interviewer mentioned my boudoir photos, problems you never see firsthand, and more

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

1. My interviewer mentioned my boudoir photos

I went to an interview at an event planning company I have wanted to work at for a long time. The first interview was successful and I got along with the group of managers really well. They gave me an assignment to do and, after I did that, they happily invited me to return for a follow-up interview, this time with only one of the managers. We got along so well, and I was told I did very well on the assignment.

Near the end of the interview, the manager told me to wait a minute and she left and then came back and offered me the job. I was super ecstatic, and we started chatting about getting to know each other more when I start. She mentioned that she did a check of my socials and saw that I love dogs and she talked about her own dogs. We also talked about which concerts we had been to, as I had many pictures of me at concerts on my pages. At the end, she got a little too comfortable in my opinion and mentioned that she had done a boudoir shoot with the same company that I did mine with. At that point, I remembered that I had my boudoir pictures on social media.

After I left the interview, I was a tad bit embarrassed that my new manager saw me in such a state of undress. I’m obviously at fault for them seeing it, but I’m wondering if you think this is a major red flag for me working there? It seems as if she didn’t mean any offense by it and was just very friendly and chatting with me. She also didn’t say it was a bad thing and, hey, I got the job and at least I had a bra and underwear on and wasn’t nude! I’ve always wanted to work there and I am not sure if I am overthinking this or not?

Oh noooo. Yeah, “I saw your boudoir shots” is not what you want to hear from the person who just offered you a job. But “I did my own with the same company” actually does make it less creepy … it’s still boundary-crossing, but it’s a different kind of boundary-crossing. It sounds like she’d already been thinking the two of you have a lot in common and maybe lost sight of appropriate professional boundaries in the moment. There’s no guarantee that she won’t continue to do that once you’re working there, but it’s also possible that she just got too comfortable with you.

“Too comfortable with you” can still be a bad thing, of course! But if everything else was good, I wouldn’t let this be the reason you don’t take the job (although I’d go in prepared to be thoughtful about what boundaries you want to keep up so that you can actively enforce them rather than going with the flow without thinking about it, and then realizing too late that conversation wandered into a place you’d rather it not have gone).

2. What to do about serious problems you never see firsthand

We are an educational institution, and I am in support/professional development. We have several classrooms where teachers are concerning, but when I or the directors or anybody is in for an observation, they are fine or good-enough, and I document they are doing what they are supposed to. But when I meet with other staff, they say it stops as soon as the observer is out of the room — and that if no one is in observing, the teacher is more abrupt with children, lets frustration show, doesn’t use the appropriate nurturing language, and lots of specific practices around interactions with children that we expect are not happening. A teacher said to me about another teacher we’ve been working with, “I guess it’s a little better, but they still have bad days, and I’ve heard from other teachers it’s worse when I’m not here (when it is just that staff and the assistant).” I asked the supervisor if those specific behaviors had been directly addressed with that teacher and their response was, “Well, we haven’t seen it.” The supervisors will also say, “The other staff need to let us know. We can’t do anything if we don’t know.” But there is a dynamic of staff going to leadership with concerns and feeling like they were not heard and nothing was done.

Morale is tanking in some of these rooms, and we’ve lost teachers. When people see that others are not held accountable, it is hard on everyone. I think staff don’t feel trusted, because their word that someone is problematic is not good enough. I understand the impulse to not go by rumor or hearsay; everyone needs due process, and we can’t really set up cameras to see what is going on when no one else is there, and lurking in the doorway and trying to watch when they don’t know isn’t going to do it either. What can I tell directors about how to deal with this? They acknowledge there is a problem, but act like they are helpless unless they see it themselves, but also don’t really go out of their way to see what is really happening.

