intern won’t stop giving unsolicited “corrections,” I have bad breath and have to meet with clients, and more

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

1. Intern won’t stop giving unsolicited “corrections”

We’ve been dealing with a troublesome intern. He keeps giving senior members of the staff unsolicited advice, corrections, and “tips” about everything from life lessons to ways for everyone to do their work. He’s been told many times that it’s inappropriate and that other members of the staff are uncomfortable with it but he keeps doing it. How, as a manager, can I deal with this situation without making it difficult for the intern? I’m afraid I will shatter his self-esteem as it’s seems fragile despite the over-confidence.

You’re not doing him any favors by dancing around it! Since softer conversations haven’t worked, the kindest thing you can do at this point is to be blunt and straightforward. Lay out clearly what he needs to stop doing, and don’t pull your punches when you say it. Otherwise he’s going to keep repeating the behavior at future jobs and it will impact him longer-term than it will at an internship. The whole point of interning is to learn this kind of thing when the stakes are lower than they will be later on.

If you’ve already been very direct and it’s still happening — i.e., you’ve given him clear directives to stop doing XYZ and he’s continuing it anyway — then you should reconsider keeping him on. Your job isn’t to protect his self-esteem at the expense of letting him aggravate everyone else.

Related:
our intern told us our ideas were boring and stupid

2. Is there anything worth saying to my manager after a coworker was laid off?

I work for a medium-sized company in an industry that has had a rocky few years. We’ve had two rounds of layoffs per year in the three years I’ve been there. The previous layoffs didn’t directly affect my team, which has historically been a little undersized compared to the amount of work it does.

But recently, one member of my four-person team was let go and my manager, grandboss, and great-grandboss all separately asserted that no further layoffs were planned (they say this after every layoff) and I am a valued member of the team (ditto), and asked me to share my feelings and any questions not related to immediate logistical needs.

I let them all know that I was personally bummed and professionally concerned but didn’t have any non-logistical questions, which seemed to fall a bit flat. I just … couldn’t think of anything to ask that they would be able to answer, and didn’t see any point in burdening them with the actual intensity of my feelings (very sad! extremely anxious!).

Are there any questions I could ask and expect a meaningful answer? Is there some etiquette around asking the non-meaningful questions anyway? I came out of all three conversations feeling like I’d missed the mark.

Most likely they were hoping you would ask things that they could give reassuring-sounding answers to, so they could feel confident that they had left you reassured. When you didn’t do that, it felt like the conversation “fell flat” because they were left to sit with the knowledge that you’re probably still uneasy. Which you presumably are! And which they shouldn’t be trying to reassure you out of unless they truly have extremely solid, insider knowledge that more layoffs aren’t going to hit your team. And maybe they do have that knowledge, but it’s very unlikely that there’s anything they could say on that front that you’d find believable; that’s just how it goes when a company has two rounds of layoffs per year for three years. The discomfort is theirs — because it’s an inherently uncomfortable situation — but it doesn’t need to be yours.

If you really wanted to ask something, you could have asked how you could be confident that more layoffs weren’t going to hit your area (which is probably what they were expecting you to ask) but the problem with that question is that you can’t put real weight on the answer. Maybe your remaining team is safe now and maybe they have a business explanation for why, but there’s no reason you should believe that, even if they say it, since it sounds like they offer false reassurances after every round of cuts.

3. I have bad breath and have to meet with clients

I have recently developed tonsil stones. While this is otherwise nothing more than a slight annoyance, it comes with the embarrassing symptom of truly horrifying bad breath. I’ve tried mints, gum, mouthwash, you name it. Nothing seems to make it go away completely. I’m in a public-facing role and I meet with clients and small groups throughout the day.

How would you handle this? Wear a mask? Live off of Altoids and hope it masks the odor? Be up-front and apologize? I cringe with embarrassment every time I have to be in close quarters with a client.

When someone feels self-conscious about something extremely noticeable, I’m normally a fan of just mentioning it so it’s out of the way (for example, this person who was in the middle of dental work and interviewing while missing several front teeth — ooh, and the first update ever published on this site was from someone in a similar situation), but for some reason with this I feel like it’s more likely to make the other person more uncomfortable than if you didn’t mention it. I’m curious to hear other opinions on that, though.

If you’re up for wearing a mask, that would almost certainly help. Alternately, yes, Altoids (or a similarly strong mint) right before or during a meeting. And can you arrange your chair so that you’re not as likely to be breathing right in their space? (Last, probably doesn’t need to be said, but talk to your doctor! Tonsil stones can be treated.)

4. Can we consider leaves of absences when deciding on raises?

My employer has an annual raise cycle that we’re coming up on where any employee who is meeting expectations is generally given a raise. They are merit-based in that employees who do not meet expectations in their annual performance review do not qualify, and managers get a budget of X% of their total team’s salary to divide among individuals as they deem appropriate. In the training for this year’s merit cycle, HR recommended that raises be prorated for hires during the year (reasonable, in my opinion) and for leaves of absence (outrageous, in my opinion).

Is this legal for them to do? It seems like it would disproportionately impact women taking leave to have children, and leaving it to manager discretion seems extra dicey.

Federal law says that employees who were on FMLA or parental leave for part of the year are entitled to any unconditional pay increases that cover that period (like if everyone is getting an X% raise), but when it’s performance based (e.g., dependent on productivity or meeting specific goals) employers are allowed to factor in time away from the job, as long as they do it equally for all types of leave. In other words, they couldn’t decide to prorate raises for people who were on maternity leave but not do the same thing for someone who was out on a different type of leave.

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