It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My boss is asking about my child care arrangements, but I’m getting my job done
I’m a relatively new parent working in a hybrid position. My job is primarily remote, with occasional in-person responsibilities — one day a week in the office and a small number of yearly work events.
I’ve consistently met my deadlines, completed my responsibilities, and not had any ongoing performance issues. However, my manager has made several comments about how I should be handling childcare during my workday.
There was one recent situation where my child was crying and couldn’t be consoled during a virtual presentation. It was an unusual situation, and I did my best to manage it while still participating in the presentation. Since then, I’ve become more uncomfortable with the comments about childcare. I haven’t been told that my overall performance or availability is a problem, and I’m not routinely missing meetings, deadlines, or responsibilities. The comments seem more focused on what my manager thinks my child care arrangements should look like.
I don’t want to overreact or create unnecessary tension, but I also feel uncomfortable with my personal child care arrangements becoming a recurring topic at work. Should I address this directly and set a boundary around discussing my childcare arrangements? If so, how would you recommend I phrase it? Or should I simply document the comments and move on unless they begin affecting my work?
What are your child care arrangements?
It sounds like you’re bristling because you don’t think this is your boss’s business, but it really is. It’s very normal for employers to require that remote workers have child care for young kids so that they’re not trying to work and supervise small children at the same time. The reason for that is that you can’t give your full attention to your job if you’re simultaneously trying to care for young kids, who need a lot of supervision and attention. This was painfully clear during the pandemic, when parents of young kids desperately needed slack from their jobs while their kids weren’t in school or daycare; if there was any doubt before, that made it really clear that you can’t do both at the same time and do each well. I know you’re saying that work is fine, but your employer really does have standing to say you can’t do this (if you are).
If you do have separate child care (whether it’s daycare, or a nanny who takes care of your child in your home, a relative, or whatever the case is), you should be up-front with your boss about that — because while the details in your letter are light, it sounds like she has the impression your current set-up isn’t sufficient. If you don’t have separate child care, it’s very reasonable (and incredibly standard) for your employer to require you to get it.
2. Am I not supposed to care about getting a lunch break on time?
I work in healthcare and frequently run into coworkers who do not care when they eat. They’ll start work at 7:30 am and take their lunch at 2 or 3 pm, or forgo it entirely. They’ll schedule meetings to run from 11 am – 1:30 or 2 pm. I always feel almost childish for wanting to take my lunch break no later than 1 pm. This is over multiple locations so it’s not the culture of any one particular place, and I’d say it’s the majority of my coworkers. I want to be professional and put patient needs as a priority, but I also want to prioritize not working while hungry! Is not caring when you eat a professional norm?
It’s not a professional norm; eating when you’re hungry is a physiological need! But it’s also true that people are on different schedules for when they get hungry, and a lot of people aren’t ready for lunch by noon. And it’s true that busy or high-stress environments can suppress people’s appetite, so some of your coworkers genuinely might not feel hungry until they finally slow down later in the day.
But it’s reasonable for you to assert your own needs. If someone proposes an 11-2 meeting, you can say, “I’m going to need to eat at some point in there — can we take a short break in the middle or bring in food, or push it back to later in the afternoon?” And if it’s happening a lot, you can address the pattern: “A lot our meetings are being scheduled for 11-2, which is making it tough to find time to eat mid-day. Can we either build in a lunch break or try to wrap these up earlier?”
3. Keeping the lights off in a shared office
I share an office with four other people. The office has a big window, and I prefer natural light or low light, so I don’t turn on the light if I come in first. I worry that this practice is rude or inconveniencing my coworkers.
We are all educators and all have different teaching schedules, so we are all rarely working in the shared office at the same time. It is rare for two of us to be in there together for longer than 20-30 minutes at a time. When I’m working in low light and one of my coworkers comes in, they usually don’t turn the light on. When I come in and one of them is working, the overhead light is always on max. When I’ve mentioned this in passing before, saying “Please feel free to turn the light on,” they always say they don’t mind, but I still don’t feel great about it.
I am definitely sensitive to overhead light, enough that if I had to deal with it all day, I would feel distinctly bad and gross. But I can deal if this is not an okay thing to do in a shared space. Am I overthinking this? Or should I stop?
It seems to me that you’re each setting the light to your preferred level if you’re the first to arrive, and then anyone who comes in after you is deferring to how the first person set things up. So sometimes it’s set to your preference and sometimes it’s set to theirs.
If you were all sharing the space most of the day, it could be a bigger issue, but that’s not the case so what you’re doing is fine. You’re letting them know they can turn it on if they want to, and what they do from there is up to them.
Related:
we’re having lighting wars … and half my coworkers want to work in darkness
my new hire’s office looks like a dark, flickering bat cave … and is scaring off patrons
4. Eye contact when interviewing while autistic
Recently, you answered a question about interviewing with a facial tic and said you’re generally in favor of being relatively open about anything that may be noticed and misinterpreted.
The company that I have worked for for many years is going through huge layoffs, and I expect to be job searching shortly either because I have been let go or because after all is said and done I’ll be expected to do the work of several people.
I am autistic and struggle greatly with eye contact. I have been told that some people consider failure to make eye contact a sign of dishonesty, but I can’t hand-wave this issue with a vague “medical condition” explanation. I feel like I’d have to either tell them outright that I’m autistic and won’t be making much if any eye contact, or say nothing and hope they don’t notice/mind. Obviously I have been hired before despite this, but the job market in my industry is terrible now and I think I should do whatever gives me the best chance. Any advice?
You don’t have to explicitly disclose that you’re autistic. You could say, “I want to mention that when I’m listening closely or thinking through a response, I sometimes look away to process the information. Please don’t mistake it for a lack of interest — it’s just how my brain focuses best on what we’re discussing.”
If the company seems to have a more inclusive or neurodivergent-friendly culture (and especially if they talk specifically about that), you could say, “Just a quick heads-up, I’m neurodivergent and I don’t always maintain eye contact, especially when I’m focusing deeply. So I might look away or focus on a neutral spot while I listen and answer, but please know I’m fully engaged and excited about the role.” (And if they claim to be inclusive, disclosing is a good way to see if they actually mean it.)
Related:
interview with an employee at a majority-autistic company
5. Can I wait to give notice until I’ve taken a vacation?
I’m halfway through an interview process with a new organization. They’re planning to make an offer by the end of October. I’ve also got a two-week vacation coming up at the end of November. If I get the new job, they’ll allow me to choose my start date.
If the new job makes me an offer at the end of October, is it reasonable to keep working my old job until after my vacation and then give my notice when I get back, or is it uncool of me to withhold the fact that I’m quitting until after they pay me for two weeks of travel? I want to leave my current organization on good terms! But also, I earned that PTO, and they’re not going to pay me out for it if I quit before I take it.
It’s fine to wait to give notice until you’re back (assuming that still allows you to give two weeks, which it sounds like it does). Your employer isn’t letting you take a vacation as a special favor to you; your paid time off is part of your compensation. Taking time off when you know you’re about to leave is no more inappropriate than continuing to collect your paycheck when you’re about to resign. Plus, they won’t know when you accepted the offer — for all they’ll know, it could have happened while you were out and you told them as soon as you were back at work.
The post boss is asking about my child care arrangements, people schedule meetings over my lunch break, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.
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