updates: the out-of-control birthday celebrations, boss wants a timeline for my leaving, and more

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are three updates from past letter-writers.

1. Birthday celebrations are zooming out of control (#3 at the link)

The birthday celebrations continued for the next few birthdays after I wrote, but I gradually withdrew from them by saying I was too busy to do the prep work and/or doing a quick prep and then making up a conflict for the actual birthday presentation. Thankfully, this trend died out by the time my birthday rolled around, mostly because of multiple layoffs and resignations on the team, including the manager who was spearheading the whole thing. Afterwards, when we were back in the office more regularly, one of my coworkers confided in me how awful the presentations were and they were glad they stopped! We eventually went back to the usual email well wishes.

As a side note, I am no longer at that company, but looking back I see the whole incident as a symptom of the type of workplace we had, where small things often spiraled out of control due to a) the passivity of the overall team manager and the steamrolling nature of the other manager who led the charge and b) a culture in which nobody felt comfortable speaking up when they disagreed about how things were done. I now work on a team of three and our usual birthday celebrations consist of my boss taking all of us out to a nice lunch the next day we’re all in the office, which is great because I genuinely like my coworkers and we get to enjoy the fine dining in our town on the company dime.

Thanks again for your advice and the advice from the commenters!

2. Can I make my spouse wear noise-canceling headphones at home? (#3 at the link; first update here)

I wrote to you about a year ago because my spouse wouldn’t wear noise-canceling headphones or earbuds to work from home, but was constantly shushing me and the kids. My first update was that I realized we were all on edge because one of my kids was suffering from significant anxiety and disrupted sleep at home, and addressing that improved everything.

Well, my second update is that I have moved out and we are going through a divorce. Thank you to the commenters who identified that this demand was a red flag and indicative of some pretty unreasonable expectations about family life and what our obligations were to support his needs. It really wasn’t about this moment but a bigger-picture inability to engage with our family.

It’s really hard right now, and we are all pretty sad, but unfortunately I think this will ultimately be healthier for me and for the kids. I appreciate the AAM community.

3. My boss wants a timeline for me leaving and I haven’t even given notice

I wrote to you back in September 2016, and so much has changed since then. To sum it up: that job didn’t work out, and after being let go in February 2017, I focused on finishing my master’s before diving into the job search. I was determined not to settle for another bad fit, but with bills to pay, I worked temp jobs and did grocery delivery to fill the gap. Despite applying to hundreds of jobs, the rejections kept coming. By December 2018, I was in a very dark place. It had been over two years of searching with no results.

Then, I saw a job opening at a well-respected company in the community. I’d met the recruiter months before and reached out. He suggested a position I felt totally unqualified for, but he believed I had the soft skills they needed. Desperate, I agreed to an interview, and thanks to all the advice here from you and fellow readers, it ended up being the best one I’d ever had — and I got the job. The work was challenging, but my boss was amazing and helped me grow in ways I hadn’t imagined.

In mid-2021, our company was acquired, and by early 2022, my spouse’s health declined rapidly, making their ability to work uncertain. Once again, I was job hunting, but this time I had plenty of opportunities. I got an offer for a WFH job with unlimited PTO that doubled my salary. My old boss understood, having faced a similar situation herself when her husband became disabled 10 years earlier. I’ve been in this new role since summer 2022, and it’s been a great fit, and I have the flexibility to care for my spouse, who has a rare, but thankfully non-fatal neurological condition.

I’m writing to share two things: first, never underestimate your soft skills. If that recruiter hadn’t recognized mine, I wouldn’t have gotten that job. And second, I want to sincerely thank you. Ask a Manager changed my life. Thanks to it, I’m able to support my family on my salary and care for my spouse. I’m deeply grateful for you, and the advice and support of the AAM community.

updates: work doesn’t interest me, bringing a sippy cup to work, and more

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

1. Work doesn’t interest me anymore

I had progressed to the end stage of that job interview process I wrote in about. But what started as feelings of non-excitement turned into the strong epiphany that this ultimately wasn’t the right job for me, so I decided to remove my candidacy from the pool. From what I gather from those on the inside, it sounded like the position would’ve gone to me, but I felt no regret whatsoever to step back. I knew I made the right decision.

