It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My coworker asked why he wasn’t invited to my wedding
I got married recently, and it was wonderful. The next Monday, one of my coworkers texted me asking why he (Matt) and his girlfriend (Lisa) were not invited to the wedding, when two of my other coworkers were.
Backstory: I work in a cubicle and I have two coworkers (Rachel and Sally) who are my work buddies. We hang out outside of work sometimes, and they are the two I talk to the most at work about non-work-related things. Two weeks before my wedding, I was complaining to them about how some people canceled on coming to the wedding when we had already paid for them, and we were going to be out that money. Then the idea just came to my head and I asked them on the spot if they wanted to come. They were both free and said yes. They were the only people I was inviting from work, but I didn’t think anything else of it.
My now-husband and I have a dog, and we have asked Matt and Lisa to watch the dog a couple times, including during the wedding. So they knew we were getting married and were fine until they found out coworkers were invited and they were not. Also, Lisa used to work at the same place, but she had a different job and we only talked every other day or so. However, six months ago Lisa got a new job at a different company, and I haven’t talked to her since. Matt works in a different department and I only see him about once a week. We asked them to watch the dog, because they have done it in the past and they seemed to really enjoy it.
I responded to the text apologizing and saying it was a last-minute thing that Rachel and Sally came, and he never responded. Now there is this awkward thing out there, and I don’t know what to do. I feel like the ball is in their court, and I am willing, but I don’t want to, go talk to him in person and apologize, but what am I apologizing for?
I can see why, without knowing the full context, they might have felt a bit hurt that you know them well enough to have them watch your dog but they didn’t make the “coworkers invited to the wedding” list. (And as much as they enjoy your dog, that’s still a big favor they were doing you, especially if you didn’t pay them.) Matt’s text wasn’t a great move, but the dog-sitting makes his feelings somewhat more understandable.
I do think you should talk to him! Not to apologize — you didn’t really do anything wrong — but to try to smooth it over. Don’t use text for this though; go talk to him face-to-face and say, “I wanted to say more about what I mentioned my text. We weren’t having coworkers at the wedding at all, but Rachel and Lisa ended up taking the place of some guests who canceled at the last minute. It was an impromptu thing when I was complaining to them about our cancellations. I’m sorry if that seemed weird!”
(If there were no dog-sitting involved, you could rely on the time-tested “it was a small wedding” or even be candid that you didn’t invite other coworkers either, just two people you consider outside-of-work friends. But the dog-sitting does mean you should handle it a bit more delicately.)
2. Should I let my company buy back my PTO?
I work for a company that offers a very generous PTO benefit. Our unused days roll over and there is no limit to the amount we can accrue. Each year around this time, our company offers to buy back a portion of our unused PTO. The buy back must be done in weekly increments and we can “sell” up to three weeks of our PTO. The only stipulation is that your remaining balance must leave you with at least one week of PTO. The hours sold are paid out at 50% of your hourly rate.
In the past, I have sold back one week and last year I sold two. I’ve been here long enough that I accrue new days at a very rapid rate, and I very quickly re-gain the days that I sold back. I do sometimes wonder if this is a good thing to do. I usually carry a balance of 6-7 weeks accrued PTO. I’m not shy about taking PTO when I need/want to do so. I usually take at least two week-long vacations each year, as well as the occasional long weekend or added days to holidays. If I need to take PTO due to illness or personal appointments, I do that as well. I’m a generally healthy person, although I know that unexpected illness or accidents can happen at any time. Our company does provide an extended illness benefit, and I have both long- and short-term disability insurance on my own.
It seems silly to sit on days that I realistically won’t likely use when I could cash them in. While a little extra spending money is always nice, I definitely don’t need the money to pay bills or make ends meet. On the other hand, it seems that I am shorting myself by accepting 50% of their value. And, I know that there is always the possibility of something unexpected happening that might make me wish I had the days to fall back on.
Does your accrued PTO get paid out when you leave the company? If so, that’s the best of both worlds — you keep the PTO in case you need it at some point, and if you don’t it gets chased out when you leave (generally at 100% of the rate, rather than the 50% they pay if you sell it back now). So you’d get the safety net and more money.
