Day in the Life of an Idiot

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/06/is-it-rude-to-study-during-lunch-how-to-ask-hr-for-additional-support-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=31190

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

1. How to ask HR for additional support without undermining my boss

Recently, I raised a concern with my skip-level manager, Crowley, about a colleague (Alastair) making inappropriate comments about my appearance. Crowley immediately flagged the comments as inappropriate, told me I shouldn’t have to deal with remarks about my age or appearance at work, and said he’d speak to Alastair’s manager — which he did the same day and confirmed when it was done. He also told me to come to him again if anything similar happens.

Now, Alastair has emailed me to apologize and ask what, specifically, he said that made me feel disrespected. Crowley is willing to address it directly with him, but feels it’s best done in person and he’s leaving for a two-week business trip in two days. I don’t think it’s my job to remind Alastair of the specifics of what he said that was upsetting.

I agreed with that plan initially, and I do respect that as a manager Crowley wants to address this face to face. But as the hours pass today, I’ve realized this situation is still causing me a lot of stress and impacting my ability to focus. I’d like to explore a way to move forward with more support, ideally sooner rather than later, so I’d like to involve HR.

Complicating things, my direct supervisor, Bobby, has been on vacation this week. He’s aware of past issues I’ve had with Alastair, but not of this recent development.

To be clear, I don’t think Crowley has mishandled anything. He’s taken this seriously and responded quickly. I just think HR involvement could provide more support and help ensure accountability. I don’t want to suggest I’m unhappy with how Crowley has handled this — I simply need more help navigating it. How can I raise this with HR in a way that’s respectful to him while still advocating for what I need?

I don’t know, I think Crowley handled this pretty close to ideally. The one thing I’d like to see him do that he hasn’t already done is to respond to Alastair and say that he’ll speak with him further when he’s back from his trip and that meanwhile Alastair should leave you alone and not pester you to give him answers. Ideally you’d just ask Crowley to do that before he leaves; that’s a message he can deliver in an email and doesn’t require him to be in the office to do.

I’d go to HR if Crowley wasn’t handling things, but he did.

If you want, you can also respond to Alastair’s email, cc Crowley and Alastair’s direct manager, and say, “Please speak to Crowley about this when he’s back; it’s not something I want to discuss further. Thank you.” If Alastair doesn’t respect that and Crowley isn’t there to deal with it, then you have a new issue, and that’s something you could take to HR — but as things stand right now, I think HR would be an unwarranted escalation that ignores that Crowley has already acted very decisively.

That’s not to say you can’t go to HR now if you want to. I just don’t think it’s necessary when you have a boss who’s clearly on top of this and handling it well.

Related:
when should you go to HR — and when should you not?

2. Are employees who casually recruit job applicants (but aren’t involved with hiring) held to the same legal standards?

I saw a post in my city’s subreddit where someone was advertising that their job was hiring. They were not in charge of the hiring but said they were looking for someone, preferably female so they could be “besties,” and to contact them if interested.

This made me wonder, are employees who recruit — whether looking for a fun coworker, or a referral bonus — held to the same legal standards? Would this violate any gender discrimination laws when not coming from the company itself such as a hiring manager, HR, or recruiter?

To be clear, I don’t mind women giving each other a boost in the job world. I’m just curious about the legality of it and comparable statements. Swapping the genders would definitely feel weirder, but I think it works the same either way. It does seem that would open the door for employees to push out certain genders/classes from the hiring pool while the official company stance remained “neutral.”

Definitely not okay! The person may have been thinking of themselves as not officially recruiting for their company and so therefore not governed by the same laws, but they were acting as a representative of their company when soliciting candidates and they are exposing their company to legal risk. That post alone is unlikely to lead to a lawsuit, but if the company ended up rejecting a man for a less qualified woman and that man happened to have seen the post, he’d have grounds to question whether gender was illegally a factor in the decision.

Her company would undoubtedly tell her to stop if they knew about it. (And that’s before we even get into how odd it is to solicit random strangers to be your work “bestie,” although I’m guessing that was somewhat tongue-in-cheek.)

