employee says he has a problem with authority, I can’t keep helping friends with their writing, and more

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. My employee warned me he has a problem with authority

Six years ago, I took a job in a new department. At the time, I only had two years of managing experience and I was eager to not step on the toes of my new four-person team, who had a combined total of 85 years of experience. On my first day and in my first meeting with my employee Fergus, he smirked and opened with, “You should know I have a problem with authority.” To his credit, he was not lying. It’s a nightmare to deal with him but he does just enough to not be let go (we work for the government, it’s harder to get fired).

At the time he told me this, I was so concerned with being liked and learning the ropes in the new department that I tried to approach all interactions with Fergus with that in mind instead of just asking for what I needed. But now I wonder, what would have been a good response? Am I wrong in thinking that the response should have been something that let Fergus know that it indeed was *his* problem and not mine? Or is that just my dislike for my current situation bubbling up?

Ideally, when he told you he had a problem with authority, you would have asked, “Can you be more specific about what you mean?” Let’s pin him down on exactly what he’s talking about here, and then respond to that. If he replied with something like “I don’t like being told what to do” or “I prefer to work independently without a manager,” then you could say, “Well, I certainly appreciate knowing about people’s preferences and I respect the expertise you have, but part of my role here is to oversee that work. You can see how that goes and decide whether it’s for you or not. If you decide it’s not, I’ll certainly understand.”

It sounds like you know this now, but you can’t let an employee dictate how you’ll do your own job (which includes managing them) or value being liked over being effective.

– 2019

Read an update to this letter here.

2. How do I tell friends and family I can’t keep helping with their writing?

I’m an English teacher and over the years many of my friends and family have asked me for feedback on their writing. Now that I have a family, the demands on my time are greater and frankly, I am less interested in helping like this. How do I transition my friends out of this? I would feel weird charging them but I guess I should? I really don’t know how to broach this with people without sounding awkward and weird; I think I am too emotionally invested.

Would you want to do if they were paying? If not, don’t offer that as an option just to decrease the requests because some people may take you up on it! If you just don’t want to do it regardless of pay, it’s totally okay to just explain your schedule doesn’t allow it anymore. Anything like this works, depending on the tone you want with the particular asker:

* “My schedule is so swamped these days that I wouldn’t be able to do it justice.”
* “Ah, I’m sorry. I don’t have enough free time these days to be able to say yes.”
* “I wish I could help! My schedule is crazed right now though. Sorry I can’t look at it!”
* “If I say yes, it will sit for weeks while I feel guilty for not having enough time to look at it, so I’m going to preempt that by doing the right thing and telling you now I can’t.”
* “I’m trying not to say yes to that anymore, since my schedule has gotten so packed.”

If you make it a big thing where you feel terrible and like you’re letting them down, it’s likely to be weird on their side too. If you’re matter-of-fact about it and then change the subject to something else, it’ll go fine with reasonable people. (And if they’re unreasonable, there’s nothing to feel bad about anyway.)

But if you’d do a few of these requests for the right price, you can say: “I’ve gotten so many of these requests from family and friends, and my schedule is so busy now, that I’ve actually started charging a fee for it. I totally understand if that’s not what you’re interested in, but if you are, the fee people are paying is $X.” (I like “the fee people are paying” rather than “the fee I’m charging,” because it emphasizes that other people find this worth money, which makes it harder for them to complain they shouldn’t have to pay.)

– 2019

Read an update to this letter here.

3. Employee is monopolizing the conference room to get quiet work space

My office is open, but it’s not a new, innovative concept. It’s an old building and this has happened out of necessity. We’re the support team for several businesses downstairs, so it’s never going to happen that we move into a new, more workable space. We all work pretty silently, and keep distractions to a minimum. We also have a large, open event space where we’re all accustomed to taking phone calls and having meetings.

Recently, we’ve added a few employees and the volume level in the office has increased. Most of us have just deployed headphones, until the newbies catch on. (One is our new boss, so it’s not as easy as telling them all to keep it down.) The problem is with one employee, who has taken it upon herself to consistently go work in the event space. She also happens to be the only employee with a laptop she can work off of. But now, that room is never available for anyone else. Unless we ask her to leave, which she always is willing to do — it’s just awkward. I don’t know how to communicate to her that what she’s doing is inconsiderate. It also seems like she should be able to work in there if she wants to, and it seems petty of me considering the majority of the time that space is vacant. Am I being unreasonable?

If she’s always willing to leave when the space is needed for something else, it doesn’t sound like this is really a problem. Open offices can be incredibly difficult for people to work in, and if there’s a mostly unused conference room sitting vacant, there’s no logical reason why she shouldn’t use it, as long as she’s willing to move when needed, which she is. Working in there could be making a major difference in her concentration or her productivity, as well as to her morale.

I know it might seem unfair since other people without laptops can’t do it — but then the solution is for them to ask for laptops so multiple people could use the conference room as a quiet room at the same time, not to stop her from doing it just because others can’t.

If the issue is that you feel awkward or rude asking her to vacate the room, I’d say the solution is for you realize it’s perfectly okay to do that (and she seems to think so too, based on her cheerfully leaving when asked to).

– 2019

4. Should I tell a blogger I follow that I work with her boyfriend?

This question is kind of silly but I am the kind of person that would make this situation weird. I was scrolling through Instagram and just discovered a local blogger whose style I really like. Turns out her S.O. is one of my coworkers! I only know him in passing (and honestly, I doubt he knows my name), but he’s a really nice guy from what I’ve encountered.

My first thought was to DM her and say something like “hey, I love your blog and I’m so thrilled to see you live in [same city!] I actually know [your S.O.] from work and he’s a really nice guy” but I am afraid that would come across as awkward.

Should I say anything to him? We don’t work together, and I tend to be very shy and reserved at work.

I’d leave it alone. Not because it would be horribly awkward if you did message her, but because the question I’d have about doing that is “toward what end?” You’ll tell her you know her S.O, she’ll say something kind in response, and then that will probably be that. It’s not really conveying information with much significance. (There are people who respond enthusiastically to connections of any kind, but there are more people who will just think, “Okay … and?” Plus, if she asks her S.O. about you and he doesn’t know who you are, that’s really upping the chances of “Okay … and?”)

That said, there’s nothing wrong with sending her a note letting her know how much you like her work! That’s always lovely to get, and you don’t even need to mention the S.O. connection.

– 2019

The post employee says he has a problem with authority, I can’t keep helping friends with their writing, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.