It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My coworker was penalized for feedback from me, but I never said those things
Recently, during my coworker Wendy’s performance review with her management team, she was denied a raise and demoted on paperwork to someone “still developing” instead of being listed as “meets/exceeds expectations.” The reasons for this were: a low customer loyalty score for our location (not an individual low score — and the other person in Wendy’s position was still given a raise and significant praise from management despite having the same score and Wendy having seniority), and because she’s been reported for “poor communication on Slack.”
When Wendy asked for specific examples of this, management couldn’t give her any, but included my name along with two others as the sources of this. I have never complained about Wendy to management, especially not in regard to Slack. The other two coworkers listed no longer work here, but I worked with one of them long enough to know she wouldn’t complain to management about something like this either. Our job is an in-person job in a small location, and I’ve noticed Slack is not the preferred mode of communication for many in Wendy’s position.
I feel extremely uncomfortable that my name was dragged into this. I want to escalate this in some way, to say I have never had a problem with Wendy and that I don’t appreciate being used in false accusations, but Wendy is apprehensive about potential retaliation. What should we do? What should I do?
You shouldn’t do anything without Wendy’s permission, but ideally you’d talk to your manager or hers and say, “I’m concerned there’s been miscommunication somewhere. Wendy spoke with me about concerns she thought I’d expressed about her communication over Slack but, as I told her, I’ve never raised concerns about her work or her communication and don’t have any. It sounds like someone misunderstood something somewhere. How can I get this cleared up so that she’s not wrongly penalized for feedback I haven’t given?”
But also — what’s going on in your workplace? Are they disorganized enough that feedback gets warped like this? Are they targeting Wendy for some reason? If this is at all part of a pattern rather than a one-time mistake that gets quickly fixed, I’d be concerned about what’s going on there.
2. My junior coworker constantly interrupts me in meetings
My junior report (who was moved to another manager last year) constantly interrupts me in meetings. I’ve tried multiple approaches to get her to stop. She’s white and mid 40s, I’m Asian and mid 30s. I’ve noticed she only does this to me and I’ve even had other members on our team say they’ve noticed it too.
The approaches I’ve tried:
– Speak over her and keep going when she tries to interrupt. This works sometimes but sometimes it doesn’t.
– Stop her and tell her I’m not finished yet. This has worked a couple of times but not always.Other approaches I’ve considered:
– Talk directly to her and ask her to be mindful of the interruptions.
– Talk to her manager and ask him to talk with her about this behavior.
Talk to her one-on-one and name what’s happening and what she needs to do differently. For example: “I’m guessing you don’t realize it, but you frequently interrupt me in meetings. I haven’t seen you do this to other team members, but it’s frequent when I’m speaking. Please wait for me to finish speaking before you start talking.”
If that doesn’t work, then yes, flag it for her manager. It’s a big deal to regularly be interrupting a colleague, especially a senior one, and especially after she’s been spoken to about it and told to stop.
And going forward, every time she interrupts you from now on, hold up your hand in a “stop” motion and say, “Please stop interrupting me and wait until I’m finished.” It will get pretty awkward pretty quickly for her if you’re consistent about doing it.
3. Can I ask to be fired sooner?
After 18 years at a company, I was recently surprised at my mid-year review with a rating that I’m not meeting expectations. It was followed with a 60-day PIP. Originally, I told my boss that despite feeling surprised, I’m 100% committed to making changes. Since then, I have realized that I no longer want to work there but need to be able to collect unemployment in the interim while I’m looking for another job so I can’t just resign.
I have a hard time pretending to do a bad job but my mental health is taking a toll. Is there a script for me to discuss with my boss ending the PIP earlier so that I can be let go sooner and then start collecting unemployment while looking for a new job?
In some cases you could say something like: “I appreciate you being candid with me about your concerns. I want to be candid in return that I’m not confident about my ability to meet your expectations and I don’t want either of us to invest further time in the process if it’s unlikely to work out. Would you be open to wrapping up the process earlier and letting me go with an agreement not to contest my unemployment benefits?”
4. We’re switching to unlimited PTO and I feel cheated
My company allows up to five vacation days to roll over each year.
We recently underwent a compensation study and one of the results is that we will now have “open PTO.” No more separating of sick days, vacation days, personal time, or floating holidays. This will begin when our 2025 fiscal year begins.
The issue that many of my colleagues and I have is that they told us this with three weeks until the fiscal year begins. I was going to roll over 36 hours — between my already scheduled vacation days and the vacation days of my coworker (one of us has to be in our office at all times), there is not enough time for both of us to use all the time we were going to roll over. There is no compensation offered for our leftover time. HR claims that because the rollover time is the first time that gets used up and now we are unlimited, we will use it in FY25. My objection is that it is FY24 compensation that I am not receiving. Could this have been handled better?
Yes. They could have given you more notice of the change — at least six months, not three weeks.
The thing is, when you have a specific amount of accrued time off (rolled over or not), there’s no debate about whether you’ve earned that time: it’s there, it’s yours, you can take it. (That’s an oversimplification, since of course it’s subject to workload, coverage, etc. — but no one disputes that you have the time on the books.) When you just have unlimited PTO, there can be more of a question around it. For example, if you get four weeks off per year, and this year you have those four weeks plus a week that rolled over from last year … well, you’ve definitely got five weeks on the books. But when you switch to unlimited PTO, it may be harder to justify taking five weeks in a single year.
You and your coworkers should press for a longer notice period before the change is made.
5. What does this email from a recruiter mean?
I’ve been in a painstakingly long interview process with a well respected organization in my field for a senior level position. I’ve done a phone screen, hiring manager interview, and panel interview (all virtual). It was posted in early June and I applied right away.
I just received a baffling email from the recruiter and I honestly can’t decide what to make of it: “Thank you for your patience. Our team decided to move two candidates forward that have more X experience to the next rounds for now. You remain a strong candidate and still under consideration. I can provide another update in the next couple of weeks.”
What gives? The job would be a huge step up for me, an almost $70k/year raise at minimum so it’s not shocking (although I’m disappointed) that I’m not a finalist, but why not just reject me? The dangling / stringing along at this point is an huge bummer. Appreciate any insight or if this is a common practice with more senior roles?
That message means: “You’re not currently one of our finalists, but you’re strong enough that we’ll come back to you if neither of the two people we’re currently talking to pan out.” It’s actually very transparent! It’s not stringing you along; it’s letting you know pretty candidly exactly what’s going on.
