coworker constantly derails meetings, bare butts at work, and more

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

1. My coworker constantly interrupts our boss at meetings

I go to a monthly team meeting that includes my team of seven people, my boss, and our grandboss. We take turns giving updates and discussing issues. There is a portion of the meeting where grandboss provides updates, usually responding to prompts from our boss.

Lately this portion of the meeting has been consistently derailed by a team member, Tracy. My boss will ask our grandboss a question and Tracy answers with how she would like the response to be addressed. Then she goes off on a tangent or asks a different question, and our grandboss follows the tangent or different question. 10 or 15 minutes later, our boss will ask the same or a different question and it starts all over

Since I am not the boss, can I interrupt Tracy the very second she takes over and request, “Can you please let Grandboss take the question?” Are there other options? I have considered asking my boss separately or asking the whole group at the beginning of the meeting whether interrupting can be redirected. However I also feel uncomfortable doing that because I am not the boss.

Unfortunately it has gotten so bad lately that I am feeling more and more comfortable with the thought of screaming “STOP INTERRUPTING” and running out of the meeting cackling like a maniac.

Your boss and grandboss are equal contributors to this problem too, because they should be managing the meetings more assertively — either saying, “Actually I wanted to hear from Jane” or “I’d like to answer that question myself” or speaking to Tracy about it privately after the meeting is over.

But since that’s not happening, can you talk to your boss about it one-on-one? Point out that Tracy is consistently derailing meetings by answering questions that aren’t addressed to her and it’s using up meeting time that could be better spent, and ask if she’d be willing to head off those interruptions.

In theory, if you’re reasonably senior you could jump in yourself and say, “I think Mariah wanted Jane’s thoughts on that” or “I’d be interested in hearing Jane’s perspective on the original question,” but since it’s a chronic problem it probably makes sense to talk to your boss about it directly.

Related:
how to handle chronic interrupters/ramblers at meeting

2. Bare butts in the workplace

I just experienced the opposite of the letter-writer whose question about a tenured professor mooning students you answered recently. I work at a university in a staff position. Today, I was in line to go to a meeting where you had to sign in at a desk before going inside. Ahead of me was a student in those very short cutoff jean shorts that are trendy with the young folks. When she bent over to sign in, the bottom half of her butt cheeks were on full view. I’m not interested in seeing the butt of someone who’s probably 15 years younger than me, so I just looked away until she was gone.

It seems unsanitary to wear shorts so short that your butt has direct contact with your chair. Do I just have to get over it? I pass as a man (albeit a gay one), so there’s no world in which it would be appropriate for me to say something in this situation. Is it anti-body positive of me to prefer not to be exposed to seeing people’s butts in my place of work?

It’s not anti-body positive not to want to see bare asses in your workplace.

But sometimes seeing more skin than you’d want to is a hazard of working around students, since it’s not their workplace and they’re (usually) not subject to the same dress code as employees are. If no one else is setting or enforcing a dress code for them, there’s not a lot you can do.

All you really could do is exactly what you did: let her go about her business and get on with your day. But although the situation wasn’t yours to manage, you’re still allowed to be uncomfortable with it!

3. HR brought me a secondhand complaint that didn’t make sense

My question concerns something that happened a few years ago, and was quite upsetting and even puzzling to me. I was much older than my colleagues (late 60s to their late 30s) and I’m sure I sometimes asked a question more than once. One day, out of the blue, I got a call from HR asking me to stop by (neither my boss nor grandboss was ever involved, nor did they ever discuss this). HR said “someone” brought them a concern that they supposedly witnessed a colleague (let’s call her Jane) being upset when I asked her a question that had previously been answered.

This struck me as a bizarre thing for HR to even address. First, the issue itself was minor, and the “issue” was raised by someone not involved at all. HR refused to say who complained, but when I said, “I’m surprised because I have a good relationship with Jane, and she is very up-front and would come to me directly if she had a problem,” they hastened to say it was not Jane who made the complaint. This of course made me uncomfortable with all my colleagues for a short time.

It still upsets me to think about this and I wonder how you would have suggested I respond in the moment. I was concerned that my pressing the matter would make things worse. Nothing further was ever said by HR or anyone in authority so no harm to my career was done, but had I been less respected for my work it might have been.

Yes, it sounds like a very bizarre thing for HR to raise, and I wonder whether they were even clear on why they were raising it or if they’re the type of HR to go on auto-pilot and attempt to address every minor thing someone brings to them, rather than bringing their own judgment to bear.

In any case, it’s hard to know how to respond to a situation like that in the moment when you’re blindsided! But if you could redo it, you could say, “If I’m understanding correctly, someone felt Jane was upset because I asked a question that had already been answered, but Jane herself didn’t complain. Can you help me understand exactly what the actionable issue is and what you’re looking for from me?” That might have forced some clarity out of them.

4. “Chilly regards”

A coworker has begun signing emails with “Warmly,” despite being the least warm person I have ever met. Is it unprofessional to reply with “Chilly regards”?

Yes, but you may privately enjoy the thought of doing it.

5. Including poll worker experience on a resume

My husband works as a poll worker each election and wanted to know if that’s experience he should include on his resume, and if yes, how to include it. It’s paid work, so not strictly volunteer but also it’s not a normal job.

He was promoted from poll worker to precinct captain several cycles ago, so I think he’d like to reflect that evolution but is unsure. What are your thoughts?

Yes. He can include it in a Community Involvement or Other section.

The post coworker constantly derails meetings, bare butts at work, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.