updates: the accidentally linked nudes, taking religious holidays as flex days, and more

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are three updates from past letter-writers.

1. My coworker accidentally linked her nudes to our team Photoshop account

I wanted to add that the nudes in question included not only my coworker herself, but also her boyfriend! Anyway, the day after our manager alerted my coworker to the nudes issue, they had a meeting where my coworker assured him that she managed to unlink her photos and apologized for the indiscretion and for “whatever you may have seen.” Manager said he had no idea what she was talking about and promptly changed the subject, so I guess everyone is taking it as a lesson learned.

2. Having to take religious holidays as flex days (#2 at the link)

I truly appreciated the reality check your concise answer gave me – I knew it was the truth but needed to hear it from an outside perspective. The commenters also provided a ton of interesting things to think about, and it was surprisingly pleasant to engage in a non-fraught conversation about religion online!

Later in the fall, my office made a surprising announcement that still feels a little “things that didn’t happen for $500, Alex” – they decided to change half of our flex holidays to PTO for everyone and just close the office on Black Friday, Xmas, and New Year’s Eve, and a few other bank holidays. We also got two more weeks of WFH added to the calendar for everyone. (we’re hybrid)

Turns out a ton of people quitting in a short range of time who all complain about a lack of time off actually sometimes has an impact!

Happy update season everyone!

3. Is it wrong to google companies on a candidate’s resume? (#2 at the link)

On the day my letter was posted, the candidate I wrote in about had already been hired and was on his third day of training. It was validating to read that I wasn’t off base for googling a company on his resume, and that in the future I should push back at a recruiter if they give me advice that seems incorrect. I did not end up asking him directly about the business at that point because it felt like it was a little late; I figured I would just keep an eye out for any actual behavior that might be reportable. I really appreciated the commenter with a background in bank enforcement who gave his opinion that being vaguely associated with a marijuana business shouldn’t be a big problem for an entry level teller. Also, the other commenter who pointed out that it would be better to come up with a policy on how I will Google candidates across the board going forward (like I will check the top three candidates, or any employer I’m not familiar with) instead of singling some out.

HR does do an official background check after an offer is extended, so it’s not like we would ignore that someone is an embezzler or murderer if they didn’t put it on their resume. It just probably wouldn’t show something “legal but sort of not” like running a dispensary.

My new hire has been fantastic and I am glad we hired him. He’s fun to work with, great with customers and tech, and very willing to jump into new situations head first. I saw nothing that indicated he was running a marijuana business on the side. I did get some closure on the marijuana business situation today: an sweet older lady with personal accounts here who was also on the business registry for the suspect corporation came in and was chatting with him. She mentioned that her husband was still trying to offload the rest of the business, kept knocking the price down, but had no takers. She definitely spoke about the business in the past tense. I’m guessing the updated business registry was because another officer gave up on waiting for a payout and ducked out. I do wish we had just asked about it in the interview and avoided the uncertainty.

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