Cowboy Who?

A recent $500,000 allocation to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be used for preconstruction engineering and design work on a segment of the Coastal Texas Project, also known as the Ike Dike. The long-planned initiative is expected to take about 20 years to construct and cost an estimated $57 billion.

PALM BEACH, FL—Nervously standing on the porch with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, Barron Trump reportedly showed up on former President Donald Trump’s doorstep Thursday claiming to be his son. “Excuse me, sir, I’m sorry to bother you, but I believe you might be my father,” said the younger Trump, who explained…

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This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

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

1. I feel like a failure because a project was moved to another team

I received an unexpected meeting invite today and was surprised our manager would take time away for a meeting when we were in a dire time crunch on a major project for probably the third week in a row. Stupidly, I had some vague thought that I might be praised for stepping up while our department head was out of office and that I might use the opportunity to set boundaries about time off after working like a crazy person through company holidays and the weekend.

Well, I was wrong. They gave the project I was managing to another team. No warning, no pause to say thank you for my efforts or that it wasn’t my fault. Just barreled through like they were listing out standard assignments. I didn’t know what to do so I just held myself still, thinking no reaction was better than embarrassing myself. They eventually stopped and asked the question I absolutely dread — any questions or things I can explain to you? I figured a basic “no, I don’t have any questions” was about all I could get out without showing emotion. Apparently that clued them in to my distress because then I got a spiel about how it’s not about me or my work and they know I worked so hard. But how else would anyone interpret it? It’s not like they are going to advertise a disagreement between members of leadership to save my reputation. I pushed myself to share a plan for transitioning, hoping that it might make up for my stone-faced silence, and they seemed relieved that I was talking.

I still have to lead our group to finish a time-sensitive piece of work before handing it over, and none of my coworkers are saying anything about the change, which makes it feel worse. Like they are politely pretending not to see a stain on my shirt. I don’t know how to be. Do I pretend it’s not worth mentioning? Do I try to find some way of laughing it off? I feel like my brain is broken, I’ve got Macbeth quotes running repeatedly in my head, I’m sobbing on and off (WFH thank god), and I’m so embarrassed even though I’m not sure I had any chance at a different outcome. How do professional, no-drama, team players handle pretty public failure? I’m not feeling like that kind of person right now, but maybe I can fake it tomorrow.

You’re defining this as a public failure … but is it? Projects get moved around for reasons other than “the person currently doing it is failing.” One very obvious reason they might move it is that your department head is out and you’ve been having to cover for them, including “working like a crazy person through holidays and the weekend.” They might have thought it was obvious that this wasn’t a good permanent arrangement — since you presumably have your own regular workload to attend to, as well as covering for your missing manager — and that you’d be relieved to have someone else take it on.

Now, maybe that’s very clearly not the case. And maybe they did move it because they thought the other team would do a better job with it. But that’s still not public failure, and the reaction you’re having is so disproportionately strong (the sobbing, the certainty that others see you as a failure, the Macbeth quotes) without sharing any indication that this was actually tied to your work that I suspect there’s a good chance you’re not assessing it correctly. If there’s some key detail missing from your letter that confirms the move really was because you were failing … well, I would figure that you’ve been working yourself to exhaustion for weeks while a key member of your team is gone, and those circumstances don’t generally set people up for success. So it’s still not really public failure. It’s public overwork, perhaps, and people don’t normally find that an embarrassing stain on your record.

2. People leave personal items at desks even though we hot-desk

My company went hybrid (50/50 in-office vs. WFH) last year and downsized to a smaller office where we don’t have assigned desks. There are about 1.5 desks for every 2 employees. Lots of people have a favorite desk that they try to reserve regularly, and they tend to leave their stuff on it rather than carry it from their locker (everyone has one) to their desk daily. Some stuff is mostly harmless, just taking up space (water bottle, personal hand sanitizer) but some is downright gross (food, empty used coffee mugs, crumbs, etc.). We technically have a policy that you need to leave your desk empty and clean at the end of the day but about half the team ignores it, driving the other half batty. We have also had new hires start and end up sitting at what very much feels like someone else’s personal desk on their first day, which isn’t particularly welcoming.

How do we enforce cultural norms like this without just becoming nags? Is this just the new office sink full of dirty dishes — always a problem, no real solution?

