my coworker is dating a teenager, talking about your cat in an interview, and more

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

1. My coworker is dating a teenager

I work in retail and have younger coworkers rotate through on a regular basis. Think late teens to early twenties. I am significantly older than them and often offer general life advice or encouragement.

One of my coworkers (22) can be a bit sporadic. He’s a hard worker and fairly cheerful person but on rare occasions he makes really stupid decisions without thinking of the consequences. Previous problems include gambling more than he should have, not showing up for work, and slashing his roommate’s tires after an argument. I’m aware that this makes him sound like a nightmare but it is literally 0.1% of the time. I think it is a poor impulse control/emotional regulation issue.

Recently there has been a major rumor going around the store that he is dating a 14-year-old. While I haven’t yet talked to him directly, the details I’ve heard are substantial enough to lend credence. I have asked if anyone had contacted the girl’s parents but apparently her home life isn’t good, and no one is there to intercede for her.

He strikes me as the sort of guy who gets insecure over not getting dates and immature enough to not realize this is an insanely bad decision. He’s also religious and I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason he thinks it’s okay is because he has no intention of doing anything sexual until marriage.

I’m already planning on talking to some of the managers first about the rumors, and see if they have a game plan. Still, he listens to me, often more than the managers, and I want to determine if the rumor is actually true. To be clear, I do not condone his actions in any way but I would like, if possible, to steer him away from destroying his entire life. I don’t want to put him on the defensive but I doubt sugarcoating will get through to him. Any advice on how to approach him?

He’s an adult and she’s a young teen, so the priority needs to be him not destroying the girl’s life. That would be true no matter which adult man she was dating, but the fact that this one has poor impulse control and slashes people’s tires is additionally worrisome.

I can’t see any way to handle this other than being extremely blunt, both in inquiring if it’s true and in telling him what he’s doing is illegal (and that the age of consent in your state is X), terrible for the girl, and risks getting him arrested. And then if he confirms it, you should report it, because what he’s doing is predatory, and someone needs to speak up for that 14-year-old girl.

2. Candidate is worried about her cat for a travel-heavy position

I have been hiring for an open position on my team. I did all the interviews and selected a great candidate who had a ton of experience, was excited to work at our organization, and had stellar work samples.

There’s quite a bit of travel associated with this job, so when my boss interviewed her, he asked her if she was comfortable with the travel aspect. She responded that she was, but did mention that her cat doesn’t do well when she’s away for a long time, and she was trying to figure out what to do about that and had thought about FaceTiming the cat so it could hear her voice.

My boss thought this was the oddest thing and said it was a red flag. I think he thought maybe she wasn’t a culture fit or wouldn’t want to leave her cat to travel, but she had also researched what travel was like to some of our sites, seemed excited about it, and mentioned wanting to go to one site for at least a week to ensure all things that needed to get done would.

I maintained it was perhaps quirky and maybe not something that should have been mentioned in an interview, but I didn’t think it was a red flag unless it was paired with other concerning things, which there were none.

Is talking about your cat in an interview a red flag? And how much emphasis should culture fit play if the skills are there?

If I were advising her, I’d tell her not to say what she said! It’s of course fine and normal to have worries about the travel, but sharing those concerns in detail isn’t going to do anything other than potentially worry the interviewer about whether that will become a sticking point after you’re hired. It’s fine to say something like, “I do need to figure out arrangements for X, but if we move forward I’ll ensure that’s taken care of” … but the detail about maybe FaceTiming the cat was too much. Way too much! (But it’s also one of those things that you can imagine the candidate kicking herself afterward for saying — “Why did I tell them that?!”)

But that’s advice for her. On your end of things, I don’t think it’s a sign on its own that you shouldn’t hire her, but I do think you should hear it as her expressing some hesitation about the travel and approach it from that angle — meaning that before offering her the job, you should confirm that she’s very clear on the amount of travel and that she does have plans in place that she’s comfortable with. But if she says she does and she sounds confident, I would take her word for it — just like you’d presumably believe a parent who said they were comfortable traveling, even though the possibility would still exist for them to get two months in and realize it wasn’t working out for their family the way they’d hoped it would.

(Separately, the cat may not like FaceTime! I once tried it when I was traveling and it just freaked out Lucy to hear my voice when she couldn’t physically find me. Not that this is relevant to what you’re asking.)

