“boss said she’d give me a great reference but she didn’t, jobs advertised for less than minimum wage, and more” plus 3 more Ask a Manager

boss said she’d give me a great reference but she didn’t, jobs advertised for less than minimum wage, and more
I slept through an entire day of work
should I point out job applicants’ mistakes to them?
my coworker thinks it’s funny to try to scare me

boss said she’d give me a great reference but she didn’t, jobs advertised for less than minimum wage, and more

Posted: 20 Mar 2018 09:03 PM PDT

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

1. My manager said she'd give me a great reference — but she didn’t

After a second round interview with company A, I was asked to submit references. I typically would not include my current direct supervisor, who started working with my team six months ago, but many of her close friends work at Company A and she is aware that I am job searching. We have a good relationship, and she is a “huge fan” of the work I’ve produced. She gave me great reviews during my annual review last month.

Despite all of this, I did not get the job at Company A because of the reference my current supervisor gave. According to the hiring manager, my supervisor did not have full confidence in my work product. What makes this situation especially unique is that my supervisor has been bragging about the “glowing” reference she gave to multiple people in the office. She even told one of my peers that the workload may shift because I was about to get a fabulous new job.

Should I let her know that her reference was not as glowing as she thinks it was? Aside from never using her as a reference again, how should I move forward with her? It at all? I'm sure it was her – the hiring manager specifically said my current supervisor's reference was the determining factor. My other references were former coworkers/former supervisors.

It's possible that the hiring manager got mixed up, and the reference was from someone else. But assuming that's not the case, it's possible that your manager was acting in good faith here … because references aren't typically a pass/fail thing but are more nuanced than that. References that are overall very positive generally still acknowledge that the person has weaker spots (and really, a credible reference often needs to do that). It's possible that she didn't think the weaker spots she mentioned would matter much for the job, but the hiring manager considered them a bigger deal.

The idea that she said she didn't “have full confidence" in your work sounds damning, but it could have been something like, "Of course, she's still learning to do A and B so I have a lot of oversight on her work in those areas." Or the hiring manager could have asked how independently you work, and your manager could have said, "I review all her work before it goes out" just because that's standard practice at your company. Or who knows — but there are a lot of ways that your manager could have felt she gave a strong reference while the hiring manager didn't take it that way.

That's not great, of course, because it may mean that your boss isn't communicating the way she intends — but it also could just mean that the hiring manager put more weight on something than you'd expect her to from the outside.

Since you have the kind of relationship with your boss where she knows you're job-searching and she's bragging about how she's helping you, I do think you could say to her, "I feel awkward about raising this, but the hiring manager for that job said that your reference gave her pause — she felt like you didn't have full confidence in my work. I want to make sure I'm meeting your expectations and you feel you can give me a great reference in the future. Is there anything you'd like to see me doing differently?"

2. Recruiter made me promise not to accept any job offers

A few months ago when I was job hunting, I was contacted by a recruiter, Megan, who explained the position she was working on with me and asked about my experience and job hunt. She asked if I had any other interviews or offers on the table. I was honest and told her I had one interview the next day. She said, “I can’t submit your resume until you turn down that job” (mind you, I hadn’t even gone on the interview yet). She said “I’ll call you tomorrow to see if you even liked it or not."

The next day, she calls and asks how my interview went. I told her it went well, but that position was very data-heavy, not what I was looking for. She said “Okay, I can submit your resume to my company, but you have to PROMISE me you won’t accept any other offers.” I was very put off by this, but the position sounded great, so I told her sure. She kept following up with me, saying “you stopped job hunting right? Not taking any offers?” I would just kind of brush it off.

Turns out, the company thought I was too junior and didn’t want to interview me anyway. What if I had actually turned down an offer to get this though? I’d be furious at myself and Megan for pushing so hard. I didn’t stop job hunting or turn anything down, since I knew this wasn’t a guaranteed interview. But I still found it incredibly strange. Is this normal? I never worked with another recruiter like that.

It's not normal. It's terrible practice. Of course you should be actively searching and should be free to accept a job offer if you want to! Good candidates aren't going to agree to work with a recruiter who makes those demands, so Megan is harming not only candidates (for the reasons you mentioned) but the employers she's working for as well (since they're going to lose out on strong candidates who will find Megan's demands ridiculous).

3. My boss doesn't know my name

I’m writing in with a bit of an odd conundrum; I don’t think my boss knows my name. My company has less than 25 people in it. I have a main supervisor and then a boss who is above my supervisor. Every time my boss has spoken to me, she has called me by a different name. Sometimes, the name she calls me starts with the same letter or sounds somewhat similar to my actual name (such as Emily or Annie) but sometimes it is wildly different (Rachel or Christine). Each time she does this, I say something along the lines of “oh, it’s actually MY NAME,” but it continues. The only time she got my name right was when she was interviewing me during the job application process.