The only way you’re going to change it is to actually enforce the policy … and the only practical way to enforce the policy is probably to charge someone with cleaning off anything left on desks at the end of the day, at least for a month or so until people’s habits change. You could put all the abandoned items on a designated table for people to collect if they want them back the next time they’re in the office, or you could start tossing them if that doesn’t solve the problem after a while. (Either way, make sure you give people advance notice that this is going to start happening.) In doing this, point out to people that by staking out a desk as their own, they’re claiming more than their fair share of limited resources; there aren’t enough desks for everyone to do it, and they’re forcing other people to deal with their stuff.

A big caveat: Do any of your staff choose to come in most days, despite the company as a whole being hybrid? If someone comes in 95% of the time, this will be a particularly annoying policy for them, and you might consider whether there’s a way to have two categories of desks (unreserved desks for people who are truly hybrid and reserved ones for people who aren’t). That can get messy to track but can be worth the payoff in morale.

3. Employer wants everyone back in the office — no exceptions

My wife has been working at a nonprofit for close to three years. She started during the pandemic and when she was hired, she was told that eventually she would have to go to the office part-time, but because she is at higher risk for bad outcomes from Covid, our doctor agreed that she should only go to the office one day a week. Until now, that has been the case for the most part, with her going in twice a week only rarely.

But last week her department head and HR team told her that she needed to start coming in twice a week. Apparently there will be no exceptions made to the two-day-a-week policy, even though she is still at higher risk for bad outcomes from Covid. Even though the doctor gave her a new note. Even though there is a new variant. And even though the pandemic is in fact still not over. (She masks any time she goes to the office, and we are in general masking as much as possible.)

She is pissed. She feels that they are reneging on an arrangement they made when she started to go to the office two years ago, and that they are being unfair and a bit irresponsible. If she quits, she won’t get unemployment, which means she won’t quit. But she will be miserable if she doesn’t. She is filing a grievance through her union, but once you file a grievance, they don’t want you, do they?

Do you have any suggestions for how to handle this? She sees nothing about her job that requires she be there two days a week, and we both feel like the world is playing pretendy games by not taking our worries about Covid seriously. Surely an employer could offer reasonable accommodations. Doesn’t this violate the ADA?

It violates the ADA if she has a covered disability under the law (defined as “physical or mental impairments that substantially limit one or more major life activities,​ such as seeing, hearing, speaking, walking or breathing”) and if she could stay at one day a week without causing “undue hardship” to the employer.

That said … more employers are taking hard-line “no exceptions” stances on bringing people back to the office and putting up serious opposition to anyone who tries to get an exception, especially if the exception is being sought based on Covid risk. (For what it’s worth, the fact that she’s been going once a week may undercut her argument that it’s unsafe for her to be there. It also sounds like she agreed when she was hired that she’d eventually go to the office part-time; if that wasn’t explicitly defined as only one day a week, her employer might rightly feel like they’re not reneging on that at all. Even if it was defined as one day a week, though, employers are allowed to change those policies as their business needs, or what they define as their business needs, change.) You could certainly work with a lawyer and see what happens, but it may be an uphill battle. I’m not saying that should be the case — just that we’re seeing more employers really commit to these policies.

Related:
if you have a disability, do employers have to let you keep working from home after they re-open?

4. Friends who subscribe to my Substack

I have a Substack blog (side hustle, trying to make it a main hustle) with paid subscribers. Sometimes my friends sign up for paid subscriptions, and in this situation I feel extremely awkward. Should I end these friendships because I now technically work for these folks, or is it different with subscription services? And, does it come across as “asking for money” when I share public blog posts with friends, without an expectation that they’ll pay for subscriptions?

You don’t work for your subscribers. You’re creating something that people pay to access, but they’re not your employers (just like I don’t work for you because you read this site, nor do I work for the companies that advertise here). Your friends are presumably subscribing because they enjoy your content, or because they want to support you as a friend. I imagine they’d be pretty taken aback if you ended the friendship because they were supporting your work!

And no, it doesn’t come across as asking for money when you share public blog posts. It might come off as self-promotional at some point, depending on how often you’re sharing and what you’re saying when you do — but it doesn’t come across as a request for money unless you actually ask for money.

5. My boss thinks comp time is illegal

I’m one of five directors in a 30-person group. All but three of the team are exempt employees. I was talking with my boss, our executive director, today about a program we might have to run on the weekend during a very busy time of year. I mentioned that I know she doesn’t generally like considering this as an option, but it might make sense to offer up some comp time in exchange for doing some work on the weekend.

