It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. The Kelly Clarkson bird toy drama
I’m desperate for your take on this story!
TL;DR renowned pop star Kelly Clarkson visits Brooklyn toy store, tries to buy their beloved bird automaton (listed for $15,000). Kelly says they dismissed her “like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman,” while the store claims they tried to explain the bird wasn’t for sale and offered alternatives. Twitter/instagram/podcast blowout ensues.
I’ve been swayed by discourse to Team Kelly, but my partner thinks she’s a monster here and is Team Store. Not saying anyone’s wrong but just wondering what the best course of action is here for the store’s owners and staff?
I enjoy a good celebrity blow-up, and I also feel like I would enjoy a $15,000 animatronic bird, but at this point I’m losing interest because I can’t figure out what really happened and everything that gets released muddles the picture further. But what I think for sure is that, regardless of what happened, it didn’t warrant a celebrity blasting a small business to her millions of followers … plus this is the issue she chooses to use her enormous platform for? “Someone treated me like I didn’t have money”?
.
At the same time, the store is making it worse by continuing to release statements about it. They should have issued one gracious statement when it first happened saying it was a misunderstanding and they apologize that she left unhappy, and then left it there. If they’d done that, we wouldn’t still be talking about it. So everyone involved seems like they need better PR help.
2. Employee makes terrible noises in response to a coworker’s lotion
I work in an office at a small manufacturing plant. There are two ladies who sit next to each other but are separated by what I would call a huge sneeze guard because Jane says Marcia uses a lotion that she is allergic to, though we have never received any note from a doctor stating any restrictions. Jane starts coughing and hacking up spit at her desk, then goes to the lunchroom to blow her nose and spit in the trash can. She does not use the lunch room or anything but to clear her throat. She does this daily from 11 am to lunchtime at 11:45, making the office uncomfortable.
Jane has stated she just doesn’t want to sit next to Marcia, but we are limited in the spaces we have. Jane has adjusted her own schedule to work 9-5 as opposed to the office hours of 8:30-4:30. She cannot work from home, nor can she be moved to a private office since that would set a bad precedent in the office. Is there any way to talk to her to change or is the office just stuck with her? It feels as if Jane is harassing the rest of the office and she makes it a hostile work environment.
Legally, this is not harassment. In fact, if there’s any legal issue here, it’s that if an employee is having a physical reaction to a coworker’s lotion, the company needs to tell the coworker to stop using that lotion at work. In theory you could require Jane to go through the process of requesting a formal medical accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but why? It’s much simpler and more direct to simply say to Marcia, “Unfortunately Jane is sensitive to the smell of that lotion, so you can’t apply it at work anymore. You’re welcome to bring in one that’s unscented.”
An employer’s obligation to ensure employees can safely and comfortably breathe at work takes precedence over an employee’s desire to use a particular lotion.
3. Management by committee
I’ve worked my whole career in nonprofits and local government. As I move up the org chart and start to work more closely with chief executives, I’m becoming increasingly aware that they are supervised by a board of directors or the city council, which is to say, a committee. What can these bodies do to be effective supervisors and provide appropriate support to their direct report? Most nonprofit boards only meet 6 to 10 times a year, and may have some members with expertise in the organization’s mission but are just as likely to be there for their fundraising skill. The city council might meet weekly or every other week, but they seem more interested in whatever lies they told the voters before the election than in making sure the government functions well as an organization.
When I think about the questions I bring to my supervisor (how should I prioritize my projects, or there’s a situation with one of my reports you need to be aware of, and so on), I just don’t see how it works with a committee, where it might be a while before the next meeting, and at the meeting different members may have different ideas. Do the boards/councils need to just hope they hire someone that doesn’t need supervision, or is there a way to be an effective boss by committee?
While boards or city councils do oversee the person at the top of the organization, it’s a very different type of management than at lower levels. At that level, the board or council is defining a long-term vision, establishing legal and financial guardrails, and evaluating the executive on big-picture outcomes rather than on day-to-day activities. The expectation is that the exec will be functioning with an enormous amount of autonomy; a board shouldn’t be getting involved with the details of the day-to-day work at all, and it’s generally a red flag if they are.
So at that level, you’re deciding on your own how to prioritize your work in the context of that official set of goals, not consulting with your boss regularly about it in the way you might in a less senior role. But for things you do need to take to someone above you, typically there’s one primary point of contact in between meetings (like the board chair). You’re also usually coming to the board with recommendations, not just questions (“to meet our strategic plan, I’ve developed Options A and B, and I recommend Option A because of XYZ”).
You shouldn’t be accountable to individual members’ preferences in the way you might be envisioning; you’d be accountable to official decisions made by the board as a whole (or by a point person on the board who that authority has been delegated to). So if a random board or council member tells you to, for example, reprioritize project X, you would acknowledge the feedback but still need to follow the priorities officially set by the full body (and could potentially suggest bringing it up to the full body or a relevant committee). Realistically, if it’s something minor it might be more politically wise to just do it, but if that’s happening all the time, a good executive would raise that fact itself as something that needs to be solved.
4. Asking for a heads-up about possibly triggering topics
I have fluctuating mental health issues (thanks, brain) and I work in healthcare with vulnerable kids. Often at our team meetings, we discuss safeguarding concerns. The last in-depth discussion contained a particular object which was part of my self-harm plan (suicide, specifically) in the past. And normally that would be fine. But this one came at a Bad Time, and I spent the next probably 36 hours ruminating about the thing, and the Plan, and it was not a very fun time.
Is there any nice, work-safe script for “Hey, can we know in advance what the safeguarding discussion is going to be this month?” Every time I run the conversation through in my head, I go into too much detail on the irrelevant Why of my specifics, and I know my team would worry.
Yes, absolutely! You can ask for this without getting into the back story about why. You could say: “Would it be possible for me to have a brief heads-up about the safeguarding topic(s) planned for discussion before our team meetings? I’ve found advance notice helps me prepare for sensitive material and stay focused afterwards. I’d really appreciate it.”
5. Listing a promotion on my resume when I wasn’t in the job very long
I plan, god willing, to give notice at my job soon. How should I handle my recent promotion on resumes and LinkedIn? If all goes well, I’ll be in my current title for less than two months. This also means I can’t really claim any accomplishments during that time.
Do I just put the title and nothing more? Fudge some of the bullets from my old title up to the new one? Add real responsibilities even if they’re not real wins? For what it’s worth I’m on a pretty linear career path—think “Associate Teapot Engineer” to “Teapot Engineer” and now “Senior Teapot Engineer.”
Can you just do one listing for all the associated jobs at this company, with the bullet points under them? For example:
Company name, March 2021-present
Senior Teapot Engineer, September 2026-present
Teapot Engineer, July 2023-September 2026
Associate Teapot Engineer, March 2021-June 2023
- accomplishment
- accomplishment
- accomplishment
If for some reason that’s not an option, then you can just list the title and dates without bullet points (and it’ll be clear why from the short tenure), but the first option is the best way to do it.
The post employee makes terrible noises about a coworker’s lotion, the Kelly Clarkson drama, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.
[Disclaimer: The content in this RSS feed is automatically fetched from external sources. All trademarks, images, and opinions belong to their respective owners. We are not responsible for the accuracy or reliability of third-party content.]
Source link