If it doesn’t get paid out when you leave … well, I don’t think carrying a PTO balance of six or seven weeks is excessive. Things happen — accidents, serious illnesses, etc. You might be very glad to have that amount accrued at some point. That said, you can balance that against factors like how your company’s extended illness benefit works, and when disability insurance would kick in. Basically, imagine a catastrophe happening, and game out what you’d want/need from your PTO at that point, and I think there’s your answer.
3. My boss tells us to shut up
My boss is temperamental, to say the least. Often she will ask me and other employees questions, which is fair enough, but if she feels you aren’t directly answering (for example, giving a bit of background or trying to shed light on a bigger issue) she will interrupt and say loudly, “Just stop” and start repeating her question. She does this in private and in front of other employees, which I find embarrassing. One time we were discussing an issue while she was upset with her boss, not me. She told me to use the “correct file” and when I asked for clarification as to which file was the correct one, she told me to “just shut up.”
I realize that often she is stressed, but I find this extremely disrespectful and rude. Am I being oversensitive?
No. That’s incredibly disrespectful and rude. Frankly, I’d even saying that coming from someone in a position of power, “shut up” is even abusive.
4. Dealing with snarky comments from patients after being gone for major surgery
I’m a primary care physician and I am about to go back to work after taking a 4.5-week unpaid leave for major surgery, which I had a couple of complications from. My patients were given plenty of notice that I would be away and I have good coverage for them from my colleagues.
How do I handle the comments I know I’m going to get when I’m back? Patients assume I’m taking vacation any time I’m away, and before I left got some “must be nice to get a four-week vacation” / “must be nice to make enough money to not work for a month” comments. Unfortunately, my chronic depression has flared up a bit after surgery and I’m worried I won’t cope with those comments well.
I’ve considered just telling them I was actually away for surgery (and I did tell a few patients who I know well and who have good boundaries about that sort of thing), but I’m worried that will invite personal questions about my health that I’ll have to find some way to dodge. I think what I need is a script to defuse the comments and change the subject, but I’m a little stuck on what to say. On a side note, one of my colleagues had a family member die earlier this and had to go away for about two weeks, and a patient said to them when they got back, “Your relative died and you were gone for two weeks? What took so long?” So there’s a bit of a history of some of our patients really being unkind about us being away.
Wow, your patients.
How to answer it depends how much you’re comfortable sharing. The easiest and most direct response is probably to say, “It was medical leave, actually, but I’m doing much better now.” (That has the side benefit of possibly making the snarkier people feel a little bad about their snarkiness.) If you’d rather be vaguer, you could say, “Oh, it wasn’t vacation. I wish it had been! A four-week vacation sounds nice to me too!” and then quickly change the subject.
5. Is this employer not receiving my emails?
I had a quick phone chat with a company I am very interested in and it went well. The company is located in a nearby state which I was in the process of moving to. Shortly after our call, I got in touch with them to see if we could meet in person, which we were able to. They mentioned there were no current openings but they were very eager for me to keep in touch and to email once I was settled after the move so they could arrange another meeting with a different team member.
All of our emails until this point were on one email thread. I sent an email the day after our meeting and started a new email thread for this, but I did not hear back from them. I sent another email the week before I moved and a follow-up after I moved, but I have not heard back. I’m wondering if it’s possible they may not have gotten the emails on the new thread or if it’s normal for an email to go unanswered after almost a month, especially since until now I’d always heard back almost immediately. I almost want to hop onto the original thread to check if they’ve received my other emails, but I know that would be pushy so I’m a bit stumped with what to do here. Should I just accept and move on, or is it worth finding a way to follow up?
Well … it’s really common for employers to ghost people after interviews. And it’s pretty uncommon for people not to receive your emails simply because you started a new thread (although not impossible). So the most likely explanation is that they’re not responding because they don’t have anything they want to move forward with right now.
You’ve now sent three emails without responses, so normally I’d say any more would be too pushy — that the ball is squarely in their court now and they’ll be in touch if they ever want to be. It sounds, though, like it would give you some peace of mind to try one more time from the original thread … which will be a lot if they got the first three, but if you want to do it, I’d wait at least a month from the last one you sent. Or alternately, you could even call at that point instead. But definitely after that, it’s time to move on.
my coworker asked why he wasn’t invited to my wedding, company PTO buy-backs, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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