my boss keeps rotting food in our shared office, my performance review mentioned that I pee a lot, and more
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My boss keeps rotting food in our shared office
I just started a new job, which I was thrilled to get and have really been enjoying so far. I share an office with one person, who is my immediate supervisor and is training me. He’s been training me well and he’s a really nice guy, but there’s one big problem: when he brings lunch to work, he doesn’t take his leftovers home. As a result, there are at least five or six large Tupperware containers under his desk, containing food in various stages of decay. The smell is, as you might imagine, pretty intense.
He’s had this office to himself for the last year, so I think he’s probably been doing this for a while and doesn’t notice the smell anymore, but I can’t not notice it. I’m obviously not okay with rotting food being kept in our office, but since I’m brand new and this guy is my supervisor, I have to admit I feel a little weird about calling him out on this. Do you have any guidance or a suggested script I could use to try and get this taken care of?
Eeuuww.
You can actually be pretty straightforward about this! As in, “Those Tupperware containers are starting to smell pretty bad! Any chance of moving them out of here?”
If you feel weird because he’s your boss, you can always open with “I might have an unusually sensitive sense of smell, but…” That’s not necessary and it’ll likely go over totally fine without that, though.
2. My performance review mentioned that I pee a lot
So I’ve been at my job for a year, I really like my job, and I just got through a glowing performance review where I got the maximum possible raise. The one piece of feedback I got was I seem to be in the restroom a lot and people have talked about it/noticed. This is a ticket-driven position and I crush all the metrics, so it’s clear I’m making up the time I’m away from my desk.
Anyway, the reason I’m in the bathroom is a minor congenital defect that makes it so it’s hard for me to fully relieve myself, so I’ll often have to use the restroom again an hour after I last went. My boss is a good guy and framed the restroom feedback as more something to be cognizant of than any kind of actual criticism. I guess at this point I don’t know if it’s worse to be the guy that goes to the bathroom a lot, or the guy that’s bad at going to the bathroom. There’s not really anything my boss could do to squelch gossip other than say, “Well he’s got a medical issue” and then obviously a private thing would be less private. I feel like it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie on this one, but am I potentially jeopardizing myself by not laying out that this is a real thing diagnosed by a doctor and that I legitimately need “needs to use the toilet a lot” as a reasonable and protected accommodation?
If you’re comfortable with it, I think there’s potentially benefit to letting your boss know that there’s a health issue in play. You don’t need to give him details, and you can specifically say that this isn’t something you want shared with others, but if this is getting mentioned in your review, I think it’s worth saying, “Just so you know, this is a medical thing. It doesn’t sound like there’s any need for me to formally request an accommodation, but I can do that if it’s the kind of thing that otherwise might come up in feedback or an evaluation in the future.” The subtext there is “because this is not something I should hear about again.”
But frankly, it’s ridiculous that this was mentioned in your review at all. If it’s not affecting your work (and clearly it’s not), it’s no one’s business how often you’re in the bathroom. Ideally your boss would be shutting that talk down when he hears it, by saying something like, “We don’t monitor people’s bathroom usage here, and Bob’s work is excellent.”
3. How can I ask to move back to my old job?
I had been working as, let’s say, a llama groomer, which I loved, for a little over two years when my director, Ned, told me that he was moving me to my group’s “sister team” that does, for example, llama taming. (These are made-up examples!) I had been doing some backfill duties for a few months when that team was shorthanded, but I wasn’t looking to make it my permanent job!
Ned is great, and I’ve enjoyed working for him, so I tried to be optimistic and put on a happy face for his sake, even though I’m not remotely interested in becoming a llama tamer. He even mentioned that he would move me back to my old team (which is always hiring) if I didn’t enjoy it. Long story short, I’m already so done with this job. I don’t like the work, and frankly I miss work that I used to do. I’m starting to get anxiety about going to work, which never happened in my old position. It feels like I’ve been demoted, even though I know he moved me because he likes my work.
How do I tell Ned that I’d really like to move back to my old job? I’m afraid he will tell me that he needs me more on my new team (probably true; he has big plans for that group) and that I can’t move back for another year. I also won’t be able to get a job elsewhere in my (very large) company without getting his and my new manager’s approval.
If Ned is indeed great, he will want to know that you hate this and want to move back! In fact, he even told you that he’d move you back if you don’t like it. It’s possible that that’ll turn out not to be true, but you should at least try taking him at his word and telling him how you’re feeling before you conclude anything. (If I were Ned, I’d be horrified to find out that you were miserable and worried about telling me!)