She informed me that we can’t even consider that as an option because “it’s illegal,” declaring, “You get paid to do a job, and you work the hours you need to work to get that job done!” I responded that I know (which I do! and I agree!), but that if someone put in a certain number of hours on a weekend, I thought it made sense, if their workload allowed, to invite them to take some similar amount of time off later in the week (while acknowledging, of course, that the three non-exempt employees would be paid for whatever hours they worked on a weekend, and earn overtime as appropriate).

She got pretty worked up, so I let it go for now, but have you ever heard of this assessment that offering comp time to exempt employees is somehow illegal? (We’re in California, if it’s relevant.) The way I figure it, if you’re going to put in somewhere around 40 hours, it doesn’t matter if some of those hours are on a Saturday or on a Tuesday. It was very odd to me.

Comp time is not illegal for exempt employees. It is generally illegal for non-exempt employees, as you know; they must be paid in money for any hours over 40 worked in a week, not in extra time off. (Although interestingly, California is one of the few states that has some provisions for even non-exempt employees to receive comp time in certain limited circumstances.)

The U.S. Department of Labor has explicitly affirmed that comp time is permissible for exempt employees as long as they receive a guaranteed salary with no reductions on the basis of quality or quantity of time worked.

Your boss is stuck on “exempt employees are paid for a job, not for the number of hours they work” — but she’s wrong on the legalities around comp time. If you really wanted to get into it with her, you could point out that if an exempt employee were getting all their work done in 10 hours a week, she’d probably expect them to put in more hours — the whole exempt “paid for a job” thing tends to be applied more in one direction than the other.

A woman was arrested for living in the roof sign of a Michigan grocery store after being found by contract workers who followed an extension cord to the hideout where she had been living for the last year, where she had set up her coffee maker, computer, and bed. What do you think?

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ROCHESTER, MN—Aiming to equip her straight female students with the knowledge and skills necessary to develop healthy sexual relationships, local sex ed teacher Gina Reynaldo spent Thursday’s class demonstrating how to look interested as a guy explains in excruciating detail why Ultimate Frisbee should be an Olympic…

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Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough, who owns the Graceland estate, successfully blocked the auction of Elvis’s former home by the company Naussany Investments, which may have fraudulently initiated the foreclosure by claiming that Lisa Marie Presley used Graceland as collateral for a loan. What do you think?

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The little pigs are their own worst enemy. Don’t get me wrong, I want to support the little pigs. Plenty of folks like me sympathize with them, but their own actions are the biggest detriment to their cause.

The little pigs make a dramatic show of their new tactics. Fresh brick, rebar construction, double-paned windows—shiny new toys they are only too happy to play with.

What some little pigs do not understand is that they are alienating potential allies. Nobody wants to see a house made of brick. It’s selfish, unsightly, and turns would-be supporters into opponents.

Past movements were much more respectful. It seems like only yesterday the little pigs were building houses out of straw. Everyone on both sides of the issue understood where the little pigs were coming from. We might not have agreed on everything, but at least we saw eye to eye.

When the little pigs moved on to sticks, some were skeptical, but I knew the piglets were doing what they felt was right. I was a whippersnapper once too. As the saying goes, if you’re not liberal when you’re young, you don’t have a heart. But let’s not forget the second part: if you’re not conservative when you’re old, you don’t have a brain.

That’s what I see in these new brick houses. Youthful abandon run amok. A small number of radicals willing to sacrifice the greater good just to make a stubborn point.

I have listened to the little pigs. I have heard the insensitive way they respond to critics. “We need stronger homes,” they say. “The Big Bad Wolf blew right through our past two,” they cry.

These kinds of tantrums do nothing to win hearts and minds.

In any movement, image is everything. When our neighbors see the little pigs with a wheelbarrow full of bricks, I shudder to think what their reaction might be. I shudder still to imagine all the poor, reasonable little pigs who want peaceful homes of stick and straw.

Why not build houses out of papier–mâché? Everyone likes papier–mâché. Heck, let’s grant the radicals some leeway and let them build homes out of balsa wood. That’s a compromise we could all enjoy.

The little pigs still have time to change. History will be the judge, and they have every opportunity to do the right thing. But I won’t hold my breath.

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Today's News:

Just to be clear, there's no penis-nose in the actual comic strip. This is a lesson for the 99.4% of you who don't read the blog.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

My company recently updated our bereavement policy. While reviewing it in our company-wide staff meeting, a staff member asked if a miscarriage would qualify and the immediate answer was “no.” No room for discussion. The temperature of the room immediately dropped; it was so uncomfortable.

