It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Dealing with a negative coworker when the manager is the same way
This question is on behalf of my husband, who works in a small building. Recently, a new employee started (let’s call her Nelly) and has been very vocal and negative about her personal life. She complains about her husband and wanting to kick out their 16-year-old son, and just generally sounds hateful of her children to the point my husband is worried about the children’s well-being. My husband isn’t technically on the same team, but does share the same manager. He works in an office next to the Nelly’s team and often overhears things, or other coworkers will duck into his office saying they need “a break” from Nelly’s negativity.
Here’s the core issue: the manager participates in complaining about her own personal life and children with Nelly. It is not to the same degree where my husband is worrying about the children involved, but it is enough that it’s clear the manager does not see how this is negatively impacting the team, and she is actively encouraging it with her participation. This manager has a history of not taking complaints about others’ unprofessional behavior seriously (or maybe just avoiding confrontation).
To add to this, the big boss has also participated in some workplace bullying, such as gifting someone an empty fast food package because they eat take-out so much. Furthermore, HR has often ignored my husband’s questions about clarifying policy and pay, or will not respond to him but he will get pulled into the big boss’s office and questioned as to why he didn’t talk directly to big boss first.
He has been keeping an eye out for better work opportunities. But in the meantime, do you have any advice on how he can approach the manager or Nelly, or do you have any tips to pass onto his other colleagues impacted by this terrible dynamic?
Nothing in this situation gives me confidence in a good outcome, unfortunately. The manager sucks, the boss above them sucks, and HR sucks.
But depending on what your husband knows about the psychology of the manager, he could try talking to her about Nelly’s negativity, ignoring the fact that the manager is engaging in the same behavior. It’s possible that telling her it’s rough to hear such negativity from Nelly about her family all day long, and that he’s actually worried about abuse, will jar the manager into reining some of it in. It could allow her to feel like a problem-solver rather than part of the problem, and some managers like playing that role. If there’s any way to credibly say, “I know you’re good at figuring out how to handle stuff like this,” there’s a chance that might make her want to live up to that.
Also, ideally the other people in Nelly’s office would speak up! They’re right there having to hear it at close-range all day and it would be better if, instead of just coming to your husband’s office to get away from it, they’d actually say, “This is upsetting to hear and it makes it hard to focus. Can we pull back from this topic?” Can he suggest that to them? Right now everyone is upset and no one is saying anything about it to the person who’s actually causing the problem. They should at least try.
2. More eggs at work
I am not the original letter writer, but I had a followup to the recent post about boiling eggs at work. For reasons, I am freezing a soup like egg drop soup that has thin egg ribbons cooked by pouring beaten eggs into the boiling soup. I don’t think the egg ribbons will freeze well, so my plan is to freeze the soup without the eggs, microwave it until very hot at work, bring a beaten raw egg in another container, and then stir my raw egg into my now hot soup.
If I were to guess, this is still weird but now on the acceptable side of weird given that there isn’t really a smell or sound of another appliance? I have enough capital that I’m just going to proceed but if I were new, would you recommend I not do this in an office breakroom? Or more generally, where is the line on “acceptable office break room food preparation”? Seemingly, microwaving a lunch (without fish) is fine, cooking a full meal is out, and somewhere in between it crosses from unremarkable to please don’t.
I’d say maybe very mildly weird, but completely fine to do. It won’t smell the way cooking eggs or fish at work will, and you’re not really cooking a meal — just pouring one ingredient into the other (and not even cracking the egg to do it, since it will already be poured into a container). It’s much closer to pouring salad dressing on your salad than it is to cooking a full meal.
3. Should I tell my new company I thought the recruiter’s text was a scam?
After a long and exhausting search, I finally found a new job at a growing company. As I’ve been settling into my role, I’ve heard some of my colleagues expressing frustration at how difficult it is for the company to hire good people. My boss even told me how relieved he was to have me on board, and that none of the other candidates they interviewed came close to meeting the very reasonable qualifications in the job posting.
Looking back at my experience with the recruitment process, I almost declined to interview when the recruiter first responded to my application. The text message I received from her was so poorly written (poor grammar, strange punctuation, abbreviating “you” to “u”) that I initially suspected it was a scam. I cautiously agreed to the interview only after verifying that there was a person with that name at the company and requesting to meet via Teams rather than by phone so I could confirm she had an email address with the company’s domain. My worries eased as I progressed through the hiring process and met members of the hiring committee in person, though she continued to text me in her strange writing style throughout the process.
