It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My boss sent around photos of my coworker in body paint
My boss and a coworker became Facebook friends. My manager was snooping around on her Facebook profile and saw some pictures of her without clothes on but with her privates covered in body paint, and then sent them to me and several other coworkers via text message, from his work cell phone. For this and many other reasons, I consider him a despicable human being without integrity or honor. I have not reported this to my coworker for fear of causing her shame and embarrassment, and I have not reported this to HR for fear of retaliation by my manager if he were to not get fired. If he were to get fired, then I would still face retaliation because my mangers boss is one of his best friends.
I guess I am stuck in a legal and moral pickle here. Ethically and morally, I should alert my coworker, and if I were to change jobs I would do it in a heartbeat because of fear of retaliation. With her approval of course, if she chooses not to go through the embarrassment of this then I won’t force her to do it. Can my manager even be punished for what he did by HR because they were Facebook friends? He sent pictures to non-Facebook friends of hers.
Your manager is an ass. The fact that they’re Facebook friends and that gave him access to these pictures doesn’t make it okay for him to send around unclothed photos of an employee to other people. That would be disrespectful and violating no matter who did it, but it’s so much worse when it’s a manager doing it to an employee, particularly since it makes recourse for her more difficult (as you’re seeing firsthand when you consider the qualms it’s giving you).
At a minimum, you should tell your coworker what happened. She’s entitled to know that this occurred (so that she can cut off her manager’s access to her page, if nothing else). It’s her call whether or not to report this to your company or to speak with your manager about it, but you really can’t make that call for her, which is what you’d be doing by not mentioning it to her. Ideally, you’d also tell your manager that you don’t want to receive those photos and that you’re concerned that he would send them, and possibly consider speaking to HR yourself. But that part is up to you; the part that isn’t optional is alerting your coworker. Her boss is behaving in a skeevy, violating, and possibly harassing way to and about her; she deserves to know.
2. Boss is including commute time in our work day
I work in an office building that is open between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., but my team works on shifts between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. When we are scheduled to work outside of office hours, we work from home and then travel into the office when someone else arrives to cover us or travel home early and continue working from home until late. All my other colleagues live over an hour’s drive away, but luckily I only live five minutes away.
My boss has now decided that that commuting time is to be included in our actual working hours. As in, if we are scheduled to work between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. (eight hours with an hour for lunch), those are the hours we work, regardless of how much of that time was spent driving to the office. My colleagues are obviously very pleased with this and I think it’s a nice perk for the company to offer. However, it means that I will actually be working about 250 hours more a year than they do. Do you reckon there’s scope for me to ask my boss if there is any way I can receive an equivalent perk, or is it just luck of the draw and I should simply be happy that I live so close?
Luck of the draw.
If I’m understanding this correctly, this means that someone scheduled to work 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. would work from home from, say, 6 to 8, then drive an hour to the office, arrive at 9 when it opens, work there until 3, and then drive home. They’d be paid for the full time between 6 and 3 (but presumably not for their drive home after their shift ends at 3). Basically, when your shift starts, you’re on the clock and getting paid until it ends, even if some of that time is spent driving to the office mid-shift. The idea is that you’re still in your work day, even when you leave to change work locations.
While it does mean that they get paid for more time in their car and less time sitting at a desk doing work, I don’t think you can feasibly make an issue of this without looking petty. You’re all being paid for full workdays; theirs just involve longer times to move from one work location to another.
3. Can I offer to proofread our error-ridden newsletters?
I work in big-box retail, but I’m trying to find places where I can start building an experience base to transition out when I finish my degree. Just recently, my store implemented a monthly newsletter, and I’ve noticed the spelling and grammar of some of the writing is iffy. This honestly doesn’t bother me at all (my degree is in Linguistics–we’re all about letting go of hangups over variation in language use), but it occurred to me that I could offer the committee responsible for it volunteer services as a copy editor.
Is this at all done in normal professional environments, let alone retail? The newsletter is so casual that I would hate to cause bad feelings over the implication that the people responsible for it have “bad” spelling/grammar. On the other hand, I like copy editing, and it would give me experience copy editing outside my friends’s papers. Do you have any advice?
You can definitely volunteer to do it! I’d say it this way: “I really like reading these newsletters — thank you for doing them! I wanted to mention that I’ve noticed sometimes they go out with small spelling or grammar issues. I love proofreading and would be so excited to volunteer to proof them before they’re sent out, if that’s something you’re interested in.” You could also add, “I could give you super-fast turnaround time” if you actually can.
You might find that they don’t really care — in which case, you have to accept that — but they also might be happy to have the help. Either way, it’s totally okay to offer, as long as you do it in a nice way, as opposed to a judgy way (and I’m confident you can pull that off, based on your email).
4. Asking how the overtime salary change will impact a position I’m interviewing for
I’m about to start job searching for a lateral/semi-promotion in my industry. In this industry, the average work day is at least 9-6, with working lunches and semi-occasional later nights and weekends. The average salary is probably around $42,000 a year.
In December, new overtime rules will go into effect, which has the potential to impact the person in the position I’m applying for in a number of ways. Offices could choose to mandate lunch breaks and leaving the office at 6, they could bump up salaries to $48,000 to exempt the position from overtime pay, or they could just pay overtime. Either way, something will change and (for the time being at least) it won’t be handled consistently across offices. I would like to know what they plan to do and how my job might change a few months after I take it. Is there anyway to bring up in the interview or negotiating process?
Wait until you have an offer. At that point, assuming that the offer is for a salary under the new $47,476 threshold, say this: “I know that currently this is an exempt position, but won’t qualify as exempt after December 1 when the new overtime regulation goes into effect. Have you decided how that change will impact this position?”
Be aware that they may not be able to give you an entirely clear answer, or that the answer they give you now may end up changing. But it’s a very reasonable thing to ask about.
5. Can I guess at the exact dates I worked for a job application?
Many online job applications require exact starting and ending dates for my previous jobs. I only put the months and years on my resume. Many of these jobs are years ago, so I don’t remember the days. I can dig into old emails and paychecks, but I can’t always find the information. I also don’t know whether employers want the days I worked my first and last shifts, or the day I was officially hired for and the day I gave notice for. With shift work, those aren’t always the same.
Is it okay to guess? I would probably be just a few days off. I would hate to be disqualified for lying if my references or human resource departments had slightly different dates of employment. Alternatively, I could put the first of the month for everything to make it clear I wasn’t giving exact information. That would make some of my temp jobs would look very short, though, especially the one that was three weeks within one month. I’m just starting out so I do need every little job in the record.
It’s totally okay to guess about the day as long as you’re getting the month right. It’s also totally fine to just put the first or 15th of the month for everything to make it clear that you’re not getting the day exact. (For the temp jobs, if they were all through one agency, I’d wrap up all the individual temp assignments into one overall temping job, which is actually what it was.)
Also, this is a small thing, but you asked about whether the dates should cover the dates you actually worked or the dates you were hired and gave notice. It’s the former; it’s the period of time you were actually employed there.
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my boss sent around photos of my coworker in body paint, getting paid for commute time, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.