Arduinna

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/08/the-ceo-keeps-asking-young-male-employees-to-try-her-breast-milk.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32762

A reader writes:

I work for a small organization in middle management. Our CEO has asked two of our young male staff members, who are early in their careers/at the bottom of the hierarchy, if they would like to try her breast milk, more than once. Once one said, “That’s inappropriate” and she laughed. I don’t supervise either young man, but they confided in someone I supervise, who told me. They told the person I supervise that they feel targeted and like she wants them to feel scared/off-kilter.

We do have an external HR person and a board of directors. In the past, HR reports among staff have been very badly handled by the CEO (think breaking confidentiality, obvious favoritism), so there is obviously even less faith about how she will handle a complaint against her.

I perhaps made a mistake, but I reached out to the external HR person with vague details to find out the protocol for what would happen if these coworkers reported it and who they could report to, because I wanted to understand and be able to advise them on next steps (maybe through the person I supervise). HR said they could report to HR, the CEO, or directly to the board, but there is no guarantee of confidentiality and that we “must act” if I’m aware of harassment.

I’m not sure what to do next. Obviously our CEO is not a very trustworthy person, and our board has had some pretty major issues over the years and many are close friends of the CEO. I feel like I made a mistake reaching out to HR. It’s unclear if the impacted employees wanted to pursue any report at all. I want them to feel comfortable at work, and I also want our CEO to be accountable for her actions, but I know both of those things are outside of my control and I worry I bungled both through my info seeking. I’m also in such a crazy work environment that I’m questioning if it is “even that bad” — it is, right? Pretty uncool for a grandboss to offer young staff members breast milk?

Just when I think I have heard about all possible brands of office dysfunction, someone manages to surprise me.

YES, it’s incredibly weird and inappropriate for someone to offer colleagues their breast milk, let alone when there are power dynamics mixed in. And more than once?!

And this is even weirder because the employees she offered it to got the sense that she was trying to make them feel off-kilter! It would be problematic enough even if the vibe were different (maybe joking around or something, I don’t know) … but she made them feel like it was an attempt to Intimidate Via Breast Milk?

Something very odd is going on in your office. Somehow it’s not surprising that this isn’t the first time this CEO has caused a problem.

As for what to do … the external HR person is right that if a manager in the organization is aware of a potential harassment issue, they have an obligation to report it. She’s also right that the organization can’t guarantee confidentiality in such a case, because they would be obligated to investigate it and you can’t always do that without disclosing information about what was reported and where it came from. The options she gave you for reporting — to HR, the CEO, or the board — are also the standard ones I’d expect her to offer when she didn’t have more details, since it sounds like she didn’t know the complaint is about the CEO. (You always need multiple avenues for people to make a complaint in case it’s about one of those people, and so an alleged perpetrator isn’t investigating themselves, and it does sound like those multiple avenues exist here, at least in name.) So everything the external HR person told you sounds right so far.

I do think you’d ideally go back to her again and this time lay out what the actual situation is and ask for guidance on how to handle it. She should then involve the board — because the board is the only entity with authority over the CEO — and HR could take the lead on coordinating that.

But if you’re reading this and thinking the two affected employees wouldn’t want you to escalate it and would be upset that you did that in their names without even talking to them, especially in a context where people don’t particularly trust the board to be impartial … well, again, as a manager you do have an obligation to act. That said, the specifics of this are weird enough that as a first step in this particular set of circumstances, you could go to them and say, “This sounds like it could be sexual harassment to me, and if you feel that way too, here are our options for how to handle it.”

The post the CEO keeps asking young male employees to try her breast milk appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/08/the-ceo-keeps-asking-young-male-employees-to-try-her-breast-milk.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32762

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/08/employee-gets-special-privileges-because-shes-dating-an-nba-player-removing-magnets-from-the-office-fridge-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32540

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Employee gets special privileges because she’s dating an NBA player

I am an inside sales manager who oversees a team of five sales representatives. I work alongside three managers who do the same. One of the other managers supervises Cersei. Cersei is currently dating an NBA player who plays for our local team. Cersei receives special privileges from management that no one else in the company is allowed. This includes being able to work remotely for months at a time during the summer off season. We have a strict no work from home policy.

During a group meeting with a mix of managers and sales reps, Cersei’s manager mentioned why she is able to do this. He said the execs know she doesn’t have to work and management knows how hectic her boyfriend’s travel schedule is during the season. This completely rubbed me the wrong way. None of us have complete knowledge of our coworker’s financial situation. For all we know, Bob down the hall might have a trust fund and doesn’t have to work. Or a coworker might be married to someone who travels 75% of the time.

His statement has done a lot of damage to the morale around here, and several of my team members have discussed how unfair this is. I know that ultimately, I cannot make the executives change their mind on how they treat her, but how can I move forward to build up some of this morale with my team?

Yeah, that’s ridiculous. Just because someone doesn’t have to work doesn’t mean they get to dictate their own rules, separate from the rules everyone else is held to. You do sometimes see that when someone is unusually valuable and the company is highly motivated to keep them, but you don’t mention that’s the case with Cersei.

Can you escalate the issue to management above you, pointing out the effect it’s having on morale? And explain the amount of time you’re having to spend explaining to team member after team member why they can’t have any flexibility on working from home when they’re seeing a coworker do it for months at a time?

