should I give feedback to a “nepo baby” intern, assistants won’t do their jobs, and more

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

1. Should I give professionalism feedback to a “nepo baby” summer intern?

I work for the federal government, let’s call it the Anonymous Federal Agency (AFA), which has a headcount in the tens of thousands. I have a Master’s degree and 15 years of AFA tenure, which makes me by far the most experienced member of my small team. That being said, I am an individual contributor, not a manager (though I am a GS-14, which puts me at the same grade as most managers).

A couple weeks ago, we gained a summer intern, “Reece,” who has interned at AFA before but not with our org. I’m already concerned about his professionalism. Recently he had a tech support issue, and I drove him to another building way across campus to get it sorted out (since he doesn’t know our campus). He treated me like a chauffeur and never thanked me. Several times I’ve had to hunt down information for him and send it to him in DMs, which he hasn’t acknowledged with a response of any kind. When I’ve tried to make friendly conversation, what has shone through was his cynicism — when I said, “This summer must feel very different from your last summer at [AFA],” he muttered something about how AFA’s incompetence is the same as it’s ever been.

It’s not just me — the most easygoing guy on my team was musing aloud after Reece left today about how he’s having “major communications issues” with him.

We’re less than two weeks in and I badly want to give this young man feedback about his communication style. The two arguments against this: 1) I’m not his (or anyone’s) manager; 2) he’s a nepo baby! His parent is in AFA’s Senior Executive Service. The counter to these two arguments are: 1) I’m not his manager, but I’m much better positioned than any of the quite junior people on my team to give professional feedback; 2) he can complain to his parent and it really doesn’t matter. I’m not trying to climb the ladder and so it doesn’t much matter what a random SES outside of my org thinks of me.

I think under normal circumstances I would fob this off to a direct supervisor, but we lost most of ours to Elon’s “fork in the road.” There is simply no manager close enough to the day-to-day operations of our team to be an effective messenger. (This year has been such a nightmare.) Would you advise saying something or saying nothing? I’ll abide by your ruling!

Well, giving him feedback is a favor to him, and he hasn’t really earned the favor by the way he’s been acting! On the other hand, giving him feedback is also potentially a favor to other people who have to work with him now and in the future. If you were his manager, I’d say definitely do it, no question. If he had a manager, I’d tell you to send the feedback through that person. But you’re not his manager, there is no manager, and there’s the parent issue … meh.

I probably wouldn’t have a big sit-down conversation with him about it (unless you’re dying to, in which case I’m not going to get in your way). But that doesn’t preclude calling out the rudeness in the moment — like when you hunted down info for him and never heard back, you could say, “Could you please confirm you received this?” and then when he does, “When someone spends time finding info for you, please acknowledge it; it will help you build professional relationships with colleagues.” And if he makes another comment about your agency’s incompetence or similar, feel free to visibly react and say, “Wow, what a thing to say. There are a lot of skilled people here.”

2. Class assistants won’t do their jobs

I am a special education teacher. In our class we have two assistants who are supposed to work with the rest of the class. The problem is that they don’t want to do anything. They would rather play on their phones than do whatever they’re asked to do.

They think the kids are annoying and will often ignore certain ones that they don’t want to work with. They often make inappropriate comments to the students and in front of the students. One is worse than the other because she talks negatively about us, tells blatant lies, and refuses to take responsibility for her actions. Sometimes they’re even worse together. They broke a student’s equipment because one was on the phone instead of working with him, then they tried to fix it, made it worse, and lied for each other to cover up. When we call them on it, with evidence, they double down and refuse to admit fault.

We’ve tried talking to them, but they’re mad that the cafeteria and custodial staff make more than they do. They flat out say, “Go ahead, fire us, who are you going to hire?” And in a way, they’re right. The last position we posted, no one applied for it. Any suggestions for how to get them to put down their phones and do what we need them to do?

I don’t think you can, if they’re so completely uninvested in their jobs and the students, plus openly challenging you to fire them and clearly don’t believe you will. It’s possible that by firing the one who’s the worst of the two, you might get the other to shape up … but if they’re not willing to do the job and they’re creating this level of disruption, is it possible you’d be better off with no one in the position?

