“how important are educational requirements, unexpected visitors when working from home, and more” plus 3 more Ask a Manager

how important are educational requirements, unexpected visitors when working from home, and more
terrible interviewers, and why people don’t take time off
update: I’m scared to tell my boss how behind on work I am
how can I navigate office politics when I hate hierarchy and authority?

how important are educational requirements, unexpected visitors when working from home, and more

Posted: 22 Aug 2019 09:03 PM PDT

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

1. How important are educational requirements, really?

I’ve been job searching for a few months now and I have yet to really get anywhere, because every time I find a job listing that is in my industry and correlates to what I do, they seem to require a level of education that I don’t have. For context, I have a bachelor’s degree and I work in an industry that is related to academia but is highly populated by people who both have and don’t have masters/PhDs. Where I’m getting frustrated is that I’ll come across a job description, read through the entire thing and mentally check all the boxes in terms of my experience/capabilities, and then at the end it seems like they almost just throw it in there, “By the way, a masters/PhD is required."

How can I tell (when it’s not obvious) when the educational requirement really is required, and when it’s just a wish list? My current job was advertised as a masters/PhD being “required,” but I applied anyway, and here I am. (And to head off any “just go ahead and apply, what’s the harm?” — the harm is, what if I want to apply for something else at this company again? My industry is small and I don’t want a company to dismiss me later because I applied for something inappropriate the first time around.)

I'm going to give you the advice you said you didn't want, because your premise isn't right.

Employers aren’t actually likely to dismiss you in the future simply because you once applied for something you weren't perfectly qualified for. People apply for jobs all the time where they don't meet all the qualifications. And sometimes they get hired! When they don't, though, employers are rarely outraged or scornful that the person took a shot. (I mean, yes, if you don't have any of the key qualifications, you're going to look naive and out of touch, but employers don’t generally hold it against people who apply when they're close but not quite there.)

If you meet 80% of the qualifications and you can point to evidence that you'd excel at the job (real evidence, not just "I think I could do that"), you should go ahead and apply.

To answer your actual question though: You can't always know from the outside what's a firm requirement and what's more flexible. Some jobs truly can't/won't hire anyone who doesn't have an advanced degree, and some will but list it in their requirements anyway because that's their mental picture of what the perfect candidate will look like — but they end up broadening their thinking. In many cases, you won't know from the outside which it is — but in most cases you won't harm your future chances by taking a shot now.

2. Unexpected visitors when working from home

I live in a small apartment complex. The other week, I was working from home in my kitchen, where my table is close to my front door. I was on a call when there was a very sudden, forceful knocking at my door. I was in the middle of speaking when it happened. Some of my team started laughing, so I know they heard it. Not know what else to do, I stuttered my apologies, explained someone was knocking at my door, and excused myself briefly to answer it. It was my neighbor, informing me about a problem with our building plumbing. I quickly thanked her, closed the door, and returned to my call. Moments later, she knocks forcefully AGAIN, and I excuse myself once more. She had a follow-up question about the problem, and I had to tell her I was working and I would come down to speak with her when I was done.

I was very embarrassed about the whole thing and apologized to the team. Working from home is a big thing at my company so no one cared, but it got me thinking about how I could've handled it differently. Should I not have been working so close to my front door? Should I have ignored the knocking? (Which I would've done if it hadn't been so loud and clearly audible to everyone else on the line) After the first knock, should I have moved to a different part of my apartment? What's the protocol on unexpected visitors when you're working from home?

I work from home and if I'm on the phone I’ll ignore the doorbell unless I'm expecting a delivery or such (and if I am, I'll generally mention at the start of the call that I might be interrupted for a minute). But unexpected, forceful knocking would alarm me, and it's reasonable to want to investigate that and to say something like, "I'm so sorry but someone is pounding on my door and I think I should see what's going on — do you mind if I put you on hold for a moment?"

With the second knock, though, it might have made sense to ignore it and move to a part of the house where it was less audible. In fact, ideally you would have told your neighbor the first time that you were on a work call and couldn't talk, which hopefully would have prevented the second knock.

But with working from home becoming more widespread, I think we're becoming more used to this kind of occasional interruption (just like many offices are now used to seeing a coworker's cat or dog show up on video calls). So I wouldn't worry about it too much during routine conversations with coworkers, but would take more precautions if you're on a Very Important Call (like not working right by the door, if you have other options).

