when an employee struggles with a task, cell phones at lunch, and more (2024)

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

1. Should I accept my employee just isn’t well suited to a task?

We are a small team of very silo-ed job types. Twice a year, for about a week each time, we have a meeting with lots of external stakeholders to review content for a textbook. The stakeholders are all subject matter experts (SMEs) and are focused on accuracy, completeness, etc. One of the roles in the review sessions is to serve as the note taker, capturing every edit the group of SMEs comes up with. This note taker is not an SME. There are a couple internal staff roles to whom this note taking has typically fallen. These are individuals who are not intimately involved with the crafting of content; they basically just come in and serve as the note taker these few times of year. I was one such person when I started in the role 10 years ago and I continue to do so now (although I am now in a leadership role).

We hired someone in late 2021 (Callie) to step into my previous role and now, based on tradition, she serves in the note taker role when needed. The problem is Callie is not good at this task. She has a hard time following along with the conversation, often needs one of the SMEs in the room to explain to her where the edit is to be made, requires a lot of time to ensure she gets the change correct, misses edits, etc. I have coached her on how to do this task better. Various SMEs have coached her on how to be better. SMEs’ patience often starts to run thin with her as a review session proceeds, most of all from the book’s managing editor, Paul.

See Also

It's Just Lunch | IJL Select | EPS on LinkedIn: “Noting that ‘life expands or contracts based on your courage’, I decided,…'Pupils are coming to school so hungry they're falling asleep', headteacher saysScarlett Johansson says she is 'shocked, angered' over new ChatGPT voiceBeautiful bologna: N.L. restaurant making artisanal version of beloved meat stick

Because this falls firmly in the “other duties as assigned” realm of her job description, how much can or should I focus on fixing this with Callie? Part of me feels like I should cut my losses and figure out an alternative for this task (for what it’s worth, an alternative will not be easy to come by for reasons that aren’t worth getting into here). The other part of me feels like it’s not unreasonable to hold her feet to the fire because the fact is this is a critical task and completing it doesn’t require anything that falls outside the realm of reasonable expectations.

A complicating factor that I know I need to ignore but just can’t — Paul (whose patience with Callie runs thin very quickly) is desperate for Callie to be better, as the clean-up work of things she misses/gets wrong often falls to him, but he also feels strongly that Callie isn’t putting in the effort to get better and that taking the task from her would reward her for poor performance. I don’t fully disagree with Paul, but also know that not every person is suited to every task. Help?

If she struggles to follow the conversation, she’s not going to be an effective note-taker, no matter how much you coach her on taking notes. If these meetings were more frequent, she might be able to get better over time, but twice a year? It’s unlikely to happen.

The big question I had reading your letters was: how’s the rest of Callie’s work? The issues you described — struggling to follow the conversation, missing edits, needing a lot of hand-holding on how to make changes — sound like they might speak to problems with her regular work too, unless it’s wildly different from what’s expected of her on these meeting days, so I’d want you to take a look at that. But if the rest of her work is great, stop making her struggle with something she’s bad at — and which isn’t working anyway, and which is taking up lots of time from other people to fix things for her, and where her work is frustrating everyone else — and find another solution. That’s not “rewarding her for poor performance” (and that’s a weirdly punitive way for Paul to look at it); it’s recognizing that she’s not the right person for this specific task.

2. Talking on a cell phone at lunch

Cell phone etiquette has obviously changed over the years, but I have always operated under the general understanding that if your phone call can be heard by others, then you shouldn’t be having it. (When I dissect that belief, I’m not entirely sure I can precisely pinpoint why it’s there, to be honest, but it’s there!)

I work in a very small office with, on most days, only three-five people working in the same space. I have a coworker who almost always eats alone after everyone else has finished and always talks on her cell phone while she’s eating. She is not particularly loud, but because the office is small, it is possible to hear the entire conversation. This is no different than when we all sit down to eat lunch together: people talk loudly and others can hear. But I’m having trouble not being annoyed at the situation involving a cell phone! Am I holding on to an old belief here for no reason?

See Also

Former KIPP St. Louis principal denies claims of attendance fraud

Yes, I think so! It’s true that it’s rude to have a loud cell phone conversation in an otherwise quiet space, and sometimes it’s rude to have one at all in a space where people don’t expect phone conversations to be happening at all. But an office is usually a place where people will periodically be on the phone; there’s no expectation that it will be a phone-free zone (usually the opposite, in fact). I’m guessing you wouldn’t be as bothered if it were a work-related call; it’s something about it being personal that’s feeling off. But unless the norm of your office is “we all work in silence and we’re expected to go into a private space for calls,” I wouldn’t call this particularly rude.

3. Internship’s dress code is painfully vague

I just received the full dress code for my internship that starts in a week, and I’m thinking through how to navigate it.

It reads as follows: “The firm has adopted ‘business casual’ and ‘client appropriate’ as the everyday minimum dress standard, including Fridays. The term ‘business casual’ is not clearly defined in the community, nor is there general agreement regarding its meaning. The operative goal is to choose attire that will promote, rather than detract from, the firm’s image of professionalism, sophistication, and dedication to our clients.”

I’m struggling with the lack of a “not allowed” list. At past business casual jobs, most employers have include a “not allowed” list in their dress codes, e.g no open-toed shoes, no visible tattoos, etc. Would it be gauche to follow up and just ask point blank for such a list? The reason I ask is that I do have visible (not offensive) tattoos, and I’m game to cover them with makeup and/or longer clothing, but would prefer not to if I don’t have to. Do you have thoughts/advice on how to approach this?

That is a confusing dress code, although you’ll probably have a much better sense once you start and can see how most people dress. Meanwhile, though, since what you’re wondering about is tattoos specifically, why not ask them about tattoos specifically? They may not have a “not allowed” list anyway — in fact, it sounds like they don’t, although someone would probably talk you through the do’s and don’ts if you asked. But it sounds like you have one specific thing you’re really wondering about, so ask about that one specific thing! It’s fine to say, “I wasn’t sure from what I read about the dress code if visible tattoos are okay. I have tattoos on my arms (or wherever). Should I plan to cover them?”

Alternately, you can cover them your first day and get more of the lay of the land then, or just ask someone in person at that point.

4. Should we be able to see how much PTO my boss really has?

I am new to the world of PTO and can’t seem to keep enough to do anything with my life. I work in a remote office, not the corporate headquarters, so we get forgotten about often. It seems like my manager always has ample PTO to take three-week vacations in addition to monthly requested days off while us little people are nickled and dimed for everything. As her director is not on site, it makes for an easy scam situation and I (and the rest of the team) are suspicious of her actions. I have no proof, but is submission of PTO a private matter? Or is there a record that should be available to us to ensure the PTO time she tells us matches her approved requests with her director? It’s pretty uncomfy.

No, you don’t typically have access to your boss’s PTO records. It’s also possible she has more PTO than you and your coworkers do (it’s not uncommon for people to get more PTO if they’ve been there longer or are in more senior positions). Or she could be scamming your company, who knows. One way to bring it to her boss’s attention is to have a plausible need to contact her boss about a work problem where you can mention, “Since Jane has been out for the last two weeks, we didn’t know who to go to about this…”

5. Can my resume say “Mage’s Guild” if I am a non-player character?

If my job was NPC who only says “They say there have been unearthly noises coming from the mage’s guild on nights when the moon is full,” can I just put “Mage’s Guild” on my resume?

I needed Twitter to give me context for this, but now that they have, the answer is no. You don’t work for the Mage’s Guild! You’re just a person saying you’ve heard there are problems there.