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

1. How to tell my boss I want his expertise, not AI

I switched careers a few years ago, and am in a job I love at a small company with great coworkers. My industry relies a lot on expertise. When I am working with a client, they expect me to be an expert and have knowledge of industry best practices, case studies, etc. One of the reasons I enjoy working at my company is that my boss has built up significant expertise over a long career, and has incredibly valuable insights. As I continue in my career I am excited to develop my own expertise, but he is a great resource for helping me understand the best way to present things and where to start when I’m digging in on a problem.

However, recently he has gotten extremely excited about AI. Every question I bring to him, he suggests asking AI or consults AI himself and sends me the output. When I talk about things related to marketing or client relationships, his first suggestion is always to use AI to do it. On one project recently, I asked him to review a report I wrote to ensure that it aligned with his thoughts and our client’s needs, and he suggested that instead I ask AI. I don’t want to ask AI — AI does not have the expertise I need that will help me learn, improve, and advance in my career.

I want to kindly and respectfully tell him that when I ask for his thoughts or insights, I am interested in learning from his expertise — that in fact one of the most valuable resources I have in learning to do my job is access to his deep well of experience — and that AI is not an appropriate substitute. I’m afraid if I try to do this it will come off as smug (or I’ll just yell I DIDN’T ASK AI I ASKED YOU!!). Do you have any suggestions on how to approach this?

When you approach him with questions, can you first say, “I did my own searches on this, but I’d really love to hear your thoughts from your own experience”?

If that doesn’t work and he keeps suggesting or citing AI anyway, I think you can say, “I appreciate those suggestions, but I find your thoughts from you so much more helpful than AI. It’s your expertise and experience that has been most useful to me, so I am hoping to hear straight from you on this if you’re willing!”

Related:
I think my boss is ChatGPT

2. My positive reference was actually negative

Last year, I lost my job. Between a long overdue mental breakdown that coincided with an extremely traumatic family tragedy, my work quality degraded rapidly and I was fired. Before that, I was an exemplary employee who had fantastic reviews (which I have copies of) and my manager had even called me a rock star of an employee. Since then I’ve been in therapy and on medication, and I’ve done a lot of work and reflecting to make sure that I never have a situation like that occur again.

When I started applying to jobs again, I asked a former coworker who I was close with if they could be a reference. I had known them for the entire time I was at my previous job, and they had even supported me through a lot of the bad that preceded my firing. When I asked them to be my reference, we had an incredibly warm and positive catch-up, and they sounded enthusiastic and excited to be my reference.

As it turns out, they have given an incredibly negative and untrue reference, and I believe there are at least three jobs that they have prevented me from either moving forward in the process with or getting an offer from. I only discovered this recently, and to say I’m devastated would be an understatement. I’m mortified I had no idea and let this go on this long — they genuinely seemed to want me to succeed, and never said they had reservations about me and my previous work. Had they, I would’ve used someone else.

While I understand that I probably can’t do anything for the jobs that already rejected me, I’m wondering if it was alright for me to reach out to a current job I’m in the process of interviewing with and ask to switch out their reference. I’m also wondering if there’s any way this could affect my reputation — I applied to multiple jobs across different departments at the same place (all within my experience and ability), and I have a rather unique name. There’s a large chance I may run into them or have to work with them in the future, depending on where I end up. I want to think I’m not the center of the universe and no one will remember me, but I’m spiraling a bit after this.

How awful. I do think you can swap out the reference; you’re just better off doing it in a way that doesn’t sound mysterious and or make them curious if there’s a story there. I’d say something like, “Katrina Mulberry has been hard to reach, so I’d like to replace her on my reference list with Nicolina Plufferon, whose contact info is…”

In addition, would you consider contacting the former coworker and asking what’s up? It’s reasonable to tell them that they assured you they would give you a strong reference, you offered their name on that basis, and you were taken aback to find that wasn’t the case, and you’re wondering if there’s something you misunderstood from your conversation or if there are issues from your work relationship that the two of you should sort out. Maybe that will spark some honesty from them about what’s going on on their end of this.

3. Fixing “grade inflation” in performance evaluations

I work for state government and have a team of nine people reporting to me indirectly. They have all been with my department for 15-20 years. I had an assistant supervisor (AS) who was their direct manager, who is now retiring and won’t be replaced. The AS has done the team’s reviews until now, and I would review and sign off.

