It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My boss keeps pretending to punch me in the groin
My manager keeps pretending to punch me in the groin when I walk past. This happens at least once on every shift. I have asked him to stop doing it more than once, as it makes me jump back and I suffer from a back injury, so it can be quite painful. He laughs about it when he does it, and I am sure he does it in jest, but he refuses to stop doing it. He simply laughs and says he would never actually hit me there, but it’s automatic to jump back out the way.
My friend who is a store manager in another store informs me that because of where he aims, it can be deemed as sexual harassment. Is this the case and what is the way forward?
I don’t know that it would qualify as sexual harassment (although maybe it would), but it’s obnoxious and not okay and needs to stop.
If you want to try one more time with him, ask to meet with him (so it’s not right in the moment after he’s done it, which will hopefully convey that it’s not all part of his “joke”) and say this: “I’ve asked you repeatedly to stop pretending to punch me in the groin. I have a painful back injury that’s triggered when I automatically jump back when you do this. You are aggravating a medical condition, and I’m concerned we’ll end up with a workers comp claim since it’s happening at work. I don’t know how to say this more clearly: It’s not funny, it’s aggravating my injury, and you need to stop.”
If that doesn’t solve it or if you want to skip that step, go over his head. If you have corporate HR, go there. If you don’t, try a regional manager or whoever is above him. Use the words “harassment,” “medical condition,” and “potential workers comp.” Any even mildly competent company is going to prioritize their legal well-being over some dude’s desire to fake-punch other dudes in the groin.
2. My reference got a weird gushing call from a hiring manager
I recently applied for a couple of jobs and let my references know via email that they might be contacted. My resume isn’t super impressive since I’m quite young and inexperienced, but I do have a very cool mentor as one of my references. This person is a bit of a star in our industry, and during one of the interviews I did recently, the hiring person commented on the connection, asking me how I knew him. I feel like the interview went well otherwise, and I had a good feeling about my chances of being hired.
A few days later, my mentor called me and I could tell he was irritated. He said they’d just had a rambling, uncomfortable phone call with a total stranger, who eventually admitted they worked for one of the companies I’d interviewed at. My mentor wasn’t annoyed at me, but was extremely weirded out by what he said was a long, gushing phone call with some hiring manager who only got to the point and mentioned my interview when my mentor got angry and forced it out of them.
My mentor made it sound as though the hiring person just called to say they wanted to discuss the mentor’s work, and to even gauge if the mentor would be interested in collaborating with them. He said they were waaaay too familiar and seemed to want to just chat, basically, until my mentor outright asked how they got their number, and they were forced to say it was from my resume. My mentor urged me not to take the job if I got an offer, and even suggested that he’d be offended if I considered working for a company that had been so weird and unprofessional to him.
The company hasn’t contacted me again since, so this may not even be a dilemma that needs solving. But I wanted to get your opinion just in case; would it be dumb or naive of me to accept a job with this company after they pissed off one of my references? I agree with my mentor that the fanboy phone call was out of line, but I also don’t believe that my mentor has the right to ask me to step away from what could be a good opportunity.
Honestly, since I wasn’t in the call, I’ve started wondering whether it could’ve just been a normal reference check phone call that my mentor responded badly to?? Maybe the hiring person was just being overly friendly and didn’t get to the point. I’m definitely inclined more towards believing my mentor’s take on the call though.
Unless you know your mentor is prone to really odd interpretations of things, I’d assume his read on the call is correct.
I mean, it’s possible that the hiring manager intended this to be a normal reference check but wanted to gush first — but it doesn’t sound like they even got to the reference check piece of the call … and instead were hoping for an in to work with your mentor. That’s really inappropriate and out of line!
But I don’t love your mentor implying he’d be offended if you took a job there. He’s right to urge you to proceed with caution, because this manager sounds awfully sketchy … but that should be about looking out for your interests, not taking offense that you didn’t listen to him (if indeed that’s what it would be). Ideally he would have just urged you to do some serious due diligence on this person and the company and bring real skepticism to that process. Hell, I’d be fine with him telling you this is a massive red flag and you shouldn’t take a job there. But “I’ll be upset if you take this job” shouldn’t be part of it.
