drunk texts from a former coworker, people ignore my emails, and more

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

1. Getting drunk texts from a former coworker

I have been remote working at a company for about a year and a half now, and have been enjoying it. About a month ago, I had a coworker reach out and ask if he could use me as a reference for a job he was interviewing for. I gave him my number for the application, I gave my reference to the company, and he left for his new job shortly after.

Then things started to get odd. Now that he has my number, I’ve started to get gibberish texts from him late at night, almost like sleeptalking. Like “I’m such an idiot, going to baseball later, tell me why?” When asked about it, he has apologized and said that he’s been drinking a lot to get through work lately, and has been having trouble kicking the habit.

Well, after waking up to even more garbled texts from him last night, I’m wondering I should do. Since I am a woman and I don’t want this to escalate, I’m planning on blocking his number, but is there anything else I should do professionally? When we were coworkers, we worked on several projects together, and I never had any issues with him acting strange or unprofessional. I know another one of my coworkers mentioned he’s thinking about returning to our company if things don’t work out, which complicates things further.

Yeah, definitely block his number. If you wanted to, you could first say to him, “I’m still getting texts from you in the middle of the night. Please take my number out of your phone so it doesn’t continue to happen.”

As for anything beyond that, I’d normally say you don’t need to. But the combination of strange, late-night texts with “drinking a lot to get through work” with possibly returning to your company … ugh. I don’t think you need to do anything else, but it also wouldn’t be overstepping to have a discreet word with whoever the person is who’d be considering bringing him back.

2. My coworkers ignore my emails

I work in event sales and coordination for a small restaurant group. This position recently switched over to being remote, and I am loving working from home! But I find that my physical absence from the restaurant is resulting in my coworkers not really paying attention to my correspondence, and not doing tasks I need from them to complete my job.

For example, when making menus for an upcoming event, I will email the beverage manager and ask him for a specific list of wines for me to put on the menu. I’ll say something like, “For this event we need two white wines, two red wines, and two rosés. Can I please have this information by EOD Friday?”

And then EOD Friday rolls around and he hasn’t responded. So I follow up and am usually met with a “wait, what did you need again?” response from him.

This isn’t just a problem with one person. I will send detailed notes for each event to our entire front-of-house team, and then find myself fielding texts and emails the day of the event asking about things that are already in the notes. When this happens, I resist the urge to be snippy but politely point them to the notes.

I have addressed this issue head-on by noting the problem to the group and asking if there is anything I can do differently to communicate this information more clearly/efficiently to them, but I’m met with blank stares. I genuinely think they were so used to my physical presence in the building that they don’t feel the need to pay attention to their emails? But all of this back and forth is literally doubling my workload.

I’ve spoken with our boss and she made a joke that everyone thinks I’m her assistant now because I cc her on all correspondence. To me that’s not okay! My boss is very much not my assistant, and I am struggling to see why this is funny. Am I being unreasonable here? Is this something I should just resign myself to?

You’re not being unreasonable and you probably need to find a different way to communicate with them. Maybe that’s a phone call, maybe it’s a regularly scheduled check-in with the people you’ll need things from most often, or maybe it’s emailing them and then following up with a call or text to say, “I need X from you by Y, details are in your email.” (To be clear, normally a call to announce you just sent an email would be annoying! But when people are routinely missing your emails, it’s reasonable.)

It’s not okay that they’re ignoring your emails but that doesn’t change the fact they are, and asking them how to resolve it hasn’t worked, so the most efficient action is to just change what you’re doing on your side. (That’s especially true since this only seems to have started after you started working from home, and you don’t want your boss to eventually conclude that it’s just not working to have the position be remote.)

3. Can I tell someone I referred them when I didn’t?

I often get outreach on LinkedIn from people — usually early-career professionals, though sometimes peers — who want to talk about my industry or get career advice. I’m happy to do that; I believe in paying it forward and don’t mind hopping on a short call with almost anyone who reaches out.

