you if you don’t know to show up in jeans. They’re the exception, not the norm, but it sounds like your recruiter is telling you because you need to know.

If she’s an internal recruiter (on staff at the company), I’d take her word for it. If she’s an external recruiter, she’s still probably right but to be sure, you could say to her, “I feel really weird about showing up an interview in jeans. Are you absolutely sure that’s what they expect, and that it would be misfire for me to just wear business casual, like khakis?”

3. Can I ward off salespeople in my outgoing voicemail message?

I’m wondering if it would be unprofessional to put a one-sentence thing in my voicemail message at my office (at the end of the whole “You have reached Agamemnon Flanagan” regular stuff) to let cold-calling salespeople not to waste my time. Because of signing up for conferences and white papers, I get flooded with inquires like “We’d like to tell you a bit about our data center consolidation tools!” Emails I can take care of by identifying them as spam, but calls are a bit more problematic. Our office phones convert all our voicemails to audio clips that are emailed to us (useful for those of us who frequently work from home!), but that means that every call requires that I open the email, open the .wav file, make sure my headphones are plugged, etc. After going through this and then discovering that it’s a salesperson’s spiel, I get really annoyed.

I’d like to say something along the lines of “For any third party vendor inquiries, please note that purchasing decisions are not part of my role” but with better wordsmithing. Bonus points if I can figure out how to professionally word “…so please put me on your do not contact list.” I don’t think I have an option of setting different messages for internal/external callers, but even if I did, my boss often calls from her cell phone so that doesn’t seem like it’d be a choice in my case.

You could say “please note that this number doesn’t accept vendor inquiries” or “if you’re a vendor, please press 0 for the operator” — but I bet that won’t stop all of them. I don’t think you can get into “please put me on your do-not-contact list” without it starting to get weird for non-sales callers.

Your best bet might just be to see this as an annoying part of the job. (Although you might also rethink what number you’re putting down for white papers — maybe you can list an obviously invalid number like 555-555-5555, which is a clear “do not call me” signal.)

4. Covering the phones when my coworkers are away

I work in a small office (about 15 of us) and I’m one of three admins, supporting a dozen or so brokers. One of our admin duties is to answer the phone. Semi-frequently, my two admin colleagues will go out to lunch together, leaving me the only one to answer the phone for an hour so. I have no issue with this.

However, there are times where I want to get up to use the restroom, and there isn’t anyone else to pick up the phone if I were to do so! I’d feel funny/disrespectful asking a broker to answer the phone while I step out. At the same time, waiting for my colleagues to return from lunch means I could be sitting very uncomfortably for some time. There is always an option to put our phones on “night,” which would put up an automatic message when someone calls and calls would go into a general mailbox, but I feel like that is unprofessional in the middle of a work day. Any thoughts?

This is totally a question to ask your boss. Your boss might be absolutely fine with the phones being “on night” for a few minutes, or there might be a junior broker who she wants you to have cover the phones, or something else entirely. But this is the kind of thing that you should check with her about. (That said, if there’s a chance that her answer will be “the other two admins shouldn’t go to lunch at the same time anymore,” you’ll need to decide if that will cause more angst than you want to deal with.)

5. Listing a skill on my resume that I don’t have yet but will have by the time I start work

I am currently a student in graduate school, and I am trying to get a job during the fall semester before I graduate in May. I will be learning SQL in my graduate program, a valuable tool in my chosen profession. However, I will not be learning how to use SQL or other software until the spring semester. When I apply for jobs in the fall, I will not yet have that skill, but I will by the time I graduate and am able to start working full-time.

Would it be okay to put future skills you are guaranteed to learn on a resume when applying for a job, if you specify that you do not yet possess them yet but will be the time you start working? E.g., “Skills: Will have learned SQL by the time I graduate and am able to start working.” Everyone in my graduate program learns SQL, so unless I drop out I am guaranteed to have this skill in a few months.

