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metafilter_feed) wrote2025-10-07 06:11 am
metafilter_feed) wrote2025-10-07 04:37 ammetafilter_feed) wrote2025-10-07 04:34 amaskamanager_feed) wrote2025-10-07 04:03 amIt’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My employee dropped the ball on something major while I was away
I am the executive director of a small charity. I had the opportunity to support my mom on a three-week holiday in Europe, all expenses paid. My organization had six months notice and I usually end the year not using any vacation time. So no questions or concerns about being away. I brought all the tools to stay in touch with the team.
Unfortunately my go-to staffer who was slated to take on three major fundraising events during that time got sick the first week and had to cancel our participation in two of the three events.
I’m totally gutted and frustrated this happened. This staff person doesn’t like relying in volunteers too much as they can be fickle and high maintenance, so there was no back-up and she didn’t let me know soon enough for me to rally my contacts (I’ve been with the org 21 years, she three) to call in a favor or three.
My feedback in the moment was agreement and compassion as she was genuinely under the weather. But our absence from these events is not without consequences.
How do I coach her that we need more depth of support without making her feel like she failed me or the organization? She doesn’t do well with criticism. I want to be honest with her that relying on just herself or her circle of friends for volunteers is risky for this reason. I also want her to know the importance of the relationships with the people we bailed on. Any advice on how to acknowledge the negative consequences in a kind and teachable way?
The basic framing you want is: “I understand how it unfolded the way it did, but let’s talk about things we can do to make sure it doesn’t in the future, like XYZ.”
Also, you probably needed to be more proactive about addressing her reluctance to use volunteers before this ever happened. It sounds like you saw it was an issue but didn’t really dig into it with her, and there’s likely a lesson here about the need to bring concerns like that to the surface and work through them before they cause a major problem … as well as maybe to do more hands-on game-planning for major events, especially if you’ll be away when they’re happening, like talking through things that could go wrong and how to handle them so your staff is aligned with you about what to do even if you’re not on-site.
Any chance that her “not doing do well with criticism” has led you to avoid giving her feedback or direction in the past when you really needed to? That’s something to dig into, too, if so.
2. I was asked to provide proof that I wasn’t involved with my husband’s death
I woke up next to my husband in May and found he was dead. I am a teacher in training and the university I go to is well aware of the situation. I have a tattoo on my neck which is the last message he wrote to me, and one day a colleague at work said, “Do you have your name on your neck?” I explained the situation.
Last Friday I was pulled into a room by myself with no warning and asked if I had a letter from the police clearing me of his death. I was told I had overshared at work, and due to the nature of the death (he was only 49 and died unexpectedly) they would like to see a letter from the police clearing me of any wrongdoing. I became extremely upset, and told her I wouldn’t go any further than this unless HR was there to document the conversation and take notes. She then followed me into the car park and asked me not to leave as she “didn’t want me to leave like this.” I told her I was too upset to talk and she still asked me to stay.
I’m only three weeks into my course and am terrified they will look for any reason to throw me off. Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?
They asked you for a letter from the police clearing you of involvement in your husband’s death? No, you are not making a mountain of a molehill. That’s incredible offensive and upsetting.
I don’t know who the person was who pulled you into a room for this conversation, but I’d bet they were acting on their own and without consulting anyone above them, because that is a fully bananapants thing to do. You should talk with someone above her immediately and/or HR: report what happened and ask if this is actually something they need and whether the person who demanded it of you was speaking for the organization in doing so. It’s highly, highly likely that they weren’t and that whoever you talk to will be horrified and handle it on your behalf.
3. My husband’s boss is coming on to him
My husband’s supervisor is a woman, and she is coming on to him at work. I’m afraid they’re going to have an affair. Should I confront her or what should I do?
No, you should not confront her. You should talk to your husband, the person you’re in the relationship with.
4. I feel guilty about interviewing for a private sector job
I work for a government agency that is routinely rated as popular by American citizens. It is also small and almost always operates on a shoestring budget. With the shutdown and the secretary announcing further RIFs, I applied to a few other positions.
One got back to me right away and I interviewed this morning. It sounds exciting and I love the mission … but I’m deeply sad about it. I’ve worked for my agency for 20 years, I hope to continue, but also feel I can’t keep subjecting myself and my family to the “will I have a job tomorrow?” yo-yo that’s been going on for months.
Is this normal? It’s “just” a job. But apparently one that doesn’t want me anymore? I know any job doesn’t have loyalty to you, but I feel deep down I’m being disloyal.
