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

1. My coworker doesn’t get vaccinated and drinks raw milk

I work in a public library and recently found out that one of our librarians (who, frankly, hardly anyone can stand as he’s very lazy and is starting into serious incel behavior) drinks raw milk and doesn’t keep up to date on his vaccines. The diseases he can contract from raw milk like scarlet fever and avian flu can be passed on to others, and of course there’s the refusal to update his vaccines. Besides staff, he’s putting patrons at risk, including children too young for vaccines, pregnant people, elderly people, and the immunocompromised. Would you say this is worth an anonymous report to HR for since he’s putting people’s lives in danger with this? (I wouldn’t want to go public as he would retaliate.)

Your HR is highly, highly unlikely to tell him that he can’t drink raw milk; that’s just well beyond the boundaries of what employers will generally do (and rightly so, in my view — we don’t want to open ourselves up to employers telling us what we can and can’t eat and drink). They probably also won’t get involved in his vaccinations, unless you work somewhere that requires proof of vaccination — but if you did, they’d already be aware of this.

Your coworker sounds like he sucks, but there’s nothing reportable here.

2. My employer wants to reduce the vacation time I was promised when I was hired

When I was hired into a senior leadership role at my current organization, my offer letter specified the different types and amounts of PTO I would receive. A year in, with a new executive director at the helm, HR has realized that the vacation time I was promised and have been accruing exceeds the upper limit noted in the employee handbook (a document not shared with me until my first day on the job). The same situation applies to a few other senior-level colleagues hired around the same time as me.

Based on vague comments about “upcoming changes to rebalance accrual rates and restore equity,” we expect that our new director is going to try to reduce our vacation allotment to align with the maximum level stated in the handbook. This is compensation we were promised upon hiring, so none of us is willing to let those days go without a fight. If any one of us were to leave and cite this as the reason, it would be likely to cause major problems for our executive director with their own higher-ups.

I find it difficult to use all my vacation time as it is, so the actual time away does not matter to me as much as its dollar value and the principle of not letting an employer renege on what was promised. I plan to offer to exchange this PTO for an equivalent increase in annual salary moving forward, which strikes me as the most reasonable solution — but am I off-base about that? Or do you have any other suggestions for me or my colleagues?

You can try that but they may or may not be receptive (particularly if it would put you out of sync with others doing comparable work, which could open them up to legal issues if it meant they were paying, for example, men and women differently for the same work). You might have better luck asking for a one-time bonus in acknowledgement of what happened. That doesn’t fully solve the issue that after that’s received, you’ll be working for less compensation than you were promised when you were hired, but it might be something to try if they don’t go for the first suggestion.

Ultimately, employers are permitted to change how much PTO they offer you, so they don’t have to do anything to make this right — but they should want to, because it’s going to be a morale issue (and if the difference is substantial, like removing a week of annual vacation, they risk losing people over it).

Whatever you do, I’d recommend all of you who are affected push back as a group, not individually.

3. Low-cost, low-effort DEI initiatives

I lead a broad, regional DEI committee that tries to connect local DEI committees from a number of different local institutes in the same STEM field. I do find this topic very important, but it was never my passion project and I am by no means an expert. I was more or less “voluntold” to head this committee.

I am struggling to find a way to make this endeavor meaningful and useful for the community. Our purpose is not very well defined, but everyone agrees that having a regional DEI committee is essential. As a regional committee, we don’t really have any power to instill change at local institutes. In our field, people at all levels are generally supportive of DEI initiatives, but everyone lacks time and resources. We have been trying to focus on small, practical things we can do to improve the lives of people in our community. I am wondering if you or your readers have any ideas for relatively low-effort, low-cost initiatives that support DEI efforts and / or well being.

I’m sorry for what’s going to be a discouraging answer, but giving it short shrift like this — low-effort, low-cost, no real power, undefined purpose — is likely to be a recipe in frustration for everyone on the committee as well as anyone in your field who’d like to see real work done in this area. If you talk to people who work on DEI, one of the biggest themes is that you can’t do this work at an organizational level without real resources, subject matter experts, and dedication from the top.

Who’s pushing the initiative and who voluntold you to participate? If they’re not willing to put more resources into it, it’s just lip service for them to look good.