2. Can I remove magnets from the office fridge?

In my office, the side of the break room fridge has a set of those magnetized words you can rearrange to form sentences, which are Harry Potter-themed. They’ve been there since before I started three years ago. I’ve been keeping an eye on them, and no one has rearranged them in months, at least.

Though I enjoyed it as a kid, I really dislike Harry Potter now (I’m trans), though I try not to yuck people’s yum unless directly asked about it. There’s been significant turnover here in the last three years, so I don’t know who they originally belonged to and I don’t have any coworkers with Harry Potter stuff prominently displayed.

Do you think I can safely remove the magnets, and either toss them or store them in a break room cabinet? I have a safe-for-work Shakespeare set I could replace them with (though again, no one seems to use them).

Yes. Stick them in a cabinet for a while to be sure no one asks about them / is upset their magnets disappeared, and if a couple of months go by without comment, it’s safe to assume no one cares (and maybe the original owner is long gone).

I don’t think you even need to replace them with a different set, although you could if you want to.

3. My boss changes decisions after I’ve already shared them with people

I have a new role with a manager who is also new to running a team. I’ve worked with them before as peers and there’s mutual respect there, I think. But as I spend more time on the team, I’m remembering some of the annoyances too. For example, I’ll need to give another team a decision on priorities. My manager will tell me in writing that best case scenario, we’d have it done but it’s not a requirement for the next release. I’ll convey that to the other team, specifically citing my boss, almost word for word. Then my boss will jump in and say, “I thought adding this wouldn’t be an issue. Why isn’t it possible?” I think okay, they’re gathering info, no problem. Our partners tell them the same information I already told them separately — that we have to prioritize — only this time the response to the group is, “Well, we need this so let’s push the priority.” And then I feel like I look stupid in front of everyone but have no way of saying, “I swear I didn’t make up that they said preferred but not required.”

Is there any way to save face in this sort of situation or address what’s happening?

It sounds like your boss might not be at all confident in their decisions — so they pass a decision through you but as soon as there’s pushback of any kind, they fold. Or maybe it’s something more nefarious, like that they’re trying to assert power in a way that undermines you while making them look “better.”

Either way, talk to your boss! The next time your boss tells you X, you relay X, and then your boss comes back and says Y, go to them and say, “Did I misunderstand? When we talked about this, I’d thought you’d said X. I want to make sure I’m missing anything in these situations — did I get it wrong initially or did something change since then?”

If you do that a few times and it doesn’t help — and your boss doesn’t acknowledge that they keep changing their mind — then start looking for ways to make it harder for them to do it. For example, when your boss tells you X, send an email back to them confirming that you’re going to relay X (“Okay, I will tell the other team X”). And then, when you relay X, cite your boss specifically — “I spoke with Boss, who said X.” If it’s still happening after that, you’ll at least have something concrete to point to when asking where the two of you are miscommunicating.

4. Panicking over a font size mistake in an email

I had a final interview for a senior marketing communications position on Friday, with a VP of marketing at a major medtech company. After my interview, I sent a personalized email, thanking him for the interview and his time, reiterated my experience and interest, and shared parts of our conversation that I enjoyed.

However, after I sent my email I noticed that there was a very slight formatting issue with his last name. His last name is hard to spell, and I copy/pasted it from the email address. When I viewed the email on my phone, his last name was slightly smaller than the rest of the text of the email. Everything else is fine and very polished, but I’m very anxious that this simple error could cost me the job since this is the VP. Help, I’m so stressed over it! For context, I sent from my Gmail account.

This is not likely to cost you the job if you’re otherwise a strong candidate! It’s true that a formatting difference in one word will make the email look slightly less polished (and ideally you’d remove formatting when copying/pasting or otherwise ensure that all your formatting is consistent), but this is not a huge deal, particularly if you’ve otherwise been a good candidate.

5. How can I ask my boss to put me up for promotion?

How does one gently nudge one’s boss into putting one’s name up for promotion?

I’ve been with my company for about five years, across two lateral positions, but I’m still in the entry-level position (there’s a long story and a few extra steps in there I’m going to leave out). Last year, I really, really thought that I had a good chance at a promotion and had a pretty good review. However, my boss and my boss’s boss both made vague financial comments that made it seem like the promotion cycle wasn’t happening. Months later, I found out it did happen and I was passed over. To put it mildly, I was crushed.

An email went out today signaling the start of this year’s cycle. I had an even better review this year (my best ever!), and my boss seemed to agree I deserved a promotion when I asked what else I could be doing. I’m just scared that he won’t see the email/will forget about it. To be honest, part of me thinks that’s why I didn’t get it last year. But I don’t want to be pushy or seem like I’m demanding a promotion. Is it okay if I say, “Hey, did you see that promotion cycle email? What’d you think?” Or do I just leave it and hope he puts my name in?

You should bring it up! I’d word it this way: “Since we’re at the start of this year’s promotion cycle, I want to ask if you would consider putting me up for promotion — or if there are specific things I can be doing to be more competitive for that.”

The post employee gets special privileges because she’s dating an NBA player, removing magnets from the office fridge, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/08/employee-gets-special-privileges-because-shes-dating-an-nba-player-removing-magnets-from-the-office-fridge-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32540