This post, my boss retains trying to tell me to clean up my place, carpooling with someone I organize, and more, was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s five response to five questions. Now we go…

1. My boss keeps telling me to clean up my office

I work in a non-teaching position at a large university. I countenanced my current arrangement mid-pandemic, at which time the department was streamlined down to simply my director, “Angela,” and myself. Angela is exacting and stern but excellent at her racket and I is typically reel with her foibles as I enjoy my work and the school is an amazing employer. I’m trying to decide how to handle one of the areas where I struggle with her. Angela regulates which of us will work on specific projects and creates a shared spreadsheet with these tasks , noting the due date, who will be completing it, and any details. This is fine except that twice now, she has listed under my exercises:” clean and coordinate your office space .”

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the most organized person, but my role is exactly that — mine. No one goes inside it except me and the night scavenging crew. We have several find openings for expend when we need to speak with students or department, as well as a large public-facing desk that we share. No one else ever has any reason to come inside my position. I contain any jumble to areas that simply I use. In additive, my mess isn’t piles of garbage or decomposing menu. It’s loads of paper on my desk that I prevent procrastinating organise and a journal rack that doesn’t isn’t up to the standards of the Bodleian Library. I can understand being asked to clean if I were creating a health hazard or piling my things in shared infinites, but this is simply articles in my own opening. Last time she kept this on the spreadsheet, I half-heartedly shuffled some things around. This time I’m allured to simply pretend I didn’t see that special job on the spreadsheet.

How would you approach this? If it matters, I feel like I do an excellent work he has done. I’ve gotten frequently radiating evaluations from university organisation and lots of positive feedback from the students and staff I work with. Angela largely express positive feelings about my job, but I have to be careful to catch her in a good attitude if I want to discuss anything work-related … or anything else, actually.

Talk to her. She clearly has expectancies about its term of office that you don’t agree with, and the way to handle that isn’t to ignore them or “ve been trying to” do the bare minimum you can get away with; that’s just going to guarantee that each of you points up annoyed.

It’s fine to push back with your boss on something like this, but it needs to be in the form of an explicit conversation — not in accordance with the arrangements of precisely not doing what she asked.

So raise it head-on! Tell her that the acces your office is set up works for you and no one else comes in, and you’re wondering if there’s a concern she’s seeing that you’re missing. Go into the conversation open to the possibility that she might have a legitimate reason so that you don’t sound defensive — and because she certainly might.( For illustration, if she ever needs to find things in its term of office when you’re out, she might be reasonably concerned that she won’t be able to .)

2. Can I offer to carpool with person I succeed?

I’m a overseer. I just moved and now live excessively close to one of my employees; we live in a suburbium that’s a moderately far drive from the part. Would it be appropriate to see if they want to carpool seldom? On the one entrust, it seems ridiculous for the earth and our pocketbooks for us to drive separately, and I think they would appreciate the offer. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want them to feel compelled to ride with me, and I wouldn’t require the other employees to feel like they’re not in the secret carpool club.

My gut says no, but then my other nerve says I’m being ridiculous. If it helps, it’s a genial power where people generally is moving forward. Though I is suggested that — I’m the boss.

Because you’re the boss, I don’t think you should set up a regular carpooling situation; that would risk making other people on your squad feel that one employee is getting daily bonding meter with you that they’re not getting. It too gambles setting up a situation where your employee wants to stop carpooling but doesn’t know how to get out of it.

But sharing an occasional move shouldn’t be a big deal if you give it in a manner that sees it very easy for them to decline. In fact, do it in a way where they could get away with never mentioning it again if they’d rather not — like, “We live so close to each other, let me know if you ever need a travel to or from work.”

3. Employer won’t accept that I’ve said no to their occupation offer

I have been interviewing for jobs over the last few months and received a job offer last week. After my interrogation with the person who would be my superintendent, I got a vibe that wasn’t settling right with me( fantasize, terribly abrasive; I was told by this person that they’ll offend me on a regular basis, and I’m to got to get it ). I asked for a day to be considered the proposal, and is required to determine whether I could work with that style of management.

During that day, we found that one of my parents has a very serious medical provision and will need on-going treatment and surgery for at least three months. As I’ll be needed to help with care, transportation, medication, etc ., I withdrew from the position with a nice email, interpreting my reasons( scourge parent , not wanting to start a brand-new sentiment by asking to take three months off, that I have FMLA protection at my current enterprise, and that I’m not the best fit for that management style ), thanking them, and bidding them the best of luck finding a candidate for the role.

