It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My boss is forcing me to work full-time while I’m laid off
Covid has hit the tiny company I work for hard. The owner, my boss, has made terrible decisions at every turn, but somehow we were able to keep going. When I arrived at work yesterday, the other four employees, who report to me, had been sent home. The owner sat across from me and told me to go to our state’s unemployment website, and he would “guide me” through filing a claim.
Here is where it gets particularly noxious. He told me that the company cannot survive without me, and if I have any hope of returning to work normally (both me and my coworkers), I have to continue to work as normal while collecting unemployment. He will not be paying me, needless to say, but I am still expected to work full-time. If I did not agree, he will tell unemployment I quit, so I have no way to collect unemployment benefits.
I feel physically sick. Our states’s unemployment system is very backed up, and I keep hearing horror stories of people who filed in March still not being paid. As of last Friday (the date I was told to claim benefits for), I don’t know when I will be paid again. At least until unemployment is straightened out, I feel like I have to go along with this so he can’t screw with my benefits. After that, I am fairly sure I will just stop showing up, but that could be months from now.
Don’t misunderstand me, I know the owner is an absolute shitgoblin and I need to be preparing myself to look for a new job. But in the interim, if we get caught, who is legally responsible? I am not getting wages from my work, so I am not double-dipping, but it still feels super illegal on my end.
You’re not breaking the law; he is.
It’s illegal for him not to pay you. Track your hours and keep whatever documentation you can that proves you’ve been working during this time, and whenever you’re ready you can file a wage claim with your state department of labor. Of course, if the business has shuttered, there might not be money to pay you — but the company will be legally liable for those unpaid wages. You will not be legally responsible for the situation; the law rightly sees you as the victim, not the perpetrator.
Also, in regard to unemployment — if he reports that you quit, he’s not the final word! You’ll have an opportunity to contest that, and you can appeal if you need to. If you explain that he stopped paying you and you declined to work for free, unemployment isn’t going to consider that a resignation. No longer being paid is a qualifying reason to receive unemployment benefits in every state I know of. So he’s making an empty threat (and is a jerk). That said, you’re right that it could be months before this gets straightened out because of the current backlog, and those are months where you might not be receiving benefits (you should receive the money eventually, but that doesn’t help during those months with no money coming in). So you have to balance all those factors in deciding what to do.
(Also, be aware that if you receive unemployment benefits and then later win a wage claim against him and he’s forced to pay you for that period, you’d need to repay the unemployment you received for that same time so that you weren’t double dipping — but you’d presumably repay it out of the back wages you received.)
2. My office says “I appreciate you” instead of “thank you”
A few years ago, a director in my department started saying “I appreciate you” instead of “thank you.” This spread among all of leadership in the department, and later to most of the rank and file.
I found this irritating to begin with and did my best to ignore it, but after being rejected for a promotion, it now feels very uncomfortable. The position was on another team in my department, and the feedback that I got was that I was an ideal candidate but there were others who had more direct experience. I understand their decision and acknowledge that I would have made the same choices in their place. I have talked to managers in the department about developmental opportunities, and the response I get is that they cannot picture me doing anything other than what I currently do. The problem is that in my daily work, I have to work side by with the managers who are rejecting me, and their subordinates which include the people picked over me, and have to regularly hear them say: “I appreciate you.”
I think they mean well. In fact, I think they genuinely mean it. However, it hurts to hear “I appreciate you” over and over again when actions kind of feel otherwise. It then puts me in the awkward position of having to thank them and act gracious for the complement when it kind of feels like a gut punch.
I have mentioned my feelings on the situation to my own manager, but I don’t think she has done anything. My manager is the type of person who is very concerned with how “the brass” thinks of her, and I suspect she would not give them any negative feedback towards their own behavior. I have been thinking about mentioning in the moment to the person saying “I appreciate you” that it makes me feel uncomfortable. However, that comes with the challenge of possibly having to explain to people that I was rejected for the job, which the people who aren’t managers or above probably don’t know and I am laying some guilt that they don’t deserve. Additionally, I need to maintain a good working relationship with the managers who rejected me since I need them to accomplish my own work.
Am I taking this too personally? Is there maybe another approach I should consider? I don’t know if this makes a difference, but the reason I have not gone to HR is because I am in the HR Department, and the other team is the Employee Relations team.
Yeah, you’re probably taking it too personally. It grates because you’re thinking, “If you appreciate me so much, why did I get passed over for a promotion?” But they’re using it as a stand-in for “thank-you,” so you’re sort of having two different conversations. (Plus, they can genuinely appreciate you and still think someone else was the stronger candidate for the role you didn’t get. The two aren’t connected, even though it feels that way.)
