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robininthelabyrinth · 5 years

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Eyestealer 7 - ao3 link

Fandom: Naruto Pairing: Senju Hashirama & Senju Tobirama (mostly gen, hints of other relationships)

Summary: Hashirama really doesn’t approve of the thoughtful way his father looks at his younger brother’s bright red eyes. He’s sure it doesn’t mean anything good for anyone.

He’s right.

——————————————————————————————

Hashirama actually spends the entirety of the afternoon where everything changes unconscious, which means he doesn’t know that everything has changed until significantly later.

Though he still finds out before just about anybody else.

“You’re such an idiot,” Tobirama tells him, afterwards, furious and elbow-deep in Hashirama’s stomach to rearrange the organs before Hashirama’s ridiculously accelerated healing fixes them into all the wrong places. “You should have dodged that.”

“I meant to,” Hashirama moans. Tobirama’s a great healer, even if he doubts his own abilities – just because Hashirama has the spare chakra that lets him skip the details in favor of brute-forcing the body’s own healing doesn’t actually make him better at fixing things. Tobirama’s the detail expert, the one who studied anatomy (mostly on corpses, which, ick!); if there’s something wrong on the inside, he’s the one to go to. Which is why Hashirama almost invariably does. “I just – if I’d dodged, they would’ve gotten the kids.”

“The kids are fully grown shinobi.”

“Sixteen’s too young to die.”

“You started with six being too young to die,” Tobirama grumbles. “Then it was ten. Now it’s sixteen...you do realize that if we never let any shinobi fight, ever, we’re going to run out of money pretty fast?”

He doesn’t object any further, though, which says everything Hashirama needs to know.

After Hashirama's gotten all fixed up – his stomach doesn’t even have a scar on it, of course, his healing never leaves him scars in a way that would be frankly a little embarrassing for a shinobi of his age if he didn’t have the healing to explain it away, but hilariously enough even Tobirama, who knows his healing factor better than anyone else, will sometimes, when he's very drunk, start petting Hashirama’s skin and marveling at how soft and unbroken it is – he grins at Tobirama and stretches ostentatiously. “See, all fine. No harm done, right?”

“Other than the years the stress has taken off my life, you mean?”

“Awww, Tobirama…”

“There – is something else,” Tobirama says, and Hashirama knew he’d been more angry and stressed than normal. Sure, it'd been a bad injury - most shinobi did not survive being disemboweled, which is what made this particular clan's signature move particularly notorious - and, yes, even Hashirama with his ridiculous advantages just barely squeaked through without dying, a risk he'd known he was taking when he'd leapt forward to take the blow, but even so, Tobirama was unusually upset.

Something was definitely up.

"Oh?" he asks, thinking in terms of strategy and tactics. Had he missed something? "What?"

“I had to use the Sharingan to end the fight quickly.”

Hashirama blinks, taken aback. He hadn’t realized the fight had gone that badly.

“Your guts were everywhere,” Tobirama says, averting his eyes to the floor. “How was I to know it wasn’t as bad as it looked?”

It probably was as bad as it looked, but, well, they’re not the two best healers in Fire Country for nothing.

(Sometimes Hashirama wonders if that medic knew what he was starting when he taught Hashirama that first jutsu, but no – back then no one even knew about the Mokuton, much less about Hashirama’s tendency to get hyperfixated on certain subjects that he then masters to an unnecessarily thorough degree.)

“Okay,” Hashirama says. "...so?"

Tobirama glares at him.

Hashirama holds up his hands. "Seriously!" he says, shrugging. He can't quite figure out why Tobirama is so stressed about it. Sure, he hates breaking his promise not to actively use his eyes, but he’d always left the door open for emergency situations, which this seems to have been. “The kids were unconscious at the time, so they didn’t see, and you killed all the attackers. So what’s the problem? If nobody sees it happen, it's the same as if it hasn't happened.”

Hashirama is a great believer in trees falling in a forest being functionally noiseless as long as no one is there to hear it. Tobirama, on the other hand, seems to think that things matter just for the principle, which is obviously ridiculous.

Tobirama makes a face at him, knowing exactly where Hashirama's thoughts are going. “Yes, well, even by your standards it was a problem: I think someone was watching.”

