It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My daughter has lost two jobs in one year
My 44-year-old daughter has been fired from two different employment agencies in the last 12 months. The first time, the company did not give a reason. The second time, the company said budget cuts were the reason.
I understand that it is entirely possible that the firings might have nothing to do with my daughter’s work performance or attitude. But how many times should this happen before it is reasonable to suspect that it is because of her work performance or attitude?
The reason I ask this is because she has appeared extremely stressed and tightly wound for at least three years. It is to the point where I spoke with her last year about seeing a therapist. I gave her examples of ways I see her stress affecting her husband and children. I wonder if her attitude at work is similar.
She has not gone to a therapist. I am concerned that if I speak to her about therapy again, she may react negatively or think I am blaming her for the these two job losses. Her husband has already spoken to her. Should I stay out of this?
Stay out of it. It’s possible that her behavior at work has contributed to the two job losses. But it’s also possible that it hasn’t, and there’s no way to know. (Twice in 12 months could simply be bad luck.) If you knew for sure — like if she told you she was fired because she had a screaming meltdown — well, even then you’d need to tread carefully unless you have a very close relationship. But in this case it would be pure speculation, and you’d be intruding into an area of her life (her career) that she hasn’t invited you into.
It’s natural to care because you’re her mom, but trying to guess at what happened at work when she hasn’t asked you for help carries a high risk of feeling invasive and boundary-crossing to her.
2. Are laundry products included in office fragrance bans?
Thankfully, this isn’t an issue at my workplace because most of us use laundry products that have little or no scent, but are the heavily fragranced detergents and fabric softeners that have become so popular included in office fragrance bans? The kind that are touted as leaving a “fresh” (read: huge amounts of chemicals) scent on your clothes for weeks? I’m asking because I went to a museum last week and ended up with a horrible headache and sore throat from being bombarded with laundry fragrances I could smell from 30 feet away. Even if I didn’t have a chronic respiratory disease, the odor would have been A Lot. At work, it would make it hard for several of us to function due to asthma and other issues. I’d love to know your thoughts on this.
Yes, typically offices with fragrance policies include heavily scented products of all kind, including laundry detergent.
Whenever this comes up, people ask how an employer can regulate what products you use in the privacy of your own home. You can use whatever products you want at home, but your employer does have the right to say you can’t come to work smelling heavily of fragrance.
People also tend to want to know what happens if you’re, say, using the one and only affordable laundry detergent that doesn’t make you break out in hives and it happens to be scented. If you have a coworker who can’t breathe because of the fragrance, then it’s handled like any other situation with dueling accommodations: your employer needs to look for solutions to accommodate both of you (which could be things like seating you far away from each other, having you meet with each other by phone rather than in-person, etc.).
3. I need to cunningly find out 40 names
I am terrible with names. I’ve always worked in small teams where it didn’t matter that I didn’t know the name of the person in some other wing of the building. Now I’m at a smaller company with 50-odd people — been here four whole years. To be honest, I’m supposed to know more names. Most people know mine! In fact, I have long kitchen convos with people whose names I still don’t know. But it’s been so long, I simply can’t ask them! And asking someone else to reintroduce me to 40 people who think I already know them doesn’t seem like an option either.
This is my own doing. Everyone has a fatal flaw that would kill them in a Greek tragedy, and this is mine. But I am now determined to stop the wheel of fate, and figure out who is who and remember who does what. Do you have any suggestions? Alas, we don’t have a website with handy mugshots.
You need a confidant! Pick someone who you like and trust, explain the situation, and ask them to discreetly help you learn people’s names. You could even take a walk around the building together with them muttering names in your ear as you pass people. (Although it will be way too overwhelming to remember 40 names all at once, so this will need to happen slowly over a period of weeks.) I would be delighted to do this for someone, and I bet you have some coworkers who would be too.
4. Requesting vacation time with a friend/coworker
A few months ago I started a job that I was referred for by my best friend. We now work together in the same department, but we haven’t let on how close we are because I’m a woman and he’s a man and we want to avoid gossip (I’m also gay but that probably wouldn’t stop their fun if word got out).
We were hoping to take a trip together at the end of the summer but our managers are likely to try to get whoever doesn’t ask for the time first to cover for the other if we don’t admit that we’re taking the time off to spend together. Is it better for us to go in to talk to our supervisor together or should my friend be the one to speak to him since he has seniority? I feel awkward talking about our personal relationship at this point and I’m not sure what the most professional way to go about this is.
The big question is whether you can take vacation at the same time. I you’re each other’s cover, vacationing together right now might be unrealistic. But if that’s not the case — if it’s more like you’d be the default coverage but something else could be arranged if your boss knew the situation — then one of you should just tell your boss point-blank what you want to do and ask if there’s a way to make it work. That should probably be your friend since he’s been there longer and has the more established relationship with your boss.
That said, once you do that, the cat is out of the bag — people are going to know you’re closer friends than they had realized since it’s not reasonable to ask the boss to hide that for you.
(Also, in some cases it might be odd if it comes out that your friend recommended you without disclosing that you’re a close friend. If it was more a referral than a recommendation, or if he stressed that he couldn’t vouch for your work, I’d worry less; it’s hard to say without knowing more details, but consider whether that’s something to factor in too.)
5. Can I apply with a new version of my resume soon after using the old version?
I have a question about sending different resume versions to the same company. A couple months ago, I applied for a job at a large company and sent my resume. A week later, they emailed me that they decided to cancel the job posting, but to please apply to any new ones that may come up. Since then, I have revamped my resume. Everything on there is accurate of course, but it looks very different and has some different details. So, my question: If I find another job that I want to apply to at this company, would it be weird to send the new version so soon? I imagine they have my old one on file.
Totally fine to send the new version. It’s unlikely that they’ll bother to compare it to the old one, but it’s not a problem if they do (assuming the job history and other key facts match); people change up their resumes periodically.