Ooooh, good question. In general, you shouldn’t put skills on a resume that you don’t actually have yet. But I think you can include this if and only if you’re clear about the fact that you don’t actually have the skill yet. So that would mean listing it like this:

SQL (learning as part of grad school program; will be a focus in spring semester of 2017)

That wording actually isn’t ideal but I’m struggling with figuring out how to say it, so maybe someone can suggest something better in the comment. But the main take-away is that yes, you can list it as long as you don’t misrepresent the situation.

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

1. Should I temporarily live in my boss’s spare bedroom?

I’m in a bit of a housing bind, and dealing with some pretty serious anxiety to boot. I mentioned my anxiety issues to my boss to explain any lapses she may be seeing in my performance at work, and mentioned that my apartment search in NYC was a big contributing factor to the anxiety. She very graciously offered me her spare bedroom rent-free, where I could stay while I hunt for something that’s a better fit than the places I’m seeing now. (She was quite serious, and mentioned her offer again in a follow-up email later that day.)

Am I crazy to consider this? I definitely see the problems living with one’s boss, but I think we could handle it okay. She was my mentor for about a year before she came to work at my company and became my boss, so we have a fairly close relationship, though still professional. It would definitely be only temporary, but I’m not sure if taking my boss up on her offer would end up causing trouble?

The only way I’d do this is if you’d otherwise be homeless. It’s just too fraught with the potential for problems.

Yes, it might work out fine. But it could also cause huge problems. If she has to give you really serious critical feedback at work, do you really want to see her in the living room that evening? What if she has to tell you that your job is in jeopardy? What if she loses her job while you’re living with her and wants to complain to you every evening about your company? What if she wants to talk about work when you want to collapse in front of a movie and you feel pressured to let her? What if there’s a weird issue over money — will that really not bleed into work? What if she changes her mind and wants to kick you out early and you feel screwed over? And most importantly, what about the power dynamic? Are you going to feel comfortable telling your boss things you need to be able to tell a roommate, like “I really don’t want to spend a third hour listening to you talk about your ex?” or “Stop walking into my bedroom without knocking” or “Could you not blast Sia at 5 a.m.”?  (And you can find more potential issues with it in this old letter.) Particularly if you’re dealing with anxiety issues, this all seems like an unnecessary additional source of stress.

It’s also a really bad idea for your boss herself, for all the reasons above. The fact that she’s offering says there’s a good chance she’s not super thoughtful about boundaries (again, unless you’re truly about to be homeless) and that’s a flag to be really cautious too.

Read an update to this letter here.

2. I told a coworker I was “disgusted” with how she handled something

I recently had an encounter at work when I forgot about a payment, was notified a month later, and rectified it immediately. Someone not involved in the rectification told my indirect supervisor that the issue had not been resolved and actually got me in a lot of trouble. I sent an email to this person and used the words “I am disgusted with the way this was handled,” as this all happened on a Friday night and actually had significant implications on the work I needed to do over the weekend.

I was in the wrong and let emotions get to me. All 20 previous emails were definitely kind and rational, but then I snapped and got emotional. On Monday, I was called into my indirect supervisor’s office, where I was given an extremely patronizing lecture on how I am young and don’t know everything, and based on this one line I was told that I am lovely in person but my email dialogue was that of a complainer.

I admit my email was wrong — 100% — and apologized profusely. I am now just dealing with my own pride and how to shake this impression I left with this supervisor. I have never had a critique like this before. I am definitely taking it on and will be super careful with emails going forwards, but do you have any advice on what I can do now? While I do feel like this has been blown out of proportion, I am honestly just embarrassed and I pride myself on being kind and rational. Is there anyway I can try and change this opinion and move on?

Yeah, telling a coworker that you’re disgusted with her isn’t great, even if you were in the right to be annoyed. I’m also wondering about the 20 emails — that seems like a lot, although of course I don’t know the context.

I can’t tell if your indirect manager’s reaction was over the top or not (if this was more than a five-minute conversation, it probably was, unless this was part of a larger pattern she was concerned about), but in any case, the best thing to do from here is just to be scrupulous about controlling your emotions and not showing anger at coworkers. If you’re feeling heated about something, take that as a sign that you should walk away from the situation and come back to it later when you’re feeling more calm. And avoid using email at all when something feels emotional to you — there’s just too much opportunity for emails to get out of control in situations like this.