“Someone? Unspecified? The finest sensor in all the land can’t tell me who?”

“I was busy! They were hiding their chakra – fairly effectively, in fact –”

Pretty high praise from Tobirama.

“While I still knew they were there, of course, I didn’t think they were important enough to check out since they didn’t seem to have any intention of participating. You know I was already running on three days of no sleep before we were even ambushed! And once I was forced to use the Sharingan to counter those chakra-mangling techniques of theirs - whoever first decided to invent a method of using chakra to disembowel people should be lit on fire and not put out - I barely had enough chakra to drag you back here and heal you.”

“…Tobirama.”

“What?”

“Are you saying you left the kids behind? Unconscious?”

“I sent some people go pick them up once I got back; they’re fine. I wouldn’t have if there’d been any risk.”

Hashirama rolls his eyes.

Tobirama scowls at him. “Can you focus on the more important question here?”

“I don’t think it is more important,” Hashirama says, shrugging again. Tobirama was always more of a worrier than Hashirama has ever been. “Even if this mysterious watcher did see you, which you don’t know for sure, what’s he or she or they going to say about it? And to who? Oh, yes, I'm just going to walk into a nearby tavern and announce to all and sundry that the White Demon of the Senju has a Sharingan; that's a sound plan. Let him! No one’ll believe him, not in a million years."

"But -"

"Tobirama. There was only one watcher, right?”

“Yes, just one.”

“See? It’s fine. No external verification, no problem. Even if they somehow convince themselves that’s really what they saw happening rather than it being, I don't know, a trick of the light, they’ll probably assume they got caught in a particularly strange genjutsu.”

It takes some more convincing, but eventually Tobirama calms down.

So, really, it's no big deal.

Hashirama would have happily forgotten all about it - the kids certainly seem inclined to, since no one really enjoys thinking about disembowelment - except that Tobirama promptly leaps on the whole entire fiasco ans an excuse to insist that Hashirama practice being subtle more.

Hashirama protests.

Tobirama refuses to yield, justifying his stubbornness on the basis it was Hashirama's fault the rescue mission turned into such a disaster.

Hashirama would probably be on stronger ground if that wasn't, well, true.

Not that stops him from trying to get out of it.

Still, after the first five excuses Hashirama tries don’t work, he agrees.

That’s probably why he’s lazily practicing his ‘pretending to be a tree’ skill by the riverbank a week later when Madara and Izuna come out of nowhere.

Not good.

Madara he could get away with, sure, but with Izuna around? No thanks.

He doesn't like those odds - he'll make it out alive, more than likely, but Madara fights like he's possessed by a demon when his brother is around, and Izuna's distaste for the Senju (and for Hashirama personally, which Hashirama has never really understood but which Tobirama, sighing, explains to him is probably misplaced jealousy) is strong enough that he would probably pick a fight just for the principle of it.

And Hashirama did promise Tobirama that he'd at least try to avoid getting disemboweled again until everyone has gotten over the trauma of last time.

Hashirama very hastily makes himself a better pretend tree.

Amazingly enough, it actually seems to work, but probably only because Madara is so clearly distracted.

(Hashirama has never been able to hide from Madara when he's paying attention, and the reverse is true. He's not sure why that is - they're both above-average in sensing henges and clones and negative intent, yes, but people far less skilled than Madara have gotten by Hashirama before and he knows that the same is true for Madara. But each other? They always know if it's the real one.)

Still, Madara's entire focus is on the river and his brother, and he walks right by Hashirama who, in retrospect, should probably have stuck to the Senju side of the river for his practice session.

He does note that Madara’s biting his nails again, which he only does when he’s nervous.

“Put your gloves back on and stop that,” Izuna tells him, using a voice that sounded remarkably like Tobirama's own long-suffering tone. “Listen, okay, I dragged you all the way out here for a reason. I want answers.”

Madara pauses in the middle of putting on his gloves. “Answers?” he squeaks, then, with a force of will, swallows and says in a more normal voice, “To what?”

Izuna rolls his eyes. “Right. And that wasn’t suspicious at all, aniki. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

Madara grumbles and sits down by the riverbank. Hashirama is only three trees back from them.

