It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Our office assistant left and now my boss wants me to do her job
I work for a small company (<8 people) founded by my boss, Cersei. I am an associate and I primarily do client-facing project management and data analysis work. I am also the most junior person on our small staff who’s here in the office — others work remotely.
Our office assistant/analyst, Arya, just left to go to graduate school. Cersei frequently had Arya order and pick up her lunch during the week, print out documents and bring them to her, and make vet appointments for her dog.
Cersei has replaced Arya with a part-time assistant who primarily works remotely. As such, Cersei has now been asking me to print things on her behalf and has once asked me to get her lunch. Since this request was over email, I ignored it, and Cersei hasn’t brought it up. But I’d like to nip this in the bud in case it happens again. What should I say to my boss next time she tries to treat me like her personal assistant?
You can try pushing back in the moment once or twice, but if it continues after that, you should have a big-picture discussion with her about it.
To push back in the moment, try citing higher priorities — “I won’t have time to finish X by the deadline if I do that” or “Right now I’m pushing to finish Y before my call with the client” and “I’m sorry, I’ve got to finish up this project” or so forth. (Only use these when what she’s asking for is time-consuming; they won’t have credibility in response to a request to print something out that will take just seconds.)
But assuming that doesn’t stop it, you’ll need to address it more directly. You could say something like, “Since Arya left, you’ve been asking me to pick up some of her work, like X and Y. I’m of course happy to help out in a pinch, but I’m concerned that since Ned works remotely, that stuff might start falling to me regularly. It’s important to me to stay focused on the project management and data analysis work I came on board to do.”
It’s possible you’ll hear that the needs of the company have changed and this is how it’s going to be from now on; sometimes that happens in small companies, especially when you’re the most junior person. And if your boss won’t budge, you might need to decide if you still want the job under those conditions. But before you end up there, it’s reasonable to raise the issue, explain it’s not the work you signed on to do, and ask her to reconsider.
2. What to wear in a casual office when you don’t love jeans
I just accepted a job in a role with a very casual dress code. I was told a nice shirt and jeans are the norm because they don’t want to make their working class clients uncomfortable. The person I interviewed with kind of side-eyed the dress I was wearing to the interview.
The thing is, I don’t really love wearing jeans. I find them uncomfortable for office jobs since I have to sit all day. I usually wear skirts or dresses, but I am under the impression that those will be seen as too fancy. Do you have any recommendations for other types of pants that might be okay? Or maybe a way to make a skirt or dress look not as fancy? Or should I suck it up and go buy some jeans?
Try chinos or khakis! Or other pants of similar material — plain cotton rather than more formal suit-like material. They’re almost as informal as jeans, and you can dress them down by pairing them with a top that’s on the more casual side of “nice shirt.”
But I’d bet that skirts and dresses would also be fine as long as they’re casual. The dress you wore to your interview probably wasn’t especially casual — because you were interviewing — but I suspect you’d be fine in skirts and dresses in casual fabrics. If you’re unsure, you can always check with your manager in your first week, explaining that you’re not usually a pants person.
3. Are there ANY events we can do that won’t be problematic for someone?
I understand that teams who connect with each other beyond the basics of their role tend to be higher performing. From the various questions you’ve answered, it seems that almost every type of event/activity that provides an opportunity for employees to connect on a more casual basis is fraught with issues. Golfing — gender discriminatory. Meals — problematic for those with eating disorders. Team-building activities — generally icky. Etc.
I’d love some suggestions from you and the readers of activities/events that will be appealing to a wide range of people and also inclusive. I’d love ideas for both things that could be done within work hours, plus things that might occur during the evening or weekend. These events/activities would be optional and fully funded by the company. The intention would be to create a casual atmosphere where people can chat beyond the strict confines of their role/position and with others who they don’t necessarily work with regularly.
There isn’t any one activity that will be fully inclusive and embraced by everyone. Different people have different preferences (and different dietary needs, restrictions on movement, levels of extroversion, etc.). I suspect we could point out potential problems with or find someone who disliked literally any activity you named.
What you want is to find something that works for your office — which might be wildly different than what works for another office. The keys are to talk to the people on your team to find out what they’d enjoy; to make it truly voluntary and not to penalize people who opt out; to watch for activities that seem to be segregating along problematic lines (such as gender or disability); to be thoughtful about the burden you might be placing on people (particularly with activities outside of normal work hours) and the fact that many people won’t comfortable being honest about their interest level or pushing back; and to notice if someone is regularly opting out and talk with them about whether there’s anything you can do to make it easier for them to participate, if they want to.
