I offended a client, asking a new hire to go by her last name, 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. I think I offended a client

I give private music lessons, often in people’s homes. About a month ago, I arrived and the youngest child didn’t know where her materials were, and said she hadn’t prepared. Normally I swallow this with a smile, but this time I chastised the child and brought the situation to the attention of her older siblings. This was obviously inappropriate and wrong! I should have brought it up with the parent, and only with the child in a polite, positive, or funny way. A few days later I emailed an apology to the mother (a real apology). I apologized directly to the child the following week (she said “thanks”) and a few weeks later apologized directly to the oldest child. However, the apology email was never acknowledged.

The mother is now giving me what seems to be the silent treatment — she does not show herself during lessons, she does not say hello or goodbye. The father now sits in the youngest child’s lesson (which is actually a win — I need parents in the lessons of young children). Since he never did before and now suddenly does every week, I imagine it was directed by her or decided by him, or both. He is pleasant and does not refer to the incident. The kids seem as happy and willing to play as ever, nothing seems wrong there.

What do I do? I would apologize to her directly if I could. I thought about finding her in the house, but I don’t want to create a scene. Background: I’ve been working with this family for six years, all without problems, in fact, they have been very vocally happy with me in the past. They do have a habit of leaving their children to work out their own practice, which is fine philosophically, but often frustrating practically. I think that’s probably why I snapped that day.

I’d let it go. You’ve apologized to everyone involved, and they might not think it’s as big of a deal as you do. It’s possible the mother has other stuff going on and you’re assuming it’s about you when it’s not. Or who knows, maybe it is about you! But you’ve apologized to her, and if she wants to be chilly for a while, hunting her down for another apology probably isn’t going to change that (and risks seeming very weird if she’s moved on).

It’s true that the father might be sitting in on the lessons to monitor you, but he also might be sitting in because the youngest child not being prepared made them realize she needed more parental involvement.

– 2019

2. Candidate didn’t tell us she’s been at another job for a week

I recently served on an interview committee for an entry-level staff opening in our office. We interviewed Sansa, a candidate we liked very much. Her resume listed that her last job was an internship that ended a few months ago. The next day, we interviewed Arya, another candidate we liked. Arya’s resume listed her current job at Company A and indicated that she had been there for two years.

Later, I was looking at the website of Company A to learn more about it, and found Sansa listed there as a current employee, despite the fact that this job had not appeared anywhere on Sansa’s resume and she never mentioned that she was currently employed.

My boss did some sleuthing and found that the Sansa on Company A’s website was indeed the same Sansa that we interviewed, and she had only worked at Company A for one week at the time of her interview with us. Our hiring committee has varying opinions on this — some now see Sansa as a liar, others want us to approach her with questions about the omission, and some are okay with it, guessing that Sansa felt silly including a job that she’d been at for such a short time on her resume. It might be the case that she started that job and immediately knew it was not a good fit.

How should we best move forward in this situation? Sansa and Arya are both top candidates, but we are concerned about Sansa’s omission on her resume.

This is a completely normal omission and not something you should generally penalize someone for! It wouldn’t have made sense for Sansa to put the job on her resume when she’d only been there a week (and may not have been there at all when she first sent you her resume), and in fact I regularly advise people to leave off jobs that they haven’t been at for long. A resume isn’t a legal document that’s supposed to be a comprehensive account of every job you’ve ever held; the point is to show how you’re a strong candidate for the job you’re applying for, and having held a job for a week is never going to do that. So no lying happened here, unless she told you she was unemployed when you spoke.

The worst thing you can say about her is that she may have taken a job with Company A without intending to commit to them for very long (which is indeed crappy) — but you don’t even know that it’s the case. For all we know, she could have applied with you before she got the job with them, started work there and discovered that she was seriously mismatched with the work, the boss, or the culture, and jumped at the chance to talk with you when your interview invitation came in. Who wouldn’t do the same?

At absolute most, you could say to her, “I happened to be looking at Company A’s website and noticed you’re listed as an employee there. It wasn’t on your resume so I wanted to ask you about it.” But really, it’s unlikely that there’s anything shocking to hear here. This is just not a big deal.

– 2017

3. Asking a new hire to go by her last name

My name is … let’s say Arya. And I recently hired someone who is also named Arya. During the interview process, we discussed the awkwardness and potential risk-management-related issues with us being mixed up due to the nature of our positions and the fact that she is reporting to me.

She agreed it would be very confusing, and said she’d be happy to go by her last name, Stark. I have been introducing her as Stark to everyone, but noticed she has been introducing herself to people as Arya. I don’t want to be a jerk, but she had agreed during the interview process to go by Stark, and I feel pretty embarrassed at how this makes me look to the other folks who report to me, as if I forced her to go by another name, when really it was mutually agreed upon … or so I thought.

We have other folks in our organization who go by their last names and it has never been an issue before, so there is a precedent for this. How do I broach this with her without being a jerk? I can’t imagine what a nightmare it will be to have two Arya’s reporting to each other in our line of work.

Is it really going to be such a nightmare? It’s very, very common for offices to have two people with the same first name working closely together. Usually people solve it by using last initials and referring to Arya S. and Arya W. or something similar to that.

If she doesn’t want to go by her last name (and I realize she said she’d be okay with it, but it sounds like she might not really want to), you shouldn’t force her to do it; it’s not fair for her not to be able to use her name just because you were there first.

I’d talk to her and say something like this: “Hey, I know we’d talked earlier about you going by Stark to avoid confusion. I’ve noticed you’re using Arya — do you prefer that? If so, let’s start using Arya S. and Arya W. so that it’s clear who’s who.” And then if you’re talking to someone who doesn’t know the importance of including the initial, say something like, “When you follow up, make sure to ask for Arya Williams since there are two Arya’s here.”

– 2017

4. My employer requires all employees to back into parking spaces

I work for a mid-sized corporation. A new parking policy has been introduced, which requires all employees to back into parking spaces. I don’t like this because it takes longer to park now and because I am terrified of hitting the cars on either side of me when I am attempting to back in. When I questioned the reason for this policy, I was told it was for employee safety and that it would prevent people from backing out of a parking space and hitting someone who was walking by or another car. I feel the odds of me hitting someone are something are greatest when I am trying to wedge myself and my car in a tight space, while in reverse. What do you think of this policy and do you think it is logical?

I have no idea, without knowing more about the parking situation. But regardless of how reasonable it is, if you make a big deal about it, it’s not likely to reflect well on you — most people will think this is a pretty minor thing, and major pushback on it will seem out of place.

For what it’s worth, I once lived somewhere that required residents to park that way and I was highly annoyed — but I discovered that it was pretty easy after the first week of doing it. (And then I never lost the skill, which has been handy.)

– 2014