interviewer was upset I wouldn’t tell him whether I was married, my coworker comes to work high, and more

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

1. My coworker comes to work high

I work in an animal care setting and overheard a coworker casually mention that they had taken an edible about an hour before the end of their shift. They said it didn’t fully hit them until the last few minutes of work, but during that time they were asked to help restrain a patient. They weren’t administering medication in this instance, but they were still performing tasks while impaired. They also mentioned that there have been a few times when they’ve come to work slightly under the influence.

I know some coworkers use substances on their own time, and our workplace doesn’t test or screen for this. I don’t have an issue with what people do off the clock, but using anything before or during a shift — especially in a role involving patient care — feels unsafe to me. At the same time, I don’t want to create problems for others or inadvertently push the workplace toward testing policies that impact everyone.

I’m not sure what the right step is. Should I say something, leave it alone, or approach the situation in another way?

This wouldn’t be the case with all jobs, but because of the nature of this one, it’s a safety issue — for the animals and for your coworkers. You should say something. That would be true even if it had just happened once, but they’re apparently doing it repeatedly.

Talk to your boss about what you heard. It sucks that you have to, but that’s on your coworker, not on you.

2. Interviewer was upset I wouldn’t tell him whether I was married

I’m a female physician. I had a call with a recruiter, and the second question he asked me was, “Are you married?” And then, “What kind of work do they do?” When I asked neutrally, “Oh, why do you ask?” he got very upset that I didn’t want to answer the question and said, “No one has ever done this (refused to answer) in my 25 years of recruiting.” I tried to smooth things over, but then he hung up on me.

Unfortunately I don’t know which organization he is representing and I think he may be the head of his recruiting group so I had no one to report his behavior to. This is unfortunately a question I get asked a lot, and just to avoid this kind of scenario I’ll answer, but I hate having to do that! Is there anything else I can say?

“Oh, why do you ask?” is the exact right response to this kind of question. It’s not illegal for them to ask (a common misconception), but it’s illegal for them to factor in your answer in any way so there’s no reason they need to ask, and it’s a good way to instantly make candidates uncomfortable.

One alternative is to answer what you think they’re really getting at, which in this case was probably something about whether you would be able to devote enough time and focus to the job. So for example, you could say, “Oh, I have great family support for my career, that’s never been an issue.” And if he responded to that by again asking if you were married, at that point I might say, “I’ve never been asked that in an interview before (even though you have) — why do you ask?”

But also, this particular recruiter sounds like a massive tool.

3. My boss says she wants to accommodate immunocompromised people, but won’t hold hybrid staff meetings

I work at a public institution of higher education. I’m immunocompromised, which my managers knows (although she does not know the exact condition). On the days I’m in-person at work (we all work a hybrid schedule), I consistently mask and am very careful about protecting my health. Our quarterly all-staff meetings have been hybrid for several years now, after being totally online during Covid. These have never been particularly fruitful meetings, neither informationally nor for team-building, though my manager wants to make them more useful.

At a meeting last year, she brought up the idea of making our next meeting in-person only. I mentioned that we have immunocompromised and medically vulnerable people on staff (I’m not the only one, but I have tenure and can more easily speak out) and suggested considering ways to make the meetings less risky — like at least making the winter meetings fully online. She asked to meet with me one-on-one to discuss ideas for making the meetings safer and I shared other ideas too, like holding our September and June meetings in a space with windows that open. We have two campus spaces like that where we’ve held all-staff meetings in the past so this doesn’t seem a huge ask.

My manager seems to have taken none of what I said to heart. Our September meeting was in-person only and was in a space where no windows or doors could be opened, though she did have a couple of HEPA filters in the space. But now she is proposing making our February meeting every year all-day and in-person only and making our fall and spring meetings half-day and hybrid. I’m at a loss as to why she would make the meeting during the height of flu and norovirus season in-person and why she asked for my suggestions in the first place if she was going to ignore them.

I know being immunocompromised is a real disability, but I feel like it’s treated like it isn’t because, unlike being a wheelchair user faced with a space only accessible by stairs, I physically can go to these meetings. It’s just at tremendous risk to my health. And I have some colleagues who go to work sick all the time, which makes it even more risky. I’ve already brought this up in meetings with others present and in that one-on-one meeting and it clearly had no effect. Should I just tell her I can’t attend? Talk to HR, which is notoriously unhelpful and their ADA coordinator left last spring? Keep pushing back? I’m already dealing with an illness that gets worse when I’m stressed and I wonder if it’s easier to just take a sick day and skip the meeting to avoid the whole thing. I feel so demoralized at this point.

At a minimum, tell her you can’t attend. Sample language: “I can’t safely attend an all-day in-person meeting, so would it be better for me to call in or skip this one?”

But you could also say, “I know you’d asked for ideas to make these safer for immunocompromised employees, and one thing would be — if one of these has to be full-day and in-person — to make it the fall or spring one, not the February one, since that’s the height of flu season.”

Or even: “I know you’d asked for ideas to make these safer for immunocompromised employees, and I’m curious if you ran into obstacles doing that. I might be able to better tailor ideas if I know more about the constraints we need to work within.”

4. I was laid off and still have my laptop — is there a point where it becomes mine?

I got laid off mid-November, and HR said we’d receive instructions for returning our equipment. While my company access was cut off, and my laptop was remotely wiped, it’s now mid-January and I haven’t heard anything about returning it. I emailed last week asking, and haven’t gotten a response. I live near an office, but the implication during layoffs was that they don’t want laid off employees coming back to the building, understandably.

Is there a point at which the equipment is mine? I’ve seen some advice that at some point you’re within your rights to notify the company that you’ll be disposing of the equipment if you don’t hear from them in X amount of time, but what if you wanted to use it instead of dispose of it?

First, try calling them instead of emailing — just on the principle that if one method of communication doesn’t work, you should try a second method before giving up.

But if you still don’t get a response, contact them and say, “I have not heard back from you about how to return my equipment, despite asking on (date) and (date), so this is notice that I plan to dispose of the equipment unless you arrange otherwise by (date).” If you really want to be safe, you can send that by certified mail. In most jurisdictions, 30-60 days will be considered a reasonable window to offer, and after that you are free to dispose of the equipment as you wish (which you don’t need to volunteer will mean “now it’s for personal use”).

The post interviewer was upset I wouldn’t tell him whether I was married, my coworker comes to work high, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

View the full article