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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and all during the fall pledge dive, we're talking to some of our favorite professional advice, givers on thorny issues like parenting, creativity, finances, and today we'll offer a little advice on workplace politics. My guest right now is Karla Miller. She writes a weekly advice column for the Washington Post about workplace dramas and traumas. Some of her recent titles include, my boss keeps telling me to calm down when I report problems. How do I explain that sexist? And how do I tell my coworker who is also my friend, that they did a bad job? Another one, Help, how do I turn down a job promotion? With me to go through a couple of these and to take your questions for workplace drama and trauma advice is Karla Miller. Karla is for the Washington Post. Hi, Karla welcome to WNYC.

Karla Miller: Good morning, Brian. Thank you so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners forget about Washington politics. Right now, we're analyzing your workplace politics. Do you need advice about a workplace politics situation with a coworker or your boss? 646-435-7280. Right now, are you trying to figure out how and when to ask for a promotion or is your boss playing favorites? Does your boss not respect your off hours on nights and weekends? Or do they ask you to do things outside your job description? Anything with respect to your boss at 646-435-7280 or maybe you're dealing with a bad or problematic coworker.

Are you on a team where you're doing all the work or are your zoom meetings front-loaded with boring sports talk? Maybe there's an office lunch thief in your midst. Do those still exist? 646-435-7280. You can ask Karla Miller from the Washington Post for some advice about dealing with a boss or dealing with a co-worker. Karla as some calls are coming in, let's get a sample of each one with a boss and one with a co-worker, who's not your boss. Starting with a boss question. I see that a recent reader asked you, my boss keeps telling me to calm down when I report problems. The one I mentioned in the intro, how do I explain that's sexist? What's the context there? And what did you tell them?

Karla Miller: Well, first of all, I want to say that I can vouch for the lunch stealing coworkers. I have a couple of four-legged ones here who want to take bites of my lunch every time I turn away from my desk. That is a continuing problem, even in the remote work context. Yes, this question from a worker was a-- this actually was a woman who was, every time she contacts her boss about a problem or an issue, people are not responding or providing what they're supposed to provide on time. When she brings it up with her boss, the boss says calm down.

It's getting her back up a little bit because this is something women in the workplace have to deal with is frequently when they are more assertive or more emphatic about how they present an issue, they are perceived differently than men in the same situation would be. We think maybe there's a little of this going on with this boss that he hears her bringing up an issue and he automatically ratchets it up in his mind as she's being emotional, she's being too excited about it. He says calm down. I got to tell you, calm down is the worst thing you can say to someone, even if there in need of calming down.

It just doesn't work that way. Ideally what he would do is ignore what he sees as the emotional component and just focus on what is the issue and resolving that. However, that's not what's going on.

Brian Lehrer: Doesn't always happen. Listeners, I should have mentioned, you can also tweet a question @BrianLehrer about a workplace issue that you're having with a co-worker or with a boss tweet @Brianlehrer. Another bad boss question. This is maybe the ultimate bad boss question. You were recently asked if there's any way to get rid of a bad boss and you suggested a soft coup. People can do that?

Karla Miller: Yes. There's a reason I said soft coup. I'm not saying we need to jump up on desks and start pumping fists in the air, but there are ways to go about it that involve talking to other people in the office, other leaders in the office, looking at what strong points this boss has and seeing if there are opportunities for him to use those strengths in other ways. Tap into him for what he's good for, ask his advice on things that he's particular really good at. Maybe suggest that some of the things that he's not so good at be taken off his plate, a sort of a, "How about if we let you focus on this other issue and we're going to take this issue and hand it off to someone else in the department."

I realize that's passing on more work to the people under the boss, but sometimes it's best to just get it off his plate and hand it to somebody who is better able to deal with it. In that way, distribute those tasks and put his focus elsewhere so that the things that need to be done can get done.

Brian Lehrer: Richard in Brooklyn has a boss question, Richard you're on WNYC with Karla Miller from the Washington Post. Hi Richard.

Richard: Hey Brian. I worry about my wife who gets very stressed as she's heading up a department at a university with emails that come in by the dozen, it seems that don't respect traditional work hours. The amount of times I've tried to ask her, or she's tried herself to really not check her emails after 6:00 PM in the evening, hasn't worked. I just wonder has any institution developed a system of, if this is a code red email, it needs to be answered within the next two hours. If this is code yellow, you've got three days. You get the idea.

Brian Lehrer: Karla, great question.

Karla Miller: That would certainly be, that that would make sense actually to assign priority but then you have those folks who are going to assign everything code red, for them everything is an emergency. Sometimes you have to set up your own boundaries for what you are and are not going to jump on right away. This is an issue that's coming up now out, especially during the pandemic, so many people working from home, they're reachable by cell phone and by email and they have access to that 24/7, but we need to draw boundaries at some point because it's not sustainable to be answering emails at all hours. We certainly couldn't do it before-

Brian Lehrer: What could his wife do to say this is really not okay? When she's not the boss, she's not the person who makes that decision.