If not, then I think you’ve got to look at why no one is applying. I realize that you likely have very little influence over that as a teacher (you’re not going to control the salary, for example). But really, these two could walk off the job any day and you could be stuck needing to hire anyway. Don’t let them convince you that you have to keep them on at all costs.

3. How do we handle a lying board president who’s leaving town?

I serve on the all-volunteer board of a local nonprofit. Another board member has evidence that the president has been lying about several things, including the organization’s financial resources, committee relationships, and things people have said and done. We were planning to bring this up at the next board meeting, but just found out that the president is (suddenly) moving away, and will be starting a paid role at another nonprofit.

My question: how do we handle this? Tell him we know about the lies? Tell him we can’t give him a good reference? See if we can contact the new organization that hired him and talk to them? Do we just let it go? I’ve read about nonprofit fiduciary duties and I don’t think anything he did is strictly illegal, but it’s definitely unethical and has had a real impact on the organization’s ability to serve our target audience. I’d be happy to see the end of it and let it go, but it seems like we should do *something.*

Assuming you’re having some kind of wrap-up conversation with him before his tenure ends, can you ask about the things you’ve found then? It doesn’t need to be accusatory, necessarily — it can be, “We’ve found XYZ and are wondering what your perspective is on this.” If nothing else, that will put him on notice that you know and are alarmed and, depending on how that conversation goes, it might give you a natural opening to express how gravely concerned you are and to convey that the organization can no longer endorse his work.

4. Working extra hours as an exempt employees

I have been wondering lately about evening/weekend work for salaried/exempt office employees.

I’m working in the U.S., so I’m sure there are no legal protections when it comes to “extra hours” for those of us working 8-5 salaried jobs. But I’m wondering if you think there are any cultural norms. Especially in the nonprofit world, it seems common that exempt workers are asked to staff evening/weekend events.

As my team is asked to do “more with less,” I’ve noticed that more workers are being voluntold to staff events, and that nobody seems to be granted comp time for them. Is this …normal?

It’s definitely a thing that happens, but a good organization will offer comp time if it’s something that happens a lot.

First, though, make sure you and your coworkers are accurately classified as exempt (and thus aren’t actually owed overtime for those extra hours). It’s not uncommon for employers to misclassify workers who should actually be non-exempt. (There’s info here on how to figure out whether you legally can be treated as exempt or not.)

If you’re correctly classified, you and your coworkers could consider pushing for comp time as a group. Or, if your company won’t do it officially, is it something your managers would do informally (i.e., would they agree that when you work half of Saturday, you can informally take half a day off the following week)?

Related:
can I ask employees to stay late during busy times?

5. Assessing quality of life in a new town when interviewing from afar

I work in sustainability and am interviewing for a few nonprofit positions across in the country in a state with a higher cost of living than my own (to be closer to family). These roles pay more than I make now, but I’d like to figure out what my family’s quality of life would be in these new places. I don’t expect to be wealthy, but I want to be sure our standard of living doesn’t go down because things are tight as it is. For instance, one site is very close to the coast and a quick Zillow of the area was insane.

In interviews, I’ve asked how close staff usually lives to work and in what surrounding towns. Do you have any other thoughts? I’d also like to get at quality of life questions about the area. For instance, not being stuck in a car for every outing is important to me so I want to know about biking and public transport.

I know there will always be a lot of unknowns with a move like this, but I’d be hauling two little kids and my husband out of their home and I’d like to be as sure as possible that life will be better for us. I enjoy my job and love where we live now so I’m willing to wait for something super promising.

One of the easiest ways to get a general idea is to look at online cost-of-living calculators that let you compare how far your money will go in one area versus another (here’s one example). I’m assuming you’re also making thorough use of Google, which will give you tons of info about bike friendliness, public transportation, and other quality of life factors. (Most areas will also have a local subreddit that you can find tons of info on.)

Beyond that, if you get to the finalist stage for a job you’re seriously considering, push hard for them to fly you out so you can see the area firsthand. There’s no substitute for seeing and exploring an area yourself.

The post should I give feedback to a “nepo baby” intern, assistants won’t do their jobs, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.