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“our office showed a disturbing safety video, am I a mentor now, and more” plus 1 more Ask a Manager

“our office showed a disturbing safety video, am I a mentor now, and more” plus 1 more Ask a Manager


our office showed a disturbing safety video, am I a mentor now, and more

Posted: 02 Sep 2019 09:03 PM PDT

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

1. Our office showed a disturbing safety video

Warning: The following question discusses violent imagery. 

Recently we were assigned our annual corporate mandatory trainings, which included a workplace safety training on what to do in case of an active shooter. I know this is something companies need to plan and train on nowadays, as terrifying as that may be. I understand why we need to take the training. However, I fear the way it was presented was a little over the top and could be downright traumatic for some people.

Our training was a module with a link to a video produced by the city of Houston called Run.Hide.Fight. It uses actors going over scenarios you can try when faced with an active shooter. It’s not one of those “everybody is calm and collected in an emergency” videos like you sometimes see during an airline safety presentation. It starts off with statistics of recent shootings and the number of people killed. Then the film begins with a scene where you watch the shooter kill several people in a lobby. The rest of the video deals with the surviving (and terrified) coworkers trying to make their way to safety or, when faced with no other options, fighting back. There are also several shots of dead bodies on the ground.

Is this appropriate for mandatory corporate trainings? The video is violent and you have to watch it to get credit for completing the course. I imagine some of the images of people being shot would be very disturbing to people, especially those who may have suffered gun-related trauma in the past. I also have one or two coworkers who get extremely anxious at the thought of a workplace shooting and I am afraid this video could really upset them. Is this worth bringing to the attention of HR or it is one of those “this is the way the world works now” kind of things? (For reference, I work at a large international company with thousands of employees and HR is outsourced).

If you found the video upsetting, you absolutely can bring that to HR's attention. It's useful for them to hear that kind of feedback.

I mentioned your question to my father-in-law, a former Secret Service agent who now does security consulting and trains people to spot and get out of dangerous situations. I wanted his opinion on whether people might learn less from this kind of video because they're so bothered by how graphic is that they don't absorb as much as they otherwise might.

He said often the idea behind showing that kind of imagery is so your brain knows what to expect and is less likely to freeze up if you encounter it in real life (not that a video is at all the same thing, of course) and that without it, the video often won’t get through in the way it needs to. (Interestingly, he also said that the video you saw is one of the most commonly used — but that it should have been accompanied by someone talking you through it.)

So that might be the reasoning behind it. At a minimum, though, I'd hope your company would consider warning people about its content ahead of time, explaining why they're using it, and letting people opt out if they choose to.

2. I still feel junior — but new hires ask me for guidance

I’ve been working at my company for three years now. I got hired here right out of college so I’ve always been the most junior person on whatever team I’m on in age, experience, and title. Two months ago, I got transitioned to a new team, which is great so far.

The only thing that I’m not sure how to handle is that I’m not the most junior person on the team anymore. In fact, I’m one of the most senior people. After I started on the team, we hired two new college grads and they’ve been coming to me with all sorts of questions from work-related things to where to find people in the office and even just how-to-be-an-adult questions. Other than my manager, there’s only one other person on the team who’s older and more experienced than me.

I guess I still think of myself as pretty new, considering some people have been at the company for 30+ years, but I obviously know a lot more than when I started three years ago and I’ve even been promoted. I just find myself surprised when new hires come to me with their questions instead of the team veteran or our manager. Are they coming to me because they feel more comfortable since I’m way closer to their age? Should I redirect them to someone more experienced? I don’t mind answering their questions to the best of my ability (sometimes it is something beyond my scope), but I really just want to make sure that they’re getting everything they need. Do I actually qualify as an Experienced Coworker now and how do I take on this new mentor-like role?

Yep, you've been there three years, which is a solid chunk of time. You're not a new grad anymore; you know what you're doing and you have a pretty good sense of the company.

It’s also very likely that that those new grads are coming to you rather than more experienced people because you're closer in age to them. You're them in a couple of years. And you were very recently in their shoes. So you're less intimidating, and they figure you're familiar with the sorts of things they're trying to figure out because you probably had similar questions yourself not that long ago, and probably won't judge them for what they don't know. You're the perfect blend of approachable and knowledgeable!

As for how to navigate this, stay approachable! Let them know you're happy to help, check in on them occasionally, and keep answering questions. Also, tell them when you're not the best person to talk to. If you ever feel out of your depth, let them know that (that's a lot better than guessing and getting it wrong). You can say, "You know, I'm not sure, let me connect you with Jane, who can talk about that with more nuance" or "I approached it this way but I'm honestly not sure if that was the best way to do it — feel free to look for a better way, and let me know if you find one."

