thongs at work, the best interviewing order, and more (2024)

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…

1. Thongs at work

The other day, while I was at a healthcare facility where they do both clinical visits and operations, I saw a female employee walking by me, wearing her perfectly-acceptable scrubs, who was clearly an operating room doctor or nurse. For whatever reason (lack of sleep, my own HR awareness, curiosity) I noticed her buttcheeks were very … wiggly. She was slim, so it wasn’t super noticeable, but it definitely looked as if she was wearing a thong or other kind of cheeky underwear. For personal context, I’m a cis het woman, I’m an HR manager (not in a healthcare setting anymore, though I have been before), I’m not slim by any stretch of the imagination, and I don’t personally wear any undies that can rise up my butt — though I used to, but never for work. I don’t really care what anybody wears under their clothes, as long as the clothes themselves are appropriate for the work the person does. Still, something didn’t sit right with me being able to see that woman’s butt wiggle in that specific setting.

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She wasn’t my doctor or nurse, and I don’t know how I’d feel about it if she had been. So, my question to you is: the discomfort of having a piece of floss up one’s butt (while doing surgery!) notwithstanding, is what she was wearing ever okay?

I don’t know how we could conclude that what you saw was about her underwear rather than just … the way her body is? Regardless, though, as a general rule we’re all better off not thinking about what underwear anyone else is wearing or not wearing! Some butts are jigglier than others. Some boobs are jigglier than others. (And for that matter, not everyone finds thongs uncomfortable; some people find them more comfortable. Bodies are different.) As long as everything that should be covered is covered, we’re all fine.

2. Should I tell my trainers one of their examples was in poor taste?

I was just in a mandatory training for work about storytelling — more of crafting a story to get buy-in from stakeholders, etc. in business settings.

The very first example they led with to demonstrate strong and to the point storytelling was the famous “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn” example attributed to Hemingway. I lost a niece at eight months old in a very sudden and tragic way. To add to that, she died right around Christmas, meaning I had to donate/regift presents I had bought her for what would have been her first Christmas. This was four years ago and I’ve been to therapy and I have mostly been able to avoid any overly emotional reactions to about her at work. They started to ask people what they thought about the story around the room and I could already feel tears welling up, so I exited quickly and went to the bathroom but the waterworks had started and I could not stop them. I got them mostly under control, but when I came back in I kept welling up and I KNOW it looked like I had been crying. Some coworkers I’ve worked with long enough that they know what happened, but others don’t. Luckily it was a larger group of like 40 people, but I know the table I was sitting at could see what I looked like and to make matters worse I was sitting in the very front of the room.

Was using that example in poor taste or was I being too sensitive in that moment? I’m usually not that emotional, I truly could not stop the reaction once it started. They’ll give us a survey tomorrow when the training finishes, should I tell them to consider changing their example?

It’s a really common example of powerful storytelling using only a few words so I don’t think it’s outrageous that they used it in a work event … but their training will be stronger if they think about how things like that might affect participants, since they want people engaged with the training, not having to unexpectedly deal with intense personal feelings that they didn’t realize would be triggered today. They’ll never be able to stamp out all mention of things that might cause a strong personal reaction from someone, but I’d sure want to know how it landed with you if I’d been your trainer. So yes, go ahead and be honest on the survey. (And I’m sorry about your niece.)

3. What’s the right interviewing order to use?

When interviewing several candidates, what are your thoughts on whether the strongest candidate should be seen first, last, or in the middle? And if you were a candidate, which would you hope to be?

I don’t think it matters all that much! That said, if I were pressed to choose, when I’m hiring I’d rather have the strongest candidate at the end — because if you talk to them first, you’re measuring everyone else against them and that can lead you to overlook/dismiss other people’s strengths.

As a candidate, I don’t think there’s any point in caring. If you’re first, you can set the bar for everyone else. On the other hand, there can be power in being toward the end so you’re fresher in their minds. On yet another hand, sometimes if you’re at the end they’re already sold on someone they talked to before you and aren’t considering you as seriously. There are so many factors that can go into it, and they can change with every hiring manager and every interview process, that there’s no point in thinking about it too much.

4. Can I contact my partner’s employer to thank them for a perk?

Are there any reasons outside of emergencies where it is appropriate to contact a partner/spouse’s employer? Of course the standard answer here is no. But what if it’s to say thank you for a perk my partner received that I also benefited from?

My partner works for a company that often gets tickets to various sporting events as a perk. Think VIP passes for employees to woo clients and network, comped tickets to be enjoyed with friends and family or as a team-building activity, or tickets gifted as a bonus after a tough project or a job well done. My partner has been working on some really big projects and their director asked what he could get us tickets to to say thank you. We are fans of a notoriously expensive international sport which the director is also a fan of, so my partner asked if tickets to an event in a country we’ll be traveling to in a few months would be possible. The director was enthusiastic and not only got us tickets to the full multi-day event, but is continuing to work with his contacts to get us access to parts of the event that aren’t open to the general public. I am beyond grateful, this is a once in a lifetime experience for my partner and me, and we would have been thrilled to even have the chance to experience the event at all, let alone the (very good) tickets and extra perks that the director is working to get for us. For context, our tickets were about $1,000 USD each, and the additional experiences and access are based solely on the director’s social capital and string pulling.

I know this is a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of revenue that my partner alone generates for them, but I still feel compelled to say thank you (especially because the director included me specifically in offering tickets for the two of us)! I work at a nonprofit where this kind of thing just isn’t a thing, so I don’t have a context for this. Would a simple handwritten thank-you note for my partner to hand off next time they’re in the office together be appropriate? Or would I come off as boundary crossing or somehow too effusive? My partner is equally thrilled and has expressed their thanks via email directly, and doesn’t have much of an opinion on a proper thank you note.

Don’t do it. The director is giving those tickets to your partner as a business move, not a social one; he’s doing it to reward your partner, build their morale and make them feel appreciated, and increase their loyalty to the company. You’re benefitting from that, but it’s not a social situation. Your partner needs to be fully in charge of managing that relationship; they should certainly express appreciation, but it would be a little off to bring in a thank-you note from you.