“after I offered someone a job, her dad got on the phone with questions … and more” plus 3 more Ask a Manager

after I offered someone a job, her dad got on the phone with questions … and more
how to tell coworkers “you need to do that yourself”
update: I’m scared to tell my boss how behind on work I am
how do I stop speaking without thinking in professional situations?

after I offered someone a job, her dad got on the phone with questions … and more

Posted: 30 May 2019 09:03 PM PDT

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

1. I offered a job to a candidate — and her dad got on the phone with questions

My coworker recently encountered this situation, and I’d love to hear how you would have handled things. My coworker, Sally, recently hired a new grad, Jane. As Sally was making the verbal offer over the phone, she asked Jane if she had any questions. Jane replied, “No, but my father does.” Then, Jane’s father took the phone and started asking Sally questions about the offer! The questions ranged from logistics about onboarding, to asking if Jane could arrive late on her first day! Sally was so taken aback that she just answered the questions, but I’m curious how you would recommend handling a situation like this. Is there any way to respectfully give the parent feedback that they are not helping their child and negatively affecting their professional reputation (before they’ve even started)?

Oh my. It can be hard to react perfectly to an incredibly weird situation while you're in the middle of it, but ideally employers would flatly refuse these parental discussions. So ideally when Jane said her father had questions, Sally would have said, "We really only talk directly with our candidates and employees. I'd be glad to answer any question you have though, and if you'd like to take some time to talk over the offer with people close to you and then set up a call later this week to talk further, I'd be glad to do that." Or, when Jane's dad got on the phone, ideally Sally would have cut him off and said, "We don't discuss employment offers with anyone but the candidate. I'd be glad to speak further with Jane directly."

And once Jane started the job, it would be a kindness to let her know employers will expect to deal directly with her, and only talk with a parent in case of a serious emergency.

2. I spilled aftershave on myself before an interview

On the way to an interview today, I realized that I had spilled my partner’s aftershave on myself and noticeably smelled. Think grandpa’s aftershave smell as opposed to something lighter. I stopped in the restroom before the interview to wipe off as much as I could, but apparently wasn’t able to get much of the scent off.

Once I was in the interview, I realized I still smelled like grandpa (for what it’s worth, I am a feminine presenting woman). I sensed the interviewers smelled it, too, and I was distracted wondering if I should mention it or not. I was interviewing for a job that entails a lot of extended one-on-one meetings that require building relationships, and I can imagine the interviewers having concerns about hiring someone who smelled strongly. Because I was so distracted, I also rambled for a few questions. I left the interview drained and feeling unsure whether the moments when I connected with the interviewers would make up for the scent, or if I should mention in my follow up email that I usually try to go scent-free and acknowledge that I smelled in the interview? Perhaps related, I sensed the interviewers seeming alternatively engaged and tired-seeming, and I’m not sure how much of this could be a sensitivity to scent (the interviews lasted two hours total), or something else.

It's possible that they weren't weirded out by it and that your self-consciousness about it just made you feel that way. But I'm a big fan of just putting stuff like this out there, on the theory that (a) if they are weirded out, it’s better to give them some context and (b) it’ll give you peace of mind because you won't be as worried about what they might be thinking. So I'd just plunge right in with, "I spilled my partner's aftershave on myself as I was leaving the house! I've tried to get as much off as I can, but I apologize if there's still a fragrance." And honestly, this stuff can humanize you; we've all had those days.

3. My boss is hurt that I didn't talk with them before deciding to resign

What’s the proper protocol on timing for telling your boss that you’re leaving? I recently gave notice at an organization that I’ve been with for several years after receiving a job offer with another company. I was ready for a new challenge and wanted a change in industry to have more career opportunities in the future. I wasn’t unhappy and miserable in the role, I just felt like that chapter had come to a close and it was time to move on.

When I gave my notice, my boss was upset that I didn’t talk to them during my decision-making process and let them know earlier that I was thinking about leaving. In my mind, that would not have been the smartest move for me because showing your hand too early can backfire if you don’t find a new job relatively quickly. If my reasons for leaving had been something they had the power to change, I might have been more inclined to have a conversation, but that wasn’t the case here.

We have a friendly working relationship but I wouldn’t describe us as friends (we don’t hang out outside of work but we do text occasionally and get lunch together about once a month). I think they’re more inclined to conflate “coworker” with “friend” than I am so that could be playing a part in their reaction.

I feel comfortable that I handled the situation professionally but have been wondering if you have any thoughts on how to handle talking with your boss about leaving before officially giving notice. It’s never fun to blindside someone when you leave but I think it just comes with the territory at work. Or am I completely off-base?

Nope, you're perfectly right. It's very, very normal not to give your boss a heads-up that you're thinking about leaving until you're ready to give notice. Otherwise you risk being pushed out earlier than you want to leave, or being taken off projects that you want to stay on, and so forth.

