digs about working from home, coworker doesn’t check references because “everyone just lists their friends,” and more

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

1. How can I manage digs about remote working and return-to-office?

I’m a woman in my 60s, and before Covid I was doing a long, multi‑leg commute five days a week. Working primarily from home has dramatically improved my health, energy, productivity, and ability to manage everyday life. However, now my workplace is requiring us to be in the office more, and I’m not sure how to handle a few friends who make unsupportive comments about it. Most of my friends understand and are considerate, but a small group repeatedly dismisses my concerns.

They tell me to retire, “suck it up,” or insist that office work is better for collaboration and socializing, even though that doesn’t reflect the reality of my workplace. And the commute is the biggest factor, and they know it.

What makes this more frustrating is that these particular friends either don’t work at all or are self‑employed and mostly work from home themselves. Yet they expect me to accommodate plans that would require me to leave work early, travel late at night before early office days, or take time off. They’re unwilling to adjust plans or meet halfway, and their comments often include digs about people “slacking off” or mothers (not parents) doing school pickups. If I did resign, and took the financial hit while job‑hunting, I doubt they’d adjust their expectations or activity choices to accommodate my new budget.

I’ve tried explaining the real impact that increased commuting has on my health, time, and finances, and that I can’t reduce the burden without taking a significant financial hit. I’ve corrected misconceptions, avoided the topic, and changed the subject when they bring it up, but the comments continue. I now even dread being asked what days I’ll be in the office, because what used to be a simple scheduling question reliably turns into a rant about remote workers. I sometimes feel tempted to snap back with something unkind, but I don’t want to go there.

I can distance myself from these particular friends if I need to, but it’s made me wonder how people who deal with similar comments from relatives manage it, especially when they want to maintain those relationships and genuinely enjoy family gatherings. They just want to show up and have a pleasant time without bracing for Uncle or Aunt X to take a dig at them. I’m looking for better ways anyone in this situation can respond when these conversations keep happening despite clear discomfort.

First, why is this group of friends so focused on this topic in the first place? If you’re the one bringing it up, you should stop — for whatever reason, they’re not the right audience for it — and if it’s them, tell them you need a break from it.

But also, they don’t sound like great friends. It’s one thing to make a few out-of-touch comments because they just haven’t thought it through, but if they’re the ones initiating the topic, you’ve explained the situation, and the comments haven’t stopped and they’re unwilling to adjust any plans to allow for the reality that you have an on-site job and a commute? The issue is the friends.

But with people you can’t escape, like family members, the easiest strategy is to avoid talking about work altogether, or quickly change the topic if it comes up. “Ugh, I can’t do any more work talk right now — tell me all about how the hemorrhoid surgery was” and “Yeah, what are you gonna do — so how are the kids doing?” should become your staples (even if — and perhaps especially if — there isn’t actually any hemorrhoid surgery coming up).

2. My coworker doesn’t check references because “everyone just lists their friends”

I’m a manager at a smallish firm (i.e., no dedicated HR team for hiring). A colleague of mine at the same level has a couple openings on his team, and in a recent conversation told me he “never checks references, because people always just put their friends down anyways.” Yikes!

I was caught off guard by his comment in the moment, and looking back I’m curious how you’d respond to this. I think some of the issue might be how he conducts reference checks in the first place — I’ve heard it’s best to ask open-ended questions about working style, or whether a candidate is more X or more Y, versus asking whether their skills are any good or other questions where you might just get a “oh yeah, they’re great!” kind of response. I’ve also heard it can be good practice to reach out to former (not current!) companies on a candidate’s resume directly to see if there’s any info they can provide outside the provided reference list. I’m lucky enough that my team has had very little turnover since I’ve been here (so it’s been a minute since I’ve had to check references), whereas my colleague is often hiring.

First, it’s categorically not true that most people just put down their friends. Most people don’t. Occasionally someone does, and a good reference checker screens for that by getting specific information about how the reference knows the candidate, what their role was when they worked together and how their jobs intersected, and how closely they worked together.

Second, I suspect you’re right that this guy hasn’t conducted effective reference checks, if he’s conducted them all. (And yes, you are also right about asking more open-ended questions, including ones that don’t make the “right” answer obvious.) He also sounds like he sees references as pass/fail, when in fact they should be a lot more nuanced than that; someone could receive a glowing reference that makes you realize they’re not actually the strongest match for the job you’re hiring for (such as a reference who raves about how fast-paced and entrepreneurial the person is when you need someone who will thrive in a job that requires a slower, more deliberate pace and adherence to a precise structure).

As for how to respond, you could talk to him about your own experience checking references and how you’ve found it helpful … or you might just show him this!

