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“can public support of a fired employee hurt them, my boss talks to me like I’m a baby, and more” plus 3 more Ask a Manager

“can public support of a fired employee hurt them, my boss talks to me like I’m a baby, and more” plus 3 more Ask a Manager


can public support of a fired employee hurt them, my boss talks to me like I’m a baby, and more

Posted: 26 Sep 2018 09:03 PM PDT

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

1. Can public support of a fired employee hurt that employee?

I regularly attend shows at a local theater, and know many of the staff and performers there. Recently, the theater announced that their beloved creative director would be leaving. This appears to be a firing. The news article about it mentioned that said director could not comment on advice of his lawyer.

The local arts community is pretty upset about this. There are planned rallies and boycotts of the theater, claiming he was wrongfully terminated and demanding he get his job back. Obviously, neither party is publicly commenting. My assumption is that it was something routine, like performance on non-artistic parts of his job — there’s nothing to indicate a scandal, and he’s a genuinely kind and good person.

My question is this — could this outpouring of public anger hurt his ability to get another job? My fear is that it will make him seem like a high risk to take on, or make a company think he’ll be vindictive if he ever left. (Or at least not willing to stop friends who are vindictive.) Or, could it potentially impact an employment case? And, is there ever any BENEFIT to this kind of outrage over a firing, at least if there’s no evidence of discrimination or illegal activity?

Oooh, that's a really good question. I'd think the fact that other people are protesting it is unlikely to impact any legal action he pursues as long as he continues to follow his lawyer's advice. But whether it could affect his ability to get a future job is murkier. Depending on the tenor of the protests, it's possible that it could. At a minimum, it will certainly cause attention to his firing, which he might have otherwise been able to be more low-key about. And if a reference-checker learns, for example, that he was fired for legitimate performance issues, they might worry about how he'd handle critical feedback from them if they hired him (because no employer wants to deal with a public boycott over a fairly handled but private personnel issue). So I think it partly depends on what really happened and on whether the cause of his firing warrants the outrage or not (and also on whether the protesters have the full story, which they may not).

Even if it does warrant the public outrage, though, there are certainly employers who will see it as a risk to hire someone who was at the center of something like this, figuring that he's more likely to rabble-rouse than someone else. He might be happy to screen out those employers though. And that might be canceled out by the employers who get more interested in him as a result of this — because they find his situation sympathetic (although it's hard to do that when no one will say what happened) or they see it as a PR move to hire him or they just find him interesting and so are more likely to give him an interview.

2. My boss talks to me like I'm a baby

I am wondering how I should address a slight issue I am having with my boss. Because I am quite short and young-looking (I am actually in my early 20s, but probably look like I am in my late teens) my boss always makes pretty patronizing remarks about my appearance. She calls me things such as “cute” and "babyface.” For example, last week I had to give a presentation so I wore boots with a slight heel, and she said “Aww, are you trying to look taller for the important people? You’re so cute!” And if I can’t reach something, she says "Aww, honey, should I get you a stool so you can reach like a big girl?”

The comments make me quite uncomfortable, not because I am embarrassed about being short, but because I feel that any comments about a person’s physical appearance are inappropriate in the workplace, even if intended in good nature.

I’m young and pretty new to the job, so I don’t want to sour my relationship with my boss (who in every other way is a great boss) by calling her out. But I do find it very patronizing and demoralizing. Everyone always thinks that I am younger than I am (I get ID’d all the time still!) but I’m trying to prove myself in my industry and I don’t want to cower down to her comments. How should I address this?

Wow, that's really inappropriate. Those aren't minor comments at all; they're actually pretty insulting. You say she's in every other way a great boss so she probably doesn't intend to be insulting — but she is.

I would try this: "Jane, when you talk about my height or call me 'babyface' or 'cute,' it undermines my ability to be taken seriously. I would really appreciate it if you didn't refer to my height or my appearance at all." If you want to soften the language a little, you could change the start of that last sentence to "could I ask you not to refer to…" But really, this an incredibly reasonable request, and if your manager truly is a good boss as she otherwise appears to you to be, she'll respect it and stop with the comments.

But I'm really struggling with the idea that she could be a good manager and still be saying these things. If it was just "cute" and "babyface," sure. She could be misguided there but great otherwise. But it's hard to take remarks like “Aww, are you trying to look taller for the important people?” and "Aww, honey, should I get you a stool so you can reach like a big girl?" as anything other than deliberately infantilizing.

