It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My boss cried when I asked for a raise
I worked at an office for seven years. A few months ago, I asked for a raise. My manager said she would get back to me and I never heard anything.
A month later, the job was growing increasingly mentally and physically demanding. I came to my manager again and asked for a Monday-Thursday schedule. Again, silence. So I started seeking other jobs. When I was up-front about this with my manager, miraculously she was able to discuss my raise/better schedule with my boss the next day.
I was told no, that I couldn’t work the four days (which is a normal schedule in my profession). I was also told I couldn’t get a raise unless I worked the exact days they wanted me to and no less. My manager said my boss was “extremely hurt” by me wanting to work a more manageable schedule with better pay. So I had a meeting with my boss and she cried. She said she felt hurt I was doing this to her and I was seeming ungrateful. There were a lot of toxic things said on top of that. The following day, when I had follow-up questions about my raise (given I agreed to the days they said were a must), I was met with silence AGAIN.
I snapped. After years of being mentally abused by my manager, I wrote an immediate resignation letter and left it on my boss’s desk at the end of the day. She won’t see it until tomorrow. It’s not the way I wanted to go out. But I have a job lined up that doesn’t need her reference.
My question now is, can I block calls and texts from the office? I know when she sees I quit without notice, she will be enraged, and will reach out to belittle me and blame me for messing up her schedule and business. Can I block it all out?
You sure can.
But first I’d ask how much you care about truly burning the bridge. I know you said you don’t need your boss’s reference for the job you just accepted — but that doesn’t mean you won’t get asked for a reference from her in future searches, especially since you worked there so long. The bridge might be burned regardless of what you do now (because of the quitting without notice and also depending on what you said in the letter), but it’s possible that being willing to take a call or two from her could make it less burned than it otherwise would be. That wouldn’t mean you need to take abuse from her, but there might be something to be gained for Future You if you don’t completely block her right off the bat.
Or maybe not. You might know the reference is already a lost cause, or you might have calculated that being able to walk out and never speak to them again is worth losing the reference. That’s your call!
In any case, you can indeed block calls and texts from your office. They mistreated you and you’re not obligated to engage with them at all if you’re willing to deal with whatever the consequences are of that. (Those consequences could range from badmouthing you to others in your field to the aforementioned bad references to nothing at all. And again, you might know that she’s already going to do the first two anyway, no matter what you do next.)
2. Should I correct my chair about the low amount I’m paid?
I’m a lecturer at a university. The chair of my department is not very empathetic or encouraging, and I’ve been frustrated by some of his past actions and statements to me (nothing awful, just rather rude and unsupportive, plus I always get the semi-unspoken vibe that we should never use sick leave, though that is not the official message, of course).
At a meeting last week, he was asking us to change how we are doing something, requiring more time in the classroom. It’s not a big deal, but he was illustrating his point about how we shouldn’t complain about it by saying that even the lowest paid of us make $70 an hour when you crunch the numbers, and this particular new task is an easy way to make 70 bucks.
We make nowhere near $70 an hour. We are all notoriously underpaid, and my salary is near the bottom. I have no idea how he came up with that number, but it is dramatically wrong. I want to point this out SO BADLY. His comment irritated me, with the implication that we make plenty of money and shouldn’t complain. I really want to say “Hey, Chair, how did you get that number?” And then politely correct him.
But it doesn’t actually affect anything. It is purely because I’m irritated and want to be petty. So should I get over this, since it does me no good? (For what it’s worth, he’s only going to be chair for another year, most likely.)
I’d be awfully tempted to approach this as if there’s been a terrible mistake in your pay and you’d like to get it corrected (“you said we’re all making at least $70/hour, and that is definitely not reflected in my pay — is it possible I’m being paid incorrectly?”).
But it’s probably a better idea to simply say matter-of-factly, “You said the other day that we all make at least $70/hour and I thought you’d want to know that that’s not correct. I can’t speak for others, but I make $X/hour.” It’s not petty to point that out; you’d be doing him a favor by correcting his facts for the future.
