pranking a coworker who’s afraid of clowns, my mother might call my coworkers, and more Ask a Manager

pranking a coworker who’s afraid of clowns, my mother might call my coworkers, and more

Posted: 14 Oct 2018 09:03 PM PDT

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

1. My office keeps pranking my coworker who's afraid of clowns

I have a coworker who is terrified of clowns. He is popular in the office, and once in a while one of my other coworkers thinks it’s funny to change his wallpaper on his laptop to a scary clown picture or something of that nature. He will react in what the others think is a funny manner by screaming or running out of the building. Well, this month due to Halloween, they have been pranking him daily and have even taken up a collection to buy a clown costume to wear later this month. I want to tell him about it because I think it is juvenile and pathetic, but I worry about repercussions from my boss because she is in on it and a driving force behind it. What should I do? I need help in a hurry.

Assuming he seems to be genuinely terrified and not in on the fun, you should tell him because it’s profoundly crappy to set out to terrify someone. If your boss confronts you about it, you can say, "I assumed it was all a joke, since I didn't think you would really set out to intentionally terrify him while he's trying to work."

You could also tell your coworker that you'll support him if he wants to lay down the law with your coworkers about never doing this again or if he wants to speak to your boss or HR about it.

2. My estranged mother is likely to start calling my coworkers

I’ve been estranged from my family for a couple of years, at my choice, and have made it very clear to them that I don’t wish to have any contact. (Short version: I’m queer, they are actively hostile towards that.) All but one of them are respectful of this boundary. Yesterday, my mother called me at work and, not finding me in the office, left a voicemail. If she gets no response, her next step will probably be to call my boss and/or colleagues as a way to embarass or shame me into responding to her. I say this with confidence because she has done exactly that before, and although I told her never to do it again, I’m skeptical she has learned that lesson. Please assume I have done everything I can on the family end to stop this from happening, short of a restraining order, which is a step I’d rather not take.

How should I handle this at work? I obviously can’t predict with certainty whether my mother will call others in my workplace, but I think it’s likely. In order to call me yesterday, she would have had to look up my work phone number online; when this happened before and she didn’t hear back from me, she went through my department’s phone directory calling people until someone picked up. Last time, she told the person she was having trouble getting in touch with me, that it had been a long time since she had heard from me and was worried, and asked the person to help her get in touch or pass a message along on her behalf. All very innocuous sounding except it was VERY awkward for the person on the receiving end of her call and raised a bunch of questions about why I wasn't in touch with my family.

In this case, my immediate department is small, less than 10 people, but my organization has several hundred employees overall. Should I bring it up ahead of time with my immediate department (and HR?), let them know the situation in broad strokes like I’ve done here, and ask them to simply direct her to my email/voicemail in a matter-of-fact way? Or should I wait to say something until she’s actually called? I don’t want to unnecessarily bring family drama into the workplace, but I also don’t want people to be caught off-guard.

I think either of those options would be fine, so you should do whichever you're most comfortable with, but I'd lean toward just waiting to deal with it until she actually calls someone. If she does, at that point you can just say something to the person like, "Thank you, my mother tends to be very dramatic and that's not quite the situation. I'm sorry she called you and if happens again, feel free to just send her to my voicemail." If all she's saying is that she hasn't heard from you in a while and is worried, I don't think it should be terribly awkward for people — although I definitely get that you feel awkward about it. If you're matter-of-fact about it, though, people will mostly take their cues from you.

If she escalates beyond that — like starts saying something more alarming — then in that case I'd say to get out ahead of it, but as long as it stays at this level, you're fine just responding as it comes up. I'm sorry you're dealing with this.

3. Employer isn't sending me a formal, written job offer

I am starting a new job soon that I am excited about. It is a state agency and the benefits and salary are pretty great. The only thing is, I was told I was not getting an official offer letter. I accepted the position over the phone, and when I asked if I would get anything with my salary listed that was official, they told me no, but they emailed me the original job posting with the salary listed and also verbally confirmed with me what I would be receiving monthly.

