interview felt like an exam, HR is sending everyone Valentine’s Day candy “from” other coworkers, and more — Ask a Manager

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Interview felt like an exam

I had my first job interview in over 20 years yesterday, and it felt like an exam. Five people peppered me with a long list of questions, mostly hypotheticals. None of the questions were about my experience or my training. Only a couple were about what I had to offer the employer. The rest were, “What would you do if [thing that has never happened to me in all my many years working in this field] happened?”

The thing was, I found myself answering all the questions not with what I would do, but with what Ms. Perfect would do, if she had a textbook to refer to while the crisis was unfolding.

In the long ago past, I’ve had interviews that were more like “This is what we need someone to do. Have you done it before? Do you know how?”

It left a bad taste in my mouth and left me wondering if I wanted to work with these people, although they seemed nice on the whole. Am I off-base here? Have interviews become more like this since I was last in the hot seat? Should I be studying lists of hypothetical questions?

I’m not a fan of hypothetical questions in most interviews since they’re often easy for candidates to bluff their way through. Interviewers generally learn a lot more by probing into what people have actually done in situations they have actually experienced — which is why “tell me about a time when…” questions are used so much.

That said, I’m even less a fan of “have you done X before?” or “do you know how to do X?” because anyone can respond to that with “yes” and it tells you nothing about their real-life abilities. Maybe they’ve done X but badly! Maybe they saw someone else do X and are confident they can too, when it takes more practice to do well.

It sounds like these people just aren’t great at interviewing … but that’s pretty common. I’d pay more attention to what you’ve learned about the job, the manager, the culture, and the experiences of people working there. And if you don’t feel like you have a good sense of those things yet, ask plenty of your own questions before you accept an offer.

2. HR is sending everyone Valentine’s Day candy grams … from other coworkers

I work in a niche section of the healthcare industry at a medium-sized company. For a variety of reasons, I am currently looking for a different job. One of the things upsetting me is that our HR department (which is all of two people, one of whom is the daughter of the VP in charge of HR, which is a whole other issue) is trying and failing to improve company morale with more and more “events” instead of substantive changes like paper towels in the bathrooms or pay increases. Last week, there was a rock-paper-scissors tournament during the workday, and in a late afternoon email the day before we were told it was an “opt out” event — if you didn’t opt out, you were pulled away from your job up to three or four times in a couple hours to play rock-paper-scissors against someone else in the company, even if you were remote, in a bracketed tournament until someone finally won a previously-undisclosed prize of a basket of cleaning supplies. This week is the annual chili cook-off, which may or may not have a prize (it has one out of three times, and it has not been announced if there is one this year).

We just received an email stating that the company is sending candy grams to everyone for Valentine’s Day, and to “support” that, everyone has been randomly assigned a coworker to write a Valentine’s message for and it will be signed from us, not the company. I don’t even exchange valentines with my partner of a decade, much less with a coworker I have never met in person! I know this is trying to be nice, and I feel like pushing back is being a party pooper, but I feel really weird about it. I remember in school when some kids would get candy grams and get a bunch of nice personal messages, and others would get none or only one from the teacher, and that was always sad and awkward. I don’t want to make my coworker feel sad or awkward with a generic message, but I don’t know them outside of auditing their work!

I don’t know how to approach this at all, either to participate or to try and argue against doing it. In the past, my boss has been very resistant to passing on feedback to other departments, especially HR, and she strongly encourages our department to participate in all company events, up to and including guilting us about missing them or opting out. I don’t care if the company wants to give everyone candy — just sign it from the company, not me!

Yes, this is weird. But there’s no reason your message with the card can’t just be “Happy Valentine’s Day!” This is different from the school dynamic where it’s seen as a popularity contest, and I don’t think anyone will be sad not to get a more personal message from a random colleague … and I suspect a lot of people, maybe all, will be writing something similarly bland.

That said, if it’s possible to opt out (it’s not clear if it is) and you want to do that, you should feel free to! You can do that with feedback attached (“I’m uncomfortable sending Valentine’s greetings to coworkers so please don’t include me in sending or receiving”) or without it. If you think your boss will care, you could simply say to her, “I try to participate in company events, but I prefer to opt out of this one.”

3. Assistant always prioritizes my peer’s projects over mine

I work in a small office where support staff are in teams, and I have a dedicated secretary and a dedicated assistant (“Abby”). The issue I’m dealing with is Abby supports me and two others. Abby openly favors “Lucas,” who is my equivalent but much less experienced (think 25 years versus three years in the field). Abby will focus on and complete tasks and projects for Lucas first, and my projects will go on the back burner. When I press for updates or ask our supervisor for assistance, I’m told that Abby is very busy and to see if the other assistants can help. Because I’m not always privy to exact details, and I don’t want to create an adversarial office environment, I’ve started to just give Abby hard deadlines, whereas before I was more flexible to give her autonomy to avoid micromanaging her workflow. (I just started doing that, so I don’t know yet if it will work. But she has not responded to my new emails with the hard deadlines which might be a sign of resistance.)

Our supervisor favors Abby and has openly defended her and made excuses for her, so he is not going to step in. What should I be doing? I’m frustrated and demoralized.

I wish it was a couple of weeks from now so that we’d know if giving the deadlines was going to solve this, because it’s possible that it will. But meanwhile, one tweak I’d make to that plan: can you talk to Abby in person when giving her work so that you can say, “I need this back by (deadline). Is that doable?” so that you’re getting an answer from her on the spot?

If that doesn’t work, can you ask to be assigned a different assistant? If it’s true that Abby is very busy, as your manager says, and can’t compete your work on time, it’s entirely reasonable to ask for an assistant who can. And if you can’t get a different assistant, then it’s reasonable to meet with Abby and Lucas together and ask to figure out some protocols for prioritizing work so that you’re not the one who always gets short shrift.

4. Nose-picking boss

Over the years, I’ve had two different managers who openly pick their noses. It’s disgusting and I’m wondering if there’s an appropriate way to let them know how noticeable and off-putting the behavior is? I’m not talking about a discreet “scratch.” This is full-on digging, examining, flicking, and repeating going on. Years ago I experienced it in person and at one point offered my boss a box of Kleenex from my desk, which he declined and continued picking. Currently it’s happening on Zoom meetings (different company and manager). Both managers have very public-facing roles and general awareness of social decorum … they just both seem to be unaware of this behavior.

WTF?

When you’re in person, offering someone a tissue is a polite way of handling it and should alert them to the issue. If that doesn’t work, you could just hand them a tissue while saying, “Here, let me give you this.”

But over Zoom and when it’s your boss, there’s not much you can do. Video conferencing software really needs to start offering non-hosts a “remove this person from view” option for other participants on the call.

5. Can an employer make you use FMLA for weekly medical appointments?

Our HR team at work is typically stellar, but I’m confused about a recent announcement they made. They said if someone has a weekly medical appointment (i.e., physical or mental health therapy), they will deduct an hour from the person’s sick leave balance and an hour from the person’s FMLA balance. Is it correct that you can have time deducted from two places for one appointment?

Yes. FMLA isn’t a form of paid leave; it’s job protection. It allows you to have up to 12 weeks off per year (for qualifying reasons) without putting your job at risk, but it’s not a separate bank of leave and employers can require it to be used concurrently with your PTO.