“my boss wants me to drive her daughter to appointments, rejected candidate tried to get me fired, and more” plus 3 more Ask a Manager
“my boss wants me to drive her daughter to appointments, rejected candidate tried to get me fired, and more” plus 3 more Ask a Manager |
- my boss wants me to drive her daughter to appointments, rejected candidate tried to get me fired, and more
- I’ve been offered the job — but they won’t tell me the salary until we can meet face-to-face
- updates: the men who wouldn’t be alone with women, the very good dog, and more
- I’m polyamorous — should I be out at work?
| Posted: 23 May 2019 09:03 PM PDT It's five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My boss wants me to drive her daughter to appointments I am currently working for my mom and one of her good friends (who owns the company). My mom serves as office manager and I am her assistant, the general assistant, and do anything else that needs to be done. In the past few years I have happily taken care of the boss' dog when she goes on vacation. This year my mother suggested I take the boss' daughter to some doctors appointments, which interfered with my daughter's pick-up from school schedule (grandma took care of it). Now my boss has asked me to take her daughter to a surgery appointment at 8:45 am while the boss is in Hawaii. The doc is located 1.5 hours away and the boss forgot to mention the two pre-appointments that her daughter has at the same location the day before. In addition, she informed me that during the summer break she is bringing her 14-year-old grandson in three days a week during the summer holiday to be my "intern" so he can learn how to do administrative tasks. I really feel like I am being taken advantage of but don't know how to tell her. Do you have any ideas? It sounds like the boundaries have already gotten pretty messed up (starting with working for your mom!). But you can try to straighten them up now. I'd say this to your non-mom boss: "I was happy to help out with a few personal favors in the past when you needed it, but I'm concerned that I'm being asked to do more and more personal tasks on top of my regular job. It's important to me to stick to the admin work that I was hired to do, and not continue to be pulled into personal tasks like X and Y." (You need to be prepared, though, to hear that this is part of the job, in which case you’d have to decide if you want the job under these terms.) I don't know when the daughter's appointments are, but if there's not enough time for her to find someone else at this point and you've already agreed, you could say, "I can take Jane to those three appointments this time because I didn't speak up earlier, but going forward I want to make sure you know I'm not available for that kind of thing." If you haven't already agreed, it would be okay to say, "I'm not going to be able to take Jane to those appointments." If she pushes, you can say, "Part of it is the early hour and the distance, but also it's important to me to stick to the office work that I came on board to do." And let your mom know she needs to stop volunteering you for this kind of thing too! The intern is trickier since in theory she has a right to hire whoever she wants to intern and to assign him where she wants, but you could try saying that you don't need an intern, or that you'd be willing to spend a small amount of time showing him around but don't have time to train or supervise him, and could suggest she see if anyone else needs help. But I worry that this is a lot of pushback to do all at once when there hasn't been any previously, so for now you might just tackle on the driving stuff first, and then building better boundaries as you move forward from there. 2. My friend thinks accepting a counter-offer "builds character" My friend Liza was frustrated with the lack of growth in her position despite having spoken to her manager about it a few times. Her manager’s answer was always that there was nothing she could do. As far as Liza knows, her manager never escalated the matter to the higher-ups. She interviewed for a better position and better pay elsewhere and got an offer. But instead of accepting it right away, she told her manager, who in turn spoke to the higher-ups, who have now verbally promised that Liza will be given the role she asked for, plus more money. This was only two days after she went to her manager. To my horror, Liza is seriously contemplating accepting the counter-offer. Her rationale is that it’s made her realize that she can “orchestrate the change she wants in her life.” I reminded her that they never considered giving her the role and higher salary until she got a better offer, but she says she can let that go. She says she’s impressed by how fast they’ve come back with the counter-offer, and that this is all character building. If she’s still unhappy, she says, she’ll just look to leave again in one year. As a friend I want to support her in whatever she chooses to do, but I must say I vehemently disagree. I think she’s a sell-out if she were to accept the counter-offer and she’s going to burn a bridge with the other company. I know that you’re not a proponent of accepting counter-offers, so I’d love to hear your take on this. Character building? I can’t see how. It's not that taking a counter-offer never works out — sometimes it does. But a huge portion of the time, it doesn't. Sometimes the counter-offer never even fully materializes; in situations like Liza's, sometimes after the person turns down the outside offer, the timeline for moving them into their promised new roles drags and drags and doesn't ever come to fruition. Sometimes it does, but then the next time the person wants a raise they're turned down because "we just gave you that big raise last year when you were thinking of leaving." Sometimes the person finds that they've used up all their capital and have a lot of trouble getting anything else. And if Liza would still be working for the same manager who never bothered going to bat for her until she was about to leave, she has no reason to think that will change (and every reason to think it won't). As for being impressed at how quickly they came back with a counter, she should instead realize how crappy it was that they apparently could have moved that quickly all along but just didn't bother to. It's not a compliment, it's an insult. I don't agree with you that she'd be a sell-out (she's only selling out herself, if anyone), but I do agree she's looking at this through a really odd lens that isn’t going to serve her interests. 3. A rejected candidate tried to get me fired What do you do when someone goes after you personally for rejecting them? A candidate I turned down in an interview responded by emailing the CEO of my company a screenshot of a years-old social media post (before I worked there) critical of a political figure and said I deserved to lose my job over it. The company is standing behind me, but to me this crossed a line. Should there be any additional response to this? Wow, that's a bitter person. (And one who doesn't realize they just blacklisted themselves from future consideration with your company or anyone who hears about this.) But no, neither you nor your company should engage. It's too likely to lead to further contact and/or inflame things further. Sometimes rejected candidates are a-holes. The best thing to do is ignore and move on. 4. How do I shut down discussion about my name change? I’m planning to change my last name sometime in the next year. The reason for the name change is somewhat dark and I’m only ever going to tell my closest friends about it. On the few occasions that the name change topic has slipped out in social gatherings—all outside of work—the people who found out were very interested in both the why and speculating at what name I should use. The new name I’m picking isn’t the same as my partner’s or any of my other family members, so the usual explanations for a name change aren’t available to me. I’m also man who as been married many years, so I think people will be especially curious about the background behind the change. What’s the best way for me to shut that line of discussion down without seeming rude or making people feel embarrassed? Also, how do people communicate a more normal name change in a large company where they might have contact with people in many departments? Being vague is the way to go here. "Oh, it's a long story" (said in a tone that conveys "and one that you'll find very boring") or "It's for family reasons." Polite people will get that the subtext is that you're not up for discussing it. But with people who still ask questions, you can say, "It's complicated so I'm just cutting to the upshot with people — which is that I'm going by George Warbleworth from now on." And if someone still doesn't get the hint: "Some complicated family stuff. I'd rather not get into it more than that." Or, "I'd rather not get too into the details — I'm sure you understand." As for communicating the name change: An easy way to do it is to just send an email announcing it to the people you work with most frequently For everyone else, it can help for your email signature to read "George Warbleworth (formerly Warbucks)" for a couple of months. (Also, if you're changing your email address to include the new last name, you'd set up the old one to forward to the new one, etc.) 5. Can I back out of a project without burning a bridge? I recently started a new position and so far, I am very happy. In my former role, I was paid as an independent contractor but in practice I was an employee. The organization set my hours, location, duties, etc. In the last year of working for them, I began work on a product design project, but I had other duties as well. My manager there kept pushing back this project's deadline so that I could focus on other priorities. When I left, my boss was congratulatory but he did express that he wanted the project completed sometime this year and that in order for that to happen he could keep me on as a contractor and pay me for any time I could give moving forward. I would say the work was about 70% done, and the steps to be completed were well defined. I agreed to completing the project with a tentative timeline. Now that I am in the swing of things at the new job, I do have some free time in my evenings and weekends, but I’ve realized that dedicating the time I need to finishing the project and fulfilling my new job’s duties (it is relatively demanding) is going to burn me out pretty quickly. In addition, my former boss is the type to always find something that could be improved. Which is great in theory, but in reality, this means that when I send off an item, I know there are going to be a few revisions needed before I can consider it finished. In all honesty, I do not feel that I can complete the work in the timeframe specified, and even if I do, I am not able to produce the best quality of work (both for my old boss and new one). One option would be to extend the timeline out, but to be honest, the idea of this work looming over me even longer does not appeal to me. I am accepting that I have to say something. The organization does not currently have anyone with the technical knowledge needed to complete the remaining tasks. I am writing to you to ask if you think backing out of this project is going burn a bridge? Is there a way to do this with minimal damage to the relationship? I feel horrible that I committed to something that I don’t think I now have the capacity to do. On the other hand, I want to ensure I am doing the best possible work at my current job. When you left that job, you could have turned down the freelance work, and they would have had to find someone else to finish the project. That's not you damaging the relationship; that's you doing the very normal thing people do when they leave a job — they stop doing work there. This isn't that different. Yes, you said you'd do it, but then you realized your schedule doesn't allow for it. That's not burning a bridge, or damaging the relationship, or anything that you should feel in any way bad about. (Of course, if they're unreasonable, then they could be upset about it — but that would be on them, not on you. Any reasonable employer wouldn't hold this against you.) The key is to let your former boss know as soon as possible so he has maximum notice. And you can frame it as, "I'm finding that my new position is very demanding and I don't have the time to work on this that I’d thought I would. I'm sorry about that! I wanted to let you know right away so you can make other arrangements for it." Be prepared for the possibility that they might push you to do it anyway, or will offer to extend the timeline. Don't be talked into doing it! If that happens, you can say, "Unfortunately, I can't. My schedule just won't permit it. But if there's someone you want me to update on where things stand and answer any initial questions, I can of course do that." (And if you feel yourself wavering, remind yourself that you owe it to your new employer to give them your focus and not get stretched too thin.) my boss wants me to drive her daughter to appointments, rejected candidate tried to get me fired, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager. |
| I’ve been offered the job — but they won’t tell me the salary until we can meet face-to-face Posted: 23 May 2019 10:59 AM PDT A reader writes: Last week I received a job offer from a company I interviewed with. The hiring manager called me to verbally offer me the position, then followed it up with an email offer that her boss and HR were copied on. The email let me know that the company’s HR rep would contact me immediately with an offer letter. I’m excited about the work I would be doing, but am a little concerned because at no point in the hiring process (including on the job posting) did the company reveal the salary range or ask about my desired salary. The HR rep did contact me and emailed a bunch of standard pre-employment paperwork for me to fill out, but no offer letter, so I replied asking what salary was being offered. She never replied to my email, so a week later I emailed again to follow up on my request, this time asking if she could at least reveal the salary range for the position, even if she couldn’t give a firm answer. Her response was that she “will need to meet with me in person so she can show me the whole package.” This request is doubly odd because the company is fully aware of the fact that I currently live across the country — I had to fly out for the interview and am moving to their state over the summer. When I reminded her of this and asked if we could get the offer firmed up remotely, she insisted on making an appointment to do a video call with me to “go over the package.” Am I wrong that this seems like a red flag? I can understand that they extended an offer before discussing salary (even though I don’t think that’s a very good idea), but why are they being so secretive about what they are offering AFTER they have already offered me the job? I should add that the level this position is at is not at all close to the level where there is a “package” of compensation offered — I would be shocked if anything other than the standard salary/insurance/PTO is even on their radar. Yeah, it's a huge red flag. It's extremely abnormal not to tell you the salary as part of making you an offer — because there is no offer without a specific salary attached to it — and generally people who play games like this and say they want to present it in person are doing that because the offer is terrible and they want to try to sell you on it. And assuming they're offering benefits like insurance and paid time off (which does count as a "package"), there's a decent chance those are bad too, but they're going to try to sell them to you as "generous" and "highly competitive." At this point you should do the video call and find out exactly what the offer is … but when you couldn't get any info out of the HR rep earlier, it would have been totally okay to contact the hiring manager and say, "I haven't heard from Jane with the offer letter yet, or the proposed salary. Any chance you can tell me what salary you're offering so that we can keep moving forward?" While we're talking about things you could have done, do not do this again: "A week later I emailed again to follow up on my request, this time asking if she could at least reveal the salary range for the position, even if she couldn’t give a firm answer." You do not want to imply that you will consider an offer without knowing the actual salary being offered. A range is not okay — not if they intend this as a real offer. You were trying to be accommodating, but you do not want to be accommodating on something like knowing what you would actually be getting paid. (That’s not to chastise you! These situations are weird and anxiety-filled. I just want to make sure you don’t bend too much in future discussions with employers.) I’ve been offered the job — but they won’t tell me the salary until we can meet face-to-face was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager. |
| updates: the men who wouldn’t be alone with women, the very good dog, and more Posted: 23 May 2019 09:29 AM PDT Here are three updates from people who had their letters answered here in the past. 1. Some men in my office refuse to be alone with women I know everyone loves updates, and I have a somewhat positive one. So the coworker I mentioned in the letter, who had raised the performance review issue up the official channels, had a meeting with HR. They told her that effective immediately, any supervisor who feels they can’t do one-on-ones with a woman will have to have that policy for ANY of their reports. They’re also going to let all employees know that if any of them are uncomfortable with a supervisor that has that policy, they can request a new supervisor (and knowing the company culture in general, I don’t think there’d be any penalty for bringing this up). They’re doing supervisor training soon that will be including the new policy, and I know they’ve already met with at least some of the culprit supervisors to inform them of this change. I don’t know if there will be any future fallout, but I feel like my company did the right (and smart) thing in making it equal. I feel a lot less conflicted now about coming to work! 2. How do I break bad news about my dog? (#3 at the link) My good boy passed away in September of last year. With the advice you and the comment section gave me, I handled it in a few ways. After he recovered from his surgery, I sent a note to my team mentioning that he didn’t have very long, and that I had created a mailing list to advertise the adventures we would be going on every weekend to make his life as full as possible. Through this mailing list my coworkers were able to spend extra time with him if they wanted to, and I was also able . When his symptoms came back (unfortunately only a few months after surgery, not the year or more we had been hoping for) I threw him a retirement party during a workday afternoon (with my boss’s blessing) and invited my team as well as his other friends around the office. It was pretty well-attended and we made a lot of memories! About a week after that he passed away, and my manager encouraged me to take the time that I needed to grieve. It turned out that life without a dog was almost impossible to bear, and I adopted another high-energy book-smart street-stupid herding dog mix only a week or two after that. He’s got a very different personality – notably, he’s a cuddler, which really benefited me while dealing with this loss – and it’s been fun to introduce him to my team and get to know him myself. I really appreciate the condolences and the ideas that everyone offered. When I wrote in my brain was completely mush from grief and, to be frank, having someone else tell me what I could do made all the difference. Big love and thank you to the AAM family. :) 3. Is it bad to step back from a management job to a less senior position? (#3 at the link) First, I just want to thank you so much for publishing my letter regarding leaving my management position and joining a new company as an individual contributor. I wanted to let you know that I took the new job. Of course my prior employer did and said all they could in an effort to keep me. Ultimately I knew that nothing would ever change. I know my manager meant well, but everything I was being promised was just hollow promises to keep me from walking out that door. So I gracefully gave my 2 weeks notice, and finished out my time there with plenty of hugs and tears from my former colleagues who I will miss dearly. I’ve been at my new job for a little over a week now, and I’m loving it so far. The new company really seems to be big on treating their employees well. I actually take breaks away from my desk, for the first time in a long time. My new team really bands together to accomplish the workload. No one person seems to have an unreasonable workload, we all divide it up and lend a hand where needed. Also, there is an on-site fitness center in the building I work in, so I’m now able to use a gym free of charge at anytime I like. Because I’m now working a standard 8 hour shift vs 10/12 hours, I now have more time at home to prep healthy meals and unwind after my day by doing things I enjoy. I have my next physical with my primary care physician in June. I’m hoping that we will see improvements in my blood pressure and other areas. Thank you so much for posting my question, and I also want to thank the commenters for all of their input. Their support, kindness, and sage advice really helped to reinforce what I already knew deep down inside! updates: the men who wouldn’t be alone with women, the very good dog, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager. |
| I’m polyamorous — should I be out at work? Posted: 23 May 2019 07:59 AM PDT It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I’ve been going back and forth with a pretty weird problem, and someone suggested your blog as a good place to go for advice (I’m so happy I discovered it, by the way!). Here’s what’s going on…. I am a woman in my late 20s and I have been in a polyamorous relationship with a married couple for the past eight months. Things are going well, and I’m planning on moving in with them this summer when my lease is up. I never saw my life going in this direction but I’m really happy! The problem is I’m not sure how “out” I should be about this at work. I work in a medium-sized (20 people or so) office in a major U.S. city. The office is generally on the liberal side, but it’s still very much a traditional white collar environment in many ways. I honestly have no idea how my coworkers would react to this. I’m generally a pretty private person, and I don’t want to overshare or make people uncomfortable. I also like my job and don’t want this to affect my employment or professional future. I haven’t said anything so far to anyone, but now that this relationship has become serious I’m not sure where to go from here. One part of me says to just keep it totally on the DL. On the other hand, my relationship affects huge parts of my life — where I live, what I spend my time doing, etc., and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with lying or being evasive for the foreseeable future. I’d also like to have a photo of us on my desk! Right now I’m thinking that what I might do is refer to them as my “good friends” to anyone who asks, and let people read between the lines. I don’t know though… does that seem like a reasonable plan? For the record, my partners are NO help on this… they’re both in the art world and have never worked an office job in their lives. Most of our friends are in nontraditional careers too — I’m the weird one who puts on a suit every day! Readers, what’s your advice? I’d especially love to hear from poly people. I’m polyamorous — should I be out at work? was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Ask a Manager. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
Lexo edhe:
