my sister abused my employee discount, employee is too rushed in the morning, 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 sister abused my employee discount

I get a discount at a popular amusement park because I work for its parent company. There are no explicit policies regarding the use of the discount, and it’s not uncommon for employees to let their family visit the park without the employee actually being present. A few weekends ago, I offered to let my sister, her husband, and her three kids come visit me and use my employee discount at the park for the weekend.

However, the next week at work, my boss called me into his office and berated me for letting 25 people use my discount over the weekend. I told him I hadn’t and he showed me proof that there had been 25 weekend passes purchased under my discount! I checked with my sister over my lunch break and she’d apparently decided to invite her parents-in-law and all of her brother’s siblings, their spouses, and their kids along for the trip and let all of them use the discount not only at admissions but also at a couple of restaurants and gift stores around the park, a total of almost $2,000 in savings over the weekend. She and her kids/husband never mentioned the extended family being there while they were staying at my apartment and the only pictures I saw from the trip only had the five of them in it, not this busload of people, so they were either actively lying to me or lying by omission.

I apologized to my boss that there had been more guests visiting than I thought, but he wasn’t impressed and revoked my discount privileges. Is there anything I can do to smooth this over with him? I didn’t explain the particulars of the situation to him because I didn’t want to sound like I was making excuses or pushing the blame onto my sister, but maybe I should have? I look like a total idiot, either for lying to him about the amount of people or for being taken advantage of like this.

Oh my goodness, you should have told him what happened! You don’t want to get into a long saga about it — just a brief “I’m so sorry — I’d given my sister and her husband and two kids permission to use the discount. She apparently gave it to others without my consent. I never would have okayed that, and I’m mortified that it happened.” That’s not making excuses — you’re not saying what happened is okay — just giving him context so that he knows you didn’t just hand out the discount to 25 random people.

It’s not too late now to go back and say something like, “I talked to my sister to figure out what happened, and I wanted to come back and fill you in. I’m really mortified about this; I’ve always tried to be conscientious about the discount, and I’m furious that my sister took advantage of it like this.”

– 2017

2. My employee is too rushed when she shows up for early-morning meetings

I’m the manager of a team of around 20 people at a government agency. Caseworkers meet anywhere from 1-15 clients a week in our offices during scheduled visits, and spend the rest of their time on administrative work connected to their clients. These appointments last a few hours and are booked between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Other than scheduled staff meetings and their booked visits, we have a flexible schedule. It’s not unusual for people to come in around 9 a.m. or leave at 3 p.m. if they don’t have any appointments scheduled, as long as they’re still working their full-time hours for the week.

I have one employee, Mary, who rarely shows up before she absolutely has to. The other caseworkers who have 8 a.m. appointments are there in good time to organize their case files and set up the interview rooms before the start of the day. Mary is rushing in the door at 7:58 and throwing her jacket on her desk before power-walking to reception to be able to greet her client on time, and even then she’s sometimes a minute or two late. I’m not sure how to address this with her, but I feel it’s very unprofessional to show up two minutes before you’re supposed to start working, especially when she’s meeting clients who are waiting for her. She’s otherwise a good worker, and it doesn’t appear that her meetings are affected by her rushed entrance, but it still bugs me to watch this show twice a week. On the days she doesn’t have early bookings, she’s in around 9 and in a much better mood, so I think she’s maybe just not a morning person. How do I get Mary to come in and prep for her day before she absolutely has to?

It’s not really unprofessional to show up two minutes before you’re supposed to start working. By definition, that’s being there before you’re supposed to start working — so I wouldn’t frame it that way. Instead, if the problem is that Mary isn’t arriving early enough to do the needed prep for her appointments, that’s the issue and that’s the way to frame it.

If it’s really true that she needs more prep time, you could say something to her like, “Please make sure that you’re here at least 15 minutes before you have scheduled appointments, so that you have time to organize your case files and set up the interview room, and so that you don’t seem rushed when you’re greeting your first client of the day.” In other words, be clear with her about what you expect and what you’d like her to do differently, rather than just being annoyed that she’s not doing something you haven’t explicitly asked her to do.

But first be sure that she really does need to change what she’s doing. You said that she does good work and her meetings aren’t affected by her rushing in, so it’s not clear that there’s really an issue here, beyond the fact that you don’t like watching it. If there really isn’t an effect on the work, then this is just a matter of different work styles — and that’s not an inherently bad thing.

– 2018

3. Interviewer asked about what I’ve handled poorly in my personal life

I recently had an interview and was asked a behavioral question I wasn’t sure how to answer. It was, “Tell me about a time you made a mistake outside of work and handled it poorly.”

I had practiced a number of behavioral questions, and for all the negative/mistake-focused ones I had prepared examples of how I fixed it or was working on it, etc., but this one didn’t give me that option. It completely threw me off and I couldn’t really think of an answer at all. I think it’s because I couldn’t think of something appropriate to share. What sort of answer might they be looking for here? Specifically because it’s outside of work, if it was at work I think I would have handled it better.

If it helps, it was an interview at a funeral home.

Ick, that’s a terrible question! There are very few instances where it’s appropriate for an interviewer to pry into someone’s life outside of work, and this isn’t one of them. Frankly, a funeral home is a place where it could be appropriate to ask about more personal things than you normally might in an interview, like asking about personal experiences with death in order to make sure you have a comfort level with it, but this question isn’t about that.

They’re also setting people up to have no idea what to say, because things people handled poorly in their personal lives are likely to be about topics that would be inappropriate to discuss in an interview, like dating and relationships, family conflict, and other highly personal areas. (After reading your question, I entertained myself for way too long by imagining inappropriate answers to this question. It’s fun.)

So I don’t know what kind of answer they were looking for because it’s such a bad question. Probably something that demonstrated some degree of self-awareness, maturity, ability to spot learn from mistakes, conflict resolution skills, etc. — but they were out of line to ask it in the first place.

– 2018

4. Will I look like a jerk if I clean my new office’s disgusting kitchen?

I recently started a new job and the office is less than glamorous, which is usually the nature of my job. However, the shared kitchen space is disgusting — and everyone seems ok with that. The microwave isn’t cleaned — like it REALLY isn’t cleaned, there are food crumbs all over an old tablecloth, and the room just smells like dust.

Do I come across as a jerk or someone who thinks they are better than those existing in a gross space by discreetly cleaning out the appliances I intend to use to heat up lunch once in a while? I’ve been trying to tackle small stuff while I heat up lunch when nobody is in there, so I am being discreet so as not to come across as uppity while I am new and forming a reputation.

It’s unlikely that people will think you’re expressing contempt for them through cleaning; if anything, they’re likely to appreciate someone is cleaning, or they might feel mildly embarrassed (sometimes when someone new arrives on the scene, you suddenly realize what your office must look like to a newcomer’s eyes).

I wouldn’t go in there with a mop and cleaning bucket and wipe down all the walls or anything, but wiping out the microwave and sweeping crumbs into the trash aren’t likely to come across as Making A Statement.

– 2019