When something like this happens, it’s easy to feel like it has forever altered how people see you — but if you replace this impression with lots of impressions of you being professional and pleasant, people will see it as a one-off, not something defining about you. You can get past it!

3. Playing Cards Against Humanity at a work event

We had a team building event and people brought board games. Everyone rallied around Cards Against Humanity, which I politely refused to play. One other employee and the manager also did not play, but we didn’t really have much else to do, and instead spent the rest of the event (another half hour), awkwardly making small talk and pretending to ignore people saying things like “jerking off into a swimming pool” and “badly timed Holocaust jokes.”

I thought my manager should have put a stop to it before it started, saying it wasn’t appropriate for work, but the manager tends to be super nonconfrontational, to the point of causing problems, so all I could do was not participate. Any ideas?

Cards Against Humanity is awesome, and it is also 100% inappropriate for a work event (let alone a team-building one — good lord). It’s full of sexual and, as your examples show, other potentially offensive humor. It’s pretty much the definition of what a manager shouldn’t be sanctioning at a work event because there’s too much chance that even a reasonable person could feel uncomfortable, offended, or even harassed.

Your manager absolutely should have said something like, “This one isn’t work-appropriate; let’s pick a different game.” If she didn’t realize ahead of time what the game was, once she started figuring out, she should have stepped in and said something like, “Oh whoops, I didn’t realize what this was — we really need to stick to PG games, y’all.”

It also would have been okay for you to speak up if you wanted to, by saying something similar.

4. When a coworker in a very large organization dies

I work for a very large organization, and getting information about anything is often difficult. Earlier this week, my manager casually informed me that a coworker whom I’d spoken to Friday had passed away. Someone had seen I had invited him to a teleconference and emailed her, so she told me over instant message.

This was a guy who was not only helping me save a smoldering account, but was also someone with whom I had bonded. Times have been stressful at the company and this news really put me off-kilter. There has been no email or Intranet announcement. I’d really appreciate knowing what happened, so I can at least send condolences to his wife and focus better. But I work remotely, and no one seems to know or be willing to find out anything.

What should I do? How should the company handle these situations? When they let several thousand go a few months ago, they of course gave us no info, but this seems different.

It’s possible that they announced it to his department but not more widely — which wouldn’t necessarily be unreasonable if your company is enormous, but is still going to be unsettling for people who knew him and didn’t get informed.

I think it would be fine for you to write to his manager and say, “I was so sorry to hear about Fergus. I worked closely with him at times and really liked him. I would like to send condolences to his family — is there a way for us to do that or get any other information about the situation?”

(I debated the “other information” part of that. I think some people would argue that you shouldn’t ask what happened in case his family wants to maintain his privacy, but I think as long as you’re polite and sensitive about the wording — the wording above makes it easy for the manager to not answer that part of the question if they prefer not to — it should be okay.)

5. My student paper is being published — should that go on my resume?

I’m a relatively recent grad who’s worked one year. Some very unexpected but fun happened to me today. I got a message today from my old thesis supervisor in grad school who wanted to ask my permission to publish a version of a paper I wrote (and that he’s since expanded on) as a case study in a major textbook in my field (along the lines of Gray’s Anatomy but in a completely different subject). I will get some money and credit in the book.

My supervisor suggested putting this on my resume, even if I’m not interested in an academic career. What do you think? I think it’s a cool thing but it’s not a major scientific study — just a case in a textbook albeit a fairly famous textbook.

You definitely can put it on your resume; it won’t look weird or out of place to do that. But whether you should put it there depends on whether it will strengthen your candidacy (it might if you’re applying for a job that values academic writing, for instance) and whether it would be taking up space would otherwise be used for something more relevant. So I’d look at how it fits in with the whole picture of your resume and the types of jobs you’re applying for before deciding. But all else being equal, sure, go for it!