by CAITY WEAVER | Mar 26, 2020 | Jobs
CAITY Weaver, a time-management columnist, answers readers’ remote work questions.
Q: Everyone at home (me, my partner, plus two roommates who are siblings) is practising social distancing and working from home, except one of us has a job that is location-dependent and therefore has nothing to work on. How do we avoid murdering her and each other?
A: Two points. One: Being fortunate enough to have a job that allows you to work from home right now doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to gripe about work. My mom always says: “All feelings are allowed. Not all actions are allowed, but all feelings are.” By always saying this, my mother created a child loath to perform any action that might get her in trouble, but who complained constantly.
Two: People in this cohort must take extra care in the coming weeks to remember that they are lucky to have work from home to complain about, and to be healthy enough to do so. Many of our neighbours are putting themselves in harm’s way by performing the non-remote jobs that allow society to function. Others have had their income abruptly stripped away altogether.
Work-from-home people should actively remind themselves to be compassionate and generous with anyone who cannot work from home.
Some practical advice for your household: Establish boundaries and an agreed-upon everyday routine. This will require a quick meeting of all household members. If you aren’t comfortable sitting down in person for health reasons, do it over video chat. Everyone should feel that they have been consulted. People will find fault with the most perfect plan in the world if it is emailed to them fully formed.
Your plan, which you should call a game plan because it sounds fun and temporary, should establish people’s schedules and preferred working locations. If these include common areas, one person probably shouldn’t commandeer the best one every day. Figure out a way to share and regularly disinfect it. With four people cooped up together, some level of disturbance is unavoidable and some level of friendly interaction should be encouraged to benefit the general atmosphere. Use your roommate conversation to establish what is fine and what is distracting. Are you best reached by instant message while working? Are you able to ignore a TV if it is on mute?
It might be useful, if you can, to plan to break for lunch around the same time, so people can check in with one another and clank plates with impunity. Once a schedule has been established, stick to it. You can’t demand extra quiet hours because you decided to take a 90-minute Netflix break in the middle of the day. Hopefully, your roommate will accommodate the group’s requests to avoid becoming a pariah. If she resists, do your best to be empathetic. She didn’t cause the pandemic and it is very likely that every other minute she is experiencing a full-body panic freeze wondering if and when she will be laid off from the job she is unable to perform through no fault of her own.
Q: How can I adjust to the newfound intimacy of video chats and Zoom meetings? I can’t handle staring into everyone’s wild eyes.
A: Please, if you value your dignity, take the time now to put a sticker, some tape, a chewed-up piece of gum – anything – over your computer’s camera. I was recently talking to a group of professional women across a wide range of ages and geographic locations. Two had first-hand accounts of witnessing someone appear fully or partially nude while dialling in to a work meeting because he or she was unaware the call featured video and audio.
Don’t assume that because you can’t see someone, they can’t see you. Believe me when I say it is worth the hassle of removing a small obstruction from your computer lens every time you want to appear on camera. Do not let your webcam catch you unawares. You can look to this hellish time as an opportunity to rebrand yourself to your colleagues. Shed your reputation as the office slob by removing all the garbage from one corner of your home and fielding work calls from there.
If you are vain, position yourself so that light hits you from the front, rather than from the back or a side. If you are vain, conduct all meetings on Zoom, which allows users to apply a subtle retouch filter to their appearance.
This article first appeared in The New York Times.
by CAITY WEAVER | Mar 6, 2020 | Jobs
CAITY Weaver, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, answers readers’ questions.
Q: I work at an NGO, where we are passionate about our jobs. Our executives hired a new head of HR recently.
Her first act was to change the department’s name from “HR” to “Human Capital”. It would be okay if we were Goldman Sachs, but a mission-oriented NGO? Capital? How do I broach the topic with the CEO that this does not respect the staff? She was clearly on board when the change was implemented, but may be open to realising it is not being well received.
A: Unless the mission of your NGO relates to the historical preservation of corporate jargon, do not bother your CEO with this. Many people hear the phrase “human resources” and assume it refers to a collection of resources provided for the humans who work at a company. The company, by this reckoning, is a kind of Mother Earth who provides her children not with wind and petroleum but payroll information and a mechanism for reporting sexual harassment. That’s incorrect. Human resources, as defined in the dictionaries of our land and in the hearts of its C-suite executives, are that portion of a company’s exploitable resources that are human, as opposed to, say, financial. Human beings are the resources of “human resources”. “Human resources” doesn’t sound too different from “human capital.” Or does it?
What is human capital? No one knows. People who act like they know actually just want to hear themselves say “human capital”. The different meanings individuals and organisations ascribe to this term are so nebulous as to be basically incomprehensible. Protesting this meaningless corporate designation will not improve your life, and could earn you the reputation of someone who wastes time complaining about inconsequential details. If this manager goes on to create policies that are truly unacceptable, policies that, as you point out, would arrive with inherent CEO approval, you will be glad you didn’t waste your first objection on a quibble about naming.
