politely avoiding sitting by a loud coworker, colleague asked me to lead a project and then went silent, and more — Ask a Manager

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

1. Is there a polite way to avoid sitting by a loud coworker?

I’ve recently transferred to a new team at work and so far am really enjoying it. The only real snag is that I have trouble sitting nearby one of my teammates, Chris. To be clear, I really like him as a coworker, I don’t have a bad thing to say about the guy! But he has some minor quirks that, without armchair diagnosing, are what you’d generally expect of someone on the spectrum; he rocks in his chair pretty constantly, talks to himself under his breath and makes little humming noises, and taps or scratches at his desk when he’s not typing. It’s pretty subdued and I’d say nondisruptive, except that I am (also) on the spectrum and his particular stimming habits drive me up the wall, and he keeps sitting right next to me when he comes in. (Not because of me specifically, we just have limited seating and both arrive later than most of our team, so we tend to be taking the last two empty seats in our section.)

I’m not sure if there’s a way to deal with this beyond gritting my teeth and putting in headphones, or if there’s a polite way to switch desks when someone else leaves for the afternoon without it seeming like I’m snubbing the guy. I don’t want it to come across like that, our work habits are just incompatible and I can’t really focus when I’m near him.

Try just naming it matter-of-factly and without judgment! For example: “You tend to talk to yourself while you work and I am weirdly sensitive to sound (or “incredibly easily distracted” or whatever you’re comfortable saying) so I’m going to move to that desk over there. It’s not personal, carry on!”

If you say it warmly — and especially if you make a point of being warm to him in other ways/in other situations — it should be fine!

2. HR said we couldn’t consider candidate’s reluctance to meet our in-office requirement

I have decades of experience in state and local government at a high level and have participated in dozens of recruitment and hiring efforts, but something that happened today has baffled me. I’m serving on a hiring committee for a large national professional association. One step in the process is an interview done by a consultant, who then briefs the search committee.

One candidate told the consultant that they retired after a 20+ year career due to a child’s high level, demanding sports commitments and the desire to participate in those events. They also inquired closely about requirements around in-office work and possible hybrid schedules, even though the job ad clearly stated that in-office work and residence in a particular city was required.

Here’s the part that threw me: the HR staffer organizing the search instructed the committee that we were to disregard this information, and should only consider objective qualifications for the position, and that it is never appropriate to consider any personal information offered by a candidate. I would love your take on this viewpoint, as most of us on the committee were surprised at this statement. When we pushed back, we were told that if outside activities interfere with job performance, it can be dealt with at that point. Sure seems crazy to me to ignore relevant data during the interview process, only to perhaps invite problems down the road!

Yeah, that’s ridiculous, and it’s a particularly classic brand of incompetence that you sometimes see with bad HR people, where they have (correctly) absorbed that there are some bits of personal info that shouldn’t be considered in hiring but then utterly fail to apply any nuance or distinguish between what’s legally allowable to be considered (and is relevant) and what isn’t.

It’s true that you shouldn’t consider irrelevant personal information, like if the candidate mentioned church membership or their love of The X-Files. It is categorically not true that you shouldn’t consider someone heavily implying that they might not want to work the schedule required by the job. It would be far more defensible if the HR person had said, “Let’s not try to guess at what they meant and instead let’s restate the in-office requirements for the job and ask them outright if they can comply with those” … but to say you shouldn’t engage with it at all and just deal with it after they’re hired if it becomes a problem rather than clarifying it earlier? Ludicrous.

3. Senior coworker wanted me to lead a project and then went silent

I recently had a senior llama groomer, Betty, reach out, tell me she’s been very pleased with my work, and ask if I’d like to take swing at leading a small group of junior groomers in an upcoming project. (These are fake job titles for anonymity, obviously.) After some hesitation, and probably being very awkward about the praise (I blame my puritan roots) I said yes! Most of the hesitation was based on the fact that my background is in llama herding, so I wasn’t sure if leading groomers was a great fit. But Betty assured me that it would work out, and that she’d be supporting me through it.

So, we continue along with some preliminary proposal work, and end up getting awarded the full llama grooming contract. At this point, Betty went into radio silence. Eventually I messaged to check in on the status of the project, and she suggested that maybe I could help out with restocking the grooming supply cabinet. No mention of leading anything or contributing substantively. Ever since, I’ve been reading her messages as being pretty short/cold, but I might be projecting.

So what happened?! I figure one of the following: (1) Betty just kind of forgot. (2) Betty realized that a herder just doesn’t have the technical expertise to successfully lead a group of groomers, and felt too awkward to directly address the leadership offer. Or (3) I’ve done something wrong, and now Betty is unhappy with me but won’t address the problem for whatever reason. For what it’s worth, I tend to agree with the thought process in (2).

