boss goes through my things, haircut drama, and more — Ask a Manager

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

1. My boss sits at my desk and goes through my things

I just started a new receptionist job with a very small company. This is my first time in any kind of front-desk role. When I’m at lunch, my boss sits at my desk to answer calls and greet visitors (both of which are extremely rare). I think it’s odd, since there’s a doorbell that guests can use that rings to her desk and the phones forward to her if I don’t answer them, but because I’ve never been in this type of position before, I have no idea if this is normal or not. I decided not to ask her about it in case it would make me look naive.

The really uncomfortable part is that when she’s up at my desk, she has a habit of looking through my stuff. I took notes on some of her procedures on a legal pad during training, and yesterday she went through the notes while she was covering the desk. She annotated them for me (mostly useless things like underlining things for emphasis, but in one case she misread my handwriting and thought she was correcting a typo). This made me feel very uncomfortable, like I don’t have any privacy if she’s going to be going through all my things. She never told me she would do this or asked my permission – in fact, she made a point of saying that this is my desk and I can do whatever I want there!

The most cringeworthy thing so far was when I left to use the bathroom today. I don’t have to tell her when I’m going to the bathroom, but when I came back, she was up at the front desk and waiting for me. She whispered to me, “I left some goodies in your purse,” and sure enough, there were some company-branded client gifts in there (think phone charger, USB). I was shocked that she had gone through my purse, even to do something nice. I would much rather her hand them to me or use a drawer than open my bag, which was zipped and under my desk, to put something in there. Am I overreacting or is this truly inappropriate? If the latter, how can I get this to stop?

No, it’s weird and boundary-violating. It’s not outrageous-level violating, but it’s definitely off.

I’d wait to see if it happens again before saying anything. If it does, the purse thing is the easiest one to address. You could say, “I appreciate you giving me this stuff, but I have a thing about people going in my purse — will you leave them on the desk instead? Thanks!” (Also, if you have a drawer that locks, start keeping your purse in there.)

The notes are harder since technically it’s her prerogative to look at your notes if she wants to. Because of that, your better bet may be to just switch things up logistically to make it harder for her to do it — try putting them in a drawer or under other papers. But if it keeps happening, you could say, “I don’t write those notes thinking anyone else will see them, so I feel a little self-conscious when you annotate them! I definitely want your feedback, of course, but I’d much rather get it face to face if there’s something you want me doing differently.”

The bigger issue is whether these are signs that she’s going to be boundary-violating in other ways, so keep your eyes open for that.

– 2017

2. Haircut drama is disrupting my office

I’m a manager in an Human Resources department for a large company. Back in December a new employee started in our office. “Nina” wears her hair in a pixie cut. Another employee, “Mika,” got obessed with Nina’s hair. She talked about how great it was all the time. Mika’s hair was a single length and almost down to her stomach. Nina was flattered and she showed Mika several photos of herself with the cut, which she has had for three years. She was honest about the maintenance and what goes into having the cut. Mika decided to get it and even went to Nina’s salon to get it done.

However, Mika hates the cut on herself. She has cried over it while at work and this makes everyone uncomfortable. She said she has spent hundreds on vitamins to make her hair grow faster, and she is also getting into more personal territory because she has been telling everyone about how her husband is upset that she spent the money they were saving for a vacation on an expensive wig without telling him. Mika says her husband supported whatever she wants to do with her hair and it’s not about her hair but about her spending the money without telling him. Several of her colleagues have told me Mika’s random crying and oversharing of her marital issues are making them uncomfortable. Nina has said she was flattered at first but has become annoyed and uncomfortable with Mika because Mika still likes Nina’s hair but cries about it on herself. This is Nina’s first job after college and her second job ever. I see why she is uncomfortable because while Mika is not her boss, she is not her peer and is senior to her. Nina says Mika blames her for talking her into getting the cut (even though Nina did no such thing) and then will cry and apologize to her for being harsh.

I really want to be understanding to Mika, but this situation is becoming untenable. No one wants to be around Mika and I am fairly certain Nina is job hunting. How can I gently speak to Mika about not crying every day or oversharing her marital issues with her colleagues, especially Nina?

Oh my goodness. It sounds like at this point you need to tell Mika that it’s becoming disruptive and she needs to keep this out of the office. I would say it this way: “I know you’re unhappy with your haircut, and I’m sympathetic. However, at this point continuing to talk about it in the office is becoming disruptive, and I’m sure you can understand it’s making things particularly uncomfortable for Nina. Going forward, I’d like you to keep conversations about your haircut out of the office. I know that might seem like an odd thing to ask, but it’s become such a focal point that it’s truly disrupting the office.”

