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agonyaunt2025-03-25 10:05 am
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2025-03-25 10:05 am
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Ask a Manager: Two from the same column (language and interview questions)
Two tempests in teapots, of different flavors.
My mentee was fired for using a vulgar term
I work in a regulated industry and there are specific education and license requirements to work here. My company has a mentorship program for those who are new to the industry. I am one of those with the highest non-management title at my company, and my manager encouraged me sign up for the program. I was assigned an entry-level employee from my company, “Wendy.”
I thought things were going well. Wendy was bright and on the ball. But Wendy was let go from her job and I’m wondering if I should have done more to advocate for her. I think this was a misunderstanding. Wendy had (to me) expressed her admiration for one of the managers at our company. This manager, “Caitlin,” is several levels above my own manager and is well-known in our industry. The misunderstanding happened over something Wendy said that was meant to be a compliment, but Caitlin felt it was an insult. Wendy said Caitlin was “serving C-word” (not abbreviated when she said it). She meant this as a compliment. (I’m almost 50, and I am not on social media so I have never heard this saying but apparently it is supposed to be complimentary).
Caitlin didn’t see it that way. She thought Wendy was insulting her. Caitlin felt Wendy was calling her a name to other people, clients, and online when she found out Wendy had been saying it. (Wendy never used the phrase in front of me.) I understand both sides. I completely understand why Caitlin thought it was an insult. I also see Wendy’s point of view and have never known her to be malicious. In fact, Wendy has always shown the opposite. My question isn’t about who was right, but whether I should have done more to advocate for Wendy. I feel guilty for not pushing back to my manager when Wendy was let go over this. I feel like I could have spoken up about this being a misunderstanding and how Wendy was bright, did good work, and was nice to everyone around her — basically how out of character it would be for Wendy to insult anyone, especially someone she admired. No one blames me for what happened and I was asked to participate in the mentorship program again. But I am afraid I did a disservice by not pushing back on Wendy being let go, and I’m afraid of making the same mistake again. What do you think? I would appreciate hearing what you think.
First, for people who don’t know the expression, it basically means “unapologetically feminine and powerfully badass.” It is intended to be complimentary — and it very much would not sound that way to anyone who didn’t know the meaning.
Anyway, this isn’t on you. You really weren’t in a position to intervene; mentors don’t typically have that power (unless they have significant influence and authority in general, but that would be something that existed independently of their mentor role). Yes, you could have explained where Wendy was coming from, but I imagine Wendy did that herself anyway. The issue is that she displayed pretty terrible judgment! It would be one thing for her to have said that about Caitlin once, but saying it repeatedly was just tremendously bad judgment in a work context, where lots of people won’t know the meaning of a very vulgar and insulting-sounding slang phrase. Her intentions matter, but the outcome matters too, and the outcome in this case was that she was going around using a wildly vulgar phrase about a well-known woman in your industry without contemplating that it might be misunderstood or otherwise become an issue. I wouldn’t have fired her for it (to me it’s a coaching moment, not a firing one) but I’m also not surprised that someone did.
There was no real room for you to do anything differently. If you’d heard Wendy use the phrase, you could have corrected her, but you didn’t. Your job as a mentor is to support your mentee’s growth, give advice, and be a sounding board, but the role isn’t that of a manager or a mediator. You were well-positioned to be a sort of character witness, yes, but I’m not sure it would have mattered in this case. This was Wendy’s mistake, not yours.
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Interview question: which position in a band would you choose?
I was driving around listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and sometimes Young and started pondering a theoretical Interview question: if given a choice, which member would you choose to be? I realize far too few people know that band so I started pondering a different question: assuming you would play any position, which position in a band would you choose (lead singer, lead guitar, bass, or drums)? The idea is that question could potentially give somebody an idea of just how confident in themselves a person is. A person who picks drums is someone who can keep a project moving and is reliable but is not necessarily out front leading, for example.
I am not in any danger of conducting interviews any time soon, but since I spend quite a lot of my working day on the road, I think of things like this. I’m curious what you think!
Well … it could be something to ponder outside of a work setting, but I would recommend against it as an interview question! Too many people don’t know enough about music to know how to even begin thinking about which position they’d choose. And even if they do have a well-informed answer, it won’t tell you the kinds of things you need to learn to make a good hire. You don’t want to ask candidates questions just for the sake of asking questions, or because a question seems fun — you want to get really clear on what’s needed to excel in that position and then ask questions specifically designed to get at those things. Unless you are putting together a new prefab boy band, this question won’t do that.