3. People ask about my boss's suicide

A couple of years ago, my boss committed suicide. This was a very painful and difficult situation for me since he and I were incredibly close. It was obviously a huge shock to a lot of people that he committed suicide and had been struggling with depression. The problem is that a lot of times when I meet new people who work in the same field or during interviews and I mention that I worked for him, people bring up his suicide. Usually it is just in passing, saying that they are sorry for my loss, but on occasion people have pried into the situation. I just hate that the only thing he is known and remembered for is the cause of his death, not all of the incredible things that he did. One time I was in an interview with someone who was acquainted with him and the person even asked me why and how he did it.

I have no idea how to respond to people asking me these questions and they aren’t dying down anytime soon. I am starting to consider taking my work with him off my resume and not mentioning that I worked for him in conversation, just to avoid the topic. Usually I will stammer out a response and mumble my way through it, but do you have a better method of responding?

I'm so sorry. Don't take your work with him off your resume! You shouldn't lose credit for valuable job experience because some people are horribly insensitive.

When someone pries into what happened, you could say, "We were close and it's a difficult topic. Thanks for understanding." That's polite code for "I'm not going to discuss this."

Also, with people who aren't inappropriate and who just say they're sorry for your loss, if you want to you could say something like, "He was a wonderful person — I loved working with him" and you could even cite one or two of the things you found incredible about him. You don't have to do this, of course! But if you want to, it would be perfectly appropriate and could be a nice way to steer the conversation back to who he was, not how he died.

4. Nameplate drama

I work for a very large company. My department is small and very specialized. The rest of company either doesn’t know we exist or, if they do, doesn’t understand what we do. My department has been the “stepchild” of the company. There have been growth and leadership changes that affected morale for many years. There’s a lack of role clarity, communication, overstepping of management boundaries, no policies or procedures, reactiveness, finger pointing, etc.

We have one long-term employee, Jan, who is known for being rude and sarcastic and trying to pass it all off as a joke. Many of us avoid her. She has been insubordinate with her prior manager and had threatened to go to the CEO so nothing was done. She had worked with the CEO in the past and has some type of continued relationship. Morale is low and people are leaving. Our turnover has been noticed by upper management — five people have left in last eight months. The most recent was everybody’s favorite manager, Jay.

Jan has been collecting all departed employees’ nameplates for years and proudly displayed them. We all have started taking the nameplates of the coworkers who have quit in past months, and Jan isn’t happy. Some had even instructed us to make sure Jan doesn’t get nameplates to display. Jan is mad that she couldn’t find Jay’s nameplate, so she printed his picture and is displaying at her desk. I walked in this morning and everybody is mad. They’re tired of Jan and all the ugliness and rudeness. The whole team is tired in general and feel, due to all the other issues, this has crossed the line. Unfortunately, the head of the department just came by asking about Jay’s picture and Jan loudly complained about not being able to find his nameplate and the reason for the picture. He laughed. The rest of us cringed. Some on my team want to complain. I decided to speak for team with my director about how this is affecting the team tomorrow. I am somewhat second guessing myself. But I am very aware as team lead of all the issues affecting everybody and the low team morale. This has been an issue for few years. As FYI, a few of us are looking to post out, including me, and are taking additional training courses to leave our department. Your take on this whole mess?

I originally didn’t understand what Jan was doing with the nameplates, but commenters have pointed out that it sounds like she’s using them as “trophies” of people she’s successfully driven out. Given that, I’m rewriting this answer.

If that is indeed what she’s doing, that’s incredibly messed up, and someone in a position of authority needs tell her "these aren't appropriate to display and I'm collecting them from you today." That person might be you, as team lead! But if it’s not, you can indeed cite this to whoever is as evidence of Jan’s toxicity.

It sounds like it’s far from the only problem though, and solving this will still leave you mired in serious issues: team morale is low, communication is bad, you have no systems, and the turnover isn’t likely to stop. Absent any signs of real commitment to change that from above you, I’d focus the bulk of your mental energy on getting out.

5. I never sent in my post-internship paperwork

I'm a mid-career professional in the midst of a career change, and I'm getting a masters on evenings/weekends while keeping a good job in my first career to pay the bills. My degree requires an internship, and it was tough to find one that could work with my full-time work schedule, but earlier this year I snagged a nice internship in my new field of study that allowed me to come in evenings and weekends to get my required hours. And it worked out great—it was a fascinating internship with a lovely supervisor who I grew close with over the few months I worked for her.

On my last day at the internship, my supervisor told me that she was pleased with my work, gave me a card wishing me well, and told me she would happily fill out any paperwork I needed her to so I could get credit for the work I did. And … I never followed up. I have a million excuses: some family stuff came up, my day job got crazy, etc. etc. But bottom line is that I didn't close the loop on getting my internship paperwork done, and now I worry that she thinks I'm a flake and that I blew a good reference. Also: I need her to sign off on some papers to complete my degree! It has been four months.

I finally summoned my courage to write her this week. I kept it friendly and a little apologetic (I learned so much and really enjoyed working with you, I'm sorry for the quiet, hope you are doing well, etc.) but I didn't say anything specific about the paperwork. No response yet. How should I proceed? Can I salvage this professional relationship?

You can salvage it! She might not have responded yet because she's away or busy or who knows what — but note that you didn't directly tell her that you need something, and she might prioritize responding faster if she realizes that you do.

Email her again and something like this: "I meant to say initially that I am hoping you are still able to sign off on my internship paperwork so that I'm able to get credit for the work and complete my degree. I'm attaching it here and I'd be so grateful if you're able to return it by (date)."

She may think you took longer than she expected with it, but it's not at all serious enough that it would trump the good impression she has from your actual work for her! After all, this is something that only impacts you. It's not like you delayed for months on something she needed from you. It's not a huge deal AT ALL. Email her now and you'll feel much better.

can public support of a fired employee hurt them, my boss talks to me like I’m a baby, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

how do I keep people from using way too much of my boss’s time in meetings?

Posted: 26 Sep 2018 10:59 AM PDT

A reader writes:

I’m a career executive assistant and pretty good at my job, but I struggle with keeping my boss’s calendar.

I support high-level people, so I am inundated by requests for boss’s time, from internal and external folks. I can’t tell you how many people ask for “Just 10 minutes, REALLY!” who I then have to pry out of the office after 45 or 60 minutes (or longer)

My current boss, as well as a former boss, mentioned this as something I need to work on, but I confess I’m having trouble keeping everyone happy — is there a way to do this without becoming the office hard-ass?

Complicating the matter is that current boss is charming, a great mentor/advocate and loves being involved in everything so she loves interaction, to a point.

Please, can you give me guidance on navigating this?

Do three things:

1. First, find out from your boss whether she just wants you to be more assertive about cutting off meetings that run too long, or whether she also wants you to decline some of these meeting requests in the first place. You might find out that she wants you to be firmer about saying no to people, or to some people, or to redirect them to later time slots. For example, if the request is coming from a direct report who she has regular check-ins scheduled with, she might prefer you to direct most of that person’s requests to those meetings rather than putting additional time on her calendar. So ask her directly if she wants the meetings to run shorter, or not happen at all.

2. When you're setting up appointments for people, manage their expectations by telling them from the outset, "I want to warn you, she literally has only 10 minutes. I’m going to knock at 1:16 to grab her for another appointment.”

3. When someone is running over their allotted time, knock on your boss's door and say, "Jane is here for your 2:00 meeting” or "I want to let you know you're scheduled for X right now." This is easy when X is another meeting or a phone call, but if it's something like "you have this hour set aside to review documents that must be approved today," you can just say, "You're scheduled up for the rest of this hour."

However, before you do #2, talk to your boss and make sure she's on board with this plan. She may prefer that you give people a longer grace period before you interrupt, or that you do this with some people but not others, or any number of other modifications.

If you do this for a while and you find that your boss is generally ignoring your time reminders, then go back to her and say this: "You asked me to help keep your schedule more on track when meeting times are running way over. My strategy has been to alert you in the moment but I know it's still happening. Would you like me to do something different to handle it?"

how do I keep people from using way too much of my boss’s time in meetings? was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

I don’t have enough work to keep me busy

Posted: 26 Sep 2018 09:30 AM PDT

This week on the Ask a Manager podcast, I talked to a guest who has too much downtime at work. Here's the letter:

I have never had a job without significant downtime. I make myself available for new assignments and readily volunteer to take on work from stressed colleagues. The problem is that there’s just not more work to do. I work for a local government. My workload is dependent on things outside of my control. Projects have a clear beginning and end. Once they’re done, they’re done.

