“my boss keeps suggesting I move, does “let me check” make me look incompetent, and more” plus 3 more Ask a Manager

my boss keeps suggesting I move, does “let me check” make me look incompetent, and more
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my boss keeps suggesting I move, does “let me check” make me look incompetent, and more

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 09:03 PM PST

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

1. My new job said I wouldn't have to move — but my boss keeps bringing it up

I recently started a new job (less than a month ago) and my manager has already asked me three times if I'd be willing to relocate. The job posting I applied for was based in city A but I asked during the interview process if I would be able to remain in my current location (city B, about a three-hour train ride from city A). The hiring manager said it was completely fine to remain in city B. The company also has a small satellite office here. All throughout the interview process and negotiations, it was made clear that I would be based in city B if I got the job and that I was willing to travel to city A as much as necessary. The offer confirmed in writing that my location would be in city B.

In my first meeting with my new manager (before my official start date), he asked if I was still "set on city B." Shocked, but wanting to be a team player and seem flexible, I said that I would think about it. The more I think about it, the more I feel I'm not ready to relocate, but might be willing to do so in a year. I'd like to see how I perform in the new job before moving my life. Since then, and now that I've started at the job, he has hinted towards the relocation topic two more times, saying "no pressure at all, but you should start considering moving here.”

I should also mention that my team is equally split in various locations across the country and there is even another person on my team that is completely remote (working from home, not even in a satellite office).

Do you have advice about how I can approach the topic with my manager, explaining that I'm not ready to move but I still want to seem flexible and willing to make it work in my current location?

The problem might be that you're trying to seem flexible when you actually want to stick to the agreement you negotiated. You might be undermining your position by trying to seem open to moving, when you'd rather not be. If we could go back in time, I'd tell you not to tell your boss in that first meeting that you'd "think about" moving. You don't want to move! You negotiated not moving! Everyone agreed to you not moving! You don't need to pretend that's not the case, and you're likely muddying the waters when you do.

Go back to your boss and say this: "You've raised the question of me moving a few times since I started. I was careful to make sure before accepting the job that it would be fine for me to stay in (city), and I do want to stay here. We'd talked about this a lot before I took the job, and I want to make sure that continues to be fine with you." The point of this language is to say "we agreed to this, remember?" and "I made a real point of ensuring it was okay, remember?" But it's also to find out if he's going to be okay with that going forward, because if he's not, you need to get that out in the open so you can figure out what to do about it.

But stop trying to seem open to something you don't want to be open to. By doing that, you're misleading him about where you stand, and potentially making things harder on yourself.

2. Does "let me check" make me look incompetent?

I am a new grad and recently got a job interning in a teapot development company. I work closely with my boss since we’re a two-person team, and I do a pretty good job (my boss has given me positive feedback), but there is one thing that I sometimes stumble upon. When my boss asks a question that I’m like 70% sure of, which is often, is it better to say “I think it’s ____, but let me check,” or say whatever I think the answer is confidently and then maybe check later and revise if I’m wrong? I usually go the “Let me check” route, but I feel like it might be making me look incompetent. Am I overthinking this?

You should absolutely always go with "let me check" if you're unsure. If you give an answer confidently when you're really unsure, your boss (or whoever you're talking to) may then act on wrong information before you have a chance to come back with a correction. So always flag it if you're unsure! And doing that doesn't make you look incompetent at all — it actually makes you look more reliable, since your boss knows you're not just winging it and that you care about making sure you're accurate. (I used to work with someone who would frame answers as certainties when he was really just guessing, and I cannot tell you how irritating it was, and how much it made him impossible to rely on — even when he was sure, since I had no way of telling those times apart from the others.)

One caveat though: If you say "let me check," make sure that you always circle back afterwards, either to correct the info or to confirm that it was right, so that your boss doesn't think it fell through the cracks. (And doing that will further reinforce that you're on top of this stuff and can be relied upon.)

