I fell asleep in an on-camera meeting, job candidate had a fight with my wife, and more

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

1. I fell asleep in an on-camera meeting

So, today, I was on an on-camera Zoom meeting with a total of about 10 people, most of whom are substatially higher level than me. I slept poorly last night and, well, I nodded off a couple of times. I thought maybe it wasn’t noticeable? Unfortunately, the meeting was recorded, and when I reviewed the recording, I found that it was very noticeable indeed. Like, I did everything in the bad sitcom version of someone dozing in a meeting except fall off my chair.

I don’t know what to do now. Pretend it didn’t happen unless someone asks me about it? Send out a general apology? Run away to another country and change my name so that no one who saw it will ever find me again? (Gotta admit, right now, the last option is by far the most appealing.)

Sincerely,
A person whose face might never stop being bright red again

Oh noooo. Was your boss on the call? If so, I might send her a quick message saying something like, “If I seemed off my game in that meeting, I apologize — I slept very badly last night and didn’t realize how much it was affecting me until after the meeting, when I realized I wasn’t as present as I normally am.” (So you don’t need to spell out “I FELL ASLEEP” but you are acknowledging and explaining the context, not making her worry that you’re planning to blasély nap your way through meetings from now on.) Or if your boss wasn’t on the call, you could send a similar message to whoever was there who you work most closely with.

If you’re a generally a conscientious person who’s normally engaged in meetings and on top of your work and you aren’t doing other things to raise concerns, people will most likely understand you just had a bad day!

2. Job candidate got into a fight with my wife

I am on the hiring committee for a position that will interact closely with mine but won’t be on my downline. The hiring manager is my colleague Freddie, who is good friends with my wife. The third member of the hiring committee is Samara, who has a history of causing problems when she doesn’t get her way. Because the position is so specialized, the applicant pool is extremely small and can only really be filled via head-hunting.

Freddie brought in a candidate, Jason, who had been recommended to him by a friend. Jason’s background and skillset aligned really well with what we are looking for, and the interview gave me the impression that he would be really good at the job, but I wouldn’t be super excited to work with him. He struck me as a consummate professional and very diligent, both qualities that we need, but he was also a little bit abrasive and a few of his answers gave me the impression that he could be argumentative. So, not a candidate I’m excited about, but perfectly serviceable for the role.

Samara hated him, she thought he was horrible, and refused to work with him. When asked why, her answers ranged from “I just don’t like him” to “I don’t think he would fit in here.” Freddie loved him! He thought he was a great fit and wanted to bring him in for a second interview. I have to be the tie-breaker.

I go home and explain all of this to my wife, to get her advice, because I don’t want to piss off Samara but I also know that Jason is our best candidate and I really want this role filled (if we don’t hire Jason, it will sit empty indefinitely). I mention that Jason was recommended to Freddie by a mutual friend of him and my wife, and she goes, “Wait, Jason as in Jason LastName?” and tells me that she has met Jason before, five months ago, and they got into a huge, blow-up fight that was so bad she had to leave. Jason had said something wildly offensive to her and then doubled down when she called him on it, and she hadn’t hung out with the mutual friend since.

I know that I can’t hold this guy’s political opinions against him (the comment was political in nature) but I’m also even less thrilled to work with him now. On top of that, moving him forward as a candidate would mean going to bat for him against Samara and potentially causing conflict with her, but I really need someone to get hired, because I have to pick up everything that this position is supposed to handle until we fill it. Do I pretend I didn’t hear about the fight? Do I drop it? Do I have any particular obligations here?

Well, depending on the nature of the political opinion, you can hold it against him in hiring and in some cases should (for example, if he said something bigoted).

But why not just be up-front with both Freddie and Samara? “His skills are really aligned with what we’re looking for, but he was a little abrasive and gave me the impression he could be argumentative, so I have mixed feelings. Also, it turns out my wife knows him and X happened, which reinforces my initial worry about his interpersonal skills.” You’re not any more the deciding vote than Freddie or Samara are; you just happen to be weighing in last, but that doesn’t require you to say “and so we should do X.” You can just give your opinion, and then the committee as a whole should decide what to do.

If the committee is stuck and can’t agree, then suggest doing the second interview to see if that changes anyone’s assessment. There’s nothing wrong with getting more information; it doesn’t obligate you to hire him. And if the three of you still can’t agree after that, then it really comes down to how the hiring committee is supposed to function: is it majority-rule? Does the hiring manager have the final call? You, as a single committee member who is not the hiring manager, don’t have the final say on your own, and there’s no reason for you to frame this to yourself as “going to bat for Jason” or “going against Samara.” You don’t need to go to bat for anyone or push any agenda at all; just be honest about your evaluation.

That said, for Samara to argue so vociferously against a candidate who others like, she really needs to push herself to come up with something concrete beyond “I just don’t like him.” You could say something like, “I’d be hesitant about any candidate who you oppose so strongly, because I assume you’re picking up on something concerning. Can you use the next interview to try to pinpoint what it is that’s setting off alarm bells for you so that we have something more concrete to work with?”