About a month or so later, I applied for another position I felt glimmers of excitement for. I heard great things about the team, the culture there, I knew their work well, and the position would allow me to go from managing a small team to an individual contributor role (without taking a pay cut), which was a major bonus for me. After interviewing, I was offered the position, and it’s been pretty great ever since.

And while I enjoy my work now and collaborating with other colleagues, it’s the work-life balance and flexibility my team lead offers that makes me feel closer to the feelings of excitement that I was starting to miss. They are infinitely generous with their time and energy, and they look out for their team members in ways big and small, protecting our wellbeing and always centering our needs before anything else. They also make it a point to carve out new opportunities for all of us, looking out for our career growth and development along the way. If I could give this person a medal, I would.

Although I don’t know that I’ll ever again have the level of excitement and ambition I felt early on in my career, I’m OK with that now because I’m in a place where I can do good work and be part of a team that demonstrably implements flexibility and empathy, respecting the fact that the working world has changed, that workers and their needs have changed, and that work needn’t be someone’s full and sole identity anymore. And now that I’ve been on the team for long enough to get a better sense of the pace and rhythm, I’m looking for volunteer opportunities outside of work that more closely align with my interests so that I can continue decoupling what I do for a living from who I am as a person in the world.

I feel lucky to say that it’s been a really positive experience for me so far. I also want to note how grateful I am to you and your readers for sharing their experiences in the comments section, too—they made (and still make) me feel so much less alone or weird or deficient for feeling this way about work.

2. Assigning tasks to an assistant (#2 at the link)

Firstly, my assistant’s work load was not beyond what he could get done. In fact, he’s allowed to bill up to 25 hours and he was averaging about 15 hours a week. So that was not the reason for the constant boundary setting.

The stress caused by my assistant’s “not right now but I can do it tomorrow at 10am” or “I am doing something else right now, and I can’t get to this until Friday” or “I can’t do this right now” — boundary setting responses with every single assigned task got to me in a way that I had to finally ask him to respond specifically like this: “I’ll add it to my list.”

I made it clear several times that when I assign a task, I’m not asking that it be done at the time I’m assigning it. I just need to assign and move on, knowing it’ll be done when he can get to it.

Eventually, after having to reassert many times that “I added it to the list!” is all we need to hear, that is how he responds and all is well. If there’s something super urgent, we talk about his workload to see if we can rearrange priorities, but usually he gets everything done pretty quickly so really, the timing boundaries were never really needed and did nothing but stress me out, and make me feel overly managed by my employee.

I’ve seen tiktoks and things on social media, telling employees to force their bosses into excessive prioritization of their schedule and I think it’s just brutal on the employer. We are too busy to micromanage your schedule. And if you make a mistake or need to re-prioritize, it’s not a reflection on your work, you’re not in trouble and you don’t need to be defensive. It’s part of working with others. Don’t put all of that on your boss if you’re not being pushed or over-scheduled. It’s not helpful and can turn your boss against you.

For us, it worked out though — and the vibe at work is much more productive, and calm for both of us.

3. Is it weird to bring my toddler’s sippy cup to work with me?

I wrote in a few months ago about bringing my toddler’s sippy cup into the office to rinse it out in the sink. Was I overthinking it? 100%. But I very much appreciated the nuanced response to my question! I found myself feeling weird walking down the hall holding the cup; and the feeling was reinforced by my confused coworkers occasionally calling me out on it. But to clarify, no one was ever rude about it or reacted poorly. My coworkers are all great – I think they were just caught off-guard by seeing the unexpected item and questioned it before they even realized the logical explanation of why I was holding it. And once I explained it, it was entirely a non-issue.

I was unable to respond to the comments, but I read through all of them. I appreciated the suggestions and alternative options. And I especially appreciated the commenters who “defended” not changing up my morning routine, because yes, the struggle is real in the mornings and I refuse to negotiate with my (now) 3-year-old before I’ve had my coffee! It’s not an option to rinse the cup outside or at daycare, so at the end of the day, I took Alison’s advice and changed nothing. Not only do I have some seniority in my position at the office, but I’m also the oldest in a recent influx of pregnancies and new babies among my coworkers – so I will continue to carry the cup with pride, secure in my conviction that I’m doing a social good and hopefully helping the other moms on my team (if only a little bit)!

4. I’m missing out on work conversations because I don’t smoke (#3 at the link)

I had forgotten about the Friends episode some commenters mentioned and I am an avid watcher of the program.

