should the thumbs-up emoji reflect my skin tone, managing 20 people but still have a coordinator title, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Should I replace the yellow thumbs-up emoji with a color that reflects my skin tone?

I came back from leave a few weeks ago and have found that while I’ve been off, the majority of my fairly white team have changed their default teams emoji from the yellow generic to a color more reflective of their skin tone.

As far as I can tell, there hasn’t been any kind of company-wide training or directive to make that change, probably more likely that someone changed and other people realized they could do the change.

Personally, I’d prefer to keep the generic yellow, as I feel it’s less explicit (?) about race. The workplace itself is a fairly standard corporate office in the UK, with a reasonably diverse European team.

Is there a society-wide memo I missed and I need to change my emojis so I don’t look like a racist? Is leaving it as the default a greater statement? Am I just being overly anxious and no one would actually care?

You can stick with the yellow one if you prefer to. You won’t look like a racist.

There are some interesting think pieces about this out there, though, if you want to delve into it, like these:

Why the emoji skin tone you choose matters (Wired)
Which skin color emoji should you use? The answer can be more complex than you think (Iowa Public Radio)

2. How do I get my coworkers to send me all the info up-front that I need to answer their questions?

I work remotely from Turkey for a company in the US. There is an eight-hour time difference between me and most of my coworkers, and I have come to realize it turns a small, everyday annoyance into a real productivity problem.

The annoyance is incomplete messages. Someone writes, “Hey, the pipeline is broken, can you take a look?” — but does not say which environment, or send a link, or explain what actually happened, or what they need from me. If you sit next to each other, this is a two-minute “wait, which one?” and you move on. Across eight hours, it is not two minutes. I ask my question, they are already offline. They answer, I am offline. Something that could have been solved in one message instead takes a full day, sometimes two.

These are good people who are not trying to make my life harder. They just send a quick message the same way they would to someone sitting next to them. I do not think they picture the person on the other side reading it eight hours later, with no way to ask a quick follow-up.

I have tried bringing it up directly. Once, as politely as I could, I asked a coworker, “Could you please put the full details in messages like these? it takes a lot of time for both of us this way.” I could see it did not land well — he seemed a little offended, as if I had criticized him instead of asking for help. That is exactly what I am afraid of: sounding demanding, or picky, or like I am making a simple thing complicated. And it does not really change anything; the next message is again, “Can you take a look?”

How do I get well-meaning coworkers to include the details I need to actually act on a message, without sounding like I am scolding them or turning every message into a form to fill out? Is there a way to raise this as a team habit, instead of me reminding people one message at a time? And, honestly: how do I make sure I am not doing the same thing to them without noticing?

I know you don’t want to make people fill out a form, but ticketing systems exist exactly for this reason. It will take them a couple of minutes longer up-front, but because it will ensure that you get all the information you need, their problem will get fixed a lot faster. And you can create a really streamlined ticketing system; it does need to be elaborate just because of its nature. It could be three or four question, or mostly made up of dropdown choices (which would force them to better define what they’re asking about). And you can present as a way of getting people’s jobs done faster because there won’t be repeated lags while you go back and forth to gather info.

3. My boss told me he’d get back to me tomorrow … 7 months ago

I was asked by a colleague in another department to update a document I wrote in 2017 so they could re-post it on our website given recent interest in its subject matter. Great idea, it’s a good resource and it needed updating. Made the revisions, and gave it to my manager (the VP of my small team) to review. He said he’d take a look and get it back to me by the end of the week, which was reasonable since he had already approved the previous version and there were just a few changes.

That was seven months ago. I still have not gotten sign-off on this (very short!!) revised document. The colleague in the other department has asked me at least every other week, without fail, for an update and whether it’s ready to re-post. I share her frustration, because I also remind my manager about this at our weekly check-ins, just for him to say, “Oh gosh, yes of course! I forgot, I’ll have it back to you tomorrow” week after week. He is busy, sure, but not this busy, and this isn’t a favor he’s doing for me. He is generally a great manager, and frequently asks me how he can help me since I cover a wide portfolio (and yes, I’ve said, “You can help me by looking at this thing from January and stopping our colleague from emailing me about it every freaking second”).

