It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Playing LinkedIn games at work
I’m curious what your thoughts are on playing the games on LinkedIn. I use them for a quick brain break between tasks (usually under a minute or three, and that includes a brief glance at my feed or inbox). Honestly, there are days when it’s the thing I look forward to most in my work day.
Here’s the catch — after you play each game it displays all of your connections who also played that game that day. On one hand I like seeing former colleagues’ faces pop up, but on the other hand, I’m not sure I want my current boss seeing that I’m playing games each day. (But then he would be, too, I suppose.)
It’s clearly a marketing strategy to drive traffic, but is it okay to play a few each day? (If not, I’m going to need a fake LinkedIn profile because they’re seriously fun.)
I wouldn’t play games at work that are going to report to your boss that you were playing games at work. Even if he’s playing himself, it’s not a good look. (And it’s not that there’s anything wrong with taking short breaks like that! People do it all the time to read the news, chat, etc. It’s just the optics of it being games is bad, and optics are not always strictly logical.)
LinkedIn does offer an option to keep the activity private, though.
2. Should I tell a former manager what I think about some missteps?
I’m struggling with whether to address something with a former manager, Amy, who I think has made some major missteps lately.
I left my old job a year ago for a role that was a big step up for me, with lots of encouragement from Amy. I am still connected with both Amy and other staff in my old organization, and I still see some of them semi-regularly for lunch or coffee, so I’m fairly plugged in to what’s going on there behind the scenes. There have been some really major changes in my old org because of budget crunches, staffing turnover, etc.
I have heard through friends who still work there about how Amy has been backing a really terrible manager, Clara, who treats staff very poorly in a morale-killing and turnover-churning way, and who also isn’t very good at her job. Amy has also delivered some major job-altering news (layoffs, reorgs) to staff casually sandwiched into other meetings on other topics, sometimes with other staff present, without any kind of heads-up.
I feel like I should be saying something the next time I have coffee with Amy, but I have no idea how to approach it. Amy and I have always had a good rapport, and she treated me well and encouraged me to stretch myself when I worked for her, but the things I’ve heard about what’s happening lately are really disappointing. It also feels a little hypocritical for me to keep hanging out with Amy without saying something when I’m aware of and really unhappy about the way she’s treating former colleagues.
You shouldn’t get involved. You don’t work there anymore, you don’t know what’s happening first-hand, there could be context or nuance you’re missing … and ultimately this just isn’t your business anymore.
This is the joy of leaving a job! You no longer need to care what happens there or try to solve their problems.
If you’re not comfortable hanging out with Amy anymore based on what you’re hearing, you can certainly pull back from doing that, but any issues happening in your old company need to be addressed by the people who are still working there.
3. I’m a picky eater doing international travel
I recently took a new director-level job with an organization that I am very happy to work for. It is a remote position and I am settling in very well. With my new role, I will have global staff both on-shore and off-shore. I plan to meet everyone in person, which means I’ll be traveling to India on a regular basis (once or twice per year).
Here’s my problem. I am a fairly picky eater. I’m not the one who wants to explore different cuisines. I sometimes have a sensitive stomach and would hate to end up spending more time that normal in the restroom! I can always find something on the menu that I will eat but I don’t like to try different foods. I don’t want to offend any of my host colleagues or subordinates. Can you offer some suggestions on how to deal with this?
Can you do some research ahead of time and find some common Indian foods that you know are safe for you, so you can lean heavily on those while you’re there?
If the concern is more about resisting people’s entreaties to try things that you’d rather not eat, it’s probably easiest to just explain you have dietary restrictions that limit what you can eat, but you’re excited to try the ___ (whatever you’re ordering). Just frame it vaguely but matter-of-factly as “medical restrictions” and leave it at that.
4. I’m in a field that expects autobiographical work … and I have an extreme trauma history
I am a reasonably successful “early career” professional artist in an art field where the cultural expectation is that art is at least partially autobiographical and/or inspired by lived experience. It’s very common for artists to make work that directly details their personal trauma, and there’s pressure to put your own personal trauma in your work. I live in a small country where most artistic activity is based around one city and the nature of our field means we are often physically in the same room together. It’s a small close community, so we all know each other.
I’ve had an extremely traumatic life and while I have shared some smaller personal traumas, I’ve needed to keep most of my life very private. When I was a teenager, I was kidnapped and held prisoner for several years (basically a Natasha Kampusch situation). As a result I never went to school, never experienced any kind of normal teenage things, didn’t go to uni, never been on a date or had a partner, didn’t have the typical post-uni early career stage. I did receive an education later but in a non-typical way.
I can’t answer questions about my education or my early career or really any questions about my teens or 20s because everything was affected by the captivity. Already awkward questions are starting since my backstory “doesn’t add up” (in my country it’s illegal to not go to school). And the cultural expectation is that you will put everything about your identity and past up for public dissemination, because the debate about authenticity and lived expectation means the boundary between art and person is wafer thin. For example there’s a big debate in my industry about the fact most people who become successful artists are privately educated, you cannot apply for any job without disclosing whether you were privately educated or not. You are expected to have your schooling on your Wikipedia page. I obviously can’t do that.
I have no idea how to handle questions about my younger years or my education. Do I just lie? Invent a “normal” backstory and risk being found out? Discreetly tell a few people? I know there are lots of members of your community who are artists so I’d love to ask your community how they handle being artists at a time when artists are expected to sell their identity as well as their work.
Would you be comfortable saying your early life was difficult and your education was atypical and you’d rather leave it at that? Even in a field that expects your work to be autobiographical, you can choose which elements of your own experience you put into your work (or which you talk about publicly); making your work personal doesn’t have to mean full disclosure of things you’d rather keep private. And if someone asks directly why your schooling doesn’t look like what they’re used to seeing or why you don’t talk about certain periods of your life, it’s fine to say, “It’s a long story that I don’t talk about a lot.” And if they push: “It’s a painful topic.”
I’m sorry you’re dealing with this.
5. My resignation has been greeted with silence.
I work in local government. In the 10 years I’ve been here, I’ve risen to management and I’ve generally enjoyed my time. But I was offered a position doing similar work for the state government, and it was a good offer. When my boss went to the grandboss and asked for a bump in pay to keep me, he got nothing but a shrug.
It’s been a week since I sent my formal resignation to our HR, as is required in my union contract, and I’ve heard … nothing. No acknowledgment, no reply, not a peep. What version of the various pissy emails I’ve composed in my head do I send?
None of them. When you send an important, time-sensitive email and don’t hear back, it doesn’t make sense to email a second time. Instead, pick up the phone and call the person and say, “I want to make sure you received my email on (date) with my resignation since I haven’t heard anything back.”
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