coworker matched with my husband on a dating app, my boss says I “lost my team,” and more
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Coworker matched with my husband on a dating app
A few years ago, my husband and I briefly separated, and during that time we both tried seeing other people. We’ve resolved our issues and are back together now and monogamous.
Recently, a new employee, Brianna, joined my team at work. One day, I was talking with my husband about work and mentioned Brianna’s name. He recognized it, and it turns out that during our break he had matched with her on a dating app.
They only chatted and never actually went on a date, but he remembered her because he coincidentally met her in person through work shortly after they matched. He works in an adjacent field to ours (think, we manage construction projects and he is an electrician) and they worked together on multiple projects while she was with a previous employer. Neither wanted to mix their personal and professional lives, so things never went any further.
Since this is a few years in the past and nothing really happened, I know that keeping this to myself is an option. The problem is, I have photos of my husband in my office. I talk about him a lot. I have brought him to company social events. If things continue as they are, she will eventually see his photo or hear his name or run into him, and she will probably recognize him! I don’t want to make it a bigger deal than it is, but I also don’t want it to be awkward for her when she remembers why she knows him, so I feel the need to get ahead of things.
How should I (and should I at all) bring this up to Brianna? I want to make it clear that I know she didn’t do anything wrong and this won’t impact my ability to work with her professionally. I just don’t want her to be caught off guard.
I think you’re worrying unnecessarily! Brianna will probably just assume that you weren’t married at the time she matched with your husband.
But if it’s going to be obvious that you were — if, for example, you have a wedding photo displayed that was obviously taken decades ago or you have kids together whose ages will make it likely — well, I still think you probably don’t need to worry much. Sometimes people take breaks from their relationships, exactly as you did. But if she and your husband have been in touch recently (like this year), the easiest thing might be for him to let her know the two of you are working together now (he should say this in a cheerful, friendly “small world!” kind of way, not a freaking-out way — more similar to how he’d mention it to a friend if he realized they now worked with you) and that he doesn’t want her to feel any discomfort about how they met since you and he were separated when it happened and it’s not a secret. She may wonder if that’s really true or if he’s scrambling to cover up an attempt to cheat, but it’s a reasonable amount of info to provide and carries the least risk of making things weirder than they have to be.
2. When laying me off, my boss said I’d “lost my team”
I was an associate at a small mom-and-pop firm for a year. Given the volatile job market and the fact that I can’t read minds, I didn’t go to work every day thinking “I definitely won’t get fired today!” but, all things considered, I felt relatively secure. I worked hard and thought I was well-liked. I’ve been in the workforce for 20 years, in my industry for 10, and never been fired before so it’s not like I have a habit of ignoring warning signs.
Two weeks ago, my boss called me in for a meeting, saying he wanted to discuss strategy for a particular client. I bounded in eager as a puppy, notebook in hand. Instead, he told me that the firm was losing money and they needed to let me go that day. Then he said, “It’s partly the money and partly because you lost your team. I just kept waiting for it to click but it never did.” I was dumbfounded.
I stood up and said I had to go because I could feel the hysteria rising and didn’t want to burst into tears in front of him. He kept saying, as I frantically packed my stuff, that he’d wanted to have a longer conversation and asked me several times to call him, which I said I would do.
We had a frosty text exchange over the next few days about a couple of logistical things during which he mentioned being frustrated that I left before we could talk. I responded that I’d been too distressed in the moment and that I hoped he could understand that. I asked him twice if we could have a call to discuss whatever it was he’d wanted to talk about. No response.
I’m so confused. The money thing makes sense, but I don’t understand what he meant about losing my team. The first few months were a little rocky (I was a first-time manager and the role took some getting used to) but I thought we’d ironed out the kinks. Things had seemed to be going particularly well in the month immediately preceding my firing. The only performance review I had during my year there was glowing; I got a raise and my boss started talking about making me partner. I was certainly never given any type of warning, formal or informal, that my job was in jeopardy.
So now I’m obsessing. If I really did “lose [my] team,” what did I do wrong? How could I not have known? And if the team thing was an excuse, what was the real reason? Did the office manager hate me? (Yes.) Was I getting too big for my britches? (Maybe.) Did my hair get flat? (I assume so.) Conventional wisdom says I should let it go, but if I don’t know what happened then how do I make sure it doesn’t happen again?
It’s impossible to say without feedback from your boss, which he’s apparently unwilling to give.