John was very good at his job prior to being promoted. What I meant by being “promoted out of his competency” (a term I was introduced to on AAM) was that it is difficult for him to change his mindset and have to manage his friends, interact with those who are not his “friends,” discipline staff, and be aware of how the whole department functions rather than getting input from a select few .

The smoke breaks are social, he is not going out there to hold “a meeting” and make others uncomfortable. He is a nice guy and they like spending time with him so he would be missed if he stopped going. The breaks lead to work conversations and chit chat, particularly when he and Jane walk to and from the break. My health issues are not severe enough to warrant ADA involvement.

I did not speak to John specifically about this issue and I also realized after reading the comments that for those not in his friend group his demeanor can come across as animosity, or at least indifference, which I do not believe is intentional. I did end up speaking to him about an incident where he did not communicate specific information related to my job duty but did to others who had no involvement, and he seemed to be somewhat taken aback so I don’t think he would have been receptive to having a discussion about his smoke breaks. I do plan to speak to another director, who is also above him, about my concerns. They will be dividing up the director duties at John’s level so this is a good time to have that conversation.

update: stably employed but internally screaming

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer who was stably employed but internally screaming (#2 at the link)? Here’s the update.

Your advice and the responses to my initial letter were very insightful and validating, and it did help me accept the fact that I just don’t like this job very much. I have less than a year until my retirement account is vested so I’m not planning on leaving before then (unless I come across a really amazing opportunity) but working towards a mental expiration date is helpful.

At the same time, the spiraling I mentioned in my initial letter has, if anything, intensified. Whenever I make even minor mistakes, like submitting an expense sheet with math errors or populating the wrong column in a spreadsheet – annoying but not emergencies – I can’t help dwelling on it and feeling really stupid for a while. As minor as they are, they add up and I don’t want to be the person who submits unreliable work – even when I *think* I’m checking myself, somehow things still slip by that are glaringly obvious in retrospect (the recent letter about double-checking work also applies to me). And often when I ask clarifying or follow-up questions, I feel like I should somehow already know the answer – even when the answer is something I hadn’t even considered, which then makes me feel dumb for not thinking of it. It’s almost like the longer I work there, instead of feeling more secure in my expertise, I feel like more of a failure when I get something wrong (or just need information that, realistically, I have no way of knowing prior to asking). I’m creating a handbook for my position with step-by-step instructions for my recurring projects and my initial pitfalls so I know to avoid them in the future, and having it all written out is calming. But it doesn’t necessarily help with avoiding mistakes in the first place, or for moments where I need to exercise judgment.

Maybe I just haven’t been there long enough yet (the person before me was there for decades, so I feel like my ineptitude is even more glaring). Or maybe this is run-of-the-mill imposter syndrome, and I’m not used to it because I felt useful and needed at my last job, and had been there long enough that I didn’t spend so much time and energy second-guessing myself. Either way, it’s all further evidence that this isn’t the job for me. It also makes me think I should talk to a therapist and figure out the root causes of these feelings. No one has told me my employment is in jeopardy, and there are elements of my job that I enjoy and know I’m good at. But they tend to be one-time outliers, like thinking through how to improve a system, and not the rote tasks that make up the bulk of my day.

I wish I had a more upbeat response, but right now I’m kind of in a holding pattern and focused on keeping my head up at work and having an enriching life outside the office. If anyone has advice about how to stop spiraling, I’d appreciate it.

all of my 2024 book recommendations

All year long, I’ve made a weekly book recommendation when kicking off the weekend open thread. These aren’t work-related books; they’re just books I like, mostly fiction. Sometimes they’re books that I’m in the middle of reading, and other times they’re just long-standing favorites.

Here’s the complete list of what I’ve recommended this year (maybe in time for holiday gift-shopping!). I’ve bolded my favorites of the favorites.

Master Slave Husband Wife, by Ilyon Woo. The true story of an enslaved husband and wife who escaped slavery in the American south by posing as a white man (her) and “his” slave (him). This is utterly engrossing and will keep you up all night telling yourself you’ll just read one more chapter.

The Dinner Party, by Brenda Janowitz. Taking place over the build-up to a Passover seder and its aftermath, a family’s matriarch is extremely excited about hosting the rich family of her daughter’s new boyfriend but things go differently than planned.

Wallflower at the Orgy. Hilarious essays by the brilliant Nora Ephron on everything from warring restaurant reviewers to Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown.

