can I ask people to stop citing Elon Musk as aspirational, asking my coworker to close her door during phone calls, and more

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

1. How can I ask people to stop citing Elon Musk as an aspirational figure?

I work in tech and, with some regularity, someone will comment about Elon Musk in a positive/aspirational way. Examples:

“Even Elon Musk had technical issues sometimes!”
“They told Elon he couldn’t make those rockets two years, and they were wrong!”

I’ve disliked this before, when it was just a combination of people giving him more credit than was due and ignoring his ethics violations like EPA issues in Texas, but in light of the past year, it’s a whole new level. The Nazi salute after Trump won alone should, in my opinion, be enough to stop venerating him. But then he was the responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps even millions, gutting government services, destroying and leaking confidential data.

What can I say to ask them to stop? I assume it would be best said one-on-one. These tend to be people a step above me in hierarchy, e.g. senior VP, department directors, where I have a moderately influential role and can talk with them almost as equals.

I think you’re better off just responding with something fairly dry in the moment, not having A Big Conversation about it separately. Ultimately, they’re allowed to admire him if they want to — but you don’t have to pretend you agree and can certainly say in the moment, “Not the role model I’d choose” / “I used to respect his vision, but I can’t support him now” / “I wish I could look up to him, but his recent actions are too problematic” / “I can’t admire the guy anymore” or so forth.

2. Can I ask my coworker to close her door when she’s on the phone?

The coworker in the office next to mine never closes her door when on a call. I can clearly hear everything she and the caller are saying. It’s quite distracting; the woman on the other side of her office has also mentioned to me that it’s distracting. Is our expectation that she closes her door unreasonable? (For the record, at this company, everyone else with an office closes their door on calls; those in cubicles use headsets for calls.) If it’s not, is there a way to gently ask that she do this?

I realize one solution is to close our doors when she’s on a call, but we also keep an open-door policy and I’d prefer to remain easily available if someone would like to chat with me and I actually am available, rather than be beholden to this coworker’s call schedule.

If she’s also taking calls on speaker — which is what it sounds like, if you can hear both sides — that’s particularly obnoxious.

If she’s a peer or junior to you — and particularly since it sounds like she’s out of sync with the norm in your office — there’s no reason you can’t say, “Jane, would you mind closing your door when you’re on a call, or keeping them off speaker phone? Our walls are so thin that with the door open, it can be really hard to focus.”

If she’s senior to you or if you don’t feel comfortable saying it because she, I don’t know, has a track record of snapping at reasonable requests, explain to your boss that your coworker being the only one who leaves her door open when she’s on the phone is making it hard to focus and ask if she’d be willing to make the request.

3. How do I get management experience?

I just got rejected for a manager role in my company, on a team adjacent to mine. I’ve worked at my company for nearly a decade and have been looking to move into management for the past four years. I have no illusions about how hard it is to be a manager; I genuinely enjoy supporting other people and empowering them to do strong work. I have scored high marks every year on my year-end review. My manager and my director have given me opportunities to lead projects and small project teams. I’ve asked for opportunities to gain and demonstrate leadership skills. All of my direct leaders say that I am ready and are cheering me on. But when jobs open up, I am rejected and told it’s because I don’t have experience leading people. They generally love me and have no feedback for me, just that I don’t have experience yet.

This feels like a catch-22. I can’t get the job without actual management experience, but no one will give me a job without management experience. I’m starting to think I am going to be stuck at this level forever, having outgrown my current role and unable to progress into the roles I want. How does anyone get experience so they can get a management job?

Yeah, this is tricky — because even if they think you’re as ready as you can be in your current role, when you’re competing against candidates who do have management experience, they can be the safer bet. (Not always! There are plenty of people with management experience who are bad at managing … but some employers will always see experience as a surer choice.)

Leading projects and project teams, as you’ve done, is helpful. Would your manager be willing to let you manage an intern(s) as a low-stake, time-limited experiment in seeing how you do? What about filling in for your manager when she’s out? Would it make sense for your team to create a team lead position, and would your manager consider you for that?

Ultimately, though, if you’re not able to get the opportunity you want at this company, you might need to look outside of it. Often it’s easier to move into management at the company you’re already at, where you’re a known quantity and it can be easier to take a chance on you — but not always.

Related:
how can I get a management job without management experience?

4. Can I apply for a promotion right after I start?

I have been in the same role for 11 years. Next week, I start a new position that is technically equivalent, but on a smaller team where I anticipate having more leadership opportunities. I also expected that this team would have an opening next year for a supervisor, and thought there was at least a chance I could be in the right place at the right time.

However, the supervisor role will be coming open within weeks or a couple of months from when I start! My organization has no waiting period, and my new grandboss knew when he hired me that I’m interested in moving up — he actually interviewed me for a supervisor role last year, and although that didn’t work out, he was very encouraging at the time.

If I apply for the supervisor position, will I look like an ass who didn’t want the job I was hired for?

I can’t tell for sure from your letter, but I think this is an internal move for you, rather than you bring brand new at a new company, which might make things a little more fluid.

Either way, though, talk to your new boss before you do anything; don’t just apply without having that conversation. Say something like, “I was hoping a supervisor position might open up on the team next year and I’d apply for it; I hadn’t expected one to open up so quickly. I’d be interested in being considered for it if that wouldn’t leave you high and dry, but I also don’t want you to think I’m not excited about and committed to the X job because I am.” Who knows, he might be fine with you applying and even have already figured that you’d want to … or he might ask you to focus on the job he just hired you for. But have the conversation since it will demonstrate some conscientiousness about the job you just took, and see what he says.

5. I wrote a book — how do I put it on my resume?

Last year, I left my job in higher ed consulting due to burnout — I was extremely fortunate to be in a financial position to take some time off and had been very unhappy for a long time. I spent some time traveling and then found myself doing a just-for-fun research project on an area of local interest that has to do with my family history. Long story short, it was picked up by a publisher and I have been spending the majority of my time working on the manuscript, which is due at the end of August. They paid me an advance, but it wasn’t enough to live on so I picked up some part-time work at a local interior design studio to make ends meet. It’s been really fun, and a nice change of pace!

However, since neither the book nor my part-time job have anything to do with my career, I am struggling with how to put this on my resume. I am planning to start job hunting again once I have submitted the manuscript, which will be about 18 months since my last full-time position. I spent about six months doing the research project just for fun (and part-time) before it was picked up for publication, and the release date will be in the fall of 2027. I will definitely need to find full-time, benefitted work before the book release (hopefully by the end of this year!), and since it is a local interest book I will not be doing a tour except of our local bookstores and historical society, only on weekends. Do you have any advice as to how to format my resume to show this?

You can create an “Other” section at the end of your resume and list it there like this:

Author of The Frog Barons of Northern Rhode Island (Big Pond Press, publishing October 2027)

You can include the part-time job there, too. That way your most relevant experience is still at the top.