There is one person with whom you might broach the subject: your new head of Human Capital. Say you’d like to learn more about what aspects of career development the reorganised department is intended to emphasise. This is, of course, a lie, but I guarantee that the person who introduced this change has sensational ideas about why it was necessary and will relish the opportunity to list them to a new audience. You can earn points by seeming to care.
Q: I started a new job a few months ago at a media company. It is horrible. The management runs on power trips, my boss’s expectations are vague at best and impossible at worst, and everyone hates their job. The whole place has a cursed and doomed energy, and I’m already applying to new jobs to get out. That said, it has benefits and good holiday days. An acquaintance recently asked me for advice for applying to my exact job. A co-worker got fired suddenly. I gave her some interview tips, but also told her to check out the damning Glassdoor reviews. She’s making her way through the interview process and is very qualified. What is my moral responsibility to tell her how bad it really is? Her options seem to be this job or unemployment, which is how I got here too.
A: If you don’t lie, you can’t get caught in a lie. Tell her whatever you want, as long as it is not a lie. I don’t think your moral responsibility toward “an acquaintance” is tremendous, but even if she were a close friend, it would not be your duty to talk her out of taking a legal, non-hazardous job, especially if it were her only option. Your mention of a media job with “good holiday days” for entry-level employees caught my eye.
I hope yours is one. I’m also aware of the common practice, particularly among start-ups, of offering so-called unlimited holidays.Perhaps for some the policy works as advertised. In my experience, its effect is that employees end up taking relatively little time off, for fear of looking greedy or undedicated. Whatever your company’s policy, make sure you do take paid time off, especially since it sounds like your job makes you miserable. I also think many of my acquaintances who work in media would describe their workplaces with similar language, but don’t let that dissuade you from leaving.
Q: When I was a teacher at a boarding school, we had an athletic director who liked to call students and faculty “tiger” or “handsome”. He always felt that if he could say something nice to someone, he would do it, as that may be the only nice thing that person heard that day. He passed away a few years ago. As a nice memory and in admiration for his kind agenda, I like to call people handsome also. A supervisor today, who I copied on an email in which I called someone handsome, wrote an email back. I was told to “refrain from calling people handsome”. I’m curious. What is wrong with the salutation? I’m clueless how this may be a bad thing.
A: It is a lovely notion to compliment when the opportunity presents itself. Flattery of physical traits, regardless of kindness-to-accuracy ratio, could be welcome; it could also leave a person feeling uncomfortably scrutinised.
In any instance when a teacher is addressing a student, at work and when you simply can’t know for sure, highlight a specific skill or accomplishment instead. Besides being unfailingly appropriate, this is more in keeping with your generous intent. A salutation should not even be eligible to count as the only nice thing a person hears all day. Praise for something someone did, even if it is as simple as “You did a great job with (X),” gives the recipient the impression he or she is appreciated, rather than merely observed.
This article was first published in The New York Times.
by CAITY WEAVER | Mar 2, 2020 | General
Caity Weaver, a workplace writer for The New York Times, answers readers’ questions about discriminating against the disabled, and appropriate décor.
Q: I have a perfect storm of mental and physical defects. I cannot keep my emotions off my face. I have nerve damage in my left leg, hip and mid-lower back from spinal cord decompression surgeries. Painkillers don’t work.
I have had back problems since 2002. I know how to handle pain. I can work through it, but my face betrays me. Colleagues see me grimacing and feel horrible for me.
When I try but fail to suppress the grimace, they feel even worse, thinking they sense how brave and pitiable I am, and how much it must really hurt since I cannot cover it up.
My job includes speaking. People do not believe that I mean what I say because my face “tells them” I am unable to produce concentrated thought due to my suffering. I am not only not taken literally, I am sometimes not even taken seriously.
When I get mad because someone does not believe me, they say the pain is making me unpleasant and grumpy. In fact, it is their disregard of my vocal utterances that upsets me.
I work at a medical clinic. I have to communicate in person. But my colleagues say: “I know you want to attend the monthly meeting, but no one wants you there because you make everyone feel so bad because of your pain. They don’t really listen to you either since they can’t stop thinking about how much you must be suffering. So just go home.”
Am I the old male’s version of the large-breasted woman not being taken seriously?
A: A large-breasted woman may not be typecast as a brave, sympathetic figure, but she is likely to have some experience with back pain, on top of other injustices. Although her slighting is rooted in sexism, not good intentions, I wager that she feels a comparable resentment.
I can only imagine how frustrating your job is. I also understand that strangers imagining insight into your existence is the problem. In pursuit of practical advice, I shared your letter with my father, a retired bus driver and librarian with a passion for small talk, as well as severe mobility and pain issues. When he walks, it is typically with two canes. His progress is laboured, but he’s great at spotting dropped change.
He suggested a two-pronged confrontation.
First, go further than telling people that you are managing your discomfort: Promise to alert them if your pain is such that you can’t work or need aid. Otherwise, they are to assume you’re set. Repeat this to anyone whose solicitousness affects you negatively. Keep your end of the bargain.