The Golem of Brooklyn, by Adam Mansbach. A golem learns English by binge-watching Curb Your Enthusiasm and taking LSD and then heads out to defend the Jews. This was amazing.

Woman, Eating, by Claire Kohda. A lonely young artist, who’s also a vampire, desperately wants to find her place among humans as she struggles to come to terms with her relationship with her mother.

We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America, by Roxanna Asgarian. An infuriating, heartbreaking look at how six kids ended up removed from their families and adopted by a couple who abused and killed them. Much of the press coverage of this case focused on the adoptive couple; this book instead focuses on the kids’ original families and how the child welfare system failed them horribly.

Come and Get It, by Kiley Reid. The lives of a college RA, three dorm roommates, and a visiting writer intertwine in surprising ways. It’s about race, money, bad choices … and it’s so, so good.

Good Material, by Dolly Alderton. Reeling from a breakup with his girlfriend, a struggling stand-up comic tries to figure out why she left and how to move forward. Like everything she writes, it’s funny, relatable, and a good time.

Swanna in Love, by Jennifer Belle. A teenage girl, dragged with her little brother by their mother to an artist colony where kids aren’t welcome, becomes involved with a much older man. The subject matter is disturbing, but the writing is so good and perfectly captures the weird/heady/terrifying mix of naivete and bravado that is adolescence.

The Wife App, by Carolyn Mackler. Three friends create an app to monetize the mental load women typically carry for men.

You Only Call When You’re in Trouble, by Stephen McCauley. A man going through a break-up and his niece, who’s in a professional crisis, navigate their relationships with their high-maintenance sister/mother. It’s quietly funny.

A Beautiful Rival, by Gill Paul. This is a fictionalized account of the professional rivalry between Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, and I was strangely riveted.

Annie Bot, by Sierra Greer. A robot designed to be her owner’s perfect girlfriend develops her own consciousness and starts to question what she wants, and deserves, from the world.

The Husbands, by Holly Gramazio. A woman discovers that the ladder to her attic produces a seemingly endless supply of husbands. I didn’t know where this was going at first, but it ended up being surprisingly engrossing.

Victim, by Andrew Boryga. A man from a disadvantaged background finds success by embellishing his life story. Things don’t go entirely accordingly to plan.

Like Happiness, by Ursula Villarreal-Moura. When a reporter calls, a woman reexamines the relationship she had with an older writer as a young woman. Excellent.

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, by Tia Williams. A florist trying to break free from her socialite family finds a strange connection with a musician. It’s romance, but it’s also about chosen family, magic, and the Harlem Renaissance, and Tia Williams writes so beautifully.

Funny Story, by Emily Henry. When a librarian’s fiancé leaves her for his long-time best friend, she moves in with the ex’s new fiancée’s ex-boyfriend.

The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley. As part of a study of time travel, a government employee is assigned to be the minder of a military commander from 1847. A culture clash ensues, as does a romance and a thrilling mystery.

Very Bad Company, by Emma Rosenblum. An executive disappears at a dysfunctional start-up’s annual retreat. If you like company gossip, even if not your own, this is very fun.

I Hope This Finds You Well, by Natalie Sue. A not-well-liked office worker who sticks to herself accidentally gains access to all her coworkers’ emails. It’s a surprising combination of darkly funny and sweet.

Within Arm’s Reach, by Ann Napolitano. Told from alternating perspectives, it’s the story of three generations of a large Irish-Catholic family that is forever changed when the matriarch becomes ill and one granddaughter unexpectedly gets pregnant.

The Paris Novel, by Ruth Reichl. When her difficult mother dies, a woman is left a plane ticket and instructions to go to France, where she finds the unexpected.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles, by Rufi Thorpe. A 20-year-old with a new baby turns to her pro wrestler father and a demented OnlyFans account to help support them. I did not expect to love this as deeply as I did.

Same As It Ever Was, by Claire Lombardo. A woman with a rocky history with her mom tries to navigate a life very different from her own upbringing. It’s about family, friendship, self-sabotage, and overcoming the way you grew up. It’s long — at times, I thought too long — but ultimately satisfying.

The Mythmakers, by Keziah Weir. A young writer recognizes herself in a short story by an author who she met years ago and tries to find out why.

Jackpot Summer, by Elyssa Friedland. In the wake of their mother’s death, three of four siblings win Powerball, but it turns out becoming millionaires overnight isn’t what they’d expected.