4. I recommend people apply at my company and they get ignored
My workplace is often recruiting new staff, and management asks us to please help out by recommending friends or former colleagues and putting them in contact. Every time my current manager asks us to recommend people to them, I have. Three times so far. It starts with me chatting to the relevant department head about the person, they respond “yes, please, tell her to send her CV through, thanks so much!” I give my friend the heads-up to do so and help them with their cover letter/CV, and they send it off. All three times, my contacts haven’t ever heard anything back. Not even an acknowledgement of receipt, a quick “thanks,” nothing. I find this embarrassing.
I know that nobody else has recommended people so they’re not overwhelmed with candidates (it’s a small place and we talk about it in the staff room), and they haven’t formally advertised yet. I have a good rapport with management and we’ve personally chatted about the person I’ve recommended before they send in their CV. It’s also not like I’m simply recommending my best friends; it’s people who I have worked with before, are amazing and inspiring at what they do, would genuinely make a wonderful impact at my current job, and are very experienced/ appropriately qualified.
Would it be okay for me to say something about this, and when would be the best time? Like, just mention it generally at our next drop-in? Or when I’m next asked if I know any other people suitable for XYZ department? What about if it’s a manager who I don’t see often — would I be overstepping to email a friendly nudge? Or follow up with the manager after a few days to ask if they received my contact’s application? Like in a breezy, friendly, nonchalant way as though I don’t know my contact has already applied? I’d like to do it this way as this is actually happening at the moment … a friend sent her CV in a few days ago.
I’m not even necessarily expecting my referrals to get moved onto the next stage or anything, just a wee simple acknowledgement so I don’t feel like a twat for bigging up my workplace and managers to them. And because I was specifically asked to put my friends in touch..
If they haven’t formally advertised yet, they might not be in active hiring mode yet, and they might be hanging on to your contacts’ materials for whenever that happens. Or they might be looking for something they haven’t fully communicated to you (or that you haven’t fully understood).
Regardless, though, you can absolutely ask about this. You can follow up with the manager you spoke with and say, “Jane Smith mentioned to me that she applied but hasn’t heard anything back yet. Are you able to give me a general timeline I can pass along to her for when she could expect to hear back?” And/or you could ask, “Is she the kind of candidate you’re looking for, or should I tweak the profile of person I’m referring to you?” Whether to do it in-person or via email depends on the relationship and how you normally communicate with the person, but generally either is fine.
Also, are these requests typically coming from the same person/people? If so, you can also talk to them and say something like, “You’ve asked a few times for referrals of candidates. I’ve referred three people and as far as I know, none of them ever heard anything back. Can you tell me more about what you’re looking for, so that I’m not sending over people who aren’t right?” It’s also fine to say, “Since I’m talking up the company to my contacts and urging them to apply, I want to make sure they’ll hear something back, even if it’s just a rejection note. Is there a way for us to flag candidates where the relationship means it’s important they get some kind of response?”
5. Is it weird to say “good for you” when a former boss leaves a crappy job?
Is it weird to say “good for you” when a former boss leaves a crappy job? My former boss from 2017, “Janet,” left that position this past September. (I don’t know if she was fired or resigned, but I’d put money on resigned any day.) I didn’t find out until about six months later, because I was desperate enough for an internship that I wanted to explore that as an option this spring. I didn’t enjoy my internship on 2017 because of the stress, but objectively I think I did decently well at it.
But Janet wasn’t exactly … chummy. A quote from her that I will never forget is, “You’re not the first intern I’ve made cry.” However, I think a lot of that has to do with the chain of screaming that she got from *her* bosses, and because I was going through some outside personal issues that occasionally seeped in. Still, by the end of the internship, we got along significantly better because I generally appreciate directness. She ended up writing me a really good recommendation for grad school.
When I saw that she was no longer working there, my first thought was, “Good for her.” She had mentioned that she understood my anxiety in part because she herself took anxiety meds for the job. I’m genuinely happy that she was able to escape the chaos and pressure, much like I was happy for myself when I left. Would it be weird if I reached out (via text; I don’t have her new email and her LinkedIn doesn’t list a current position where I could look it up) and said, “Hey, good for you for leaving?”
Don’t do that. You don’t know that she sees things the way you do; she could have generally positive feelings toward the organization, and your message would make it clear that you don’t and that you’re assuming she doesn’t either. That’s presuming something you don’t have grounds to presume. Even if you’re right that she’s glad to be gone, she hasn’t indicated she’s open to discussing that with you, so you’d be putting her in a weird spot.
Plus, if you’re applying for an internship there, you definitely don’t want to do this. They might contact her for a reference, and that would make your text seem particularly odd to her.
my boss wants me to be her assistant, what to wear in a casual office, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
from Ask a Manager http://bit.ly/2JRtdvu
via IFTTT
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं: