“coworker asked me to pose topless, how do I stop people from offering condolences, and more” plus 3 more Ask a Manager

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coworker asked me to pose topless, how do I stop people from offering condolences, and more

Posted: 27 Sep 2018 09:03 PM PDT

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

1. My coworker asked me to pose topless for an "anatomy textbook”

I work part-time in a small sales office of about 10 people. About a month ago, one of my coworkers approached me about doing a project for his graduate program at a local university. It was for some sort of anatomy textbook or similar: it would be a photo of my breasts with my face not in the photo for the textbook. I would be compensated for the photos.

There were some red flags in his proposition — the photos would be taken by him, in my home, and he never presented me with official paperwork about it. I called the university and they assured me that whatever “project” he was working on was not through their university, as there would have been extensive paperwork, screening, photos professionally taken, etc., which was what I had figured in the first place, particularly for such a large university and for a master’s program.

My question is this: Is this a matter that I should bring up to my boss? Is this something that she needs to know about?

Whoa, yes, absolutely, today.

Your coworker is trying to prey on colleagues to take topless photos of them under false pretenses. Tell your boss, tell HR, tell other women.

Frankly, even if his story were true, which it's not, it would be have been really inappropriate for him to approach you, a coworker, about this. That's not how anatomy photos in textbooks work. This guy is a creep and your employer needs to know.

2. How do I stop people from offering condolences?

My father is dying. Not as in "someday in the future we all go," but as in his doctor told him to not invest in short term bonds. This does not come as a surprise to any of my family members, we've been aware of his impending demise long enough to have gathered multiple times for what may be our final goodbyes. The big change is we now have an estimated expiration date in six months.

And, while your first instinct is to offer condolences, I don't want them. Like with so many parent-child relationships ours is complicated. It's not that I'm eager for him to go, it's that I'm not particularly broken up over it. And, more than that, I value quality of life over quantity. Yes, he's going. Frankly, I hope it's shorter than six months. It has been a rough go of it for a while already.

Normally I'd just continue to fail to mention this to my coworkers until the time comes when I need to leave town suddenly due to his passing. However, in the next couple of months I'm slated to be the face of my company at a major event and I need to make sure arrangements are in place in case my father's death comes at an inopportune time. I've spoken with those who most need to know, and soon I'll have to inform the CMO who may very well opt to replace me.

I think I can navigate most of the stuff, but I have a few areas of concern:

(1) I sincerely don't want condolences. He's not dead, and I'm not devastated. I know it's human nature and generally considered to be the correct response. In my case, in this instance, it's annoying, uncomfortable, and unwanted. How do I get ahead of this without sounding like a jackass? I get that there are many times when we just have to accept the well intended social pleasantries, but condolences feels like a thing I should be able to not accept.

(2) How do I convince the decision makers to not pick another spokesperson and that, really, I got this? And the chances that he goes that one week are *really* small. I'm super concerned they're going to want to play it safe and sideline me, and this is a major career opportunity I don't want to lose just because my father *might* die in exactly 7 weeks.

(3) Once I've told the individuals that need to know, I assume I probably have to tell the committee at large. Is this one-on-one conversations or can I just make an announcement like people do when they're having other major life events?

When you talk to the CMO, say something like, "It's very unlikely that this will happen during the few days of the X event, but I felt I should let you know that my father is very sick and there is a small chance that he may die right before or during the event. I think it's quite unlikely that that will be the timing, but I wanted to mention it so that there's a back-up plan." If you present it that way, it's unlikely that your CMO will insist on replacing you now, but if she starts to sound like she wants to, then say, "It's very unlikely the timing will work out that way, and I very much hope we can continue with our current plan. The chances of that needing to change are slim." From there, it's really her call, but it would be a bit silly to replace you so far in advance and in this context. People have family emergencies and other crises, often without this much warning, and businesses make do.

I don't actually know that you need to tell the entire committee. But if you do decide to, you can do it as a group announcement, but keep it vague if you don't want sad faces and condolences — something like, "I've let Jane know that there's a small chance that a health situation in my family may necessitate me flying home instead of being at X . I think it's very unlikely, but I wanted to flag it now just in case. I'll keep people posted if anything changes."

As for avoiding condolences more broadly … I don't know that you can, if you talk to people about what's going on. You can certainly try saying things like "no condolences necessary" but people are going to express that they're sorry to hear what's going on, and you can't head that off without seeming fairly prickly (or making them think there's estrangement or abuse or similar). I think you're better off just moving the conversation on quickly — something like a nod and a quick change of subject will probably serve you better than trying to explain why you don't want sympathy.

3. Did my niece technically graduate college?

My niece is a recent college graduate — maybe. She "walked" at the ceremony, but I've just learned that she owes about $4,000 to the college and they will not release her transcripts until they receive the money.

Is she, in good conscience, allowed to say that she's a college "graduate"? She has it on LinkedIn and on her resumes. However, if a prospective employer wants her transcripts, the jig is up. What do you think?

I think the question here isn't so much whether they'll release her transcripts (although that may matter too, if she interviews with employers who want them — most won't, but in some fields they will) but whether the college considers her to have the degree or not. It's pretty common for colleges to require students to be in good financial standing before they'll confer a degree.

She can find out by calling the registrar's office and asking … which conveniently will let her know what an employer who wants to verify her degree will be told. If she has not actually been awarded the degree (and won't until she finishes paying), she shouldn't list the degree on her resume without a caveat like "(all coursework completed, awaiting degree)."

(That said, if she hasn't asked for your advice on this and/or you don't have a close relationship where she'd welcome your guidance, you should stay out of it.)

