throwing a grandmother shower for a coworker, boss’s new ideas go nowhere, and more Ask a Manager

throwing a grandmother shower for a coworker, boss’s new ideas go nowhere, and more

Posted: 29 Jul 2018 09:03 PM PDT

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

1. Should I throw my coworker a grandmother-to-be shower?

We work in a small-ish office 15-20 people. My longtime coworker “Jane” is about to become a first-time grandmother. I was one of the first people she shared the news with, and we almost both cried since she has been waiting years for this. She comes from a more traditional background where the children spend years on education and career then get marred and start a family. So she’s finally getting the grandchild she’s been waiting for. She and her daughter plan for her to be very involved in the child’s life.

Would it be odd to throw her an informal office grandparent shower? Is that even a thing? Most of the office is made up of parents (even management) so we have had our share of baby showers. I would love the opportunity to celebrate this meaningful milestone in her life by maybe presenting her with a gift card or something so she can get anything to make her home or any part of grandparent duty easier.

Don't do it. Grandparent showers aren't really a thing — or if they're becoming a thing, they're at least far from mainstream so far and likely to raise eyebrows from people who will wonder why they're being asked to buy baby supplies for a grandparent (and it may seem a bit gift-grabby). And a lot of people feel stretched thin by the amount of gifts they're already asked to buy in offices that do a lot of showers and such. You'll also be creating a precedent where if you don't do it for other grandparents-to-be in the future, some people will feel hurt at the difference in treatment.

It's great that you want to support a coworker who you're close to, though, and there are lots of other ways you can do that. Take her out for a celebratory lunch, give her a card, get a gift for the baby — whatever feels right to you. Just don't do an office grandparent shower.

2. My boss gets excited about new ideas and then always lets them drop

My boss has been doing this a dozen times — he calls for a meeting at random times and starts pouring out his ideas at length for a special project. He uses up like 30 minutes just telling all his tales about the reason why he came up with the idea. The ideas are mostly great, so we get excited when he gives us our assignments for the project. The problem is, we seriously take on our role in the project, do all our research, and come up with concepts, but our concepts are never heard and never used. The project never gets implemented and he forgets. He will always start but never finishes. Our time is wasted and I am frustrated. What do I do?

I think I’ve worked for at least two of these bosses at some point — there are a lot of them out there. It is really frustrating — not only because you're investing time and energy in work that's never used, but also because it creates a situation where you have no idea what to take seriously and what to assume will go nowhere.

If this happens every time he excitedly presents a new idea, that actually makes this a little easier. In that case, you can stop taking him seriously. Assume he's fantasizing, but don't get too invested yourself. Wait to see what happens. You can't ignore him entirely if he's giving you assignments, but keep the time you spend on them pretty minimal until/unless you see signs that he's finally serious about one of them. And remind yourself from the start of what his pattern is, so that you're expecting it probably won't go anywhere and so you're not blindsided when that happens.

Also, if you have good rapport with him, you could try pointing out the pattern, and ask if there's something you can do differently on your end to either keep the momentum going or to stop yourself from putting in more work than turns out to be needed.

3. Can I ask my employee to save up her questions rather than interrupting me throughout the day?

Someone who reports to me calls me every five minutes to ask a question or tell me something. Is there a way to ask/tell her to "bundle" her questions/comments so I'm not interrupted by her more than two or three times per day? I understand there are circumstances where answers are needed immediately and I am not referring to those.

Good lord, yes. You have to! Do it today! Just be straightforward: "Will you start saving up all your questions in bunches, so that we can go over them all at once, once or twice a day? That'll be easier for me than answering them all separately." If she doesn’t seem to get it, you can explain further: “I’m always glad to answer questions and talk things through with you, but generally I need to confine that to once or twice a day rather than more frequently, so that I’m able to focus on other things as well.”

And then don’t be shy about reminding her if you need to — as in, “Actually, will you save this and anything else that’s not time-sensitive until we meet later today?”

4. Should I turn off read receipts on my phone?

I realize this is low importance in the grand scheme of things, but I'm curious about your opinion anyway. I have my read receipts turned on on my iPhone, so when I text someone who has an iPhone, they can see if I have read their message or not. I occasionally text with people from work, including my manager sometimes. My friend told me she thinks it looks unprofessional to have read receipts turned on. I think it doesn't matter as long as you aren't intentionally opening and not answering their message. Your thoughts?

Read receipts on their own don't look unprofessional, but it might someday create a situation where your boss texts you, sees that you read the message, and is wondering why you haven't replied hours later. And that could potentially look unprofessional, depending on what the message was. It also might create pressure on your end to respond faster than you otherwise would. You might not care about that, in which case proceed without worrying about this. But be aware those are both possible side effects. (I have always vaguely wondered why people turn on read receipts. Your letter inspired me to finally google it and I found a bunch of odd screeds about transparency and accountability, and wow people have strong feelings about this.)

5. Should I use LinkedIn's Easy Apply feature?

About half of the jobs that I’ve seen on LinkedIn have the Easy Apply option so that you can apply directly on the LinkedIn site. Most ask you to still submit a resume and some ask for an additional cover letter. I initially thought that applying via LinkedIn was a safe bet. The person who posted the job can match my resume to my LinkedIn profile, see if we have mutual connections and get a better general sense of who I am.

I’m starting to have second thoughts about this. I am being paranoid that applying on LinkedIn makes me look lazy? Should I just go directly to their website regardless if the LinkedIn Easy Apply option is available or not? Why would an employer make applying on LinkedIn an option if they would rather you apply on their website? A lot of the postings don’t even give instructions on how to apply.

It’s better to apply directly from the employer's own site rather than from LinkedIn if that's an option. Doing it from LinkedIn won’t make you look lazy, but applying directly is better (sometimes significantly so, sometimes barely so, depending on the employer). Some employers don’t pay as much attention to the applications they get from LinkedIn.

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