working from a one-bedroom with a baby and nanny, the chatty employee, and more — Ask a Manager

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are three updates from past letter-writers.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

1. Working from a one-bedroom apartment with a baby and nanny

Thanks for answering my question!

I got a membership at a nearby co-working space and it has been great. My in-laws were staying near us and handling childcare over the summer; it turned out that I needed a little more personal space than four adults and a baby in a 600 square foot apartment could provide. I was grateful to have the option of a nearby tiny glass room of my own.

We got a nanny after my in-laws left the city and she has been amazing. As you have repeatedly written, it’s not easy to effectively manage a family member and I much prefer my relationship with my in-laws when I don’t have to ask them to change diapers. Thanks to you also for writing repeatedly about what it means to be a good employer; I have no desire to be a manager in my professional career, but I’m doing my best now that I have a household employee.

I’ve been able to keep breastfeeding my (extremely cute) baby! Also, my apartment is much nicer without a desk looming in the corner.

2. Managing a chatty employee when you need shorter answers

I wrote to you over a decade ago(!!) about an employee on my team who would respond to every question with an overly-involved answer, and asked for some advice on how to get more concise communication without making her feel defensive or like I wasn’t valuing her many years of experience. I thought it might be helpful to share a tactic that worked well for her and the rest of my team.

I did use some of your scripts and they worked temporarily, but what seemed to do the trick long-term was something that I learned in a management course a few months later: Imagine that every person has a bucket on their head, and the bucket must be filled with the information they need to do their job. Some people have a giant vat (i.e., needs to know the full context and history of everything before they can get started), and some people have a thimble (“Just point me in the right direction and I’ll take it from there, Boss!”) And sometimes it’s situational. So I introduced this in a team meeting, and it gave us all a shorthand to use when we asked each other questions about how much information we were looking for. “I’ve got to get this turned in within 15 minutes — can you give me a shot glass answer?” or “We are taking an hour to sit down and go over this in great detail. Give me the horse trough of info!”

This worked out for my team because it established a system that we could all use, and by setting the expectation up front of how much detail we needed from each other it was less frustrating all around. And it was amusing to see what silly vessels (a stiletto shoe, a wine bottle, a fish tank…) of information we could come up with.

Thanks to you and the commentariat for your many years of service and advice to those of us in the trenches!

3. I’ve been called for grand jury duty — and it would eat up 15% of my pay for the year (#3 at the link)

I asked earlier this year about how I could get my company to reassess their limited policy on jury duty in light of my summons for an 18-month-long grand federal district court jury duty summons. Ultimately, I was released from jury duty for medical reasons — three days before the first day of my summons I received news that I had a mass in my breast and I was being referred to my city’s cancer institute for surgical intervention and treatment. I was able to use this as my reason to be released. (I will be having surgery in December and it took several appointments, MRIs and biopsies to get to that plan, which would have been extremely difficult if I would have had to navigate around the grand jury duty dates, so I am extremely grateful that I was released in August before the brunt of the appointments were scheduled.) But I wanted to give you some details about what happens when you’re called for grand jury duty.

When I arrived that morning, having driven 90 minutes to the city where it was held, I entered the jury room at 9 am and was one of about 110 people. I was juror number 200 and last on the list alphabetically so I know that they released a lot of people online before that day. The judge explained they would be seating 38 people, 23 jurors and 15 alternates! Shen then started asking her qualifying questions where if the item applied to us, we would stand up and explain our situation, and she would release us if necessary. The first questions were whether anyone worked in law enforcement or a fire department, the military, held elected office, and then she asked about work commitments. She asked it in a very specific way: is there anyone who is the owner or sole proprietor of a company that will be unable to do business or would shut down because you were serving on jury duty? That didn’t apply to me but several people stood up. She released a general contractor, the director of a day care, a member of the military (who asked to speak to her at the bench away from the rest of us), and a few others before asking for teachers or child care workers. Another 10 people were released after that question. Next she asked for medical reasons for release. I stood up here, along with several others. We were led one by one to the bench for privacy. I tearfully explained that I had been referred for treatment (it was still very fresh news) and she very kindly asked if I would like to be released. I said yes, and she did so. I was on my drive home by 10:30 am. I received a check for $166 a few weeks later for the day’s pay and mileage reimbursement. I don’t know what additional questions the judge asked the potential jury members, but I do know she said there would be an opportunity where someone could ask to be released for reasons she didn’t cover in her qualifying questions. After all that, I didn’t need to speak with my HR group about their policy, and I assume they have no plans to revisit it.

We were told by the jury staff that we can be called back after two years, and I can still be called to my actual local jurisdiction for normal jury duty at any time, so I will likely have another opportunity to explore the jury duty policy when that occurs.