3. Dealing with contractions in a meeting

I am currently seven months pregnant, and I have recently started having Braxton Hicks contractions. These are so-called “practice” contractions. They are generally fairly mild, they start and end randomly, and they are not an indication of you going into labor any time soon. However, they can be quite uncomfortable, and the one way to get them to stop is to change what you were doing when they started. For example, if you were sitting down, get up and take a short walk. If you were walking, then sit or lay down and try to rest for a few minutes.

The problem I’ve recently started running into is Braxton Hicks starting in the middle of a long meeting, like a two-hour department meeting or all-day software training seminar. I’ve had similar issues in the past with needing to get up and stand in the middle of the meeting to alleviate back pain or restless legs. I would typically approach the meeting organizer before the start of the meeting and let them know that I might need to stretch my legs to alleviate minor discomfort during the meeting so that they would know what was going on. And then I would try to sit in a corner and get up discreetly as needed and lean against the wall.

Unfortunately, Braxton Hicks can be quite a bit more painful than sore back or restless legs, so just casually leaning against the wall becomes hard. I catch myself wincing and rubbing my stomach. Then inevitably someone will ask if I am okay, and the entire room is staring at me like I’m about to give birth right there on the conference room table.

Is there a graceful way of letting people know not to worry about me when I’m in obvious physical discomfort? Or do I need to leave the room and wait until the contractions pass before going back? That can take quite a bit of time, which is problematic when you are trying to follow a highly technical presentation. What makes it worse is that these meetings are frequently run by consultants who don’t know me and have no idea how far along I am. So, it’s not like I can explain it to people once that I am not actually going into labor yet and they will know not to worry next time – it’s always different people. I totally appreciate everyone’s concern, but it’s truly mortifying to have all this attention on me. Any suggestions for how to handle this?

You're probably better off briefly explaining the situation to the person leading the meeting before the meeting starts, annoying as that might feel. Otherwise it's understandable that they're going to be distracted and worried (because, rightly or wrongly, that's human nature when a visibly pregnant woman looks like she's in distress).

As for meeting attendees though … if it's a small meeting, it might be worth saying something to the whole group at the start too (like "you might see X and Y, but it's not cause for any alarm, just me keeping comfortable"). Alternately, if you'd rather not to do that — or with larger meetings — you can say something in the moment when you see people looking alarmed, like "I'm totally fine, just need to move to stay comfortable right now. The most helpful thing you can do is ignore it!"

4. Asking my interviewer why they're leaving the job I'm applying for

So, I know that a good question to ask at the end of an interview is why the person who previously held the position left. But is it appropriate to do that if the person you're interviewing with is the person who is leaving? I can't help but think it feels maybe a little too personal to do that or just, I don't know, weird, etiquette-wise.

No, you can totally do that! I'd phrase it this way: "Can I ask what made you decide to move on from the role?"

If they're interviewing people, they're aware that they might get asked about that, and they're not going to think it's out of line. (And if it's an awkward or private reason that they'd rather not get into, they can say something vague like "had another opportunity I couldn't turn down" or "some family issues I need to focus on" or so forth.)

All that said, though, I'm not convinced the question belongs on any list of the most important questions to ask your interviewer. Sometimes it reveals something useful, but most of the time it's going to get you pretty bland and unsurprising answers, and so I'm surprised to see how frequently it’s recommended as a question to ask. I think you'll get better info from asking about what turnover has been like in the job in the last few years or what type of work people generally move onto afterwards (if that's what you're getting at).

5. Talking about health-related performance issues in an interview

I recently encountered something that happened between a peer, Sansa, and our shared former manager, Fergus, and I wanted to get your take on how it could’ve been handled differently.

Sansa has chronic health issues that affect her attendance and overall performance at work, though she is an effective employee when she’s healthy. She received several mediocre-to-bad performance reviews from Fergus over the course of several years, before he left to work at another location.

It’s well-known that Sansa’s long and stressful commute exacerbates her health problems. When a position opened up in Fergus’s new location, she excitedly applied as it would cut hours of daily driving from her life. Fergus invited her for an interview, and later followed up to point-blank ask if her health had improved at all since the last time they had worked together.