4. Interviewing on your own team when you already know the job well

You recently answered a question about interviewing for a position on another team in the same organization. However, I’m looking at interviewing on my own team. When I originally applied to work with my current organization, I applied for an open lead position. I ended up not getting it but they hired internally, opening up a spot on the team that I was then quickly hired into. My supervisor even noted it was a very hard decision to choose between us.

Well, that lead is leaving now, and I’m still interested in the lead position. I think it’s highly likely that I would get it, from multiple ways my supervisor has phrased things, but I don’t want to treat it like it’s a done deal and instead give it the respect of any other interview. But … what am I supposed to do? I don’t have questions: I obviously know the organization. I’ve worked closely with the lead and my supervisor, so I know how the role works. I asked any questions about measuring success and similar in my original interview. And my supervisor has absolutely seen my work, so I know she’s familiar with what I can offer. The only question I can think of is asking if she has any reservations about me in the role, and I’m thinking that I can emphasize my commitment to the organization with specifics about what has made this a good fit for me. But I feel like I don’t have the same material to bring to the interview because so much is already known on both sides, and so it just feels … awkward. Any advice on approaching it?

As a bananapants story about interviewing internally, at a previous (dysfunctional) job, one coworker was basically promised a new role they were creating. He talked to them about it for months, getting to know all about it. Then the interviews came, and they made the final decision, and they hired someone else. The reason they gave him? He didn’t ask enough questions in the interview. Because apparently getting his questions answered over the past five months wasn’t enough to show his commitment. Not something I’m worried about here, but it’s a story I thought your readers might enjoy.

That is bananapants, but if he didn’t ask any questions — well, it wouldn’t make me disqualify someone for a job I’d already mostly decided on them for, but I’d also think it was a little off. (But also, something went wrong there if they were basically promising it to him for months, when that was apparently premature.)

Anyway! There are lots of questions you can ask in your situation. First and foremost, just because you asked about measuring success, etc. in your original interview doesn’t mean you can’t ask about those again now; this is a different job. You can also ask what previous people in the job have found to be the biggest challenges, what they think the secrets to success are for the role, if there’s anything about the work they think you might not be aware of from outside the position, and the difference between doing an okay job in the position and doing a really great job at it.

For some of those, you might think you already know from working closely with the past lead, but they’re still worth asking. You can’t assume that your impressions will match up to how your manager answers, and you might hear something you didn’t expect. But even if you don’t, these are reasonable questions to ask.

5. Asking for a raise when my job isn’t easily measured

I work as a paralegal (and have for the last 20 years) and have no concrete metrics by which to measure the success of my job. I’ve been here three years at my current firm and haven’t gotten a raise.

I need to ask for one but am not sure how when my job is not easily measured.

You don’t need quantitative metrics to show that your performance is good and that you’re performing at a higher level than when you started three years ago. Not all jobs have quantitative metrics, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a difference between doing a great job or doing an okay job or doing a bad job. So: what kind of feedback do you get? Do you receive annual evaluations? What’s your sense of how happy your manager and your team are with your work? How is your work different with you performing it versus what it would look like if someone mediocre were in the role instead? If you were asked what makes you great at your job, what would you say? There’s more on talking about qualitative, rather than quantitative, evidence of your work here and here.

But frankly, you don’t even necessarily need to do that! Sometimes it’s enough to simply say, “It’s been three years since I started at my current salary level. I think things have been going well, and I’d like to request an increase.”

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

1. Poop emoji in a rejection email

I enjoy jokes at work, and am partial to self-deprecating humor, but recently I got a rejection email from a company that has a grinning poop emoji in the subject line.

Am I crazy for thinking that emoji just doesn’t belong in any bad news email — especially one that people can take personally or can be hard to hear, like a rejection? The job market sucks right now.

To be fair, they’re a company that does overtly use potty jokes in their marketing communications and even in the HR materials I read, so I wasn’t wholly surprised to see it, but it seemed, well, tacky. I don’t need an emoji to find the 💩 in that email!

Am I out of touch? Does consistent corporate branding take precedence over a bit of respect? Should I be grateful to even get so much as an automated poop emoji from companies these days? I spent over an hour applying for that job on my weekend!