You’re not being disloyal. Public service doesn’t require that you commit to a lifetime of servitude to the public or to your agency; it requires that you commit to doing a good job while you are there, for however long you decide that will be. You are not an indentured servant, and you are not required to remain in a job that is no longer serving your or your family’s interests.
That is always true, of all jobs. But public service jobs can have an additional layer of feeling you’ve entered into a sort of covenant with The People. Unfortunately, though, your employer has broken that covenant with you, rather violently. There is no particular obligation on your side to pretend that covenant looks today like what it used to look like.
5. Explaining I’m job searching because I’m worried my team may be laid off
I have good reason to suspect that my entire team will be laid off this year. Ideally, I’d like to stay at my company a while longer, but with the state of the job market as-is (I’m near D.C.) I get nervous about waiting to search until I’m already out of income. If I start now, though, what would I say about why I’m looking for a job when the answer is entirely just job insecurity?
If you’ve been there at least a couple of years, you can just focus on why you’re interested in the new job and not why you want to leave the old job. But if you haven’t been there long enough to make that a workable answer, it’s fine to say, “I’m seeing some indicators that the company is likely to need to make some cuts later this year, and I’m looking for a role with more stability.”
Related:
do I need to give interviewers a great reason for why I’m looking to leave my current job?
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metafilter_feed) wrote2025-10-07 03:03 ammetafilter_feed) wrote2025-10-07 02:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sholio) wrote2025-10-05 06:02 pmmetafilter_feed) wrote2025-10-07 01:05 ammetafilter_feed) wrote2025-10-07 12:45 ammetafilter_feed) wrote2025-10-06 11:52 pmmaru_feed) wrote2025-10-06 11:00 pmtrobadora) wrote2025-10-06 10:11 pm![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
guardian_wishlist revealed this morning with over 60 new Guardian & related works!awanderingcoyote, lovely Guardian/Stargate Atlantis crossover art with a bunch of inspired concept notes for a crossover that's also a fix-it/sequel to the Guardian endingfacethestrange, gorgeous Guardian RPF art that brilliantly combines the implications of the infamous weight-lifting BTS video with an interview question that, as the artist says, totally could be realnnozomi, an absolutely delightful ficlet about Jiajia and Professor Zhou (and Shen Wei, of course, in absentia), combining them in ways I'd never considered beforeaskamanager_feed) wrote2025-10-06 05:59 pmA reader writes:
I moved to a new state a year ago and, in the effort to find community, I joined a grassroots nonprofit as a volunteer coordinator (as a volunteer, not for my job).
Since I’ve joined, we’ve had transparency issues with the board. Every few months, someone would either join or drop off the board, and volunteers wouldn’t hear about it until a week or two after the fact. We also never had the organization’s bylaws or constitution available to volunteers, and no matter how many of us explained why we needed this, select board members would always give excuses as to why we couldn’t. At one point, they finally posted them, but when the website went through a long-overdue redesign, both forms disappeared from it again.
Isadora has been a board member for more than a year. Three months ago, the president and vice president suddenly quit with no explanation. Someone else had to step up as president, and Isadora had to step up as vice president. Both were doing the jobs of two or three people at a time, so Isadora was overwhelmed. I was also doing the jobs of two people. (I never learned about the former president and vice president quitting until it was mentioned in casual conversation a full week later. Two other volunteers learned about it the same way.)
Because Isadora was so stressed out, she chatted openly about stepping down from the board after a big public event we’re holding. Another board member, Duncan, told us he would do the same.
There was a big Instagram post from the barely-new president where he gave a heartfelt goodbye letter, and he talked about how he looked forward to “the new board taking [his] and others’ places.” The post had introductions of all the new members … including Isadora and Duncan. This confused me and made me think that they had changed their minds about leaving, or perhaps that no replacements had been found for them yet.
The next day, Duncan mentioned unprompted that he’s still planning to step down after the public event in three weeks. I asked about the Instagram post, which he didn’t see, but he said it’s correct since he’s still on the board.
I texted Isadora to ask if she changed her mind or couldn’t find a replacement, and she reiterated that she’s still leaving in three weeks. But she also added that her term was supposed to end four months ago, per the (still unavailable) bylaws, which I wasn’t told before. I told her that I understood that, but that my concern was that the Instagram post gave the impression that she and Duncan would be there for longer.
She replied, “How does it give that impression? People wanted us to announce who’s on the board, so we did. But apparently, they’re not happy about that either.” With a rolling-eyes emoji at the end.