3. Can I ask my boss to stop meeting with me about my work?
My supervisor and the manager of my department have been meeting with me monthly to as they put it help me with recommendations on how to stay organized and how to keep on top of things. This is fair but it seems like these meetings are always a list of everything I’m doing wrong and never any improvements they’ve seen. If I do something well, my supervisor actually actively minimizes it.
I don’t want to have these meetings any more because they aren’t productive and don’t motivate me to do better in any way. Is there any way possible I could ask for the meetings to stop? Things have been bad since returning from WFH and the meetings make it worse.
If they’re meeting with you monthly because they have concerns about your work, you can’t really ask for the meetings to stop; it would be like saying “stop giving me feedback about my work.”
But if they haven’t given you clear goals that they want you to be meeting — a clear picture of what your performance should look like and how that differs from your work now — you could try asking for that. You could also say that you think you’ve made improvements like XYZ and ask if that aligns with their impressions. Ultimately, though, I’d be concerned that they’re seeing serious issues that need to improve but haven’t communicated that clearly enough — so I’d want to make sure you’re all on the same page about how they view your performance overall and what that could mean for your job.
4. When should we tell job candidates about our Covid vaccine requirement?
My employer requires COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment. We had 100% compliance without any medical or religious exemptions requested (although we have provisions if it does happen) and no one quitting. We are just now opening up two new positions because we are buried in work and we have been trying to figure out when to announce the vaccine requirement (in the announcement? in the first interview? later interviews? offer stage? first day of work/when you do I-9 and all that?).
In a similar vein, say we have a great candidate who isn’t vaccinated, would it make sense to tell them that by the time they start (generally two weeks from time of offer) they’ll need to show proof of a first vaccine or documentation for a religious/medical exemption or the offer is no longer available? Or should we just not even offer a position? At this time, our field isn’t hitting any pandemic-induced labor shortage and everything is about the same as pre-pandemic on that front, so ruling out unvaccinated folks would be unlikely to make the search longer or harder.
Put it in the ad. That way people know up-front and can self-select out if they’re not willing to be vaccinated — and it will likely be a draw to a lot of people who are, and who appreciate your company taking public health seriously.
I’d reiterate it when making an offer too, in the context of asking them to supply proof of vaccination or a request for an exemption as part of their new hire paperwork.
5. Can I ask for new business cards with my correct pronouns?
Ever since I was more exposed to those outside of the gender binary, I’ve been questioning my gender and I finally decided that the pronouns I’d use are she/they. I’m still unsure about if I identify as non-binary, but I feel so much better coming to terms with the pronouns I identiy with. This might sound unrelated to work, but I just wanted to add some context to my problem. I was asked to provide my pronouns for my business cards at my new job, which I said were she/they. However, when I was shown the drafts, my pronouns were listed as she/her/hers, with no mention of they/them/theirs. I really was not comfortable pushing back, so I just accepted it and now I have a bunch of business cards that list my pronouns as she/her/hers. However, as time passed I became extremely uncomfortable with only half my pronouns being present on my business card. Is it too late to ask for business cards that reflect ALL of my actual pronouns and I should just accept it? I do acknowledge that I should’ve said something at the time, but can I say something now?
Yes. Go ahead and ask. A workplace that’s including pronouns on their business cards is probably a workplace that wants people to be comfortable with the pronouns getting used for them.
Ideally you would have spoken up when you were given the proofs to review — the same way you presumably would have spoken up about any other error, like if they misspelled your name. Still, though, the fact that you didn’t isn’t reason for you to have to use cards with pronouns you’re not comfortable with.
You could say, “I apologize for not raising this earlier, but is it possible to redo my business cards with my correct pronouns, which are she/they?” Business cards really don’t cost that much, and a conscientious employer will care more about getting it right than having to redo them. (They might be a little aggravated that you didn’t say something at the proof stage, but a conscientious employer will also know this stuff can be fraught.)
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