Karla Miller: Exactly. How do you push back against that? Well, the first thing to do is the people who are your bosses, the people who might expect you to act right away, get in touch with them and find out what their expectations are. If you email me after hours, are you expecting a response within an hour or can I deal with it the next day? Sometimes managers will think of something and they'll fire off an email because they happen to think of it right then, but they don't actually expect an immediate answer. The first thing to do would be for her to find out what those expectations are.

Then for dealing with people who are outside that red urgent circle, set your own boundaries, mute your phone, or put it in airplane mode or set a time when you are going to set aside 30 minutes to just look at else but don't look at it before that or after that. Something I have been doing recently is appending information to my signature saying these are the best hours to reach me. If it is an urgent matter, please call my cell phone at. That's just automatically applied to the end of every email so people know what is the best way to reach me if it's urgent, how they can reach me, but otherwise, they know I will get back to them.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that's really good. Richard. I hope that's helpful. You can take that back to your wife and maybe she can take it back to her company. Here's why from a listener via Twitter listener writes, my salary has been cut 15% since the start of the pandemic and there has been no word, literally no communication from the top of our company in about six months, about it being restored or us going back to the office, what to do. I am angry

Karla Miller: Yes and there's something else I'm hearing a lot about with the pandemic. People have had to take pay cuts, cuts in their hours, and yet oddly, the workload doesn't slack off, they're still expected to do the same amount of work. Coming out of it as businesses start doing better, when they start making more revenue, they really need to think about how am I going to thank my employees?` How I'm I going to make them whole for sticking with us through all of this and restoring their pay, restoring the benefits that they've had to cut? If you're unfortunately working for a company that doesn't seem to be doing that, they're thinking, "Well, we're paying you the lower rate. We'll just keep on doing that until somebody squeaks." Pay attention to how the company's doing and how things seem to be going if you have access to information about revenues and when you see things improving, bring it up with your boss and say, "Hey, I know I took a pay cut six months ago, but I was wondering if there are any plans to restore that at any time."

Maybe if they're not going to restore the pay because they can't, there may be other non-tangible forms of compensation they can offer. Maybe they will offer more flexibility or offer some more time off or, something else that would make your life a bit easier. If they have no plans to restore your pay and they don't look like they're going to start doing it anytime soon, I'm hearing from a lot of folks that this is a good time to be maybe looking at new opportunities. There are other employers that are paying people well and have continued to pay, and don't have a lot of turnover, and are willing to welcome new hires on board. If you're not getting the responses you want, this might be a good time to start putting out feelers with other employer.

Brian Lehrer: One more on the phone, Christine in central Pennsylvania, you're on WNYC with Karla Miller from the Washington Post. Hi Christine.

Christine: Hi Brian. Hi, Karla.

Karla Miller: Hi.

Christine: I'm a fairly new graduate. After I got out of school I applied for a job. Got it. The job does involve about 40% travel. Now about a few months after that COVID hit and now I'm learning I don't like travel. How do I bring this up to my boss?

Karla Miller: I definitely empathize. Even being vaccinated, I am really nervous about getting on planes at this point so I feel your pain. If that is an essential part of your job, that could be problematic because they hired you with the expectation that you would be traveling. Obviously, COVID has changed a lot of people's expectations, but not all employers have adjusted accordingly. If you can find ways to accomplish the work you need to do without traveling, for example, through Zoom meetings or video presentations, rather than in-person presentations, start looking into that

Start looking at technology and what solutions might be available there and offer those as solutions to the boss. If it's a case where it's just, "Oh, it's just a day trip, and it's just for an hour meeting." That seems like something that could be accomplished just as easily over video. Then again, if there are things where you really need to be there in person maybe you can compromise and say, "For these kinds of tasks for these kinds of client meetings, I will travel for anything that's under a day, or too far away to drive, I would prefer to do it by video," and see what the boss says. Not throw down an ultimatum, but just express your concerns about travel. Assuming it's COVID-related concerns about travel and see if your boss is willing to meet you halfway.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting stuff, Karla, and really helpful to our callers and tweeters who have asked you some of these questions. Listeners, if you will want to see more of Karla Miller's advice regarding workplace politics, workplace dramas, and traumas, certainly how to deal with your boss in many respects, which is clearly what most of your calls were about today. She does this in a column for the Washington Post, and we'd love to have you back in, do it again here because there are so many questions we could have gotten to. Karla, thanks so much.

Karla Miller: Anytime Brian, thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC more to come.

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