we’re supposed to stay late “out of courtesy,” should I send employers a lottery ticket with my resume, and more
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. We’re supposed to stay late “out of courtesy” to other coworkers
I’ve been at my job six months. It’s in an industry I’ve been in for 18 years and where I’ve always worked hard, earned praise for my skills, and shown a cooperative spirit. I’ve never been reprimanded for not being a “team player” but at this job there is an unwritten rule of “you stay until everyone can leave even if you’re done with all your tasks.” An employee who’s been there a few years called it the pack mentality. She doesn’t agree with it but stays because she feels obligated. I can’t wrap my head around it. I feel like because this is a smaller team of younger employees, they’ve been indoctrinated into this mentality and it’s not healthy, but I’m new and am hesitant to make a stink about what I feel is unfair. I am not talking about not wanting to stay and help when there’s something I can truly do to get everyone out in a timely manner, I’m talking about being told to hang back because it would be obvious I’m leaving when the others aren’t.
Usually I sit there wondering what I should do, then after a few minutes of wasting time, I’ll leave. But one evening last week I was done and packing up, and I messaged my boss to ask if there was anything I could help with. She said no, but asked if I could stay maybe 10-20 minutes longer because it would be obvious if I left since the others couldn’t. I went into her office to sort of debate the request because I really needed to go home, but she got a phone call and waved me off after I motioned to her I needed to go. She didn’t mention anything the next day and I didn’t either.
I guess I feel strongly about it because I am the only one in the building who has kids and I switch places with my husband the moment I get home from work because he works nights. The sooner I can relieve him of the dad duties to rest, the better. If I’m wrong in feeling this is unfair and strange, I want to know so I can readjust my thinking.
Nope, you’re not wrong. Your coworkers should be capable of understanding that people might leave at different times depending on their workload that day. (And it’s likely they do understand that just fine, and this is solely your manager’s issue.) Plus, people are generally more cheerful about occasionally having to stay late when they’re not required to do it for no reason. This is a misuse of your time and a ridiculous practice.
I’d say this to your boss: “I can of course stay late on occasion when my workload requires it, but I have child care responsibilities at home and can’t stay late just because others aren’t ready to leave yet. So unless there’s something that specifically requires work from me — which, again, I’ll be happy to take care of — I’ll need to leave in the evening once my work for the day is done. I wanted to let you know since my sense is that might be a deviation from what others do.”
2. Should I send employers a lottery ticket with my resume?
I have been job hunting for a while now without much success. I’m looking for creative ways to get noticed by employers, and I had the idea to send my resume along with a lottery ticket and the message “Take a chance on meeting me!” My thinking is that it’s a cute way to stand out and some hiring managers might be intrigued enough to call me for an interview. Do you see any downsides to this?
Nooooo, do not do this. It’s really gimmicky, and it’ll look like you don’t trust your qualifications to merit an interview on their own (or understand why people get hired). It’s so gimmicky, in fact, that if I would have called you for an interview without the lottery ticket, this would make me hesitate to do it, both because the gimmick would raise questions about your judgment and understanding of professional norms and because I’d have qualms about reinforcing whatever thought process led to this.
The way you stand out to employers is by being a highly qualified candidate with a resume that shows a track record of achievement and writing a compelling, personalized cover letter. I know that’s frustrating — how will you stand out if other people have those things too, after all? — but that’s the only way to do it, at least if you want to screen for good employers who hire competently.
3. I’ve overheard my coworkers badmouthing my religion
I work for a small, friendly company with about 35 employees. Our office space is composed of several large, shared offices. Most people keep their doors open except for when taking calls or discussing more confidential issues. This, combined with the fact that sound really carries because of the way the offices are arranged, means that from time to time, I can hear the conversation going on in the office next to mine. I’m not bothered by this, because I can just put in headphones if it’s distracting me.
However, on two separate occasions now, I’ve overheard my coworkers discussing my religion in not-so-positive terms. It was nothing horrendous or cruel, but it was in a tone of mocking, and they were presenting things about the religion as fact that aren’t true and are common misconceptions and misunderstandings. I’m a fairly private person, and while I don’t make efforts to hide my religion, I’m also not really comfortable talking about it at work, so I don’t think most of my coworkers know about my religious preferences. I was really uncomfortable listening to them talk, so both times I just turned up my music and tried to tune it out. Is there anything I could have done differently? If I had been part of the conversation, I would have been more comfortable saying, “Hey, I’m actually a part of that religious group” to put a stop to it, but sending them an email that says, “Hey, I can hear you talking about my religion from my office and….” feels awkward and out of line.
