It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Should you point out grammatical errors in job ads?
I’m applying for a lot of marketing jobs where “attention to detail” and “strong verbal and written communication” are musts. Just out of curiosity, when I interview with these places is would it be considered too cheeky to light-heartedly bring up their comma splice in the job description? Or their misspelling? Would this seem come off as showing attention to detail and strong communication skills, or would it just be a dick move?
Don’t do it unless you’re invited to. Copyediting when you haven’t been asked for input can come across as rude or know-it-all-ish. Plus you risk encountering someone who doesn’t know a comma splice is wrong and thinks you’re wrong for flagging it, and suddenly you’re debating that rather than talking about the job.
There are stories of employers who intentionally put errors in their ads to see if applicants will point them out, but there’s a far higher chance that it wasn’t intentional and that your interviewer will find the unsolicited correction annoying.
2. HR wrote that I’m “fragile” in a shared document
We have a company Sharepoint in which policies, procedures, guides, and other documents are stored for employees to research and reference for information. When navigating through it recently, I found a list of employees and assigned mentors. Employees generally have assigned mentors who help us on our career development.
When I scrolled down the assignment list and found my assigned mentor, I found they changed my mentor. It was not the change in mentor that concerns me. Rather it was the HR director’s comment attached to my assignment specifically. The HR director commented why they were changing my mentor assignment and then commented that I “seemed a bit fragile” and that I “would feel more comfortable” having my previous mentor be my mentor “since she’s a strong woman.”
I am not sure where the HR director would get this idea of my character or why they would feel to post it publicly, if they were aware that it was public. I’ve never made any complaints to HR and don’t have performance issues.
How would I confront HR about the fact that the comment is publicly viewable to anyone viewing the mentor assignment list? I don’t feel comfortable with anyone else seeing it and think it should be made private.
There’s a decent chance it’s not supposed to be public, or that whoever made it public didn’t realize they posted the version containing non-public comments. But now that you’ve seen it, you can certainly ask about it.
For example, you could say: “I’m not sure if you know that the mentor assignment list is public. That wouldn’t normally seem odd to me, but it includes comments that I seem ‘fragile’ and other personal assessments of me! That doesn’t seem like something that should be shared publicly, so I wanted to ask about it. I was also concerned to read that assessment of me and wasn’t sure what it was based on. Can you give me any insight into what was behind that?”
It’s also something I’d talk to your manager about. It’s possible that assessment came from her, and if it didn’t she should be in the loop that HR is making those sorts of notes about you. Tell her what you read and ask if she can help you make sense of it.
3. My boss wants me and my coworker to be the first to return to the office
At the small (less than 25 people) company where I work, we have been working from home since March. This week, in a meeting with my boss, he mentioned that he wanted to start getting people in his department back into the office because “everyone needs to realize they have to come back sometime.” (We’ve all been able to do our jobs just fine from home, so it’s not a performance thing). The problem: It would only be me and another coworker, Chris. (My boss isn’t even sure if he would be there yet!)
According to my boss, everyone else has a “reason” not to be there — they have children (our school district is online for now), they are taking care of older relatives, they are older and don’t feel comfortable, etc. Chris and I are both young, healthy adults and don’t have children.
This rubs me the wrong way, and I don’t know if I’m being “prissy” about this or not. It is true that Chris and I are the most low-risk people. But I’ve been seriously ill before (dengue fever), and even though it didn’t kill me, it sucked! I was very sick, in and out of the hospital, and it took months to recover from the fatigue and get my old energy levels back. Not exactly how I would want to spend the next six months of my life. And in the case of COVID-19, we don’t even know what the long-term effects are!
On a more selfish level, commuting is hard — it takes time, it costs money, and I have to wear real pants and a bra. I understand that my coworkers all have very legitimate reasons for not coming in, probably even more “legit” than mine. But at the same time, I don’t want to be the office guinea pig. Am I being unreasonable? Should/how do I talk to my boss about this without coming across as a bad team player and a brat?
