This post, my coworker lied to me, alerting someone before reporting them, and more, was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

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

1. My coworker keep lying to me

I was hired about six months ago at a prestigious organisation in my province. My coworker, Fergus, started at the same time in a same situate. We work closely together and we is moving forward well, for the most part. I consider him something of a friend — or, at least, I are of the view that direction until recently.

Fergus and I have been working on a big report that needs to get done in the next few months. Last week, I had been working on other projects and logged back our the shared document to begin work again. We were sitting together and as I was logging in, he said( unprompted) that “hes been” hard at work on the report and modernized and supplemented information to a key region. I noticed that very few things had been changed, so I checked the explanation biography and found that he had worked on it for a total of two minutes in the 24 hours before I checked.

So I asked about in the moment about what exactly he had done on review reports, and this is where I caught him in the lie. He redoubled down and said that he had changed four or five big-hearted things, and when I propagandized and said those sections ogled exactly the same, he said that he had been working on it offline. I asked him securely to always work on the shared record and moved closer in those discussions. None of the changes that he said he had uttered have been since that conversation.

I’m having a hard time letting the lie drive. The lie was small and not very significant in the long run, and I don’t want to harm my working relationship with my closest coworker. I haven’t said anything else about it to him or anyone else at the part. But I detest being keep lying to, peculiarly because he doubled down when I frankly wouldn’t have attended if he hadn’t done the work in the first place. I’ve also had issues with him in the past for being singularly haunted with delineating the employment that he did versus the office we did together, and for taking a lot of the ascribe in front of our honchoes. I’ve started standing up for myself more and being less collaborative and more clear about assigning credit to myself.

How should I handle this? I’m paying a lot of attention to any potential future lies that he might determine, but is that the best way? Or should I speak with him instantly?

The most important response is what you’re once doing — being aware that Fergus is willing to lie to protect or promote himself, more attention to it in the future, and being more forceful about getting recognition for your work and less willing to collaborate since he’s a credit hogger.

But I don’t know that there’s a great deal to be gained from term him out most directly for this lie. In a method, you already did label him out — you made it clear that his claim didn’t align with what you were realize and you uttered him firm instructed to the future. There’s a good chance that he previously realizes you caught him, and it might be better for your relationship — since you have to keep working together — to let him save a small bit of face by not spelling it out explicitly. That said, if something like this ever happens again, I would not give him that same forgivenes; at that point you’d need to have a more direct “you told me X but it was Y” conversation.

2. Should I remind person that I’m reporting them before I do it?

I’m currently expecting my first child and my husband and I are taking prenatal courses through the hospital. The coach is DREADFUL. Some of what she says is garden-variety eyeroll-inducing stuff( indicating harmless but robustly refuted residence redress ), some of it is absurd( when she said that you have to pull the bed an inch away from the wall because otherwise there won’t be enough breeze for the baby ), and some of it is dangerous, like yield conflicting and misleading information on sleep safety and SIDS.

I’m a physician myself( not a pediatrician or a obstetrician ), and I’m able to identify, access, spoke, and critically appraise which studies she’s referring to when she prologues every ludicrous thing with” Studies establish …” That’s a moderately lucky position that most people aren’t in, and I’m angry and concerned that she’s dispensing hokum as a representative of the hospital. I want to write a letter with feedback to whoever is her supervisor.

Should I give her know about my concerns? I feel like going over someone’s head and blindsiding them with strong negative feedback is not the best practice, but at the same time, there’s no response that she could give me that would induce me NOT write the symbol — I only don’t cartel her to make my feedback seriously and act on it.

I think either way is fine! When someone who’s supposed to be a subject matter authority is using that authority to spread serious misinformation, there’s no obligation to address it with her first. That’s doubly true-blue when you’re a student and they’ve been tasked with learn you, because there are power dynamics there even when everyone involved is an adult. That said, if you’d like the opportunity to discuss the issue with her first, you could — and could formulate it as, “I’m concerned enough about this that I’m contacting the hospital and I wanted to share my concerns with you immediately as well.” But this is bad enough that it’s fine to hop-skip that step and go straight over her head.

3. How to get a coworker to stop asking me for so much help

I have a coworker I need to draw boundaries with and I have no idea how to make love kindly. She affiliated my companionship about a year ago. We do not work on the same team, but we have some overlapping clients.