Hope, by Andrew Ridker. The ground shifts under each member of a family after one of them is caught falsifying data at work. Publishers Weekly called it a “pitch-perfect portrayal of Jewish American life.”

Sandwich, by Catherine Newman. This is the story of a family during their summer beach vacation, as the mom struggles with menopause, her kids getting older, and her aging parents. There are some very vivid descriptions of sandwiches, as well as the push and pull of family.

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, by Dorothy Gilman. A bored widow in her 60s walks into the CIA and walks out with a job as a secret agent.

Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend, by MJ Wassmer. A couple is trapped at an expensive resort after the sun explodes.

Fleishman Is in Trouble, by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. A man looks back at the break-up of his marriage as he fields dating, raising two kids, and the disappearance of his ex-wife.

A Likely Story, by Leigh McMullan Abramson. The daughter of a celebrated author struggles to succeed as a writer herself. Ethical missteps and family secrets abound.

Then She Found Me, by Elinor Lipman. A quiet teacher find her life changed when her birth mother — a flamboyant and somewhat narcissistic talk show host — finds her.

Really Good, Actually, by Monica Heisey. Reeling from the break-up of her marriage, a 20something woman tries to figure out dating after divorce, her ex, and how much you can really ask of a group chat. The main character isn’t very likable, but the writing is extremely funny.

Colored Television, by Danzy Senna. An author struggling to finish her book gets sidetracked by Hollywood. It’s a satirical take on race, marriage, career, writing, friendship, and betrayal.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea, by TJ Klune. The long-awaited sequel to the House in the Cerulean Sea, in which the two men running an orphanage for magical children must fight against danger from the outside world. Nothing will match the magic of the first book for me, but I was very happy to visit this world and these characters again.

A comfort re-read: Barbara Pym’s Crampton Hodnet, in which gossip and romance disrupt the sedate pace of life for an elderly woman and her paid companion.

Another comfort re-read: The Inn at Lake Devine, by Elinor Lipman, in which a Jewish teenager gets entangled in surprising ways with a family that runs a “gentiles-only” inn.

Blood Test, by Charles Baxter. A mild-mannered father is thrown after a blood test predicts he will turn to a life of crime.

Amp’d, by Ken Pisani. After an accident leaves him short one arm, a man moves back home with his father and tries to rebuild his life. Far funnier than you expect it to be.

Trust and Safety, by Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman. Sick of NYC and searching for a more meaningful life, a couple buy a dilapidated house upstate but find rural living isn’t what Instagram had promised. Meanwhile, their attractive and deeply cool tenants seem to have landed in exactly the life they’d wanted for themselves.

All Fours, by Miranda July. What to say about this book! It’s about marriage and parenthood and sex and perimenopause and obsession and trauma and aging and understanding yourself and being female. It’s intense and uncomfortable and I couldn’t put it down. And I know that tells you nothing, but saying that it’s about an artist who sets out to drive across country when life takes a detour wouldn’t come close to touching what it really is.

And if you’re looking for more, here are my lists of book recommendations from 2023from 2022 … from 2021from 2020from 2019from 2018from 2017from 2016 … and from 2015.

This site is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. I make a commission if you use these links.

my employee is vaping on video calls

A reader writes:

I manage a team that has moved to remote work. We are now holding all of our meetings through virtual interfaces. Recently I have noticed one of our employees vaping during our meetings with me and during all-staff meetings. Do you think this is appropriate or should I say something?

I answer this question — and three others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

  • My employee uses distracting verbal fillers
  • Should I tell candidates to stop applying for jobs they don’t meet the requirements for?
  • Telling someone we’re reopening but not hiring them back

office holiday gift-giving stories: worst gifts and weirdest gifts

In the spirit of the season, let’s hear about workplace gift debacles. Did a game of Secret Santa end in tears? Did a coworker throw a tantrum when she didn’t win a raffle? Did your boss try to give you Hanukkah balls? Were you given a jar of mold as a gift? These are all real stories that we’ve heard here in the past. Now you must top them.

Share your weirdest or funniest story related to gifts in the office in the comments.

