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Inc.com columnist Alison Green answers questions about workplace and management issueseverything from how to deal with a micromanaging boss to how to talk to someone on your team about body odor. A reader asks: I manage a team of four. One of my staff members, Jeff, asked to go to a conference that was about a five-hour drive away. I approved the request as the conference would be good for his professional development. Three other staff members from our closely connected teams were also going. Jeff registered for the conference. A couple of weeks later, he asked me about booking a flight to it. I was surprised by this, as the conference was a reasonable driving distance. I explained that the department would rent a van and the attendees would drive there together. (Our department wants to minimize expenses when reasonable, so this is normal unless it doesnt make sense logistically or financially.) He pushed back with a couple of reasons that he wanted to fly, such as it would save time and he didnt feel comfortable driving. I said that flying wouldnt save time since the airport is at least an hour away, you need a time buffer to go through security, etc., and the flight is two hours. I also knew the others going were comfortable being the drivers. He then said that he didnt want to be in a car for long periods of time since he sometimes has digestive issues. I empathized but suggested he make up a reason he might need more rest stops than usual and give the others a heads-up at the start of the trip. Something like, Sometimes I get woozy when Im in the car for a while, so I need to take more rest stops than usual. This was not acceptable to Jeff, and he ultimately decided not to attend the conference. It wasnt a huge issue, but he was salty about it for a while and complained to a few other people. Is it reasonable to expect employees to drive to conferences? Are there situations other than distance and cost where we should make an exception to our norm? Green responds: I think a five-hour drive one-way is a really long drive, and Im not surprised he expected to fly. Some businesses, especially those with more limited resources, do use a five-hour rule on business tripswhere if the drive is less than five hours, people drive instead of fly. Personally, it strikes me as too long. Yes, flying can take nearly as long when you account for security, delays, etc., but you can work on planes and in airports; its much harder to work in a car. But this also varies by field and, in some cases, by professional level. I did five-hour drives without blinking as a 20-something working at a nonprofit. I would not do it now. But even if this is the norm in your field, Id still make an exception for Jeff because of his digestive issues. Telling him to make up a story about why hed need frequent stops wasnt reasonable. Bathroom issues are private ones, and asking him to come up with a cover story while inconveniencing and possibly annoying his colleaguesand thus making that trip a lot longer than five hourswasnt fair to him. Plus, digestive issues can be urgent in a way that doesnt always leave time to wait for a highway exit, pull off the interstate, find a place with a bathroom, park, etc. Its very possible Jeff can only travel confidently if he stays within a few minutes of a bathroom. Personally, Id be pretty unhappy if I told a manager I had a medical condition that made long car trips prohibitive and was told, essentially, too bad. Im wondering if, at some level, you didnt fully believe Jeff and thought he was exaggerating to avoid having to do the drive. As a manager, you really need to default to believing people about their own health unless you have a specific reason not to. Otherwise, you can end up doing things that are really, really problematiclike denying people accommodations they actually need, or making them feel they need to disclose details that they should be able to keep private, or making them feel discriminated against. Thats not to say you cant ever ask for more info or propose a different accommodation (you can, and there are ways to do that legally), but in general, your default should be to believe and try to accommodate a good employee with a health issue. Want to submit a question of your own? Send it to alison@askamanager.org.By Alison Green This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister site, Inc.com. 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.
