It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…
1. My coworker who quit on the spot is claiming 150 hours of off-the-clock pay
The company I work for is vaguely in the realm of special needs childcare. My role is a hybrid 50/50 admin role where I’m doing admin work half the day, and then I’m with the kids the rest of the day.
Since I transferred back to the location I’m currently at, a long-time employee has been spiking my cortisol every week (long story short: throwing literal fits over her schedule, unprofessional behavior with caregivers, using her personal phone during sessions, which is a HIPAA violation, etc.). This weekend, however, she quit on the spot and left a five-paragraph essay about how awful it was to work here and how awful my boss is (that’s a separate thing entirely).
Yesterday, I found out that she’s claiming 150 hours of off-the-clock pay for work she did with no documentation, and it seems like HR is just letting it happen to get rid of her without troubles. Essentially, she had a side role where she was setting up crafts for the kids for spirit weeks and had dedicated office time to complete it at the center. From my understanding, she would take these home and work on them at home unpaid out of her own volition. There was no documentation for the hours worked at home, but for some reason HR is willing to give her $2,000+.
Do you think this is the right move on HR’s part, would you do anything differently, and is there anything I can do as a lowly plebian on the bottom of the admin ladder to prevent this from happening?
It’s hard to say without knowing more information, but if there’s reason to believe she really did this work at home, HR is probably right to just pay her for it and be done with it. Legally, employers are required to pay for any work that they “suffer or permit” to happen, even if it was unauthorized, unrequested, or voluntary. If they don’t want an employee to work extra hours, they have to actively step in and enforce rules to stop it — but if they accept the benefits of the work, they have to pay for it. This is from the U.S. Department of Labor: “It is the duty of management to exercise control and see that work is not performed if the employer does not want it to be performed. An employer cannot sit back and accept the benefits of an employee’s work without considering the time spent to be hours worked. Merely making a rule against such work is not enough. The employer has the power to enforce the rule and must make every effort to do so.”
It’s possible that if they dug into this, they could quibble over the number of hours, but they’re probably calculating that it will cost less in the end to just pay it and be done with her.
As for what you might be able to do to prevent in the future, you could suggest that they clarify rules around taking work home — but it’s really for higher level management to solve (and they’re probably going to figure out on their own that they need to).
2. My coworker keeps saying “per my last email” in meetings
I have a coworker who has started saying “per my last email” out loud in meetings whenever someone asks him a question he believes he has already answered in writing.
Yesterday, I asked whether a report was finalized, and he replied, “Per my last email, yes.” The email in question had been sent 11 minutes earlier.
I would like to know whether there is a professional way to tell someone that an email phrase does not become more powerful when spoken aloud, or whether I must simply accept that we are now living in a world where people can cite their own correspondence as legal precedent.
Would it be reasonable to ask him to respond to verbal questions with verbal answers, like a person who lives in society? I have considered responding with “see attached” whenever he speaks to me, but I worry this would escalate the situation.
I think I love your coworker?
If you were his manager, you’d have standing to tell him it’s coming across as snarky. But otherwise, this is pretty funny, and I encourage you to roll with it. See the humor in it!
Also, though, “per my last email” usually indicates some degree of frustration with sending messages that are ignored. Being frustrated than an email sent only 11 minutes ago hasn’t been read yet is obviously over-the-top, but it sounds like he’s reacting to a pattern more than an individual instance.
If it’s not that and he’s just being obnoxious, you should feel free to respond sincerely — whether that’s “I did see that email, but I was unclear on X” or “It looks like that was sent 11 minutes ago so I hadn’t seen it.” And frankly, at some point it might be reasonable to say, “You’re referencing previous emails a lot — am I reading that correctly as frustration that I’m asking things you feel you’ve already answered?” and maybe following it with, “I get the frustration but we all have email overload, and I want to be able to ask questions when I need to.”
3. Life experience vs. work experience
I recently saw something on LinkedIn that raised a question I hadn’t considered. I went to high school with an acquaintance, Martha, who was born with a mild physical disability which can have a wide range of symptoms and presentations. In her mid-30s, Martha’s disease seems to have progressed more to the range of “mild to moderate;” from her LinkedIn posts, she’s had to stop some more physically demanding activities like rock climbing or lacrosse, but can live independently and work at a desk job.
Martha went to college and graduate school and works in a field unrelated to fundraising, advocacy, or medical research. She recently posted on LinkedIn that she was angry at being passed over for a position on the national fundraising board of a charity that advocates for research into her specific diagnosis and that she had “35 years of relevant experience” because she’s been alive for 35 years and lived with the disease since birth.
One of her followers commented that she did not have “35 years of experience” in that she had only 10 years of work experience and in unrelated fields. Martha and the commenter then got into a lengthy public back-and-forth about “life experience” vs. “work experience.”
On the one hand, I can see the argument that Martha’s life experience would be relevant and she would understand the challenges of living with her diagnosis day-to-day, and has a strong passion to advocate for the mission. However, I also see the commenter’s point that for a high-profile national fundraising job, the charity was probably looking for someone with extensive prior work in fundraising or advocacy and value that more than a lived experience. What do you think? Does it make sense to count some (or all? or none?) of life experiences in a situation like this?
Her life experience counts very much as far as giving her an understanding of what it’s like to live with the disease, but it does not qualify her for a job that requires experience in fundraising. She has 35 years of relevant experience with one relevant piece — but it’s not experience writing successful grant proposals or securing corporate sponsorships or pitching major donors or ensuring legal compliance for fundraising strategies or any of the other things that come with that work. Nonprofits get people all the time who think a personal commitment to their issue is enough, but there’s more to succeeding at the work than that.
My guess is that at some level Martha could recognize that, but this feels intensely personal to her for obvious reasons.
4. How do I dress professionally in a casual field in a rural area?
I work in journalism, in a very rural area. Journalists as a whole tend to dress fairly casually, and I work in rural environments where it’s not practical to dress business casual and can oftentimes be a little dangerous (i.e., car breaks down and you’re in dress pants instead of winter weather gear).
I’m only a few years into my career and I want to look nice and professional, but I’m having trouble navigating the practicality of outfits vs not looking like a total slob. I want to have a few “office” outfits in rotation to pair alongside practical clothing for in the field reporting. I also don’t make that much (less than $40K/year), so I’m limited by cost.
I guess my question is – where do I start? Do you have any tips for dressing professionally within a budget? And maybe this is too specific, but do you think I can get mileage out of a solid pair of dark jeans and a nice wool shirt or turtleneck (which I’ve seen established individuals in my field wear)? I’m open to any kind of advice, especially as a recent college grad.
The best thing to do is to take your cues from others in your field who know the norms. If you’re seeing established people doing similar work in dark jeans and a nice shirt or turtleneck, then that sounds absolutely fine (and even if you hadn’t seen them wearing that, just based on the rest of what you’ve described that would likely be fine). Also, look at khakis and khaki-adjacent pants, which tend to be versatile and office-appropriate.
Also, this is the kind of question that many people love advising new grads in their field on, so don’t be shy about asking colleagues who seem to know what they’re doing. Lots of people welcome this kind of question from people who are starting out.
And last, there’s lots of good advice in the comments on this post about putting together a business casual wardrobe.
The post coworker who quit is claiming 150 hours of off-the-clock pay, my coworker keeps saying “per my last email,” and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.
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