manager thanked my husband for letting me work with them, how much exaggeration is too much on LinkedIn, and more

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

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

1. A manager thanked my husband for letting me work with them

A department I work with organized a social dinner at a restaurant after work one evening. People brought their families and so I brought my husband. A manager I work with came by, so I introduced them to each other. It was a very usual interaction, until the very end when the manager said to my husband, “Thank you for letting her work with us” and returned to the far side of the table. It happened so quickly and then he walked away that neither of us had a chance to say anything to correct him. People sitting near us who heard it asked me, Wait, did he say…?” It was so awkward.

What would you do in this situation? Ideally I would have said something in the moment, like “Oh, my husband has no say in my work activities” but the opportunity’s already gone. I don’t want to approach this manager now and bring this up and say “Hey, this was disrespectful, don’t say things like that again.” There’s a chance that conversation may go well but I think it’s more likely he would just say, “That’s not what I meant/said, you must have heard me wrong” and kind of invalidate me and make me feel silly for coming to him about it. But if I don’t, I’m just enabling things like that to continue happening. But also why is this now my burden to correct?

What do you know of this manager in general? Does that kind of comment fit in with things you already knew/suspected about him? If not, I think it’s reasonably likely he meant something more like “thanks for loaning her to us, she’s great”? Obviously your husband is not loaning you to your company either, but that’s the sort of thing people sometimes say to spouses of either gender when they’re trying to compliment the other partner. Still a little awkward, but very different from a sexist “thank you for permitting your wife to work outside the home.”

But if you do have reason to think he meant it exactly the way you heard it … well, then this one comment is probably the least of the problems. You said you don’t want to address it, and it’s fine to just roll your eyes and not raise it. But it would also be fine to say to him, “Roy, did you thank my husband the other night for letting me work?”

2. My boss threatened to kill himself over a minor work issue

I’ve worked for my company for a few years. I’ve seen many changes, and many layoffs, in my time here. My old boss was transferred to a different subsidiary earlier this year and I got a new boss. My new boss is fine, if high-strung, a bit neurotic, and way too all over the place.

Recently, we made a post on social media and because my boss told me to only focus on one platform and ignore the others, it was only posted on that one platform. A leader in a different department didn’t like this and complained to the president of the company. The president then emailed that this other leader would be working with me on social media and no one else in our department would be. This led my boss to call me freaking out, blaming me for what happened, and telling me that if he lost this job, his wife would leave him and he would kill himself.

This was very unprofessional, in my opinion, and a complete overreaction, as we met with the president later that day and it was not as big of a deal as it seemed. I have not spoken to my boss since, as he pushed back our weekly meeting to another day, but I believe he knows he went too far. What do I do in this situation? I am very upset with his reaction and the fact that he keeps blaming me for a simple mistake that was not life or death. I also don’t like that he called me on my personal number and threatened suicide, it was very disturbing. I was already thinking about looking for a new job, but in the meantime how do I handle this?

The safest thing to do when someone makes a suicide threat is to take it seriously. If it turns out it was serious, you won’t regret doing that — and if it wasn’t serious, then responding as if it was can show the person how out of line they were and discourage them from making fake threats again.

Your boss threatening self-harm is way above your pay grade, so this is something to escalate. Ideally you’d talk to HR — or to your boss’s boss if your HR is incompetent or nonexistent — and explain what happened. Say you don’t feel equipped to handle a suicide threat from your boss, and ask that they take over from here. If you feel awkward doing this, consider: if your boss does need help, someone in a position to provide that help needs to be alerted. And if the threat wasn’t real, then it was an incredibly manipulative thing to say and it should be addressed as such by someone who isn’t you.

3. How much exaggeration is too much on LinkedIn?

I have a coworker who has been making some updates to their LinkedIn profile that got me thinking about how much exaggeration is too much when it comes to describing your work. I do think there is an ethical line here, but my coworker has found some interesting ways to make them sound more experienced in certain areas without lying outright. Here are a few examples:

• “With over 20 years of experience in education and editing” (I believe the education part is true, but they have been editing for less than two years and are struggling to reach a professional level of competency.)
• They are “looking for opportunities to further develop their expertise in project management, management, and training” (They are technically doing some project management now, but they are struggling, and to my knowledge they’ve had no experience with management or training. I don’t think this would strike me as questionable if a different word than “expertise” was used, like “interest.”)
• “Manager and leader at heart” (I think this one is the most interesting because they do not have management experience and are not a leader on our team, but the phrasing doesn’t necessarily imply that they are, just that they feel they could be).

This really has no direct effect on me, and I have no plans to bring it up with my coworker; I just thought it was an interesting thought exercise, and I’m curious to hear your opinion.

Nothing here is technically a lie, but they’re definitely puffing things up.

That said … a lot of people do this on resumes and LinkedIn (which is why good hiring managers look at actual experience and accomplishments more than anything else). I don’t like and wouldn’t write it that way myself, and in my experience the people who do this are never the strongest candidates anyway. Plus, it can backfire! If having tons of editing experience is important to an employer, they’re likely to be annoyed if they interview this person and discover the “20 years” is actually two. But “manager and leader at heart” is the worst part of it of to me — a little cheesy, but also if I saw that on a resume from someone with no management experience, I’d be digging into that pretty hard to find out what it meant. People who aren’t managers but feel managerial at heart are often problems or have an unrealistic idea of what management is.

But none is it is wildly outside the realm of how some people market themselves.

4. Applying at my old company with a new name

I worked at my first job out of college for five years, then moved on to a different job for the following 10. I’m now hoping to return to the first company; however, any record of me there is under a different name. The change is not me going by a nickname, my middle name, or new surname. I’ve legally changed my first name. Instead of “Dana Katherine Scully,” I’m now “Gillian Katherine Scully.”

There’s no trauma associated with my former name so I don’t mind it being referenced, I’d just like to know how best to include it on my application so that my first company can verify my past experience there under “Dana” without too much confusion.

I considered omitting that first position from my resume altogether, but this company has a strong culture of hiring from within, so I feel like my prior position is worth noting. I left on great terms after a contract ended with no openings available at the time.

Yeah, definitely don’t omit the job from your resume; that would be odd to do just because of the name issue! The fact that you worked there previously is highly relevant (and they’re also the only other employer you have aside from your current one). You could include a note in your cover letter, but cover letters often aren’t read after the initial screen so that’s not a reliable way to do it. The easiest thing would be to explain in your interview — but if you want them to know before you’re at the interview stage, I’d just include a small note on your resume next to that job like this:

Teapot Factory, 2010-2014 (employed as Dana Scully)

You wouldn’t do that for resumes you’re sending anywhere else, only for this one.

But also, do you know anyone who still works there? If so, you should be contacting them anyway about your application, and can just explain it to them.