my boss commented on my work with a puke emoji, our “unpaid intern” is paid $42,000/year, and more

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. My boss commented on my work with a puke emoji

I work in a PR agency and we are planning a webinar for our most important client. These recent weeks have been kind of a nightmare, because everyone is working remotely for the first time (due to COVID-19) and my boss wants to deliver the best webinar as expected.

We keep communicating via Skype. Today I received some bad feedback from my boss about something I made for the webinar, but she finished her comments with three emojis: a “doh,” a “puke,” and an “angry face.” I can handle bad feedback, but I think that the puking emoji was too much.

I felt very offended and wanted to quit on the spot, because if my work produces vomit, I shouldn’t be there. But I didn´t say anything about it because I prefer to think before acting, especially when feeling angry. At the same time, I don’t want her to think that she can disrespect me, this way or another.

We normally only use emojis or reactions to motivate or celebrate our coworkers, and I have never witnessed her using this kind of emoji with someone else on our team. Should I tell her how she made me feel or just get over it?

That is bizarre and inappropriate. Presumably she wouldn’t mime puking while giving you feedback about your work in person, and she shouldn’t do it via emoji either. In fact, I’ll posit that managers shouldn’t use emojis when giving critical feedback at all. A thumbs-up? Sure. But angry faces, puke, the poo emoji — all off-limits.

If this was out of character for your manager and you generally have decent rapport with her, you could say, “I appreciated your feedback on the webinar and I always want to hear where I could do something better — but did you mean to send me the puke emoji with it?”

On the other hand, if this feels in character for her and she’s generally a jerk, file this away as additional data about how she operates since there’s probably not a lot to be gained by addressing it with her (or, more accurately, there are bigger problems to worry about).

– 2020

2. Our “unpaid intern” is paid $42,000/year

I’m an executive assistant for a small nonprofit agency. I have access to people’s salary information and I’ve never really been concerned about the salaries and fairness before now. Occasionally we take on graduate student interns, very rarely are they paid internships, and if they are paid it’s not very substantial.

Last week I processed the unpaid internship paperwork for an intern we’ve had for almost a year. She’s been there longer than the necessary three months, and has qualified for her class credits so she doesn’t really need the internship anymore. I was fixing something with payroll and became aware that she’s been getting paid through an auxiliary account we use for building repair and maintenance. Her salary is bigger than mine and she’s only at the office two days a week, mostly watching TV or playing on her phone. I brought it to my boss’s attention and he gave me a smile and told me to forget about it.

Another colleague raised concerns about her behavior not reflecting our office values which might impact our place as a positive resource in the community, our boss shot him down and told him to leave the intern alone. She has free reign of the agency, including keys to the petty cash which she’s depleted more than once.

We’re due for an audit by our parent agency in December. I’m really concerned these financial discrepancies are going to fall back on me since I’m responsible for approving the time cards and filing the interns and new-hire paperwork. There have been shady financial things in the past that my boss tried to play up as my fault or an error that I didn’t catch.

That is super sketchy, and it really sounds like something untoward is going on here.

It’s unlikely that you’re going to be held responsible for this; you’re not the one authorizing these payments to her. But to protect yourself, put something in writing. For example, send an email to your boss saying, “I want to make sure you’re aware of my concerns about the payments going to Jane, who is supposed to be in an unpaid internship. I’m not clear on why these payments are going to her or who authorized it, but I wanted to reiterate my concern that we don’t have any documented explanation for the salary she’s receiving, and I’m concerned this will be a issue in our audit in December. I won’t keep pressing this if you’re handling it, just wanted to make sure the concern was flagged.”

You might also consider reporting this to your board of directors or to your parent organization. Your boss is being shady as hell.

– 2018

3. My old job still contacts me daily, almost a year after I left

In 2018 I left an unsavory work environment. I was a subject matter expert and office administrator for a small company of about 250. My department of 15 couldn’t function without me and I don’t mean that with pride. I worked there four years and no matter how many systems I had in place, training manuals, or step by step instructions or in-person trainings I did, I would get calls and texts all hours of the day and night, weekends, and during vacations asking how to do the most basic of our functions by industry professionals who had degrees and should have known how to do it. I would also get calls and texts like I was the office mom: “Where’s the batteries for this?” “How do I fix the coffee pot?”

I left in May of 2018 and started my own business but I am still DAILY getting calls, texts, and emails about how to do something from my former coworkers. Yesterday I got an email asking me who to call for copier repairs in an office I haven’t worked at in 10 months.

The first time they texted me asking for something, I made a joke about my hourly going rate for consultation and reminded them I no longer work there. It was met with pushback and more questions. I emailed my former boss and asked him to please quell the contact and he responded that it’s not his responsibility. I don’t respond to any of the contact but I have spent 35 hours this past year weeding their requests out of my personal email, my business email, my business social media pages, and off my home and business voicemails. I’m established with my business and I shouldn’t have to change my contact information.

Can I bill my former employer for this time? This is beyond insane.

Daily calls after nearly a year? This is indeed beyond insane.

But you can’t invoice them. You can’t send a bill for a service that someone never agreed to pay for. I mean, you can try it, and it’s possible that it’ll make your point (but it’s unlikely that they’ll pay it), but with a boss who says it’s “not his responsibility,” I’m skeptical that it’ll move him to action. (You also can’t really invoice people for contacting you if you’re not responding.)

Are you answering any of their questions when they contact you? If you are, even if it’s just a few, you’re reinforcing the behavior. I realize you said you’re not — but since they’re still contacting you this much so long after you left, I wonder if you’re doing it occasionally? If you are, effective immediately, answer nothing.

Beyond that, can you block their number(s) and set any emails from their domain to get straight to your trash so you never see them? (Or if you prefer, to a folder that you check once a month to be sure you don’t miss anything you’d want to see?) You should be able to block them on most social media too.

You can also send a formal, certified letter telling them they need to cease contact — you could even have a lawyer do that for you — but I suspect aggressive blocking will be your most effective option.

– 2019

4. Raffling off extra vacation days

The itinerary for the annual company picnic was posted this morning, and I just opened it to discover that two of the raffle prizes are extra vacation days. 3 x 1 full days, or 4 x 1 half days, in addition to the usual mix of gift cards. The raffle tickets are given out one per employee, and extras could be earned by wearing specific company colors or disease awareness shirts on specific days. (We’re a pharmaceutical company, in case diseases seems odd to non-pharma types.)

Is giving out extra vacation days to seven employees out of our entire staff of 500-1000ish people ethical? Is it legal? Is it advisable? We get less than industry standard — two weeks versus three weeks for most of biotech on the east coast. (Not sure about big pharma, but we’re definitely more biotech than big pharma.) We also are mostly salaried and, as such, have a little more leeway with taking time off, especially since many of us will put in a 10-12 hour day several times a year, and our supervisors don’t tend to stress if we leave early or come in late as long as our work gets done.

Anyway, am I wrong in thinking this feels unethical somehow? Or at the very least, weird? And if so, is there anything realistically that could be done about it?

It doesn’t strike me as particularly weird or unethical. It’s a thing some companies do. It does feel a little more slap-in-the-face in a company with stingy vacation time, but the idea of giving out extra vacation days itself isn’t outrageous.

– 2017

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