Send questions about the office, money, careers and work-life balance to [email protected]. Include your name and location, or a request to remain anonymous. Letters may be edited.
Check, Please
My first week at my job, the C.E.O. took me out to lunch. He informed me that he takes one employee out to lunch every week on a rotating basis to discuss his or her position and give feedback on how things could run more smoothly. I found our first lunch to be very uncomfortable and began to dread the next one. My position is mostly answering phone calls, so work-related issues are resolved in much less time than the hour and 30 minutes allotted for the lunches. This means that the conversation usually dovetails into discussing our personal lives, which I dislike. It also happens that the C.E.O. is my least favorite person at the company. I find him to be brash, immature and annoying. Last week, I was supposed to go out to lunch with him, but I asked to have a formal meeting in the conference room instead to discuss my performance. After a lot of back-and-forth, he finally agreed, but during the meeting told me how important it was to him to take his employees out to lunch. None of the other employees seem to object to the lunches. Am I in the wrong for wanting to avoid an awkward lunch?
— Anonymous
You’re not wrong. You feel what you feel, and though it isn’t out of the realm of acceptability for a conversation to take a turn toward the more personal, the fact that it makes you uncomfortable is worth addressing. The next time the C.E.O. asks you to lunch, explain that you’d prefer a more formal meeting again, and that you want this to be the arrangement going forward. If he asks you why, simply tell him you want to keep things strictly professional and avoid more casual interactions. Don’t apologize, and don’t overexplain. And ask him to give you professional feedback in writing, at which point you can suggest a one-on-one meeting. In the office.
A Smelly Situation
I work with a woman who has very strong body odor and poor hygiene. We have worked together for 20 years and she has been told numerous times that her odor is a problem (resulting in tears). The only time there was an improvement was when was she was told a few years ago that she would not be included in meetings until she handled this problem. She sought medical advice and was put on medication. That solved the worst of it, but now we are back to regular old odor, including mildew and the smell of dirty laundry. A co-worker thinks it would be hurtful to have another conversation. I’m resentful that it’s an issue yet again and don’t particularly want to have another conversation. Speaking to someone at the top won’t help, she IS at the top!
— The Golden State
Oh, boy. This is a tough one. A really tough one. But there are a few details missing from your query. One: Who told her, in the past, that her odor was a problem? Was it you? Someone else? That may help me figure out how to advise and navigate the situation. Ideally, someone above her in the organization would (gently) raise the issue and that would be that.
Anyway, that’s the ideal, not the reality. The reality is that your co-worker is right: It will probably be very hurtful to have a conversation. (And fraught, given that she’s “at the top.”) But I also think it’s worth trying again. I suspect your co-worker has been cursed with a very pungent body odor for which there is little recourse, save for the aforementioned medication. You may inquire as to whether she’s still on the medication, explaining that the odor issue has resurfaced and has become a problem yet again. Ask her if there’s anything you can do to help, and approach her with compassion, acknowledging, openly, that you understand this is a difficult conversation for both of you, and that you want to be as respectful as possible.
Listen: I don’t think there’s anything you can do to “save” your co-worker from feeling embarrassed, or to prevent her from crying. I understand your feelings of irritation and onerousness. But try to keep that resentment and disgust to yourself. You may also want to “include” yourself in the conversation as much as possible. Explain that you have a sensitive nose, so to speak, and that you want to work with her to solve a problem that is facing both of you. What I wouldn’t do is bring your co-workers into the conversation. In addition to the humiliation she will probably feel about the assertion that she smells bad, communicating that this is a problem among your larger professional cohort is likely to result in further embarrassment. Good luck.
A Tricky Power Dynamic
I am a young manager in the hospitality department of a major corporate institution. I love my job and I have a good amount of experience for my age. My on-site office has only two employees — myself and a part-time guest services worker.
A new employee started about a month ago. She is double my age, sensitive to criticism and very particular about everything, from cleanliness to the content of her work. The problem: I need her to at least not push back on everything I say to her. “Hey, it’s OK to make this mistake, just be more mindful in the future” turns into her being alarmingly defensive and saying she didn’t make the mistake in the first place.
I have grown a lot in confrontation and lowering my people-pleasing, but my issue comes in how to actually approach these little issues that are piling up. She is a Black woman who has told me about past employers who have criticized her for being “moody, aggressive and asking for too much.” I know that these comments come as a result of unchecked racism and misogyny, and that she and countless other Black women experience this throughout their lives. As someone who is white, I recognize that it’s my duty to deconstruct these things, call them out when I see them and devote myself to antiracism, and I’m trying my best to do so. But what happens if she is actually just being a difficult person? How do I do justice to this conversation with someone who seems dead set on taking everything personally?
— Anonymous
OK, let’s get the issue of race out of the way first. I don’t mean to suggest that we address micro (or macro) aggressions in an effort to move past them quickly, but I suspect your trepidation about how to approach her has a little, or a lot, to do with the issue of race. Black women who assert themselves ARE often regarded as aggressive or angry, and doing justice to the conversation means it’s important that you recognize this, and are sensitive to it.
But I wouldn’t bring it up unless she does, at which point I’d suggest you acknowledge her reality and her past experiences while not harping on them or — and I hate to use this word, but here goes — “indulging” them too much. Acknowledge, and then move on. As for what to move on to? Tell the employee that being obstinate is simply unacceptable, and that, although you don’t expect her to never make a mistake, not owning up to errors and becoming overly defensive are professional failings that she needs to work on. Explain that you want her to succeed, and that part of setting her up for success — for both of you — involves her growing, not just in terms of literal work skills, but also in emotional intelligence and self-awareness. Make it clear that she is unlikely to achieve this success, or move onward or upward within the company, if she continues to be obstinate and defensive.
Her behaviors are not simply what you would call “little issues”: Attitude is everything. It informs not just interpersonal dynamics within a workplace but also an employee’s approach to the actual work he or she is doing. If she’s a guest-services worker, I have to think that her orientation toward your guests may also be affected by what appears to be a sometimes-antagonistic approach. Be firm, but kind. And if all else fails, start documenting incidences in which her defensiveness gets in the way of helping to cultivate a mutually respectful working relationship — or leads to direct problems with her work. Then, you may consider having a more in-depth conversation with her, providing her with “proof” of these incidences.
As for the age difference, I would do the same thing I recommended you do with regards to race: Don’t bring it up unless she does, and then, hear her out, but don’t harp on it. Your employee may bristle against what can feel like the entitlement or even the “inexperience” of a younger and more powerful co-worker — speaking for myself, there are generational differences that can prove to be highly irritating to those of us who are older — but what are you going to do?
The post Thanks, but No Thanks appeared first on New York Times.