3. Can I put my personal mail in our office's outgoing mailbox?

I work at a university, and we have a general outgoing mailbox and an inter-departmental mailbox in our department. The other day, I went to put an addressed, stamped envelope that was my personal mail in the mailbox. I figured, why not treat it like a regular mailbox? I used my own stamp and envelope, not university resources.

The office admin stopped me and told me that it was unprofessional to put personal mail in an office mailbox. She said people might assume I was using university resources for my personal mail.

I’m not looking to push back or anything, but I was genuinely curious if this is an etiquette no-no that I had never considered before. (I can’t imagine this is relevant, but I can’t use my mailbox at my house because my mailman doesn’t pick up my outgoing mail. So every time I mail a letter I have to go find a mailbox.)

In most offices, it's absolutely fine to put the occasional personal envelope in the outgoing mail as long as you pay for your own postage. It would be typically frowned on if you were regularly putting enormous stacks of your own mail in there, but the occasional single envelope? It's been normal and unremarkable at every office I've ever known.

But are you by chance at a public university? Government employees have much more stringent rules around any personal use of work resources so that taxpayers don't get upset that their tax dollars are funding things like coffee or other completely normal work amenities. So if you're publicly funded, that might be the issue. It still wouldn't be unprofessional though, just against your employer's rules.

4. Is this travel policy for remote employees weird?

I have a question for you regarding some policies that my company has in place for employees who have requested to work remotely. Basically, the remote employee would be required to travel to an office one to two times/year. I get that. My question is about the second part of this policy, which says that for the first two years, the employee is responsible for hotel and meal costs when they travel to an office. Is this typical for employers to require travel, then not cover the full cost of it?

Ultimately, I am going to have to agree to the policy, as I am relocating and they need my answer soon, but I’m curious if I should say something or just let it lie because once I agree, I’m locked in.

The key part of this policy is that it’s for employees who are asking to be remote. Assuming these are people situations similar to yours — working at a company office, decided to move, and asked if they can work remotely once they do — your company is basically saying, "Yes, we'll let you go remote, but you'll need to cover some of the extra expenses that will result from your decision to do that." They're not looking for remote employees; they're letting you do it as a perk, and they're saying they don't want to shoulder all the additional costs that result from it.

5. How many candidates usually get interviewed in a multi-step hiring process?

I recently had a first interview (after phone interview) that seemed to go well. During the interview, when we talked about timeline, he was very up-front that they have a pretty long process. It is four steps, which would be three to four in-person meetings. I very much appreciate his honesty, but I have never gone through a process with that many steps. He says that they really want to be sure that its a good fit on both sides, and the person they hire knows exactly what they are getting into, all of which makes total sense.

How far along do they usually go in these long processes while still considering other applicants? While I understand that at any time, they could realize they don’t want to hire a person, I also can’t imagine them bringing too many people through each of these steps. So by say, the third step, how many applicants are they usually still considering? Also, I admit, I would look a lot less favorably on a company who made me take time off work four times only to not offer me the job. I understand you should always kind of assume you won’t get the job, so you don’t stress about it, but this seems pretty intensive for a non-C-level job and I think going through that much would be hard to not stress about it and to not be bitter if I didn’t get it.

It depends. Some companies interview people on a rolling basis, moving forward anyone who seems promising — which can mean a lot of people go through those later stages if it's a hard-to-fill position. Other companies move only a set number of people forward to each step, usually around the same time. In that case, it's typical to do the late stages with three to five candidates. By the last step, it's often only one or two.

For what it's worth, three interviews isn't weird or uncommon, as long as the process is structured well (meaning there's a clear purpose for each step, you're not meeting with the same people over and over, and they’re not making it up as they go). Four is pushing it unless they have a compelling explanation for doing it that way.

But if you're going to be bitter if you don't get the job, I wouldn’t move forward — because in any hiring process, the vast majority of the people interviewed aren't going to get the job and you could indeed be rejected after a fourth interview. But if the issue is really about having to take off work that many times, try saying something like, "It would be tough for me to take off from work four separate times. Is it possible to combine any of the steps or schedule for before or after my work hours? Or do any of the steps by phone or video conference?"

our office showed a disturbing safety video, am I a mentor now, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

Labor Day open thread

Posted: 02 Sep 2019 07:00 AM PDT

It’s Labor Day! The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on anything work-related that you want to talk about. If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to talk to other readers.

* If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer.

Labor Day open thread was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

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