If he just stays quiet and carefully avoids listening to their conversation, they might not notice him. He furiously thinks tree-like thoughts to avoid being sensed and then shortly thereafter dealing with attempted murder, which would undoubtedly spoil a very pleasant afternoon.

Water, soil, sunlight. Water, soil, sunlight. Water, soil, sunlight –

“I find myself facing something of a minor dilemma,” Madara says.

Screw sunlight, he wants to hear this.

(Tobirama says that Hashirama is a gossip. Hashirama says that shinobi are trained in information collection and that he's simply exercising his skills. Tobirama, at that point, rolls his eyes and says that if that were true, Hashirama would be more inclined to collect information that was actually useful rather than obtaining an encyclopedic understanding of who is sleeping with who at any given moment. Hashirama then claims that that information could one day prove useful, and in reply Tobirama tells him to prove it. They've had this exact discussion at least thirteen times and they don't seem to have tired of it yet.)

“You? A dilemma? You don’t say; I would never have guessed,” Izuna sniffs, then grins when Madara glares at him. “Yeah, yeah, you've been acting weird; I figured it was something like that. But what is it?”

Madara fidgets for a moment. “I saw something,” he says. “It was – a surprise.”

Izuna arches his eyebrows.

Hashirama mentally urges Madara to get on with it already.

“…I think someone in our clan might have raped somebody.”

Whoa.

“What?” Izuna says, sitting straight up. “Who?! When?”

“No, I mean, I don’t have proof! And I don’t know who. I just think it’s possible it might have happened, if you know what I mean.”

Izuna clearly does from the scowl on his face, although Hashirama doesn’t get it. That seems like a fairly yes-or-no answer in his mind - how in the world could someone walk in on a scene that makes them think rape was involved and not know? Hashirama would think that it'd be fairly obvious given what the scene in question must have been.

“Shit," Izuna says.

"No kidding."

"What makes you think it wasn’t consensual?” Izuna asks, which seems like a bullshit question to ask, in Hashirama’s opinion. Madara's impulsive, but he wouldn't leap to conclusions like that, surely.

Madara grimaces. “Possible, but the circumstances make it seem - unlikely. Besides, if it was, it wouldn’t be a problem, would it? We’d already know.”

Huh?

“Great," Izuna says. "Just – great. That's fucking great. Could it be…?”

“I really don’t think so, and anyway we haven’t had any, uh, instances recently. Not untraced ones.”

“Hn, fine, point taken. Is this something we could solve by…?”

“No.”

“We have to do something. If someone else figures it out –”

“There’s no immediate issue,” Madara says, holding up his hands when Izuna glares at him. “The situation is contained for now. But it’s…more complicated than you might think.”

“It doesn’t matter if it's complicated,” Izuna says firmly. “We're the clan heads, Madara. We have responsibilities. You need to deal with this. One way – or the other.”

“I know, I know, and I will,” Madara says, but he looks even more distressed than before. “Just – I don’t know. Whatever. I’ll find a way to deal with it. Pick another subject.”

A long, somewhat judgmental pause.

Hashirama wiggles an overly inquisitive squirrel off one of his branches.

“I’ve found a really great new sword technique,” Izuna finally offers. “Next time I meet Tobirama in battle, I’ll be able to skewer –”

“No!” Madara yelps.

Izuna stares at him.

Madara winces. “Let’s not discuss that here, okay? Too close to Senju lands. Someone could be listening.”

Don’t be ridiculous. No one’s listening. Hashirama’s just a tree. A nice, innocent beech of a tree.

Heh.

“Did you hear that?” Izuna asks, frowning and looking around. “It sounded like giggling.”

Oops.

...maybe Tobirama has a point about Hashirama not being good at subtlety.

Madara’s frowning now, too, and, yep, he’s going to start sensing any minute so clearly the only thing to do is to make the trees on the other side of the river start swaying pointedly until they catch Madara's attention.

"What is happening," Izuna says flatly.

“Just Hashirama. In a good mood, apparently, if his emotions are reaching the riverbank,” Madara says, seeing the trees wiggle in a happy dance. Hashirama can get a whole set to do it in time now but Madara doesn't seem that impressed, rolling his eyes, though his lips also quirk up a bit, making him look fond. “Don't pay him any mind, he just does things like that."

