It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Employee doesn’t eat and gets hangry
I own a hair salon and recently I’ve had an issue with one of the stylists. She will go all day without eating and then get very moody with everyone. Not to sound insensitive, but her behavior doesn’t seem to be that of someone who has an eating disorder, just poor planning. Most stylists I know often order delivery on their busy days and eat while our clients are processing. However, I think she isn’t very tech-savvy (doesn’t know how to use an app) plus I think she doesn’t want to spend the extra money on delivery fees.
She gets very obviously moody, starts being clumsy/messy, and even complains about being hungry. It’s really irritating, but she is the type of person who refuses help. I’ll offer to order her something or offer her the granola bars we have in the break room, but she brushes me off. I think she thinks I’m being an annoying mom type but really I just don’t want to deal with her hangry attitude because it effects the entire salon atmosphere when she gets like that. Any tips?
You can’t manage her eating, but you can manage her behavior at work. Handle it the same way you would if she were being grumpy and messy and it didn’t seem to be linked to food. That probably means saying something like, “You’ve frequently seemed grumpy in the afternoons — like the other day when you said X to Jane and Y to Cecil. That doesn’t seem like you. What’s going on?” That’s a pretty soft approach and gives her a chance to tell you if something else is going on, plus flags for her that you’re noticing it and consider it a problem without coming down hard on her right out of the gate. Sometimes that’s enough for the person to fix the problems on their own. If not, then you have a more serious conversation: “I’m still seeing the issues we talked about. It affects everyone else in the space and isn’t fair to your colleagues, so I need you to find a way to rein it in.”
If you have a decent relationship with her, you could probably say, “I might be off-base, but my sense is that it happens when you haven’t eaten. Can you try bringing lunch or snacks with you this week and see if that changes things?” But you’d be saying that in the broader context of “your behavior is a problem and you need to find a solution,” not making the food the focus.
2. My boss and my sister-in-law are problems
Long story short, I work with my sister-in-law (we weren’t in-laws when we started) and there was a falling out with my husband’s family. Sis-in-law blamed me and decided to tell everyone we work with that I’m manipulative, a liar, etc. Which is difficult as I’m a department director and it negated my authority and damaged my reputation.
My boss is the COO and is also HR (small company). When all of this initially went down, my attendance became an issue because I was having full-scale panic attacks before coming to work and while at work. I was honest with my boss about this. She went and told not only my sister-in-law, but other employees.
Flash forward a few years (not sure why I stayed), and we have a child. I found out today that my boss has been relaying information and pictures of our child to my sister-in-law without my consent. I AM FURIOUS. I guess my question is about if any employment laws were violated here. I am in tears and close to turning in my keys and walking out.
If you’re in the U.S., this doesn’t break any laws. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not weird and inappropriate; it is.
It sounds like the COO has a history of violating your privacy, and the environment you’re working in is toxic and dysfunctional. Throw in the toxic family angle, and this is a situation you shouldn’t stay in. Job searching isn’t the easiest right now, but people are finding other jobs. It’s worth actively working on leaving.
But for as long as you’re stuck there, assume anything you tell the COO will get passed along to other employees, including your sister-in-law. If you don’t want info/photos of your child being shared with your sister-in-law, you can’t share any with your boss. If she doesn’t know anything, she’ll have a much harder time violating your privacy. (You can also, of course, speak to the COO about it and make it clear you don’t want those things shared — but based on the history, I don’t have a lot of confidence she’ll care.)
3. Premature promotion?
I have been in my job for about nine months. Being promoted after one year is considered quite fast, and my manager has made it clear she despises those who ask about promotion too early. She even ranted to me once, calling those who express disappointment in not getting promoted as entitled and ridiculous. However, many other coworkers have told me that if I don’t repeatedly express interest in promotion, even prior to my “time,” I will be passed over for lack of interest. If the position is available three times and I applied once and someone else applied twice, they’d be chosen.
Well, the position I’d naturally advance to is open now, and I’m in competition with three others. Do I apply to stake my interest and risk angering my manager? Or not apply, sticking myself at the same level for much longer?