We are both solicitors with event. She went to schools far more prestigious than mine, so I expected her to be moderately self-assured in her persona. But ever since she arrived, she checks in with me about almost every step in countless( all ?) of her jobs, from what the hell is do about X problem down to how to word emails to clients. I first thought it had to do with being brand-new to the job, so I wanted to help her out.( I’m not sure why she doesn’t ask her fellow teammates instead .) But it has never improved. I have so much better of my own work to deal with and genuinely don’t have the time or mental capacity for this.

I don’t know if this is imposter syndrome or she’s just suffering from a complete absence of self-confidence, but I feel it must be something like that, so I want to refuse further help in the nicest possible method. Any sentiments?

She might be asking you instead of someone on her own crew because you’ve been so supportive in the past, so she sees you as a resource that’s there for the taking and doesn’t realize she’s imposing on you( and feels comfortable doing it because you’ve been genu to her ). Or it could be more machiavellian than that; she could be deliberately hiding her shortcoming of learning/ confidence from her own unit. Either way, the next step is the same.

Say this: “Going forward, you should bring questions like this to your team. My schedule is really busy right now and I won’t be able to keep helping.”

Then if she still deters sending you questions, precisely reply with: “Sorry, can’t help — I’m morass. You should check with( her manager’s name ). ”

4. Is my brand-new boss signaling she doesn’t trust me?

My boss of many years recently retired. Before he left, he promoted me to handle many of his responsibilities. I was given a promote, a direct report, and more responsibility than I’d ever had before. Nonetheless, my new boss( previously my grandboss) seems determined to walk back this promotion as if she hadn’t okayed these plans in the first place.

For instance, a couple settle points after my promotion, my onetime boss announced that he would be giving me an end-of-year merit-based grow of X %, but my new boss last-minute clarified that it would be an X% increase compared to my previous salary , not my new one — which included up to a elevate of precisely a few dollars annually( ponder double digits ). This felt harsh, especially since another squad member received a larger raise proportionately despite being in good standing and on a PIP.

Also, after my direct report resigned, my brand-new boss decided that his replacement will now report to her — a substitution who I hired, developed, and began to manage. She’s even decided that this replacement will take over some of my tariffs. I feel like I’m is still in a tug-of-war between my lovely former boss and my brand-new one, and all of the things my onetime boss wanted me to have have been taken from me. My gut is telling me I should get out because my new boss doesn’t appear to rely me. My performance is great, and my aged boss never did anything but sing my admires, but the signals I’m getting from New Boss seem very negative. Can you give me a reality check?

Yeah, these are not good signals. At a minimum, she’s not as sold on you to handle the new character as your old-fashioned boss was … and it’s possible she’s preparing to push you out( I’m particularly concerned about her hold some of your new responsibilities to your new hire ). But before you conclude anything, talk with her about it! You should be able to be quite direct: “I wanted to talk with you about how things are going in my brand-new role. A few things have given me the sense that you might have concerns about my work, like reduce my elevate and moving Jane from reporting to me to reporting to you. If you have concerns about my work, I’d definitely want to know.”

It’s possible she exactly has a different dream for the persona now that your age-old boss is move — specially if, for example, he had a lot more experience or a significantly closer working relationship with her than you do — but either way, it’s time for an explicit conversation about what’s going on.( It’s actually past term, but that’s on her .)

5. Can my bos draw me use vacation time for jury responsibility?

I came called in for jury job and was picked to be on a jury. The evaluate predicts the experiment to last 10 dates. My work contract is vague when it comes to employee jury responsibility words but it basically says we will be paid even if we are serving jury duty. I am a salaried work. The companionship owner is upset that I was picked to serve on a jury and wants me to use all of my 10 days of PTO to cover my jury duty. I don’t feel this is fair, but is it legal? I’m in California.

It’s fairly crappy — peculiarly since you could end up abusing all your vacation time for the year, depending on the length of the trial — but it’s law. Some governments prohibit employers from constituting you use vacation time during jury obedience, but California is not one of them( astonishingly, given that they’re usually ahead of the swerve on work protections ). California requires employers to give you time off to be on a jury, but that time can be unpaid or charged to your PTO.( Here’s a complete list of state rules on this .)

You are also welcome to like: my coworker over-delivers and it’s causing us major difficultiesmy coworker lied about having a terminal illness — and we donated fund to hermy coworker’s partner gets annoyed when our gratifies run over

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