So what might I have done wrong, and what do I do now? Because of the skills mismatch, I’m relieved to be off the hook with this role. But I’d love to work with Betty again, if a better fit came along. Any scripts I could use to address it? Or should I just pretend it never happened and hope for a future opportunity for collaboration? I feel like it’s this huge elephant in the room, but maybe Betty hasn’t given it another thought!

It’s possible that you did something wrong that I don’t know about — like you messed up a high-stakes project for Betty and so she rethought the initial offer, or who knows what — but assuming nothing like that happened, I suspect you’re right that it’s #2.

You could say this to her: “I know we’d talked a bit about my leading the X work and you ended up going in a different direction for that — which makes a lot of sense to me since my background is in herding. But I’d love to work with you again if something that’s a better fit comes along.”

That way, if she is feeling awkward about it, you’ll be smoothing it over, and either way you’re being gracious and reiterating your interest in future projects.

4. Do I have to say where I’m going when I quit?

I just got a new job and gave my two weeks. It’s the first time in my career where I’ve found a job while having a job. Our HR person shared with the whole staff what my last day is (that’s typical). When I told my manager, she was super happy for me and then asked where I was headed. I told her I wasn’t currently sharing the place but shared how it’s vaguely related to current work. I have other coworkers who I’m closer with who are also asking me.

I’m feeling uncomfortable sharing with people because I didn’t have a good experience with my current manager. There was a lack of trust and I didn’t think she truly had my best interests in mind. Let me clear, she was a bad manager. For that reason it’s hard to trust that any of my coworkers wouldn’t end up sharing and then it would get back to her somehow. I’m feeling protective of this new job, especially because I didn’t feel supported or fully valued at this current job. Any advice? I want to share with closest colleagues but also don’t want everyone to know right away and I worry about the word getting around.

You don’t need to share where you’re going if you don’t want to. It’s definitely more common than not for people to share it — so it’s not odd or intrusive that people are asking — but it’s perfectly fine to say, “I’m not announcing it publicly yet, but I’ll let you know when I do.” Just don’t be awkwardly coy about it, which will seem strange and raise additional questions in people’s minds; it’s better to just come out and say you’re not ready to share yet.

5. I never heard from the hiring manager after I withdrew from the interview process

I am relatively new to the corporate world. I recently interviewed for a job at a Fortune 50. The job posting was a little vague on some details of the position, but it was worth a shot, so I tossed in a resume and forgot about it.

I was surprised that the first response I had from the company was an invitation to four hours of interviews with the hiring manager and others I’d be working with. I immediately started more research on the position. I discovered the hiring manager had attended my same school, and we had many mutual acquaintances. I asked around about the manager’s reputation. People had uniformly positive feedback. I didn’t ask anyone to recommend or introduce me to the hiring manager as I had already been invited to interview.

I had a pleasant experience interviewing and felt I came across all right. However, I also learned the job was not what I had thought it was. I was overqualified on paper but would be in a position of needing to learn a lot in the job, which sounded politically painful, and I wasn’t interested in trying to move into that area of expertise.

I sent a thank-you note to each interviewee immediately after the interview. Then, a few days later, I sent a note to the HR contact thanking them for a pleasant interview experience and the opportunity to be considered, but saying that new opportunities in my current role had come up that were a better fit for my skills. The HR person responded with a polite note.

I never heard anything back from the hiring manager and feel somehow nervous about that, given how warm he was in the time we spoke. I had emailed HR to withdraw, not him, because as elaborate as the interview was, we had only ever spoken for 30 minutes in our lives, and it was still technically the first interview. I guess I expected a short reply to my thank-you note or a LinkedIn message along the lines of, “I heard you withdrew, sorry it didn’t work out, but nice to meet you!” But maybe he had expected the same from me.

All in all, I felt a bit love-bombed by the whole process and was confused on whether this was the first or the last interview. Did I make a faux pas by not reaching out to the hiring manager instead of or in addition to HR?

Nope, everyone here behaved appropriately! You thanked people after the interview, then let an appropriate person know you were withdrawing. It would have been appropriate to email either HR or the hiring manager; you chose HR, and they responded. That’s the end of it! It’s not surprising that the hiring manager didn’t contact you personally after you withdrew. It wouldn’t have been odd if he had sent you a short note, but it’s not odd that he didn’t. The loop had already been closed, and he likely was busy with other things.

I think you’re feeling strange about it because it felt like the two of you connected when you met, and there hasn’t been any acknowledgement between the two of you that you then dropped out. But this happens all the time, and there doesn’t need to be an additional message between you. However, it would also be fine to email him directly if you want to! You could say you enjoyed talking with him, decided to withdraw because of X, and hope your paths might cross again in the future. But it’s not in his court to make that happen; if you want to do it, you should initiate it from your side!