can’t opt out of company’s “wellness” messages, copywriter is using AI to produce bad work, and more
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. I want to opt out of my company’s “wellness” messages
My company regularly pushes out “wellness” content to all employees — things like tips on diet, exercise, mental health, and mindfulness. The problem is that we don’t have the option to opt out, and I personally find a lot of the content intrusive or irrelevant. For example, I’ve received messages about topics that touch on sensitive health issues I’d rather not have my employer involved in.
I don’t want to seem ungrateful or negative since I know the intention is to promote wellness, but I really dislike having this material pushed on me without a choice. I’ve tried ignoring it, but they send it out via email and instant message daily. Sometimes multiple times a day! I already provided feedback about this in an anonymous survey but there hasn’t been any change. Is there a professional way to directly ask my company to make this content optional?
You could say, “Would you consider sending these through an email list that people could choose to opt out of, since some of these topics are sensitive ones?” You could also point out that people with a history of disordered eating are commonly advised to avoid diet advice and shouldn’t have it pushed on them by an employer (although that’s far from the only reason this is problematic).
If that doesn’t work, you could ask that they all have a subject line that would allow you easily filter them. Or, if they already do, you could just go ahead and do that — but it’s valuable for them to hear people don’t like this.
Also, you don’t need to be “grateful” that they want to promote wellness. They’re your employer, not your doctor, and you didn’t ask them to take this on … and if they really want to promote wellness, they could do things far more likely to have an impact and which are more solidly in their purview, like beefing up your health insurance and giving you more time off.
Related:
8 ways to promote employee wellness that would actually work
2. Copywriter is using AI to produce bad work
I work for a communications firm that produces a large amount of copy for our clients — social media, email campaigns, company blogs, brochures/fliers, white papers, billboards, print marketing, you name it. I’m a mid-level manager leading our copywriter team, though I don’t have hiring/firing power or much ability to set policy (I know).
Ten years ago, I’d have to be on the lookout for clients sending content from their competitors, wanting to use it as the basis for their own marketing strategy. Obviously, I had to steer them away from direct plagiarism.
Now, it’s AI. Clients are sending AI-generated text over without disclosure, expecting that we’ll use it wholesale in their campaigns. My direct supervisor is also a big fan of AI generation (to the point where she uses it even when it seems like it would have been easier to just write the email herself). And I learned recently that one of my direct reports is a big fan of AI — I recently ran some of his past assignments through an AI checker, and one from this year came up as 70% AI-generated, while one from 2020 came up as only 7%. He never disclosed to me that he was using AI on his assignments.
I’m having a hard time sussing out the balance between my own gut reaction that this is bad for job security and for the future of the field as a whole and the reality that I can’t lay down a ban on the technology. For one, my AI-friendly team member has a longer and more casual relationship with my supervisor than I do, and there’s my aforementioned inability to set policy.
I don’t want to come across as a luddite, and ethical arguments over stolen art aren’t going to go anywhere in this group (though they do move me!). But I do want to maintain some amount of credibility as a firm that creates high-quality content for our clients. And I know I’m not the only one who looks at AI-generated text and thinks “…ew.”
Suggestions for how to navigate a team conversation about how to appropriately use AI tools, how to react to clients who submit AI-generated briefs, and how to minimize the amount of AI-generated copy my firm puts out? If the 70% AI-generated texts are just the norm for business now (sigh), then that means I can start filling out my report’s workload with additional tasks, right, since he’s not spending as much time drafting and polishing his assignments?
In your context, your best bet is to skip the AI concerns completely and focus on the quality of the work — because it sounds like that’s the biggest problem, as well as the one that you’re best positioned to get tracking on. Handle the work that’s turned in exactly the same way you would have before AI was in use — meaning, presumably, that you’d flag the specific problems, ask for it to be redone, and generally coach team members to produce higher-quality work. If clients are suggesting text that you don’t think should be used, handle that the same way you would pre-AI.