3. One person keeps monopolizing our trainings

I work at a large corporation. Part of my job is facilitating training meetings for various groups, mostly related to soft skills, such as managing conflict, etc. I am encountering an issue with one individual in a particular group. When I invite group discussion, this individual is always the first to speak. And then they talk … on and on. They often have excellent ideas, but they have a lengthy opinion on every.single.topic.

I’m trying to judge whether the other attendees have shut down due to the endless comments, or if they are quite happy to sit back and allow this one person to carry the weight. Either way. this needs to change. Our culture is that everyone’s opinion matters, and I don’t want to silence the person completely, because they should be allowed to speak — just not to the point that no one else gets a chance.

What do you suggest? Speaking with the monopolizer privately? Use the “talking stick” method I’ve heard about? Going around the room and calling on each person, limiting the comments to two minutes per person? All of the above? Something I haven’t thought of?

You need to more actively facilitate the meetings! At the start of the meeting, say explicitly that you want to ensure there’s space for everyone to speak and ask that people be cognizant about sharing the air time. You can also say, “Since we have a lot of participants and limited time, I might interject at times to make sure everyone gets a chance to contribute.”

And then if this person is monologuing, don’t be afraid to jump in and say, “I’m sorry to cut you off — I want to give other people a chance to speak as well” or “Let me interject here because we have a lot of people we haven’t heard from yet.” You might also consider structuring the conversation itself differently — for example, rather than just throwing the topic out to the group as a free-for-all, call on people individually (or in some other form, like “let’s hear from someone on the X team about this”). Just tell people it’s fine to pass if they don’t have anything to contribute because some people won’t.

This is all part of facilitating effectively and you shouldn’t feel shy about doing it! In fact, I’d bet money that some of the participants are silently wishing you would!

More here:
my coworker keeps hijacking team meetings

4. My former organization won’t disconnect my Facebook account from their page

It’s been months since I left my last job, and my Facebook account is still connected to the organization’s Facebook page. My former executive director is telling me to just ignore the notifications, but it’s really annoying! I shouldn’t have to wade through that on my personal account. It’s also a genuine risk to give former employees this kind of access, and it’s making me feel like I can’t move on.

I’ve nudged her several times now and she keeps waving me off. I know I need to be more firm, but I don’t want to sour the relationship with this organization. How do I get this woman to actually deal with this problem, when it’s clearly not a priority for her? I can’t take this anymore.

The executive director did try to remove me at one point, but it didn’t work for some reason, so someone just needs to have a conversation with tech support via the business account. I know she gets frazzled easily and that she finds tech stuff pretty overwhelming, so I offered to log back into the account (because I can!) and handle it for her, but she wasn’t into the idea. So basically, she won’t let me sort this for her and she won’t do it herself.

Give her a deadline: “Hey Jane, I’m still getting notifications about the Facebook account. I’m happy to give you a few more days to deal with it on your end, but if I’m still connected to it by the weekend, I’ll need to just remove myself.”

Alternately, just do it yourself. You’ve asked her to, she’s declined, you have the access to fix it, so just … do. She probably won’t even notice but if she does, you can say, “Yep, I handled it since it hadn’t been done.”

5. Should I acknowledge the anniversary of my coworker’s son’s death?

Last year, one of my colleagues arrived at work visibly upset. When we asked her what was wrong, she told us that it was the anniversary of her son’s death; he was a young adult who died by suicide about a decade prior. She had never mentioned her son before this to any of us at the office, though we all knew about her other children and grandchildren. In the following days, she told us briefly about a memorial to him that was built in their hometown, and dealing with grief in general, but hasn’t brought him up since.

That anniversary is coming up shortly and I’m not sure if I should acknowledge it or not. I was thinking of perhaps putting a small candle on her desk with a “thinking of you” card, but I’m not sure it’s appropriate. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable when she is just trying to get through the work day, but at the same time I care about her and don’t want her to think that we’ve just forgotten all about it. I’d appreciate any advice you or your readers may have.

I wouldn’t do the candle but a card would be lovely (and somehow feels more like the right balance than a card and a candle, though others may disagree). I don’t think you’ll make her uncomfortable; she will likely appreciate that you remembered the day and are thinking about her. It can be terribly hard in that situation to feel like everyone around you is treating a day that’s incredibly sad and painful as if it’s the same as any other day.

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