I am about to return from maternity leave after having my second child. I love my current job but it is very demanding. I have suggested to my boss that I do it as a job share, and have even found a woman who might split it. He claims the job needs to be done by one person and has offered me something else part-time that I see as a step down. I work for a Fortune 500 company that talks a lot about work-life balance, and HR has told me that the company values part-time employees. But I look around the organisation and see no female role models on job shares. Am I right to go on making a fuss?
Manager, female, 35

Lucy’s Answer

Don’t go on making a fuss. You won’t win, and I’m not even sure that you have right on your side.

You say your boss “claims” the job can’t be done as a job share – the implication being that he is a bigoted enemy of the working mother.

Depending on what the job is, he may well be justified. Most demanding managerial jobs in big companies tend to be done better by one person than two. This is why there are no senior “role models” in your company on job shares. Such arrangements can be fine at junior levels, and can sometimes work in craft jobs such as journalism. Sometimes senior jobs are shared in the public and voluntary sectors, but even there the record is patchy.

So, don’t protest, and drop your assumption that your manager is against you. In fact, it sounds as if he is being quite reasonable in offering you something else part time – which I suggest you take like a shot. Presumably the rate of pay will stay the same and, if the work is a bit less stressful than before, you should see that as a blessing. Looking after a baby and a small child is quite stressful too.

By far the most horrible thing about “the mommy track” is its name. Otherwise it is quite a nice place to be. All the surveys find that the happiest workers are part-time mothers – which I suspect is partly because they are not investing their entire selves in their work, and partly because the working part of the week is a respite for the body and a treat for the mind after the demands of the domestic part.

I don’t want to depress you further, but as you are 35 you have nearly three decades of working life ahead of you – which is plenty of time to go back to full-time work, if that is what you want.

I work on a charity committee with a man who has been in the news because the financial institution that he founded and owns has lost a breathtakingly large amount of money. We have a board meeting next week, and I was wondering what to do. Should I send him a card? If so, what do I write on it? I can’t really say: “So very sorry that you’ve lost several billion dollars.” Or can I? Or do I not mention it at all and next week act as if nothing has happened? Given the scale of it, wouldn’t that look rather odd? He is a very direct person, and I respect him but am also quite frightened of him. What is the form on these occasions?

Charity director, female, 52

Lucy’s Answer

In the old days the etiquette was clear. Losing money was a disgrace. This man would have been off your committee in a trice and if your paths had ever crossed again you would have cold-shouldered him. When Anthony Trollope’s villain Augustus Melmotte loses his fortune he is so traumatised by the shame that is bound to follow that taking his own life seems an easier way out.

By contrast, losing one’s money today is perfectly socially acceptable. It is quite possible to be on the front page of the newspapers for mislaying billions of pounds and then a few years later to be hailed as a financial wizard once again. Look at John Meriwether: one minute he was presiding over the collapse of LTCM, the next he has re-established himself as a hedge fund god.

This means that you need feel no embarrassment or dismay about the financial predicament of your committee member. If you want to be nice to him you should show no discomfort and indeed pretend that it is fairly normal to lose so much. Don’t dream of showing sympathy: alpha males tend not to want the pity of women who run charities.

Don’t think of sending a card. This isn’t a bereavement. Hallmark hasn’t yet made “heartfelt condolences on your financial ruin” cards – for a reason. Financial collapse isn’t really a greetings-card occasion.

If I were you I would briefly acknowledge it when he turns up. Say something like: “Thanks for coming today. I gather you have one or two other little things going on at the moment.” And hope he has the good grace to laugh.

I have just started in a newly created role to drum up clients for a mid-sized corporate consultancy. My line manager is a 50-something male who has been in his job for decades and whose highlight of the day is a hot lunch in the office canteen. Having tried time and again to enthuse him about commercial possibilities, he simply scoffs and sends me off on wild goose chases. I now realise he has been secretly siphoning off the leads and passing them off as his own. Is there a way to remedy this infantile behaviour or should I declare him a lost cause and start feeding him red herrings?
Discontented, 40-something female

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It is half term and I have sent my 10-year-old son off on his own to an adventure camp. The centre called last night to say he is really homesick, and I have spoken to them again this morning and he is still miserable. I would like to get into the car now and pick him up but if I go today it will mean being out of the office, and missing my annual appraisal with my boss – and she is famously disapproving of women who let their children interfere with their work. Should I let my unhappy son wait another day? Or should I go and get him now? In which case, do I tell my boss the truth – that my son isn’t even ill, just homesick – or do I pretend to be ill myself?
Manager, female 39         (more…)