Also! It’s not necessarily irrelevant that the one person on the hiring committee who’s strongly opposed to Jason is also the one woman on the committee … and Jason also had a “huge, blow-out fight” a few months ago with someone who, oh look, is also a woman. Push Samara to better articulate what’s setting off alarm bells for her, but keep that aspect in mind too.

3. Our calendar gives out too much information on people

I got a new job in December, and I’m questioning a practice in my department. We use cloud-based calendars that are shared in the department. One is for events, one has a schedule for who is leading weekly meetings, and one shows who is out sick, etc.

It is very useful to know when someone in the department is unavailable, as our work often overlaps. But the calendar also says why they are out. For example, I now know that my coworker Inigo is out on FMLA every Friday. Buttercup is out Fridays as well, on “comp” because she (and she alone) is allowed to work four 10-hour shifts instead of five eight-hour shifts each week. Vizinni missed a week of work this month because he was out sick, and Wesley is on vacation three days next week. Vizinni is bothered by Buttercup’s schedule privileges and thinks Inigo might be taking advantage of the FMLA system.

While I do like seeing that Humperdink is gone for two hours on a parts run so I know not to go looking for him, are we supposed to know about Inigo’s FMLA? Isn’t that supposed to be confidential? Every other job I’ve had has just labeled folks as “out” or “unavailable” rather than giving the reasons why they have the time off. And while I think Vizinni gets a little too invested in other people’s business, it is a little disconcerting to see “MyName — sick” on the calendar when I was an hour late because of a scheduled dentist appointment.

The calendar is managed by our office admin, Rugen, and he can be kinda persnickety about how things are done so I’ve been trying to stay on his good side. I suspect my supervisor won’t care to rock the boat. We do have a decent HR department; should I quietly flag them on this, or is it not a big deal?

It’s not illegal to share that someone is on FMLA leave, although employers shouldn’t disclose the reasons for the leave. But yeah, this is a lot of information that’s not needed! Ideally you’d raise it to either Rugen or your boss, but it sounds like you don’t think either of them are good options. You could talk to HR and point out that this is a lot of information and feels like more than should be shared, but as a new employee and where no actual laws are being violated, I’d lean toward just leaving it alone if you’re not willing to take it to one of the two major players (the person managing the calendar and the person managing your team).

4. My employee keeps viewing my LinkedIn profile

One of my team keeps viewing my LinkedIn profile.

I started this job about two years ago, and prior to my joining one of the people who I would manage viewed my profile every few days. It was a bit intense and off-putting but I understood they were curious about their new manager.

After I started, this tailed off but probably continued once or twice a month. I had several people I interviewed view my profile, with one looking repeatedly, and I made a point to tell the team about how I get notifications of people viewing my profile. For the last six months, pretty much every time I go on LinkedIn there’s a notification they’ve looked at my profile within the last day.

If they were a coworker or a previous colleague, I’d probably block them but I manage them. It bothers me and makes me feel uncomfortable. Any guidance on how to approach the conversation with them?

Why not just turn off the feature that tells you who viewed your profile, unless you have some specific need for it? It’s bothering you and it doesn’t need to! There are innocuous reasons why this person might keep viewing your profile — like that they bookmarked your profile ages ago to read when you were hired and so now when they start typing “LinkedIn” into their browser, it autofills your profile URL because it’s bookmarked, or all sorts of other strange things tech can do. But you’re reading things into it and it’s bothering you, and it would be weird to address it with them, so you’re better off just putting it out of your view by turning that feature off, at least for a while.

5. How to turn down a change to my job without harming my reputation

I am an in-house lawyer who recently returned from maternity leave with my first child. My typical hours before my leave were 9am-6/7pm, but since returning I work 8:45am-5:15pm to enable me to collect my child from daycare on time. I often log back on after my child is in bed to check emails but rarely need to do substantive work at that time.

One of the teams in the business needs a legal person to help them with their deals. My boss wants me to take this on in addition to my existing duties instead of hiring someone new to do it. have experience in this area and the team likes me. However, most of their deals are time sensitive (24-48 hours to get it done), and the team are mainly based in another time zone five hours behind mine. The time I take off to collect my child would fall in the most important hours of their day. I would likely need to do substantive work after my child’s bedtime and would miss out on quality time with my spouse as a result.

My boss argues that this would be a great way to increase my profile at the company and eventually get promoted. They said they will set expectations with the team to protect the time I need to collect my child and limit the late night work required. They also suggested I could start my work day later to make up for working late nights, and delegate more of my existing duties. I would not get a pay raise for doing this.

I … don’t want to do it. I get up super early with my child and need to go to bed early to function. I value my quality time with my spouse for my mental health. I also suspect that the company is just offering this to save money on a new hire. However, I am conscious of maintaining my good reputation as an ambitious, hard worker and I suspect that my boss and the team will be unimpressed if I decline the opportunity. Can you please offer me a script to respectfully decline this offer without making everyone angry?

“It’s something I’d potentially be interested in down the road, but I’m not available during the most important hours of their day right now, and that’s not something I’m able to change right now.” And if pushed anyway: “I’m not in a position to make such a significant change to my hours currently, but I will let you know if that changes.”

It’s possible this will indeed mommy-track you in your boss’s head, but a reasonable manager should understand the conflict. I can’t guarantee that you have a reasonable manager, of course, but this is the way to turn it down.

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