should you hire employees to babysit, locker room etiquette when your gym is full of coworkers, and more

I’m off today. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. Should you hire employees to babysit?

I help supervise a group of about 20 student workers at a college. Most of them know I have a one-year-old and some of them really love babies (I sometimes bring him by during my non-work hours briefly to make their day). I’ve had at least two workers tell me they’d love to babysit. They’re good responsible workers, but I’ve been uncertain as to the advisability of that and haven’t followed up on their offers. This is likely to come up again as new students come in and learn I have a child. My gut says that babysitting (while paid) is more personal than a typical employment relationship and could blur professional boundaries or lead to an appearance of favoritism, so I should just kindly thank them for the offer and say we’re all set in that department. Is that the right call or am I overthinking this?

People sometimes do this and it’s fine, but if it goes wrong, it can be disastrous. For example, if you hire one of them and there are problems with their care of your child (say you find out they’ve been negligent or cruel), would you be able to keep that from affecting things at work? What if you have a dispute over pay? Are you comfortable leaving them unattended in your home? And you’ve also got to consider the power dynamics; even though they’re volunteering, there’s a risk they’d still feel obligated to say yes when you ask (or that they’ll be happy to do it once or twice but feel pressured after that). It can also make other workers wonder if you favor or give special access to the people who sit for you.

Some people do this and make it work, but if you want to play it safe, it’s wiser not to cross the streams.

– 2020

2. Locker room etiquette when your gym is full of coworkers

My office recently added some cool new perks on top of our employee benefits. My favorite? They’re now offering anyone who wants it a free membership to the gym right across the street from our office. It’s been hard for me to work out previously because of my commute, so I’ve been taking full advantage of this perk since it took effect a couple months ago. Lots of my other coworkers have jumped on this perk as well, and I’ll run into them at the gym frequently. Overall, it’s been positive, but there’s one thing I don’t know how to handle — the locker rooms.

I’m pretty comfortable in my body, and I’m not that awkward about changing in your standard locker room full of strangers. But the prospect of a coworker — or worse, my boss — walking in on me changing has me feeling incredibly awkward. So far, I haven’t been seen by my coworkers while changing and haven’t walked in on anyone else from my office, but I know it’s only a matter of time. This is a situation I’ve never encountered before — I didn’t know anyone who worked out at my previous gyms. What should I do if I run into a coworker in the locker room while one or both of us are in various states of undress? Should I just change in the toilet stalls to avoid anyone seeing me? I might be making a bigger deal of this in my head than it actually is, but it has me feeling really uncomfortable.

It’s pretty much the same locker room code as always: There’s a collective agreement to ignore everyone else’s nudity.

The last time this came up, a commenter offered this, which I really liked:

“I think there’s a big difference between functional nudity and casual nudity at the gym. Functional = in order to change, I have to take off my clothes. I am no longer 12 and trying to hide my body at all costs, so if someone glances over at me while I am changing, they will see me naked. Casual nudity = I am wandering around naked, blow drying my hair naked, etc. This is fine generally in a locker room, but is best to avoid at a work gym. Though I would totally blow dry my hair wearing a bra and not a shirt to avoid getting hot/sweaty.”

In other words, make any nudity fairly quick. Don’t linger.

But it’s also completely fine to decide you’re just not comfortable with locker room nudity around coworkers at all and change in a stall. There’s no shame in that; you’re not being weirdly prudish if you got that route.

– 2019

3. Is it unprofessional to brush my hair in common areas of my workplace?

I am an assistant manager, and today something weird happened. I did not get to finish my normal routine this morning as I had to go to the UPS store (for work) so I showed up to work with my hairbrush. I work at a preschool and typically, by the time I arrive to work, there are no parents here as they have all dropped off their kids and left. I walked around to say good morning to the teachers and collect breakfast dishes as normal, but I brought my hair brush along and brushed my hair as I was walking between the classrooms.

The manager above me made a point to rush up to me and tell me I need to do my beauty stuff in the bathroom. I was confused by this as I thought she meant the makeup in my purse but no, she explained that me brushing my hair was unprofessional. I am young, so maybe this is just a rule on professionalism I have never heard before. I am just confused. This was pretty much a one-time thing, and not a habit I have. Is it really all that unprofessional in this otherwise rather relaxed atmosphere for a work setting?

Yeah, there’s an etiquette rule about not doing personal grooming in public. Some workplaces might not have thought it was a big deal, and it’s not the biggest deal in the world, but it’s also not outlandish for your manager to ask you not to do it. (It’s also the kind of thing that can be frowned upon without anyone telling you, so it’s good that she did. She might have done that because you’re young and she figured that you’re still learning professional norms.)

– 2019

4. I accidentally sent a highly personal medical email to someone who reports to me

I am currently on maternity leave and will return to work in a couple of months. While I’ve been out, I’ve emailed my team at work a few times with baby updates and replied to anyone personally saying hello, all from my personal email as I no longer have access to my work email.

Yesterday, I sent an unrelated and angry email about a very personal medical matter to a person on my team by accident. This person reports to me. The first three letters of her name in her email are the same three letters of the person I was trying to email instead, so you can see how I sent this by accident and this worker’s email was saved because of the above previous correspondence while I’ve been off.

It was only caught because the worker emailed me back acknowledging this wasn’t meant for her. I’m mortified. How can I save face? All I’ve done so far is email her back thanking her, apologizing, and stating that I trust her to keep this between us because of the personal nature. Is this all I can do and never speak of it again?

Yes! You handled it well. If she’s at all a decent person, she’ll understand that this kind of mistake happens and will keep it to herself. We’ve all been there with a misdirected email at some point or another, and most people are sympathetic when it happens.

You don’t need to take any further action; anything more would be belaboring the point and focusing her on it more. Assume you’ll both wipe it from your minds and never speak of it again.

– 2019

5. How to bring up experience at an interview that I forgot to mention on my resume

I’m returning to work after doing a postgraduate degree. I’ve got an interview coming up, and in the course of prepping for it I realized that one of the projects from the job I had before going back to study is in a really closely related area to the role I’m interviewing for. The problem is that I hadn’t mentioned that project in either my cover letter or my CV when applying. Obviously I want to bring up this relevant experience in the interview, but what’s the best way to frame it in a way that is more “this candidate has useful experience” and less “this candidate didn’t fully think through their application”?

Just be matter-of-fact about it! “I realized one of the projects I did at Job X might be relevant here. It’s not on my resume, but (details about the project).” No reasonable interviewer is going to think not including it originally means you’re flighty or thoughtless. Interviewers know lots of people use the same basic resume for all the jobs they apply for, and they also know humans will not always instantly realize precisely how relevant something might be to a job they’re not terribly familiar with yet.

I’ve interviewed many candidates where I thought, “Oh! That’s really relevant — I’m glad you mentioned it.” Sometimes I’ve even thought, “Oooh, you should include that on your resume! It’ll help you!” But I’ve never thought, “What kind of doofus didn’t write this down originally?”

– 2020

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