how much can my dog bark in the office, my manager rewrote my work, and more Ask a Manager

how much can my dog bark in the office, my manager rewrote my work, and more

Posted: 28 Apr 2019 09:03 PM PDT

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

1. How much can my dog bark at work before it's a problem?

I work at a very laid-back tech startup that not only allows, but encourages employees to bring their dogs in everyday. However, my own dog (Waffles) is very fearful and reactive towards most humans and dogs, so I didn’t bring him to work when I first adopted him. But now, after two years of working with Waffles to help him get over his anxieties, I think he’s ready to start coming to work with me. Currently I send him to doggy daycare 4-5 times a week, which he loves, but it’s very expensive and I would really like to get serious about saving money.

I’ve taken him to work a handful of times before I felt he was completely ready because of logistical reasons (like if someone needed to come fix something at my house before Waffles was ready for daycare), but it’s usually for half days and he would bark whenever anyone walked by my cubical or acknowledged me in any way. Now, however, I feel like he would be able to calm himself down enough and be happy with me at the office, but only after a week or so of coming in.

My concern is that the week of Waffles getting accommodated to this new routine will be torture on my coworkers. Especially for my boss who’s cubical is right next to mine, and has to talk to me daily. He’s been very understanding the times I’ve brought him in and I’ve talked to him about bringing Waffles to work more regularly and he hasn’t objected. I also have no doubt this would hurt my own productivity having to calm down a frightened dog whenever someone walks by. After the first week or so, if Waffles’ behavior doesn’t improve, I will definitely just accept that he’s not the kind of dog I can bring to work, but I really want to see if he’s capable. Do you think it would be alright to subject my coworkers to a week of a distracting dog for my own convenience?

If it's a few barks a day, I'd say yes, as long as you're clear with people about the situation (that you're hoping he'll acclimate after a week and if he doesn't, you'll stop bringing him in). But if the barking is going to be pretty frequent … I think a week of that is too much to inflict on people. I originally was going to say you could ask your nearby coworkers what they think, but there's a pretty high chance that some people will say yes while they're secretly thinking no, because people fear causing resentment. If it's truly likely to be torture on your coworkers, as you say, I just don't think you can do it. (However, if there's ever a week when hardly anyone will be in — like if your office is a ghost town the week between Christmas and New Year's — that might be an easier time to try it.)

2. My manager rewrote my work — did I do it badly?

My manager recently asked me to put together a document for a very specific and important purpose. Although it wasn't an overly long document (maybe 3-4 pages) I put a lot of time and effort into perfecting it.

After submitting it to my boss, he basically re-wrote 75% of it. Some of his additions are legitimate improvements but considering how much he changed the document I am wondering: was my work not at all satisfactory or does he just have a better grasp of how to complete this particular task? It's worth noting that I have very little experience in creating this kind of document and he has vast amounts of experience in this area.

I guess I was figuring that if he wanted to make significant changes he'd take me aside first and explain them to me so I could learn? Is that wishful thinking?

In some cases, yes. Managers won't always have the time to do that; it's possible that the document just needed to get finished and out the door in less time than it would have taken to go back and forth with you.

It's possible that he erred by not giving you enough information to produce what he was looking for originally and/or not checking to make sure that you understood what he wanted. Or it's possible that you weren’t going to be able to produce exactly what he wanted, given your limited experience doing this — or if he wasn't sure if you would, and figured he might as well find out. But it's also possible that he was satisfied with what you did and really just needed a draft to work from, and you gave him that. (It's often way easier/faster to fix a draft than to create one from scratch.)

Ideally he'd come back to you later and talk about why he made the changes he did, but not every manager is awesome at giving feedback. You can ask him about it though, by saying something like, "I saw you made a lot of changes to the X document, so I'm thinking I didn't hit the mark. I've compared your version to mine to try to learn from what you changed, but is there any feedback you can give me that would help me do better next time?"

3. What to say if a coworker asks about my self harm scars

You preciously had someone write in asking if they should say something about their colleague’s old self harm scars. Reading that gave me a panic attack — that is my worst fear. So with that in mind, I would like your help with a script for what to say if a similar minded person ever asks me about the scars on my arm.