Ideally her manager should have this conversation with Mika rather than you. But as HR, you can coach her manager in how to do it. (But if you feel her manager won’t do it effectively — if she’s inexperienced or terrible at delivering difficult messages — you could step in and handle it. But make sure that her manager is looped in and ready to back you up on this.)

– 2017

3. Should you tell an interviewee she has something in her teeth?

Our team interviewed a candidate today who got a large clump of lipstick on her teeth about 15 minutes in. No one brought it up. We talked for about an hour and got a good sense of her fit for the position, so it was actually a pretty good interview for us. But I kept imagining her discovering the lipstick blob afterwards and being embarrassed after the fact. I think none of us told her because she was young and we didn’t want to make her nervous, but I know I would have wanted to know if I were her. What would you (or readers) have done?

Was there any opportunity to say something to her privately (not in front of an entire panel of interviewers), and was there a way she could have fixed it privately (like on a bathroom break)? If so, you could have discreetly said something to her, ideally just at the start of that break so she could immediately fix it in private. If not, though, it’s a lot harder. I suppose in that case you could have suggested a break (even though you wouldn’t have otherwise had one) but if it was only an hour-long interview, that’s hard to do too. So ultimately, I think it’s okay that you didn’t say anything. Not ideal, but it sounds like maybe it was unavoidable for it to play out that way.

– 2017

4. Is it a red flag if all your interviewers are running late?

I recently had three interviews with a company that I was very excited about, until the actual interview process. The first interview was on a Monday and by phone. They had instructed me that they would conference call me and asked for a number to reach me. They were 23 minutes late to call. I had planned this interview during my lunch break so that I could take the call away from my office and sat in my car waiting. At 20 minutes, I decided to give them another five and then call it good, but they made it within my additional five minute allowance. They apologized profusely saying a meeting ran late, so I let it go (we’ve all been there, meeting runs late and you know someone is waiting for you but the time to get up and walk out is not appropriate).

After the phone interview, I was invited to an in-person interview to be conducted by one of the phone interviewers and two other team members. They told me to plan for 1.5 hours – I was there for 2.5 hours because they were 45 minutes late to start. I sat in the conference room waiting that entire 45 minutes without anyone coming to check on me or ask me if I needed water or the restroom. There was no excuse when they finally arrived and they dove right in without again checking in on my wait. This to me was a bit of a red flag, two interviews and late – but I again put it aside just thinking perhaps the lateness is the one person who was present for both interviews. I wouldn’t be working with that person on a daily basis, so dropped it.

They asked me to come back for a “final” interview with three new people who I had not yet met, these being higher in rank, and informed me that I would have one hour with each – again, late. The first person was 10 minutes late, the second 15 minutes late, and the third 30 minutes late (this is on top of the lateness from the previous interview). The third one was the only one to offer an excuse and told me she needed to eat her lunch prior to meeting me because she wouldn’t have time after and had an afternoon full of important meetings that she needed to be on time to. What??? The meeting she had with me wasn’t important enough to be on time?

It really felt as though they did not see me as a priority – until they made an offer yesterday. I’m not sure how I feel about being there now. The interviews went fine and the job would be an advance from what I am doing now, but I’m just not sure – the interview process was a bit of downer. Are late interview starts a new trend? I’ve been at my current job for eight years, so maybe I am missing something.

Ten minutes, even 15 minutes late isn’t a big deal in this context. Annoying, yes, but not something I’d read much into, definitely not enough to turn down an offer over. The reality is that things sometimes run late, and interviews are widely treated as something people can be a little late to. That’s a double standard, yes, but it’s one that’s widely accepted. (And actually, in that day of three interviews, once the first person was late, it’s more understandable that the others were late too — they presumably plugged something else into the original time they’d planned for you, and weren’t sure when you’d be finished with the previous person and available for them. When that third person’s slot got bumped back, it’s very possible that it really did mess up her only ability to eat for the day.)

But the longer waits and the lack of any acknowledgement or apology would worry me more. Still not necessarily enough to turn down the offer over, but I’d take it as a flag to look really hard at what else you’ve learned about their culture and ways of operating. Have you seen evidence that aside from this, they’re really on top of things and operating at a high level? Or have you seen other evidence of disorganization/flakiness? Put this in the context of everything else you know, rather than in a vacuum.

– 2017