boss was upset I wanted to leave when our A/C failed, when a beloved figure is laid off, and more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

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

1. My boss was upset I wanted to leave when our A/C failed

Last year, my coworker spent the majority of an eight-hour Saturday shift in a public building with no operable bathroom. She reported a sewage backup to our boss and the answering service of the facilities department responsible for maintaining the toilets, but her calls for help went unanswered.

This was on my mind last Saturday, when our building’s A/C failed. I put in the same calls, but the only response I got was my boss asking me to let her know if it gets any hotter. A little before noon, I texted back: “It’s hotter! If help is on the way, let me know. Because otherwise, I am not going to come back from my lunch break. It’s just too hot to finish out my shift.”

My boss called back and told me that if I did not come back from lunch, others would almost certainly follow until there would not be enough staff to keep the building open. And also, she could not even start the approval process to close the building until the temperature rose another five degrees, a temperature that represents an OSHA violation. So I had to come back from lunch to finish my shift.

I appreciate the tough position she is in, and I get that the most expedient way for her to do her job is to demand that I do mine. But my job involves air conditioning! And the last time a similar situation happened, she left my coworker stranded! As far as I know, she did not even try to summon help or start the building failure approval process even though the situation then was much more dire.

In the end, a repairman did arrive and cool us down so I was able to happily finish my shift. But my boss is very unhappy because I threatened to leave. Was there a better way for me to handle this?

It’s hard to know without knowing what kind of temperatures we’re talking about. OSHA doesn’t require specific temperatures, but they do recommend 68-76° F — so if your boss was saying she couldn’t close the building until it got to 77° … well, that doesn’t seem that outrageous (in fact, 78° is supposedly the best eco-friendly thermostat setpoint in the summer). That said, temperature is very personal (my husband might expire at that temperature) and if you’re too hot to comfortably work, you’re too hot to comfortably work, and explaining that wasn’t out of line.

Ultimately I think it really depends on (a) how much of your concern was based on knowing no one had been responsive to your coworker’s bathroom situation last year and worrying this would be the same, versus (b) your actual temperature/level of discomfort. If your concern was the former rather than the latter, telling your boss that you didn’t plan to come back from lunch based on something you feared might happen but hadn’t actually happened yet was overkill … although in that case it would have been fine to say, “There’s a point where it won’t be feasible for people to stay and work, so if that happens we’ll need to leave early.”

But either way, your boss being “very unhappy” over this is a bit much.

2. Does board member’s comment mean I’m about to get a big raise?

I work in a nonprofit where the staff and the board really get along and generally have friendly relationships. Tonight, I ran into a member of the executive committee at my nephew’s track meet. She’s a realtor by trade, and while we were chatting, she said, “So, you’ve been in this city for a while, have you thought about buying a house?” I laughed and basically said, “You know what my salary is. What are you on and can I have some?” Her response was something cryptic about waiting for review season.

Now, my boss had recently mentioned something about moving me from an associate in my department to potentially leading a small team, which I assumed would come with a pay bump, but definitely not one that moves me from “my car is 15 years old and I’m dreading the day it bites it” territory to “able to afford a house” territory.

On one hand, this is great news. On the other, this was a cryptic suggestion about a number that is probably not official yet, and I have no idea if what I’m even imagining she means is what she actually means (like most cities, it costs a lot less to get a house in some parts than others). So my question is, how do I not get too attached to this idea? I’m afraid that she’s set my hopes too high and my new number won’t measure up. Or maybe things change and I don’t get the promotion after all. Before this conversation, I was perfectly happy at the salary I’m at for the job that I do in the city where I live. Now I’m just anxious. Please help!

Put it out of your head entirely. There’s a decent chance that she was speaking to you as a real estate agent rather than a board member, and al estate agents like to encourage people to buy property. “Wait until review season” does not necessarily mean “you are about to get an enormous pay bump that will put buying a house within reach.” It could just mean “maybe you’ll get a raise, but I have no idea whether that will change anything meaningful about your ability to buy property” (as she doesn’t know your expenses, whether you have a partner whose income will go toward a house too, etc.) … or it could be a semi-uncomfortable “yeah, our salaries are low, hopefully you’ll get a bump soon” … or it could mean nothing at all and just be a pleasant nicety with no meaning attached to it. Frankly, she shouldn’t be intimating anything about any potential raise outside of official channels, and there’s a good chance that she didn’t mean to for you to take her remark as seriously as you did (even though it’s understandable that you did!).

