Survey Asked About My Boss’s Mental Health, Avoiding A Bone-crushing Handshake, And More

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

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

1. Survey asked how my boss communicates about her mental health

My supervisor at work is participating in a company-run training program aimed at helping managers improve their management skills. As one of her direct reports, I’ve been invited to take an (anonymous) survey to provide feedback on her managing style. I get along with her and generally think she’s a good supervisor, so I figured it’d be an easy survey — but then I came to the question where I was told to rate how well she “communicates about her own mental health and wellness in an authentic way.”

This is weird, right? I’m not totally off-base on this? We have a good relationship and chat about things in our lives, but I wouldn’t want to share details of my mental health with my supervisor, and would probably be pretty uncomfortable if she started sharing hers with me. It feels more like it would foster bad boundaries than a professional relationship. But how do I respond to a survey where it seems clear that that’s an important metric to evaluate her performance? I do think she’s a good supervisor and want to reflect that — and I also don’t want her to be told she has to talk more about her mental health because I don’t want that to become a part of our meetings. Do I give a middle of the road response? A “not applicable”? Should I mention in the free response section that I don’t think it should be part of the survey?

Yes, that’s a weird and inappropriate question. I would either give her the highest rating (because for you, the way she is handling the topic is working well) or a N/A. And then yes, explain in the free response section that you believe everyone deserves privacy around their health at work and appreciate your manager for respecting appropriate boundaries.

Unfortunately, employers keep going off the rails with this. Yes, it is healthy to acknowledge that we’re humans with a range of emotions, and it is good to destigmatize mental health issues. But expecting managers to communicate about their personal mental health is invasive and inappropriate, and many people really don’t want to be on the receiving end of those communications. Employers who want to promote mental health have lots of non-invasive ways they can do that: offering good mental health coverage as part of their insurance plans, being flexible with time off, building awareness of what types of accommodations are available, offering strong employee assistance programs, and being thoughtful about much stress employees are expected to take on. But that takes real resources, whereas a survey question like this doesn’t.

Related:
forcing employees to talk about their feelings isn’t good for our mental health

2. Can I wear a brace to avoid handshakes?

In a few weeks, I’ll be attending an in-person meeting with my company’s founder and former CEO. I’ve met him twice before and both times, he’s shaken my hand so hard that it hurts. The second time it reactivated a minor hand injury I was dealing with, which had been from another handshake a few weeks prior. (As an aside, why do people ever shake someone’s hand that hard?)

He’s a nice guy, and I’m a woman, and I don’t get the vibe that it’s a power play. It just feels like the legacy of the “firm handshake” advice and a dude not knowing his own strength. I don’t feel like I have the standing to pull the founder aside and ask him not to shake my hand so hard. Plus, he hasn’t remembered me twice, and I’m very low-level at the company — I’m pretty sure he’ll want to re-meet me and shake my hand immediately, before any aside-pulling can happen. But when I was dealing with my handshake injury before, people reacted weirdly to me not shaking their hand when they went offered it. I got puzzled looks, and people weren’t sure what to do with their outstretched hand. Can I wear a hand brace to make it more visible why I might not be shaking? And what’s a good alternative gesture to do when people try to shake my hand?

You can indeed wear a hand brace if you want to! But it’s also fine to just say, “I’d shake your hand but I’m recovering from a hand injury.” If people look a little puzzled, it’s probably not because they think you’re breaking the social contract in some way; it’s likely just their faces processing “oops, I’ve got my hand out and now need to retract it.”

You’re fine! People have hand injuries. Or they’re sick and doing everyone a favor by not shaking hands. It’s not a big deal as long as you’re matter-of-fact about it and make a point of being otherwise reasonably warm.

Related:
chill out with the bone-crushing handshakes

3. I end up doing more work than my less organized coworker

I work in a team of four. My workmate Lucy and I are both part-time, have the same job description, and are paid the same; the other two are full-time and do different jobs.

Our manager, Sarah, often allocates work to me and Lucy without specifying who will do what, e.g., “can the llama groomers pick this up?”

Lucy is a great person and we’re friends outside of work. However, she really struggles with organizational skills (she has ADHD and is very open about it) and I have strong organizational skills. So in practice, when something is assigned to the two of us, I usually end up making it happen. I’ll often ask Lucy to contribute to it in specific ways (“can you order more llama shampoo before Friday?”), but even then I usually have to remind her, sometimes several times. On occasion I’ve just done her part myself (checking with her if that’s okay) because it’s less stressful that way and means the job will happen on time.