4. My interview was canceled right before I was supposed to fly out for it

I am a clinician that was interviewing for a clinical consulting role with a large company. The interview process began with a phone interview with a member of HR and was followed by two phone interviews with three VPs. The feedback that I received was "very good" and I was moved on to the final interview stage, where I would meet with the two heads of the department. They booked travel and sent me a confirmation. A few days later, they added in a last-minute phone interview two days before I was scheduled to fly out for the final interview. The evening after the last phone interview, I received an email from the HR manager's assistant that they were "extremely sorry but they were going to have to cancel the interview" and the lead was to reach out to me the following day with more information. I waited for more information for two days with no response. I sent an email in response to the cancellation email, as well as to the HR manager directly, inquiring about the status of the interview and I have yet to hear a response. It has not been a week.

In total, I spoke with five individuals in four phone interviews over the course of 1.5 months, emailed consistently with the HR manager and her assistant, and travel was booked for a final interview. It was canceled two days prior with no explanation. This seems very unprofessional. Is this a normal practice? If the last phone interview went terribly, and I don't believe that it did, why wouldn't they just inform me that they no longer believed I was a candidate? Please help me understand!

There are all kinds of reasons that could explain this happening in general: They decided to hire another candidate, they put the position on hold, they're rethinking what they need from the position/the person they hire,they developed concerns about your candidacy, they're dealing with an unrelated crisis, or lots of other potential explanations.

But in your particular case, the fact that they added in a previously unplanned phone interview right before you were supposed to fly out, and then canceled right after that, says that they probably did at some point develop reservations about your candidacy. That could be because a higher-level decision maker who hadn't been involved in the process earlier expressed skepticism, or because they'd had concerns all along about your skill in X or your approach to Y and they realized they should dig in more on that before asking you to fly out. It could be that they realized they really needed someone with strength in Z, which they hadn't realized previously and thus hadn't screened you for in the earlier stages so they wanted to dig into it before flying you out. Who knows.

But the thing I think you're overlooking is that if they determined in that last phone interview that you weren't as strong of a match as they'd hoped you'd be, they actually did the polite thing by canceling. Having you invest time in flying out, interviewing, and flying back (possibly 24 hours or more of your time) when they knew they weren't likely to hire you would have been tremendously rude and inconsiderate. They were right to cancel the interview, even on short notice, if they knew hiring you wasn't likely to result from it.

That said, they should indeed have given you more information — if not on the spot then certainly within a few days, especially when you followed up — and they're in the wrong not to have done that.

I am currently in the running for a fantastic job at a dream company. I was approached about the job by a recruiter. The feedback from the first face-to-face interview was that I was the strongest candidate and the company decided not to proceed with any of the other external applicants and, instead, wanted to interview further external people for a pool of choice.

Besides external applicants, however, the recruiter discovered there were one or more internal applicants applying for the position. The role has been newly created in a completely restructured team, so it's hard to say how directly the internal candidates are experienced and if they are a natural shoo-in, or if it's a bit of a leap in position.

In your experience, do internal candidates have better chances? On the one hand, I can see they are far easier to onboard and are already familiar with all the internal processes and have existing relationships with staff. On the other hand, the manager hiring for the position is also relatively new and I wonder if fresh blood is more attractive and appealing, bringing new skills and levels of experience (particularly as I have worked for a direct competitor).

As a hiring manager, are you more likely to hire from within? Or is it a case by case basis?

It totally depends!

All things being equal, if I have a great internal candidate and an equally great external candidate, I'm usually going to go with the internal candidate. That's partly because they know the other internal players already, know how things work in the organization, and will have a faster ramp-up period. But it's more because they're known quantities in a way an external candidate can never be. That great external candidate could end up not being so great once they're on the job, or have trouble getting along with people, or form a duck club on the side, or who knows what. Whereas with my great internal candidate, I already know their work habits and how they operate; there's far less chance of an unpleasant surprise. Plus, it's good to promote from within — it's a way to keep talented people around.

That's not always true, of course. Sometimes there are specific reasons why an employer specifically wants to bring someone in from the outside, such as when they want someone with a completely fresh perspective or way of doing things. But much of the time, it makes sense to hire internally when you have someone great already on your staff.

However, being a known quantity can hurt internal candidates too. An employer is going to be far more familiar with their weaknesses than they will be with an external candidate. And an internal candidate who would look great an outside employer might have obstacles with their current employer who knows they monopolize meetings, are rude to admin staff, miss deadlines, suck at managing, or so forth. And those "known quantity" downsides don't even need to be serious performance problems for them to negatively affect someone's candidacy for a role. If I'm hiring for a role that requires a lot of initiative and strategic planning and I've seen an internal candidate needs significant hand-holding in those areas in the recent past, I'm going to have a lot of skepticism about hiring them from the outset. It doesn't mean they're terrible at their current job or they wouldn't be good at something else. It just means that I'm going to believe what I've seen from working with them over anything I see on a resume or hear in an interview.

So it can work both ways.

From the outside, when you're the external candidate, you're better off not trying to guess at what the situation might be with internal candidates because you can never really know. They may have already decided none of the internal people are right for the job but are interviewing them anyway out of courtesy. Or they might think their strongest internal candidate is a stretch, and they're hoping to find someone externally who's a better match. Or yes, they might be highly likely to go with one of the internal people. You just can't know, and you'll only mess with your head trying to figure it out.

The best thing to do is the same thing you should always do when you're interviewing: Assume there are other candidates, assume some of them are quite good, and don't worry too much about what those specifics are.

(But then, if you do get hired and you know there were internal candidates who didn’t get the job, it can be smart to ask if there are any politics you’ll need to navigate around that, especially if you’ll be managing any of them.)

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