It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. How to respond when coworkers talk about God
What is the best way to respond when coworkers talk about God? I have a couple of colleagues who will say things like, “I just pray on it and leave it all up to God, you know?” I’m a pretty agreeable person, so I’m usually nodding along with all of this. Plus, I genuinely understand their position and have no issues with it.
But, I’m a non-believer myself and feel like I may be giving off the impression that I am coming from the same place. I’m not offended. I just feel a little awkward. And maybe I feel a little misunderstood too, because it’s harder to casually mention my own non-belief and feel seen in the same way they seem to.
Nodding politely when someone references their faith doesn’t have to convey “Yes, I share your religious belief.” It can just convey, “I hear what you are saying.” But if you feel weird about it (which is understandable), it’s also okay to say, “That’s great that you have that faith” — or you can skip any reference to faith at all and just say, “Well, good luck with (the problem they’re praying on)” or “I hope it works out soon” or so forth. Those are all responses that work just like if the person had said, “I take comfort in nature” or “It helps to talk to my spouse.”
2. My company sent employees a fake email about a celebrity death to see if we would click on it
I work for a large, publicly-traded company. Periodically, a bunch of us get the same phishing email, apparently as a test to see whether we will click on it. I think this has happened at least four times in as many months. It’s often enough that people around the office talk about “the [company name] phishing test.” Sometimes everyone seems to get a phishing email on the same day, with everyone getting one of two or three different messages.
Yesterday, a bunch of us got a fake email that looked like it had come from a major news outlet, reporting that a celebrity had died at a fairly young age. I don’t know whether anyone I work with fell for it, but there was some discussion about that particular phishing test being in very poor taste.
First, is regularly sending employees phishing tests really a thing, or is it just my employer being weird? Second … What the heck? Sending employees an email that falsely says someone has died? Especially since we are a media company, so a fake story like this could end up being reported as actual news? Is this as bizarre as I think it is? If it is, should we as employees try to address it? (I don’t think any of us know who is actually in charge of these phishing tests, since we are in a satellite office rather than headquarters.)
Company-wide phishing tests are actually a thing that cybersecurity experts recommend! Typically you’re supposed to first train everyone on how to spot and avoid phishing emails, then tell them you’ll be running some phishing tests, then send the fake phishing emails, then report on the result and do whatever retraining might be necessary (and then repeat the process periodically; it’s not supposed to be a one-time thing).
So that part isn’t weird. But creating a fake email about a real person dying is in bad taste, and it would be reasonable for you and your coworkers to point that out. (The response might be that a lot of real phishing emails have exactly that kind of content, and that’s why they tested it that way … but it’s still a reasonable thing to raise if you want to.)
3. Should I report a coworker from the company I left two years ago?
I changed jobs two years ago, after 15 years with my prior organization. I have many friends from my time there who I am still in touch with, who work across different offices within one of the large divisions. (An office is 50-100 people and the division is around 500-750. So they don’t all work together daily, but their office directors do.)
Everyone I am in touch with from then has shared (complained, lamented, vented) about one of the office directors (male, married, late 40s) who is having an affair with a staff member from another office (female, single, late 20s). It is impacting his performance most acutely, to the point where he will disappear for periods of time, not show up to meetings, or (recently) have a work trip canceled and then just not come to work that week without telling anyone, and only later when multiple people ask where he is, he says he took vacation instead … and she’s also out the same week. This is having a huge impact on morale, as well as decision making. Everyone is afraid to report it for fear of being “that person” who told. Everyone is frustrated, but no one wants to put their career on the line to say something.
So I’m wondering … could I say something? And by “say,” I mean call the company’s hotline or mail an anonymous letter to their IG? I worked with this director before, and over the years he’s become more and more checked out. His inability to manage this mid-life crisis is now impacting my friends and their coworkers, and if I still worked there, I probably would have called the hotline.