3. Should I let my great boss know I’m thinking about leaving?

I have a weird gift: pretty quickly I become the “right hand (wo)man” of my boss in every place I’ve worked. Generally, this means that they trust me, confide in me (not inappropriately, but they may share some behind the scenes information), rely on me for feedback about decisions that they’re thinking of making, have conversations with me about kids, life, etc. I think this stems both from the fact that I’m a pretty good conversationalist and generally provide solid analytical advice, and because I’ve never abused any trust so they know I won’t gossip about things I’ve learned from these conversations. In all those cases, I’ve genuinely liked my bosses, and it has created relationships that are partially friendship-based, with them going to bat for me whenever I needed it.

However, when I’ve decided to leave because I found a better opportunity that aligns with my career goals, all my bosses have had a hard time not being personally offended that I “dropped a bomb” on them. None of them were unprofessional about it, but they were clearly hurt and confused (like starting a sentence with “I can’t believe you didn’t talk to me first, we could have worked something out…”, only to realize what they said and backtrack to “I guess you can’t really share with your boss that you’re thinking of leaving”). In all those instances, even if I had shared my intentions with them, there was really nothing they could have done — my next professional step clearly involved leaving.

Now I’ve been at the same place for four years, and I’m looking into finding a more senior role (with higher compensation), which isn’t currently available where I am. My boss and I are very close, she pushes for me to get big projects and recognition within the company, trusts me as her inner circle, and would be blindsided if I left. While the role I am looking for doesn’t currently exist here, I’m not 100% sure that it can’t be created, if absolutely necessary. Do you recommend that I broach the subject of leaving with my boss before I find another job and announce that I’m leaving? The advantage would be to give her a chance to try and create the role that I want (with commensurate compensation) and avoid blindsiding her after many instances where she went above and beyond for me. Ideally, I’d love to be able to stay under such terms. The drawback of course, is showing my cards before I have an outside offer on the table. My understanding has always been that it’s usually not a good idea to get what you want by threatening to leave. How do I navigate this?

Yes, in a situation where you’re highly valued by your boss and have a strong relationship, it can make sense to put your cards a bit on the table. It’s not about threatening to leave; it’s about sharing with her that you’re starting to think about your next step and would love to be able to stay.

So the framing isn’t “I’m starting to job search and will leave if you don’t create a role for me a role doing ABC.” It’s more: “I’m starting to think about where I want my career to take me long-term, and I’m wondering if the company would ever consider creating a role like ABC. I would love to stay here long-term, and I think that work would benefit us in XYZ ways.” You don’t need to spell out “and I will leave if the answer is no” — she’s going to be able to read between the lines and understand what you’re saying.

Related:
how to ask my company to pay me more if they want me to stay

4. Is my boss BS’ing me about why a contractor is earning so much more than me?

My boss has put me on an infernal hellscape of a group project, and I am the only person regularly working on the project who’s on staff — everyone else is a contractor. One of the contractors, “Fergus,” was brought on to essentially be a second me. Our jobs on the project are extremely similar, though I have a few added responsibilities — let’s say we are both designing the product, sourcing materials for the product, and building the product, but I am also testing the product.

Fergus is currently negotiating his contract, and I just found out that he’s asking for $30,000 more a year than I’m currently paid. While it’s extremely unlikely that he’ll get that, I talked to some of our past contractors, and I think it’s quite likely that my boss will pay Fergus over $10,000 more per year than I’m paid, even though we will be doing the same job on this group project and I will also be expected to keep performing my other duties outside of the group project.

I talked to my boss about this and said that because Fergus and I have the same duties, I would expect to be paid at least as much as him. My boss said that negotiating around this was premature, since the group project is still in its early stages. However, he then added that contractors are often paid more than staff employees because they don’t get benefits and don’t “benefit from the predictability” of being a salaried employee somewhere.

Is this even a little bit a thing? I can’t say I trust my boss to be honest about this, and my benefits package is so small that even if I factored it in, Fergus would still be getting paid more than me. Also it’s not like Fergus is some super sought after rockstar who we have to pay a lot to retain—it really just seems like the going rate for contractors went up, and my workplace is avoiding raising salaries to match them. How would you suggest I negotiate around this?

This is 100% a thing! Independent contractors are typically paid significantly more than employees (often around twice as much) because they’re responsible for their own payroll taxes (including the employer portion that your company pays for you if you’re an employee), as well as not getting health insurance or paid time off. If they were paid the same as employees, their take-home pay after all those things were deducted would be significantly less than yours, and that’s before getting into inherently having less stability than employees. $30,000 more than an employee isn’t outside the norm.

You can still negotiate if you believe your work warrants more pay than you’re getting now. You just shouldn’t base it on what contractors are getting.

The post digs about working from home, coworker doesn’t check references because “everyone just lists their friends,” and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

View the full article