3. Being required to book all vacation time a year in advance

I'm asking this question on behalf of my wife because I think I'm angrier about this than she is. She is a manager for a greetings card store in the UK. As you would expect, the store gets busy during specific seasons (Valentine's Day, Mother's/Father's Day, Christmas). In the past she has needed to give a bit of notice (usually around a month) for taking time off because she works with other stores in the area to ensure there is enough cover in place, with the unspoken rule that no one takes time off over Christmas as it is the single busiest time of the year.

Now her area manager has introduced a rule that all vacation time must be booked off a year in advance. It's a year and a half in this instance because by next Friday she needs to submit her vacation requests up to December 2020!

Obviously we can't imagine what will happen between now and December of next year. We are planning a road trip with some friends next year that we know will be late July/early August but we haven't nailed a date down yet and would feel awful getting our friends to commit to this so far in advance. How can she push back on this?

That's ridiculous and unrealistic. How do her coworkers feel about this? I'm betting others are annoyed by this too, and one option is for them to push back as a group, pointing out that it's onerous and impractical to have every single use of vacation time planned out over a year in advance. It also means people won't be able to do things like attend family reunions or even weddings without a year's notice. It's absurd.

4. Sick leave versus flex time for medical appointments

Though I’m an hourly employee, my boss is very low-maintenance about clocking in/out. We work for a large institution with ample sick leave. When I request time off for medical appointments, our electronic timesheet software has an option to designate if the request is for appointments, which I always select.

Several months ago. I started making midday, bi-weekly appointments for mental health services. They are conveniently located, so it’s only an hour out every other week. I cleared the arrangement with my boss ahead of time, and he was supportive and reiterated that I had support to schedule my time flexibly (work through lunch, or work late on the days I have a therapy appointment). This is nice to know … but I kind of want to use at least a portion of the sick leave time for its intended purpose. Any leave request I’ve sent has thus far been approved, but he's also mentioned again multiple times that I can just flexibly schedule my time for these appointments. Is my boss just being extra supportive and kind, or is there anything about sick leave/conventions I’m not taking into account here and I’m the one making it weird?

He's probably just being extra vigilant about making sure you know it's really okay to flex your time on those days. Next time, try saying something like, "I really appreciate that! I actually don't mind using my sick time for this — I figure that's what it's there for! — and sometimes that works better than flexing my time on those days." You could also say, "I'm assuming it's okay to do what I've been doing, but if you'd actually prefer that I flex my time on some of these days for workload reasons, please let me know!" (Or you could just ask directly: "Just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding — I tend to like using sick leave for this, but would you prefer I flex my schedule instead?")

5. Employee comes in on his days off to use a computer

I have an employee who will request vacation time but continue to show up at the office, presumably to use the internet connection. (We are in a country where it is not common for people to have internet in their homes, and being a large organization, our connection at the office is normally strong.) I have casually said, “Oh! I thought you were on vacation today,” to which he will reply, “Yes, I am. I just needed to get something in my office.” Except that he ends us staying a while on the computer. Should I just let it lie? Our work is stressful, so when people take vacation, I want them to really be gone.

Is it just an hour or two? If so, I don't think that's a big deal. It's not what you'd choose to do with your vacation time, but that doesn't mean he can't.

I'd argue it differently if he was getting sucked into work while he was there, or if he was there all day or every day he was supposed to be gone. In those cases, you could say, "When you're taking vacation time, I want you to really disconnect from the office. It's fine to come in to briefly use a computer in a pinch, but otherwise, when you're booked to be away, let's keep you away from work."

Right after I sent off my first update to you, a colleague (Fanny) with some influence on the department came to chat and I flat out told her that was the most demoralizing meeting I’ve attended at this company. She was seated next to the colleague who teared up at the meeting, so I don’t think I had to explain much. She also confided that my boss is getting hit really hard to get results, and poop rolls downhill. My boss is not a terrible person, just a terrible people manager. Mr. Shark nailed it in the comments — she’s not in control either. She’s not all bad, but she’s doing terribly in this aspect of her job.

At the next meeting, our boss reinforced to focus on the current work and catch up as able, about which I felt positive. Management is wanting to find efficiencies and my boss is trying to assess hard numbers on how long it takes to do the job, broken down by task and client. The overtime rule was modified from “absolutely none” to “request it with a reason why.” I know overtime is expensive in more ways than one and I think the previous rule of “use overtime at your discretion” has been abused. The superstar overachiever told me recently she was tired of working 60 hours every week for weeks on end. O_O (It also begs the question, why was she allowed overtime? Why can’t they compute that 60 hours a week by the overachiever probably equals 70 hours by the average accountant?)