I’ve thought about suggesting that he use some of our weekly check-in to look at it — he already has that time blocked off, after all, and if I’m sitting there in his office he’d be less likely to put it off for something else, which is what’s been happening — but this feels inappropriate given that he’s my superior. We do have a great relationship and have worked together for 10 years, and he has acknowledged that he should have done this months ago, but … I can’t do that, right?

Yes, you can do that! You’re not “ordering” him to spend his time that way, just suggesting it. At your next check-in, try saying, “Jane asked me to get X ready to repost seven months ago and keeps checking in. I think it will only take you a very short time to review it, but I know it keeps getting bumped back. Would you want to just look at it now while I’m in here so we can get it to her?”

If he again says that he’ll look at it tomorrow instead, then check back with him tomorrow. As in: “You said you’d have X ready for me today so I wanted to check with you.” And if it’s still not ready and you have a decent relationship with him, at that point you can say, “I know it keeps getting pushed back — if it’s not ready by Friday, can I just give it to her as-is?”

And if this still doesn’t solve it, say this: “Is there someone else who can sign off on this since Jane has been waiting so many months? I know you’re swamped, so maybe someone else can do it?”

4. I’m managing 20 people but still have a coordinator title

I’ve been in my current position for 4.5 years. I was hired as an individual contributor with a coordinator title, but over the past three years my role has changed significantly. In addition to taking on a much broader scope of work, I now manage six employees and 14 interns.

Despite these changes, my title and salary have never been updated. I’m still classified as a coordinator, even though a significant part of my job is managing people and overseeing a growing portfolio of work.

I’ve talked with my manager several times about a promotion, title change, and salary adjustment. The response is always the same: the organization is operating on a lean budget, so there isn’t funding for promotions right now. Meanwhile, the additional responsibilities remain mine.

I enjoy my work and I’m proud of what I’ve built, but I’m struggling to understand whether this is a reasonable situation or one that’s unlikely to change. At what point should I stop accepting “there’s no budget” as an answer? Is it reasonable to ask for a title change even if the organization says it can’t afford a raise? And if my responsibilities have permanently shifted into management, how do I make the case that my title and compensation should reflect the job I’m actually doing?

It’s absolutely reasonable to ask for a title change even if it doesn’t come with a raise; your title should reflect the work you’re actually doing, and it will help you parlay the increased responsibilities into a promotion elsewhere. It’s possible your company has rules that won’t allow this without an accompanying pay increase, but they might not and you should push for it.

But you should also keep pushing for the raise. If you left and they had to hire someone from the outside to do the work you’re doing, they’d presumably need to pay appropriately for it and would somehow find the money.

If they won’t budge, it’s worth leaving over.

5. How personal should I get in a cover letter?

I am looking to change careers in the next few years. I currently teach high school, and I am looking to move into the nonprofit world, most likely working with homeless youth. The positions I am looking at are already a stretch; I do not have a nonprofit background, but I am not interested in entry-level jobs. I am primarily looking at jobs where I would be a liaison between schools and the nonprofit organization.

My son was homeless for several years. Is that appropriate to include in a cover letter? I would tie it to how it would help me on the job by saying I have firsthand knowledge of the issues unhoused people face, I am familiar with resources provided by the community, I understand what parents may be feeling, etc. I am not really sure how personal I can be in a cover letter though. I am also concerned it might look like I can’t separate my feelings from my work or that I have a savior complex. In reality, the support my son received from various nonprofits in our community allowed us to set boundaries that were healthy for our family, and kept all of us, including our son, safe. Is that okay to say? I feel like it could be a bit of a risk for a cover letter, but I am already a stretch for the job. Maybe this would help me get an interview?

Talking about personal experiences related to a nonprofit’s mission is one of the few exceptions to the normal “don’t get too personal in a cover letter” rule. It shouldn’t be the focus of your letter — that should still be on why you’d excel at the job — but a few sentences explaining how your family’s experience gave you a deeper understanding for and appreciation of their mission can strengthen this type of letter.