"I can't believe you actually like that man. He's an idiot!"

"I'm not disagreeing," Madara says dryly. "And yet the fact remains that I do like him. And be sure to remember that that 'idiot' could probably wipe out an entire unwary clan by himself if he wanted to. We should go.”

Hashirama’s sad to see them go, but it’s better than being found out eavesdropping on them.

…huh. If he really focused on this whole tree disguise thing, he might really be able to drop eaves on them. That would be hilarious.

Also, Madara would get incredibly paranoid, which would be even more hilarious.

He does wonder a little what they were talking about, that they felt the need to speak so obliquely even when they thought they were alone.

Uchiha clan business, undoubtedly. Nothing that concerns him.

#senju hashirama #uchiha madara #senju tobirama #uchiha izuna #my fic #eyestealer

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mrsteveecook · 5 years

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I don’t invite my boss to our parties but she keeps showing up, students who mix up their interview times, and more

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

1. I don’t invite my boss to our work parties but she keeps showing up

My team likes to throw parties: once a month we have a sit-down lunch, once a quarter we have a big birthday celebration, and then big holidays. These are not mandatory and are funded by the people who attend. Our team is 20 people of a 60-80 person group (depending on season). My group lead is generally not invited to these. When she shows up, what is usually an hour of talking and leaving work behind turns into 20 minutes of her making thinly veiled comments while we shovel food into our mouths (if we come at all).

I organize these things by putting them on the team calendar and posting a sign-up, nothing more. If people want to invite others, it’s up to them. I honestly would rather just have the current team attend than having a reunion every month. But it seems any major holiday I get on someone’s shit list by “forgetting” them.

I’m of the opinion that one of the downsides of being a manager is that you’re separated from employees and don’t get to be “chummy” with them. But how do I say that to a manager that’s trying to pretend that the gulf between us doesn’t exist?

It’s true that managers can’t be friends with the people they manage, but it’s not typically true that that means they’re not invited to office celebrations that are occurring in the office, and frankly, she may assume she needs to show up at these in order to seem part of the team. In fact, typically managers would go to gatherings like this, if they’re in the office and during work hours.

So I don’t think you can really exclude her from these … unless there’s someone who has good rapport with her who can say, “Hey, the team wants to be able to have some get-togethers without management there — maybe just pop in briefly to the birthday and holiday celebrations but leave them to do the quarterly lunches on their own?”

2. When student applicants mix up their interview dates

I supervise a small team of student assistants at an academic college, and I’m currently in the hiring process for a few more. Each year as students graduate we need to hire to replace them. However, I’ve run into the issue where each year, at least one or two students mixes up their interview time or date, and either comes in on the wrong date, or very early or late. For instance, this year one candidate showed up on Tuesday instead of Thursday, and another arrived thinking that their interview was at 11 a.m., rather than 2 p.m.

When this happens, I ask them to come back at their true interview time and date, but there’s always some level of disbelief, annoyance, or attitude. Does this happen often outside of the academic world? Should I chalk this up as just being indicative of the college crowd, or because it’s only a student position? Also, should this be a disqualifying trait? If the student comes back at the correct time, I tend to give them a “re-do” in my mind as much as I can, but sometimes it’s hard when you’ve seen that annoyed attitude.

Oh, students. I’d be inclined to cut them a little slack (not a lot, but a little) on mixing up the time if they otherwise seem really strong, because they’re students — but if they seem annoyed or otherwise have an attitude about it, then no. Having an attitude about their own mistake is a bad sign and indicates you’re likely to have other professionalism problems with them, and it also means they don’t meet the “if they otherwise seem really strong” caveat above. So I’d say the initial mistake itself need not be disqualifying, but the poor handling of it is.

It would be interesting to know what kind of data you’ve gathered on this in the past. Have you ever hired any of the students who got the appointment time wrong, and if so, how common is it that they turn out to great once hired? What about the ones who had the bad attitude? My worry with the first group would be that they’d mix up their work schedules or otherwise be less attentive to detail than you want, but it would be interesting to test that against actual data since we’re dealing with students, whose work habits aren’t so fixed yet. And my worry with the second group would be that they wouldn’t have even the baseline of professionalism that you should be able to expect from students, that they wouldn’t take accountability for their own actions, and that they’d be a pain in the ass to manage. On top of that, though, I’d argue that you don’t want to teach those students that rude behavior will be overlooked by their interviewers — and it’s useful for them to learn that now when the stakes are lower than they’ll be post-graduation.