Is this normal now? Do some companies not give you official offer letters and instead only offer you the position officially over the phone? I might think that would be normal with a smaller company, but this is a state agency.

Some places don't do formal written offers! You're right that it's surprising fo a state agency to be among them, though. And you're right to want some kind of written summary so that both sides are clear about what was agreed to. That's not because employers are out to screw you over, but because otherwise you're at higher risk of mistakes, misunderstandings, or unpleasant surprises once you start. (More about that here.)

Typically you can say something like, “Would it be possible to get all the details of the offer — salary, benefits, title, and (any other details you want to confirm) — in an email, so that I can look it over and be sure that I'm getting all the details correct?" In this case, they're doing this weird thing of emailing you the job description, which is not especially helpful, so I'd just write up the details of the offer yourself and email it to them for confirmation. You can send an email that says something like, "I just want to summarize the details we've discussed. The position is (title), at a salary of ($X), and (benefits details), with a start date of (date). Would you confirm this looks right to you?”

4. I used a phrase my manager uses and she got mad

My manager is often extremely informal during meetings, with one of her favorite phrases being “I don’t care.” This is extremely off-putting to me and to other colleagues, but we’ve just come to accept it as part of her personality. I’ve chosen to define this expression from her as meaning “This is not important, let’s just move on.”

During a recent meeting, she asked me a question and I replied, “I don’t care.” She grew extremely tense, asked me to take a time-out from the meeting, and later said that my body language and tone were “passive aggressive.” That wasn’t my intention at all — I was just trying to say what I had interpreted her own statements as meaning. She continues to use that phrase in meetings, while I obviously avoid now. Is it worth having a conversation about this?

Is there any chance that you sounded annoyed or frustrated when you said it, in a way that she doesn't when she uses that phrase? That's a phrase where tone and body language are going to really matter, and that might account for the difference in how she perceived it.

Or, of course, she could just be hypocritical and un-self-aware.

Is she generally a reasonable person and do you generally have a good relationship with her? If so, it could be worth saying something like, "I wanted to clarify what I meant in the meeting the other day. I've noticed you say 'I don't care' in meetings to mean 'let's not get hung up on this' and I'd hoped to convey the same thing. Clearly I didn't, but I wanted to explain why I was coming from. I'll be more careful in the future not to inadvertently come across as passive-aggressive. It definitely wasn't my intent."

Or, if she's a generally reasonable person and you're baffled about why she reacted the way she did, you could say, "Can I ask you about something? I've noticed you say 'I don't care' in meetings a lot — I think to signal that you want to move on. I'm trying to figure out why it came across so differently when I said it the other day."

But if you don't have a great relationship with her or she's not a generally reasonable person or you know her to be a hypocrite who wouldn't react well to this, it probably makes more sense to file away that knowledge about her and let this go.

5. Donating PTO for coworkers with serious illnesses

I have heard of individuals donating unused PTO to colleagues in need (usually due to illness) and it seems like such a kind practice. We, sadly, have an employee who might benefit from this type of support and I asked our HR rep if our company would allow this type of donation. Unfortunately, we do not.

I’m tempted to push further to ask if we could start this practice, but I understand that this likely not an easy thing to do. I’d love your thoughts on whether donating PTO is a common enough practice that a company should consider it — or — whether its better to assume that the practice has already been investigated by HR (and not pursued for specific reasons).

Do you work somewhere where people tend to accrue large amounts of PTO that roll over from year to year and often go unused? That's the kind of environment where PTO donation programs (for people with serious illness or other emergencies) work best. Where that's not the case, it can end up feeling like the company is inappropriately leaning on the wrong people to support their employees. (Plus, it's actually in a company's interests for people to take time off so they don't get burned out. If you're somewhere where people only earn a few weeks of PTO a year, I'd be hesitant to encourage them to give up that time, even for a good cause.) But if you've got generous time off and the donation program is administered fairly, then people can end up really liking it.

I wouldn't assume that your company has already considered the practice just because they don't have it. It's fine to go ahead and propose it! (And if they have considered it and rejected it for specific reasons, it's still fine to inquire, and they'll presumably let you know that.)

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