is liquor inappropriate at a work event that offers beer and wine, visitors want to use our employees-only bathroom, 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. Is liquor inappropriate at a work event that offers beer and wine?

This is a silly, low-stakes question, but I’m curious. I work very closely with another coworker and we frequently plan events for a specific network of professionals. My coworker absolutely refuses to offer mixed drinks at any of our social events. These are reception-style events where we provide two drink tickets. She insists that the bar only provide beer and wine, no liquor-based drinks. At first I assumed this was related to price, but it’s not — even if mixed drinks are the same price, or included in an open bar type setting, she specifically insists that mixed drinks not be offered. (She even calls this out in planning documents — it’s something she is very deliberate about). She seems to think that beer and wine are appropriate for a work event, but that a gin and tonic is absolutely degenerate. This is particularly funny because the network we support is quite tame — I’ve never seen anyone have more than one drink at one of our receptions, and when we give our drink tickets, people frequently return them unused. So it’s not like she’s trying to stop our events from turning into ragers.

Again, this is low-stakes; I’m definitely not going to change my coworker’s mind, and I don’t think our group overly cares that we’re not providing mixed drinks. But I am curious to hear your opinion on whether her perception that beer and wine are work-appropriate and a mixed drink is inherently inappropriate has any legitimacy. (I will add for context that I am in my mid-30s and my coworker is in her mid-70s. I almost never think that work disagreements are based on generational differences, but maybe in this case it is, a bit?)

Mixed drinks aren’t inherently inappropriate. If your coworker believes they are, that’s … odd.

But are we sure that’s her reasoning? Only offering beer and wine is very common, but it’s not typically because mixed drinks are more debauched. It’s generally for the cost savings or other practical considerations (like that you need a bartender to mix drinks, caterers who offer liquor sometimes need a separate license for it, etc.). It’s also true that limiting guests to beer and wine can lower the potential for alcohol-related problems (although someone who’s determined to overindulge can easily do that with beer and wine too), but that doesn’t sound like a huge concern with this crowd. I wonder if your coworker is just so used to seeing only beer and wine offered at these types of events that her brain has translated that into anything else feeling inappropriate.

2. Random visitors ask to use our employees-only bathroom

I work for a small established manufacturer. The product is 100% sold to other businesses; there is no direct-to-consumer market, so there is no reason our workplace would be open to the public. We have a company policy of only seeing vendors and potential vendors by appointment.

Recently we’ve had an increase in unscheduled visitors, primarily people hawking stuff … like oddball shipping services, or wanting to put products in our break rooms so employees can browse and order sports memorabilia or footwear or wall art (today’s was laminated posters of Bob Ross-y/ painted-van style nature and religious art). It’s easy enough to say “no thanks.” But each of them then asked to use the restroom.

That leaves me conflicted, because “human being with basic human need, of course they can use the bathroom” comes flat up against:

• We have no idea who this person is, their reason for being here is already shaky at best, and given where we are, on their way here they voluntarily passed up a relatively new Dunkin Donuts, a couple other fast foot places, and two highly visible, normal stores with public bathrooms less than five minutes ago.
• We don’t have a lobby/visitors’ restroom … there’s just the one out back in the middle of our workspace.
• Some remaining “but Covid!”
• General security guidelines, i.e., no random people wandering around the workplace (for employees’ safety, property security, industrial espionage security, etc.).

I’ve been going with, “We don’t have a public restroom, but XYZ public place is not far” with brief directions. But I wonder if I’m being mean, heartless, etc. turning away someone with a basic human need?

When you don’t serve the public and visitors show up uninvited, it’s reasonable to say that your bathrooms aren’t open to the public, for all the reasons you mentioned. I would make an exception for some who truly seemed in dire straits (although even then you’d need to assess that against security considerations), but as a general policy for non-emergencies, “We don’t have a public restroom” is a reasonable response.

3. Are candidates trying to undercut each other on salary?

Something happened to my sister today and I need to know if I’m completely out of touch or if this is the new normal.

She applied for a job which listed a salary range, and she used that range to determine the expected salary she listed on her application, a requirement to apply. She heard from the company today that two people applied and were willing to take the job for $15,000 less than the listed range so they were moving forward with them. That’s crazy, right?

Did the company tell her that to try to get her to say she’ll take less? Are people really lowballing salary expectations? Kind of the reverse of offering over list price on a house? I haven’t been in the job market for a while so I just don’t know what to make of this.

It’s not a new normal, just a thing that some crappy companies have always done. But yes, some people lowball themselves when naming salary expectations, because they didn’t remember there was a higher range listed in the ad or they think it will give them a leg up or they don’t have a good sense of the market and aren’t comfortable advocating for themselves. (If you’ve ever heard someone say they can’t believe the salary a new job offered them and that they would have asked for much less if they’d had to name a number first, some of these people are also lowballing themselves in initial applications.)

Did the company tell her that to try to get her to say she’d take less? Eh, maybe, but they also could have just been factually relaying their reason for going with other candidates. Either way, your sister shouldn’t take this as pressure to lower her own salary expectations in the future; companies that hire based on the cheapest possible candidate (cheaper even than what they’d budgeted for the role) aren’t usually companies you should feel sad about missing out on.

4. Asking, “Do you have any concerns about my candidacy?”

Many years ago, I read your interview guide and one of the suggested questions for the candidate to ask was, “Do you have any concerns about my candidacy that I can address now?” I loved this wording and have used this question a number of times.

However, a few weeks ago, when you were responding to the letter-writer who said that he didn’t get a job, but he didn’t think the new hire had started, you said this: “And yes, they told you their only concern was that someone else might hire you, but that can be a kind of throwaway remark in response to a question that put them on the spot (‘do you have any concerns about me?’) and to which they weren’t prepared to provide a thoughtful answer off the cuff.”

I’m just curious — have you changed your mind about the usefulness of this question? Thinking about it, I agree the question does put them on the spot. So do you think it’s not worth asking?

Those are two different questions! It might seem like a subtle difference, but asking “Do you have any concerns about my candidacy?” does put them on the spot if they have concerns they’re not prepared to share off the cuff and without preparation. “Do you have any concerns about my candidacy that I can address now?” is really saying, “Do you have any concerns that it would be useful to discuss or that you would be comfortable discussing right now?” An interviewer can respond, “No, we have everything we need right now” without implying something that might not be true.

Some people might say that’s splitting hairs, but it changes how it comes across.

To be clear, asking just “do you have any concerns about me?” isn’t a terrible interview-killer or anything like that. But it does put interviewers more on the spot in a way that will make some uncomfortable (and in the case of the letter you mentioned, the person got too invested in believing the interviewer’s “no”).

5. Does being fired show up in a background check?

Can you settle a debate I’m having with a friend who just got fired? Does this show up in your background check? Should you lie and say you were let go or tell the truth?

It depends on the background check. But it’s pretty common to ask former employers about the terms on which you left and whether you’d be eligible for rehire. If it comes out that you lied, that will generally torpedo your candidacy, whereas a firing on its own isn’t inherently prohibitive (depending on the reason for the firing, of course). I’ve got advice here about how you can talk about being fired in an interview:

how to explain you were fired, when interviewing