“Losing your team” combined with “I just kept waiting for it to click but it never did” could mean that you never gained the trust of your team so they weren’t willing to follow you … but frankly I’d take this with a huge grain of salt because it’s coming from someone who a month before that was giving you a raise and talking about making you partner. Now, maybe some additional info came to light after that, or maybe concerns that had earlier been kind of fuzzy took clearer shape in his mind, but the timing here doesn’t quite add up, and I’m more inclined to think it was just the money. Layoffs, by definition, are about money; they’re about cutting a role and not rehiring for it. And he told you the firm was losing money. So there’s a pretty solid chance that that’s all this was, and that he was grasping for some additional way to justify it.
If you’ve been successful for 20 years before now, don’t let this get in your head.
3. Office move might mean a ridiculously long commute
My husband took a job in a different state three years ago. It was a fantastic opportunity for him career-wise and financially, so we moved our young family willingly. It is in a very high-cost-of-living area, so we bought a house about an hour away (without traffic) from his office, and he relies on public transit to get to work because the drive would otherwise be 1.5 hours each way. His commute still is a little over an hour, but it’s manageable and he can even work during the commute as needed.
When he took the job, the in-office requirement was three days/week, but it has since increased to four (and I have a feeling they may require five soon). He is the only member of his team based in this office (his boss and only other team member live on the other side of the country).
He just found out that his office’s lease expires in about a year, and the company is strongly considering moving the office to another city further north. This move would make his commute by public transit impossible as there is no infrastructure to get to the new area, and driving would take at least two hours each way, including a very expensive toll ($20 during peak hours). All of his office colleagues live in or between the current city and new proposed city (they have been in the area for many years and bought houses in the early 2000s) and are excited about the change of office location. They do know my husband commutes from further away already, and a senior executive made a comment to him that he should just move to another town closer to the new location, which I think is tone deaf considering the extreme cost of housing in our area.
If the move happens, he will either have to find a new job ordeal with tolls and insane commuting, which feels unfair given he enjoys his work and is in a specialized field that isn’t super easy to just find an equivalent position within. Is this worth getting worked up over? Does he have any recourse?
He can talk to his boss and explain he couldn’t realistically make that commute four days a week and ask if they’d consider other options for him if that happens, like being fully remote or only coming in once a week. It’s worth starting that conversation so there’s time to try to figure it now rather than only raising it if the move does become a certainty.
It’s possible that he’ll find out that no, the company won’t bend on how often he needs to be in the office, in which case there isn’t really any recourse; he either does the commute or he leaves the job. If he thinks there’s a strong chance of the move happening, it’s not a bad idea to start putting out some feelers for new work now so that he’s not starting from scratch if it does go through and they won’t budge on in-office days.
4. Can I praise my manager to his bosses before I leave?
I’m leaving my job of six years at the end of this month. For many of those years, I’ve had an excellent manager who’s done a great job leading our team and has worked successfully to increase our team’s standing at the company.
Would it be appropriate at all to send an email to my boss’s bosses that gives professional praise and lists some of the accomplishments he’s done as a manager?
If it’s relevant at all, I’m senior on my team and believe I have good standing at the company. And the two recipients are a current and a past grandboss to me.
You can do that. I’d frame it as, “One of the reasons I’ve had such a great experience working here is because of Cecil, and I wanted to share why that’s been the case.” I wouldn’t get into listing accomplishments they already know about because you don’t want it to sound performance review-ish, but talk about your perspective as someone working for him, the nuances of which they might be unaware of. And cc Cecil.
5. Is it worth telling interviewers I was laid off because I was too senior?
I was laid off a couple of months ago because the team no longer needed a senior-level specialist — they were switching to a generalist model and wanted someone with wider knowledge at a lower level. (If that sounds possibly sketchy, it’s because it is. The real reasons were thornier and, in exchange for a huge severance payout, this is the explanation we all decided to go with. It’s a true description of the situation, just not how it all went down.)
I’m now looking for those senior specialist roles, and I think explaining that I was too senior for my team reflects well on my candidacy. But I also have doubts about getting into the weeds when “I was laid off” speaks for itself.
I’m early in my search and have only had two interviews so far, during which I did share this background; I was rejected both times. I wasn’t a good fit regardless — I got the interviews via a recruiter and didn’t expect to advance — but I do wonder whether I’m taking the right tack. Obviously, I’m not getting into any of the drama, and my tone is very upbeat, but maybe it’s not the right idea to share specifics of how the position changed. What do you think? And what about sharing this in response to questions on why I’m seeking a new role when it’s asked directly applications?
I don’t think this going to raise any alarms for interviewers. But I also don’t think you need to explain it; “I was laid off when my team switched to a generalist model” or even just “I was laid off” is going to be good enough. So if you’re concerned that it’s too much info, it’s fine to pull back on how much you’re offering.
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