my boss told me I had to be on camera while sick, telling an organization their volunteer is obnoxious, and more

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

1. My boss told me I had to be on camera while sick

My department hosts a monthly zoom meeting to a large audience. That week I was working from home with a terrible cold (coughing, sneezing, runny nose, the whole package). The day the meeting was scheduled to occur, I emailed my manager excusing myself for not having my camera on as I was sick.

She emailed me back with, “Please be camera ready for the meeting, all participants are expected to be on camera.” I was not presenting; I am just required to attend, and not having my camera on would not pose any disruption to the meeting. I didn’t have the energy to even reply back, so I complied with the ask.

All 100+ participants saw me constantly coughing, sneezing and cleaning my nose (I had my phone on mute). To be honest. I was embarrassed. I got a few “feel better” messages afterwards, which prompted me to realized some people did notice I was sick.

I would think a good manager would understand that the best approach is to have the sick person have their camera off to ensure no distractions. But now I’m wondering if I should’ve pushed back? Or is it the norm to be in camera even if you look like you have the plague? Should I say something now?

Your manager sucks. Even in meetings that are generally camera-on, it should be fine for people to go camera-off if they’re sick (or having connectivity issues, or pumping, or a whole variety of things).

Whether or not you should have pushed back depends on what you know about your manager. With some managers, it would be fine to say, “I’m really not in any condition to be on camera but if you’d prefer I skip the meeting instead, let me know.” With others, that would cause more problems than it would solve.

But you definitely don’t have anything to be embarrassed about! People clearly realized you were sick and probably just felt bad about it.

2. What’s the best way to tell an organization that their volunteer is obnoxious?

I just had a fairly wild interaction with a volunteer for an organization I professionally partner with (i.e., my NGO and their NGO have had joint projects in the past). This volunteer has stepped up to lead a major project and asked for a meeting to pitch that my NGO should endorse his project. Not only was his presentation fairly unimpressive, but I found him to be wildly condescending and aggressively sure that he is right in all details even when he is not. A real low point was the moment when he interrupted me to explain the details of my own work, that I’ve been leading, as the director of my org, for 5 years.

I’m not going to endorse his project. This partner NGO is very lightly staffed and relies heavily on volunteer work, but they do have a few paid positions. Should I reach out to the actual staff and tell them why they didn’t win my endorsement?

Frankly, I kind of want to chuck this whole encounter in the memory hole and move on, but maybe if I report my experience with the volunteer it will save some future human from having the same interaction I did. Any advice for wording I could use?

If you didn’t have contacts at the other org, I’d say to leave it alone … but since you’ve worked with them in the past, I’m assuming you have contacts there and, yes, it would be a professional courtesy to let them know that the volunteer they have leading a major project is alienating partners and coming across so badly.

I’d say it this way: “I thought I should let you know that I met with Malcolm Mulberry recently because he wanted our endorsement of the X project. The way he conducted himself in the meeting was so off-putting that there’s no way we can endorse the project (for example, aggressively confident about things I know him to be wrong about, and interrupting me to explain the details of my own work that I’ve been leading for the last five years). I don’t know if you’ve had the chance to work with him closely, but as someone who cares a lot about the work you do, I felt I should let you know what happened.”

3. Should I go after a job with a client — exactly what my boss feared would happen?

I received praise, with raises, for my performance at my firm, and was assigned to their largest, most profitable project. After a year, my manager asked me to spend time at the client site once a week. After six months of that, I discovered my manager had withheld from me that the client wanted to hire me directly. Though this was wrong of the client and I would have declined, this secret blew up because my manager had misled the client into thinking I knew, but my surprise contradicted this. This led to a very awkward moment in which I felt I had to defend my manager’s behavior to save the client relationship.

From that moment on, my manager became extremely paranoid, micromanaging everything I did and overriding decisions I made that resulted in rework because he was too far from the detail. This caused confusion for the team and extra costs for the client. He terminated my on-site presence, taking away tasks that I had once held, and then suddenly began attending meetings he rarely did before.

When he sensed my frustration, he dangled a new project with a new client, as a carrot. I took it, and our team’s success resulted in a second and third project from this client. However, my manager continued to micromanage me, and yet, when he inserted himself into every email, chat and meeting, he rarely read the project documentation first. As a result, when he took over meetings he asked the client questions and made suggestions that had long since been covered by me. It presented a poor team dynamic to the client, and I wasn’t sure if they might read this as my manager’s incompetence or his lack of confidence in me. Over the five months of this project, I had several meetings with my manager in which I brought up my concerns. He promised to change, blaming his behavior on worries that our most lucrative client had scaled back work, which made my project more important. However, he never changed, and I eventually gave notice when my frustration reached a boiling point.

I had a parting lunch with my manager’s manager and, when she asked about my decision, I explained all that I have explained here. She had no knowledge of any of it and, in her efforts to keep me at the firm, tried to minimize the issues by saying that my manager was the future of the company, and his reactions were normal as they had had an employee poached in the past. I left surprised and disappointed that my experience apparently meant nothing, but this did affirm my decision to leave.

People who know of this tell me that my allegiance to my old firm should no longer keep me from going to the client and seeking employment. I will not do this because it would affirm my ex-manager’s fears, but it does pose an ethical quandary, and I’m curious what you think.

If you’re interested in working for the client and you don’t have a written agreement with your old employer that prevents you from approaching clients within a certain amount of time after leaving, go for it. Who cares if it affirms your former manager’s fears? He treated you (and the client) poorly, and this is a natural consequence of his decisions. Don’t stop yourself from doing what you decide is best for you professionally just because of how he might feel about it!

He’s had enough influence in your life at this point; you don’t need to offer him more when you don’t even work for him anymore.

4. Do I have to attend our year-end party?

I work in higher education and my current position is part-time and grant-funded. It is coming to an end in December/January because of lack of interest in the community. Don’t worry, I’m well on the job hunt and have had some good fortune in the interviews and connections in the school. But my department likes to throw a lavish year-end party and I’m not really interested in going. I’m not feeling very excited about going since my contract is not being extended, and I feel a bit left out of some things in the division. Should I go? Should I sit this one out? If I sit this one out, what is a good excuse?

You don’t need to attend the party if you don’t want to; you can simply say you have a commitment scheduled at the same time that you can’t miss. But it’s worth considering whether there’s networking value in making yourself go for an hour anyway.

Related:
how to survive your office holiday party

5. Leaving graduation dates off your resume because you’re young

I’m in my late twenties, five years out of my bachelor’s degree, and starting to be eligible for some mid-level jobs (like 5+ years of experience required vs. entry-level). However, I’m feeling self-conscious about including my graduation date (2020) on my resume, especially when I can guess I’m at the younger end of candidates for a particular job. Maybe because of the weirdness of the pandemic, I think a lot of people have a subconscious feeling of “2020 was only a few years ago,” and they could dismiss me as inexperienced despite my work history.

There’s a lot of advice on when to leave graduation dates off to avoid age discrimination (generally 40s or so), but what about if you’re younger, have a fair amount of relevant experience, and want to be taken more seriously? Or would it lead to a “Streisand effect” and make it look like you’re hiding something?

It’s really common these days to leave your graduation year off your resume unless you’re right out of school. It used to be that candidates were advised to start leaving off around 40, but lots of people have started doing it way before that. An interviewer might ask when you graduated, but it won’t be weird to leave it off your resume (and definitely won’t create a Streisand effect!).

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