coworker is too aggressive about enforcing rules, colleague selling free stuff from work, and more Ask a Manager

coworker is too aggressive about enforcing rules, colleague selling free stuff from work, and more

Posted: 18 Mar 2018 09:03 PM PDT

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

1. My coworker is too aggressive about keeping our lab clean

My colleague, who is my peer, recently got a responsibility he treats very seriously. That responsibility is focused around improvement of tidyness of the laboratory with a focus of reducing the risk of contamination. These are serious issues that I completely support — they are not only important, they are essential. Unfortunately, since he got that responsibility I find him unbearable: he bombards the team with letters about the "lack of discipline"; he tells us we are "looking for excuses" and the effect of negligence on our front are "gross.” He decided to clamp down on some minor issues and he is very committed to that task (while he doesn't listen to opinions on the major, related issues, like cleanliness of the floor). He told me off for the supposed "bad practice" in front of the junior staff, and his rhetoric is really intense and at the moment is causing me anxiety and makes me self-loathe and makes me hate coming to work.

I would like to tell him somehow to pipe down, as at the moment my constant stress because of his attitude makes me less focused and less productive. I personally have lots of years of experience and my work does not suffer from contamination problems. I really do not want to appear obstructive — I wish him all the best with the difficult task he is fighting — I just cannot stand the constant crusade of pointing (some but not the other) errors in our work.

I also know he has struggled for the last few years with his performance, and he is trying to prove himself in this new niche — but I am tired of his clumsy attempts to shine. I would appreciate if you can tell me how to tactfully tell him to calm down a bit.

"Dude, can you take this down a notch? Reducing contamination is important, but this is way too intense.”

Or, "Hey, I support your efforts in this area, but none of us want to be scolded like this. Can you think about a lighter-touch approach?"

If that doesn't work, talk to his manager. I suspect he's gone rogue here, and his manager would rein him back in.

2. Colleague selling free stuff he gets from work

I work in a library in a university. We get a fair few donations of books, some of which we don’t need (relevance, duplication, etc.). I circulate lists of disposals to other libraries locally, then whatever’s left on the shelf gets offered to staff in the building. There’s always a scramble, and there are a few who descend like locusts and snap up the choicest morsels every time. You snooze, you lose, all’s fair and so on.

However, a colleague has raised concerns that another colleague takes some of the nicer books, then sells them on Amazon, pocketing the profits. I’ve not yet found concrete evidence to confirm this, and won’t take any action until I can be sure, but something about this strikes me as a bit … morally dubious. I can see if you’ve got a huge collection, and you realize that maybe you no longer want a particular title that you picked up for free, you might offer it for sale, but I suspect this isn’t what he’s doing. Given what he routinely takes, I worry that it’s more like he’s systematically depriving everyone else of certain (usually expensive and limited print) books to line his own pockets.

I feel like I’d like to address it with him or his line manager, but that it’s not really within my remit. After all, when those books go on that shelf, they’re effectively there for the taking, whether you decide to read them, use them to prop up table legs or shred them to line your hamster cage. Why shouldn’t I begrudge him this additional source of income? (The only reason I don’t do it for the library is the time/effort involved.) But it doesn’t sit well with me. As I said, these are often the nicest books (RRP can be $50-$75 or even a lot more for some of them). Is there any action you think I can take? Or do I find another solution?

Yes! It's reasonable to officially say, "We ask that you take these books for personal use only. These are not for resale." You're not offering them to people so they can make money off of them; you're offering them because they might derive personal enjoyment from the books, and there's something unseemly about him rushing to deprive his colleagues of books they might want to read so that he can turn a profit.

And if you do find evidence after that that he's taking them for resale, then he's breaking a clear rule and profiting off his access to library books in a way that wasn't intended, and it's fair game at that point to tell him the books are now off-limits to him. If you don't have the authority to do that, you probably do have the authority to bring it to the attention of someone who does.

3. Employer wants my salary history — but I've already accepted their job offer

I recently received a great offer to a new company, and they came in at exactly what I asked for. After I accepted and signed the offer letter, they sent me a link to enter my information to complete the background check, but in the employment verification section, they asked for my salary at every job in the past 10 years … and it is a required field in the form! I was unable to enter "n/a” so I submitted a zero so that it was clear that I wasn’t lying, just declining to provide the information. I’m not hiding anything undesirable, I just don’t see any reason they would need this information for such a long period of my career, and find it strange to be asked this on a background check. I would be curious to hear any thoughts, drawbacks, or suggestions on how to handle something like this in the future.

That's actually a good way to handle it. It's clear that you didn't actually earn zero dollars at every job, so you're conveying that you're declining to answer that question. And you should decline — it's none of their business. You've already accepted an offer from them!

If they come back and ask for the numbers, you can say pleasantly, "Oh, I don't give out that information — my employers have always considered that confidential." If they push, then you can say, "I'm confused about why you're asking for it. I've accepted your offer. Can you explain why you're looking for this now?"

More advice on this here and here.

4. Can I keep the money if I win my office's March Madness pool?

This may sound like a silly thing to worry about, but I’m weirdly anxious about winning my office’s March Madness pool! We are a small company (nine employees total) and I am one of two remote employees on the staff. Last week, I received an email inviting all staff to participate in a March Madness pool — $15 entry, winner-take-all. I love sports and competition, so I immediately jumped on this and returned my completed bracket.

Now, though, I’m wondering what would be expected of me in the off chance that I win. Is keeping the money in poor taste? Would it be better to donate the money in the company’s name (and let my coworkers know), or purchase something for their office? If I worked in the same physical location as my coworkers, I guess I could bring in a box of donuts or treat to happy hour or something, but I’m across the country and won’t see them in person until August. I’m not saying I think I have the gift of magical foresight or anything, or that I think my winning is likely (although the pool is small so odds aren’t terrible!) but I can’t even enjoy rooting for my picks right now because I’m fixated on this. How would you proceed if you were in my place and happened to win?

You get to keep the money. Really — it's totally normal to do that, and it's what most people do. The exception would be if your office has some sort of specific-to-them tradition of you doing something else with it (and you could ask a coworker who's been there longer than if that's the case, if you weren't there for the last one and it's been a long-running tradition). But most people just keep it.

5. My peer did an exit interview with one of my employees behind my back

One of my direct reports put in notice for a much higher paying job with better benefits. A VP from another department, my peer, called this employee for an exit interview. During the interview, the VP asked the employee about my leadership, if I was driving them out of the company, and if I was competent. This seems inappropriate, but what if any recourse do I have?

Is there any chance that the VP was asked to do this by someone higher up? There's a chance that could happen, like if they're concerned about potential problems in your department and thought the VP had particular rapport with the exiting employee. But otherwise, yes, that's inappropriate and out of line. You could talk to the VP and say, "I'm confused about how you got involved with the exit interview for Jane — what happened there?" Or you could talk to whoever normally arranges exit interviews and say, "I was surprised to hear Fergus called Jane for an exit interview — and frankly concerned about why he would be involved in something in my department like that. Can you give me any insight into how that came about?"

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