I have been working at a financial institution in New York City for two years, and have a problem: I’m not given any work to do. I find myself asking my boss for work or offering my help in projects team members are working on. Even now, with quarterly reports, everyone in my group except me is submerged in work. At first I liked being slack, but now it is affecting my career and making me emotionally stressed. In a recent restructuring others were fired but I wasn’t. I don’t understand why this is happening and what I should do. Why would a superior do something like this to his or her subordinates if they are not going to fire them?
Analyst, male, 26

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A new recruit recently joined my team – an MBA graduate fresh out of London Business School. To the annoyance of all other team members, he is living up to the MBA acronym, Mighty Big Attitude. I am all for supporting up-and-coming leaders, but not to the detriment of others. He assumes he is on a fast track to senior management, name-drops his MBA theories, and is reluctant to do tasks he considers beneath him. How should I approach him about his manner in the work environment? I have no doubt he is a skilled worker but his cocksure demeanour and lack of team awareness must surely be addressed?
Manager, male, 51

Lucy’s Answer

There are few sights quite as ugly to someone with your length of experience as a jargon-talking young whippersnapper who thinks he is destined for the top.

Alas, one of the reasons the sight is so horrible is that the whippersnapper is likely to be right – I fear this one may advance far faster and further than you ever have. He talks the language, he has the ambition and people like him have a sickening way of doing really well.

I am assuming that you didn’t hire him yourself? If you did you are very silly: obnoxiousness is one of the few things that show up clearly at interview. It sounds as if you had him thrust upon you by someone senior, who saw promise, rather than a cocksure idiot jabbering about strategic initiatives.

In this case there is no point in wasting your time trying to coach him. He isn’t going to listen to you, as you are on the wrong side of the culture gap. You think he is pushy; I bet he thinks you are a has-been and a failure.

As his line manager it is simply your job to ensure that he does what he is supposed to do, whether he thinks it beneath him or not. If he refuses you have every right to come down on him very hard.

Either way I don’t think this situation will last long. Probably he will get promoted on to someone else’s team and you won’t have to think about him any more.

If he doesn’t, there is a good chance he’ll quit. It is encouraging that everyone else on your team dislikes him. Unless he is really thick-skinned, he may find that being ostracised in a job that he thinks is below him is not really a compelling value proposition. 

With any luck he will take his awful jargon to a management consultancy, where both his words and his attitude would fit in nicely.

I recently submitted an expense report following a routine trip to Frankfurt. Instead of attaching the total bill, I mistakenly attached a fully itemised printout. Unfortunately, this was returned to me, copied to my boss, with one item – “Private Room Entertainment: Adults Only Movie” – highlighted as an illegitimate business expense. I ordered the film more out of curiosity than habit and am usually meticulous over my expenses. I work in the finance department and am a loyal and trusted employee. The form was seen by my secretary, though, and I am anxious that it may become a topic of conversation with her lunchtime colleagues. How do I salvage the situation?
Manager, Male, 43

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My husband’s large aerospace company "went virtual" a year ago. He now works at home from 6.15am to 4.15pm Monday through Friday. He never takes a vacation and is in the house all day long. He has started complaining to friends and co-workers that being with me 24/7 is driving him crazy. It is driving me crazy too and I don’t know what to do about it. I could walk the streets all day - which might at least make me very fit - or I could sit in Starbucks all day and chat with other grande latte drinkers who have nowhere else to go. These don’t seem ideal solutions but I don’t see how we can continue to be in the house all day without destroying our marriage.
Housewife, female, 66

I work for a company in Russia and have an exceptionally attractive young woman on my team. She is 28, blonde, and quite beautiful. The problem is that my boss has developed a crush on her. Actually I think it may be rather more than a crush. I am almost certain that they are having an affair, depsite the twenty year gap in their ages and the fact that he is married. She is bright and capable, though somewhat over-promoted, and this is making it very difficult to manage my team. Most of them are males, many of whom also seem to have crushes on her, but now resent her too. Any ideas on how to manage the situation?
Manager, male, 35

I have been suffering from depression on and off for about 10 years. Recently it has got so bad that I have had to take time off work. I was forced to tell my ultimate boss, who has been fairly supportive, though clearly knows nothing about mental illness. I work at a bank, where the culture is macho. My persona at work is aggressive and upbeat, so I fear that if anybody finds out I am severely depressed they will conclude I’ve either gone mad or can’t hack the job. So far I have told them I’ve got a virus, but I don’t know if people believe me, and I think they may be talking behind my back. In some ways it might be easier to tell the truth, but I fear for the consequences.