I started six years ago, and I always felt that the AS was overrating the team on reviews, giving everyone exceptional ratings when only some of the team deserved them. I didn’t push back except in specific circumstances where an individual was notably underperforming.

Is there any way now to bring reviews back in to reality? I’m worried that anyone receiving an acceptable rating now after years of outstanding is going to freak out and wonder what changed about their performance when, really, nothing has.

Key context: the staff is union, so reviews don’t affect their salaries. Also, since everyone has been here so long, and these roles are remote, it’s unlikely (though not impossible) they’ll be leaving the role except by retirement.

Yeah, people aren’t going to like it. They’re especially not going to like it because you’ve been signing off on their reviews all along — it’s not like you’re a brand new manager coming in with a new way of doing things. They’re understandably going to wonder why you didn’t fix it earlier if you thought it needed to be fixed.

In any case, my advice is to make sure you’re calibrating your ranking system with how the rest of your organization, or at least your department or division, does things. If the change would have you rating your team on a much more critical scale than everyone else is using, that’s going to be a hard sell, and I’d question whether you should be doing it at all (especially when it wasn’t pressing enough to do it earlier).

But if your recalibration would get the ratings back in line with other teams in your area, that’s something you can explain. People still won’t like it, but you can explain the definitions the wider organization uses for “exceptional,” “acceptable,” etc. and that you’re going to be adhering to that system going forward. Be up-front that it means some people will see their ratings change, explain why you think it’s a useful change despite that, and be very clear about what “exceptional” does (and doesn’t) look like.

4. Is it true that no one ever gets fired or even managed?

For the last several years I’ve been on the same team, reporting to the same manager. He is a textbook example of hands-off to the point of negligence. There is no accountability on our team. Our manager announces new initiatives and people follow or don’t as they like, with no apparent consequences. Obviously, I don’t know what he says to other team members in their meetings, but there have been no visible behavior changes over 3+ years so I’m no longer inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

My manager has said to me multiple times, “I wish Eve and Nadine would do this…” or “I wish Ian and Roarke wouldn’t do this…” and it’s frustrating to me because a) all four of those people report to him and b) I have no management role. I am, in fact, less tenured than those people. He’s also said on numerous occasions that we’re all leaders and leaders don’t need to be micromanaged. I personally think people shouldn’t be managed based on their title alone, but that’s beside the point. I know my manager sucks and won’t change.

My question is: is it like this everywhere? I was talking to a work friend, who is more experienced and who I generally trust, about some of the specific frustrations lately and said I was thinking of looking for a new job. One where, hopefully, there is some accountability and if people don’t follow through on basic parts of the job, then there are consequences of some sort — up to and even including firing people when necessary. My friend said that doesn’t happen.

She said that once people get a job, they only leave if they want to. She said that this kind of management is everywhere, and people at our level “shouldn’t need to be managed” so it just doesn’t happen. For reference, “our level” is essentially lower-middle management. We’re not people leaders, but we’re on that level.

Is this true? There are aspects of my job that I like; I’d hate to leave and give those up just to end up somewhere else that also has no metrics for success and no accountability on the team, but also no flexibility in working from home and in my schedule, which are two perks of my current role I really value. If this is a common management style I might stick around longer, at least until the job market looks up.

No, it’s not true. “Once people get a job, they only leave if they want to” is a pretty incredible take!

It might be true at your organization, which is why someone who also works there is telling you that. But it’s not true in general. People get fired! People get given feedback and told to change and are otherwise held accountable, including lower-middle managers. There are places where that doesn’t happen — enough of them that it’s something to look at critically when you’re job-searching — but it’s absolutely not the case that it’s the norm.

You just have a bad manager (and maybe a bad employer if most managers there function like your boss does).

5. I can’t use the bathroom if I forget my work badge

I work in a trailer outside our main building. Since the trailer lacks a restroom, we must leave it and enter the main building to use the facilities. We used to access the main building through a key fob or access code, but they recently switched access to only a work badge. So now, if I forget my work badge, I can’t use the restroom. Is this legal?

Not if they don’t have a system in place to ensure you can get access some alternate way. OSHA regulations require  “prompt access” to bathrooms, and restrictions on that access can’t cause extended delays or create “unnecessary barriers.” If forgetting your work badge causes an extensive wait to access the bathroom (or if you can’t access it at all), it likely violates OSHA. (That said, your employer could legally discipline or even fire you for repeatedly forgetting your badge; you just need to have bathroom access meanwhile.)

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.