It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My manager refers to me as a diversity hire
I’m a new, junior hire for a small team that is predominantly white and male. I just got an email from my boss asking a member of the team to add my name and picture to a proposal — that, as far as I’m aware, I am not working on — to add more diversity to the team.
This isn’t the first time he’s referred to me as a diversity hire in some way — although I don’t know how having the most junior member on your team not be white or male really helps that much — but it’s beginning to bother me and to make me feel like other people are underestimating me because it’s implied I was just hired because of my race and gender.
I don’t know how or what to say about it! I’ve been hearing this my whole life. I’ve only gotten that scholarship because I was “diverse,” I’ve only gotten that internship because I was “diverse” … I feel like I’ve begun to internalize it and would love any advice.
I’m sorry, this is really crappy.
How to proceed depends a lot on the environment you’re in and your own sense of what options are safe for you to use. But ideally you’d ask your boss directly, “Is that a project I’d be working on?” … and if the answer is no, then say, “I’d of course be happy to add my info to any proposal I’d be working on, but otherwise wouldn’t feel comfortable being listed.”
And — again ideally — you could consider saying to your boss at some point, “When you refer to me as a diversity hire, it sounds like you didn’t hire me based on merit. I’m assuming I’m here because of my qualifications, so can I ask you not to use that term?” If you want, you could add, “I’m concerned it will undermine me with people who hear it.” One would think she would have thought of that on her own, but she apparently hasn’t.
(And while this isn’t the worst of the issues here, let’s note for the record that an individual person is not diverse! A group can be diverse. A person is a person. They are using it as a proxy for “someone who is not what we think of as the default — i.e., not a cis, straight, able-bodied white man,” and that is not what it means.)
2. Text-speak at work
A number of years ago, my manager (who happens to be the organizational leader) started using shorthands like “k,” “kk,” “ty,” “tnx,” and a number of others in chats and texts. I personally find them to be somewhat abrupt, and especially in the context of delivering/presenting important work I’ve put a ton of effort into, a “ty” and nothing else is really discouraging. My workplace is fully remote (even before Covid), so sometimes a “k” or a “tnx” is all I hear in a day. This was “kk” until the usage of these terms started getting picked up by my coworkers. Now, we seem to correspond in these 2-3 letter increments constantly, although I personally avoid ever using them.
Would it be appropriate to ask, politely, that we use full words and sentences to thank each other or express understanding/agreement? I am guessing the best route is to continue displaying the language I prefer, but the prevalence is discouraging me more than I initially imagined it would. Is there anything one person can do to change the tide on an issue like this, or am I completely overblowing the meaning of these little conversational shortcuts?
It’s interesting how “OK!” can read differently than “k,” isn’t it? It’s just one more letter and a punctuation mark, but the second sounds much more abrupt than the first.
That said, you probably don’t have the standing to do anything about it. You workplace culture is that people use these abbreviations, stemming from the top, and it’s likely to look a little off to make a big deal about it. The better bet is to try to see them truly as abbreviations — to read “ty” or “tnx” no differently than you would read “thank you,” etc. Think of abbreviations that feel more normal to you, like ASAP, and put these in that category. What’s most important is what you know people mean to convey, and if your colleagues aren’t generally brusque people, don’t assign brusqueness to their abbreviations.
What I would think more about, though, is this: “sometimes a ‘k’ or a ‘tnx’ is all I hear in a day.” Is there any chance you need more communication with colleagues than you’re currently getting, and this is bothering you more because it’s in that context? If so, can you try to find more opportunites to truly talk with people and see if that helps? (Since you’re remote, you could consider setting up a Slack channel or similar for people to talk in.)
3. Candidate didn’t do the work her resume says she did
I’m on a recruitment panel to recruit for a job in another team in my department. One candidate has submitted a cover letter responding to our selection criteria with examples of how she has met the criteria in the past. I know one example, is, at the very least, highly exaggerated, as it was a project actually led by my team. She describes leading consultation with various departments, when I know she didn’t.