I’m just torn between (a) I don’t work there, therefore it’s none of my business, (b) if it was really an issue, someone there would have reported it, and (c) everyone is afraid of repercussions, so I could be that neutral third party that helps alert the authorities. Do I do something, or nothing?
This isn’t yours to get involved with anymore. The people who still work there are just as capable of contacting their IG anonymously as you are.
If you’d just recently left — like within a few months — there would be more of an argument for you to report it, since sometimes it can take a little while for someone to be out of a work environment before they feel safe reporting. But you’ve been gone two years! Reporting on your friends’ behalf, and about something you’ve only heard about secondhand from them, wouldn’t be that different than when reporting something when you’d never worked there at all. (Plus, most of this is about a checked out, under-performing director — not exactly something so urgent that someone outside the company needs to take action.)
By all means, encourage them to report it! But this isn’t yours to get involved in.
4. Can I forward a candidate to my former employer?
About a year ago I landed a new job I love, in part thanks to your book! I’m heavily involved in hiring, as I was at my last job. I’m not the hiring manager, but I (along with other colleagues) am on most interview panels, give input to the hiring manager, and can veto bad candidates.
We recently interviewed an entry level candidate who I thought was perfect. The rest of the panel passed on him though, because he was missing one very narrow area of technical skills. I know these are skills my former employer is happy to teach on the job for new college graduates, and I am about 85% confident that my old team would have extended him an offer. Would it be weird for me to introduce the candidate to my old manager? If so, do you have a script I can use?
It’s not weird at all, but check with them each separately first. Check with the candidate because you don’t want to out someone’s job search without their permission. (You never know, maybe he’ll say your old manager is married to his current boss, who doesn’t know he’s searching — it’s unlikely, but still good to check first — or maybe he has an ethical objection to that company, or who knows what.)
Checking with your old manager is slightly less necessary (people forward resumes of people they think are promising all the time), but it’s good manners and it’ll give you a chance to explain what you thought was great about the candidate. You’d say something like, “I recently interviewed Cecil Warbleworth, who wasn’t quite right for us but I thought might be exactly the profile you’re often looking for. (Insert info about why here.) Would it be okay for me to connect him with you?”
5. Starting a new job just before I’d planned to take a week off for Christmas
Today I interviewed for a job and it went really well, in large part thanks to your advice! The hiring manager shared that they have a pretty aggressive timeline and are hoping to get someone on board ASAP, so potentially, if I get an offer, I could be starting by mid-December.
I have read your advice regarding negotiating planned trips/vacation time in the offer stage, but I’m wondering if it’s any different for time off around the holidays when you won’t be traveling? I have family coming into town the week of Christmas and had been planning on taking the whole week off to visit with them (they will not be staying with me though, if that matters).
If I receive an offer, should I mention that I will have family in town that week and had been planning on taking it off, and see if that works for them? I really really don’t want to offer to take the time unpaid, but I would be willing to do that if it was the only option.
Unless you’re in a very senior or hard-to-fill role, it’s fairly unlikely they’ll want to give you a paid week off immediately after starting. (If I’m understanding correctly, we’d be talking about … your second week on the job.) It’s more likely that they’d want to either set your start date for after that week or have you take it unpaid. It’s also possible this could be complicated by coverage issues; if it’s a job where only a certain number of people can be out a time, it’s likely that those dates have already been claimed since they’re popular ones. (It’s possible you’d be too new to be of any help then, but if they just need bodies, possibly not.)
In any case, if you get an offer, say something like this, “I have pre-planned commitments for (dates) and had been planning to take that week off — is that something we could work around?” They might suggest a later start date, or say you’d need to take the time unpaid, or express concern about you taking that week at all.
Because of that last part, I’d start thinking now about whether you’re willing to be flexible on the dates. Does it have to be the whole week or could it be just a few days (which might be an easier sell)? If they want you there and working, are you willing to turn down the offer over that? It’s useful to figure that out now, so that you can indicate how flexible or not flexible you are when you talk with them.
how to respond when coworkers talk about God, company sent us a fake email about a celebrity, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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