employee lied about his mom dying, did I take a joke too far, and more

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

1. Employee lied and said his mother had died (she hadn’t)

Recently, I had to terminate an employee for lying about their mother dying, let’s call him Jeff. The “death” occurred over a year ago, but 13 months later we came across info that showed us that had been a lie. In fact, Jeff’s sister had posted photos of her and Jeff on an international vacation during the same days as he was supposedly in the hospital preparing for their mother’s passing. We had already been drafting a performance plan for Jeff, and we ended up letting him go over this.

Is there anything that could have been done to prevent lying about something like this in the first place? I don’t want to ask team members to submit an obituary or something else to prove that a family member has died to use their bereavement leave. That feels cruel when already dealing with a death in the family, but I can’t help but feel like we missed something that caused him to lie to this extent.

It’s not uncommon to require some kind of proof to grant bereavement leave, like an obituary, funeral program, or statement from a funeral home.

That said, there’s always a balance between guarding against abuse of benefits and not making employees feel you don’t trust them, particularly during something like a death in the family. I’m generally willing to tolerate the risk of someone occasionally abusing a perk as a trade-off for ensuring employees feel supported, but it’s not unreasonable to decide to ask for documentation.

In this specific situation, though, I’d look at what else you know about Jeff. You were already preparing to put him on a performance plan so clearly there were other issues with his work. How long-running were those issues? Were there signs earlier on that there were serious problems with Jeff, or does this seem wildly out of character? I’d use this more as a flag to ask whether there other problems you should have acted on faster, since often that does turn out to be the case.

Related:
is my employee lying about needing bereavement leave?

2. Did I take a joke too far?

I’m an engineer for an aerospace manufacturer that often works with classified information which requires security measures. One of these measures is that when you walk away from your desk, you need to lock your computer and sign in again when you come back.

In my office, we have a fun tradition where if someone is caught with their computer logged in while away from their desk, someone else can change the background to something funny for that person to discover (and the person would also be responsible for buying pizza or donuts for the entire group at the end of the week).

I had the chance to do this to someone else’s computer, but I think I took it too far. I found a coworker’s computer open, and I learned that he was at a meeting. Since it’s October, I thought it would be funny if I put a scary picture on his background. (For anyone curious, it’s a creepy character from a web series called the Boiled One.)

I couldn’t see his reaction directly because I was in a Teams meeting when he returned to his desk, but I could hear him yelp, “JESUS CHRIST!!” I thought the others might find it funny, but I heard several versions of “What the hell?” and everyone asking each other who put it there.

Nobody had asked me about it since I was busy, and since I had two other Teams meetings afterward, everyone had stopped talking about it by the time I had free time. Did I go too far? How do I know whether or not they knew it was me?

Ha, well, yes, it appears that you did. I looked up the Boiled One and laughed, but it would be Quite A Shock if you weren’t expecting something disturbing and not everyone appreciates that brand of weird.

I’m guessing they didn’t know it was you since no one said anything. No need to claim it; just let it fade from memory, which it likely already has, and keep it a little tamer next time.

3. What should I say if one or two candidates ask what they should prepare for an interview?

I’m increasingly noticing that for most jobs we advertise, one or two applicants will email and ask if there is anything they need to prepare for the interview. If we tell those few people what we want to see, that is unfair to other applicants who haven’t got the heads-up. And I wouldn’t want to tell all the applicants “you should come with ideas for X and Y” — it’s usually the good candidates who assume and prepare ideas for X and Y (which I would’ve thought are very obvious in my industry, but not all applicants come armed with these ideas).

Currently I’ve just been saying “no, nothing in particular,” but is that also unfair, since it means they don’t prepare anything? Should I respond with “Nothing in particular, just what you would expect of a normal interview in this industry”?

I agree that you shouldn’t tell some people what to prepare for and not others; otherwise you won’t be assessing them on a level playing field. You should give the same info to everyone, whatever that is.

But any chance that you’d actually be better able to assess candidates if you did ask everyone to come prepared with ideas for X and Y? If it’s truly such an industry norm to expect that, then maybe it’s unnecessary … and if part of what you’re assessing is “ability to come up with ideas with zero prep time,” then it’s useful not to prepare candidates for that in advance. But is that what you should be assessing? Or would you be better able to evaluate what candidates will be like on the job if you told them all what you’d like them to come prepared to discuss? Personally, I’ve found real value in telling candidates things like “we’re hoping you’ll come prepared with some examples of X and Y” because that way they’re not scrambling to think of an answer on the spot, and we can spend more time delving into the substance of those topics. So I’d think carefully about what you’re testing by not sharing that info ahead of time, and what you’d be testing if you did.

More here:
should you give job candidates the questions ahead of time?

4. My boss showed everyone my resignation letter

What should I do when my manager shows everyone my resignation letter? It named the person I was having issues with and the reason I’m quitting.

There’s nothing you can really do at that point. It’s unprofessional of them to have shared it, but there’s not anything you can do now that it’s happened (and it’s not subject to confidentiality laws or anything like that).

But in the future, your resignation letter shouldn’t include that sort of information. The norm for resignation letters is just to include that you are quitting and of as what date. You shouldn’t give a reason at all! (It’s okay to mention the reason if it’s something very bland like “my family is moving” or “I’ve accepted another position” — but even that doesn’t need to be in there. And you definitely don’t want to include it if the reason is something like “I’m frustrated with Jane” or “management has gone too far” or anything else you feel heated about.)

Related:
what should a resignation letter say?

5. Should you have a “go” file in case you’re laid off?

I’m curious about your perspective on something I saw on LinkedIn. A “thought leader” offering career advice recommended that employees should assemble digital “go” files: basically, collecting any important documents such as performance reviews, emails from their boss or others, or examples of their work that they might want or need in the case of a sudden, unexpected layoff.

For privacy and security reasons, my employer makes it just about impossible to save information from one’s work device to an external cloud. I think that if I were caught transferring files I worked on to my personal devices, I would be having a very serious conversation. (Any external cloud services are blocked, as well as webmail sites; emails with attachments to external addresses can and do trigger a security review.)

It’s possible to print the materials in the office and bring them home. But I think it’s still violating the letter of the security policy which says we’re not supposed to keep company materials at home unless required for work, and shred them when we’re done.

Yet, this advice seems to make sense to me — and after a small number of colleagues were let go last week, it seems very relevant. I am wondering if you have any advice on maintaining access to important workplace files (whether performance reviews or even portfolio material for job searchers).

Yes, this is absolutely good advice. Of course, if your security policies truly prevent it, then you can’t — and there are some people who truly can’t share work samples outside of the company, but most people can. I’d take a close look at exactly how your policies are worded, and at a minimum consider printing copies if you don’t see an explicit prohibition on it.

Also, in a number of states, you’re legally entitled to keep copies of items from your personnel file, which includes performance reviews.

Related:
what to do if you think you’re going to get fired

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