feuding coworkers, is saying “my calendar is up to date” rude, and more — Ask a Manager

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. My coworkers are feuding over a text, a lack of condolences, and some coffee

We have two colleagues in our office, Pam and Sarah, who do not get along. Sarah’s mom passed away recently, and she sent a text message to our people in the office letting them know. It should be noted that she left Pam off the text. I did not respond to the text message because I am older and find texting and social media to be impersonal, so I was going to call her the next day. Pam also did not send a text to Sarah that day (again, Sarah left her off the text sharing what happened). The next day, both Pam and I woke up to a text message from Sarah that read, “Thanks for the condolences” and had a picture of her dead mother in her hospice bed attached. Knowing Sarah, I know she was drunk and emotional when she sent the text, so I didn’t think anything of it and called Sarah that evening. I told her I was sorry about her mom, and she apologized for the picture and that was that. We are fine. However, Pam has taken the picture as a personal affront, and she and Sarah no longer speak to each other. Two weeks have passed, and this morning Sarah comes down to my desk asking where the key to the supply closet is. She said she was looking for the Green Mountain coffee but thinks we are out of it because Pam, who orders supplies, will not order it anymore because she is mad at Sarah and knows Sarah likes it. Since I have a company credit card, she asked if I could order it. I said I could try but I don’t order supplies. Next thing I know, Sarah is going into our manager’s office, and I hear her say, “Bob, can you order more of this coffee? Pam won’t order it because I was mad that she did not send me condolences, so I sent her a picture of my dead mother and now we only have Folgers.” I had to put my head under my desk and hide, I was laughing so hard. How is that sentence even possible in a sane world? Anyway, any advice on how to handle this situation?

The question is what Bob is going to do! He’s the one with the authority and obligation to deal with it. What he should do is talk to them and tell them they need to be civil to each other at work and it’s not okay to ignore one another or make supply-ordering decisions based on personal feuds. He also needs to tell Sarah that angrily sending a photo of her dead mom was inappropriate and upsetting and she needs to keep her communications to colleagues professional. But that’s the tip of the iceberg! The fact that this happened at all, that it got to this point, that Sarah’s history is such that you knew she was drunk-texting — something’s going on in your office beyond this, and I strongly suspect part of it is that Bob isn’t actively managing the situation. Luckily, it’s not anything you need to fix yourself; it’s not your job and you’re not the one with the authority to address it. 2. Is saying “my calendar is up to date” rude?

I work in a quality function at a large company, so we need to sign off on a lot of things that the various groups under our purview are doing. That usually results in a lot of quick meetings so the groups requesting our sign off can give us a quick rundown of the situation and allow us to ask questions. Oftentimes, these sign-offs need to happen relatively quickly. Recently, someone was requesting my sign-off on a change and sent me a Teams message asking if I had time to meet that day. I responded, “Sure, my Outlook calendar is up to date” and expected the person to send me a planner. This person, for some reason, flipped out when I said this, saying that I should have scheduled the meeting. I had no idea how long the meeting needed to be, who else to invite, etc., which is why I told them to schedule it. I have to ask. Is it rude to say “my outlook calendar is up to date” and expect someone requesting a meeting to go ahead and schedule it?

No, it is not. It is very normal. Moreover, even if it were a little rude — which it isn’t — your coworker’s reaction would have been wildly over the top. They could have simply replied, “Would you mind taking the lead on scheduling because of (reasons)?” 3. Customer is telling me too much about her family’s tragedy

I work at a bookstore. Recently I had a customer come in with a terrible situation; her son who plays football experienced a bad tackle and was seriously injured as a result. She was asking for medical books about the specific condition, as well as self-help books. I guided her to the appropriate section and expressed genuine sympathy and a hope that things get better. We didn’t have much that applied to the exact situation, so I ordered some for her as well. The problem is, she’s a very frequent customer and she’s now giving me regular updates on the situation, some medical (he has a catheter) and some emotional (he’s told her he wants to die). I frankly didn’t ask and don’t want to know. I sympathize, truly, and I’m sorry this young man’s life has been so tragically altered but I’m here to do my job, not provide free therapy. I have my own background with losing someone young to suicide and hearing that this young man is considering taking his own life is genuinely triggering for me. How do I gently extricate myself from this situation? Should I talk to my manager about it? If so, what should I say?

First, are you able to quickly excuse yourself for work reasons — “good to see you, I’ve got to grab something for another customer” or so forth? If that’s not practical (or not practical every time), would you be comfortable saying something like, “I’m so sorry he’s dealing with this. It’s hard for me to talk about because of a situation in my own family — I hope you understand”? But it’s also okay to talk to your manager about it; this is the kind of thing that you can ask someone above your pay grade to handle. 4. My boss is mad that I communicate better than she does

I’ve been with my company for 15 years, in my current position for nine. I’m one of the team leads. There are similar leads for other teams in our group. We each are responsible for supervising and mentoring the members of our teams, as well as facilitating conversations with other groups and setting/enforcing policies and procedures. As the longest-tenured lead, I have a few additional responsibilities which extend to our full group. My current manager is the third since I’ve been a lead. They were an internal hire who was familiar with me, my work, responsibilities, and how I interacted with the team and my previous managers. Recently we had our company-wide employee survey, and my manager scored low on communication and team engagement. A couple of weeks later, I got a call from them telling me that I talked too much in meetings, it was inappropriate that my team came to me for group-related issues instead of just ones solely focused on our assignments, I should not be making policy and procedure decisions, and I needed to quiet down and let them handle anything that wasn’t specific to a particular assignment. Through the course of the conversation, I gleaned that they had just had a meeting with their manager, and the issues with their communication came up. Apparently I was used as an example of good communication and what my grand-boss would like to see out of my manager. But instead of using that to improve their style, I’m being told to curtail my work and behaviors. Fine, I can mostly deal with this (although it does have me brushing up my resume). My question is how to explain to my team why suddenly I’m referring questions to our manager. And how do I tell people sending me requests from outside teams that instead of getting a prompt response from me, they’ll have to contact my manager and wait weeks for an answer? I’m afraid that they’ll interpret this change as if I’ve done something wrong and it will affect my reputation. I know my not speaking up during discussions in meetings has been noticed already and I’m not sure how to address that, either. So far I’ve just been saying “Manager wants to be more involved in X” but that doesn’t feel quite right either.

Wow, your manager is an insecure ass. How’s your relationship with your manager’s manager? Any chance you could talk to her about these new directives? If she held you up as an example of the sort of communication your boss should be modeling, she’s probably going to be pretty unhappy to hear how your boss handled it. Make sure to say that you’re concerned about retaliation from your boss if they find out you went to your grandboss with this; your grandboss should be able to finesse that if she’s reasonably skilled, but it’ll help to flag it as a specific concern. Beyond that, just be straightforward with other people: “Jane has asked to be more involved with stuff like this” … “Jane wants to be the point of contact for this” … etc. It sounds like you have an excellent reputation and Jane does not; it’s highly likely that people will know that the problem is Jane, not you.