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E-Commerce
If I had a dollar for every time a Forbes 30 Under 30 alum has been charged with fraud, Id have $5. Which isnt a lot, but its weird that it has happened five times. By now, the Forbes curse has been well documented, from Charlie Javices JPMorgan fiasco (who was on the Under 30 list in 2019) to crypto poster boy Sam Bankman-Fried perpetrating one of the biggest financial frauds in history (he appeared on the list in 2021). This week, another honoree has been hit with federal charges. Gökçe Güven, the 26-year-old founder and CEO of fintech startup Kalder, faces 52 years in prison after being charged with fraud, accused of cheating investors out of millions. Güven was also featured in last years Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Marketing and Advertising category. The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that, during Kalders seed round in April of 2024, Güven raised $7 million from more than a dozen investors, presenting a pitch deck that misrepresented the number of brands working with the startup and inflated revenues. The 30 Under 30 to prison pipeline has not gone unnoticed online. Getting on the Forbes 30 Under 30 is weird: 2% likelihood you become a billionaire, 35% likelihood your company fails, 63% likelihood you end up in white collar prison because you stole money trying to become a billionaire, and then your company fails tech entrepreneur Chris Bakke noted on X on Monday. Someone needs to write about what it says about contemporary capitalism that SO MANY of the Forbes 30 under 30 list are frauds! another X user wrote. They should make a 30 under 30 where the people are doing legal stuff, another suggested. Güven joins the ranks of other infamous alleged fraudsters, many of which Forbes featured themselves on their inaugural Hall of Shame for Under 30 picks we wish we could take back in November 2023. Regrets, weve had a few, the publication wrote at the time. Among them is Bankman-Fried, founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and trading firm Alameda Research, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture after defrauding his customers out of more than $8 billion. Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Frieds sometimes girlfriend, who ran his Alameda Research crypto trading operation also followed in his footsteps, making the 30 Under 30 list the next year. In December 2022, Ellison pleaded guilty to seven criminal charges, including wire fraud and money laundering. In September 2025, Charlie Javice was sentenced to more than seven years for defrauding JPMorgan Chase out of $175 million to push through the sale of her student financial aid app, Frank. In 2023, real estate investor and 2016 30 Under 30 honoree Nate Paul was charged with various counts of wire fraud. Five years after making the list, Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli was sentenced to 7 years in prison for fraud in 2018, after hiking the price of a life-saving HIV drug by 4,000%. Many more 30 Under 30 alumni, while avoiding felony charges, have faced accusations ranging from sexual harassment to fostering toxic workplace culture. While its easy to dunk on Forbes for jinxing these bright young things by inviting them into an exclusive club with a not unremarkable number of grifters and fraudsters, the real culprit here, as Arwa Mahdawi wrote for The Guardian in 2023, is the fetishizing of youth. 30 Under 30 isnt just a list, its a mentality: a pressure to achieve great things before youth slips away from you, she wrote. The pressure can lead certain ambitious people to take shortcuts. For those hoping to make the class of 2026, just know the Securities Exchange Commission is watching.
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E-Commerce
Kristin Cabot, the HR exec at the center of last years Coldplay kiss cam scandal, is headlining a crisis communications conference happening later this year. Cabot will be seated on the panel “Taking back the narrative” at the PRWeek Crisis Comms Conference in Washington, D.C., on April 16, where individual tickets start at $875 per person. “While attending a Coldplay concert in July and unwittingly appearing on the kiss-cam for a few seconds, Kristin Cabots life blew up in an instant,” the description of the keynote presentation reads. “From the outside, it was an amusing, if unflattering meme; but for her, everything changed that day. It continues: Cabot experienced firsthand the extremity of public shaming that women have long experienced when in the negative spotlight of the media, one their male counterparts often seem to avoid.” In July last year, Cabot told The New York Times that following the scandal the meme had left her unemployable. She described being called every sexist tropea homewrecker, a slutby keyboard warriors, having her number doxxed and flooded 500 times a day, and her physical appearance scrutinized and torn apart by strangers online. While the other party in the scandal was also dragged online, much of the worst criticism has fallen on Cabot. Cabot will be joined on the 35-minute panel by journalist and communications professional Dini von Mueffling, who Cabot employed as her PR representative in the aftermath of the scandal alongside PRWeek Senior Reporter Jess Ruderman. The panel will unpack “the strategy both immediate and long-term that has helped Cabot take control of her narrative and rewrite her story.” Thrust into the national spotlight last summer (for those who spent those months living under a rock), Cabot is the former head of human relations at the tech company Astronomer. While attending a Coldplay concert in Foxborough, Massachusetts last in July, Cabot was caught in a 16second viral clip embracing the company’s CEO Andy Byron. Either they’re having an affair, or they’re just very shy, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin said as the jumbotron panned on to the pair. At the time Byron was married, while Cabot was separated. Before those details were able to come to light, however, Cabot and Byron had made headlines worldwide, inspiring countless memes and mocked even by their own company. Both Cabot and Byron resigned from Astronomer not long after.Cabot said in the Times interview: “I want my kids to know that you can make mistakes, and you can really screw up. But you dont have to be threatened to be killed for them.”
Category:
E-Commerce
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