I have regular happy hours with only one of my employees, coworkers complain I’m not as fast as my predecessor, and more

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. I have regular happy hours with only one of my staff members

I manage a specialty niche team of four within a larger department that otherwise doesn’t have specific teams. My direct reports are the only ones in the department who only report to one manager (me). Last year, I hired someone I knew from a previous job, let’s call her Mary, where we were at the same level, but now she reports to me. I am a happy hour aficionado, and regularly host happy hours for my staff where they are all invited (with no pressure to attend) and I pay for everything, maybe once or twice a month. These happy hours are billed as “unnecessary calorie hour,” because the goal is to focus on spending time outside work together in a less formal environment, not drinking alcohol. I do drink at these events, and historically, people who don’t drink have most often chosen not to come, whether they don’t drink for religious reasons or because they have a long drive home.

Increasingly, these invitations are only accepted by Mary, so we end up spending significantly more time together outside work than I spend with the others on my team. This isn’t a problem for me and I enjoy these outings, but I worry that the perception among the others on the team is that Mary gets special one-on-one time with me because she is my “drinking buddy.” I would be thrilled if others would attend and interact with me on a more personal level more regularly, but I also respect their off-work time and would never pressure them to hang out when they’d rather be doing something else. Mary definitely gets more of my attention because she chooses to join me at happy hour, and while it isn’t directly due to our prior relationship, I fear that it’s being perceived that way. But I want to keep doing happy hour because I really enjoy it! Since this is becoming less of a group-accepted kind of event, should I just stop doing it?

Yes, you should stop doing it. Regardless of your intent, the effect is that you’re having regular one-on-one social hang-outs with one of your employees, which can cause all sorts of problems with real or perceived favoritism. I get that it’s fun and so you’d rather keep doing it, but your responsibilities as a manager trump that.

If you want to keep having happy hours with colleagues, focus on organizing them with people who don’t work for you.

2017

2. My coworkers complain I’m not as fast as my predecessor

Two months ago, I received a promotion from a support position in a low-revenue department to a support position in a high-revenue department. The position had been unoccupied for a month and was previously held by a very nice and very helpful gal for a little less than a year.

I do not have a direct manager (just someone “over me” for administrative purposes who is willing to look over my work if I ask her to) and no one else in my office knows how to do most of my job duties, so I have mostly had to train myself. I am a one-person department. Everyone else in the department was laid off several months ago. They are working to hire a new manager, but it will be an outside hire. They are looking for someone with experience in the field but obviously they won’t know our systems or processes.

The problem is, I am constantly being compared to the gal who previously held my position. I’m constantly hearing “Katie was able to do this a lot faster” or “Katie could pull this report” and other things along those lines. (I hear this from coworkers but not from higher-ups.) How do I handle a situation like this? I really love my job and my employer but I’m concerned that I’m doing a terrible job.

People are astonished that you’re not performing at the level of your predecessor when you’re had no training and your whole department has been laid off? These people … are not very insightful.

Ideally a manager would be telling them to knock it off and pointing out that’s it ridiculous to expect you to perform like Katie when you’re brand new and have had no training or support. Since there’s no manager, you’ll need to do some of this explaining yourself. It’s going to be tricky because you don’t want to sound defensive … but the next time someone makes one of these comments try saying, “I’m sure she was. I want to be up-front with you that I’m still figuring this out. With the rest of the department laid off and no one here to train me, I’ve been having to figure this out as I go. If there are specific things you’d like me to do differently, please tell me! I’d welcome any specific input you have.”

Also — is there anyone else in your organization who does work that’s at all similar? Even if no one else is doing the same thing you are, there might be people doing work that’s similar enough that you could pick their brains or get some training from them.

2017

3. Urging my severely diabetic coworker to get treatment

This morning a coworker informed us she would no longer be buying candy for the department because her tests came back that she has diabetes. I gently inquired if she received her A1C, not intending to inquire the actual number, and it came to light that the A1C converted to an average of 450 mmg/doL blood glucose. Using the American Diabetes Professional conversion calculator, that’s an A1C of 17.3. A diabetes diagnosis is made when a person has two A1Cs of 6.5 or greater in a row.

She says she’s going to try to control it with a ketogenic diet (which she admits will be challenging) and I asked if she was working with a dietitian and she said no. I asked if “they” (meaning her doctors), put her on insulin and she admitted she didn’t see a doctor. She ordered the blood tests herself and has self-diagnosed diabetes.