A boring answer to a fun question, sorry.
My mentee was fired for using a vulgar term
I work in a regulated industry and there are specific education and license requirements to work here. My company has a mentorship program for those who are new to the industry. I am one of those with the highest non-management title at my company, and my manager encouraged me sign up for the program. I was assigned an entry-level employee from my company, “Wendy.”
I thought things were going well. Wendy was bright and on the ball. But Wendy was let go from her job and I’m wondering if I should have done more to advocate for her. I think this was a misunderstanding. Wendy had (to me) expressed her admiration for one of the managers at our company. This manager, “Caitlin,” is several levels above my own manager and is well-known in our industry. The misunderstanding happened over something Wendy said that was meant to be a compliment, but Caitlin felt it was an insult. Wendy said Caitlin was “serving C-word” (not abbreviated when she said it). She meant this as a compliment. (I’m almost 50, and I am not on social media so I have never heard this saying but apparently it is supposed to be complimentary).
Caitlin didn’t see it that way. She thought Wendy was insulting her. Caitlin felt Wendy was calling her a name to other people, clients, and online when she found out Wendy had been saying it. (Wendy never used the phrase in front of me.) I understand both sides. I completely understand why Caitlin thought it was an insult. I also see Wendy’s point of view and have never known her to be malicious. In fact, Wendy has always shown the opposite. My question isn’t about who was right, but whether I should have done more to advocate for Wendy. I feel guilty for not pushing back to my manager when Wendy was let go over this. I feel like I could have spoken up about this being a misunderstanding and how Wendy was bright, did good work, and was nice to everyone around her — basically how out of character it would be for Wendy to insult anyone, especially someone she admired. No one blames me for what happened and I was asked to participate in the mentorship program again. But I am afraid I did a disservice by not pushing back on Wendy being let go, and I’m afraid of making the same mistake again. What do you think? I would appreciate hearing what you think.
First, for people who don’t know the expression, it basically means “unapologetically feminine and powerfully badass.” It is intended to be complimentary — and it very much would not sound that way to anyone who didn’t know the meaning.
Anyway, this isn’t on you. You really weren’t in a position to intervene; mentors don’t typically have that power (unless they have significant influence and authority in general, but that would be something that existed independently of their mentor role). Yes, you could have explained where Wendy was coming from, but I imagine Wendy did that herself anyway. The issue is that she displayed pretty terrible judgment! It would be one thing for her to have said that about Caitlin once, but saying it repeatedly was just tremendously bad judgment in a work context, where lots of people won’t know the meaning of a very vulgar and insulting-sounding slang phrase. Her intentions matter, but the outcome matters too, and the outcome in this case was that she was going around using a wildly vulgar phrase about a well-known woman in your industry without contemplating that it might be misunderstood or otherwise become an issue. I wouldn’t have fired her for it (to me it’s a coaching moment, not a firing one) but I’m also not surprised that someone did.
There was no real room for you to do anything differently. If you’d heard Wendy use the phrase, you could have corrected her, but you didn’t. Your job as a mentor is to support your mentee’s growth, give advice, and be a sounding board, but the role isn’t that of a manager or a mediator. You were well-positioned to be a sort of character witness, yes, but I’m not sure it would have mattered in this case. This was Wendy’s mistake, not yours.
Interview question: which position in a band would you choose?
I was driving around listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and sometimes Young and started pondering a theoretical Interview question: if given a choice, which member would you choose to be? I realize far too few people know that band so I started pondering a different question: assuming you would play any position, which position in a band would you choose (lead singer, lead guitar, bass, or drums)? The idea is that question could potentially give somebody an idea of just how confident in themselves a person is. A person who picks drums is someone who can keep a project moving and is reliable but is not necessarily out front leading, for example.
I am not in any danger of conducting interviews any time soon, but since I spend quite a lot of my working day on the road, I think of things like this. I’m curious what you think!
Well … it could be something to ponder outside of a work setting, but I would recommend against it as an interview question! Too many people don’t know enough about music to know how to even begin thinking about which position they’d choose. And even if they do have a well-informed answer, it won’t tell you the kinds of things you need to learn to make a good hire. You don’t want to ask candidates questions just for the sake of asking questions, or because a question seems fun — you want to get really clear on what’s needed to excel in that position and then ask questions specifically designed to get at those things. Unless you are putting together a new prefab boy band, this question won’t do that.
A boring answer to a fun question, sorry.
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Unrelated, I wish Captain Awkward would start posting columns again. I miss her.
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