Help! My Interviewer Juggled Her Screaming Kid the Entire Time. I Want to Rat Her Out.
Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here.
Dear Prudence,
I was virtually interviewing for a new position in our company with a recruiter who acted extremely unprofessional. Her child was in the room, crawling all over her and screaming his head off. I couldn’t get a question in without the interviewer immediately losing focus to deal with her kid. I asked if this wasn’t a good time and if we could reschedule, but the interviewer ignored me and plowed ahead, completely wasting both her and my time. The entire experience left me unhappy. She shouldn’t have had her child in the room, had someone else watch him, or rescheduled.
Part of me wants to go to a higher-up and complain, but my partner thinks I should let it go and give the woman a break because she obviously has it hard as a mother. I was raised by a single mother and she certainly wouldn’t have let me get away with how this kid behaved with guests, let alone interfere with her work. My partner suggested you as an uninvolved third party. What should be done?
—Unprofessional
Dear Unprofessional,
Have you ever heard of people evaluating job candidates by how polite they are to the members of the administrative staff they interact with, or whether they take responsibility for bringing their own coffee cups to the kitchen at the end of the conversation? I’m no recruiter or hiring manager and I can’t say whether these tactics are wise, but the idea is that when you choose someone for a role, you want to know about more than just their resume and their response to, “Discuss a time when you worked with a team to overcome a challenge.” You want to know whether they tend to be generous, conscientious, and kind in all of those tiny moments that make up a day and can contribute to whether a workplace is a pleasant or unpleasant place to be. I think you know where I’m going with this.
The recruiter didn’t give you her full attention, and that’s not ideal. But you won’t win any points by calling the manager to explain how your single mother would have handled the situation differently. What would your goal even be if you did this? To get this woman in trouble? To make her take a parenting course of your choice? The only somewhat reasonable justification I can think of for doing this would be if you weren’t invited back for a second interview. You could potentially argue that you didn’t have an opportunity to present your qualifications because she was distracted. But the chances that you’d receive more than a, “We’re sorry about that but we had many other qualified candidates” are slim to none. Refrain from reporting this. Not because you have to have compassion for single mothers, but because it won’t help you land the job.
Sometimes even Prudence needs a little help. This week’s tricky situation is below. Submit your comments about how to approach the situation here to Jenée, and then look back for the final answer here on Friday.
How do I get over my ex in a practical way? What do I have to do? Or say? Or think?! It’s driving me crazy. We got married about 20 years ago and divorced about three years ago. We have two boys together, and they still see him regularly. Things hadn’t been right for a long time. I know that I was fighting the temptation to browse dating apps during the last few months we were still together. I know that he never left his home office until I’d made dinner. I know his inability to clean up after himself drove me insane. And I know that his more laissez-faire approach to risk set my anxiety racing. I know that he didn’t really want me (I think he married me because I was pregnant, and I think he tried to do the “right” thing). He never made any effort to do anything with me. And I think this fed into me becoming depressed, irritable, and generally a pain to live with. I didn’t like the version of me that I became, so no wonder he didn’t either.
But now I feel so stuck. I am old, grey, and overweight. I don’t make enough money to pay the bills (he sends child support) and I feel like that’s because I took just over a decade out of work to care for the kids, whereas he worked his way up in the financial industry. But that’s not actually his fault. I didn’t have the education that he did, so I probably wouldn’t ever have earned as much. We could have looked into a nanny or daycare. I blame him for so much. 1) My lack of conversational skills because every time we tried to talk I felt like he told me I was wrong, so I learned to shut up. But am I re-writing the past? 2) Ending up in this backwater town. I miss the big city but the kids like that we only live a very short drive apart. 3) My looks and my pelvic floor, which really is just my youth.
