updates: employee claiming overtime when not working, pushing back as a group when you’re all remote, and more

Here are three updates from past letter-writers.

1. Should I tell my boss about an employee who’s claiming overtime when she’s not working? (#4 at the link)

Your response and the comments gave me the courage to bring this up again with the manager. I used the morale and budget angles (my director is currently keeping an eye on the budget due to the current instability) and it seems to have worked. Manager actually agreed they could no longer sanction (turn a blind eye to) 5+ hours of overtime a week. It is fine if the employee wants to come in early and hang out, but they need to clock in when the work begins.

Thank you for giving me the confidence and courage to push the issue. This is a great example of how sometimes we need to think about how we present and push before going up the chain. In this case, the manager is doing their job — managing! — with a couple prompts. It is good for them, and the employee.

Of course, proof is in the pudding. If it continues, I will have to go to my director. Thanks again!

2. How do we push back as a group when we’re all remote?

A pretty mundane update to this one. To clarify, I found the camera-on requirement to be a mild annoyance, but the mic-on requirement was my main concern. The email announcing the change said that microphones-on for all attendees would be “REQUIRED” (all caps) (twice), and there was a reminder before the first updated meeting to keep mics on, so it seemed like they were serious about enforcing it.

Anyway, the first time this meeting happened, almost everyone followed the rule and left their mics on. It was annoying, but the sound interference wasn’t as bad as I might have feared (a few coughs and pets making noises, but nothing too terrible). Over the next few weeks, however, fewer and fewer people went mic on — so that now, a few months in, we’re back to the standard of everyone being on mute unless you have something specific to say. In a way, it’s like we all pushed back a group without needing to coordinate, since everyone just … stopped following the rule. It’s still camera-on for everyone, but that’s tolerable.

I still appreciate your advice, and while I hope I never need to use it, I feel I have a better sense of what steps to take if I do!

3. How to handle thank-you notes for A LOT of interviewers (#5 at the link)

I ended up speaking to seven people, and I decided to play it safe and send follow-up notes to all of them, including the repeat folks from the first-round interview. Long story short, I got the job! Using your advice, I successfully negotiated for a higher salary than the initial offer, and then I picked up my life and moved to a new city. I’ve been at the job for six months now and I like it a lot overall, but the environment has grown more challenging recently for the same reason most office environments have. So we’ll see what the next few years look like.

Thank you again for the advice!

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