Posted by Ask a Manager
https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/employee-falls-asleep-in-meetings-office-party-is-at-a-bar-where-theres-a-photo-of-me-and-more.html
https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34399
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Employee keeps falling asleep in meetings
I have an employee who joined the team about 10 months ago. He is a good contributor so far, but I’ve noticed he has a bad habit of drowsing off during afternoon meetings, especially ones that are within an hour after lunch. I brought it up to him once about 2-3 months after he joined the team, and told him frankly that it was unprofessional and not acceptable. He agreed and said that he would work on getting better. But in the past month I’ve noticed it happening again. He’s also a bit older (maybe early 60’s though I don’t know his exact age) — not that age changes anything, but maybe makes him more susceptible to post-lunch food coma?
I’ll likely bring it up again in my next one-on-one with him next week, but I’m concerned about things possibly backsliding again. Any ideas on what to do if that happens?
Just be direct! “We talked about this previously, but I’ve noticed it’s happening again. If there are things we can do on our end to help, I’m very open to them, but I do need you to get it under control permanently, not just temporarily.”
But also think about whether there are tweaks you can make that would help. For example, it’s probably not realistic to avoid all afternoon meetings but since he otherwise does good work, is there any room for reshuffling things in a way that would minimize this without much inconvenience (like if there’s one meeting where it always happens and that meeting could easily be before lunch rather than after)? Are your meeting rooms too warm? Sufficiently stocked with caffeine? Can you encourage people to stand or move around during meetings if they need to?
I’m not saying this is on you to solve — he’s an adult who has to figure out how to manage his own energy patterns (or needs to raise it if there’s a medical issue he needs accommodations for) — but there’s no harm in being thoughtful about small tweaks that could help.
2. My office party is in a bar with a photo of me in a bikini on the wall
My director is taking out our team for a staff party and dinner at a local bar in a couple of weeks. The problem I have is that on the wall of that bar they have a bunch of pictures of the winners of their annual bikini contest. I won the contest in 2010 when I was in college and there’s a huge picture of me in my bikini on the wall and my name listed below on a gold colored plate. Should I consider not attending the event or perhaps begging HR to force them to move the event? Maybe I should just go and if the picture is noticed make a joke about it? Do you think anything bad would happen if my colleagues see a younger me in a bikini?
Well … if you work in a male-dominated field or just a particularly sexist or conservative one, it’s not great; that’s a context where it’s risks being really unhelpful to have your coworkers see you in the sort of sexualized way bikini contest winners tend to be portrayed in photos that hang on bar walls. (In other words, it’s not just the bikini itself; it’s the social framing around the photo.) If you don’t work in a male-dominated, conservative, or sexist field, it might not be a big deal, particularly since it’s from 15 years ago.
But if you do … any chance you could just ask the bar to take it down? A lot of people would be happy to oblige if you showed up and said, “My whole office is about to come here for a staff party in a week and I really don’t want them seeing a huge photo of me in a bikini; can you take it down for now?”
3. I was promised a monthly schedule, but it changes weekly
I’m two months into a new job as a full-time AV technician at an events venue. I’ve been doing similar jobs for the past few years on a freelance basis. I’m well accustomed to the demands of irregular and unpredictable hours. Before this role, I was often booked for a job the night before or day-of. This work is not my passion but it’s related to my love for making music and performing. I see this as my priority and work as a means of facilitating my passion. I’m in my 20s, if you couldn’t tell!
When I took this job, I was told by the COO in the interview that my working hours would be irregular from Monday to Sunday (anything from 7 am to 1 am) but by consolation I would be given my rota a month in advance. However, to my surprise, on my first day my manager said I would be given my rota weekly. That is, on a Saturday for the following week.
Despite my familiarity with irregular hours, I’m struggling with not being able to plan my personal commitments. When I was self-employed, I had the freedom to refuse work. In spite of my great efforts, band rehearsals are falling to the wayside and I have not seen my friends the past two months. I can request days off but it does not look professional to do so frequently, nor would the requests be approved. (However, this is the best salary I have ever received and am determined to stick around and do well here.)
I have constructively brought this up with my manager, even suggesting that I write my own rota two weeks in advance for his approval, as the calendar is about 90% certain at this point. However, I am simply ignored. I’m aware flexibility is a necessary condition for working in busy events operations, but I feel I was misled in this respect. Do you have any suggestions for how to advocate for myself tactfully or how to learn to cope in my own way?
