it’s five answers to five questions. here we go…

1. my wife has to repay for $3.91 for expensing aspirin on a business trip

i’m asking this question on behalf of my wife. because she travels for work, she was issued a company credit card for food, hotels, flights, and other miscellaneous expenses. on a recent business trip, she came down with the flu. she bought a small bottle of aspirin with her company card and continued to work through her illness.

when she returned, her boss had written “aspirin is not a business expense” on her expense report. he has apparently directed accounts payable to reject the charge and request that she send the company a check for $3.91. this strikes both of us as absurd and petty. on similar trips, this manager has used his expense card to buy expensive bottles of wine at dinner (not with clients). he has a history of micromanaging behavior and bizarre personal boundary violations that’s too long to recount here, but this is a little over the top.

i told her that she should say, “when i’m working with you, aspirin is a business expense.” she was wise enough not to follow this advice. she’s an excellent employee, was recently promoted, and has never misused company money or property. yes, she is actively looking for new jobs because of her manager’s ongoing behavior.

yes, this is petty.

i actually think that your wife’s manager is right that the aspirin shouldn’t really have been charged as a business expense … but directing her to pay back $3.91 is nickeling and diming her in a way that will ultimately cost the company more in employee good will.

it can be hard to know where to draw the line on this stuff, at times, and so some managers decide it’s easier to just draw a big, bright line, even if means creating situations like this one. he’s wrong to handle it this way, but i bet it wouldn’t bug you nearly as much if he weren’t so problematic in other regards.

2. being asked to apply for a job i’m not qualified for

i’m a full-time student in a graduate program that requires an internship to graduate. so far the search has been tough, but i had a break recently when i attended a job fair. i met with a very nice woman who reached out to me on linkedin and seems strongly interested in having me work in her department. she is asking me to apply that that specific internship within the organization, as well as to email her a resume directly (i left a resume with her at the job fair as well).

however, after looking at the posting, i am seriously unqualified for the position. it requires heavy technical skills that would beyond the scope of learning over a few months. there are other open internships far more suited to my skills and background. how do i let my contact know that i would love still to work at her organization, but that i might be unsuited for that specific role? cover letter? email?

well, she might have a slightly different role in mind for you, but you also want to make sure that she knows you’re interested even if it’s not for this specific role. i’d say something like, “looking at the job posting, i’m not sure if i have the background in ___ that you’re looking for; i wonder if the x or y internships would be a better match? either way, i’d love to work with you, and hope to talk with you soon.”

3. my employer wants me to stay in hotels that feel unsafe to me

i work at a nonprofit organization that is desperately trying to keep its doors open after losing funding from a large foundation. our e.d. has made conference attendance and “networking” a top priority (a policy i agree with). recently, in preparation for attending these conferences, i have been discouraged from staying at hotels at or near the conference centers because they are “too expensive.” now, i am about to attend a conference in new haven and was told that the city is “dangerous” (i live in brooklyn, so that term is very relative/silly to me) and that i should look into airbnb instead of staying at a traditional hotel because this will save even more money. after a week and a half of searching, i was unable to secure an airbnb pad, and now find myself once again staying far outside of the normal walking distance (my primary concern) from the conference center. one of the reviews for the hotel mention a shooting that happened during a reviewer’s stay. once again, the conference hotel was deemed “too expensive” and, no, i am not allowed to rent a car.

do i just need to suck it up and deal with these less-than-ideal circumstances because we’re a nonprofit or should i seek another path to securing safer/better accommodations, like speaking to the president of the board?

well, it’s not at all unusual for nonprofit staffers to stay in less expensive hotels away from where the conference is in order to save money. so that part, yes, i think you just need to deal with. and if it really rankles you, it’s possible that life at this particular nonprofit just isn’t for you.

but safety concerns are different. you should not go to the board, because it would be really inappropriate to go over your boss’s head — much less to the board (!) — on something like this. but you can certainly speak to your boss and explain that the only accommodations within the organization’s price range are ones that you don’t feel safe staying in. it might come down to a choice between paying slightly more for somewhere safe or not going at all, but that’s a conversation that you should be having with your boss. (i’d also try to reality-check those reviews if you can; surely there are reasonably safe but affordable places to stay in new haven? even if they’re far from the conference and require taking a cab to and from it — which you’d also need to factor into overall costs, of course.)

but ultimately this might be a question of whether the organization can afford the full costs of these trips; maybe it can’t, in some cases. and if their answer is that you need to stay somewhere you feel unsafe, at that point you’d need to decide if that’s something you’re willing to do.

4. interviewer said my major was “pompous”

i just had an interesting piece of feedback from an interview. it was for a spot on their science education team at a retreat/camp. let’s ignore the fact that the interviewing group knew me well because i have been volunteering there for a year and have been doing the work for the position they were filling. i didn’t get the job and i was left feeling a little led on so i asked for feedback.

the feedback from this science education team was, “great interview,” “excellent resume/application,” “strong background,” and “a little high and mighty about a pompous degree. feel free to just says it’s ‘biology.’” uh…

my undergrad was a zoology degree. i’ve run across people who think that i have a degree in kittens, but they were never from within the science community. during the interview when that came up, i took in the scientific educator audience and briefly explained that i was a zoology major who concentrated on comparative animal physiology. when asked to explain, i said that my senior project was on cardiology in various lizard species. unique and pretty useless? sure. high and mighty? i didn’t think so.

do i change my resume to say “biology” so that it doesn’t draw as much attention? since when is zoology a pompous major? were they just jerks?

they were just ridiculous people. don’t change the way you refer to your degree — which is perfectly normal and straightforward — just because of one bizarre experience. someone over there is a kook.

5. mentioning an interviewer’s son’s college search in my thank-you note

i recently interviewed for a job, and at the end of the interview, a member of the interview panel showed me around the office. during the tour, she mentioned that her son was applying to the university i currently work at. we talked briefly about it, and i mentioned how great the university was, something i really do believe.

would it be strange to say “good luck to your son in his college search” or “call me if you have any questions about touring or applying to [university]” in my thank-you note?

the first one is fine, but the second one comes up a little too close to the sucking-up line for my tastes (not that you are — just that it could sound like it). it’s stick just with the first.