3. I just started a new job — can I mention I’m interested in a different area?

I’ve started a new job as the manager of a new area for my organization and couldn’t be more excited! It’s a great opportunity and I’m grateful. All of the team members I’ve met so far have been wonderful.

The role is new, and my boss has made it clear I’ll have a lot of agency, in terms of projects, focus areas, and even shaping the department over time. He’s also expressed genuine interest in supporting my long-term career goals, which has me reflecting on what those might be.

I have some strong ideas for this role and plan to throw myself fully into the work. That said, I’ve also been thinking ahead. Long-term, I could see myself growing or shifting into a different area; let’s call my current area llamas and the different area alpacas. There’s a full alpacas department here, and while llama and alpaca work have a lot of overlap, I know there are distinct skills and responsibilities as well.

I’m wondering about how to gracefully, yet intentionally, work towards this shift. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m not interested in llamas. I am! I enjoy the work, and I’m experienced and skilled at it. I just think alpacas is an adjacent field with strong long-term potential. I believe a lot of my llama experience would translate, but would love more opportunities to gain experience and perhaps earn some certifications in this field.

What’s the best way to go about this? Is it okay to express interest in exploring this adjacent field early on, or should I wait until I’ve been here longer? Would it be appropriate to talk to the director of alpacas at some point, or is that something best filtered through my boss?

I’m worried about unintentionally sending a message that I view the llama department as just a stepping stone. I don’t! But since my boss told me he wants to help me reach my longer-term goals, I’ve been thinking about what those are, and alpacas seem pretty great.

Well … if I’d just hired someone to lead a new area for the organization, I wouldn’t be thrilled to hear they were actually hoping to move to a different area. It would be one thing if you came in as a junior team member, but as the person leading the department, I’m hoping you’re going to be invested in and engaged with this work before you start thinking about moving to something different. (And even if you were a junior team member, it would be better to wait until you’d been in your first role for a while.)

I’d wait a minimum of one year before you mention it at all and see how things are going at that point.

4. Is it rude to study during my lunch hour?

I am employed full-time and am also pursuing graduate study in computer science in an online college program, which requires a lot of reading.

At work we have an hour for lunch. I have been in the habit of using that time to read assigned textbook materials while I eat lunch. The only place to eat lunch in the office is in a common break room. My coworkers know that I am a graduate student, but they keep trying to interrupt my textbook reading to include me in the general conversation. It is not feasible for me to go out of the office to eat lunch in my car and study, as the parking lot is next to a noisy freeway. Nobody has ever told me that it is rude for me to study at lunch. Nevertheless am I somehow obligated to cease studying at lunch and focus on my coworkers?

Nope, you can study at lunch. It’s not rude; that time is your own. But people are probably trying to include you in the discussion out of a sense of politeness.

Headphones are the solution here! You’d think the act of reading would itself be enough of a visual signal that you’re immersed in something else, but it’s clearly not — so let headphones provide an additional visual signal. And you also might try saying when you sit down, “I’ve got to do a reading assignment for a class, so I’m going to put on headphones and block everything out.” And if someone misses that and interrupts you later on, it’s fine to answer briefly and then say, “Sorry, I’ve got to focus on this reading right now” and go straight back to it.

5. Recent grad with no car — how to answer “reliable transportation”

I’m graduating next week and I’ve started looking for work. How do I answer, “Do you have reliable transportation?”

I currently live in a city with an excellent public transportation system and therefore have no need of a car. Sadly, my field is very small so I won’t be able to stay and work in this city. Remote work is also impossible since my field is a laboratory-based science and you can do very little of it outside the building.

Should I assure the people I’m interviewing that not only will I sort out housing before moving, I’ll ask get a car? I intend to. I have ironically enough saved as much as a car costs, thanks to several years of subway travel and not paying for parking, insurance, and gas.

You don’t need to get into the details — you can just say “yes” to “do you have reliable transportation?” because you’re confident that you do or you will. They are assuming you will sort out housing on your own (you don’t need to proactively emphasize that unless they specifically inquire), and if asked you can tell them you’ve got transportation covered, too, as long as you’re confident that you will.

The post is it rude to study during lunch, how to ask HR for additional support, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/06/is-it-rude-to-study-during-lunch-how-to-ask-hr-for-additional-support-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=31190