Not realizing how seriously her glucose was out of control, I simply encouraged her to test her blood sugar so she would know where she was and how her body handled her diet. (I am also aware of the risk of ketoacidosis.) She lamented the cost of test strips and when I mentioned that if she got a prescription for the strips, insurance would cover it. Then it came out that she hasn’t seen a doctor since the early 2000s and seems to have some baggage about seeing one.

After mentioning her glucose reading to a MD friend, he said he’d hospitalize her with insulin treatment if she were his patient, and said that a diabetic coma can occur at 500 mmg/doL. So apparently her diabetes is really severe and I’m concerned that she doesn’t realize how bad her health has gotten. I want to encourage her to see a doctor for treatment, but I feel out of place. You and your readers are awesome about phrasing things and I hope you can come through for me on this. We have a good rapport, but we don’t have a lot in common over which we’ve bonded. I’d like to handle this with kid gloves so she doesn’t shut down the topic altogether.

“I don’t want to pry into your medical situation, so I won’t bring this up again — but I know a bit about diabetes and the blood sugar level you mentioned is considered extremely serious. I believe a doctor would tell you that you’re in serious and possibly immediate danger if you don’t get medical treatment right away. Again, I don’t want to butt in and I won’t continue to raise this, but I’m worried about you and want to make sure you know that the numbers you saw are a really big deal and you might not have a lot of time to wait to see a doctor.”

At that point, you’ll have given her the information she needs, and it’ll be up to her what she does with it — so do stick to not asking about it again after that unless she brings it up.

2017

Read an update to this letter here.

4. Company wants to call me for an “informal chat”

A few days after submitting an application for an open position at a major company in my city, I received an email from their HR saying that they would call me within one or two weeks for an “informal chat.” They couldn’t say when exactly they would call, but I didn’t need to worry about it because it was not an interview and if I was not available at the time they called, I could return it.

I’m confused by what this means. They say it’s not an interview, but if they get the impression from this call that I’m not a good fit, I will be disqualified as a candidate. How should I prepare for this? Do you have any tips for these “informal chats”?

Prepare for it as if it’s a formal interview. It might be one! Some employers are weird about this and like to make early stages of their hiring process sound more informal than they really are. “We’ll just have a conversation!” “Come in and get to know us!” But from the candidate’s side, those things are usually interviews, and you should prepare the same way you would if they were calling it that.

Occasionally it really is something less formal. It’s possible that they just want to tell you about the job and see if you’re still interested and/or learn a little about you. Even then, the best thing is to prepare the same way you would for an interview. Be familiar with the company and the job posting, and be ready to talk about yourself, your experience, and your interests. You might end up being over-prepared, but that’s better than being under-prepared.

(Also, companies: Stop doing this. No matter how informal these conversations are, they’re interviews. They’re part of your assessment process, after all. Call them interviews. You are confusing candidates. And schedule them for an actual time, not “we’ll call sometime in the next two weeks.”)

2019

updates: boss keeps bringing sick child to work, manager keeps asking for rides home, and more

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.

1. My boss keeps bringing her sick child to work

I tried to talk to my boss about her bringing her sick child to work with her. I tried to start with a lighthearted “they should be home watching the Price is Right,” but she shut down the conversation with a tirade about how hard it is to run a business and have kids, so I dropped the issue. Since then, I could tell that she’s had a shorter and shorter fuse, so I avoided bringing it up. I think her child must have had a good stretch of not being sick, because I didn’t see them for a while.

Unfortunately, she then scheduled to have her business renovated. The working conditions were by no means safe, but she refused to close. I brought up the safety issues multiple times, trying to frame it as “how can we figure this out together,” but she would throw up her hands and say that people would just have to deal with it. Another downside of the renovations is that she’s been so stressed about it that she turned me into her “emotional release valve.” She would lecture me for not doing things I was never told about, immediately blamed for things other people did, and whenever I fixed something she would refuse to acknowledge that I had fixed it and instead just find something else to complain about.

Long story short, I quit and cited unsafe working conditions. I also filed a health and safety complaint with the labor board.

Thank you for the advice (and all of the suggestions and support from other readers). Hopefully my next job will be better.

2. My employee wants to be promoted into a job that doesn’t exist here (and probably shouldn’t) (#2 at the link)

I followed your advice exactly. I told the employee that it would be very hard for us to make a case for the role, and if we were successful, the role would probably be moved to a different department. I was also honest about his current qualifications and how he’d need to close a gap between his current qualification and what’s needed in the role he wanted. I indicated that if he still wanted to pursue this, the first step would be to draft a document that actually makes his case. I also said that the easiest way for him to get this job, if he really wants a job like the one he’s creating, would like be to find it somewhere else where it currently exists (or exists as closely as possible to his ideal job).