I am not a mother, have ever been pregnant, or plan to be, but I cannot imagine the heart ache of going through a miscarriage. I would not even give a second thought to granting bereavement leave to one of my staff if they came to me saying they had/are having a miscarriage. Not only is this such a traumatic physical experience, but it’s also an emotionally traumatic experience. Technically speaking, there was a loss of life. As a manager, I’m of the mindset that bereavement really isn’t an area where I want to get nitpicky with my staff and instead want to be as supportive as possible. Granted, I’m very aware that there are staff who will take advantage of the system, but I’m not talking about this.

To add to that, we are nonprofit specifically focusing on the well-being of families with a big emphasis on mothers and children. I don’t see how we as an organization can advocate for women but not even support the staff who work here when it comes to this.

We’ve had multiple staff come to upper management very upset and we agreed with them. We forwarded on the concerns to our executive director, and these are the questions she came back with:

Things to keep in mind:
• How do we define this?
• From the moment it starts? Or is it at this point a medical condition?
• Do we consider for all the time it last? Once is over, then bereavement starts?
• Do we require medical statements? How do we manage this time?
• Do people need to report they are pregnant? By when? Is this a HIPPA problem?
• It is the same to miscarriage at one month of pregnancy as at three or six months?
• People have asked for bereavement for pets, they say they are family to them. Do we include this as well? We already made bereavement more flexible.
We already give everyone 11 paid holiday days, plus a minimum of 12 days PTO (this is annual and sick combined) for those starting in the agency. When we upped the PTO, it was for employees to have enough time to take care of their lives when needed. That is not how people look at it.

Our company is 99% female and about 80% are of child-rearing age and are planning on having children in the future. We had an employee come to us today who is going through a miscarriage and she does not have enough PTO available so she is working through it because she doesn’t want to go on leave without pay. It breaks my heart. I don’t want to create an environment where staff are scared to tell their supervisor about this because they’re scared they won’t be supported or will be asked intrusive questions or for documentation.

I’ve done some research and see that a lot of companies/states are starting to implement bereavement leave for miscarriages. (Our governor even signed a bill putting this into law for all state employees.) Is this something companies should be offering? Are we being delusional?

Your executive director sucks.

There’s so much to rip apart here that it’s hard to know where to start, but let’s start with the 12 days of sick and vacation time combined. So people get the two weeks of vacation that’s considered the absolute bare minimum, stingiest level acceptable in the U.S., plus two sick days? And this is an increase from a lower amount before that? And she thinks that’s enough for vacation, sick time, and “taking care of their lives when needed”?

She’s delusional if she really believes that. She’s also delusional if she thinks this is competitive with other employers. It’s not.

As for her other questions: You don’t need to define “miscarriage”; it already has a medical definition. You trust employees to decide for themselves when they’re experiencing a miscarriage that bereavement leave would be appropriate for. You say “three days” or “up to five days” or whatever you land on. You don’t require people to report that they’re pregnant ahead of time; that’s unnecessary. You don’t require medical statements because that’s an unnecessarily layer of intrusive bureaucracy when you can simply trust your employees not to abuse this. If someone is abusing any kind of sick or bereavement leave, you ensure you have competent managers and HR who will address it; you provide them with support and training so they can do that. It’s not a HIPAA problem because HIPAA has nothing to do with someone choosing to self-disclose to an employer (HIPAA covers what health care providers can disclose). It has nothing to do with pets; that can be considered as a separate issue if you want to, but by raising that she’s clearly just trying to yell “slippery slope” when in fact it’s not.

Your executive director is trying to manipulate you with her long list of questions into thinking this is unworkable. It’s not. Other organizations offer miscarriage leave. Your own state offers it to government employees. This is not an impossible thing to work through. She just wants you to think it is.

That’s before we even get into how unaligned this is with the organization’s mission.

She just doesn’t want to give people more leave. That’s already clear from the obscenely paltry amount she’s been willing to grant, which she’s trying to somehow sell as generous; her resistance is simply in line with that.

It sounds like a lot of the organization’s leadership disagrees with her, so you’re well positioned to push back as a group. But I’d bet a significant amount of money that this is symptomatic of larger issues with your executive director and how she views employees.

Read an update to this letter.