You’re not out of touch. A poop emoji doesn’t belong in a rejection email. It’s making light of a message that the recipient is likely to take far more seriously and might be deeply disappointed by. It’s just the wrong tone for the message.

It does make it better that it’s from a company that has built a lot of their marketing materials around potty jokes (is this a poop-related company?! I must know) because it’s consistent with their branding — but even so, it doesn’t belong in a rejection email, just like it wouldn’t belong in a message they were sending announcing an employee’s death (obviously that’s much further along the continuum of insensitive messaging, but it’s still part of the same continuum).

To be clear, some people might enjoy it! But enough won’t that whatever’s gained by it is outweighed by what’s lost. 💩

2. Is it rude to ask people to move when hot-desking?

I work for a hybrid organization that hot-desks. Each team has a core day when they must be in the office. Desks are set up in sections and teams usually sit together in “their” section on their core day. Sitting with my team is what makes in-office days valuable because of the collaboration.

Recently I came in on our core day to find someone else sitting in our section, but there was still enough space for my team. Another person from their team came to join them (not enough space anymore) and I asked that person if they could sit somewhere else, since my team would be in and sitting there. They said sure and went over to a different section.

My manager then told me that I couldn’t tell people to move and because my team gets in later in the morning because they have kids, they have to just deal with whatever desks they can get and that she would be really annoyed if someone asked her to move when they got in later than her.

For me personally, I wouldn’t be bothered if I was in a team’s section on their core day and they asked me to move so they’d have enough seats. Am I off-base here? Is it inappropriate/rude to (politely) ask someone to move so your team can sit together when hot-desking?

Important info: I’m at the same level as the person I asked to move. The desks are not all set up the same; our section is set up according to my team’s needs and the other sections aren’t (and we’re told to just request the office managers set them up if we need to use another desk). They weren’t using the specific set-up of our section.

I don’t think it’s particularly rude in a vacuum, but it depends on the culture of your organization. In offices where desks are first come, first served and you can’t reserve desks for others, it might feel rude. In other orgs, it would be no big deal, particularly since the desks you were claiming were set up in a specific way for your team (and particularly if you explained that).

Since the feedback came from your manager, I’d figure she’s probably right about the general expectations in your particular org — although who knows, it’s also possible these are just her personal feelings and most other people there don’t care.

3. Can I exercise at my desk in an open office?

I’ve started to develop knee problems over the last few years, and have been advised to focus on strengthening the muscles around my knees to prevent further problems. Some of the recommended exercises are simple and low-impact enough that I can do them while sitting at my desk (like repeatedly extending my leg straight out from a seated position). However, I’m a bit self-conscious about doing them at work in the open office where the desks are not enclosed. I generally try to do them when nobody is close enough to see to avoid distraction, but am curious whether this is generally considered acceptable since I haven’t seen others doing it. How would you approach this?

The big things you want to think about are (a) whether you’re going to look like you’re not focused on work for long stretches and (b) whether you’ll create a lengthy visual distraction for people around you who are trying to focus.

Something like repeatedly extending your leg while seated should be fine to do, even in an open office (as long as you’re not going to, like, trip someone who’s passing by). If your leg mostly remains under the desk and you’re still in your chair, exercise away. Things that would be more of an issue in many offices: your leg on the desk, you on the floor, martial arts stances.

4. When in an interview process should I ask about working remotely?

I graduated last year and I just landed an interview for a research position I really, really want. It’s a term-limited role for two years, and I’m planning on using it to my advantage when applying to graduate schools if I get an offer. The research fits into the specialty I studied during my undergrad, and as a bonus, it seemingly pays better than other research positions offered by other universities. (That’s not to say it pays particularly well — but this is to be expected for American universities facing funding crises under the current administration.)

The problem is the commute. The commute is 1 hour and 20 minutes one-way on a good day. I was offered the interview so I’ll go, and I’m pretty sure if I get a job offer from them, I won’t get a better one from anyone else because other universities are at a similar distance to me and pay less. (I don’t have any other offers at the moment, so this point is moot.) I felt comfortable applying to this position since it was advertised as a hybrid role, so I figured I could work from home and head in a few times a week, but I learned from the initial phone interview that they plan on making it a fully on-site role in the future.