The next morning, I discovered a trick that upped efficiency on the data entry side six-fold. It was a simple software click that was definitely not there before, so must have been added with a recent update. I enthusiastically shared it with everyone immediately. The joy was palpable. That same day, we received good news about another efficiency we’d been wanting for a while, and it will still be some time for implementation, but it felt like we were turning a corner finally. Then, it was announced that we were expecting a working interview to come visit soon and if selected, she would be a temp-to-hire to replace the departed colleague. Even though it seems like such a mundane event, it also feels like we’re being heard. (She has stayed with us too!)

It turns out that Fanny is our new manager, and our boss (who is the controller) is either her boss or her equal. Fanny is a direct communicator, and is more professional than the controller. She is far more upbeat and positive, and I hope she will manage the team in the future, so the controller can focus on the corporate accounting. Fanny will call out the elephant in the room (the poor morale) and listen to us and validate our feelings, even though she also says that we’re not able to hire more personnel. There are avenues of efficiencies being developed, and some hoops we were required to jump and tracking worksheets we were required to complete were removed, to a collective sigh of relief. Also, the hard deadlines that were set were reset softly because even Fanny and The Controller couldn’t meet them with their clients (which is half the number of everyone else). (And in my head only, I say, “Told you so!”) Clients are also being reorganized so that the load is better distributed.

Then it was performance review time, due by the first of July. My review went well, but I received negative feedback I didn’t think was warranted, and with Fanny present and vouching for me, it was removed. I included a note from a colleague complimenting me for doing good work and my boss turned it into a slight admonishment for being an overachiever and making the others look bad. The superstar overachiever immediately came to mind as setting the bar really high, although I doubt she received the same admonishment. I was too surprised to react to that kind of scolding and assured them I was only doing my job. Surprisingly, all the stuff that has actually been a problem with my performance did not receive even a sniff (!!), and I received a 4% raise.

I am almost caught up. So, there are some months in which I have not done the work and it may never be completed, but I feel like the reset button has been pushed, even if the workload will not let up. Catching up is the best feeling in the world and I will do my best to stay current.

A lot of commentators encouraged me to jump ship and some pointed out that with an ill spouse, it’s hard to lose the insurance benefit. This is true. Switching plans in the middle of treatment brings a lot of change that may not be foreseen until the leap is taken. Also, in spite of the gloomy meeting, the mood is not all doom and gloom all day. Even my boss, who was so unrealistic at the meeting, is friendly and upbeat and helpful most of the time. I believe when she’s pressured, she reacts poorly and we suffer for that. Overall, we have a good culture here. Even when we’re under pressure to meet the month-end deadlines, most of us are not rude or snippy or take out frustrations on others (except my boss). We help each other out, as we can.

Other comments described this as a toxic environment, but I don’t believe the environment is toxic, I think it is my boss that is flawed. I think if she had delivered the bad news of “sorry, no overtime, you need to get your work done, focus on the most recent work first and catch up as your able” in a positive, pep talk manner, we wouldn’t have had had a crying team member and demoralized workforce. Maybe it would have just been me that wouldn’t have been demoralized, but her delivery really set the tone.

Thank you to everyone who sympathizes with me. To just type it out feels therapeutic, but to have my situation recognized and validated really helps keep my chin up. A heartfelt thank you especially to the commentator Hello! who commented with the poem “Invictus.”

My husband is always remaining positive, even when he received bad news about the immobility he is experiencing is permanently limiting, because of the various muscles removed in surgery to get a clear margin around the tumor. We’ve been each other’s rocks throughout everything. He still has not found a job, although he has attended a few interviews and is tapping his network. Our savings are just about depleted, but we have very healthy retirement accounts that are ahead of the game that we will likely tap to avoid bankruptcy. At least one commentator mentioned a Go Fund Me, which we do have, but my husband is super private and would not want his story broadcast to the public. Thank you to anyone who wants to give, and if the urge remains, donate to a cancer fund to help those who need it more than we do.

I also have seven days of PTO to use or lose by the end of September, so we’re looking at a staycation in the very near future. It will be such a welcomed reprieve.

Rapitful Shqip

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