Boss has premonition about employee
Dear Harriette: Ihada dream the other day that my assistant was about to resign. For the next few days, every time I talked to her, I halfway held my breath knowing that the next thing she was going to say to me was goodbye. And yet it wasn’t. She did ask to speak to me about several sensitive matters. They all turned out to be various business dealings that we were handling — until she wanted to talk about something else.
A week after having that premonition, my assistant told me she had “bittersweet news.” I knew what was next. She had, in fact, found a new job. She handled sharing the news with me well, and, of course, I wasn’t surprised. People have called me clairvoyant. I don’t know about that. I do know that my assistant and I are in alignment, and I knew what was going to happen. Because we work so well together, I’m wondering if I should try to get her to stay. — Clairvoyant
Dear Clairvoyant: It probably took a lot for your assistant to share her news. Don’t try to keep her from her next opportunity. Instead, thank her for her time with you. You can tell her you had a sense that this was coming.
Dear Harriette: I took the train home the other day. At one of the stops on this three-hour journey, a young man sat next to me in his assigned seat. We were seated at a table for four, and the other seats were occupied. As he sat down, all I could smell was weed. I was so disappointed to see this young Black man who appeared to be an upstanding individual contaminating the whole area with the smell of marijuana smoke. It doesn’t matter whether it’s legal — it is unprofessional to reek of weed when you board a business train to sit among other people.
As a Black professional woman, I wanted to pull his coattails, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of the white people who were sitting across from him. He pulled out a laptop and actively worked on it during the trip. He had good manners. His only issue was the smell that infiltrated our area for the whole ride. I thought I might say something if he deboarded when I did, but the moment didn’t happen. Do you think it would have been OK to say something if I had found the moment? — Cloud of Smoke
Yes! This is especially true, given the fact that this young man seemed to be on a professional track otherwise. He may not know how much the smell had stuck to his clothes when he smoked. There’s a good chance he had no idea that he had contaminated the area with this scent. Pulling his coattails to let him know that it’s not wise to smoke weed right before entering an enclosed space could be helpful information for him. The key would be to say it without judgment, just as a fact.