You’re not a bad team player or a brat because you don’t want to expose yourself to the potential of severe sickness, long-term health problems, and even death. That is exactly the opposite of being a brat. It’s entirely understandable. If this were just about not wanting to have a commute again, then yeah, it might be something you needed to suck up, but that’s not the case.
It’s reasonable to tell your boss you don’t feel safe returning to your office until the virus indicators in your area are much lower, point out that working from home has been going well, and ask to continue where you are until the virus situation is significantly better. If he points out that your risk is lower than others’, you can say, “People in my demographic are getting seriously ill and having long-term health complications or even dying. Working at home is safer for all of us until the health indicators in our area are better.”
4. Out-of-office message when I’m helping my kids with virtual school
I’m a working parent in upper management at a large nonprofit. My spouse and I are splitting the virtual school supervision for our first grade twins. From the hours of 11-3 on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I will be on virtual school duty and my kids need enough help that I will not be answering emails or messages. How do I craft a professional, yet real, out-of-office message for that time period that also sends a message to other staff at my organization that they don’t need to hide their caregiving responsibilities?
Well, normally, being away from email for four hours wouldn’t be something you’d need an out-of-office message for; you could easily be away from email that long for meetings or other work-related reasons and wouldn’t normally turn on an auto-reply then either. So the only reason to do it would be if you specifically want to use it as a strategy to reinforce to others that your organization is okay with people carving out time for caregiving. The thing is, though, it’s not the strongest way to do it — and if people aren’t getting clear messages and explicit support on this from their own managers (including help managing their workloads to make it possible), there’s even a danger that they’ll resent that you, a senior exec, can get away with it while they don’t feel they can. It’s the kind of thing where it’s not enough on its own … and if the stuff that is enough is happening, then you don’t really need it anyway.
But if you want to do the message anyway, just be very straightforward: “I will be away from email from 11-3 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays while I’m supervising my kids’ virtual school sessions and will respond to you once I’m back at my desk.” But I’d skip it and focus instead on what the organization and individual managers need to be doing to ensure others can do the same.
5. Should I tell my job I’m taking a test that would change my career plans?
I currently work for an international logistics company and in a couple of months I will be taking the U.S. Customs broker exam to become a licensed customs broker. No one at my work knows about this. I’m taking it to hopefully make more money in the future and figured quarantine was a good time to study. I have not mentioned anything because (1) the test has a very low pass rate, (2) if I do pass, it could be another six months before receiving my license and permit to operate, and (3) my company has never expressed an interest in hiring a customs broker, although it would be beneficial to them in the long run.
if I do pass, I have a few options open to me, including finding a job at an established customs broker, starting my own customs broker business, or working with my company as either a direct employee or contractor for in-house customs broker work.
The big issue is I would make more money with the license so if they do not wish to utilize it, I would move on. My company has been good to me and they would want to keep me, so I would prefer to talk to them before looking for another opportunity. But I have told a few people in the business and have had a lot of interest from them in either partnering with me or hiring me or wanting to become a client. So how and when do I tell my boss I’ve passed the test? Or should I tell them now I am taking it?
Wait until you’ve passed the test. There’s no point in putting your boss on notice that you’re hoping to change careers until you’re sure it’s happening. If you do pass, I’d alert your boss only if staying with your current company would be your first choice. If it’s not, then just quietly make other plans and let your boss know once you have an end date in mind and are ready to give notice and . Otherwise — even in a company that treats you well — you risk being pushed out earlier than you’re ready to leave, especially this year with so many cuts.
But if they’d be your first choice, then after you’ve passed the test and are within a few months of receiving your license, go to your boss with a proposal for the work you’d like to do — how you’d structure it, how it would benefit them, costs, etc. If they’re not interested, at that point it’s going to be pretty clear you’ll be leaving soon, so that’s why you want to wait until closer to the time that you’d be ready to do that.
To be clear, there are employers and managers to whom you could tell your whole plan right now and it would be fine. But it introduces risk enough of the time that I can’t recommend that without far more evidence that it wouldn’t speed up your timeline for leaving in ways you don’t want.
pointing out grammatical errors in job ads, HR called me “fragile” in a public document, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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