Well, that’s wildly problematic! I don’t know how schools typically deal with these issues, but I can tell you how I’d deal with it as manager in a different environment and maybe something here will be applicable. If I was getting secondhand reports about serious concerns with an employee’s performance and that they were deliberately altering their behavior when I was observing, I’d do a few things. First, I’d find ways to observe for longer periods. For example, if I was hearing reports like this about a trainer — probably the closest comparable situation — I might even take a laptop into their training room and work from there for a few days. Second, I’d talk with people who were seeing it firsthand — which in this case presumably means teaching assistants and the students themselves. If enough people are reporting a behavior, and especially when you know those people to be generally credible, there’s a point where you don’t need to see it firsthand; the pattern of reports is enough in itself. Third, I’d talk directly with the employee in question, tell them forthrightly what concerns have been reported, and say that we need to work together to resolve those concerns and that I was going to be spot-checking with others who observe their work — because at some point, the perception itself is a problem, totally aside from the rest of it.

I’m concerned that your colleagues are so willing to wash their hands of dealing with what sound like truly serious issues (and ones involving kids?!) just because they’re not witnessing the behavior firsthand. If they heard a teacher was, I don’t know, slapping kids, would they say they couldn’t do anything about it because they didn’t see it happen? Presumably not. They need to bring similar urgency to this too.

3. Foster care and parental leave

My workplace offers five weeks of parental leave, which includes birth of a baby, adoption, or the placement of a foster child.

I cannot have biological children, but I am about to be licensed to be a foster parent with the goal of caring for a teenager. When I receive my first foster placement, would it be unethical to take parental leave? I’d like to use the full benefits that are available to me as an employee, but I also don’t want to be unreasonable: I won’t have a baby at home, and for that reason won’t “need” the leave in the same way as others. But, it’s a big life transition. I almost wish I could split it up and use it for court dates, appointments, etc., but that’s not an option — the leave must be taken in one chunk and it can be taken a maximum of once per year.

Another consideration is that I won’t have months of pregnancy and a due date to tell my boss, make arrangements, etc. Once I’m licensed, I have no idea how long I’ll wait before getting a call, and I could find out hours before that a placement is happening. If I choose to take parental leave, how do I navigate this conversation with my manager and HR? What can I be doing now to prepare?

Yay to fostering teenagers! There is a massive, massive need.

You should absolutely use the leave when you get the placement. The policy explicitly allows it; you’re not doing anything wrong or anything that the policy didn’t explicitly envision. And there is a ton of work in the beginning of a placement, as well as just lots of relationship-building to do (so even if you’re not actively caring for them every hour of the day like with a baby, being around and available is very helpful). You should also look into FMLA, because it also covers the placement of a foster child, and it can be taken intermittently and specifically includes court dates, appointments, etc.

As for what to say to your boss and HR: “I am in the process of being approved to foster a child. The timing is somewhat up in the air, but it could be any time after X. When I get a placement, my plan is to take parental leave per our policy. So I wanted to talk with you about logistics and what I should be doing to prepare now, since I might not have a lot of advance notice when it happens.”

4. Can I ask if my department is going to be dissolved?

My department was just subsumed by a larger department, which has negative implications for our entire team’s titles. We are pretty niche, and I am worried the ultimate goal is to just slowly get rid of us completely, with our work being absorbed by the larger department. Can I just … ask? My manager’s manager reportedly made a comment to my manager at one point implying that our department might not need to exist forever.

I really love my job, and I have had a lot of professional success recently. I cannot help but worry that the recently merged organization no longer places much value in our work, so that success will not protect me if they don’t feel it serves their business needs. I am kicking myself for being too specialized at this point. I don’t know if they would be honest if I do ask, and I worry that asking makes it obvious I am going to be looking if I don’t get reassurance. Don’t ask, right?

You can ask, but if you hear “no, we’re not going anywhere,” you can’t place any real weight on it. For one thing, if there are plans to cut your team, your manager may not even know that right now. For another, if they do know, they might not be allowed to tell you (that’s highly likely, in fact). You can still ask, because you might hear something useful (like that she’s worried about that too) that confirms your worries, but you’ve got to go into knowing that you can’t take anything you hear as negating your worries (unless it’s something really clear and unusual, like they have specific plans to expand and support your work). In other words, either way you should probably be thinking about next steps.

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