employee struggling to identify accommodations to do her job, cold-calling for internships, and more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

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

1. Employee can’t figure out what accommodations would help her do her job

I work at a small organization where I wear many hats, including HR-related items. We have an employee, Nicole, who shared with us about a year ago that she was diagnosed with some conditions that make executive functioning difficult. We immediately approved her requests for an ADHD coach, project management software, and additional weekly meetings with her manager. In this last year, Nicole continues to not meet expectations in areas such as meeting deadlines, communicating effectively, and decision-making/prioritizing. When her manager discussed this with her, she frames the issue as “my work isn’t organized for me, therefor I find it difficult” and when asked to identify additional accommodations, she says she doesn’t know what she needs because it’s still a new diagnosis for her — and has implied that because of her disability, we need to accept that she may not meet expectations in these areas.

My concern is that this is not an entry-level position, so it is not feasible for Nicole’s manager to organize every task on her behalf or to identify what other accommodations or resources may be helpful. I think we are at the point where Nicole may need a more formal PIP or PIP-like intervention and a discussion about her responsibilities with identifying tools, resources, and accommodations needed for her to organize and execute her duties. Am I off-base? If not, do you have any suggestions of how we can talk with her to help her re-frame her accountability?

You are not off-base. You’ve provided the accommodations she asked for, you’re willing to provide more if she can identify something that would help, and she’s still not meeting the requirements of the job. The Americans with Disabilities Act does not exempt employees from meeting core job requirements; it requires employers to work with the employee to attempt to find accommodations if they exist, but doesn’t protect the person’s job if they can’t perform its essential functions with accommodations.

It does sound like it’s time to move to something more formal like a PIP. But before you do that, have a conversation with Nicole where you explain that the problems are significant enough that that will be the next step unless she can suggest additional, specific accommodations to try, and ask her to work with the coach to figure out what might help.

2. My boss wants my employee to report to him

I’ve been employed for 12 years at the same company in product development. I have been a manager of product developers for seven of those years, with four people under me. Over time, people have left and we’ve not rehired, so I only have one direct report remaining, Sarah, who I’ve supervised officially for seven years.

My boss is proposing that we change Sarah’s supervisory structure — I would handle the “day to day” of her work but my boss would be her supervisor of record and meet with her periodically, and we would jointly handle performance reviews. The reason to make this change would be that we’re a small team, and I’m the only person who reports to my boss who supervises someone.

I’m feeling angered by this as things are going very well with Sarah. She is sensitive to hierarchy and I feel like she may look at this as a promotion and that I’m no longer her boss. The other thing is that my supervisor doesn’t know anything about product development, and Sarah is a product developer. My supervisor is an operations specialist. That’s why he would still need me to do the day-to-day. This bothers me especially because in the beginning of my employment, there was a lack of structure and direction for newcomers, with official supervisors not providing direction. I often would end up mentoring and even serving as a direct supervisor to new people, including Sarah, even though I did not have a place in the official management structure nor any compensation and I was doing it on top of my own job. I was young and eager to prove myself, and I didn’t realize I was letting the manager slide by and walk all over me. Seven years ago, the manager left and I was given the formal manager role. This worked well for me because everything finally aligned — my role, my title, and my compensation. I feel this change would be a step backward functionally instead of forward. What advice would you give me?

You have a lot of good reasons to push back on the change. Talk to your manager and share them, as calmly and objectively as you can. In particular, emphasize that you’re concerned that you’ll still be responsible for a significant portion of Sarah’s management but without the title, and that the change feels like a demotion even though you’ll still be doing much of the same work.

It would be one thing if your actual function were changing, but it sounds like your responsibilities aren’t significantly changing, and it’s fair to ask that your title continue to reflect the work you’re doing.

3. Men are gross in our non-gendered bathrooms

My organization has slowly been moving towards non-gendered toilets. When building or upgrading facilities, toilets are now individual rooms and marked as all-gender. This is great! It’s progressive, inclusive, and by and large we’re all here for it.

Except … the men are gross! The biggest change my female colleagues and I have noticed is that non-gendered toilets are far more likely to be dirty, broken, and seats are constantly left up. We want the toilets to be welcoming to everyone, not just yet another place where we have to put up with how feral men can be.

