1. I want my employee to say “we” not “I”
We have a very productive employee who is enthusiastic about her position and enjoys working with the public. I appreciate her and most everything she brings to the table. However, when speaking with patients, she refers to the business as though it is her own. For example, when scheduling a patient for an exam she will say, “I have an opening at 10 on Friday, November 3rd.” I would like for her approach to be, “OUR next availability is on Friday, November 3rd at 10 am.”
How can I approach this employee without killing her enthusiasm? I want her to understand that and address the business as a whole using the terminology of “our” and “we” rather than “I.” Do you have any solid advice for me?
You should let this go! There’s nothing wrong with the wording she’s using; it’s very standard language in that context. She’s not implying she owns the business, nor will patients assume she does. (For what it’s worth, I kind of like it when a scheduler uses that wording; it makes me feel like they’re invested in their work and so I’ll be taken care of.)
If you ask her to change such a minor thing, you’re likely to come across as overly controlling and, yes, will risk killing some of her enthusiasm.
2. Should I pass along dress code feedback I don’t agree with?
A high level manager, Pearl, shared questionable feedback/concerns with me regarding a junior employee, Ruby. Pearl has concerns around Ruby’s personal appearance (clothing/makeup/hair) not being pulled together enough for our office and industry.
Context:
• Pearl and Ruby have different chains of command. However, Pearl has a decent amount of influence beyond her chain of command.
• It would be natural for Pearl to assume our conversation was confidential and private.
• We are a “dress for your day” office where anything from sweatpants to full suits may be seen around the office. The majority of team members wear jeans with sweaters/collared shirts/plain t-shirts/blouses.
• We work in a creative industry.
• Ruby has a relaxed style with minimal/no makeup. I think she dresses within the norm for our office, but she is on the more casual side of that norm.
• Ruby is plus-sized (I share this because I do think plus-sized women’s fashion choices are scrutinized more).I don’t plan to say anything for a combination of reasons, primarily that I think the concerns are way off-base and possibly sizest. But I didn’t know if this is a situation where I would be doing Ruby a favor by sharing this info so that she can decide if she wants to take action.
If you don’t agree with the feedback, don’t pass it on to Ruby — otherwise you’ll just be putting it in her head for no reason. (And here’s what that can feel like from Ruby’s side.) What you should do, though, is to go back to Pearl and say you made a point of watching Ruby’s work appearance after your conversation and she is within the norms for your office so you don’t intend to raise it (assuming you hadn’t already said this when it first came up).
The exception to this advice would be if Pearl has the power and the inclination to make this A Problem for Ruby, and if you don’t have enough standing to insulate Ruby from any effects of that. In that case, it could be a kindness to give her a heads-up, but framed as “I don’t agree with Pearl and have pushed back but she has a bee in her bonnet about it and may turn into it a thing / I have your back if you don’t want to change anything, but realistically she has enough influence that it didn’t seem fair not to tell you she’s talking about this.”
3. “The new Bob”
I’m a little more than a month into a new job, and there’s a weird snag. I took a role that was vacated when someone was promoted to a different department. It’s a running joke that this person was “stolen” from my boss and everyone misses them.
I am really happy to be here and have been able to contribute more than I even anticipated. My officemates have said that it seems like I’ve been here much longer (in a good way!), they feel comfortable and happy with me, I fit right in, etc. etc. etc. It feels really nice.
What feels less nice is that every time my boss publicly introduces me, as recently as last week (four weeks into my job), my boss begins with a long monologue about how much we all miss the previous person and we didn’t think they could ever be replaced, and then I’m introduced with, “But it turns out, she is great!”
The additional layer to all of this is that the previous employee had a minor public scandal several years ago when they were arrested for (more than one case of) public indecency/exposing oneself. They had to resign their high-profile job in our city but seem to have landed just fine, and everyone at my workplace really loves them. I have chatted with them on a few occasions and they seem perfectly friendly and very good at their job, but I can’t not feel an ick factor. So when my boss spends more than half of my introduction talking about the incredible person whose position I’ve assumed, I feel extra weird.
Is this worth addressing? I don’t know if there will be more opportunities for public introduction now, so it may resolve itself, and I know I’m well liked and doing great work. I don’t know if I want to ruffle feathers, but I also am a whole person who was not expecting this kind of welcome.
Being introduced as “the new Bob” is pretty common when you start a new job — it’s an easy shorthand to explain your role. I can see why being referred to as “the new (name of person arrested for public exposure)” would rankle, but it sounds like your coworkers all like Bob and they’re just hearing “this is the person taking over the X work,” where X definitely doesn’t involve being pantsless in public. (I know you know that! But I think it’ll help if you lodge that in your mind.)
