It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Getting called a Nazi at work
I work for local government in a region that is currently experiencing a drought. Part of my job involves working with people who break drought restrictions, with engagement ranging from education and outreach to levying fines or outright limiting their water. Sometimes people are not happy with this and call me a water Nazi. I am Jewish. I lost family in the Holocaust. This is an extremely homogenous population, many of whom have never met a Jew before. Can you help me come up with some responses that are professional but make it clear that this is not an okay thing to say? My managers fully support me pushing back and are willing to take calls if things escalate, but currently I just end up sputtering incoherently in rage.
I don’t think there’s a great response here. I mean, you could say “Nazis killed my family and that’s not an okay thing to say” … and some people might be chagrined, but others will just get defensive and escalate further. You could leave off the first part and just say “that’s not an okay thing to say” but lots of people won’t understand why or will think you’re being overly delicate.
But really, it’s an unacceptable thing to say to anyone, Jewish or not. So I’d argue you’re better off skipping the whole thing and moving straight to “I’m happy to work with you on this, but if you’re going to be abusive, I’ll need to disconnect this call.”
2. I’m in charge — how do I punish myself for a mistake?
I messed up. I’m the GM of a restaurant. There is no one above me. I constantly harp on my staff about responsibilities and paying attention to what they are doing. And I made a huge mistake.
I left a money bag out and stashed in a drawer. I went to fill in for someone who called in sick, and the opening supervisor forgot to load money in the drawers. So I hurried and loaded money in one drawer and made the change I needed. Because I had guests in front of me, I just quickly stashed the bags and didn’t put them back in the safe. Whelp, another supervisor found them and I had to fess up to the mistake. But how do I now create a punishment for myself so that they understand no one is above doing things the correct way?
As a manager, you shouldn’t be meting out punishments — that’s not the job. You should be ensuring people are well trained, coaching them when you see it’s needed, and holding people accountable for doing their jobs well. If an otherwise good employee did what you did, “punishing” them would be inappropriate. You’d talk to them, find out what happened, and talk about how to ensure it doesn’t happen in the future. If they seemed unconcerned or cavalier and you didn’t trust them not to do something similarly careless again, you’d address that part of it — generally through feedback and coaching — and if that didn’t solve it, you’d need to decide whether you could keep them in the job or not (which would be a natural consequence, not a punishment). Punishing really isn’t part of the job, at least not if you want to be a good manager.
If you’ve been managing via punishment up until now, you’re right to worry that you’ll seem to have a double standard for yourself. In that case, this should function as a humbling reminder that everyone is human and everyone makes mistakes. That doesn’t mean you should ignore mistakes! But your job is to talk with people when they happen and create systems that minimize/mitigate mistakes, not to punish.
3. My coworker didn’t tell me he was applying for a promotion in our sexist company
A long-time male acquaintance of mine, who I have known for 13 years, recently rejoined my industry after an eight-year hiatus and was swiftly promoted to the director of sales and marketing within just three months. Meanwhile, my male director was promoted to general manager. It has become apparent that my director has a preference for working with men, as he has openly expressed.
Despite my qualifications and proven track record of generating significant revenues for the company, I did not apply for the director position due to my aversion to male-dominated hierarchies.
I can’t help but feel that my friend should have checked in with me before pursuing the director position. I have been at the company longer and hold a senior sales manager title, he was hired at entry-level manager position, and I trained him. A simple conversation to gauge my thoughts or intentions would have been considerate and respectful. Instead, I feel as though he went behind our backs in an attempt to conceal his ambitions. This has left me feeling undervalued in the workplace. Should I be feeling this way or should I say something to him?
You should absolutely take issue with the fact that your new general manager says he prefers to work with men. That’s a declaration of intent to discriminate that gives you enough to talk with a lawyer if you ever wanted to go that route.
But your friend didn’t do anything wrong. He just applied for a job — one that you didn’t even apply for yourself! He may be merrily benefiting from a sexist system, but he didn’t really owe you a conversation before applying for the role. (That’s extra true if you are more acquaintances than friends; you used both words in your letter so I’m not sure which one is more accurate.) Lots of people don’t run their plans to apply for a promotion by friendly coworkers, and that’s not deceitful; it’s just that colleagues aren’t inherently entitled to that information. (There are some exceptions to that, like if you’d been open about applying yourself and he’d deliberately misled you about his own intentions in an attempt to gain an advantage or so forth.)
There are problems in your workplace, but your friend’s pursuit of the director job doesn’t sound like it should be near the top of that list.
4. References
I have two questions regarding being a reference. First is the “Is this person eligible for rehire?” question. I supervise student employees at a university, so as I complete their reference checks for their post-college full-time job, I am forced to answer “no” as technically they are not eligible for rehire once they graduate. I always try to add a comment if the form allows explaining why, but I’m wondering if this question is an automatic “no” for prospective employees, even if there is a comment explaining the logic behind the “no”. Should I be answering “yes” meaning “they parted on good terms” even if technically they cannot work a student employment position once they have graduated?
Second is something that I’ve started seeing, but I don’t know if it’s just one of higher ed’s many oddities. Some reference forms ask me if I would like to be contacted by the institution about future job openings at their institution. Is this just higher ed struggling to attract candidates? Is there any way I am hurting the applicant’s chances by saying yes? Would I be somehow unable to apply to work there in the future if I say no? It seems so strange to piggyback on someone else’s job search in this way.
You should answer that they’re eligible for re-hire. Because they would be if they returned as a student, right? Ideally you’d be able to explain, “We’d gladly hire them again if we could, but we only hire students.” But if you’re filling out a form and you’re forced to answer yes or no, answer in the spirit of what’s being asked, which is, “Is this person in good standing with you as a previous employee?”
Second question: It’s obnoxious for them to use a reference check to ask if they can spam you about job openings in the future, but that is what they are doing. Your answer won’t affect the applicant’s chances or your own in the future. No one is tracking your answer in a way that would reflect on anyone involved.
5. Who is on a “hiring team”?
I have a second interview with a “hiring team” and then the big boss. I’m trying to figure out who I might be talking to, or even how many, and realizing I’ve never seen a definition for “hiring team”!
This first interview was with people who would be more like my peers. When I hear “team,” I think of the people I’d be on a literal team with.
The hiring team is the group of people in charge of hiring for the job, whether than means making the final decision or just providing input. It will nearly always include the hiring manager (the person who would be your manager if you got the job) but from there it’s a crapshoot. The most likely options include would-be peers, others who would work closely with you, stakeholders from other departments, representatives of HR, and/or higher-level managers — but really, it could be anyone, just depending on how this particular organization handles hiring.
Related:
what does “hiring manager” mean and other work terms you might not know