But regardless of whether the position is on-site or hybrid, a lot of my duties can be done remotely. How and when should I bring this up, and is there a way to negotiate for me to work the schedule I’d prefer? I thought I might have some leeway because it’s a limited role, I won’t get opportunities for advancement because it’s intended for people taking a gap year, and it was advertised as a hybrid role.

I really liked the project manager from the phone screen I had with her the other day, but I don’t want to waste their time in case I can’t do the commute. That’s the only thing that would prevent me from taking this job. I’d move, but at the moment, I have no money since I’ve been unemployed and living at home since I graduated. Do I have any options?

If this weren’t a two-year, term-limited role, I’d tell you it’s a bad idea to try this because even if they agree to full-time remote, they could end up concluding it’s not working for them and you have to come in after all, or it could lead to you not getting the same opportunities and consideration as other people who are there on-site. Frankly, I’d still have some of those concerns; it’s two years, not two months, and that’s plenty of opportunity for things to go wrong. More on that here.

If being on-site is absolutely a dealbreaker, though, you can certainly ask about it. I’d do it sooner rather than later so that you don’t waste your or their time going through their process if it’s not something they can be flexible on. You could say, “I’m really excited about the position but because I’m about 90 minutes away it would be tough to work on-site five days a week. Would you be open to keeping the role hybrid?”

But also … if you’ve been unemployed since you graduated and aren’t feeling great about other prospects, moving closer to this job might be the most practical thing to do.

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

1. My coworker is constantly on loud phone calls when I need to focus

I am a researcher at a university, and I share bench space with another person from a different lab. They tend to be extremely loud and constantly on phone calls, either work-related or personal ones. It’s usually not a big deal if colleagues or advisors come in to talk a bit of research, but her calls go on forever as she’s either interviewing others or taking work calls. And my research includes a lot of reading and writing, for which this has become an unsuitable environment.

I’ve expressed to her multiple times that she should take calls elsewhere and it’s met with either, “Where though? There’s no conference room free” or being ignored. It’s not really my job to find her one and I think it’s basic decency to not come into a shared workspace if she’s constantly on calls with a booming loud voice such that my noise-cancelling headphones are deemed useless. How do I address this without going to my manager, who already has a lot on their plate as a new manager?

You have clashing needs for the space, but that doesn’t mean that her needs are wrong, just incompatible with yours. It’s reasonable for her to figure she can make work calls in her assigned workspace. If she’s making a lot of personal calls on top of that, that’s inconsiderate — but it sounds like much of this is about her work conversations and if she’s right that there’s no other obvious place for her to make them, that puts both of you in a bind.

I know you’d prefer not to take this to your manager, but that’s really the right next step — your workspace isn’t working well for your needs (because you need quiet for deep focus and your colleague needs to produce almost constant noise). Explain that and ask if you can move to a different space.

2. I don’t want to give a reference to someone who’s posted crappy things on Facebook

A decade ago at a former job, I hired an employee with no experience managing affordable housing, but with transferrable skills. She shared her experience with domestic violence and resulting homelessness and she talked about how she could relate to someone’s situation not defining their future. During her tenure, her family experienced additional trauma, and she cited the generous leave and other supports the org gave as being helpful for her family’s healing. When she outgrew her role and started looking for a new job in a different industry, I gave her a glowing reference and offered to do so again if the new job didn’t work out. She friended me on Facebook, we did the normal liking of each other’s posts, but didn’t connect otherwise. In the eight years since she left, she’s texted me twice to tell me she put me down as a reference for a job. Both times, the job called me the same day and I gave positive references.

About a year ago, I started noticing her Facebook posts were mocking people who use the social service system. I didn’t engage, just unfriended her. Last week, she sent a text telling me she used me as a reference again. Before I could even think about how I was going to respond to her, the potential employer (who also happens to support defunding most social services) called. I just ignored the request. Over the week, she followed up and tried to reach me through various social apps and called a shared former colleague. The only thing she hasn’t done is reach out to me at my job where I’ve worked for the past five years – I don’t think she knows I work here.