It’s also likely to resolve itself pretty soon because you’ll stop needing to be introduced all the time.
4. When you open the mail and it’s a calendar of naked men
This happened over seven years ago, but I’ve always wondered if I did the right thing. I was the operations manager at a small nonprofit, and I was in charge of opening and processing the mail. I was still in my 20s and not well-versed in what a functional office environment was supposed to be like.
We received donations and grant payments, and they would usually come in Fedex envelopes. One afternoon we received a Fedex envelope, so I took it to my office to open. It was addressed to one of the directors, but I just assumed a donor had addressed a grant payment to him so I opened the envelope. Inside was a black and white calendar, where each month depicted a tasteful yet fully naked man wearing vaguely S&M style straps.
The director it was addressed to was an out gay man, so I assumed he had ordered this calendar for himself. Whether he meant to send it to his work address has always been a question for me. The return address was the calendar company. I don’t think someone else sent it to him as a joke or a gift, but that could have been possible.
No one saw me open the envelope, but I panicked a little bit. I didn’t want to put it on his desk opened, because then he would know that I saw the calendar. I didn’t want to leave it in the office in case someone found it, so I took it home. (My husband always thinks it’s hilarious that I took it home.) The next day I went to the FedEx store, got a plain envelope, carefully unstuck the label from the original packaging and stuck it on the new envelope, put the calendar inside the new envelope, and sealed it. I then left the new sealed envelope on the director’s desk. That was that.
Was it incorrect of me to open this piece of mail? It was my job to process the mail and deposit the checks, so isn’t it assumed that I would open all mail unless marked “private”? Should I have left the envelope opened on his desk? Should I have talked to him about it? It was inappropriate to have that kind of material sent to the office. Although looking back, a lot of inappropriate things were said and done at that office that I didn’t know should have been “serious topics of discussion.”
You didn’t do anything wrong; your job was to process the mail, and it’s common for one person to be charged with opening everything that comes to the office, regardless of whose name is on it, unless it’s clearly personal. (And indeed, postal regulations say that mail delivered to an organization, even if addressed to a specific person, is delivered to the organization itself, and the organization can decide how to distribute it from there.)
Sometimes that does mean you’ll end up accidentally opening something you weren’t supposed to see, and part of being in that sort of job is that you just discreetly turn it over to whoever it was meant for, and then all involved maintain the polite fiction that you didn’t see whatever it was.
Who knows if your coworker intentionally had the calendar sent to him at work, or meant to use his home address and mistakenly didn’t, or if someone else sent it to him. All you really needed to do was to leave it wherever you’d normally put his mail. Taking it home and buying a new envelope for it was definitely overkill! But it’s totally understandable that you weren’t sure at the time.
There’s of course a whole thing here about how you shouldn’t have to see photos of naked men at work — you shouldn’t! — and certainly if this kept happening, you’d have standing to tell the person to make different arrangements or to have your boss address it with them. But it sounds like a one-time mistake that never repeated. (I’d advise you differently if it happened against a backdrop of other problems — like if this guy was sexually harassing you and then this calendar just happened to show up, that would feel like a pattern worth addressing. But this doesn’t sound like that.)
P.S. It must be shared that the subject line of your email to me was “packages in a package.”
5. Time zone confusion when scheduling interviews
I work for a small, seasonal organization with no formal HR department (think small summer resort). We hire many people from all over the world each year. When we are conducting interviews via Zoom, who do you think is responsible for ensuring that everyone clearly understands what time the interview is occurring at? Is it enough to specify we are in EST when sending the zoom link and expect the interviewee to ensure they have figured out what time that is?
I am sitting in a Zoom right now waiting for a candidate who said they were available at 11 am. We sent them a invitation clearly stating 11 am our time, but I am starting to suspect they meant 11 am their time (which would actually be 1 pm for me).
I think it is our responsibility to ensure everyone is on the same page (which isn’t that hard to do). My colleagues think the burden should be on the candidate to figure it out and be on time. Many of the candidates we are dealing with are young people who have little experience with interviews, and who are, I imagine, oblivious to the fact that we live in a different time zone.
I think the thing that matters most is that you don’t waste your time waiting for someone who got the time wrong, and so it would be wise to include language in all your interview invitations saying, “Please note this time is Eastern Standard Time.” If you really want to promote understanding, link them to a time zone converter! Turn it into a text shortcut so you don’t have to type the whole thing out every time.
Yes, in theory candidates should pay attention to time zone differences, but especially with the daylight savings time changes right now, it’s just going to be more efficient to spell it out. The exception to this would be if you’re hiring for someone who will need to do a lot of scheduling across time zones and their ability to do it well is relevant.
#passing #dress #code #feedback #disagree #employee #Manager