I have had friends that have known me years, and never noticed them, but then one day they finally see them and then they looked absolutely shocked at how many there are.

I refuse to force myself to wear long sleeves for the rest of my career, and I am not ashamed of my past, as going through it and surviving made me the strong person I am today. However, I really do not want my mental health, past or present, to be a topic at work. I wish that people just knew not to ask about scars, especially ones that could be self harm scars (perhaps unless they are clearly not scars, but rather fresh cuts). So, what can I say if and when a colleague mentions them (that shuts down the conversation but doesn’t arouse more interest)?

How about: "Oh, those are old," followed by a change of subject. Say it in a slightly bored tone.

Reasonably polite people will get the hint that you don't want to discuss them, but if someone pushes, give them a slight perplexed look and repeat, "Like I said, they're old."

Alternately, you can go with the obviously ridiculous — "you should see the lawnmower," "zombie battles," etc.

4. My boss introduces me as her assistant but I'm not

Last year, I left a manager position at one organization for an assistant manager role where I would get more relevant career experience. I am fairly early on in my career, with a bachelors degree, a professional designation, and four years of relevant experience (I am 25). My boss is 29 and started out in an assistant manager position at the organization in her first job out of school, and moved up when others quit.

She frequently has me meet with clients, as she has a lot of responsibilities outside of work and I have a flexible schedule. But to clients, she always calls me “my assistant” and not her assistant manager. Clients always seem to be unimpressed when she has them meet with me instead of her, but she is never willing/able to accommodate their schedules. Then I have to prove to them that I actually know what I am talking about, and generally they are impressed. Occasionally, she will stop in a meeting with a client for two minutes on her way out the door just to say, “Sorry, I can’t stay, but my assistant will answer all of your questions. This will be a great learning opportunity for her,” as if I have never done a client meeting before.

It feels as though she is trying to undercut me, and ensure they know that I am below her, even though I do a lot of the client meetings and sales. It is really hard to feel as though I am starting a meeting a few steps back with a client because they think I am an “assistant” and that it will be a “great learning opportunity.”

Today, I asked if she could please refer to me as her assistant manager when talking to clients, so that they know that I am in a management role and know what I am talking about. I framed it as, "If clients are more confident in me from the start, then perhaps they will have a better overall experience with us, knowing that they are in good hands with either myself or you.” My boss did not take this well. A few different arguments came up, starting with, “but you are my assistant” and ending with, “well, assistant manager is too many words for me to say to clients.”

Any time anyone goes to upper management about her, she somehow plays the victim and the staff who complains about her gets written up. I don’t know how to further approach this situation. I really love my job, and I am really good at it. It doesn’t feel like I am asking for a lot.

What you're asking for is reasonable, and I suspect you're right that your boss is deeply invested in emphasizing that you're in a subordinate role to her. It's obnoxious, and it's not good for clients or for you.

But you asked her to change what she's doing and she not only refused but refused in the most asinine of ways ("too many words"?). So you're better off accepting that she's not going to change it, and instead changing your own actions — meaning that when you introduce yourself to clients, there's no reason you can't say, "Hi, I'm Jane Warbleworth, the assistant manager."

5. Finding out about parental leave before accepting a job offer

I’ve been invited to a second and final interview for a job I think would be a really good fit for me. If I am successful and receive an offer, how could I go about asking to see the company’s policies as part of the offer discussion? The reason I’d like to see them is that their offering for parental leave would be a factor in my decision and I would like to take it into consideration when discussing compensation. All my instincts say not to mention parental leave, but I’m not sure how else to get the pertinent information.

What you want to ask for is a full look at their benefits package. If they don't send you that information themselves as part of your offer materials, you can say, "Would you be able to send me info on the full package of benefits you offer? I'd like to consider that along with the rest of the offer." If the info they send you doesn't address parental leave, then you can say, "This was really helpful. I saw info on sick leave but not on, say, parental leave — is there something more comprehensive you can send that covers things like that as well?"

And yes, you might worry you're showing your cards there a bit, so it's not ideal, but at that point you don't have much choice but to ask explicitly for what you want to know.

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