3. Is our Secret Santa too expensive?

Am I overreacting or is $30 way too much for a secret Santa at work? People are creating wishlists of jewelry, candles, clothes, Alexa-compatible add-ons, and make-up. I work in an office where most staff makes about $12 an hour with a few upper-middle folks who don’t fall into that category (I am one of those). I feel uncomfortable accepting anything beyond a $10-$15 price tag from most of the staff, but since were all pressured to participate, I asked for a donation to be made in my name to a (non-political and non-inflammatory) charity I support. Ugh. Happy freakin holidays.

$30 is too much for an office where most people make $12/hour. That’s asking people to donate two and a half hours of their work — 6% of their pay for that week — to the cause of Secret Santa. Maybe you can discreetly ask around and see how people felt about it, with the goal of proposing a lower limit for next year (or just do that on your own without the research first — it’s enough to say “you know, most people here earn about $12/hour, let’s make this more affordable”).

4. I don’t want to circulate a former coworker’s resume

I am a few months into my new job. It’s going really well, and I’m very happy there. Recently a former colleague who I barely worked with asked me to circulate her resume for an open position in my organization. I’m concerned on two levels. One, on the merits, I don’t think she has the right qualifications (think teapot maker vs teapot marketer). Two, she’s a perfectly nice person, but I only worked with her briefly on minor matters and even still, I didn’t feel like she was a great resource, and my understanding is that others felt the same way. So I really don’t want to send her resume to anyone – especially because the hiring manager is not someone I even know very well or have worked with at all – given that that will be an implied recommendation. I know she’s been searching for a long time, and I have a lot of empathy for that, but I’m really not sure how to handle this.

Yeah, if you circulate her resume, you’ll be seen as recommending her. You have a few options. One is to say something to her like, “I don’t know the hiring manager well and am still new here, so I’m not really in a position where I can help — but I know they’re looking at all applications and the best thing would be to apply directly.” Another is to say, “I know they’re looking for people with more marketing experience so this might not be the right match.” And still another is to tell her to apply directly (saying they prefer all applications come in through their system, which is probably true) but agree to flag her application for the hiring manager — and then do so in a very honest way, saying something like, “My former coworker, Jane Smith, asked me to flag her application for you. To be candid, I don’t think she’s who you’re looking for, but I can tell you more about my experience working with her if you’d like me to.”

5. Talking to my boss about a potential move for my partner’s job

A couple of weeks ago you ran a question about a direct report whose partner was getting a PhD. (#3 at this link). What advice do you have for the other side?

I have been in my current position for about three years now. We moved to this city so my partner could pursue his PhD, and I have been very open about that since the beginning. When my boss, the CEO, called and made me the offer, he brought up my partner’s PhD and how, if things went well, we could discuss working remotely in the future. Well, the future is almost here; my partner is on the job market and there is an 85% chance we will be moving to another state in early summer of 2019. The likelihood that we will move to a place where I will have a wide variety of local job prospects is pretty slim (though I have a ton of transferable skills and a strong background/resume), but besides that, I enjoy my job and the company and would like to stay in my current, relatively senior role.

I haven’t brought this up with my boss. One of my coworkers and I talk about it regularly; we’re friends and I trust her, and she believes pretty strongly that my boss wouldn’t want to lose me. I believe I am valuable to the organization, and while I have no reason not to hold my boss to his initial mention of remote work, I am aware that “we can talk about it when the time comes” is not a guarantee that I can take this job with me when we move. (I do have three coworkers who are located in different states and we have an office of four people in another state, so working outside of this city is not unprecedented in my company; however, none of them work as closely with the CEO as I do.) Add to this that there are a ton of unknowns, like if we’ll move, where we’ll move, or even if I’ll go with my partner (if, for instance, he accepts a one-year post doc, I would probably stay here). With that in mind, I’m not planning on saying anything until our plans are set.