Reflecting on my experience, I wonder if other prospective employees have had the same reservations as I did and ignored interview invitations because of it. Oddly, her emails are written in a completely normal style, so I wonder if management is unaware of how she is presenting herself and the company externally. I’m conflicted on whether I should mention something and if so how I should go about it.
Wait until you’ve been there a few months and are more established but yes, at that point you could absolutely mention to your boss that you’ve heard people saying the company has a hard time hiring good people and that you yourself almost dropped out of the process early on, and then offer to share your experience.
4. Asking clients for references
I work in a sales-driven organization where I support the sales staff in creating custom solutions for our clients. I regularly meet and collaborate with the clients, some quite closely, but I am not the primary relationship manager and I’m not involved in every call or project. My relationships with these clients are friendly and professional, not usually as close as the salesperson involved, though there are some exceptions.
Recently, several clients have specifically commended my work on their projects. I am hoping to pivot into a new job in the not-too-distant future. I would love to ask these people for LinkedIn references or endorsements, or if they would be willing to provide a direct reference for me, but this would obviously signal the possibility of me leaving. This might concern the client if they are hoping I might support future projects and there’s a chance it would get back to my sales colleagues, which could cause me issues. It’s a small organization and no one else has my exact role.
Another layer is that our organization frequently needs and requests references from current clients to get new business, particularly when bidding on larger projects. I would need to clarify when asking for references that this is for me rather than my organization. It could get awkward.
This can’t be a unique situation so how do people usually navigate this? Do I just have to take the risk and hope the clients will be discreet if asked? Is there a way to position the LinkedIn recommendations at least as a normal professional practice that helps my organization too? I’m not actively or intensively job searching either, just trying to position myself well to be competitive when the right role comes along.
For LinkedIn recommendations, you don’t need to say it’s because you’re job hunting. You can just say, “I’m trying to build up my LinkedIn presence and wondered if you’d consider writing a recommendation from our work together.”
Direct references are more useful, but they’re also trickier for the reasons you mentioned. I wouldn’t ask every client you work well with — only people who you’ve known for a while and have a particularly trusting relationship with (and you really only need one or two anyway for this purpose). I’ve been asked to do this by contacts at companies who I’ve worked very closely with, and when it came in the context of an existing long-term rapport, it was never weird.
In those cases, wait until you’re already in the interviewing process and close to needing to provide references before you broach it, and then you could frame it as, “I’d ask you to keep this between us since I’m not ready to announce it at Company yet, and of course if you’re not comfortable with that, no pressure to talk to them!” (If you’re not comfortable saying that to the client, that’s probably a sign not to ask that particular person.)
5. Does it make sense to give up a full-time position for a contract role?
I work in communications for an education institute and have been in this industry for over a dozen years. I really like my coworkers and have a good situation (senior position, four weeks vacation, pension, benefits, union etc.). However, both education and communications have been hit from multiple angles in the past years (insert rant about AI), and I’m increasingly worried about possible layoffs. I don’t have much recent communications experience in other industries, and am anxious that I would struggle to find work if I was laid off.
Additionally, I have a new manager who is inexperienced and is struggling in their role, and there isn’t any opportunity for growth in this position. I’ve been unmotivated at work lately, and I’m not sure if it’s just the middle-age blues kicking in or the job situation.
I’ve been looking around for the past year, and have been offered an 18-month contract in another public-serving field. It’s a very similar job with very similar pay, but in a (slightly) different field. The manager is experienced, and there is a possibility it will be extended into a full-time role. However, as a contract position, it doesn’t offer paid vacation or pension, and health benefits are only available after a year. (If it did work into a full-time position, vacation, benefits and pension would be offered.)
Does it make sense to do a lateral move to have recent experience in another field in this uncertain economy? Would it be a mistake to give up the security of a full-time gig because of anxieties about the future and a lack of motivation?
I would not leave a regular position with benefits for a time-limited contract position without them, particularly when we don’t know what the job market will look like when it ends in 18 months.
Your reasons for wanting to leave your current job make sense, but I’m skeptical that it makes sense to leave it for this job. I would keep looking!
The post dealing with a negative coworker and boss, more eggs at work, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.
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