Managers do sometimes get upset when they realize someone has been planning to leave and didn't talk to them about it, but that's not a reasonable reaction. Sometimes they're upset purely for selfish reasons — they would have preferred time to plan around your departure. But the inconvenience of people leaving with only a couple of weeks of notice is just a normal part of doing business. Other times they're upset because they think they might have been able to solve whatever drove you to look elsewhere, if only you'd talked with them before making any decisions. And maybe they would have been! But you're not obligated to give them that chance; you get to just decide you want to move on.

4. Can I re-use the exact same cover letter for multiple jobs?

I’ve only written a handful of cover letters in my life so far. For each one, I’ve started basically from scratch but re-used a few sentences or phrases. Basically just sort of a remix of the material and new stuff tailored to job. But is it okay to use the same cover letter for multiple job applications if they are similar positions? Like, the exact same one, just substituting the company name? I know some people apply to dozens of positions in a job search, so I figure they can’t be writing a different letter each time.

If they're truly the same roles at very similar organizations, then maybe you could use identical cover letters without weakening the effectiveness of the letter — but typically you're going to want to tailor them to talk about your fit with this specific role and (sometimes) this specific organization. It's definitely tempting to re-use the same exact letter with no changes, but much of the time you'll be sacrificing the customized details that will make a hiring manager want to talk with you.

I read a lot of cover letters, and with 95% of them, it's clear that it's the same letter the candidates are sending everywhere. The 5% that are clearly customized are the ones that stand out.

5. How can I explain my driver’s license suspensions for an internship?

I’m currently applying for internships for the summer and fall semesters, but I’ve run into a bit of a problem for the latest application. This position requires a valid driver’s license and a good driving record. They clearly state that someone with multiple suspensions can not drive park vehicles. My license was suspended, twice, about 5-6 years ago because my parents removed me from their insurance the first time, put me back on after my license was suspended, and then several months later removed me again. After I found out I was suspended again, I procured my own insurance.

Should I email the supervisors for this position about that issue, or should I just mention it in my cover letter?

Neither. It's not the kind of thing that belongs in a cover letter (that's for explaining why you'd be awesome at the position), and contacting the hiring manager before they've expressed interest in considering you would be premature.

Instead, if they contact you to interview, raise the question at that point, with a concise explanation like you gave here. You're in the rare position of having a pretty good explanation that might make them waive this requirement for you. They may not — their insurance might be pretty rigid on this, for example — but it's definitely reasonable to ask at that early stage.

I have been employed with my agency for five years. Six months ago, I transitioned out of, let's say, llama grooming support into a junior llama groomer role. However, no one was hired to take over grooming support in my place, and my supervisor Lily (who was my supervisor for both roles) said that some of my duties would remain with me and others would be transferred to other people, primarily a great support person named Robin. Lily has communicated with the relevant people about tasks that have been transferred.

The issue I am running into is that people are asking me to do things that have either been transferred to Robin, or that they could really do themselves. For the former, a cheerful “That’s actually one of Robin’s duties now!” sometimes works, but other times people will really push back with things like “Oh, I thought since this related to alpaca grooming support and not llama grooming support, you could still do it.” My supervisor always backs me up on these, but is there a way to convey my point a bit more broadly?

For the people who are asking me things they could just as easily find out themselves, I get flustered. They are asking me things like the location of a hotel in Llamaville when there is only one hotel by that name in that town. My supervisor said “Tell them to Google it,” but that sounds a bit rough to me. She made the excellent point that doing things like that just reinforces that these are appropriate requests when they’re not, and I get it, but I’m not the best at drawing boundaries without going overboard. Any advice?

Your manager is right that when you give in and help people with tasks that are no longer your job, you're undermining your attempts to get these requests to stop — by directly showing them that in fact these are still tasks you do. If you want them to understand this is no longer your role, you have to actually show them that with your actions.

But it sounds like you haven’t done that yet because you’re having trouble finding language that won't feel rude to you. It should really help if you decide on some phrases that you're willing to say and have them prepared and ready to go — so that in the moment you won't get flustered and just give in. So let's find you some phrases.

When you try to send people to Robin and they come back with "I thought you could do it since it's X, not Y," you can say, "Nope, that's Robin! She'll be able to help you." Say this cheerfully and briskly, as if of course they'll take it to Robin and that will be the end of that. If anyone still pushes, you can look slightly confused and say, "I really can't — Lily wants me focused on Z but Robin can help you." (If this happens a lot though, it's worth figuring out if people are going to you instead of Robin because Robin isn't doing a great job with those tasks. If that's the case, the solution still isn't for you to take it over — but you'd want to flag it for your manager so she can figure out if Robin needs more training or otherwise deal with the situation.)