Generally speaking, in most jobs (although not all of them) nine months is too early to be applying for a promotion (and it sounds like that’s the case for your office too?). So just as general guidance, unrelated to the rest of your question and without knowing any context that might change things, normally this would be premature.
That said, why not ask your boss about it directly? Whenever you’re hearing one thing from your boss and another from coworkers, it makes sense to just directly ask about the difference. You could say, “Can I ask you about something I’ve heard conflicting info on? You’ve told me many times that you don’t like it when people ask about promotion too early, which I understand. But I keep hearing from colleagues that it’s crucial to start expressing interest in promotion early and that people who get promoted are the ones who apply the most and the earliest. I value your guidance and I wondered what your perspective is on why they’re advising that.”
4. Do I have to help people who want to network with me when I’m already drained?
I work in an industry that’s been particularly hard hit by the pandemic, with a long slow recovery that will take years, possibly a decade. My large, international company has cut our workforce by more than half since March, with different rounds of layoffs in different countries. My job has survived, but my inbox is flooded daily with LinkedIn requests for coworkers who weren’t as lucky.
I’m 100% happy to add them to my network, even if I didn’t know them well (we had a lot of turnover and I worked with a pretty small group of employees.) The problem becomes when they want more.
My super-niche job sounds really glamorous — let’s say “llama fashion photographer” — in a company of people who mostly do less glamorous-sounding work. I used to regularly field coworkers saying something like “you have the best job” and “I applied for your job” and “I am happy in sales but really I want to do what you do.” (I know it was meant as a compliment but it got wearing.) And now that they are all laid off, I’m regularly fielding requests (via LinkedIn) to chat with me about my career path.
Alison, I don’t want to! I know it sounds petty and selfish but… I got my start back when the internet was mere science fiction, so my particular career path isn’t open to these 20somethings. Also, my job is hard and not nearly as glamorous as it sounds and pays very poorly compared to what they are used to. Finally, I’m exhausted all the same work with a team that’s been cut in half AND being a mom during a pandemic. Also, I’m an introvert and made my career photographing llamas for a reason — they don’t talk to me. I don’t have the emotional energy — or time! — to have a “quick half-hour zoom catch up” with every person who wants to find their new path in the glamorous world of llama photography.
Do I have to respond via Linkdin? Do I owe them a quick chat? What’s my obligation here — especially to coworkers I never actually met, much less worked with?
I would reframe this to yourself less as “I don’t want to” and more as “I am at the limits of my bandwidth and this isn’t something I can take on right now,” maybe with a side of “my experience isn’t likely to be as useful to them as they hope.” Which means that no, you don’t need to do a Zoom meeting with every person who contacts you. (You wouldn’t have to otherwise either, but hopefully this will make you feel less guilty.)
That said, are there lower-energy ways you could still be helpful? Since you’re being contacted in what sounds like large numbers, there’s an argument for writing up a short Q&A that you could send people or post online. You could include info about the things like what kind of pay to expect and what the day to day realities of the work are like, as well as what your own path was like (even if the same path isn’t realistic now) and what kinds of paths you’ve seen into the field more recently.
Then you could reply to hopeful networkers with something like, “I’m so sorry but my schedule has virtually no give right now. But I’ve received so many requests for these kinds of conversations that I wrote up answers to some of the most common questions I hear. I hope this is useful to you, and best of luck!”
5. Asking about the end of a furlough
I was furloughed at the start of the pandemic lockdowns because the company I worked for was forced to stop operating. I was sent an email in March saying they would reopen on September 30 pending local lockdown laws. That date is approaching and I’ve seen on social media that they have started to reopen and resume business. I haven’t heard anything from my manager and I was curious about the appropriate way to contact them and ask for more information?
Send an email and say, “Hi Jane, I hope you’re well. I wanted to check with you about plans for reopening. Is the September 30 date that was mentioned at the start of our furlough still in effect? I’m eager to return to work when it’s possible, and I hoped to get any updated information that’s available.”
employee gets hangry when she doesn’t eat, my boss and sister-in-law are problems, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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