My workload is similar to that of other colleagues in the same role, although more senior colleagues get more complicated projects that take more time. I’ve been in this role for a year. Our work is cyclical so there are times where I’m fairly busy, but regularly I’m not filling all of my work hours with actual work.

My boss gives me rave reviews and my colleagues know me as a go-to resource if they need help. The work-life balance is great. But I find myself with extra time on my hands pretty regularly. I take decent lunch breaks and often go for a morning walk with coworkers. I read online publications relevant to my field, but that can only take up so much time. I also spend time on my phone, probably too much time.

This has always been the case for me with every job. I have always kept my bosses up to date with my need for more work. One boss didn’t care and said I could do whatever with my extra time which led to me being fired without warning by a higher up for spending too much time online. One boss got mad at me for asking for more to do or trying to take initiative. My current job seems like it might be as good as I can get: a consistent workload with clear deadlines, even if not enough of it.

I feel guilty about spending time browsing the Internet on my phone at work. Should I feel guilty? What should I be doing with my time when there really aren’t additional projects to take on?

I don’t have enough work to keep me busy was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

my team doesn’t ask managers to hang out with them

Posted: 26 Sep 2018 07:59 AM PDT

A reader writes:

I have a small tight-knit team of eight people. The people that I've hired in the last two years socialize together quite a bit, which is great. The downside is they don't invite me or the other managers; the junior members will hang out together and not invite the managers. The disappointing part of this is that this team has historically been very tight and (we hoped) didn't feel hierarchical. As we hire more people, I would prefer that the environment feel inclusive. It’s a little awkward when five people spent their weekend together and are talking about it and the remaining three weren’t invited.

Recently at a team dinner one of them said to someone outside the department that "everyone went" to an event together. The person asked me if I had gone and I said, I hadn't been invited. My team member said I wouldn't have gone anyway.

The managers do have babies or life responsibilities that keep us from socializing together after hours. We also have more friends outside of work than most of the junior members so the likelihood of us participating is low. But we still would like to be asked and feel a little hurt to be left out while recognizing that the team should feel free to hang without being obligated to ask us to come. I guess they don't want their supervisors to come along and that is tricky for us because we really encourage a "flat" culture and it's put a small us vs. them vibe into the team.

I'm not exactly sure the best way to handle this or if there's anything to handle at all.

Nope, there's nothing to handle!

It's very normal for people not to socialize with their managers. And in fact, that's far preferable.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with a manager occasionally grabbling drinks or dinner with their team! That's fine. But managers should not typically be a regular presence in their teams’ after-hours socializing.

The reality is, flat culture or no, there are power dynamics in your relationships with the people you manage, and it's not good for either side to blur those boundaries. You are still the person charged with assessing their work, giving them feedback, delivering bad news, evaluating them for raises and promotions, and potentially laying them off or firing them one day. You need to be able to do all of those things objectively, and — equally as important — you need people to believe that you're doing all of those things objectively. That's much harder to pull off when you're regularly socializing with people who report to you (again, beyond the occasional drink or meal).

I know you’re not saying you necessarily would attend these social events; you just want to be asked. But that’s putting an inappropriate social expectation on your staff and ignoring the realities of your respective roles.

Frankly, it's not necessarily great that your junior staff are all hanging out together this much either. There's not really anything you can or should do about that, but be aware that it can sometimes cause problems of its own — like if one of them has a problem with her manager and the others decide to fight that as their own battle too, or if people develop group-think, or if they don't like your next junior hire and she ends up feeling excluded, or if your next junior hire doesn't want to hang out with coworkers this much but feels the culture expects her to, or if it just makes people feel like they can't disconnect from work. It can also be a sign that you don't have as much diversity on your team as you should — that you're not, for example, hiring people who are older or who have kids or so forth.

But the immediate issue here is that you've got to reset your ideas about relationships with employees. You can and should have warm and friendly relationships with your employees, but you can’t ignore the power dynamics inherent in your roles. It's not fair to expect them to treat you like peers or to be hurt if they don't invite you to socialize.

Now, certainly if you see the group dynamics start to cause specific problems, that's different. For example, if you felt that your junior employees were starting to act as a group when they should be acting as individuals — like filtering their ideas through each other and never suggesting anything without group approval, or spreading cynicism or toxicity — you'd need to address that. But you'd be addressing that specific manifestation, not the fact that they hang out together.

my team doesn’t ask managers to hang out with them was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

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