Ben Harrison and Adam Pranica of the comedy podcast "The Greatest Generation" talk about their show, ahead of this weekend's Comicpalooza.

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BEVERLY HILLS, CA—Slowly pushing down the bedroom door handle in an attempt to enter without waking his wife, Jennifer Lopez, a disheveled-looking Ben Affleck reportedly sneaked in at dawn Wednesday reeking of coffee after he spent all night at a 24-hour Dunkin’ location. “And just where the hell have you been—oh, let…

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THE HEAVENS—In an effort to determine the efficacy of a divine law that may one day join those in His current Decalogue, God, Our Lord and Heavenly Father, told reporters Wednesday that He was testing out a potential new commandment on mice. “The phase 1 trial of this latest 11th-commandment candidate will be carried…

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Alert: This is Verizon letting you know that an unrecognized device, the only device you’ve ever used to sign in to our website, has logged into your account. Was that you? Was it??

We are freaking out over here. We have no idea if this device—your only device—was you logging in. For all we know, it could be anyone. It could be an enemy that you have. Is there an enemy you have who might’ve used a device we don’t know to log into your account? Or was it you?

It was you, right???

It might not be. That’s why we asked, Is “AUDREY FARNSWORTH MACBOOK AIR” you, Audrey Farnsworth? We don’t recognize this device, even though you have literally never used any other device to log into our website.

But that doesn’t mean it’s NOT possible that it wasn’t you. There is actually no way of us knowing that. We weren’t there, physically, to see the logging in. That’s why we’re asking. So, was it?

We hope you can let us know soon because we’re really not doing well about this. When this mysterious device of the Literal Exact Same Laptop You’ve Used for Many Years logged into your account, an alarm went off at our headquarters, and every single employee stood up and screamed, “WHO IS THAT?” at the same time.

It WAS you, wasn’t it? WASN’T IT?

God, what if it wasn’t you? What will you do? Will you get mad at us? It’s not our fault that an unrecognized device has stormed into your account with the silent finesse of a Trojan horse, ready to view your personal information. In OUR opinion, YOU should be the only person to view your personal information. So, was it you? Are YOU viewing your personal information, or is it an enemy?

Is an enemy viewing your account right now???

PLEASE click “ALLOW” if this was you. If this wasn’t you, click DO NOT ALLOW. For the LOVE of CHRIST, do NOT click ALLOW if THIS WASN’T YOU, AND WE MUST MENTION AGAIN THAT WE ARE NOT SURE THAT IT WAS.

WAS IT YOU?

ARE YOU SURE? ARE YOU DEFINITELY SURE? HOW CAN YOU BE SURE? WAS IT YOU? DID YOU DO IT WITH YOUR HANDS? AND IF YOU DID IT WITH YOUR HANDS (YOUR OWN HANDS?), DID YOU KNOW YOU WERE DOING IT WHEN YOU WERE DOING IT? DID YOU?

WAS

IT

YOU

????

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

TxDOT says it can’t guarantee that upgrades to one of Houston’s main hurricane evacuation routes will prevent future flooding of U.S. 59.

The dunes sagebrush lizard lives in the same West Texas land that supports the state’s biggest oil and gas fields, and industry leaders say the new designation will hurt drilling and production.

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Sometimes I save a rant for 10 years and finally decide it's not a thinkpiece, it's a stupid joke.

Today's News:

In brief: A dying front brings a chance of storms well to the north of Houston tonight, but for most of us the story remains one of heat. Temperatures will peak over the weekend, with Memorial Day looking especially hot.

Wednesday

Expect another warm day in Houston, with highs of around 90 degrees due to mostly cloudy skies. It will be a little windier than Tuesday, with southeasterly gusts up to about 20 mph. With the humidity, it will feel plenty hot outside during the daytime hours before lows drop to about 80 degrees tonight.

For areas north of Houston, and by this we are probably talking about locations north of Highway 105 in Montgomery County, there is a chance of storms later this evening and during the overnight hours as a dying frontal boundary pushes a line of storms through northern Texas. There is some question as to how far south these storms will get. It is possible that locations such as College Station and Huntsville could see some thunderstorms tonight. There is even a slight chance that locations further south, including The Woodlands, could see some of this action. However, I think a capping inversion will probably prevent such activity for most of the Houston metro area, including at least the southern half of Montgomery County.

Other than this, we should be rain-free through the weekend.

Thursday

Expect partly sunny skies and a high of about 90 degrees with plenty of humidity. Another warm night.