That approach will probably make your last question (about sending more work to your employee) moot, but start there.
3. Am I hurting my career by setting boundaries on my hours and workload?
I’m a marketing designer at a tech company. My boss works nights, weekends, and even vacations. I keep normal hours because I value a life outside of work, but I still do high-quality work, meet deadlines, and get strong feedback from peers and other leaders.
For years I’ve asked what it would take to be promoted to senior. Each time I meet their criteria, the goalposts move — most recently I was told I’d need to double my output, and they sometimes compare me to contractors who don’t have the same workload. Instead of coaching in real time, my boss critiques me after the fact for not knowing things I couldn’t have anticipated. As much as I’m grateful for all of my growth, sometimes it feels like I’ve grown in spite of their managing, instead of because of it. My self-esteem has taken a big hit and I’m working on strengthening it. I just got a therapist, hooray!
Now I’ve been given two paths forward: be micromanaged into mimicking my boss’s style while doing twice as much work, or take a “self-guided” track at my own pace (which I chose). I can’t justify doubling my workload with no guarantee of more than a minimal raise. I told them I’d keep their feedback in mind as we go into the next quarter, while continuing to do dependable, strategic, high quality work.
Am I hurting my career by keeping boundaries around work, or is it unfair that I’m treated as if that makes me less deserving?
You might be hurting your career at this particular company by maintaining reasonable boundaries, but that doesn’t mean you’re choosing the wrong thing or that they’re right.
But they’ve made it clear that they’re not going to promote you and will just keep moving the goalposts, so why not look elsewhere? You said you’ve been here for years now and they sound kind of horrible. You don’t need to stay!
4. What’s the benefit to my employer keeping me as an independent contractor?
I know from reading your blog that I am almost certainly miscategorized as an independent contractor when I should be an employee. I’ve worked for my company for coming up on five years, and while there have been changes in the arrangement, even when I worked 40 hours a week as my sole source of income I have been treated, tax-wise, as a contractor.
I have raised before being interested in being an employee, but it’s pretty clear that they have no interest in changing the arrangement whatsoever— telling me that it’s actually better for me to be a contractor because then I can “set my own schedule,” “be my own boss,” and “get work outside the company.” While the flexibility has been really nice, and is the main thing keeping me here, I don’t want to do additional work when I’m working full-time for one person— and I don’t feel like my own boss! I just have to do business admin for myself while still having a boss.
In fact, I am fairly certain that pretty much every single person at the company is there on a contract basis— even though we do things I would expect a group of employees to do, like have weekly standup meetings, have company emails, have a ‘time off’ calendar (even though there’s no formal PTO policy, because, again, everyone’s a contractor).
I guess my question is what is the motivation for the company to do this? Is it just to avoid certain costs? And when do I need to just get out? There have been things that have been really great about this job but as time goes on I just start to feel naive and like I’m being taken advantage of. The hourly rate is very good, but of course, it stops feeling that way when I pay for taxes and health insurance by myself.
Your last sentence is exactly the reason your company likes keeping you as an independent contractor: it means they don’t have to pay payroll taxes (a cost to them of 7.65% of your salary, plus federal and state unemployment taxes) or shoulder the cost of other benefits like health insurance or paid time off.
5. Interviewing as a departing federal employee
I am a federal employee in D.C. So obviously I am looking for a new job. For the time being, I have the luxury of not being desperate, so I am only applying to jobs I actually want. In an interview, one of the first questions is always, “Why do you want to work at company X/this job?” While I have been with the feds for seven years, I have only been in my current position for one. And it was something of a lane change from my prior work. It should be obvious to anyone that I’m looking around because of the drastic changes in my department. So how do I acknowledge the orange elephant in the room without making it sound like I’m just applying for every job in the area?
“It’s an unstable time for government work, obviously, but for the moment I’m able to take my time looking for my next step to make sure it’s somewhere I”ll be happy staying for a long time. And I’m interested in this position because…”
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