Updates: Reading In The Car On Work Trips, Employer Wants My Book Money, And More

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

Here are three updates from past letter-writers.

1. Is it rude to read in the car on work trips?

I have a happy update. I have been using your “I’m having trouble hearing from back here, shout out if you need me” language — so simple.

I am not normally an e-book reader but found it was much easier to politely read in the backseat on my phone vs. a physical book. So grateful I can read without getting carsick!

I also took many commenters’ advice and set the stage early in a trip with a low-key, “Hey, are you good with listening to (radio station)/ what music do you enjoy listening to?” When interests align, I have suggested playing safe-for-work humor or science podcasts, which has led to others sharing additional podcast recommendations for future drives.

There was one instance when a coworker requested no radio and was not seemingly interested in discussion. It was a very quiet seven-hour drive! But that’s just working with a variety of people.

A few commenters suggested working rather than reading a book. When needed, or if meetings overlap, I will work. But generally, working while actively traveling (outside of longer layovers) is not an expectation in my agency and I am glad for that.

Overall, my latest long drives with coworkers have been so much more comfortable. A good reminder for me how easy it can be to politely push back on workplace norms. Thank you!

2. My employer wants me to donate the proceeds of my book to them (#2 at the link)

First of all, thank you very much for your advice. It was good to know I wasn’t being unreasonable. It does seem like this varies a little bit, from what I could tell from the comments. Some commenters mentioned they would be required to donate the money in a situation similar to this.

Here’s what I replied to my employer with: “Thanks again for all this info. Most of this looks good to me. Because I’ll be working on this on my own time and not as a representative of the library, I don’t think I can agree to a requirement to donate any compensation I’m paid for the outside work. But, the rest of this all looks good to me, and I thank you for your support.”

The legal rep responded back by saying they took my point, but a conflict of interest includes a staff person using their position to obtain financial gain or privilege. They went on to say that we can reconvene after we determine the actual amount of money we’re talking about, because as some of the commenters mentioned, the compensation might be minimal or nil.

As happens with publishing, the book timeline has been pushed back many times so it’s still not published, and so I haven’t needed to figure out how I’m going to respond if / when I do get any compensation.

To answer some thoughts in the comments:
– In a happy twist for me, my question was published at the same time as a dog question, and so that question of course took all the heat of the comments.
– A couple people wondered why I had involved Legal at all. I think it would be a bad look if admin and Legal found out from anyone but me about my involvement in a profit-making book about librarianship. So I wanted to be the one to share that info.
– There was a lot of suspicion of my org’s legal department. They have been very supportive in general, and we’ve worked on many other things in the meantime with no hitches or touchy communications.
– I wanted to mention that I got the compensation amount that I was discussing ($2,000ish) by asking my co-author what she thought, as she has published with this publisher before on a similar topic.

3. Friend drama may collide with job hunt

I didn’t get the job and I’m still looking. But people may be interested to know that (as many people suspected would be the case) my relationship with Carol has not been negatively affected by my decision to distance myself from Jane. If anything, Carol and I are a bit closer now that I’m not expending time and energy on trying to get Jane’s attention, and I’ve learned that Carol has had similar experiences with Jane.

It was probably obvious to everyone but me that the interpersonal side of this situation was likely to play out that way, but I’m a rather anxious person and I guess sometimes you just need a dozen strangers on the internet to tell you, “If Carol is as sensible and chill as you think she is, this is probably gonna be fine.”