Ask a Manager: Two from the same column (language and interview questions)

[minoanmiss]

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.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

1) someone needs to tell Wendy about the concept of code-switching.

2) I was amused by the question until people defended it, and then I got pissed off. When I was 20 I didn't really know who Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young were, which would have made this an excellent question for an interviewer of a different background than mine to weed people from my background out of consideration. And all the interpretations people put forwards are so full of their individual biases someone would need to be telepathic or the interviewer's soul mate to get the answer right.

[princessofgeeks]

The commentariat at Ask A Manager is very strange, I have found. I'm addicted to the column but don't often read all the answers because they tend to get bogged down in minutia or speculation. There are a few regulars I do like.

Unrelated, I wish Captain Awkward would start posting columns again. I miss her.

[dissectionist]

I have wide musical tastes and can be found listening to music from Sinatra and Billie Holiday to metal and rap (and if we go back further, classical as well). But even I, a middle-aged person with wide tastes, have no experience with the listed band, and this is my first time hearing about Young being a part of it. My only awareness of C, S & N is that they’re a band from my parents’ era, and I don’t know any of the songs or their first names.

“Young” might be Neil Young? But again, I couldn’t tell you any of his songs; I’m only familiar with him from an anecdote that my dad tells about how when he was in his 20s he joked to a friend that he loved Neil Young, and the friend thought he was being serious and bought my dad a Neil Young boxed set for his birthday. My dad felt terrible about it because he actually hated Neil Young’s music and the boxed set must have been expensive.

[carbonel]

I wish Captain Awkward would start posting comments again and that she would open up the comments section. Hers was the only one where I regularly read the comments as well as the Q&A.

[topaz_eyes]

1. I was in an online chat once where one of the younger members said, "Come over here so I can beat you up," regarding something I posted that they really liked. I knew it was meant to be a compliment so I didn't say anything--but it was also a threat of violence, which imho is never appropriate to say, even in jest or a manner of appreciation. Unfortunately, Wendy unwittingly insulted an industry leader with her compliment. What a way to learn not to make compliments that use offensive words or slurs in a professional situation. I hope it doesn't cut Wendy's career in this field short if she chooses to continue..

2. I wish AAM went further to point out that asking job candidates questions about music/band preferences in a job interview veers on personal territory, and maybe should remain off-limits unless it's actually relevant to the job application. (Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young were popular 55 years ago--they debuted at Woodstock for Pete's sake.)

[lannamichaels]

Thanks to AAM for finally explaining to me wtf "serving cunt" means and why it's meant to be a compliment. I assume "cunty" is similar???????? Except I only see "serving cunt" used to refer to men???????????

[lilysea]

Apparently there's a women's haircut - a type of bob -

which is referred to in a complimentary/approving manner

as

"a cunty little bob"

I only learned this very recently. Apparently the phrase started with Drag Queens, and then became popularised to non-LGBT people via the TV show The White Lotus.

[lilysea]

1) someone needs to tell Wendy about the concept of code-switching.

I agree, but I still think that firing Wendy for a first offence - instead of issuing her a formal warning/reprimand/writing her up -

was too harsh. :(

[redbird]

So do I, in part because that would mean she was feeling better than she has in the last few months. (I support her Patreon, so I've seen a couple of "things are tough over here, but here's a draft of something I've been working on" posts.

[minoanmiss]

The connotations I have seen concerning the term seem to convey insouciance, badassery, and flawless style. A beautiful man in a flamboyantly colored and styled suit walking down the street with an air of "I dare you to impugn my masculinity" might be described as such, for example.

ETA actually, just google Billy Porter. He defines the term.

[minoanmiss]

Oh it was totally overly harsh, but realistically so, alas.

[redbird]

As Alison said, even the broader "if you were going to be in a band, what instrument would you play?" might be an amusing question to bat around with friends, but it's not a good interview question.

[princessofgeeks]

I didn't know she had been ill; hope things get better for her soon. I knew she had a book in the works as well and have been halfway watching for news of that.

[aflaminghalo]

If I went into an interview and they asked me which member of that band I'd want to be, it'd definitely be Young (eat a peach...) (exp. Neil Young is very crotchy and does what he wants. he walked out of their tour and left that as the message). I've spent too many hours in places where people use their fandom to weed out people they don't think belong there.

It's also a bad idea because outside of musicians, how many people actually know what the musical roles of a band are.

[ysobel]

...#2 would baffle me (unless I was interviewing for a band) and I would totally take it literally and not as a personality / leadership test wtf

[affreca]

I guess due to my father's liking of Neil Young, I know more about Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Which isn't much, the only song of theirs I can name is Wooden Ships, and I think I'm more familiar with the Jefferson Airship version. My feeling (partially based on the Train Wrecks video about their last album) is that I wouldn't want to be any member of the band, especially during the period(s) they were a band. They were all famously drugged out and infighting. I get the sense that at least Neil Young mellowed with age.. but no.

[mrissa]

Yes, Young is Neil Young in this context. In case it ever comes up and you ever have to care.

[melannen]

It would be valid to fire a mid-career person for that, I think, especially since she seemed to be doing it repeatedly and very visibly, but for an intern who is there explicitly to learn workplace norms it seems way over the top.

[full_metal_ox]

See also Gatwa, Ncuti.

[minoanmiss]

Oh yes indeed.

[full_metal_ox]

2. I wish AAM went further to point out that asking job candidates questions about music/band preferences in a job interview veers on personal territory, and maybe should remain off-limits unless it's actually relevant to the job application. (Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young were popular 55 years ago--they debuted at Woodstock for Pete's sake.)

I wonder how the interviewer would react to being asked which member of BTS they’d prefer to be (although seven options might be a bit too complex.)

[kshandra]

...the same Neil Young who dropped the demo version of "Let's Roll" off at his (also my) local classic-rock radio station less than a week after 9/11? He has done many things, but "mellowed with age" is not on that list.

[firecat]

And the assumptions the guy made about the answers! I hope he never gets to interview anyone.

[laurajv]

mostly what I know about Neil Young is that a) some of his music sounds like 30 years newer than it is which is wild b) he has some very interesting model railroad patents

[jack]

Even without music I had thoughts. On the positive, kudos to him, he seems to think drummers and rock stars are both valuable.

On the negative, if you're looking for a particular sort of role, "We're looking for drummers, can you demonstrate you can do that" is better than assuming everyone was assigned an instrument at birth and asking "Can you guess what sort of role we're looking for?"