He’s been nicer to me these last few months than he was while we were together. Sometimes I’ll text him an update about the kids and his reply mentions my feelings, which never happened before. He’s still incredibly closed off about his life. For example, I heard from a mutual friend that his dad had died. He had no reason to tell me now, but it made me realize that he never really would have told me how he felt about it anyway. He never let me be an emotional partner to him. He’d wake up from nightmares and never tell me what they were about. Or act generally stressed but never tell me what was going on. I hated how much he didn’t talk to me. So, why do I still want to be with him? And how do I stop it?! I can go from thinking it would be easier if he just dropped dead and viscerally hating him one second, to then realizing he still feels like family somewhere in my heart and daydreaming about getting back together. I saw his dating app profile recently. It’s exactly the kind of guy I’d want! But he doesn’t want me.
—Can’t Seem to Move On
Dear Prudence,
My husband and I have two children so we know how hard it is to get any adult time together without paying an arm and a leg for child care. We have started to trade babysitting with some of our new neighbors, but our problem is the single mother next door. She is always eager to make play dates for her kids at our house but always has an excuse for why she can’t possibly help with our kids. The last two times she was supposed to babysit for our date night she canceled on us at the last minute. It is extremely frustrating and unfair. My husband thinks we should just pull back and start making excuses when she wants something and focus on our other neighbors. I think we should give her a chance to explain herself, but I also agree that we don’t want to start a feud. Thoughts?
—No Date Night
Dear No Date Night,
Personally, I wouldn’t want to leave my kid with someone who was showing a lack of willingness to babysit—even if she owed me! Your neighbor backing out repeatedly is a clear message that she’s overwhelmed, unequipped, or simply flaky and not conscientious. As much as it’s tempting to give her a friendly reminder that she really does owe you a date night, let it go. Mentally move her from the “childcare exchange” category to the “my kid’s friends’ single mom” category and lower your expectations. From now on, when her children come over, remind yourself that they’re there strictly to play, not so you can bank childcare hours.
Submit your questions anonymously here. (Questions may be edited for publication.) And for questions on parenting, kids, or family life, try Care and Feeding!
Dear Prudence,
How do I let my sister-in-law know she’s overstepping boundaries with our son and grandchildren? We’re trying to fix a difficult relationship with our son and his family and my sister-in-law has stepped in and has taken over the role of parent and grandparent. She constantly invites our son and family out with them and excludes us. She gives our grandchildren multiple gifts and does the same with our daughter-in-law and son. My sister-in-law talks to our daughter-in-law about the difficulties we’re having with them instead of suggesting that they should talk to us.
Our daughter-in-law has mental and emotional issues that aren’t being addressed because our sister-in-law reinforces everything she says and does. We don’t want to compete with her but there is no way for us to try and repair our relationship while she is always there and stepping into the relationship. How do we let her know that we feel her behavior is sabotaging our efforts? We love our son and grandchildren dearly.
—Can’t Take the Lack of Respect Over Boundaries
Dear Can’t Take,
This is unfortunately not how boundaries work. You don’t get to create them for other adults and their relationships. It sounds like your son and his family enjoy what they have going on with your sister-in-law, and she enjoys their company in return. If you had a solid, healthy connection with your son, it could absolutely withstand him being close to another family member.
So the goal should not be to rein in or control this other woman, but to talk to him about your desire to be closer and what it will take to get there. Something tells me this will be a more emotional and difficult conversation than the one you were planning to have. Because it’s going to be about your behavior, and your feelings, and not someone else’s. It’s possible you may be the one who’s asked to change.
If you can, be grateful that your son and his kids have a loving relative in their lives. And be humble and curious enough to talk to him honestly about how you can join her there.
My boyfriend babysat my 3-year-old son for a few hours while I attended a seminar upstairs. I really appreciated it, and it seems like they had fun going out to the park. This was the first time they’d spent together without me. However, my son is now calling him “Daddy.” He’d never really called him anything before. I told my son that he should call him “Chris.” Chris waved me off and said that he actually told my son to call him that.