Friday

As skies turn mostly sunny, expect highs to nudge up into the low 90s with plenty of humidity.

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday

The holiday weekend looks hot and sultry. Highs will rise from the low 90s on Saturday to the mid- to upper-90s by Memorial Day with mostly sunny skies. Folks, it’s going to be Houston hot this weekend, so take all appropriate heat precautions. That includes sunscreen during the daytime with the Sun reaching an angle of 80 degrees during the early afternoon hours.

Next week

So what happens after Memorial Day? It still looks like some sort of weak front arrives on Monday night or Tuesday. It’s late May, so your expectations should be for slightly cooler weather, and slightly drier air, and not much more. Still, beggars cannot be choosers at this time of year. Rain chances look a little bit improved later next week, but we’ll have to see about that. I don’t have much confidence in such a prediction.

Last week’s storms

Check back later this morning as Matt has a post on last week’s storms, and where they share some commonality with Houston’s history of similar events. It’s a great article with a lot of historical context.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

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

1. Was I wrong in this email squabble?

I have a question about a little email tussel I recently ended up in. I am a contractor for a professional services agency and was working on a project for a client. Part of my work includes using a third party to upload documents to a publishing site. This was my first time working with the third party in any capacity. Last week, I sent the required documents to the contact at the service (“Pat”) and asked for an update when the content was uploaded. They did acknowledge the email and said they would send an update once it was completed.

To make a long story short, Pat helped with uploading documents from a different (but related) project, and when I asked about the original request, I was met with pushback about never receiving documents related to the project (despite the email chain being named after the project). It was so blatantly wrong and strange that I began questioning myself, but a coworker also on the email chain acknowledged that Pat seemed disorganized, so I surmised that it must not be me. I sent the documents again to Pat two more times before the weekend, and each time was either ignored or they said that they did not receive anything from me when I asked for an update.

Eventually, on Monday morning, the client mentioned that they still did not see the documents uploaded. I reached out to Pat for an update, to which they said again that they never received anything from me and to send a new email with the attachments. I did as requested and included screenshots of all the emails I had sent to Pat the previous week with a note “in case they wanted to investigate.” It felt a little petty as I was sending it, but I was annoyed.

Pat replied back, “Obviously I am getting your emails but I never got one related to (Project name). Make sure you’re sending to the right recipient.”

Once they had confirmed completion of the upload, I sent them a screenshot of my original email including the “to” line showing that it did indeed go to them and said I appreciated their help. Pat’s tune changed significantly after that, and while they didn’t apologize, they said they would look into it more and they were glad we were able to complete the project.

If it matters, I am a woman in my late 20s and from what I can tell, Pat is a man in probably his 50s. While I felt petty sending screenshots of everything, this seemed like a very strange situation (could he not go back to the original email?) and I didn’t feel like being pushed around or apologizing for something I didn’t do. My director and coworker were also cc’d on all of the communications. Would love your insight on if I handled this appropriately!

Pat’s the problem, not you.

It’s one thing to miss an email, but before chastising someone to “make sure you’re sending to the right recipient,” you’d think he’d first go back and confirm that he really didn’t get the email.

I do think it was overkill on your side to send screenshots of all the emails you’d sent Pat the previous week, rather than just the one in question. Sending just the one in question probably would have solved the whole thing and not dragged out the interaction quite as much.

But again, you weren’t the problem.

2. I’m about to hire my first employee and I’m freaking out

I set up a nonprofit organization last year which has grown beyond the point where I can keep delivering everything on my own. There are two other directors on the board but they are both employed elsewhere, so other than quarterly board meetings I do the vast majority of the work. Thanks to grant funding and trading income, the organization can afford to employ someone part-time to take over some of the core delivery so that some of my time is freed up to work on developing and growing the business, and making it sustainable for the long term.

I’ve been through the recruitment process, I’ve got a preferred candidate and a second choice, interviews are done, references contacted, offer letter and contract (we’re in the UK) are all drafted with guidance from a HR consultant … and I am absolutely terrified of actually calling the candidate and making the offer.

I think I’m paralyzed by the weight of responsibility that being someone’s manager and employer involves. I have literally never been anyone’s supervisor or manager before. I’ve had a lot of managers, good and bad, and have a fairly good idea of what kind of manager I want to be, but the terror is getting in the way.

