should I wear my wedding ring to an interview, client demands unlimited time, and more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager .
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Should I wear my wedding ring to an interview?
I’ve been generally unhappy with my current job and have been interviewing for other roles. Most of my interviews have been virtual or over the phone. Now that I’ve made it farther along in the process, I’ve been asked to come in for an in-person interview.
My question, which I understand is a very privileged one, is what are the optics of wearing a (large, three carat) wedding ring to the interview? I’m a mid-thirties woman, married to a man for about one year now. I’m very lucky that my husband proposed with a family ring — the value of which does not necessarily reflect our income or lifestyle. When I wear the ring, people stop to comment on it often. I talk with my hands a lot, and in meetings I often find people focusing on the ring.
I’m concerned that wearing it in a job interview will subconsciously make interviewers think I have more money than I really do. Will they think I’ll ask for an outrageous salary? Will they think they don’t have to pay me as much because they think I already have enough money? In general, does wearing a wedding ring help or hurt women in the interview process?
If it were a smaller, more discreet ring, I’d tell you not to worry about it. But it sounds like a ring that draws a lot of attention, and at a job interview you want the focus on your skills and accomplishments, not your jewelry.
So … if you want to be absolutely safe, leave the ring off. This is ridiculous, but the reality is that yes, some employers will draw conclusions about your finances that you don’t want them drawing (like that you don’t need a job, or that they can lowball you on salary). And if you’re of child-bearing age, some interviewers will also make assumptions about your reproductive plans and potential need for maternity leave. This is outdated and gross and yet still happens.
The other side of this argument is that leaving the ring on will screen out employers who would make those assumptions, and that’s a good thing … but a lot of bias is unconscious and present at jobs you might otherwise want.
2. A demanding client complains we won’t give him unlimited time
I work in a government nonprofit. We deal with information queries every day. Sometimes people need help with online stuff, like getting to the website or form. One man, Benjamin, has been very hard to deal with.
During the height of the pandemic, we helped a lot of clients navigate the web, sometimes for over an hour. Benjamin was one of them. He would come in 4-5 times a week. We knew he was suffering medical issues (stroke, partial mobility paralysis), so we thought we would help him over the hump. Helping him sucked up everyone’s time, and left us no time or energy for anything or anyone else. He is beyond demanding. We decided to start limiting our service to him, telling him we would set aside Thursday morning, a less busy time, so that we could give him the time he seemed to need.
During the pandemic, traffic was slow. We served maybe 300 people per week. Now it’s more like 300 people per day. We just can’t spend as much time with people. Benjamin still comes in and expects the same level of service as before — expects us to type things in for him, get him water, get him tissue, or glasses from the donation bin (he forgot his own at home). He is fully capable of all these things, just slower at it. (And yes, we tried to explain we’re busier now to him.)
He doesn’t show up for his appointments. When we remind him about the Thursday plan, he waves it away and says he forgot.
Part of the problem is that when he asks for help, he won’t focus on one topic, but uses us as a captive audience to tell us about his life and interactions. When we try to redirect him, he calls us rude and alleges we are not providing service to him as a disabled person. He seems to have a grudge against me in particular, saying I need a talking to about my attitude. He has complained, in front of me and to the complaint line, about our awful service to him as a disabled person.
All staff here have WTF experiences with him. Our manager is also frustrated. What can we say to him that would help manage this situation better? (We are required to serve people who enter the building, but there is no legal requirement that we must spend an hour with clients.)
Since explaining that you have significantly more people to serve now hasn’t made a difference, all you can really do is be assertive about the limits of what you can offer. So when he shows up, you could say, “We’re very busy today but can give you about 20 minutes. What do you want to make sure we cover in that time?” And when it’s close to the end of that time, you say, “We only have a few more minutes before I need to help the next person waiting.” When he’s off on a social tangent, interrupt and say, “I don’t have much time today because so many people are waiting and I want to make sure we get what you need.” If he calls that rude or says you’re not providing service to him, you could say, “I can’t ignore the other people waiting and I want to make sure we do provide the service you need, so let’s focus on XYZ in the remaining time we have.”
But also … I don’t think your measure of success here can be “Benjamin stops calling us rude and is delighted with our service,” because it sounds like the only way that could happen is if you neglected other clients. You probably need to accept that he’s likely to remain disgruntled, and just state the limits of the time and help you’re able to provide. All agencies that serve the public have Benjamins and you might just make sure that whoever oversees the complaint line knows the situation and how you’re managing it.
3. I deliberately over-claimed a tuition reimbursement
I think I really screwed up. I’m doing tuition reimbursement for an undergrad program and HR’s policy is that they will only cover some fees. Well, after I turned in my first reimbursement request for my first class, I found out that they don’t cover a fee that accounts for just under half the cost of the class (the college I’m attending has a weird tuition breakdown so that a huge chunk of the tuition list price on their website is actually in fees, not tuition). I panicked because it was a huge dollar amount to lose (well, for me anyway). It ended up being around $600 or so per semester, which I needed for the following semester’s classes. HR had emailed me after I submitted it informing me that they didn’t cover it (their policy has a grey area and covers some fees, but not others).
So for my next class, I intentionally turned in a copy of the balance statement that didn’t list out the fees and only listed the overall balance due (yes, I realize that this is super stupid in retrospect). The company I work for paid out the entire balance — even fees — and didn’t question why it wasn’t listed out. Now that we’re coming toward the end of a fiscal year within the next couple of months, I’m worried that this will be a red flag for an audit due to the differences in dollar amounts and that this is something I could get fired for. What should I do?
I’ve considered changing companies just so I can pay it all back, but I really like the company I work for and don’t want to switch jobs. But I also can’t afford to get fired and this feels like a fireable offense. For the record, this is the first time I’ve ever done something like this and wish with every inch of my body that I could go back and fix it. But now, I feel like switching back to the broken out format of my tuition invoices would also raise red flags, so I feel like I have to continue submitting balance statements instead (my company does have a limit that I would’ve reached with or without switching formats for 2023, but it did result in receiving ~$600 more in 2022). I feel so lost right now and am not sure what the right thing to do is.
Ideally, you’d come clean! You don’t need to say, “I set out to deceive you”; you can simply frame it as an error. For example, you could say, “I have realized that I mistakenly submitted a bill last year that included fees you don’t cover, and you reimbursed me based on that total amount. You reimbursed me $1300 but it should have been $700. How should I get this fixed?”
Someone who is trying to scam their company doesn’t typically point out the discrepancy and ask to resolve it, so it’s pretty likely to look like you made an accounting error, not an ethical one. They might be annoyed by the mistake when they had just pointed out the policy the semester before, but that’s a much better outcome than someone realizing at some point that you deliberately misled them to benefit financially.
4. My manager reposted my LinkedIn post saying I’m looking for a second job
For the last year, I have been working extremely hard and applied to 14 internal roles for promotions. I didn’t receive any of them and they went to outside applicants. I’ve worked hard to prove my worth and tried again for the 15th time.
In my most recent meeting with my boss, she let me know that the position I will be “promoted” to would be a $1,000 raise. I stated that I am not comfortable doing a lot more work for $1,000 more. My boss responded that I already make too much and I should be happy with my pay. I make $45,000, I live in the Pacific Northwest, and I have 10+ years of experience in my role. (I have been applying for months outside of the company to other jobs. It just is a competitive market so no luck yet.)
Fast forward to today. I made a vulnerable post on LinkedIn stating I’m struggling and looking for a second job because one is not sustainable. My same boss who told me that I make too much money reposted it and stated that I’m looking for a second job! The message she posted with it was, “My fabulous (job title) is looking for a second job if anyone is looking.”
Is it weird that my manager is reposting her struggling employee’s cry for more money to live on? I find it uncomfortable and simply a bad look for them/the company but I also welcome any way I can find new leads for jobs.
It’s not inherently weird for your manager to help you find a second job, and boosting your post and praising you is a pretty light-lift way for her to do it. In a different context, if she had been more supportive, it’s something you might appreciate.
But knowing the context— that she’s paying you a low salary while telling you that you already make too much money — makes her post feel insincere and oblivious to her own role in why you need a second job.
5. We’re not supposed to discuss our contract details with colleagues
I just received my employment contract for the next year (teacher at a private school). There’s a line at the bottom that says, “Please remember, contracts are to be kept between employee and employer. Discussion about your contract details with other employees will result in disciplinary action up to and including employment termination.”
Is that illegal? I know your right to discuss wages and working conditions are protected, but I’m wondering if the wording of “contract details” gets around that? It also sets a weird tone in my opinion, but that’s a different story. I do like my school for the most part, so I’m mostly asking so that I can possibly flag this for our admin team.
Yes, that is illegal. The National Labor Relations Act says that if you’re a non-supervisory employee, it’s illegal for your employer to prohibit you from discussing your wages and working conditions with other employees. That doesn’t change just because there’s an employment contract. The reason for the law is that employees can’t effectively organize or unionize if they’re not permitted to discuss wages or uncover potential inequities.
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