To be clear, constantly using “I appreciate you” in place of “thank you” would annoy the hell out of me. But if that’s what it’s shorthand for in your office, you’re better off hearing it for what it means in your culture rather than taking the words literally. Telling people it makes you uncomfortable would be making too big a deal out of it; it’s just an annoying piece of office lingo. As for responding to it, if it’s really a stand-in for thank-you, feel free to respond with “you’re welcome!” (Responding to a thank-you with another thank-you would be unnecessary anyway.)
The real problem, I think, is that you’re being told your management can’t imagine you doing anything other than your current job. That’s a pretty clear message that you won’t get promoted there, and if you want to move up, you’ll need to look outside your company to do it. You can certainly explore that a little more — sit down with your manager and push about why that is and whether there’s a way for you to demonstrate your fit for higher-level roles — but this is an important message to listen to, and a much bigger deal than the “I appreciate you” language.
3. Asking back an employee but not his spouse
Earlier this year, I managed a small team of creative workers. Two of my team members were a married couple, we’ll call them Jim and Pam. I have always been pleased with the quality of work I received from each of them, but Pam has consistently shown a poor attitude by complaining about and ignoring deadlines, not communicating, and openly prioritizing work from her other part-time job over what she did for our company (“I didn’t finish that because I was doing stuff for my other job” is apparently a good reason to have not finished one’s work.)
My team had been working on temporary contracts and, when they were up, we extended the opportunity to return in the future to any interested team members on an as-needed basis. All, including Pam, have indicated that they want to return ASAP. That time is upon us, and I’m starting to decide who I want to come back and when.
Here’s my issue: I’d love to have Jim back. I don’t want Pam on the project anymore, at least not under me. We are a startup and I think she really prefers the more easygoing, low-pressure environment of her other job. On a personal level, I find that her attitude made her difficult to manage effectively, as she rarely seemed to take the work seriously. However, I feel horribly awkward asking Jim to come back and not asking Pam. Can you recommend a course of action? I really don’t want to cause drama or hurt any feelings, but I won’t compromise the project.
If you’ve explained you’ll be bringing people back as-needed but they understand there’s no promise that everyone will return, it’s possible you can just … bring Jim back and not contact Pam about returning. In some contexts that would be fine, and in others it would feel distinctly crappy. If it would be the latter, then the best thing to do is to reach out to Pam and say something like, “We’ve been revisiting our staffing and planning for the rest of the year. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to offer you a spot back. I wanted to let you know as soon as I could so you’re not planning around us.”
That might be all that’s needed. But if Pam pushes about why, it’s okay to explain that with limited spots, one factor you looked at was past performance, including things like missed deadlines.
There’s no guarantee this won’t cause some sort of drama, but all you can do is be straightforward and matter-of-fact.
4. Job application asked about my sick days in the last two years
I am, like lots of people, job searching in the wake of COVID. I came across a role that sounded really interesting lately and started working on the application materials when I saw this question on the form: “Please state the number of days and reasons for absence due to sickness during the last two years.”
That gave me pause. I’m not a very sickly person, but in the past two years I’ve taken a handful of days here and there for colds and the like. Isn’t that normal? Should I be alarmed that a potential employer wants to know this about me? This also seems like it could be discriminating against candidates with long-term or chronic health issues – isn’t this in the same vein as asking a candidate if they’re pregnant? I’m in the UK.
Should I take this as a red flag? I’m getting so burned out by job searching I feel like I’m starting to lose sense of what’s normal or not.
I can’t speak to UK law, but in the U.S. it’s not a question employers should be asking. Both the Family and Medical Leave Act and the ADA prohibit discrimination against applicants who have exercised their rights under those acts. An employer can ask how many days off you took last year in general, but not how many sick days and definitely not the reasons for them. (I imagine the UK has similar protections, but you’d need a UK expert to answer that for you.)
And yeah, it’s a red flag. At a minimum, they’re signaling they cross boundaries when it comes to employees’ private medical info and possibly the law more broadly, as well as calling into question how accommodating they are of health needs.
5. How to list partial grad school on my resume
I’ve been enrolled in a professional master’s degree program for about a year, but the overall weight of life right now is causing me to take a pause, with the potential of dropping it entirely. I just can’t handle the added stress right now on top of COVID and everything else, and I figured that was something in my control I could drop to lighten my cognitive load. And let’s be real, I don’t see signs of it letting up soon.
Assuming I don’t finish, should I bother listing it on any job applications/resumes (where it’s relevant)? Would I list it as “graduate coursework”? I didn’t do poorly at all (two A-minuses over 15 completed credits), I’m just (possibly/probably) not finishing the degree, and I was hopeful I could get something out of it. (And yes, I know graduate certificates exist, but the only one nearest would require an additional nine credits, at which point I could almost finish the degree.)
Yep, you’d list it this way:
* Graduate coursework in turtle folk songs, Tortoise College, 2019-2020
Be prepared to be asked about it interviews — both why you went and why you stopped — but it shouldn’t be a big deal.
boss is forcing me to work while I’m laid off, office says “I appreciate you” instead of “thank you,” and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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