I should have just told her I don’t feel comfortable being a reference since we don’t know each other anymore. But at the same time, who just gives old numbers without checking in with the reference? Is there a time limit on reference giving? How could I have handled this situation better?

A surprisingly high number of people offer up references without checking in with the reference, and just assume that a previous “yes” lasts forever. (And actually, a surprisingly high number of people offer up references without even getting the initial “yes.”) They should check in — because you could be dead or living with wolves in a forest or otherwise unreachable, or you might feel too much time has gone by to still be able to give a nuanced reference, and also because if you’re not prepared for the call, you might draw a blank on details when asked for information. But despite that, a lot of people still don’t.

Ideally when she texted you, you would have told her you didn’t feel well positioned to still provide a reference for her. It’s up to you whether you wanted to explain why (personally I would have, but you’re not required to; she made her own bed) or just tell her too much time had passed for you to recall sufficiently useful details. But ignoring the request also sends a message that isn’t unwarranted, given this particular set of circumstances.

3. Is managing AI agents the same as managing people?

I’m attending a tech industry conference for work, which is of course overwhelmingly centered around AI agents and tools. One of the speakers said that a first-time manager may be a manager of AI agents instead of people. It seems like this would set a lot of first-time managers up to fail when they eventually manage real people.

I wondered what your thoughts were on this perspective. Have you seen or heard others implying managing AI agents and managing people is equal?

No! And that is bananas. That’s like saying that managing a garden is the same as managing people, or that managing an equipment fleet is the same as managing people. Managing AI may be a particular skill set, but it is not the same skill set as managing humans. AI agents aren’t going to (or at least aren’t supposed to) get sick, be cranky, take something personally, be defensive, feel they need more appreciation, or any of the other many, many characteristics and challenges that come with managing people. (I was going to say they also aren’t going to have their own independent agendas, but that’s apparently not true.)

4. Coming in as a new manager to an existing team

I work in a hospital as deputy manager of a large administrative team. I have been offered a new role in the hospital on a 12-month contract to cover maternity leave. This will be a step up to manager with my own deputy. The new team does the same work for a different healthcare specialty, so my skills are transferable.

It’s important to me to be an effective people manager. To do this, I need to know about each person. What are their strengths and areas for improvement? Are they looking for development opportunities? How do they prefer receiving feedback?

Should I ask the deputy for an overview of each person? What their current goals are, what their current 1-1s are focusing on, are they undergoing sickness or performance management? Or should I be forming my own opinion without asking the deputy for their views? Also, what questions could I ask in my first 1-1 with each team member?

Yes, you should ask the deputy for an overview on each person. You’ll form your own opinions based on your own observations, but it’ll help you get up to speed faster to hear their perspective too.

When you do initial one-on-ones with each team member, I find it helpful to ask things like:

• What are the most important things for you to achieve this year? Are you on track to doing that? Are there milestones to meet on the way? What things are you worried might get in the way?
• What’s your most pressing project this week / this month? (Follow-up questions should stem naturally from this — about context, timeline, steps, etc.)
• What would help you do your job better? Any obstacles you’re encountering that you need help with?
• Is there anything I should know about how you like to work?
• What’s worrying you most right now with your work?

5. Is this job opening a scam?

I recently (as in, an hour ago) applied to a local landscaping job — one that actually pays fairly generously for the level of work. As soon as I hit “apply” (this was an Indeed posting), I got an automated message from them inviting me to call and set up a remote interview.

Within half an hour, I received both text messages and phone calls from the company. The text message asked if I was available for a quick call; the phone call was shunted to my voicemail because I was driving and they did not leave a message.

I’ve been applying to jobs for a year and I hardly ever get so much as an email telling me I’ve been rejected. All of this seems very fishy, at the least. And I’ve seen three one-star reviews for the company on Google (which were all left without any accompanying text) which the owner responded to saying that they had been applicants. Am I wrong to think that something feels very wrong here?

Yes, it’s most likely a scam. It might not be; you could certainly do a call with them and learn more to be sure, but just follow normal anti-scam hygiene, meaning don’t give them your bank account details or other personal info until you’ve established they’re legitimate, don’t agree to deposit any checks for them, be skeptical if they “hire” you without a real interview, etc.

Related:
I received a job offer — and it was a scam