interviewing with a service dog in my lap, boss thinks I’m a stoner because I called out on 4/20, 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. Interviewing with a service dog in my lap
I have a job interview this Thursday! I haven’t really worked since March 2020, so this is my first time in any sort of professional environment since becoming a service dog user.
My dog is trained to alert me for anxiety so I can redirect before a panic attack, and to intervene by distracting me when I am having a panic attack. He’s under 20 pounds, and I am more comfortable handling him by wearing him in a baby sling or sitting him in my lap than having him on a leash. This method has received mixed reactions, and I do worry about how it will impact my appearing “professional” for the interview, but it’s what works best for me.
The interview was scheduled through the application portal, so I haven’t really talked to anyone there, but I have an email address. Should I contact that person to let them know ahead of time that I will have my service dog with me for the interview? If so, what details should I include?
Is it “I’m more comfortable with him in my lap, but it’s workable to have him on a leash next to me for an hour” or is it “he needs to be in my lap or a sling to do his job”? If it’s an option to have him next to you during the interview rather than in your lap or a sling, I’d try to do that for the interview if you can.
Whether or not this should be the case, realistically it’s likely that having a dog in your lap or in a sling will be distracting to your interviewers. People will be looking at/thinking about the dog when you want them focused on your answers and qualifications, and you’re likely to run into people who see the set-up more as “candidate cuddling a dog” than as “candidate accompanied by a service animal.” I want to stress, I’m not saying that’s fair or right — it’s just the reality you’re going to be facing.
If having him on a leash isn’t an option, then the best thing you can do is to just be up-front about it ahead of time in an email: “I wanted to mention that I’ll be accompanied by a service dog and he’ll be on my lap during the interview (the set-up that works best for my medical needs).” If a leash is an option, you can use that same basic formula (“just a heads-up that I’ll have my service dog with me”) — short, matter-of-fact, and FYI-ish. That way they can adjust in advance anything that might need to be adjusted (for example, if your interviewer is allergic or afraid of dogs, they might choose to do the interview remotely or so forth).
2. My boss thinks I’m a stoner because I called out on 4/20
I am a very boring guy in a very boring job. We’re in one of those industries that gets used as an example of where you can’t have unusual hair or piercings or show any signs of personality, and even within that industry I’m in an area that is particularly notable for being staid and intensely respectable. And that is exactly where I belong! Look up “square” in the dictionary and you will find a picture of me. I’m also part of a religion that eschews alcohol, tobacco, and all illegal or semi-legal drugs, even caffeine. I got offered an opiate drug once for medical reasons and I declined it because I didn’t want to get even a medically prescribed high. I will suck the life out of any party I touch. I wouldn’t even know where or how to buy pot if for some reason I decided I wanted to do that.
But yesterday was 4/20, and I woke up feeling decidedly under the weather. As soon as I realized that going to work wasn’t a good idea, I shot my boss an email that I was taking the day off and went straight back to bed. After a day and night spent resting and generally taking good care of myself, I woke up feeling refreshed and much improved, enough to go back to work.
My boss is also quite the square, but he’s at least culture-savvy enough to have heard of “420.” And so of course when I made it to the office, his first question was whether I enjoyed (wink wink) my day off. It got laughs from the rest of the team, and initially I laughed too, since the thought of super-square me calling out of work to do drugs was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard of. I denied it, of course, and figured my lingering scratchy voice would establish that yes, I’d truly been feeling ill. But I guess an altered voice is also a potential indicator of having smoked? Later in the day, my boss pulled me aside to ask in an emphatic tone if I was facing any new stressors, and to reiterate that he had a great deal of trust in my professionalism and hoped I would continue upholding that trust. I was confused and asked if anything in my work had given him cause for concern, and he noted that I should have waited for the weekend if I wanted to indulge myself. He told me he wasn’t going to officially ask me anything on the record because if I actually had done that, he didn’t want to formally know about it, but he hoped I would make better choices in the future.
