It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My coworker says I don’t respond to his emails — which I never received
My department has been working from home due to the current situation, so we have been having a lot of Zoom meetings. I was unable to attend one yesterday but was told by two coworkers that someone, we will call him Greg, was saying that I have not been responding to him or answering his emails. Since it is entirely possible that I missed an email or two, I searched through my email and saw nothing from him. No original questions and no follow-ups of any kind.
Knowing what I know about this person, there is a very real chance that he will use these phantom questions that I never answered as a reason he has not gotten a specific project done when our manager asks him.
I want to head this off at the pass and maybe email him with our manager cc’d to address this. Should I? Will this put my coworkers who were in the meeting in a bad spot with this person? He doesn’t have any power, but can be unpleasant at times. Should I let it go and wait for him to ask? If I do send the email, should I stop myself from addressing the fact that I know he was talking openly behind my back in the Zoom meeting?
The best way to address this kind of thing is to act as you would if you assumed the other person was being entirely genuine (even if you don’t think that) and respond with concern, as you would if you thought there was a real misunderstanding or technical problem behind this. That can ruin whatever the other person is trying to do, while you remain above reproach. (And it allows for the possibility that there really is a misunderstanding.)
So in this case, email him this: “I was really concerned to hear you’d mentioned in yesterday’s meeting that you haven’t been receiving email responses from me! I scoured my email and don’t have any messages from you at all in the last month, so I’m not sure what has happened! Let’s both check with IT to see if your messages aren’t getting through for some reason. Meanwhile, if you can forward me the emails, I’d of course be happy to get you answers immediately. And until we know for sure this is solved, can you call me if you haven’t heard back from me on something? This seems like a technical issue and I’d never want you to think I wasn’t being responsive.”
You can also cc your manager on this so she knows you’re on top of this and checking into whether there’s a glitch somewhere.
2. We’re furloughed and work has sent us a bizarre coronavirus survey
My job sent all employees a survey last week, and in these strange times I’m not sure whether it’s totally fine or a bit … strange.
All of our company is currently furloughed (with a percentage of pay due to government intervention). The survey includes questions relating to how you are feeling (bored, happy, unappreciated, etc.), what have you been up to while furloughed (cooking, gardening, fitness…), how healthy you consider your lifestyle to be, how worried you are about coronavirus, and whether you’ve been social distancing. Then there are questions regarding how you feel about returning to work and how will you feel when lockdown ends (three options to choose from for these: happy, excited or sad). “How do you feel about using public transport to commute?” has just happy or sad options.
I mean, apart from anything else, I don’t think happy or sad covers my feelings on any of this and I’m not five years old.
There are some questions asking for opinions on measures they might take upon return to the workplace and other practical considerations and I have no issue with these aspects. I can see that the intention is probably good overall, but I find some of it just a bit weird and intrusive and surely it has the potential to be held against me. Or is that being ungenerous and paranoid?
It’s not you. This is weird and intrusive and wrong-headed. Not only are some of the questions none of their business (the healthiness of your lifestyle?!), and the limited options for answers so simplistic that they make some of the questions unanswerable, but some of these questions are guaranteed to make people panic. If you don’t answer correctly, will that affect whether you’re brought back or not? What if you don’t indicate you’re excited about returning?
This is bizarre and poorly thought out.
3. My company wants the results of a background check I did to volunteer with my kid’s soccer team
Earlier this year, I volunteered to coach my son’s soccer team (which is obviously not happening now due to Covid-19). Since I’d be working closely with children, I had to complete several clearances, including an FBI fingerprint record check. Everything came back normal. All good. I’d forgotten about it.
Fast forward several months, and I just received an email from my company asking for the results of the background check. Apparently, they were notified of the check, and their standard procedure is to ask for the results to put in my personnel file.
Am I right to be weirded out by this? I have nothing to hide, but it’s the principle of the thing. I paid for the background check myself so I could volunteer in my community. This feels like a really big invasion of my privacy.
Yeah, I don’t think they have any claim on this and I’d be weirded out and annoyed too. Maybe this is a thing some companies do (I don’t have comprehensive knowledge of every company or every field), but I think it’s a huge overstep.
Your options, from most passive to most direct: ignore the email (maybe they won’t follow up), tell them you no longer have a copy of the background check, or tell them that for privacy reasons you don’t think it makes sense to provide them with a private background check that you obtained outside of work at your own cost. I suspect they will not push since they have so little to stand on here (it sounds like something they just ask hoping people won’t object).
4. Can I ask managers for their references?
I’ve somehow in my two most recent posts (in academia, at a prestigious institution) managed to end up working for truly awful people. They’re out of touch, insulting, self-aggrandizing and egotistical — and those are their better qualities! I can’t stand it and am job hunting again. Am I allowed to ask any future prospective managers for references from their past direct reports, much in the same way they’d ask for professional references for me? Or would that be a nonstarter? I’m really leery of making the same mistake thrice.
Yes, you’d just word it a little differently. The way to say it is: “Would you be able to put me in touch with people who are on the team currently or have worked for you in the past?” Or, “Would it be possible for me to talk with others on the team, to help me flesh out my understanding of the culture and the work?” You’d ask this toward the end of the process when you’re a finalist or have an offer, since it won’t make sense for them to set it up until they’ve determined you’re a very strong candidate.
A good manager will be glad to do it; they’ll understand why you’re asking and will be invested in helping you make sure the fit is right. A manager who resists is giving you important info.
That said, be aware that the people you talk with may not be completely candid with you, especially if they’re still working there. You’ve got to pay attention to their tone and pauses and other subtle cues. (And here’s more advice on spotting bad bosses before you take a job.)
5. Do people ever realize a question on Ask a Manager is about them?
I’m interested to know if you’ve ever received an update where the person says that the other people involved in the matter have read the original question on your website and realized the question online was about them.
Yes! Read the update to this letter from someone whose coworker thought she was being abused, when actually her bruises were from BDSM. Also, this update to the letter from someone whose grandboss was being a jerk about her gym time (her direct manager also commented on the original post, in support of her). And this update from someone who was worried her employee was having an affair with a married coworker — the employee saw the post on the manager’s computer the day it was published and initiated a conversation about it.
There was also a letter-writer whose coworker was badgering colleagues about weight and diet choices, and she ended up printing out the post and left it on the person’s chair. The person did then stop the food policing, but that would not have been my advice and I don’t love that they did it for all the reasons described here. That said, there are situations where the power dynamics mean it’s tough to speak to someone directly, and I could understand someone choosing that tactic if that’s the case.
If you’re worried about writing in and someone recognizing your situation, sometimes it can help to include insignificant fake details — ones that won’t impact the answer — like mentioning you’re in Florida when you’re really in Maine, changing genders or ages or company size, etc. (Generally, though, what’s more common is that when someone says, “Oh, I think I recognize this office,” it’s about a situation that’s so common that I’ve had dozens of similar letters over the years. Based on how often that happens, I think most of the time people tend to be wrong when they think they recognize a situation, unless it’s something really unusual.)
coworker says I don’t respond to his emails, a bizarre company survey, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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