Second, you might have to make people feel a little bad to get them to stop feeling bad. Here’s what my dad said: “You don’t want to be not included in stuff. People look at me walking and I can tell that they have sympathy for me. But for me it is better to get up, get out and do whatever it is I want to do. Psychologically, that makes me feel better.”
Remind your colleagues that they cannot make your life smaller because they think it would make them more comfortable.
Besides being shockingly rude, it is illegal for a workplace to request that someone not attend meetings because of a disability. If you want to deliver a gut punch on top of whatever formal actions you may or may not take, tell your colleagues that you feel disappointed when they exclude you. People can’t stand being responsible for disappointment.
When passers-by ask if my dad needs help, he jokes that he would love a brand-new back, if they have one. Lots of people just want to be absolved from their perceived obligation to help, and a joke lets everyone off the hook.
If all else fails, turn the tables on your colleagues. Say their reactions are distracting you – would they like a moment to collect themselves?
Q: I work for a small start-up that’s seen its share of turmoil. Most could be attributed to our chief executive, and it is largely manifested in the form of turnover. People do not want to work for a man they consider to be overly demanding and mean-spirited. I also have designs on leaving.
A lot of people who I enjoyed working with and consider friends no longer work with me. I put up a picture of three of them on my cubicle wall.
My supervisor said “some people” have expressed concern about the picture because it gives the impression that I’m resistant to the “positive strides” the company’s culture has made in the past few months. He asked if I wouldn’t mind taking it down.
Given that he has only been with the company two-and-a-half months, I have to conclude that the “people” he referred to is the CEO.
I agreed to take it down because I like my supervisor. But the notion that I should be expected to take down a completely appropriate, inoffensive picture of my friends because of the CEO, feels like an abuse of power.
Is this a valid concern to raise with HR? This is hardly the worst thing I’ve experienced in my career, but I feel like I have an obligation to stand up for myself.
A: “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything,” goes the saying. But how about this: if you take a stand for everything, you’ll constantly have to stand up, which is annoying.
Also annoying is annoying décor to make a silent hostile point and getting upset when the point is taken. Cool former colleagues are not a protected class. No one’s humanity has been impinged.
Perhaps the picture rankled your CEO, but anyone could have found it odd. Direct your energy towards your goal of leaving.
Alternatively, advance through the ranks to unseat the boss, then commission a big, beautiful mural of miscellaneous departed colleagues. It’s hard to know whom to root for here – maybe the people unaware a former co-worker hung their photo in his or her cubicle.
This articles first appeared in The New York Times.
by CAITY WEAVER | Feb 3, 2020 | General
Weaver, a columnist at The York Times, answers a reader’s question about handling free food at the office.
Q: My manager is a nightmare. Name anything that shows the worst of bad management and she’s done it, including presenting my ideas brazenly as her own.
Recently, I did a favour for a colleague, not a personal favour but a work favour. As a thank you, she surprised me by bringing in a box of fancy mini pastries, two dozen, for me and to share with my team.
My manager sits next to me. After my colleague had walked away, the manager commandeered the pastries. She gave me one, then walked around dishing out one here and another there to people she likes, leaving out my team. With about 18 pastries left, she put them under her desk, telling me she was taking the rest home to her family.
Besides my horrible manager, I like the company and I don’t want to quit. What, if anything, could I have done so that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again? I am furious.
A: Gifts shouldn’t have stipulations. If I’d been you, I probably would have joked to the pastry giver: “To share? Yeah, right!” and while everyone was chuckling, quietly placed the pastries in my desk drawer for consumption by me alone. They’re mini.
One interpretation is that your manager is a true-blue psychopath who remorselessly stole your gift before your very eyes.
More likely, your manager is simply a jerk who didn’t quite understand what was happening in that moment: that the treat was in recognition of your extra work. Is it possible she felt that she, as the supervisor, had delegated the work favour to you, therefore it was her thanks for effective management?
This interaction is so strange and specific I cannot conceive of what a second instance of “this kind of thing” might be, let alone envision the conditions that would result in such events becoming recurring.
What you could have done is that the moment you sensed she intended to move the goodies to a second location, you should have said: “I’m going to send an email to make sure the team knows we got these as a thank you,” and then sent one.
That way, even if she had, bizarrely, hand-delivered mini pastries only to her favourite people, she would have been publicly identified as their custodian. When team members came calling, you could have turned to her and asked: “We still have some of those mini pastries, right?”
Mistakes become harder to correct with every passing second. By the time she tucked that box under her desk with no protest from you, her error had become your reality. I maintain you could have corrected her then, even if awkward. I encourage everyone to tolerate low-grade social awkwardness whenever possible; it improves character.
I’m relieved that this incident did not make you want to quit a job you like, where you apparently are liked or at least appreciated by your colleagues.
You will be happier if you kept your interactions with and thoughts about your manager to a polite minimum and focused on those aspects of work you enjoy and your favour-driven cultivation of generous supporters.
This article first appeared in The New York Times.
