… and three other tricky workplace dilemmas.
BY ALISON GREEN for Inc.
Here’s a roundup of answers to four questions from readers.
1. My client is always late paying me
One of my clients, a creative agency, has always had issues paying my invoices on time, but it’s getting worse. Every single time I send an invoice, I have to go back and remind them to pay me. It’s a great company, but I’m starting to get frustrated that I can’t send an invoice without having to follow up repeatedly. Sometimes they say they missed the invoice, sometimes they apologize, but I eventually always get paid. How can I broach this? It’s embarrassing to be in a position where I can’t ride out their inconsistencies.
Green responds:
First, there’s absolutely nothing embarrassing about wanting to get money that you’re owed in the timeframe you that were promised it. You could be dripping in money and it would still be appropriate for you to follow up on late invoices as soon as they were late, because that’s how business works — people need to pay you according to the terms they agreed to.
Address the pattern with them: “I’m finding that my invoices are always late and don’t get paid until I follow up with reminders. What can we do so that they’re paid on time without me chasing them down?” It’s possible that just saying this will shame them into being better. But if it doesn’t, consider building late fees into your contract the next time it’s being renewed. And if you don’t think they’ll accept late fees — some companies don’t — consider just building in the late fee to whatever your normal fee for them is. They won’t know it’s a late fee, but you will.
2. Can I use a heating pad for cramps at work?
I am the only woman working full-time at a small company. My boss is very conservative and not always very respectful of women. My coworkers are much more understanding, although since I’m the first full-time woman, I think there’s been some “getting used to.”
I typically take painkillers for menstrual cramps. It helps, but when I’m working from home, I have found that a heating pad has made me so, so much more comfortable on a day I’d otherwise feel bloated, cramped, bogged down — and therefore less productive.
Is it appropriate to bring a heating pad to work? Space can be cramped so I worry about people tripping on a cord, and I’m also not sure if it’s professional.
Green responds:
Bring the heating pad. Use it freely. If anyone comments or asks about it, reply matter-of-factly, “I’m having some pain it’s helpful with.” The more matter-of-fact you are, the better. Ideally people will take their cues from you. (Jerks won’t, but you shouldn’t deny yourself reasonable pain relief because of the potential for a jerk.)
I don’t want to discount your very understandable concerns about being The First in this office. When you’re the only woman, doing things that emphasize gender can feel weird and even ill-advised. But they employ women now, and the best way for them to start getting used to the occasional heating pad or bottle of Midol is for you to present it as an utterly normal, unremarkable fact of life.
3. Will it reflect poorly on me if my husband turns down a job with my company?
My husband has been unemployed for several years due to moves, career changes, and plain bad luck. I have been at my company for four months now, and it’s a great fit. I really like my boss, the people, and the culture. It’s a privately owned, local company and they tend to give hiring preference to relatives and spouses of current employees. I told HR my husband was looking for a job and they were kind enough to bring him in for an interview when a position opened up. He didn’t hear anything for about a month after the interview, and during this time he accepted a conditional offer for a government job. However, he is still going through the background check and clearance process for the government job. He has no start date yet, so even though he really wants this position he’s been trying to continue his job search. Just yesterday he was told by my company that he is one of the top three candidates for the position he interviewed for, and they invited him to come back for one final interview before they make a decision.
His first choice is the government job, but I think he is doing the right thing by continuing to interview until he passes the background check and has a firm start date. My company would be his second choice if the government job does not work out. What I’m wondering is this: if he receives an offer from my company, would it reflect poorly on me if he turned it down for the government job? I really appreciate my company giving him this opportunity, and I don’t want them to feel they wasted their time meeting with him.
Green responds:
No, not at all! Interviewing for a job doesn’t obligate you to accept it. And most job seekers are applying with multiple companies, which always means there could be competing offers — and even if there aren’t, people can turn down jobs for all sorts of other reasons (like not being able to come to terms on salary, realizing the fit just isn’t right for them, etc.). None of that changes just because he’s married to an employee there.
The one caution I’d give is that he shouldn’t accept the job with your company if he might quit it soon afterwards once the government job comes through. That risks reflecting badly on you. But simply turning down the offer is absolutely fine. He should do it graciously, of course — meaning he should thank them for the opportunity, express appreciation for their time, and explain the other job was simply too good to pass up.
4. A candidate wants to know why we didn’t reschedule their interview
I just finished a hiring process with two batches of candidates: some top tiers who we wanted to interview right away, and a handful more who we were interested in if the first batch of candidates didn’t prove to be as strong as their resumes appeared. After doing phone interviews with the first group, we moved on to conducting in-person interviews with them, while also trying to set up phone interviews with the maybes. The first date we picked didn’t work for any of the maybes, so getting the times nailed down for those phone interviews was hard.
One of the top candidates had a great phone interview and a great in-person interview and took the job within 24 hours of us offering. But now that I’ve contacted the other candidates to let them know we filled the position, someone from the “maybe” group has come back to say they’re “puzzled” that we didn’t give them a chance to reschedule their phone interview and is asking what they can do differently in the future. I’m not sure how to give a kind and honest answer, when the answer is, “You weren’t a top candidate, but we were interested, but then one of the top candidates showed themselves to be the obvoius choice.”
Green responds:
You don’t need to explain that they weren’t a top candidate. You can simply say, “I’m sorry we weren’t able to reschedule in time, but we’ve been talking with candidates on a rolling basis and we’ve just filled the role.” Or even just, “We’ve had a very competitive applicant pool, but we really appreciate your interest.”
There’s nothing wrong with moving groups of candidates through your process in different groups, as you did. That said, if your first group was significantly stronger than your second group, it probably did make sense to delay the scheduling with the second group until you saw how things went with group one, simply because there was a good chance that you’d end up hiring from among them.