I don’t know what to do about this! I know that protesting too vigorously just reinforces an impression of guilt, but I genuinely didn’t feel well and handled it in a perfectly professional manner — that it happened to occur on a day noted for indulgence was a coincidence. How do I fix this with my boss without just reinforcing my guilt? I did not go to a doctor so I don’t have a doctor’s note to provide, just a reliance on my own history of professionalism. Pointing out that my boss is accusing me of violating the precepts of my religion seems like a non-starter; that strikes me as more of an escalation than anything else. I just want to put this ridiculous notion to bed.
Your boss is being incredibly weird! People get legitimately sick on 4/20, just as they get sick on the Friday before a holiday weekend, and the day a really boring training session is scheduled, and other days that might seem like wins to get to miss. But his conclusion is particularly weird because he knows you. Like you somehow went from being strait-laced and eschewing caffeine to skipping work to blaze one up? (I actually wonder if your boss is similarly strait-laced and just … doesn’t understand much about how this works.)
Anyway, I think you could just let this go if you want to. Alternately, though, you could say to him, “I can’t stop thinking about what you said about my sick day last week. I’m pretty dismayed that you would think that — I don’t even drink caffeine and I’m certainly not calling out sick to get high. Were you just joking?”
3. Asking my office to unblock an “adult content” website
My office wifi blocks certain websites – porn, torrents, things like that. I’m totally fine with that, as it’s all stuff I agree we shouldn’t be browsing while at work. But I also like to read Autostraddle.com, which is a lesbian culture and lifestyle website, and that’s blocked by the filter as “adult content”. While there are articles about sex and other adult topics, those are never graphic – I’m mostly just there to read about queer TV shows! I’d like to read it on my breaks, but I’d have to use my phone’s data plan which is pretty limited.
I can ask IT about removing it from the filter, and I’m pretty confident it wouldn’t be an issue. But what’s holding me back is that it’s very much not necessary for my work, and our IT department is all straight cis men – I’m a little uncomfortable about approaching them to take this seemingly “adult” website off the blacklist. I guess I’m looking for help with a script. How do I ask these guys with a minimum of awkwardness?
Autostraddle doesn’t look particularly “adult” at first glance, at least not in the sense that’s usually meant, so I think you could just say, “I think our filter is mistakenly blocking Autostraddle. I like to read their TV recaps on my breaks — any chance you can unblock it?”
4. Asking to keep my application confidential
I’m job searching, and would like to apply for a role at a company that has close ties to my current workplace (including a senior leader at my current job who sits on a volunteer committee for the company I’m applying to.)
I’m very concerned about my search getting back to someone in my current company. I know it’ll immediately turn into gossip and likely result in me being let go before I’m ready due to some restructuring.
Can I say something in my cover letter like, “Given the close ties between Company A and Company B, I would like to request my application be kept confidential from anyone at Company A”? Or is that likely to get my application thrown in the trash? If it is okay to explicitly request confidentiality, any suggestions for the right wording?
You can, but don’t rely just on that. Cover letters sometimes get separated from resumes after the initial screen, and some hiring managers don’t read them at all (or just skim, or don’t retain what they read). So in addition to the note there, you should call your most reliable contact at the company (or the hiring manager herself), say you’re applying for a position there and want to make sure they will keep it confidential since your current employer doesn’t know you’re looking. Have a real conversation with them, since that’s most likely to stick.
5. Asking for more vacation time instead of a raise
Yearly reviews are coming up. If I get offered a raise, is it reasonable to ask for more PTO instead? Not that I don’t want more money, I just think more PTO would be more valuable to me because I like to use PTO with my significant other and he has more than me.
Yes! Some companies will negotiate PTO and some won’t, but it’s a thing that happens and is reasonable to ask about. You could say, “At this point what would be most valuable to me and keep me the happiest would be additional PTO. Would you be willing to give me an additional week of vacation time in place of the raise?” If they agree, make sure you get it in writing.
But first, do the math. If you think they’d be likely to give you an extra week but your raise is more than a week’s pay, you might be better off accepting the raise and asking about taking some unpaid time off.
You may also like: my VP of HR says my service dog is too small my coworker brings her aggressive dog to work my coworker owes me money and won't pay it back, my coworker's panic attacks are affecting my work, and more