When people ask you to do things that they should be doing themselves, there are a few ways to handle that:

* You can be busy with something else: "I'm on deadline right now so can't help, sorry!" I don't love this option, though, because it implies that you would do it if you weren't busy, when what you really want to convey is that this isn't your job.

* You can clearly explain the situation: "Now that I'm focusing on X, I'm not doing travel support anymore. Sorry I can't help!"

* You can borrow authority from your manager: "Lily doesn't want me helping with that kind of thing anymore, now that I'm focused on X." Or, "Lily asked me to have people handle that kind of request themselves, because she wants me staying focused on X." In theory you don't need to cite Lily here — it's enough to just explain that's not part of your role anymore — but sometimes this can be a way of softening the message a bit, especially if you're dealing with someone who you think will otherwise push back.

Speaking of your manager, it sounds like she really has your back here, which is great and makes this much easier. Sometimes in this kind of situation, you’ll get a manager who gives lip service to the idea that you don’t need to do your old tasks, but who won’t actually support you when you push back with people. Lily sounds like she’s going to solidly back you up here.

I am sorry I didn’t take your advice. I was too chicken to bring it up to my boss, because I really feared that I wouldn’t get additional support; just more blame. A few weeks after my letter was answered, my boss asked who was behind in their work in a staff meeting. Most hands went up. Then she asked how far behind and nobody would answer while I tried to remember, so she asked who was behind at one, three, and six month intervals, and if anyone was more than six months behind. I kept my hand up, and I believe I was the only one. She sighed and dismissed us.

A bit later, she asked us to record exactly where we were in a spreadsheet and I was the one who was the most behind, by many months. Then in a staff meeting, she asked us about each individual client, and whether there were issues. I couldn’t remember any issues except on one client, because I had been working on their file the most, and when asked why I was so far behind, I reiterated (a bit emotionally I’m afraid), the same reasons I’d been giving her when asked before why we were groaning about being behind: more work, more project assignments due immediately, and no overtime. She was visibly frustrated and I thought she was going to yell at me. She went through each office with a huff and then moved on to another coworker. At the end, she reiterated what we’ve heard before too – get it done, no overtime. (Now there’s push to revoke our privilege to work remotely too, which feels like a further constriction on our ability to “get it done.”) After that meeting, she ignored me for the afternoon (and I got some work done!).

At the next meeting, she announced that a coworker had given her notice and was leaving at the end of this month and then announced that I was going to train a new remote employee. I was so surprised I didn’t push back. In order to improve the processes, my boss is taking on half of the departing employee’s load and I must say, it is satisfying to see her get as frustrated as we do with the problems she’s encountering. Along with the process improvement, we’ve been tasked with quantifying the tasks, and qualifying the clients, so that those that are more time consuming get distributed better.

But today, the hammer came down. There are new protocols to standardize our work and we were informed specifically that failure to adhere to these standardized protocols will lead to termination of employment. Hard deadlines were established for work that previously didn’t have any deadlines (the stuff on which I am behind). She said to prioritize the most recent months over the oldest months and to stay current, pushing the old stuff to when you can get to it. She reiterated that our jobs are on the line, and that there was no overtime authorized. Our superstar overachiever spoke up that if we’re unable to get overtime, she won’t be able to make the deadlines, and when our boss asked why, she looked incredulously at her and said because the workload is too much. She gave an example and our boss responded, “You’ll just have to figure it out.” I spoke up that in calculating the time it was taking to complete tasks averaged to a month’s workload was more hours than the available working hours in a month without overtime. My boss said just to email her that spreadsheet and then reminded everyone else that she needs the spreadsheet completed and sent to her. More “get it done” statements. No acknowledgement that our workloads are too much to complete in a month, especially now with new hard deadlines, announced on the 22nd day of the month. One colleague blurted out that she’s so burnt out before she turned her face away and dabbed her eyes. I was looking down at my lap, so I didn’t see anyone else’s reaction, but I imagine they were all feeling as demoralized as me.

A colleague offered to do a lot of the data entry for anyone behind in their work and I jumped on that offer. She got started this afternoon.

Training the new employee is time consuming – about three hours of each day. I turned down training the next new remote employee, which starts next week, citing my workload, but offered to help as able, and I think the CFO was disappointed that I said no. This terrible timing to be remembered for saying no, because our mid-year reviews are coming in June or July. I’m going to polish up my resume and keep an eye out, because losing my job now would be devastating.

At home, my husband is near the end of his chemotherapy treatments! His oncologist said he may be able to do one more, but if he develops problems before the next round, then no more chemotherapy. He is job hunting, and I am worrying about our diminishing savings lasting until his first paycheck. I am hoping he finds a good fit soon.

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