If I don’t hire this person, or at least A person, I will not be able to sustain the company. There’s so much potential and so much demand for what we offer, and the only way to realise that is to employ someone who is not me to do some of it. So why am I so scared? And what can I do? I told the applicants I’d make a decision last week. I’ve already updated them that there’s a delay, but I really do need to finalize the hiring decision this week, not least because I need them in role asap so that I can shift my focus to a large and important project starting in mid-July (which will involve hiring more staff).

This is hard to answer without knowing exactly what you’re afraid of, but if it’s really just the weight of being someone’s boss … well, honestly, you’re going to mess it up at some point, probably multiple points, because that’s what we all do. You’re not going to be perfect. You’re going to learn on the job, and it’s sometimes going to be messy. (This pep talk sucks, sorry!) But this is how you learn to do it. As long as you commit to a few basic principles at the outset — clear communication, getting aligned on expected outcomes, a coaching mentality, a bias toward transparency, and a view of the other person as a partner rather than a peon — you’re going to be fine. The other person is going to be fine. You’ll both figure it out. Commit to talking about it if that’s not happening.

But also, consider some training on how to manage people effectively — the nitty-gritty, “what does this look like day-to-day” of management. (I have conveniently written a book about exactly that and it’s even targeted toward nonprofit managers, so here you go.)

Also! Make sure you have a clear role description and list of outcomes the person will be responsible for achieving, and a training plan (at least an organized outline) for what you’ll need to cover with them to get them acclimated and equipped to contribute. You’ll feel better if you have those things. But from there … all you can really do is jump in.

Related:
advice for new managers

3. Interviewer asked, “What would your detractors say about you?”

I’ve interviewed twice for the same agency over the span of several years. Both interviews included the same question: What would your detractors say about you?

The question has actually turned me off a bit from working for that agency. How do you advise answering a question like that?

It’s really just the old “what are your greatest weaknesses?” in disguise — or at least you can answer it that way. If you’ve had 360 feedback and you’re comfortable talking about something from that, you can do that and cite it as the source. But either way, the framing should be the same as for the “weaknesses” question — something you’re not as strong in combined with what you’ve done/are doing to work on it.

4. Should I say my coworker is the reason I’m leaving?

I am planning to jump ship from my current position due to my hostile coworker. She belittles me and tokenizes my identity on a daily basis and reacts poorly to both constructive feedback on her poor judgement for managing relationships with outside community partners and simple requests such as turning off her phone volume in a shared office space or using Teams for work-related discussion instead of text. She is also a terrible writer (a key job requirement), so I end up having to rewrite much of her work.

I am 100% leaving this position due to her conduct and I feel it’s important to tell leadership. I already discussed my coworker’s behavior with my manager and there has been little change. Leadership’s main concern is finishing the project we were hired to implement. My coworker’s and my positions are temporary, project-based positions, so it is highly unlikely this coworker would stay on. Would I look like the petty, aggrieved employee for sharing my true reasons for leaving or should I keep it neutral and say, “I found a position that’s a better fit for my career goals”?

There’s no point in getting into a lengthy dissection of your coworker’s behavior, but if your manager is the one asking, there’s no reason you can’t say, “It’s no secret that I’ve found Jane very difficult to work with.” If the person asking is higher up, you can share, “I’ve encountered a lot of difficulties working with Jane, which I’ve shared with Manager. I don’t want to rehash it at this point, but it ended up seeming like the right choice to simply move on.” I wouldn’t get into it beyond that — you’re leaving, and that gives them enough bread crumbs to follow if they care to.

One exception: If I’m understanding correctly that Jane subjected you to harassment or discrimination based on your race, religion, sexual orientation, or other protected class, you should spell that out, along with the fact that your boss didn’t act on it when you reported it (that part is crucial). They need to hear that, even if they don’t care about the rest of it.

5. How to raise your rates as a freelancer

Is there a good way to raise your freelancer rates with your existing clients? I haven’t raised my rates in a long time because of The Fear of never getting any work ever again. I am now pretty sure that I am undercharging. My instincts are all saying “only raise by a really small amount!” “Give them three months notice before the rate rises kick in!” But those are the same instincts that led me to not raise my rates for years so I am not sure I should trust them!

Also, do I need to give a reason for raising my rates? Or do I just state that they are going up? I was planning to say, “Due to rising costs, I will need to raise my rates from 1 September to xxx/hour or xxx/day.” As I am a freelancer writer, they may ask what costs. But, honestly, the price of coffee, my most important business expense, has shot up so I am telling the truth!