I’ve noticed that she sometimes makes small mistakes with other coworkers’ names, such as Christine instead of Christina or Katie instead of Kaitlin, but it’s never as huge as with my name. My coworkers have definitely noticed it, and seeing what name she’ll call me next has become a bit of a running joke. I don’t necessarily find it offensive, but it is annoying. I don’t feel like my name is all that unique or hard to remember. Do you think there’s anything else I should be doing or should I just let it go and accept that for whatever reason, my boss just can’t learn my name? Am I totally overreacting?

Since you're already correcting her each time, there aren't a lot of other options. The only other things you could try would be (a) a big conversation with her about it ("Jane, I've noticed you almost never call me by my correct name; can you try to remember to call me Cecily?") or asking your supervisor to mention it to her. I might go with the latter, so that you don't have to shoulder the burden of an awkward conversation with someone who has been so dismissive of your reminders already. But since she's apparently mangling other names on the reg too (although not as badly as yours), I'm not super hopeful that it's solvable.

It would be interesting, though, to know if she ever messes up names of people who are her peers or senior to her. If she's an equal opportunity mangler, I wouldn't take it personally at all. But if she only does it with people who she has power over, that's telling.

4. I saw a job advertised for less than minimum wage

I am job searching and just came across a job that pays less than minimum wage. I am not interested in applying for this job in particular but wondered what the best way to handle it in general is. Minimum wage in New York city and state recently increased and in the city, the minimum wage is $13/hour for businesses with 11 or more employees and $12/hour for those with less.

This job is a temporary, part-time job at a non-profit. Even if it has fewer than 11 employees, the $11/hour they’re offering is still illegal. If I were interested in applying (which I might have been in the past), what is the best way to handle this? In the interview? At the offer stage? Just not apply for this job because an organization that doesn’t even realize the laws surrounding minimum wage have changed is one that one should avoid for fear of complete disregard of all labor laws?

I have actually worked at a business in the past that disregarded state wage laws but it was a little bit of a different situation (a restaurant that paid the federal minimum serving wage instead of the higher, New York state wage) and my wages after tips were generally high so I rolled my eyes and decided it wasn’t worth it. That was admittedly not the best way to handle it, so insight would be great!

It's possible that they just haven't updated their ads — if they're used to reposting the same ads, it could be that it's being done by a junior person who doesn't realize they need to update that piece of it. So it's possible that if they offered you the job, you'd find that they were offering it to you at the higher, legal wage.

As for when to bring it up, you could just wait for the offer and address it then if they still offer the lower, not-now-legal wage: "New York City recently increased minimum wage to $13/hour, so am I right in thinking that should be the wage for this position?" But it would also be fine to bring it up in the interview: "I saw in the ad that the position was advertised as paying $11/hour. Since New York City recently increased minimum wage to $13/hour, am I right in thinking that $13 is actually the wage for the position now?"

In other words, just sound matter-of-fact about it and like of course they'll follow the law.

5. How far back do employers check your social media?

Thanks to your resume advice, I’ve managed to get an interview for an internship!

I’m very much a quintessential millennial and have had Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for a lot of years now. Do you have any advice for ensuring there’s nothing that an employer would object to on there? Part of the internship is running the charity’s social media accounts, so simply making my accounts private probably wouldn’t fly. My recent content is all employer-friendly but I’m just worried in case there’s some dumb teenage stuff from years back. How do employers check social media? Do they glance over the most recent stuff or do they deep trawl your account?

They're usually just looking at the most recent stuff. It's hard to give an exact timeframe since it depends on how much you post (six months of posts for you could produce the same number of posts as three years for someone else, if you're a prolific poster and the other person isn't). But typically an employer isn't going to be reading everything carefully; it's more like a quick skim to see if anything (good or bad) jumps out. That quick skim usually won't go more than 100-200 posts back (and that's on the high side).

That said, if you know that you had bad judgment in what you posted in the past, it would be smart to go back and clean that up, because you just never know how someone might run across something. But if you're just worried that you might have posted something indiscreet eight years ago but don't have anything particular in mind, I wouldn't worry too much about that.

I started a new senior position in a new city about two months ago and I was killing it. It was just such a great fit of the job matching my abilities- I moved several integral projects forward and took some business trips in my first few weeks. Everyone was saying it felt like I'd been here years. My boss and the head of the firm were completely tickled, my coworkers and I were clicking great — it was workplace nirvana.