I find myself getting resentful of the situation. I’m paid the same as Lucy but organize much of our work. Sometimes I feel like I’m her de facto manager, but I’m not her manager and I’m not paid to be her manager. Meanwhile, our actual manager is quite hands-off once she’s assigned a job to us (I’m sure she’s aware that so much of it ends up falling to me, but this is never explicitly acknowledged). I think I’m taking on too much responsibility for things, both in terms of work and emotionally. How can I change this?

Is the work usually something where an entire assignment can be handled by one of you rather than each person taking different parts of it? If so, it would be a lot easier for the two of you to switch off who takes the full assignments, rather than splitting them into multiple tasks (which you then end up organizing). Ideally when new tasks come in, you’d be able to reply, “I’ll take this one” or “Lucy will take this one” and then wash your hands of the latter entirely. (Even more ideally, Lucy would be speaking up and say “I’ll take this one” half the time, and you can ask her to do that — but if realistically that won’t happen, ask her if you can coordinate this type of system so it’s clear who’s taking what.)

If that doesn’t work, you should talk to Sarah and ask her to assign projects to one or the other of you but not both. Explain that under the current system, you end up feeling responsible for all the work rather than only your share of it.

If that doesn’t work, make the case that you should be paid for the role you’re playing in managing the work (and ideally given a title that recognizes that too).

4. My coworkers want me to tell them why a colleague was fired

I work in the financial services industry, which is highly regulated by multiple self-regulatory and government bodies.

Recently, a senior teammate was let go for gross misconduct with regard to compliance with regulations, in part because I had to report them. I feel terrible because I don’t want anyone to lose their job, but I am legally required to report the misconduct or I could also be fired plus face criminal and civil penalties, including being barred from the industry.

I’m now responsible for telling clients that this person is no longer with the company (without any details, obviously). That’s tough but manageable, and I’m able to navigate that with minimal management-level interaction, save the occasional client that needs a call from my grandboss, who is expecting and willing to take on those difficult clients as part of the transition process as we replace the former coworker.

The problem I’m facing is that coworkers on other teams are … perhaps too curious and, in some cases, active shit-disturbers, and have attempted to corner me into telling them in detail what happened. I cannot, and would not, tell them any details, and have directed them back to management with any questions they may have. Most have taken the hint but several (more than six) have not and have been calling, emailing, sending IM messages, etc., even calling my personal cell phone after hours to ask invasive and inappropriate questions.

I let my manager know about this and they are taking it seriously. However, it’s only been a week but the questions haven’t stopped and I received a text message on my personal phone at midnight on Saturday asking me for “the hot goss.” Should I also go to HR about this, as well? I’m not responding to these messages at all on my personal devices, and I’m continuing to redirect to management for questions, but what in the world?! Any advice is appreciated.

You don’t need to go to HR, unless you want more back-up. You could! It wouldn’t be weird to. But it would also be fine to ignore the messages that people shouldn’t be sending in the first place, or to respond with, “I’m not allowed to discuss it and you’re putting me in a difficult position by continuing to ask. Please stop.”

5. Candidates say I didn’t call for our schedule phone interview, but I did

I am at my wit’s end. Some of the recruiting I do is high volume. Lately, I have been experiencing an increase in candidates claiming that I did not call them for our scheduled phone interview. When I call, if it goes to voicemail I always leave a message. In the past week or two, I have had several candidates state they did not receive a call or voicemail. I feel like it is an argument. How do I handle this? Sometimes it is the second call I’ve made after we rescheduled and they still do not answer.

First, when multiple people are telling you that an odd technical thing is happening, especially in a short amount of time, it’s always smart to confirm that there’s not actually a problem on your end (including checking your call history for the possibility that you’ve called the wrong person, especially since you’re dealing with lots of calls). But assuming you check and it’s definitely not you, you don’t need to argue with people. You can say, “I’m sorry to hear that! I did log a call to you at 4:30 pm yesterday, but voicemail can be strange. In any case…” What comes next is up to you. If you’re still willing to interview them, suggest a time to reschedule for. If you’ve moved on (or if they’re handling the call in an unprofessional way that leaves you uninterested in rescheduling), you can say, “We’re no longer interviewing for that role, but I’ll reach out if that changes it.”

Also, when you confirm a phone interview time, you could include language like: “If you haven’t heard from me by five minutes past the scheduled time, please call me directly at (number).” Or you can ask that they email you, or so forth — just something that lets them know how to handle it if they don’t hear from you when they expect to. That will put a rest to the debate about whether you called or not, since it will move the ball into their court with a clear action and timeline for them to take that action. And if they’re just forgetting about the call, that will make it clear. That might be more complicated than you want or need; if so, just stick with the advice in the first paragraph and ignore this one.