pressure to bake sourdough bread, managing when you can’t enforce any consequences, and more

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

1. My office is greedy for sourdough

About two years ago, I got into baking my own sourdough bread. It’s a process: I have to feed the starter the night before so it’s active when I’m ready to bake, and then once I mix up my dough the next day, it takes about eight hours to proof, then it goes into the fridge overnight, and then I bake it the next day. (Six of those eight hours of proofing don’t involve any work from me, but I do have to kind of babysit it so I need to be at home.)

However, I’ve brought loaves into the office a few times, which led to a couple of people asking if I’d bake loaves for them, which has led to multiple people wanting me to make bread for them. This isn’t a quick process; as described above, it’s a multi-day commitment. I don’t mind doing it for people on occasion, but I’m not a bakery and I don’t want to make bread on demand anymore. The problem is that I started a TikTok about my baking, which my coworkers know about, so I can’t just say I’m not doing it anymore. (Or I could, but then I’d have to stop posting, and I’m enjoying that element of it!) Is there a polite way for me to tell my coworkers I’m going to do this on my schedule, not theirs?

Finally, a sourdough question! I too am a sourdough baker and love it — but yes, it is a whole process.

And yeah, without the TikTok account, you could just say you weren’t baking a lot currently or were spending more time on some other activity. But why not just be straightforward? “It’s a multi-day process and I couldn’t keep up with all the requests, but I’ll bring it in for the office once or twice a year.” If anyone pushes beyond that: “It’s just way too much work to take orders, but I love that you loved it!” And maybe refer them to a nearby bakery that actually does produce bread on demand.

Related:
I make delicious baked goods and my office knows it

2. In-office days have turned my office into a germ-filled petri dish

In February, my employer changed its hybrid work policy. In the written policy, they doubled the required in-office days from one to two per week. As an unwritten policy disseminated via managers, they clarified that if you work from home due to illness or even take vacation days, you aren’t excused from the policy — you have to make it up on a different day that same week. My manager even gave the example that if you take three vacation days in a week, you must come to the office the other two days, even if you’re the only person from your team who is physically in the office.

I don’t have an inherent problem with the policy itself, but there’s been an unfortunate side effect: ever since, there’s constantly been illnesses running through the office. People will work from home for a single day, but then the next day they are in the office coughing and sneezing their germs on the rest of us. I have been sick myself four times since the policy changes. I can’t say for sure that it’s due to the policy changes — maybe there’s just a lot more stuff going around. But the strict requirements about coming into the office, germs or not, can’t be helping. I’m not sure what I should do — complain to HR? Unionize?

Can you and your coworkers lobby for an exception to the policy for sick days? Point out that everyone is better off if sick colleagues work from home and aren’t required to come to the office when they’re well enough to work but potentially still contagious.

You might not get it changed — a lot of companies are digging in their heels around return-to-office — but it’s a pretty reasonable tweak to request; you’re not pushing back on any of the rest of it, just the part that’s spreading illness.

3. Managing when you can’t enforce any consequences

I’m a manager at a large retailer. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say the parent company owns regular stores and discount stores.

At the regular stores, department managers have sales goals that they are held responsible for, and the salespeople work on commission and have regular sales goals that they are expected to meet. If they are unable to meet them, then after significant coaching and several write-ups, they’re let go. Similarly, if a department manager is unable to coach a selling team up to meet their goals, the manager is eventually let go.

At the discount stores, the store has a goal for new credit accounts opened. Cashiers receive a cash incentive for each application processed, and the manager overseeing them is held responsible for the store meeting their goal. However, employees at the discount stores cannot be written up or receive other disciplinary consequences for not meeting their credit card goals. What advice would you give to a manager who is not permitted to deliver consequences to team members who aren’t fulfilling their position expectations? Particularly when the manager is held responsible for the store hitting that KPI?

Well, full disclosure, you’re writing to someone who suspects that the store’s goal for new credit accounts opened is probably higher than it should be, and who thinks stores should train their cashiers well enough to let them judge when such a pitch would and wouldn’t be welcome and accept that that means every transaction won’t include the pitch.

That aside, any management job where you’re responsible for achieving specific outcomes through the work of others but not given any real tools to hold those others accountable to doing that is a management job you should avoid. You can of course try positive incentives rather than negative disincentives (like first dibs on scheduling or other rewards) but at the end of the day, a manager who can’t enforce any consequences is in a job that’s impossible to do effectively.

4. Company pulled their offer because a background check turned up an arrest of someone with my same name

A few years ago, my husband was offered and accepted a position with a new company. As part of the hiring process, they conducted a standard background check. A few days before he was scheduled to start, he received an email from HR that the job offer was rescinded because the background check revealed an arrest that he had failed to disclose.

Upon request, he obtained a copy of the background check, which indicated an arrest in Pennsylvania several years prior. The thing is, my husband had never even been to Pennsylvania, much less been arrested there. The matchpoints used in the background check were my husband’s (very common) first name, middle initial, and last name, as well as his date of birth. The arrest that showed up on the background check was for an entirely different John M. Smith. He tried communicating this to the company’s HR department but was basically stonewalled. He was able to find another position shortly thereafter and everything turned out fine, but now he’s wary of this when applying for new positions. What if this happens again? Does he have a recourse? Should he provide a warning about this other, felonious John M. Smith when consenting to background checks?

Yes, he should proactively mention it: “The last time I had a background check done, I found out that there is a John M. Smith with my same birthday with an arrest in Pennsylvania. That’s a different person than me; please let me know if you’d like me to provide any additional documentation to confirm that.”

5. Interviewing with auditory processing disorder

I’m wondering whether I should disclose auditory processing disorder (APD) as a disability when applying for jobs and, if so, how to do so in a way that minimizes any negative impact on my chances of being hired.

You can think of APD as analogous to dyslexia, but for spoken language. Someone with dyslexia may have normal eyesight but difficulty processing written words; similarly, someone with APD may have normal hearing but difficulty processing spoken words. If you’ve ever listened to song lyrics that sounded like gibberish despite paying close attention, that’s similar to what it’s like when APD makes speech difficult to understand.

Thankfully, my APD has become mild later in life. For instance, I regularly listen to podcasts/audiobooks with little trouble. However, my APD can very situationally manifest itself depending on factors such as my anxiety level, audio quality, which accent the other person has, and their unique speech patterns. It tends to affect me more often during job interviews than in everyday life, sometimes causing me to ask an interviewer to repeat themselves multiple times in a single interview. When that happens, I apologize, explain that I didn’t hear what they said, and intensely focus on their repetition (which can help to a degree).

I’m not looking for interview accommodations, as I can’t think of any that would make enough of a difference to be worthwhile for me. However, I am concerned that asking an interviewer to repeat themselves may come across as me not listening to them, or as an attempt to stall while I think of an answer that I’m having trouble thinking of an answer to. Perhaps disclosing APD before or during the hiring process might provide useful context, but it could also expose me to discrimination. What do you suggest?

Say matter-of-factly at the start of the interview, “I occasionally have trouble hearing so may need to ask you to repeat something at times.” Or you can wait until you actually need something repeated and then say at that point, “Could I ask you to repeat that? I occasionally have trouble hearing, so I might need to ask that a few more times too — just giving you a heads-up!”

Also, since you said you couldn’t think of specific accommodations that might help, the Job Accommodation Network has a list for APD that could be useful to look at.

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