Yeah, this isn’t reasonable — you can’t make plans if you have to keep your schedule wide open until two days before each week starts and you can only infrequently request specific dates off.
Have you told your boss that the COO explicitly promised you in the interview that you’d have your schedule a month in advance? If so, and he doesn’t care, are the internal politics there such that you could go back to the COO and say, “We talked about this explicitly in my interview, but it’s turned out that I’m only getting my schedule two days before the week starts. Since you’d mentioned when I was being hired that I’d have a lot more notice, I wanted to check back with you about it.”
If that seems like a politically risky move, then I’d ask yourself: would you have taken the job if you’d had the correct info about the schedule from the start? If so, that’s one way to frame it for yourself — that this isn’t ideal and it particularly sucks that you were given bad info, but that it wouldn’t have stopped you from accepting regardless. Additionally, I wonder if it’s possible for you to negotiate one day a week that you’ll always have off (or even every other week) so that you have some ability to plan?
4. Should a CEO’s contract prevent them from being unfairly fired?
The firing of the CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art has roiled my nonprofit world. It’s gossipy in and outside Philadelphia partly because so many unusually specific details of the firing were included in the news — for “just cause” almost never is actually part of the press release! — and also because she was under contract and it seems like contracts are supposed to prevent leaders from being fired quickly like this.
Not withstanding the specifics of the situation, can you clarify how a contract does, or does not, protect employees from regular hiring and firing decisions?
It varies widely depending on exactly what’s in the contract, but it would be typical for a contract for that type of position to spell out what would be cause for firing, which would generally include things like ethics violations and failure to perform (as opposed to leaving it wide open like at-will employment typically does) and what terms would govern a separation (how much severance, etc.). It’s also common for a contract at that level to include two different separation packages: one if the person is fired for cause, like fraud or gross negligence, and a higher package if the reason is something more like bad chemistry with the board or the organization making a strategic shift.
In this case, it looks like the board is claiming they fired her at least in part for improper spending; depending on what that means in practice, the firing could definitely be allowed under such a contract (assuming there was real financial impropriety, not buying herself a fancy pen or something). Or it could be BS to cover up that they just didn’t like her and wanted her gone (which sounds like is at least partly the case).
5. Can I give one employee a larger bonus than the others?
I have a newish employee, Jane, who is amazing. She’s been with the company for about six months. Jane inherited a messy situation from her predecessor, who was a poor fit for the role, and has not only cleaned that up, but also made significant improvements in our processes. She is trustworthy, reliable, hardworking, competent, and proactive. I feel really fortunate to have her on the team!
I try to give all my staff flexibility and perks in whatever ways I can manage, but Jane’s role is one of the least flexible on the team. (For example, other people are able to work remote, hybrid, or flex schedules, but she can’t, due to the nature of the role. Other people travel around our area for work and have company cars, but Jane is based in the office so she takes the bus.) It’s also the most junior role and pays the least.
We traditionally give bonuses at the end of the year, and I’d like to recognize Jane’s value and contributions to the company with a larger-than-normal bonus. I’m thinking $500-1,000 instead of $200-400. Is this a good idea even if I won’t be able to match it next year, the year after, etc.? Is it fair to my other staff, who are also wonderful and hardworking, but who get paid more and enjoy more perks year-round?
I don’t want to create bad feelings with other staff if people decide to discuss their bonuses (which may happen), and I also don’t want to set an expectation that I can’t live up to in subsequent years. But I feel strongly that Jane deserves recognition for how much she’s contributed thus far, and money is the best way to do that.
Note: We also give raises, and I fully expect to raise Jane’s salary, but she won’t be eligible until she completes her first year of employment.
You absolutely can give Jane a larger than normal bonus in recognition of her good work; that’s a very common and normal thing to do. You’d want to be prepared to explain the discrepancy if anyone asks about it, but it sounds like you’d be able to do that easily (she’s done an phenomenal job and she has the least flexible and lowest-paying role on the team).
To avoid setting Jane up to expect it every year, you can say something like, “Our year-end bonuses are typically less than this, but you’ve done such a fantastic job this year under difficult circumstances that I wanted you to get some special recognition for that.”
The post employee falls asleep in meetings, office party is at a bar where there’s a bikini photo of me, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.
https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/employee-falls-asleep-in-meetings-office-party-is-at-a-bar-where-theres-a-photo-of-me-and-more.html
https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34399
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
metafilter_feed
