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This post, my manager is annoyed with my days off, missing work because “something came up,” and more , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My manager is annoyed that I keep getting Saturdays off
I work on a production line. It is difficult for me to work Saturdays as my wife works a weekend shift and childcare is hard to find on the weekends. My job is supposed to be (and was when I was hired 10 years ago) Monday through Friday, but over several years they have added 10-15 Saturdays a year.
I discovered three years ago that if I look at our company’s warehouse shipping/receiving database, which I have access to through the intranet to order parts for my line, I can see what Saturdays we are working weeks in advance. If I see an outbound shipment for the item my line makes on a Saturday, it means we will be scheduled for production that Saturday.
We are required to request vacation at least two weeks in advance of the day(s) we want off. So when I see a Saturday work day, two weeks and one day ahead of it I request that Friday off (then you also get Saturday off as it isn’t a normal scheduled work day) and have always gotten it off. The production schedule our team sees is only one week out, too late to request a vacation day if you see we are working a Saturday and want it off.
My supervisor discovered that I haven’t worked a Saturday in three years and has been tracking my vacation requests and put it together that if I request a Friday off, two weeks later we are working a Saturday. She asked (several times) how I know when we are working a Saturday and I say “lucky guess.” I can tell that this REALLY irritates her.
I found out through my brother-in-law, who works in IT for the same company, that my supervisor put in a request for them to review my computer history as she felt I was accessing “inappropriate“ content. Of course they found nothing and my brother-in-law’s boss was somewhat pissed when he found out why my supervisor wanted this done and wasted a bunch of their hours going through my computer files.
My supervisor is now hanging around my work station a whole lot more; she is always walking by and stopping to “check in.” I caught her hiding behind another machine near mine so she could see what was up on my computer screen. She has also asked me to stay logged in under my name to save time when she occasionally covers for me for my breaks (to check my search history?) and of course I don’t as it is against company policy. I now access the outbound page when I know she is at a staff meeting.
It has become frustrating with her constantly hovering over/around me. She is my supervisor so I guess she can but it is making me very nervous being constantly watched. I really don’t want to give up my “secret” as then everybody will do what I am doing and I will start working Saturdays. Can I file a harassment claim against my boss for her actions? Other thoughts?
No, this isn’t harassment in the legal sense (that would need to be based on your race, sex, religion, disability, or other protected class). But it is bad management. If she wants to require you to work some Saturdays, she just needs to tell you that you need to work some Saturdays. If she doesn’t trust you to do that without oversight, she could stop approving your Friday-off requests, since she’s figured out that they’re tied to the Saturdays you want off. I’m not sure why she’s not doing that and instead is spending all this time lurking around you.
On your side, though, wouldn’t it make sense to just talk to her about the Saturday work requirement? Ideally from the start you would have explained that you were hired to work weekdays, have child care commitments on the weekends, and aren’t available to work on Saturdays. It’s going to be harder to do that now because it sounds like it’s turned into a battle of wills between the two of you, but at some point she’s going to figure out a way to block what you’ve been doing, and then you’ll have to have that conversation anyway (or find an alternative for weekend child care).
2. New employee missed fourth day of work, saying “something came up”
I had a new employee start on a Tuesday. That Friday, I woke up to a text from my new hire from the night before, saying that she would not be in on Friday, that something had come up and she would see me on Monday.
This is an in-person job in a corporate environment. It is my first time managing within a corporate environment; my previous management stints were in an environment with labor conditions and expectations that would not fly in a well-run corporate setting. But in my former life, to call off meant you were literally dying or in jail and you would divulge that when you called (I don’t like or agree with this). I fully respect a person’s right to take a sick day and I feel nobody is obligated to share personal details, but I also don’t feel like “something came up” quite cuts it. Especially on what would be your fourth day on the job.
I’m looking for some guidance on where to set my expectations (regardless of this person working out or not). Am I out of line to feel “something came up” feels inadequate when calling out?
You’re not wrong! “Something came up” is strangely cavalier. “I’m sick” or “I have a family emergency” (without giving details beyond that) would both be fine, but “something came up” sounds like it could be “my sister called and I feel like talking to her” or “someone invited me to play tetherball.” It also sounds like she doesn’t think calling out on her fourth day of work is a big deal, when that’s normally something people would really try to avoid unless they truly couldn’t.