But I worry that I won’t have that luxury. End-of-year reviews are coming up, and for my boss, that usually means, “Let’s go out to lunch and talk.” I wouldn’t be surprised if he brings up our plans, even just casually, and while I know I don’t have to be completely open with my boss, I don’t want to be dishonest in the name of deflection. I’m okay with saying that there are a ton of unknowns and I’ll bring it up when I have a more concrete idea, but is that enough? Would I be taking a big risk asking about remote work now rather than later? On a more personal note, if my boss says that he doesn’t think being remote will work, then I’ll have to deal with job hunting stress on top of moving stress, and frankly, I don’t want to face that for a second longer than I have to (this is completely contrary to my normal MO– I’m a planner and I don’t like surprises!). Or worse, there’s always a chance that he’ll decide to let me go sooner rather than later (that’s pretty unlikely, but the stress talks loudly). What would you recommend?

Go with saying that there are a ton of unknowns and you’ll bring it up when you know something more concrete, but then add, “If it does turn out at some point that Cecil is leaving the area, would you be open to me working remotely? You’d mentioned that when I first started, but I didn’t know what you were thinking about it now.”

That way you’re not committing to anything and you’re not telling him anything he doesn’t already know, but you’re hopefully gathering more information about what his thinking will be when you’re ready to say something more definite.

You may also like:

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I don’t invite my boss to our parties but she keeps showing up, students who mix up their interview times, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

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billssefton · 6 years

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coworker is too aggressive about enforcing rules, colleague selling free stuff from work, and more

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

1. My coworker is too aggressive about keeping our lab clean

My colleague, who is my peer, recently got a responsibility he treats very seriously. That responsibility is focused around improvement of tidyness of the laboratory with a focus of reducing the risk of contamination. These are serious issues that I completely support — they are not only important, they are essential. Unfortunately, since he got that responsibility I find him unbearable: he bombards the team with letters about the “lack of discipline”; he tells us we are “looking for excuses” and the effect of negligence on our front are “gross.” He decided to clamp down on some minor issues and he is very committed to that task (while he doesn’t listen to opinions on the major, related issues, like cleanliness of the floor). He told me off for the supposed “bad practice” in front of the junior staff, and his rhetoric is really intense and at the moment is causing me anxiety and makes me self-loathe and makes me hate coming to work.

I would like to tell him somehow to pipe down, as at the moment my constant stress because of his attitude makes me less focused and less productive. I personally have lots of years of experience and my work does not suffer from contamination problems. I really do not want to appear obstructive — I wish him all the best with the difficult task he is fighting — I just cannot stand the constant crusade of pointing (some but not the other) errors in our work.

I also know he has struggled for the last few years with his performance, and he is trying to prove himself in this new niche — but I am tired of his clumsy attempts to shine. I would appreciate if you can tell me how to tactfully tell him to calm down a bit.

“Dude, can you take this down a notch? Reducing contamination is important, but this is way too intense.”

Or, “Hey, I support your efforts in this area, but none of us want to be scolded like this. Can you think about a lighter-touch approach?”

If that doesn’t work, talk to his manager. I suspect he’s gone rogue here, and his manager would rein him back in.

2. Colleague selling free stuff he gets from work

I work in a library in a university. We get a fair few donations of books, some of which we don’t need (relevance, duplication, etc.). I circulate lists of disposals to other libraries locally, then whatever’s left on the shelf gets offered to staff in the building. There’s always a scramble, and there are a few who descend like locusts and snap up the choicest morsels every time. You snooze, you lose, all’s fair and so on.

However, a colleague has raised concerns that another colleague takes some of the nicer books, then sells them on Amazon, pocketing the profits. I’ve not yet found concrete evidence to confirm this, and won’t take any action until I can be sure, but something about this strikes me as a bit … morally dubious. I can see if you’ve got a huge collection, and you realize that maybe you no longer want a particular title that you picked up for free, you might offer it for sale, but I suspect this isn’t what he’s doing. Given what he routinely takes, I worry that it’s more like he’s systematically depriving everyone else of certain (usually expensive and limited print) books to line his own pockets.