Danger zone: I was saying "yes" to everything because I was loving the work and wanted my boss to know he could count on me. I have a bit of a savior syndrome so when people say they need my help, I can practically never say no, but my boss is awesome and I love this work so I don't even want to say no! (And he has acknowledged over the last two months that he's thrown a lot on my plate, and has thanked me just for taking the job because he's less stressed than he's been in months.)

But I was in a new city, with a totally different lifestyle and schedule, and I was only getting around three hours of sleep a night. I would say that probably 65% of sleeplessness was caused by work stress/anxiety and the rest was a mix of lifestyle shake-up, like a new commute and sacrificing sleep to do things like hunt for a new apartment.

I started coming in later and later (the office is flexible, within reason), until one day last week I slept through the ENTIRE day.

I know that is completely shocking, I'm shocked too, and so incredibly embarrassed. I woke up late, emailed the administrator to let her know I was on my way in, and then when I sat on the bed to put on my shoes I must have just passed right back out again for about another 6 hours. Just sheer exhaustion, I guess.

My boss called me and left a concerned voicemail, then followed up with a concerned email a few hours later.

I was so mortified I didn't know what to do, so I stayed home, called the doctor, got a prescription for sleep meds, and then tried to calm myself down before calling my boss to apologize and explain. Other than apologizing over and over, I'm not even sure what I said. I definitely mentioned averaging about three hours of sleep a night over the last three weeks and just generally having too much on my plate, and that I have anxiety over wanting to do everything to the best standard possible, which was making me lose sleep.

He was amazing – he was concerned about me and my health first and foremost, then also about our deliverables. We came up with a two-week work plan that he confirmed with my colleagues. They took me off one project temporarily and cut way back on my role on another. I'm also taking a few days to work "undisturbed" from home (which was his way of letting me know it's okay to nap). He made it clear I don't have to share anything I don't want to, and gave me an encouraging pep talk about "being human" and "big life changes."

On my end, I am urgently prioritizing sleep hygiene to mitigate the exhaustion, and creating lists up the wazoo because I get forgetful when I'm tired.

The problem (or not problem?) now is everyone is treating me extremely sensitively. Maybe I'm projecting because I feel like such an a-hole for letting the team down, but it seems like they're walking on egg shells and being extra gentle. On the one hand, I appreciate it, but on the other hand I hate the reminder that I effed it up so royally. The ramifications are rippling forward 6-12 months, because of how they redistributed my workload.

I feel like I want to avoid everybody. I feel like I don't deserve to be here, like I let everybody down and now we're all waiting for it to happen again. A small part of me also wonders if age or gender are playing into it at all – I am a woman who is younger than the other senior members of the team, and the dynamic has been sort of like a gentleman/lady, mentor/mentee thing.

To me, this whole thing seems like an epic professional mistake. Aside from turning back time, what do I do now?

This is such a good example of how if you build up good will and standing by being a great employee, a good boss will cut you slack even when you think you've done something mortifying.

You had already proved yourself, so what happened reads completely differently than if you'd done it your first week on the job or if you were known to be a slacker.

Think of it this way: When someone sleeps through an entire day of work, what conclusions are you likely to draw about that person? Generally, you're going to assume either they’re sick or they're really cavalier about work. Your boss, and probably the rest of your office, already know that you're not cavalier about work. You sound like you're highly productive, on top of things, and full of initiative and drive. So it wouldn't make any sense for them to now think, "Oh, we were wrong about all of that — she's actually a huge slacker."

What happened was more akin to you being sick. "Sick" isn't exactly right, but it's way more in that neighborhood than anything else. You were suffering from the effects of weeks of exhaustion. It caught up with you because you are a human, not a robot.

Your boss clearly understands that. (See again: previous two months of drive and excellent work, and his gratitude for your performance.)

So the problem you haven't now isn't "how can I come back from this epic mistake?" You already handled this well: You apologized profusely, you explained what had happened, and you've taken steps to adjust your sleep.

And your boss handled this perfectly too: He recognized how your workload was contributing to the problem, he modified it to be more realistic, and he made it clear that he understands you are human.

This is all very, very good, for him and for you.

I suspect that people are treating you gently because your boss probably explained you were way overextended and exhausted, as part of the adjustments he made to your projects (and possibly also because people were worried about you the day you didn't show up). I can see why that's rattling you though — no one wants to be treated like a delicate flower at work.

There are two things that you can do about that. One is that you could talk to your boss and say something like, "I want to thank you again for being so understanding about my exhaustion last week. I'm mortified about it, and I'm grateful that you were so kind about it. I did want to say that if anyone is feeling like they need to be extra gentle with me now, they definitely don't! I've gotten the sense that people are treating me very delicately, and I don't want anyone to feel they need to do that. I've handled the sleep problems, and I'm good to go!"