HR has said that it’s up to us how we want to proceed, and that people do overstate their experience. Under our recruitment procedures, if information is found that adversely impacts on selection, we have to give a right of reply. Or we could exclude that example from our assessment, which would still put her in the pool of candidates progressing to interview as she scored highly otherwise.
Since she otherwise scored highly, I’d move her to an interview and ask her about it directly at that point. See what she says.
Sometimes people get terrible advice to inflate things on their resumes. If she just puffed it up a little bit and handles it well when you ask her about it, I wouldn’t reject her based on that alone — but it would be a strike against her that I’d consider as part of the total picture. But if this was more than mild puffery — if she claimed to do things she had no part in — I don’t see how you can comfortably move forward with her … because of concerns about her integrity, obviously, but also because how will you know if you can trust other parts of her self-reported experience and accomplishments?
4. Boss wants to do something nice — can we ask for money?
I work for a small company. We have had a very good quarter and my boss/owner wants to take us out to celebrate and suggested an outing outside of work. While it is a very nice gesture, no one really wants to go or has the time. We have agreed that a lunch or brunch would be nice, but the owner would like to do more. Is there a way to politely ask for a monetary gift/bonus instead of an outing? Is it extremely rude to suggest lunch/brunch and money?
Well, she’s asking! If she had suggested lunch to celebrate the quarter and you countered with “Nah, just give us money,” that could indeed be rude. But in this case, she wants to do lunch/brunch plus more, and she’s wondering what that “more” could be. You could say it this way: “The lunch or brunch would be great. But since you’re asking what else we’d like, is there any chance of bonuses, even small ones? That would always be hugely appreciated.”
However, a touchy boss may still look askance at this (especially if to her “celebrate” means “we spend quality time together”), so you have to know the person you’re dealing with.
5. Did candidate give me a fake reference?
Something happened a couple years ago that I’d like your perspective on. I got into grad school and was helping my company hire and train my replacement since I was able to give five months’ notice. I conducted the phone screens and first interviews and my boss, the director of HR, conducted the second interviews. We agreed on our first choice applicant, and my boss asked me to conduct the reference check.
We used a candidate management system that asked for references up front, so I called the number this applicant had listed for their most recent job with a city government in a neighboring state. After a few rings, a guy who was obviously at a loud sporting event picked up, didn’t understand me, and hung up on me. I figured that she had listed her former boss’s cell number and I caught him at a bad time, so I googled the local government office to find the office number, planning to call and leave a message.
The weird thing is, another guy picked up, affirmed that HE was the person I was looking for and then gave a glowing review. I thought it was weird but we moved forward with the candidate and she started training shortly thereafter. About two weeks after she started training with me, she quit suddenly via email.
We were working in sports and entertainment at a seasonal property — turnover is common, but not nearly as common in the administrative function we were hiring for. I’ve just never been able to shake the weirdness with the reference. Who was the person at the first number? Did she provide a fake number to give a good review? Why would she bother if her actual employer would give her as good a reference as he did? Did I do something wrong in the vetting process — undervalue the reference weirdness?
It’s impossible to say. Everything could have been totally above board and she still could have quit two weeks in. It’s a little weird that the person who answered at the general number for a government office just happened to be the person you were looking for, but it’s not impossible. I don’t see any real reason to assume something was wrong. You did your due diligence by calling the direct number, and at a certain point if someone is determined to deceive you, there’s not a ton you can do.
In general, I always like to call general switchboard numbers when I can and ask for the reference I want to reach, rather than calling cell numbers, just to ensure I’m really getting the person I think I’m getting. It’s harder to do that these days when so many people use their personal cell phones for their work numbers, but in general, the more you can go through official channels to reach a person, the more confident you can be that they are who they say they are.
my manager calls me a “diversity hire,” text-speak at work, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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