I feel like I’d like to address it with him or his line manager, but that it’s not really within my remit. After all, when those books go on that shelf, they’re effectively there for the taking, whether you decide to read them, use them to prop up table legs or shred them to line your hamster cage. Why shouldn’t I begrudge him this additional source of income? (The only reason I don’t do it for the library is the time/effort involved.) But it doesn’t sit well with me. As I said, these are often the nicest books (RRP can be $50-$75 or even a lot more for some of them). Is there any action you think I can take? Or do I find another solution?

Yes! It’s reasonable to officially say, “We ask that you take these books for personal use only. These are not for resale.” You’re not offering them to people so they can make money off of them; you’re offering them because they might derive personal enjoyment from the books, and there’s something unseemly about him rushing to deprive his colleagues of books they might want to read so that he can turn a profit.

And if you do find evidence after that that he’s taking them for resale, then he’s breaking a clear rule and profiting off his access to library books in a way that wasn’t intended, and it’s fair game at that point to tell him the books are now off-limits to him. If you don’t have the authority to do that, you probably do have the authority to bring it to the attention of someone who does.

3. Employer wants my salary history — but I’ve already accepted their job offer

I recently received a great offer to a new company, and they came in at exactly what I asked for. After I accepted and signed the offer letter, they sent me a link to enter my information to complete the background check, but in the employment verification section, they asked for my salary at every job in the past 10 years … and it is a required field in the form! I was unable to enter “n/a” so I submitted a zero so that it was clear that I wasn’t lying, just declining to provide the information. I’m not hiding anything undesirable, I just don’t see any reason they would need this information for such a long period of my career, and find it strange to be asked this on a background check. I would be curious to hear any thoughts, drawbacks, or suggestions on how to handle something like this in the future.

That’s actually a good way to handle it. It’s clear that you didn’t actually earn zero dollars at every job, so you’re conveying that you’re declining to answer that question. And you should decline — it’s none of their business. You’ve already accepted an offer from them!

If they come back and ask for the numbers, you can say pleasantly, “Oh, I don’t give out that information — my employers have always considered that confidential.” If they push, then you can say, “I’m confused about why you’re asking for it. I’ve accepted your offer. Can you explain why you’re looking for this now?”

More advice on this here and here.

4. Can I keep the money if I win my office’s March Madness pool?

This may sound like a silly thing to worry about, but I’m weirdly anxious about winning my office’s March Madness pool! We are a small company (nine employees total) and I am one of two remote employees on the staff. Last week, I received an email inviting all staff to participate in a March Madness pool — $15 entry, winner-take-all. I love sports and competition, so I immediately jumped on this and returned my completed bracket.

Now, though, I’m wondering what would be expected of me in the off chance that I win. Is keeping the money in poor taste? Would it be better to donate the money in the company’s name (and let my coworkers know), or purchase something for their office? If I worked in the same physical location as my coworkers, I guess I could bring in a box of donuts or treat to happy hour or something, but I’m across the country and won’t see them in person until August. I’m not saying I think I have the gift of magical foresight or anything, or that I think my winning is likely (although the pool is small so odds aren’t terrible!) but I can’t even enjoy rooting for my picks right now because I’m fixated on this. How would you proceed if you were in my place and happened to win?

You get to keep the money. Really — it’s totally normal to do that, and it’s what most people do. The exception would be if your office has some sort of specific-to-them tradition of you doing something else with it (and you could ask a coworker who’s been there longer than if that’s the case, if you weren’t there for the last one and it’s been a long-running tradition). But most people just keep it.

5. My peer did an exit interview with one of my employees behind my back

One of my direct reports put in notice for a much higher paying job with better benefits. A VP from another department, my peer, called this employee for an exit interview. During the interview the VP, asked the employee about my leadership; if I was driving them out of the company; and if I was competent. This seems inappropriate, but what if any recourse do I have?

Is there any chance that the VP was asked to do this by someone higher up? There’s a chance that could happen, like if they’re concerned about potential problems in your department and thought the VP had particular rapport with the exiting employee. But otherwise, yes, that’s inappropriate and out of line. You could talk to the VP and say, “I’m confused about how you got involved with the exit interview for Jane — what happened there?” Or you could talk to whoever normally arranges exit interviews and say, “I was surprised to hear Fergus called Jane for an exit interview — and frankly concerned about why he would be involved in something in my department like that. Can you give me any insight into how that came about?”