But the other thing is that simply by being normal and demonstrating that you're not in fact a delicate flower, people should relax. Time and exposure will take care of much of this. So fight your urge to avoid people, because the more they’re around you being normal and reasonably hardy, the more that will overcome any worries they might have. The best thing you can do right now is to be around them and be matter-of-fact in your manner.

And truly, this is okay. You collapsed from exhaustion, your boss understands, and all involved have come together to correct the situation that led to that. Let yourself trust that your boss is not blowing smoke when he tells you that he understands, and trust that people have seen enough of your work to know you don’t crumble at the first sign of difficulty.

He tends to like to sneak up and scare us while we are working. We both wear earbuds while we work so it's easy for us to not hear him and to be distracted with what we are working on. He'll come up and make a loud noise or pop up suddenly around the entrance of our cubicles (he does this on purpose).

I have anxiety and am incredibly jumpy. He knows this too because I've mentioned this to him. I even jump when people say "good morning" or people that just pop into my cubicle to talk about work without meaning to scare me. I think once he saw my reaction to being scared, he likes to make me jump and I hate it! It takes my body a little while to even calm down once he's left my cube.

I'd like him to stop but he's otherwise an incredibly nice man.

I've also had this problem outside of work. When people find out how jumpy I am, they seem to be entertained by how easily I will react to any sudden noise. It's really annoying in general, but even more so at work because it does take me a bit of time to recover from the anxiety of it and how annoyed I am!

My coworker is quite a bit older than I am, and I notice he does this with me and another coworker of mine. We are both younger women. He doesn't do this with any older coworkers or any male coworkers that I've noticed.

I've just been putting up with it because he's been so kind to me since moving here and starting a new job, and I've been managing my anxiety pretty well. Recently, though, my anxiety has gotten worse and I wish he'd realize what this does to me.

Is there any nonchalant way of trying to get him to stop? I don't want it to come off as though I'm incredibly bothered by it, one, because he has been so nice to me and two, he seems to like to see a reaction out of me when he teases me like this so I'd like my reaction to be more casual so maybe he won't get whatever entertainment he seems to get out of teasing me.

I believe you when you say he's a nice man because you know him far better than I do, but this one thing he's doing is not at all nice. And it'll help to get really clear in your mind about that, because it'll hopefully make you more comfortable telling him very directly to cut it out.

And for what it’s worth … there's nice and then there's "nice." The fact that he's only doing this to young women is (a) not surprising and (b) pretty gross. I'm not saying he's a monster — if you say he's been lovely to you in other ways, I’m sure that’s true. People are complicated creatures, and they can be wonderful in some ways and awful in others. And there are lots of genial older men who act in incredibly sexist ways toward younger women and seem to think that’s charming. In fact, it’s neither charming nor okay, and it's okay to tell them to cut it out … especially when it's impacting your feelings of well-being the way this situation is.

As for how to do it, I don't think nonchalance will work here. This is someone who enjoys scaring you. And sure, to give him the benefit of the doubt, some otherwise kind people have a bizarre blind spot when it comes to this kind of thing, like the people who genuinely believe everyone enjoys being tickled. But what matters here is that, based on his behavior so far, this is not someone who is going to get the message if you try to deliver it nonchalantly.

You said that you want to your message to be casual because you don't want him to think it's funny if you try to address it more seriously — but if he thinks it's funny to hear you seriously tell him that he needs to stop scaring you, then he is not a kind person anyway and you should stop thinking of him that way. But if you're right that he's a kind person, then he should want to know that he's doing something that upsets you, and he should stop once you tell him. So you should do him and yourself the favor of delivering the message in a very serious way, so that he can't possibly misunderstand it or think that you're joking.

Say something like this: "I don't like it when you try to scare me. It's extremely unpleasant and distracting, and it's not something I find funny or welcome." If you want to, you can add, "I know that you thought this was in good fun, but it's not. Please cut it out.”

Say this without smiling. It’s important that you look and sound serious, so that he can't possibly think you're joking around with him. (It would be delusional for him to think that, but people do it all the time in this kind of situation.)

If you're right that he's a nice person, that should solve the problem.

But if he doesn't respond to that with an indication that he's taking you seriously and will respect your request, then say this: "You need to respect a clear no." Say this in a pissed off tone, and then turn back to your work — don't chat with him or otherwise let him think things are fine.

That'll probably stop it because once you refuse to play along in letting him think he's having a fun, charming interaction with you, he won't be getting what he wants from the encounter anymore.

But if for some reason that conversation doesn't stop it, then you'll know for sure that you’re dealing with someone who's not nice at all, and you should feel free to proceed accordingly — meaning no more friendly relationship, and complaining over his head if you need to.

Rapitful Shqip

Search This Blog