I’m now receiving phone calls and emails about been speaking with them more and trying to make arrangements. While I appreciate the offer, I am absolutely not interested in the position any longer, and I maintain reiterated that. I don’t want to be completely rude and time ignore the them( little town, people talk a lot ), but I have personal matters that need my attending. How do I get them to understand? Do I just stop refuting? I don’t want to haunted anyone, but I don’t know if repeating myself is helping.

I’m going to assume that you’ve been clear about your no and not softened it to the point that they think you would welcome their help in stimulating the job work out. Assuming that’s the case, they’re the ones being rude by disregard your answer At this level, it wouldn’t be insulting for you to stop greeting — you applied them your answer and you’re not leaving them hanging. But if you want to respond one more time, say this: “I am formally worsening its own position. I’ve got my hands full with a family situation right now so I won’t be able to respond to further senses, but best of luck filling the role.” And then stop greeting — they won’t keep trying forever.

4. Half our internships are awarded by nepotism

I work in a large company that strives to be progressive and equitable. We have full health benefits for domestic partner, paid parental leave for birth or adoptive parent education any gender, and a diversity task force that aims to ensure all employees feel welcome and valued.

This is all immense, but my beef is this: my agency frequently gets the child/ friend/ niece/ neighbour of some executive offering to us as an intern. We typically hire our own apprentice as well, wanting we have two apprentices total. The hired apprentice must undergo a rigid process that includes multiple rounds of interviews and submitting work samples. The nepotism intern still needs to submit a resume and do an interrogation, but those are just formalities.

My sense of equity and fairness grates at how the company says it wants to promote equity and social justice and more engages in this practice. Our department VP is unlikely to challenge it because the intern is free for us( i.e. their pay comes out of someone else’s fund) and we’re understaffed so frankly we could use the help. My question is, do I point out how this practice belies our stated values or do I time hinder my lip closed and don’t gape the gift horse in the mouth?

For what it’s worth, I’m a manager who reports to the department VP. I don’t supervise the interns instantly, but they work on my team. My team’s general position toward the situation is a mix of resignation, harassment, and grateful for any help we can get. They are professional and give both apprentices similarly, but there is a lot of sighing and” ugh, why” behind closed doors.

You’d be doing a good thing if you pointed out to your diversity task force that awarding half of your internships by nepotism perpetuates the privilege pipeline where students with relationships get more opportunities than students without them, and that it directly denies the values your fellowship professes.

5. What’s up with supervisors checking invokes after they’ve previously made an offer?

My partner recently got a job offer for a study he’s more interesting to and with a delightful conjure, as well, which we are both very excited about! Nonetheless, HR asked for his remarks after offering him the number of jobs, shaping the render provisional on the reference check. Why do corporations do this? This happened to him for the job he’s currently in, as well as to me in my current capacity!

The frustrating part is that despite having received the offer a week ago, he still hasn’t been able to give his notice at his current job. You never know if a citation will unexpectedly burn you, or just say something that the reference checker doesn’t enjoy and suddenly, the job offer is vacated. But the longer he waits to give his notice, the more likely it is he’ll need to push his start time, but he won’t know what start time works for him until he can give his notice!

So why do fellowships do this? Wouldn’t it be easier for everyone to do these references before referring the job offer? That acces the candidate isn’t in this weird grey-haired zone where they need to figure out a start date before knowing when they can even leave their current responsibility! I understand that it’s maybe easier for HR, since that acces they’re only contacting notes if the candidate is interested in assume, but on the other hand they’ve already had to draft up a new job offer with an adjusted start date, so it seems like more of a inconvenience for them, too.

Yep, it’s a horrendous rehearse. Typically supervisors that do this understand these references as a rubber-stamp where they’re really checking to make sure you didn’t misrepresent your experience — they’re mostly looking for a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down rather than the more nuanced discussion that a careful reference-checker would do. They’re treating it as same to a criminal records check or degree proof, which is not what it actually should be.

It’s a bad tradition because it means the furnish continued to be yanked so it’s not a real offer at all but candidates don’t always realize that, and likewise because it revokes hiring administrators the ability to include insights from cites in their decision-making before they settle on a candidate.

Your collaborator is absolutely right to wait to resign until the contingency on his offer is cleared, and if he does need to push the start date back because of that, it’s okay for him to explain to the brand-new employer that he’s not comfy giving notice until the offer is a final one.

You are also welcome to like: my boss judges a board member preserved the money from a newborn knack collectionmy coworker had an affair with a colleague’s husband, and now is treating her severely at workhow to say “no, I won’t clean the bathroom”

Read more: askamanager.org