That could all turn out to be wrong, of course. Maybe you’re about to get a huge raise! But you’re much better off attributing no meaning to her comment, and then letting it be a happy surprise if that does happen.

3. When a beloved figure is laid off, is fan outcry helpful or hurtful?

I’m hoping to hear your take on a situation from my doll collecting hobby. Mattel and Barbie are some of the biggest names in this space, and in a recent round of Mattel layoffs, a beloved Barbie doll designer named Bill Greening was included. The community reaction was immediate — people were sharing corporate contact information, people declaring on social media they wouldn’t add to their collection unless he was reinstated, etc. There’s even a change.org petition to get him rehired with 2,600 signatures.

I know that fan-related businesses come with a whole series of unique challenges, but collector dolls are a relatively small piece of Mattel’s business. Obviously there’s a lot going on over there the community isn’t privy to — there were over 100 employees laid off, but Bill is the one with the active community relationships that have rallied in support. In your opinion, is this community outrage likely to be more helpful or hurtful for Greening’s future employment opportunities, either with Mattel or with another toy company? If this is hurtful, can you think of positive ways for the community to support him?

I don’t know enough about the situation to comment with any nuance, but in general this kind of thing doesn’t tend to hurt people’s future ability to get hired and can sometimes help, by demonstrating community enthusiasm for the person and creating an opening for another company to capitalize on that fan base. It’s unlikely that the original employer will reinstate him based on the outrage (and presumably they were aware of his fan base before deciding to lay him off) but it’s not out of the realm of possibility either. (Although if you were Bill, would you go back if they offered? If they did offer, though, he’d be in a good position to try to negotiate something extra out of it.)

4. I’m applying for a job at my husband’s company — when should I mention it?

I received an interview request today for a position I’m very interested in — at my husband’s employer. He’s been there going on 13 years, and one of the reasons I applied for the role in the first place is the positive experience he’s had as an employee there.

The position I applied for is completely unrelated to what he does, and we wouldn’t even be working in the same office building (or in the same town, for that matter — the company has a pretty substantial presence in our area). But my home address is on my resume, and one of the first things that pops up when you Google either of our names is our wedding announcement.

Do I mention anything during the initial interview? I’m not trying to hide anything from the interviewer, but it also doesn’t feel like it would be super helpful to volunteer information about my spouse when it might not be necessary. Complicating things slightly is the fact that the role I’m applying for is within HR.

If the job wasn’t in HR, I’d say to bring it up at the offer stage — as a sort of covering-your-bases FYI, so that it doesn’t look weird that you never mentioned it and in case they have any policies that would make that a problem (which is unlikely given the very separate jobs, but it’s better to find out before accepting if they do).

But with the job being in HR, you should mention it earlier, since being in HR increases the chances that it might be something they wouldn’t allow. Given that, I’d mention it in the first interview so that you don’t waste your time if it’s a no-go, framed as, “I wanted to mention my spouse works in the X division. I don’t foresee that being an issue for us, but since the job is in HR, I want to flag it now in case that would pose any concerns for you.”

5. “Couldn’t care less” vs. “could care less”

This isn’t an office question but more of a clarification. I have several times noticed letter writers using the phrase “could care less.” I was under the impression is should be “couldn’t care less” because that announces that I am at the lowest level of caring. By saying somebody “could care less,” it means they are not quite at rock bottom, but I don’t think that is the message the writer is trying to convey. Am I wrong?

You are correct; the expression is properly “couldn’t care less,” for the reason you said. However, the scone is out of the barn on that one; “could care less” has been used for so long that in practice they’ve become interchangeable. (Here is Merriam-Webster agreeing with me.)

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