That question, phrased the way it was, sets off ADA alarm bells in my head. At the same time, it’s fair of Fergus to ask that question as Sansa’s health has impacted her past performance in very obvious ways. Is there a more tactful (and legal!) way to ask a job candidate if their personal problems have been resolved and are no longer affecting work performance?

The Americans with Disabilities Act doesn't allow employers to inquire into specific health conditions, but it allows you to explain the essential requirements of the role and ask candidates if they will be able to meet those requirements, with or without accommodation. So the ADA-compliant advice would be to frame it as, "This position requires reliable attendance, meaning (specific info about hours, etc. here). Can you meet those requirements?"

But even though the ADA says employers can't refuse to hire someone based on speculation about how a health condition might play out in the future, the reality is that past experience with someone understandably carries a significant amount of weight, even if only unconsciously. And so it might be in Sansa's own interests to talk about this more explicitly, if she's willing to volunteer information that might assuage Fergus's concerns.

1. Although I’m white with a British background on both sides, my last name is one that one would assume is Korean or Indigenous. The first thing the interviewer (who I would report directly to) said to me after we shook hands was, "When I got your name from (mutual acquaintance), I was excepting you to be Asian! Do you get that a lot? It’s probably not very PC of me to say that.” I told her I did but also said in a polite way that no one has outright said it.

2. After she pointed out that I’m fresh out of school with no experience, she asked me to describe a day in the role. I stammered out with a smile that she stole my question, to which she laughed but then told me to answer. I was barely able to get an answer out as they don’t actually teach us what our daily roles look like in my program, just theory.

3. She asked me what I honestly thought of our mutual acquaintance, and that she knows the acquaintance well and so she’ll know if I’m telling the truth or not

4. She told me she does not do training, that’s my responsibility to learn the job on my own … and that she’ll have me on for 1-2 months and if I fit in she’ll hire me on permanently.

5. She ended the interview by telling me to come in two business days later to do some work, but she didn’t offer me a job or speak about pay, or ask me if I was even available (I’m not, I have a job I’d need to quit, but I had decided at this point I wasn’t going to take any offer from this company).

6. She didn’t give me any opportunities to ask questions.

I tactfully told her that I had another interview to go to, do have a job currently, and need to discuss this with my partner, and that I’d have to get back to her later in the day about her proposal. I emailed her that night, thanking her for meeting me and expressing that it wasn’t the right fit for me.

Is this a bizarre interview from a professional, or is this the kind of thing that I might run into semi-often? I have no comparisons to make having only had the one interview.

Nope, it's bizarre.

It's not uncommon to run into weird and unprofessional interviewers, but they're often weird and unprofessional in their own unique and surprising ways. You know that Tolstoy quote from Anna Karenina — “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"? Sometimes I think that’s job interviews too.

As a general rule, you should not expect to encounter weird racial comments, requests that you describe a day in a job you don't know much about (that's a particularly bizarre interview question — at any level, but especially to ask someone right out of school), demands that you share your private assessment of mutual acquaintances, statements that your interviewer "will know if you're telling the truth or not," and blithe announcements that you won't be trained so good luck.

Interviewers who don't give you a chance to ask your own questions are less rare — but that's always a danger sign. The same goes for interviewers who seem to be offering you work without discussing pay and interviewers who won’t commit to you for more than a month or two, despite the job being a long-term one. (The latter is normal when something is explicitly advertised as a temp job, and certainly probationary periods — where you can be let go without the company following its normal progressive discipline process — are common. But when someone advertises a job as a long-term one, then expects you to quit your current job for "we'll decide in a couple of months if you fit in,” that’s a red flag.)

Kudos to you on handling this perfectly right out of school. When you’re interviewing without much work experience, it’s easy to assume that the interviewer knows what they’re doing, and so people often miss serious danger signs and end up in highly dysfunctional jobs (where they again often assume “this must be normal” and so tolerate toxicity that they shouldn’t be tolerating). But you called this exactly right.

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