Should employees use sick time for doctor’s appointments?

Inc.com columnist Alison Green answers questions about workplace and management issues — everything from how to deal with a micromanaging boss to how to talk to someone on your team about body odor.

Here’s a roundup of answers to three questions from readers.

1. Should I ask my staff to use sick time for doctor’s appointments?

As a relatively new manager, I’m wondering about how to navigate sick time. Background: We’re 100% remote. I have weekly standing meetings with employees; apart from that, I don’t require details on what they’re doing throughout the day.

When I know someone is at a doctor’s appointment for a few hours, is it appropriate to ask them to use sick time? They didn’t originally document it as such, and I’m sure they made up their work in other ways, but I’m struggling to find the balance between flexibility in the current situation and enforcing workplace rules.

Green responds:

Are they getting all their work done? Are they working flex hours, so it doesn’t matter if they’re away from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. because they work a few extra hours later in the day or at night? Is your sense that they’re on top of their work and overall working the total number of hours you’d expect in a given week? Do they put in extra time when the work requires it?

If those things are true, you shouldn’t ask them to use sick time for a few hours at the doctor. It’s counterproductive to nickel and dime people like that, and it will make them much less inclined to put in extra time when the work would benefit from it. (On the other hand, if those things aren’t true, that changes the equation.)

In general, you should err on the side of being generous with people, especially around things like sick leave, which you want to be there when they’re actually ill.

2. Can I ask co-workers to go to vegetarian-friendly restaurants on business trips?

I am vegetarian. Normally, this is not a huge issue — if others want to go to a restaurant that doesn’t have good options, I can eat separately and everything works out.

This doesn’t really work on business trips, though, particularly if my colleagues and I are sharing a car. If we’re all going to a restaurant, then I have to go to that restaurant too, and I have to eat something while I’m there so I don’t starve. This is sometimes a significant issue, since a good number of fast-food restaurants don’t offer solid vegetarian options.

Is there a good way to steer groups away from restaurants where I can’t eat, without making me the rude person?

Green responds:

It’ll help if you research the area ahead of time and come prepared with specific alternatives to suggest. A lot of times, people suggest fast-food on the road because it’s easy and familiar, but if you’ve already done the legwork to find other places, often they’ll be perfectly amenable to that.

Then you can just be matter-of-fact about it: “I’m vegetarian and they don’t have anything I can make a meal of there — would you be up for going to X or Y instead?”

(Keep in mind, though, that if they’re suggesting fast-food because it’s fast and cheap, it’ll help to look for alternatives that mirror that as much as you can.)

3. What do I do when I inadvertently pass on bad info from a co-worker?

When I’m working on a project, I usually have multiple streams of information coming in that I have to manage for specifications, schedules, capabilities, etc. Every once in a while, I get some info given to me either directly or secondhand that is wrong. It hasn’t been a very critical piece of information yet. Usually it’s smaller things, like “Sure, we’ll move that piece of furniture over by two inches” or “We’ll have downtime tomorrow.” But when it comes time to act on that information, the furniture has not been moved by two inches and there is no downtime.

If it impacted only me, I wouldn’t mind because, again, it’s usually not critical. But an issue arises when I pass this information along. I usually say, “They said X” or “So-and-so told me Y” but when the thing isn’t done or isn’t true, I end up hearing, “You said X and Y, but those aren’t true!”

What’s the best way to handle these situations? And when it’s a more critical piece of information that I can’t fact-check (because the person I’m getting the info from is the sole supplier of said info, like shipping dates), what can I say besides, “That’s the information I got from Person Z who apparently straight-up lied to my face about that”?

Green responds:

You’re framing this as lying when it’s far more likely that the person just got it wrong. Thinking of it as lying puts a strange spin on it — you should think of it in terms of mistakes, not malice.

And mistakes happen! People think they’ll have downtime and then it turns out they don’t. People say they’ll move a piece of furniture and then something else comes up and they forget to do it. Obviously that’s not ideal, but people are human and this stuff happens.

If you’re getting blamed for that, the right response is, “Jane told me they’d be able to do X; let me check back with her and see what happened / get an updated timeline.”

Also, for what it’s worth, it sounds like people are making things a lot more personal in your office than they should be! You’re talking about people “lying to my face,” and other people are telling you “You said X but it’s not true” — this is all strangely adversarial and not how this kind of thing normally works. Typically you’d assume basic good intent and expect others to assume it of you, too.

Want to submit a question of your own? Send it to [email protected].

— By Alison Green

This article originally appeared on Fast Company‘s sister publication, Inc.

Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.