I smelled alcohol on my coworker, can you fire someone because their spouse is a politician, and more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

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

1. I suspect my colleague was drinking before our morning meeting

I held a meeting late morning on Friday with my colleague, “Janet.” During our meeting, her behavior seemed fine, if even a little more level than her normal frenetic energy.

During the meeting, we pulled our chairs together to look at something on her screen and I very clearly smelled vodka on her breath. The smell was like she’d taken a shot right before coming into my office; this was not a case of being hungover and smelling like old booze.

Now I don’t know what to do. Recently, I witnessed her at a fancy work event drinking heavily (7-8 glasses of wine in a little under two hours) but since that didn’t cause any issues, I didn’t say anything to anyone (and still wouldn’t). But the fancy event drinking did put on my radar that she may have a problem with alcohol, and I was immediately reminded of it when I smelled the vodka.

What do I do now? She is well liked and respected in our office, and her work hasn’t suffered (to my knowledge). Am I obligated to tell our manager? Can I talk to my colleague? Say nothing and wait until this maybe happens again?

I know that my biggest priority is making sure she is safe and getting help, but a very, very close second is not getting myself in trouble for withholding information from my superiors.

I don’t think there’s anything actionable here. You didn’t see Janet acting intoxicated or see her swigging vodka. You just smelled something when you sat close to her.

If there were safety implications — if she operates heavily machinery or otherwise held people’s lives in her hands — that would change the calculus. But otherwise, there’s not enough here to act on.

Related:
I think my coworker is an alcoholic

2. We’re being forced to label all our office furniture

Our new chief operating officer is forcing our Engineering department to completely clear their offices of any items other than the desk, two chairs, and a filing cabinet and is mandating where our computers and phones sit on the desk. Though it sounds reasonable to have a clean office, we work in a manufacturing company and often we have items in our office that are being evaluated (we make valves). He has now told us that we MUST LABEL each piece of furniture in our office identifying what it is. For example, a label on the desk that says DESK. Yesterday we were told that we must take a picture of our office once it is set up to his specifications and put the picture on our wall to remind us of how our office should look.

This is a degrading exercise for a group of engineers and counterproductive given the industry we are in. Is this a practice that we are unaware of, or should we see this as a character situation with him? How should we handle this respectfully? You should know that he is not at all open to hearing our opinions directly.

This is extremely odd. It would be one thing if he just wanted less cluttered offices — a bit controlling but not outlandish — but labeling your furniture? So there’s no doubt that a desk is in fact a desk? Was there some safety incident with someone mistaking a trash can as a chair? This is so over-the-top controlling that there’s either a really weird incident that provoked this or your new COO has misplaced his gourd.

This is something where you want influential allies involved — someone with power and influence within the organization, like the CEO’s longtime and trusted assistant or your own boss who has the ear of someone powerful, or so forth — so you can tip them off and see whether someone can intervene. But I’ve got to think this is a sign of problems with this new hire and more trouble is brewing.

3. Can you fire someone because their spouse is a politician?

The recent news of Usha Vance resigning from her law firm — a law firm that reportedly has progressive values — leaves me wondering: If she hadn’t resigned, could they have fired her after her husband became Trump’s running mate?

Federal law doesn’t prevent private employers from discriminating on the basis of political beliefs. But some jurisdictions do — including Washington, D.C., where that firm has an office, although I don’t know if it was her office. (D.C’s law might seem strange since D.C. is a town full of employers like lobbyists and nonprofits where your politics play a role in whether you’ll get hired or not, but in a lot of those cases political beliefs are considered a bona fide occupational qualification, which gets around the law.)

Regardless of the law, in reality, given the nature of the situation, if she hadn’t resigned on her own it almost certainly would have been a conversation about optics/client relations/PR and a mutual agreement to part ways, not “you’re fired, clean out your desk today.”

4. Employer missed our scheduled phone interview

I am job hunting and recently applied for a job that I am really excited about. Less than an hour after I submitted my application, the HR manager emailed me to say I sounded like a great fit and they’d like to schedule a phone interview at specific time and date the following week. I responded an hour later thanking her for reaching out and confirming I was available.

My interview time came and went with no call and no email. I figured they might have had a meeting run over or a conflict pop up, so after about 15 minutes, I emailed them to confirm the call would still take place and offered to reschedule if there was a more convenient time for them.

It has now been over 24 hours since I sent the email and I still haven’t heard a peep. Is it overkill if I email them again to reiterate my interest and ask to reschedule the interview? I really want this job and genuinely think I’m a perfect fit for it, but I also recognize that it’s just a first stage interview and I don’t want to come across as obsessive and over-eager.

It’s fine to email one more time asking about rescheduling. After that, though, if you don’t hear back, assume that for whatever reason it’s not going to happen and move on and don’t keep following up.

Asking someone to set aside time and then ghosting them — and not even responding to an email about it afterwards — is incredibly rude, but it’s also not terribly uncommon in job-hunting. Hopefully they’ll get back to you, but some employers just have utterly chaotic hiring processes and the more you can let the rudeness roll off you, the better.

5. What shows up in a background check?

What info shows up in a typical employment background check? A friend has recently gone through a hard time and was staying in shelters and accessing various public aid programs. They’re doing better now, but they’re worried about that info showing up in a background check and an employer being biased about their previous circumstances. Would any of that actually be on a background check an employer would do? What’s usually in those and what are employers looking for with them?

They shouldn’t need to worry about that at all! Employment background checks are about verifying your employment history and education — confirming that you actually did the things you said you did (worked the places you said you worked, for the time periods you said you were there, that you’re not ineligible for rehire, etc.). Some also include criminal background checks. They don’t look the sort of thing your friend is worried about. The thing that could get the closest is that some types of jobs will run a credit check, but they’re not going to see whether or not someone received public aid.