As for how to do it, just be straightforward! You could say something like, “You asked me to let you know if I ended up not liking llama taming. I’ve tried to give it a shot, but it’s really not for me. I loved my old position and I miss it. You mentioned you’d move me back there if I ended up wanting that — and I do. Can we still make that happen?”
If he asks if you can stick it out for another year, say this: “I’ve tried to stick it out, and it’s really not working well for me. My strong preference is to move back soon.” You could even add, “I don’t think I could commit to another year” — which raises the prospect that you might end up leaving entirely without coming out and saying it (and it sounds like he wouldn’t want that).
4. Can I be reimbursed for parking when I have to bring my car in for a work task?
I work for an urban university, where there is no free parking for employees and annual parking passes cost upwards of $800 per year. Many of my colleagues live in the suburbs off of public transportation lines, so by default buy parking passes to get to work. I have intentionally chosen to live on a bus line so I don’t have to drive to work.
Recently my boss has asked me several times to do things that require driving and parking on campus (picking up award plaques, delivering food for students, etc. all in the middle of the day or during business hours) and parking for the day is upwards of $10 a day. I took this job with the expectation that I would not have to drive anywhere for work-related reasons. I only drive if I have to leave during the day for a personal appointment, and this was not listed in the job description. Is it unreasonable to ask to be reimbursed for parking costs? I’m concerned my colleagues will think it’s not fair since they are expected to pay for their parking permits out of pocket.
Yes, it’s reasonable to ask about this. Your boss may just assume you have a car at work with you and doesn’t realize that you’re incurring additional costs when she asks you to do things that require driving. You can say something like, “I don’t normally drive to work, so when you ask me to do things that require driving and I have to bring my car in, I end up needing to pay for parking on those days. Since I’m only bringing my car in to do a work task, can I submit my parking expenses for reimbursement on those days?”
It’s not unfair to be reimbursed for an expense that you’re only incurring because of a work assignment.
5. Am I calling my manager too much?
I had a restructure in my office and my supervisor has moved offices. When we were in the same office, it was not uncommon four or five times a day to check in with her either in passing or seeing if her office was open. Mostly these were small clarifying points or every once in a while to chat out a task we were working on that came up. Nothing ever took more than two to five minutes.
Now her office is located in another part of town. She has said she is free for phone chats for any small thing. But I noticed at first I was calling three to five times a day for small things, which I imagine would be annoying (and that doesn’t take into account the times I call and she doesn’t answer because she is on the phone or in a meeting). With missed calls, I may be calling her seven or eight times a day to get answers on things. I tried to limit my calls to once a day but found that it is hard for me to get through my small checklists I make in in under 20 minutes, which still seems like a lot of time each day. She says a one-hour weekly meeting isn’t necessary.
I haven’t received specific feedback that I am bothering her too much. But I want to be respectful of her time and new role. I am trying more to send these small questions and clarifying points as emails, but I wonder how much time is too much for phone call check-ins during a day? Should it be less than the in person check-ins we used to have?
It’s true that the phone can seem like more of an interruption than stopping by in-person does. I’m not sure exactly why that is. Maybe it’s because in-person, there are visual cues that tell you if the person is interruptible. Or maybe it’s just dropping by seems more like “I was walking past your door so I might as well tell you this two-second thing,” whereas calling means “I could have emailed you this but I chose to pick up the phone and interrupt you with a call.” Laying it out like this, I’m not sure it’s strictly rational.
Anyway, this depends on your manager’s preferences, and those can vary from person to person. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be interrupted by multiple phone calls a day and would want you to use email for more things and/or save everything up for one daily call (and one 20-minute call would be way preferable to me than five separate shorter calls), but it’s possible that your manager is totally fine with the calls and prefers the system you’re using to any of the alternatives. The only way you’ll know, though, is to ask her. So: “Now that we’re not working in the same space, what’s the best system for me to use for the small things that come up during the day that normally I would have dropped by your office about? Would you rather I save things up for one daily call, which might take about 20 minutes? Or is it easier for you if I use email unless something requires real conversation with back-and-forth? Or do you want me to stick with what I’m doing?”
As one general guideline, though, I wouldn’t call her — or anyone — with things that are straightforward, non-urgent, and won’t require back-and-forth to hash it out. Unless she’s just not an email person, email almost always makes more sense for things like “the printer says we’re on for Thursday” or “can you approve this price quote” or other low-key things that don’t require interrupting someone for an answer right in the moment.
my boss keeps rotting food in our shared office, my performance review mentioned that I pee a lot, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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