That said, sometimes these conversations aren’t really about advice — it’s pretty clear that the main goal is to ask me to refer them for roles at my company. I’m generally fine doing that, since our referral process is transparent: I can indicate how well (or how little) I know the person, and it’s ultimately up to the recruiting team to decide. Occasionally I’ll even pass along a résumé to a hiring manager directly if someone seems like a potential fit, even if I can’t personally vouch for their abilities. I make all of this clear in my referral and am comfortable with it.

But occasionally I speak with someone who’s clearly not qualified for the kind of role they’re targeting. I don’t want to be rude or discouraging, but I also don’t feel comfortable referring them. Is it ever okay to tell them I passed their name along when I didn’t (since I know they will be rejected), just to avoid hurting their feelings — or is there a better way to handle this?

Ideally you’d be up-front about it: “I don’t think I can refer you for this role since I know they’re looking for candidates with a professional background in amphibian couture, but I will let you know if I see anything for frog millinery.”

That said, if you’re just not up for getting into it with someone you barely know, I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world to say something vague about referring them (as long as you’re sure they’ve already applied; you don’t want someone to miss the opportunity to apply because they think you passed along their resume for them). But it’s much kinder to be honest with them so that they’re not working off of inaccurate information (thinking they’ve been referred when they haven’t). On the other hand, if you get the sense they’re the type who’s going to argue with you about it, you’re far less obligated to do that.

4. Why are bonuses taxed so high?

This is something I’ve wondered for a long time and never gotten a (clear, understandable) answer. Why is it that, in the U.S., if you get a holiday/year end bonus at work, you lose around 40%+ of it to taxes, regardless of the tax bracket you’re usually in?

You don’t! Taxes might be withheld at a different rate from the bonus check, but the overall tax rate you pay at the end of the year is the same as always. And that’s because bonuses generally have taxes withheld at a fixed rate — either 22% or, for bonuses over $1,000,000, 37%. (Or, if your employer lumps your bonus into your regular pay, standard payroll withholding rules can be applied to it — meaning that they’re withholding taxes as if you’re paid that amount every time, which could push you into a higher tax bracket, even though it’s just for this one paycheck.) But at the end of the year, your taxes are still calculated based on your total income for the year, and any overpayment or underpayment is processed when you file.

To illustrate this with real numbers: Let’s say you normally earn $2,000 a week, and you pay 20% of your income in taxes at the end of the year. You’ve set up your paycheck withholdings so that all the tax you’ll owe for this year gets withheld from your checks (so you won’t owe more tax, nor be due a refund). But then you get a bonus for $5,000 and, per the rules above, taxes are withheld from it at 22%. But at the end of the year, when you go to file your taxes, they will be based on your total income for the year; your bonus is included along with all the rest of your wages in the income reported on your W2, tax owed is calculated based on that total number, and any withholdings are treated as payment toward that liability while any excess payments get refunded. So if your total income for the year keeps you in the 20% tax bracket, then you’ll have overpaid your taxes and will get a refund.

In other words, the difference you’re seeing is in what’s withheld, not in your final tax calculations at the year’s end.

5. Would I be overstepping if I sent this person a resume?

I came across a request in a Facebook group that I am a member of from a company director who was looking for participants for a focus group about the company’s product. I applied for the focus group and was accepted.

After looking into the company, I’ve found that it would be an interesting place for me to work and looked into applying, but I don’t see anything about job openings on their website. Would it be weird of me to reach out to the director of the focus group after we have finished and ask if they’re hiring and/or send her my resume? To me, it seems like this might be annoying thing to do since the reason I was given the director’s contact information was for a different reason than job inquiries, but on the other hand, wouldn’t this just be a way to network? What do you think?

Totally fine to do! There are many situations where you might send a resume to someone whose contact info you have for reasons other than “they gave it to me to apply for a job” — as you note, that’s exactly what networking is!

Don’t just ask if they’re hiring, though; include your resume so she can immediately see what your professional background is.

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