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

1. Grieving employee won’t come back full-time

I’m writing as a a manager of an academic department in a state institution of higher education. I manage a staff of two in a small department and one of my employees tragically lost her husband after the new year very suddenly, and about 5 years before she was set to retire. My department and I are very empathetic to her circumstance and despite some “cut and dry” rules around bereavement, we have allowed her three weeks off and then 11 weeks where she only worked half her scheduled week, utilizing vacation and personal time for the difference.

We have advised her she will need to return to her regularly scheduled full time hours in May, but we are encountering a unique (to us) circumstance. She is refusing to work full-time again. Anyone who works for a state agency knows that if you give up a full-time line, there is no guarantee you will ever get it back, nor can you hire another part time person to compensate. Since neither of those are an option and we are a small office looking to eventually grow, I feel like there is no other option but to write her up for unauthorized absences and eventually terminate her. This feels horrible, given her circumstance. I’ve tried to reason with her, I’ve even offered FMLA if she had documentation showing she needed treatment for mental health, but she is just outwardly refusing to help herself. Any advice?

What about just sitting down with her and explaining that? You could say, “I really appreciate you being candid with me on where you’re at with this. I’ve tried to figure out if there’s any way that we could make part-time work, because I value you and want to keep you, but we really do need the role to be a full-time one. If you’re sure you don’t want to do that — and I definitely understand if you don’t, as much I want you to stay on — we need to figure out a transition so that we can hire a full-timer. I’m sorry that I’m not able to make part-time work; I would if I could.”

If she says she won’t return to full-time work but isn’t resigning either, then you say, “I understand. Given the circumstances, will you work with me on making this a resignation so that we can do this in a way that’s as easy as possible on you? I don’t want to go down the path of framing this as this unauthorized absences, because that doesn’t reflect the real situation. What makes the most sense to you?” If she still holds firm at that point, then I’d talk to HR to see if there’s a way to move her out of the role without going the unauthorized absences/firing route. There should be.

I think you’re going to get a lot of readers urging you to see if you can make part-time work for your team a while longer, which I’d agree with, but I’m assuming you’ve considered that and you really do need someone doing that work full-time by May.

2. We need to make up any time we spend at conferences or workshops

I just started a new job a few months ago, and recently discovered that if we go to any workshops or conferences for PD during work time, we need to make that time up on evenings and weekends. To me, the simple solution is not to attend any PD, but my boss says that it seems I lack passion for our work if I’m unwilling to use personal time to get better at it. I’ve expressed that work-life balance is important to me, but my boss says that the personal-professional line is grey for those who truly love their jobs.

What am I supposed to do? There’s a 5-day conference in a few months that my boss wants me to attend. It’s in another city and my work won’t pay for accommodations, let alone a per diem!

What?! That’s ridiculous. I’d say this to your boss: “I’d be glad to attend this, but I wouldn’t be able to make up the five days of work on top of it. If we can agree that it counts as work time, then absolutely.”

More broadly, it could be worth you (and ideally a group of coworkers) pushing back on the policy as a whole, pointing out that it’s wildly out of sync with how most organizations handle professional development and that the policy is going to make your employer much less competitive (use that word, since it implies all sorts of useful things without you having to say them, such as that they risk losing employees over it and/or having a much less invested staff).

3. My coworker announced all the reasons I shouldn’t get a promotion, in front of our coworkers

At my work, we are currently in-between team leaders, and the position is being advertised. I have been performing many of the functions of this role for some time now, as we had a part-time person who was only “acting” in the role. I decided to put my name forward, but haven’t been very vocal about this to the wider team. My reasons for this are both that I don’t think they need to know at this stage, as well as wanting to save face, should I not be successful (having to explain it to everyone while also dealing with the disappointment, etc., no thanks).

Anyway, today one of the more vocal team members asked me point blank if I had applied for the role. They did so very loudly in a room full of other colleagues. At that point, it felt like my options were to fess up or point-blank lie to them and say no. I chose to acknowledge that I had applied, and this person then proceeded to list off reasons why they thought I wouldn’t be suitable. I felt I did a reasonable good job at responding, but I’m feeling quite annoyed to have been put in that position in the first place. Am I overreacting, was my colleague out of line, should I say something, and could I have handled the situation better?

Your coworker was definitely out of line. The initial question in front of others — well, not great, but sometimes people are really thoughtless about this kind of thing. But then listing off all the reasons why you weren’t right for the job? Really rude and really inappropriate.

It sounds like you handled it fine. You were put on the spot, and you don’t want to say you didn’t apply when you did. He put you in an awkward position, and then behaved like a boor.

I wouldn’t do anything further at this point though; I don’t think there’s anything to gain by bringing it back up with him.

4. My references are being asked to provide more references

I recently moved into the final round of interviews, and my references have been called. However, the person checking my references (not the hiring manager but another employee) has been asking my references if they can give them contact information for another person who can speak to my work ethic.

I don’t want to disqualify myself as a candidate by speaking up about this. With that said, if my job search is confidential, what is the ethic and/or legal code about this practice?

It’s not an unheard of practice. Asking “who else should I talk to in order to get a full picture of Jane?” is a question that shows up in lots of advice to reference checkers (like here, here, and here). I don’t think it’s super commonly used, but it’s definitely a thing that can happen.

There’s no legal issue with it; you’re not required to give legal permission for a prospective employer to ask around about you, and employers are allowed to call people who know you who aren’t on the list you give them without getting your okay first. I don’t think there’s an ethical issue with it either; of course employers have an interest in getting as much information as they can about the person they’re contemplating hiring.

That said, should employers do it? I think it’s a bit much for most positions unless the job is very senior (makes total sense to me to do it before hiring a CEO, for example, but not for your new accountant). I’ve never done it personally (but I do ask candidates to put me in touch with specific people I want to talk to, generally managers who may not have been on the list they gave me — because I think due diligence means more than “call three people handpicked by the candidate”). But I wouldn’t be outraged if I learned an employer was doing it.

5. Looking for my next job while the end of my internship is several months off

I’m currently in the third month of a six-month unpaid internship. The possibility of there being available paid work at the company in the near future is unlikely, and I’m wondering how soon I should start looking for my next job. Prior to this internship, I was unemployed for the better part of last year, and as a result I’m very anxious about ending this position with no prospects and ending up stranded for god knows how long.

I know it’s unlikely for companies to be listing positions so far ahead of time in my field, but would contacting a few places I’m interested in and introducing myself and perhaps asking a little about their business and the possibility of a chat or some advice too much? Last week a business I would love to work at listed a couple of jobs that are exactly what I’m looking for and would be great at, and of course I know they won’t still be open when I’ve ended my internship, so could I perhaps email them showing my interest in working with them and enquiring if there will be anything available in the near future? This is all rather new to me and I don’t want to step on any toes while also being proactive.

I would actually just apply. Three months isn’t terribly far away, and hiring can take a lot longer than you think it will. It’s possible that it’ll be close to the end of that three months by the time they make an offer, let alone for the start date.

And if that’s not the case and you get an offer with a couple of months left in your internship — well, most employers totally understand if an unpaid intern needs to leave early because they got a paid job in their field. Unless this is a highly competitive, prestigious internship where they explicitly told you up-front that it was crucial that you work the full six months before they agreed to take you on, this really shouldn’t be a big deal.