Yeah, I wouldn’t do it in an email — that’s actually going to make it more awkward than it needs to be. Instead, if it happens again, just stick your head in the office they’re in and say, “Hey, would you mind keeping that out of the office? I belong to the group you’re talking about, and it’s pretty uncomfortable to overhear this conversation.”
Alternately, if you’d rather not share that you’re a member of the religion being discussed (which you certainly don’t need to), you could say, “You probably don’t realize that your conversation can be heard through the walls, so I wanted to give you a heads-up that it can. It’s a pretty uncomfortable conversation to overhear, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t have it here.”
4. Employer told me I was their second choice before offering me the job
Thanks to all your advice, I have just landed myself an amazing job! It’s a huge step up both regarding responsibilities and pay and I was convinced after the second interview that I didn’t get it. In fact, they specifically told me at the end of the interview that they were looking for someone with a background in, let’s say, teapot designing, which I don’t have.
Fast forward to a couple of days ago and I get a call from the HR guy who conducted my first interview. He apologized for taking so long to get back to me and told me it was because one of the other applicants had the teapot design background they wanted and they offered the job to her. However, she was also in the running for another job with the organization so she ended up taking that one, meaning they were offering me the original position.
It doesn’t bother me at all that I wasn’t the first choice but it feels a bit icky that the HR guy told me BEFORE the offer. Since the other candidate will be working there, I’m sure I would have found out quickly anyway, but the way it went down feels weird to me and everyone I’ve told is shocked, especially since the guy who told me works in HR. And while I was really happy with the salary they offered, if it had been too low and I wanted to negotiate, I felt that him telling me I was the second choice took away my power ask for more. Is it as weird as I think or was the HR guy being entirely reasonable by telling me what was going on?
I suspect he told you in order to explain why they were offering it to you despite having said they wanted a specific background you don’t have. He didn’t need to mention it, of course, but I don’t think it’s horribly problematic that he did. (It’s definitely not shocking! — that’s an extreme reaction from the people you’ve told.)
It’s unlikely that it was a strategy to lower your negotiating power. He just shared information without fully realizing how it might land with you (and lots of candidates want more info in the hiring process). But it’s not especially outrageous, and I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
It’s an amazing job with a salary you’re happy with. That’s much more important!
5. I don’t understand why my contract is ending
I am currently a contract worker at a very big corporation, and back when I was hired they told me they wanted it to be contract-to-hire, but now, supposedly due to budget reasons, my contract is ending soon. However, the circumstances around it are baffling me.
They told me they want someone more “senior” in my role to take on very niche tasks that another former employee took on, even though I was already trained by said employee and completing these tasks. I was also told my performance was very good and not the reason they weren’t extending me. I saw a job posting for my role that has my exact job duties on it from them, and nothing suggested it would be more senior work than what I was already doing. It’s worth noting I do have senior level experience in my role (7+ years). Everyone I’ve also spoken with about it at work besides my bosses are shocked and upset I’m leaving.
It doesn’t make sense to me, honestly. Am I being let go because I was hoping for a permanent position? I asked if there was anything I could do to stay and they said no. It’s a shame, because I really liked my work and the people I worked with. Just wondering if you had any insight to why this might have happened.
It’s impossible to say from the outside without a lot more information, but it’s unlikely they’d end your contract simply because you were hoping for a permanent position. It’s possible that it really is exactly what they’re telling you — they want someone more senior than you are, which doesn’t just mean number of years of experience but also can describe things like more seasoned judgment, more nuanced ability to deal with higher-ups, etc. Or it could be that they weren’t thrilled with some aspect of your work and didn’t have the fortitude to talk to you about it — which could be because they’re wimps about giving feedback or because the issue is hard/awkward to articulate (which isn’t an excuse not to do it, but that happens).
Keep in mind this can always happen with contract-to-hire positions. The whole point of contract-to-hire is that they’re not committing to hiring you yet and can easily decide after trying things out that it’s not quite what they want, which ultimately seems to be what happened here.
we’re supposed to stay late “out of courtesy,” should I send employers a lottery ticket with my resume, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
from Ask a Manager http://bit.ly/2CVEvtN
via IFTTT
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं: