It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Two coworkers stopped talking to me after I mentioned my wife
I’m a man who is friendly and open at the workplace, I like to discuss any and all (safe for work) subjects with my coworkers, and I strive to treat men and women the same. Thus, more often than not I’ve managed to increase the number of people I call friends, keeping in contact with them after leaving the organization.
However, recently two female colleagues who used to be as friendly to me as I am to them have radically changed their demeanor to nothing. No “hello,” no small talk in the offices, both pass me in the hallway without even looking at me. Nothing.
In both instances, the change in demeanor has come afterwards I mention my wife (same company, not in the same department) in passing. Something along the lines of, “My wife also loved that movie, she mentioned it was great!” and then the conversation steered in any other direction.
Am I overthinking it? Should I say something to them? I seldom work with both (they are in my department), but recently we have not been together in any assignment.
I’m stumped. Sometimes someone will mention their partner in a way that comes across as very awkwardly “I am specifically mentioning my partner to let you know that I am not interested in you romantically” — but (a) that doesn’t sound like the case from your example, and (b) even if it was, it wouldn’t explain them then freezing you out.
Any chance there’s something entirely unrelated that could explain it? That could be anything from it just being a stressful time at work for each of them to you doing something totally unrelated to your wife that they’re upset about. If you worked with them more frequently, I might suggest saying at some point, “I might be misreading, but have I done anything to upset you? If so, I’d welcome the opportunity to make it right.” But since you don’t work with them often, I’d just give it some time and see if anything changes.
2. Is it okay to hug my coworker goodbye?
I have a coworker who’s moving back home (overseas) after working together for four years. I have known about her planned departure for a month, and have restrained myself from giving her a hug goodbye but I find myself regretting waiting so long, as she’s given me a great deal of useful advice and has been the sort of wonderful person you love to know.
Am I correct in assuming that this sort of affection is very contextual? There are fewer than 10 of us in the office, and we’re a pretty close knit group. Is it appropriate to hug her on her last day, or in the lead up to the last day, such as getting the heads up that it’s coming? I think I’d regret it far more if I didn’t let her know how much she’d be missed.
It’s very person-dependent! Some people are huggers and some people aren’t, and a person’s preference for not hugging always trumps someone else’s preference to hug.
With that said: it’s not inherently inappropriate to hug a coworker goodbye, but you should pay attention to their physical cues and what you know about them generally. If you’re not sure, you can always ask, “Can I give you a hug goodbye?”
Just don’t be this person.
Related:
hugging at work: okay or not okay?
3. Is it OK for your boss not to mention her maternity leave until the last minute?
A while back, I took on a marketing role at a tech startup because I thought it would be good for some skill building and training. Sadly, it wasn’t and I was only there for 10 months. I was a huge misfit in the company culture (It was very much a “live to work” environment, which I can’t stand; the CEO would message me at 10pm about typos in old pages on our website uploaded months before I started, but that’s another story) and I had literally no teammates save for my boss, the marketing director (who I never met until I started, which in hindsight was probably a red flag).
The first two months on the job were really rough. It was a lot of my boss offloading work onto me, her not really having enough time to explain our process or procedures (or train me on things that seemed necessary), and then critiquing everything I did (meanwhile she would AI generate almost everything and call it good).
At around the two-month mark, she messaged me that she was pregnant. I, of course, congratulated her. Then she dropped the bombshell that she was due in about a week. I hadn’t known because the job was remote so when I saw her on calls it was just her head. I panicked because I didn’t have the marketing chops to run anything on my own.
A consultant the company brought on and I kept things afloat for the six months she was gone, but I was already frustrated with the work before her announcement and after that, I just felt nothing for the job. I just can’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would wait until that late to tell a new hire on a team of two that kind of news, especially when the hire mentioned they needed training in some aspects of the role.
Is it okay for someone you report to not inform you that they’re going on an extended leave of absence? My male friends (I’m a man as well) agree with me that she should have mentioned it much earlier, while my female friends were a bit more torn, mentioning that it’s her decision to not mention anything and it’s not my place to be upset. What are your thoughts?
If she was sure about her plans for leave, she should have mentioned it to you earlier than the week before the leave was supposed to start. That’s true with plans for any type of leave that’s known about in advance, not just maternity leave.
It’s possible that her situation was more complicated for reasons we don’t know, so I wouldn’t rush straight to condemning her — we don’t know what else might have been going on — but absent something that would explain it, it’s weird that she waited that long to tell you. It sounds, though, like there were far bigger issues at that job, and this was a relatively minor one in the scheme of things. It might be the easiest one to focus on, but this on its own would have been salvageable if all the other stuff hadn’t been going wrong.
Related:
my employee didn’t tell anyone she was pregnant until she was about to give birth
4. Applied for a job, then found out the org engaged in union-busting
I’m a subject matter expert interested in moving upward into a role with more decision-making and leadership. Unfortunately, my field has been especially hard hit by cuts in federal grants. While I’m fortunate to be in a position that I generally like, it comes with frustrations, including relatively low pay for someone with my particular focus. I was really excited to find an opening at a high-profile, well-funded nonprofit in my region, and thrilled when I was offered an interview a couple of weeks after applying, as the market is currently packed with competition. The posted role would mean a substantial salary increase for me, and be a real career bump.
After scheduling an initial interview, I started catching up on news from this nonprofit and was alarmed to find that they appear to have engaged in some pretty egregious union-busting around a year ago: furloughing employees who were active in unionizing efforts (despite having a substantial endowment) before ultimately terminating them and “restructuring” the staff. The position I applied for is in part a result of that restructuring.
I’m pretty conflicted at this stage in that I don’t have direct information about what happened — just things that I’ve gleaned from social media posts and following digital breadcrumbs. If this nonprofit did engage in union-busting, I don’t want to get entangled with them, but they do have a high profile within the field, and I will encounter staff and leadership somewhat regularly and need to have good working relationships with them. Do you have any advice on how to determine what happened from a less biased source than the organization itself/the people who were laid off, or how to navigate disentangling myself if I can’t bring myself to work there? At this point, I’m considering seeing the hiring process through and directly asking about the unionization efforts, but I’m not sure there’s anything they could say that would convince me they acted in good faith (and worried I would burn a bridge.) Should I just make an excuse to withdraw entirely?
If you have any connections to the people who were laid off and/or people who are still there and who might be willing to talk to you off-the-record, talk to them before you decide anything. It’s true that people who were laid off might bring their own biases to the discussion, but those are still conversations worth having. It’s even better if you’re able to talk with people who are still there — or people in your field who know some of the players involved. You might or might not learn enough to make you confident about moving forward, but you’ll have more data than you have right now. I’d at least try that before deciding to withdraw.
And if you are at the point where you’d rather withdraw, you really don’t have much to lose by asking your interviewer about it directly. You’re not likely to burn a bridge for future contact if you calmly say, “My understanding is that there were some unionization efforts on the staff last year but some of the roles involved were restructured; what can you tell me about that?” They might decide you sound too sympathetic to unionizing to want to hire you, but if you’ve already decided you’d withdraw anyway, that doesn’t really matter. It’s not the kind of question that’s likely to make them bristle at ever encountering you in a non-employee capacity in the future.
5. Recruiter told me they have flexibility on the salary
I had a recruiter interview and, when asked for my salary expectations, I asked them for the budgeted range and if there is any flexibility in the posted range. They said there was flexibility but didn’t give a top number, and I blanked and just thanked them but also didn’t give the salary I’m looking for.
If I get to the offer stage, would it be okay to mention the flexibility when I ask for the salary I want? What I’m looking for would be 11% over their top range. It’s a little higher than average market for companies of their size but not outrageous, especially as my experience matches everything they are looking for.
The recruiter’s mention that they have some flexibility is useful background info for you to have, but not something it will help to cite in the actual negotiation.
So rather than saying, “The recruiter said you have flexibility on the number,” just ask for the number you want. Either they have flexibility or they don’t, but citing the recruiter doesn’t give your request any additional weight.