“Something came up” might be fine from a longer-time employee who had a track record of reliability (although it would still be kind of weird), but it’s pretty alarming from someone in their first week.
3. Other managers say I should answer calls on my days off
I am a new supervisor (one year) with my state government (but have over 25 years of service with them). The other supervisors in my department feel the need to coach me and told me that even on my days off, I should let my employees know that I am available to them. When I attempted to set boundaries by saying that when I am off, I am usually with my grandchildren, one supervisor responded that she has 10 grandchildren and still makes herself available when she is with them. Well, good for her. I earned every minute of my vacation time and have a full, rich life outside of work. I feel that I am entitled to time off as anyone else is. Am I really expected to answer emails and my phone on my day off? We are not a health care facility and not first responders. We are office workers.
In theory, no, you shouldn’t be expected to answer emails and calls on your days off unless something is genuinely an emergency (in which case, dealing with that is indeed part of many management jobs). But in reality, the expectations around this can vary greatly from office to office. If your office culture is that supervisors are expected to do that, there might be a price for refusing (in terms of perception, promotions, etc.). You might decide you don’t care about that price, which is your prerogative! Or you might look around and realize there won’t be much of a price to be paid at all.
But if you’re unsure, talking to your own manager about it is a good place to start. She’ll be able to give you a better sense of how against-the-grain it would be there to protect your days off, and how it might affect you if you hold firm. (For the record, I support you in holding firm! But your office culture is what will dictate how much of an issue it might be.)
4. I didn’t correct people’s mispronunciation of my name while interviewing
I’ve been through a multi-stage interview process consisting of short one-on-one interviews with various people from the organisation and I’m expecting to hear a final decision next week. I have a fairly common (or at least not rare) first name but it’s pronounced in an uncommon way. Each interviewer I’ve talked to pronounced my name the standard way and because of a mix of my own nerves, fast-paced interviews and the interviewers not pausing to ask if they’re pronouncing it right (which makes sense since my pronunciation of my name isn’t common), I never corrected them. Obviously if I don’t get the position it won’t be a problem, but in case I do, what’s the best way to bring it up? I don’t want to look like I assumed I wouldn’t be working with them or like I’m not proactive. To be fair, in this case I wasn’t proactive about this and that’s something I’ll bear in mind for future interviews and just correct the pronunciation up-front — but in this case how could I bring it up as with as little awkwardness as possible?
It won’t be a big deal at all. On your first day as you’re introducing yourself/being introduced, you’ll just say, “Actually, it’s ‘Lu-CHEE-a,’ not ‘Lu-SEE-a.’” No one is likely to read anything into the fact that you didn’t correct them while you were interviewing. They probably won’t even remember if they used your name with you and if they do, they’ll just figure you don’t bother to correct people every time in every situation, if they even think about it at all (which they likely won’t!). They’re not going to think, “Wow, she must have assumed she wouldn’t end up working with us” or “what a slacker approach to her own name.” No one will think about any of this as much as yourself are!
But if anyone does say something like, “Oh, you should have told us earlier,” you can always say, “It’s mispronounced so often that sometimes I don’t even bother to correct it, but since we’re working together now I wanted to make sure you knew how to say it.”
5. I had a great interview — but they’re still “actively recruiting”
I just finished a final round interview, and I thought it went well (they even asked me about my hobbies, which I saw as a good sign). However, the day after my final interview, I was looking through my email and received a “LinkedIn Job Alerts” notification. I saw the company on the list and that they were still “actively recruiting.” Does this mean that I messed up the last round and will not be hired? In the same vein, if a company reposts a job on a job board after a interview, is it safe to assume that they’re not considering me?
Nope, it means nothing at all. It’s very normal for a company to keep their job postings active until they’ve made an offer and had it accepted. Plus, this was only the day after your interview! It’s very likely that they haven’t made a hiring decision yet and they might still have other candidates to interview. But even if they left the meeting with you thinking, “Wow, that’s the one for sure, cancel all the other interviews,” they’re still not going to have taken down the listing within a day. There are references to check, decisions to finalize, paperwork to do, offers to put together — and then they need to wait to see if you even accept it. It’s very normal to keep ads active during that time.