In general, you shouldn’t raise your rates only by a small amount out of fear; you want to raise them to a level that’s in line with the market and which means you won’t be undercharging. At the same time, freelancers also have to be realistic about clients’ budgets and what price point they’ll accept, and how willing you are to potentially lose some clients over a price hike. (Ideally, you’d be willing to lose some, since it will open up space for clients who can pay what your work is worth — but obviously that gets into what you can and can’t afford, how much risk tolerance you have, and how large of an increase we’re talking about.) It’s more art than science.

You don’t need to give a reason and I wouldn’t say it’s “due to rising costs.” You can just let people know they’re increasing and to what. Giving two to three months notice is good practice. You can also note that you haven’t raised your rates in the X years you’ve worked together.

Your wife said you were crazy, but who’s laughing now that you’re the only one in the family left and can live the rest of your life underground eating cans of expired beans?

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Microsoft revealed an updated version of their AI assistant Copilot, which will use generative technology to remember everything users do on their PCs and suggest things you might like to do next. What do you think?

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Some time ago, I told the story of the confidential coffee maker, one of the ways that Microsoft employees temporarily stationed in IBM’s Boca Raton office rebelled against IBM’s strict corporate culture. Since then, some of my colleagues shared additional stories from the IBM office commonly nicknamed Boca.

When the Microsoft engineers first arrived in Boca, they were assigned a computer lab equipped with a handful of very outdated computers. The next morning, Steve Ballmer, head of the operating systems division, bought twenty brand new Compaq 386/20 computers and network equipment for the Microsoft engineers to use. They were the envy of the IBM developers as they walked in the door with their top-notch equipment.

Part of the IBM/Microsoft joint venture agreement was that both the managers and engineers would alternate between Microsoft employees going to Boca and IBM employees coming to Redmond. And by some strange quirk of fate, the schedule ended up that during the winter, the Microsoft managers packed their bags for sunny Florida, and during the summer, the IBM managers left behind the oppressive heat of Florida for the pleasant summers of the Pacific Northwest. Meanwhile, the engineers were on the opposite schedule, going to Redmond in the winter and Boca in the summer. Huh. How strange that it worked out that way. Must just be dumb luck.

One of the security measures at Boca was that everybody had to sign in and out of the hardware lab. One of the employees was convinced that this was a complete waste of time since nobody ever checked the signature against the ID badge, and he began signing in and out under more and more absurd false names. Eventually, the lab manager came to the Microsoft office with the sign-in logs and asked the employee to sign in again because “Benito Mussolini? Somebody’s gonna notice that.”

The post The confidential coffee maker was not the only source of shenanigans at the IBM Boca office appeared first on The Old New Thing.

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This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

Remember last week’s letter-writer whose company was doing a session on the “five languages of appreciation in the workplace” which for some inexplicable reason included “touch”? Here’s the update.

The meeting came and went, so I thought I’d update you. Our team is hybrid with some people fully remote, so the meeting was fortunately not in-person. There are fewer than 20 of us on the team.

The person leading the five appreciation languages was the head of another team in our division, so most of us knew her but hadn’t worked with her before. She began by talking about how much she loves the framework and it’s her favorite, and that the relationship one is also amazing, and then moved into explaining the five languages. For each one, she asked us to comment in the chat if we thought it as one of our languages. People were very active for the first four.

Then she got to “Touch” and she quickly said that she knew some people might be intimidated to say it was one of their appreciation languages, so she would pipe up first about it being an important one to her in order to break the ice. There was continued silence. Hoping to draw out fellow “Touch” people, she started telling us that at her last workplace people were very into hugging and back pats, but here it seems like more of a handshake/fist bump place, and that made her kinda sad. Still silence from all of us. She decided to interpret that as people not feeling comfortable to admit to Touch being their language, but then mercifully moved on to some exercises around the other four languages.

The training was somewhat useful–I learned some valuable insights into how various coworkers like to get words of appreciation (some in public, others not, some with lots of detail, others with just a simple “thank you”). And I also now feel confident that even if one of my coworkers really was hiding their preference for touch (which I doubt), no one in my office thinks touching is an appropriate way to show appreciation in the workplace.

FREDONIA, AZ—In an effort to provide easier ungulate access throughout the grounds of the popular natural attraction, Grand Canyon National Park announced Friday the installation of new mule vending machines. “These five-story-tall vending machines are fully automated, providing parkgoers with year-round, 24-hour…

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