3. My employee never apologizes for mistakes
I’m a new manager of an employee in his first year out of college. He’s a great employee and has impressed people at all levels of the company and has received recognition for his good work. There is one thing recently that has been driving me up a wall and I can’t tell if I’m being overly sensitive: for big projects with tight turnarounds he will turn in work that is wrong in major ways (not just typos), and when I point this out (or sometimes am forced to fix it myself) he will thank me for the correction but not apologize for the error.
I know women have a tendency to over-apologize, and I am absolutely one of those women. Additionally, management in the company is typically very hands-off. Should I be speaking up about this? Is he actually being rude, or do I just have a bruised ego?
An apology isn’t necessary here; he didn’t personally wrong you. If he’s acknowledging the correction graciously and incorporating your feedback for next time, he’s covering all the bases he needs to cover. If he’s not incorporating your feedback next time, that’s an issue you’ll need to talk about — but that’s different than whether he apologizes.
Of course, there might be times when it would be wise for him to apologize when you need to spend time fix his mistakes, but not to the point that you should tell him that; asking someone to apologize to you is usually a weird thing when you’re their manager, given the power dynamics in play. (Asking someone to apologize to their coworkers is different.)
4. Can I apply for a job with an org I approved a massive grant for?
I currently work as a government grants administrator, and am leisurely searching for another position. I’ve just seen a new open job that I’m really interested in — good location, I’d be a good fit for it skills-wise, and it’s with a nonprofit I feel really strongly about (and have volunteered extensively with before at another location). However, the nonprofit is one that I work closely with in my current position. I reviewed and approved the organization’s grant application, and trade emails with the director every other week or so in the process of administering the grant. I know for a fact it’s one of the largest grants this organization has ever received, and the position they’re advertising for is likely a result of them ramping up their fundraising efforts after this win.
All that being said, would it be super weird/immoral/unprofessional to apply for this position? My friends insist there shouldn’t be a problem — it’s not like I can yank the grant money if I don’t get the job! But frankly, I could make their lives very difficult (not that I ever would!), and that’s not even getting into the optics of approving a massive grant and then jumping ship for that organization.
Ugh, yeah, I’d very hesitant to apply If you were just working with them closely but not approving their grant money, it would be fine. But the fact that you’re the person approving their grant and have a lot of control over their funding makes this really sticky. You’d put them in a position where they’ll feel obligated to interview you at a minimum, and where they’ll very likely worry about what rejecting you could mean for the relationship and possibly their funding.
At most, I think you could say something to the director like, “I saw you were hiring for X. What a great job! If I didn’t worry about my current job being a conflict of interest, I’d apply for that in a heartbeat” … and see how she responds. But I don’t think you can ethically push it further than that (and even with that, I worry about it being perceived as pressure).
5. How do I list a bunch of short-term consulting work on my resume?
I finished grad school in 2017 and, due to my husband’s job which moves us frequently, I decided to try my hand at consulting. I’ve been fortunate to have a steady stream of clients, but it’s an unpredictable field and I’m constantly on the look-out for work. We are moving to a large city for my husband’s job that is also a hub for my industry. We’ve decided to settle for the next three to five years, so I’ve decided it’s time to go back to full-time work with a single organization (I worked for three years in between undergrad and grad school, so I do have experience in a more traditional work setting).
Here’s my problem: I have a lengthy list of clients with short-term projects, some of them only lasting a few months, so my resume is very long with around 10 organizations listed in the last three years. I have these grouped under a “consultancy” heading on my resume and I do offer an explanation in my cover letter, but I’m worried that a hiring manger would quickly glance at my resume and get the impression that I’m a hot mess. I don’t even want to get into what a pain filling out online applications are.
I’m very proud of this consulting work and I’ve gained so much over the last three years by working with different organizations, managers, and teams. I’d like to make this aspect of my work history really shine. Do you have any suggestions for how to change the formatting of my resume or how to better present this work history?
If I’m reading correctly, you’ve made the consulting work a whole separate section of your resume, so it look like 10 separate jobs in that section. Instead, treat it as a single job in your main employment section. Imagine the way you’d list if you’d done all this as an employee of a consulting firm — you’d list it as a regular job, with details about each project, right? You can do that here too. For job title, use “Consultant” (or similar) and then list the work you’ve done as a consultant as bullet points under that job. It’s going to look much more cohesive and less messy.
my boss keeps pretending to punch me in the groin, my reference got a weird phone call, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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