I was taken aback by her tone. I replied with a three-paragraph text (that I revised three times to be as empathetic as I could) about the constant mixed messages and the lack of information on the website about the board, bylaws, and constitution. That yes, the post is correct *at face value* about who’s *currently* on the board, but that would change in only three weeks and that “new members” seemed to imply that they’d be there for longer. That I understood that she had been so stressed lately, but I still felt confused by the organization sometimes.
She replied, “So are you asking me to take the post down? Or give two weeks notice? I still don’t feel like this information is contradictory. People have been asking us who is on the board, so we announced it. Also people can quit the board at any time. We don’t force people to stay if they don’t want to.”
I tried to call her because I actually wanted to speak instead of text, but she wasn’t in a place to take a phone call. (And I never tried again because I didn’t want to seem combative or pushy.) I suddenly felt stupid for saying anything at all because I had no idea what exactly I was asking her to do, or what I should ask her to do. I apologized for bringing it up, to which she said that I don’t need to apologize and that she just didn’t understand what I needed from her. The last thing I told Isadora was that I didn’t really know if there was anything I needed from her right now, but that I appreciated her asking. I backed down suddenly because I felt ashamed of myself.
Maybe I just let the stress get to me, but I feel like there’s something not right about the post that I couldn’t place my finger on. And Isadora’s tone made me feel like I’ve crossed some line since she had never used it before with me (I can’t stop thinking about that rolling-eyes emoji). Is it unreasonable to assume that when someone makes a big announcement about “new members” that they won’t be planning to leave in three weeks? Did I cross a boundary?
You didn’t cross any boundary, but you are probably more upset about all of this than you need to be.
This organization is clearly a mess and they can’t hold on to board members.
The thing about the bylaws and constitution not being available to volunteers isn’t necessarily a big deal. It’s weird that they’ve had so much trouble providing them to volunteers when asked, but they’re not required to be publicly accessible. It’s best practice to make them available for transparency’s sake and it’s odd that they haven’t and it doesn’t engender any trust in them — but it seems consistent with the general chaos they operate with.
The confusion about Isadora and Duncan’s status as board members … eh. It seems like the president just referenced all the existing board members without regard to who’s about to leave. It’s not ideal communication, but it’s not a big deal. Isadora was probably annoyed when you contacted her because she’s been trying to get off the board for months and felt you were nitpicking the impression given by someone else’s Instagram post, which she probably didn’t think was a big deal or should need to be her problem to deal with (or anyone’s problem, really). She also sounds fed up with the organization in general.
Here’s the thing: this organization is a mess. I don’t know how well it functions when it comes to achieving its actual goals (not well, I suspect), but its internal operations are in chaos. You are clearly someone who does not enjoy functioning in chaos, so this organization is not a good fit for you; you’re going to find it aggravating (rightly so!) and you’re going to be constantly battling them to be something they aren’t. As a volunteer, you’re just not well-positioned to change any of this. Maybe if you wanted to get on the board, but honestly that sounds like it would be an exercise in frustration too. I’d also bet good money they don’t get great results toward their mission — which alone would be sufficient reason to take your efforts elsewhere.
There are lots of nonprofits doing good work that aren’t this much of a mess and which won’t frustrate you like this. Move your energy there instead!
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metafilter_feed) wrote2025-10-06 06:17 pmmetafilter_feed) wrote2025-10-06 06:08 pmaskamanager_feed) wrote2025-10-06 04:29 pmA reader writes:
You’ve talked about how inappropriate it is for employers to ask candidates about their salary expectations without giving out any info on salary themselves.
I became a small business owner without having received training in that aspect of things, but learned early on when I am hiring to always ask the candidate their salary expectations before giving any information out about the range I am willing to offer. Why? Firstly, the money comes directly from our pockets and frankly if we can get away with paying $20/hour instead of $22/hour, why wouldn’t we? It also gives us room for raises, bonuses, etc. without taking too much of a financial hit. You always advocate that employees look out for their own interests. Why should that be so different for me as an employer? Maybe we tend to think of employers as big corporations but in our case we’re just hard-working individuals hoping to keep expenses in check.
The second reason I want that information first is that if I were to give my range, a candidate expecting more might well say, “Sure, that’s fine” while planning to take the job and keep looking for something else. Frankly, I want to know if they’re likely to be unhappy with that salary! Hearing that they expect more is valuable information for us to have and if I can get it, I will.
So there you have it from a brazenly unapologetic employer who plans to continue asking the question. (For what it’s worth, we are excellent employers whose staff have been with us for years and seem very happy).
I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.
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