Oh Alison noooooo

[beable]

Today's Ask a Manager includes a repost of a letter from a few years ago, but one where the additional details in the comments (not included in the repost itself) make a HUGE difference in the situation.

https://www.askamanager.org/2022/05/our-receptionist-is-rude-to-people.html


A reader asks:

The receptionist in my office is the first to answer the phone, and she is the first one clients see when they walk in the door. A big part of her job is customer service, but lately I've received complaints about her interactions with people -- two from other employees and two from customers.

It has been very surprising to me because she is so friendly with me. She's upbeat, bubbly, and friendly -- part of why I hired her. But my office is in the back of our suite so I cannot overhear her interactions with people. The complaints I have received say that she is rude, difficult to work with, and unfriendly, but when I asked for the specific conversation, no one has been able to say, "I said X and she said Y."

I've spoken with her once about this in the past, because I had received other complaints. During the conversation, she got very quiet and just said she'd do better. She didn't rebut the complaints or say they were wrong. It seemed like there was improvement based on some of my office creeping (literally standing around the corner while she was on the phone so I could overhear). But today I got two more complaints saying she was rude, and unfriendly. One of the complainers asked me if there was a way to work directly with me as he wanted to avoid any interaction with the front desk because, he says, it is so bad.

I obviously need to do something, but I'm not sure how to fix this since I already talked to her once. Other than this, she is a stellar employee. Her work is quick, perfect, and she's very proactive. I've asked if she felt overwhelmed and she said no. I thought maybe that could have been causing her stress and that's where the behavior came from. What do you think? How do I handle this the second time around? I really like her and see her moving up in our office. She's rather young and this is one of her first jobs so then I wondered if maybe it could be inexperience. But maybe I like her so much that I'm just trying to make excuses for her.

Green responds:

If people aren't telling you that it's about specific language, my bet is that it's about manner -- that she's coming across as annoyed, brusque, put-upon, or unhelpful. You shouldn't drill customers for details, but go back to the internal complaints you've received and ask those people to tell you more about what's going on. Frame this as "I want to better understand so that I can coach her," not as "You need to prove this to me before I act on it."

Then, talk to your receptionist. Tell her about the feedback you're hearing and ask what she thinks is going on. This should be a dialogue -- not just you relaying the complaints and telling her she needs to do better. Really talk to her and try to figure out what's happening and why.

It's reasonable to decide one the measures of success for her job should be "people come away from their interactions with you feeling you were warm and helpful." Be very clear to her about that, and paint a picture of what that looks like. For example, you might say, "If you're stressed or annoyed by a request, the person you're talking to shouldn't pick up on that. We want them to feel that you're looking for ways to make their lives easier, rather than that they're inconveniencing you." You could even try role-playing some particularly tricky interactions and coaching her on how to respond.

But ultimately, you can't have someone in that role who's alienating people, especially customers. So really stay on this -- find more opportunities to observe when she's talking to people, and follow up with other people internally for feedback. Now that you know there's a problem, you want to proactively monitor it -- don't just wait to see if other complaints show up.

Comments

[beable]

A trip through the comments starts off with people taking the letter at face value and then more people discussing the situation: this is a repost of a letter from 2018. In the comments on the 2018 post it was clarified that the receptionist was black whereas most of the other employees (and complaining customers) were white, and that this entire situation was literally tone-policing and racism.

I usually find Alison very good for advice, but today she earns a total side-eye for using a letter for which the underlying siutation was "Hello? Racism" to talk about manner and professionalism.

Like WTH?

[minoanmiss]

auauauauuaaughghghghghghgghghghgh thank you I cannot even there are people arguing about the existence of racism in the comments omg my melanin hurts.

[cimorene]

It took me some work to find the comment that made that clear going through the original post though. I think it's possible Allison didn't notice it, as opposed to a knowing omission.

[lannamichaels]

I don't know how well her track record is for catching things in the comments. She catches updates that are sent to her in email, but comments can go either way. If it's fast enough comment after she posts it, she's sometimes noticed and added a link to it in the post.

EDIT: okay I went and found the link to the original thread in the comment to this post and, yeah, I totally understand why she didn't find that comment. Searching for "LW*" or "OP*" wouldn't get something that is posted by someone who uses the name Question #2.

[ashbet]

Alison updated the post to include that comment!

[beable]

Oh good, I'm glad.

I'm also glad she said the following "and which I was remiss in not flagging as a question myself, given how often race issues play out like this at work" because even if she didn't see the comments in the original, tbh the reason I even dug into the comments was assumption that "many people making vague complaints about someone that isn't borne out by LW's experience" sounded like it might be some form of bias depending on the circumstances (in this case racism, but I could see similar situations playing out for gender presentation in other offices, etc)

[xenacryst]

Yeah, and the "just got very quiet and said she'd do better." That reads to me like she knew exactly what was happening and didn't want to bring it up because it's uncomfortable and might even expose a more glaring racism in her manager. Like she knew what was going on and that this was a battle it was impossible to win if it took a wrong turn.

[minoanmiss]

I felt that in my bones, yeah.

[shirou]

Wait. Where does it say that the entire situation was tone-policing and racism? The first update says that the receptionist was Black and the others involved white, and the second update says that the receptionist was indeed being rude. I mean, I 100% believe that tone-policing is a thing that happens, but I don't see that indicated here. Am I missing something?

[minoanmiss]

It's in the fact that all these complaints were vague and lacked details. It's tempting to think "all these unconnected people said the same thing, so it must be true" but those people are not unconnected -- at the least they're connected by prevailing culture, which can be very racist while being understated.

And the thing is, that's orthagonal to whether or not the receptionist was actually rude (LW also gives no details, but it *has* been years). Bigotry doesn't only affect complete innocents. I can even see (from having lived it) a nasty feedback loop where the receptionist was as kind as she could be but people treated her terribly so she gave up and became surly. Bigotry can wear one down and curdle one's soul.

[shirou]

The orthogonality and feedback loop represent an aspect I hadn't considered. Thanks for responding.

[petrea_mitchell]

The LW provided a fresh update on the new post here.

[jadelennox]

content note for self-harm on that update from LW BTW.

(thanks for the update, petrea_mitchell -- I'm just adding additional context for those who need it.)

[petrea_mitchell]

No problem, it should have occurred to me to do that myself. (I'd edit that comment but it looks like I can't at this point.)

[minoanmiss]

*sigh*

There's no point in going there and pointing out the feedback loop I just described in my comment above, is there?

PS thank you for finding that.