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agonyaunt2023-02-28 10:19 pm
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2023-02-28 10:19 pm
Entry tags:
Ask A Manager: Is my Future Manager a Bigoted Jerk?
1. Is my future manager a bigoted jerk?
I currently work in a team of about 20 people. We have a director who oversees three managers, each of whom oversees a group of employees.
My old manager, Buffy, resigned a few months ago, so while we looked to backfill her position, Buffy’s team was temporarily split between the other two managers, Willow and Anya. I’ve been reporting to Willow since Buffy left and things have been going well.
Our director Giles announced in an email earlier this week that they’d finally found Buffy’s replacement. The new hire, Xander, will be starting in a few weeks and Giles’ email stated that everyone who’d reported to Buffy before her departure would report to Xander.
Out of curiosity, I googled Xander, and instantly found his Twitter account. And I’m not happy with what I saw. He rarely tweets on his own but consistently retweets men’s rights activists, anti-BLM accounts, and other accounts that run the gamut of oppression and marginalization (and I’m 100% sure that it’s the same Xander because his last name and profile pic are the same as his LinkedIn).
I don’t want to work under this person. Would it be overstepping to ask for a meeting with Giles to request that I stick with Willow as a manager? I have a good relationship and some strong social capital with Giles and am willing to be 100% honest about my reservations. Also, is it appropriate to go to HR over this? In addition to the fact that I’m a woman who doesn’t want to work for a misogynist, any of our clients could google Xander and see what I saw, and I believe it would reflect poorly on our company as a whole.
Especially since you have a good relationship with Giles and strong capital to spend, it would not be overstepping to share your concerns with him and and ask to stick with Willow as your manager. Even if you didn’t have such good capital, it would be okay to do that — your concerns aren’t akin to “Xander seems annoying”; they’re “I’m wary of working for someone with these deeply concerning views on women and people of color.”
And yes to HR as well. Frame it as “I’m concerned about his open embrace of viewpoints that harm women and people of color, and what that means for the biases he’ll bring as a manager, as well as about clients googling him and finding this.” If you have coworkers who share your concerns, encourage them to speak up too.
An Update Already!
Thanks for publishing and answering my letter. I actually already have an update!
I ended up talking to Willow (my interim manager) about it the day after I emailed you. I wasn’t planning on it but we were meeting about something else and I brought it up when we were done. Turns out she’d also googled Xander, saw his offensive tweets, and had already gone directly to Giles, who’d escalated things to HR.
Willow told me that our company always vets candidates’ socials and that Giles told her that Xander’s twitter account apparently never showed up during the search. They suspect that he locked it down during his job search and made it public again after getting his offer. She also told me that Giles had mentioned wanting to confirm the account was actually Xander’s before taking any next steps. This was all late last week.
This morning, our department got an email from Giles that said that Xander wouldn’t be joining our company after all. I don’t know the details but can assume that we pulled his offer. So I won’t have to work under this man!
Also, since some commenters were speculating, I can confirm that Xander’s tweets weren’t just conservative political stances that I disagreed with. Many of the things he regularly retweeted are blatantly racist, misogynist, and homophobic — there’s very little nuance there.
Thanks for publishing my letter!
I currently work in a team of about 20 people. We have a director who oversees three managers, each of whom oversees a group of employees.
My old manager, Buffy, resigned a few months ago, so while we looked to backfill her position, Buffy’s team was temporarily split between the other two managers, Willow and Anya. I’ve been reporting to Willow since Buffy left and things have been going well.
Our director Giles announced in an email earlier this week that they’d finally found Buffy’s replacement. The new hire, Xander, will be starting in a few weeks and Giles’ email stated that everyone who’d reported to Buffy before her departure would report to Xander.
Out of curiosity, I googled Xander, and instantly found his Twitter account. And I’m not happy with what I saw. He rarely tweets on his own but consistently retweets men’s rights activists, anti-BLM accounts, and other accounts that run the gamut of oppression and marginalization (and I’m 100% sure that it’s the same Xander because his last name and profile pic are the same as his LinkedIn).
I don’t want to work under this person. Would it be overstepping to ask for a meeting with Giles to request that I stick with Willow as a manager? I have a good relationship and some strong social capital with Giles and am willing to be 100% honest about my reservations. Also, is it appropriate to go to HR over this? In addition to the fact that I’m a woman who doesn’t want to work for a misogynist, any of our clients could google Xander and see what I saw, and I believe it would reflect poorly on our company as a whole.
Especially since you have a good relationship with Giles and strong capital to spend, it would not be overstepping to share your concerns with him and and ask to stick with Willow as your manager. Even if you didn’t have such good capital, it would be okay to do that — your concerns aren’t akin to “Xander seems annoying”; they’re “I’m wary of working for someone with these deeply concerning views on women and people of color.”
And yes to HR as well. Frame it as “I’m concerned about his open embrace of viewpoints that harm women and people of color, and what that means for the biases he’ll bring as a manager, as well as about clients googling him and finding this.” If you have coworkers who share your concerns, encourage them to speak up too.
An Update Already!
Thanks for publishing and answering my letter. I actually already have an update!
I ended up talking to Willow (my interim manager) about it the day after I emailed you. I wasn’t planning on it but we were meeting about something else and I brought it up when we were done. Turns out she’d also googled Xander, saw his offensive tweets, and had already gone directly to Giles, who’d escalated things to HR.
Willow told me that our company always vets candidates’ socials and that Giles told her that Xander’s twitter account apparently never showed up during the search. They suspect that he locked it down during his job search and made it public again after getting his offer. She also told me that Giles had mentioned wanting to confirm the account was actually Xander’s before taking any next steps. This was all late last week.
This morning, our department got an email from Giles that said that Xander wouldn’t be joining our company after all. I don’t know the details but can assume that we pulled his offer. So I won’t have to work under this man!
Also, since some commenters were speculating, I can confirm that Xander’s tweets weren’t just conservative political stances that I disagreed with. Many of the things he regularly retweeted are blatantly racist, misogynist, and homophobic — there’s very little nuance there.
Thanks for publishing my letter!
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Well, except that Xander's probably going to find something to blame other than himself, but honestly, what can you do?
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I mean, couldn't she have named the bad one Warren? Xander seems unfair!
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