One of our admin staff tried to combat this in a recently refurbished block of half a dozen toilets by attempting to label two of them as “women only.” This was swiftly shut down since it comes across as exclusionary and not what we’re about, although her intent was just for women to not have to visit somewhere a dude has just liberally shaken himself around like a sprinkler.

I don’t know who raised these grommets, but do you have any advice for combatting this? I don’t like the idea of attempting to remind everyone of what amounts to basic bathroom etiquette (and embedding mothering stereotypes in the process).

Consider a mix of single-sex and non-gendered bathrooms. That’s all I’ve got, given this particular set of facts, although it still leaves the non-gross men stuck with gross bathrooms.

If only it were practical to have full-time bathroom attendants like at a fancy restaurant.

4. How do I tell interviewers I was fired from my last job but it was because my dad was sick?

I was at a job I truly loved for about 18 months and was ultimately fired for “performance Issues: not meeting job standards.” This was because six months prior to my termination, I had found out my father was dying and only had a few months to live. I thought I could handle working full-time and handling my dad three hours away, but ultimately, he died and my job performance did suffer and 30 days after he died, I was fired. (Hindsight being 20/20 here, I wish I had just taken FMLA but let’s not debate that now. I also really don’t want to get into whether my company should have fired someone 30 days after their dad died. I think what they did was total crap, but I also admit I wasn’t performing at 100% either. I’ve accepted the termination and have moved on.)

I am now searching for a job. I actually got an amazing offer, but when I filled out the initial application, I selected “no” for the “Have you ever been terminated from a job before?” question. Once the company found out that wasn’t true, the offer was rescinded. So now I am being honest and telling people the truth. But here is the issue — I’ll be in the middle of a phone interview and will be asked if I’ve ever been terminated from a job. I’ll say yes and explain it was performance-related (because I don’t want them to think I did something illegal) and it was because I had a dying parent I was struggling to take care of, who ultimately passed away. Inevitably, there is an awkward silence, an apology for the loss of my dad, and then a few days later I’ll get a “thanks but we’re moving in another direction” email.

How do I stay honest about my job history without making it awkward but also ensuring hiring managers understand that had there not been this horrible life event happening, I probably wouldn’t have lost my job?

I think where you’re going wrong is saying that the firing was performance-related. It was performance-related, but it’s not that you couldn’t do the job — it’s that you were juggling a horrible situation outside of work. The performance framing is making it sound like you couldn’t cut it, when that’s not really what happened. You said you’re worried that they’d otherwise think you did something illegal — but that wouldn’t be a typical leap for them to make!

Instead, you should say, “In my last job, I was doing well until there was a very serious health situation in my family. It was very difficult to juggle that at the same time as my job, and ultimately I couldn’t do both and they let me go. That situation has since been resolved, and I don’t expect it to come up as an issue again.” (I want to be clear that I’m not referring to your dad’s death as a “situation being resolved” but rather to your focus at work being so divided.) If your old manager would be willing to attest that you were doing well until your dad got sick, you could add, “My manager at that job would confirm I was performing well until that happened.”

I’m sorry about your dad.

5. Cold-calling for internships

Someone cold-called me today and asked if we do internships. I said yes, but you have to be a student of a particular college that we have a relationship with. They then asked, “So what do I do to apply?” Um … be a student at the college I mentioned? I am not management so can’t interview potential interns, so I told them to please email my boss. They proceeded to push for his email and I calmly said, “It’s on our website.”

When I was looking for jobs in my field (media), I was told Absolutely Do Not Cold Call. “No phone calls” was included in every job listing. You sent your application in and crossed your fingers. Have things changed or are the rules for internships different? In 2025, it seems weird and pushy that a young person would call rather than emailing. I’d love to read your thoughts on this.

Things haven’t changed. Some people have always called even when they shouldn’t — because they see it as attractive gumption, or they think it’s the only way to stand out, or they figure the rules don’t apply to them, or they just got bad advice somewhere along the line. It has always been so, and so it shall remain.