I left all this in his court. I’ve heard nothing on this. However, this conversation ended up redirecting the employee. Rather than pursuing this job he’d imagined for himself, he has a renewed interest in his current job, even with regards to parts of his job that he didn’t previously have interest in. He seems to be happy for the moment.

Thank you very much for replying to my letter and your excellent advice!

3. My company has no reporting structure and no training

I’m happy to report that I took your (and your readers’) advice and walked away. I thought that was probably what I needed to do, but it was so nice to hear it from someone else when I felt like maybe I was giving up too soon.

When I gave notice at my old job, Malcolm’s reaction was shock. “But I didn’t think you were that unhappy!” was what he said. As if I hadn’t, more than once, told him “I cannot do my job like this and we have to change things.” He tried to counteroffer and promised to give the changes a try, but I knew he’d never follow through and politely declined.

I handed off my projects, checked in with those people periodically to see if they were doing ok or needed help, and otherwise took my hands off the wheel. I didn’t earn much those two weeks (we got paid based on chargeable hours), but it was worth it for the break.

I did a pretty honest exit interview and gave Malcolm some feedback for what would have kept me from leaving. I hope it helps my replacement, who was one of the team leads, is great at her job, and could really improve things if given the chance.

I’m now working for a private company in a role that is more suited to my professional skillset. Compensation is similar, I’m on salary (no overtime!), and I don’t have to manage people. I’m very happy!

4. My boss keeps asking for rides home

Funny enough, there is no update. Since writing that, he has not asked for a ride. He ended up getting a new vehicle and has not had any issues with it, knock on wood. He’s still a quirky and awkward man, but I haven’t had to give him rides anywhere. There have been a couple instances where we go off site somewhere and he has asked if we want to ride together, and I just always say no I’m taking my own car, and that’s that.

“I will confront you by Wednesday of this week”

Several years ago, a reader shared with us this epic email that was sent by their company’s boss after a holiday party gone terribly awry, and as we enter the holiday season we remember its glory.

“This happened about ten years ago, but the email I received from our boss was so epic I preserved it.

Context: The second year I worked at this company, our holiday party was held on a dinner cruise boat. Our boss footed the bill for dinner and an open bar, and a few other companies also hosted their own parties on the boat at the same time. Since I was underage at the time, I did not drink, and actually left early with my date. Everything was fine when I left. The Monday after, I rolled into the office– the first person there– and was greeted with this email from our boss [identifying details removed]:

‘Good morning to all. I hope all of you had time to recuperate and reflect about the unusual chain of events and circumstances at this year’s Christmas party. Some of you went home early and did not take in the full range of events.

Unfortunately, some of our staff got out of hand, including the spouses. Things were said, and things were done, that quite frankly were very inappropriate. Also, we had people from the adjoining group that decided to take advantage of our open bar and co-mingle with our group.

In regards to the inappropriate behavior, I am not going to go into all of the details, but let it be said that the root cause was probably due to the open bar. Some of our staff decided that the open bar meant that the drinking could be unlimited, not only in how much, but how they drank. As a result, some our staff and spouses decided that shots were OK. Shots were ordered for some who do not even drink. Shots are not OK at a company Christmas party. Other staff and spouses got multiple drinks at once for themselves and for people not even in our group. Others decided it was OK to get openly drunk and beligerent, to the point of making racial slurs. I, myself, am guilty of attacking someone from the other group after he decided to retaliate by groping my wife.

Having thought about the circumstances and the fact that we have to work together as a firm and team, some of you need to apologize for your behavior and/or for the behavior of your spouse. We specifically implemented a no fraternization policy and some of you could get fired on that alone, while other staff exercised no restraint over their spouse for their drunken condition. It is not OK for a spouse to misbehave, just because he or she is not an employee. Many careers have been destroyed, and people get fired, due to the conduct of their spouse. You are expected to exercise constraint over your spouse, or take them home. And if that cannot be done, then you should not bring your spouse.

In regards to the Firm’s policy on drinking, there will be no more open bars. Unfortunately, some of you and your spouses exercise extremely poor judgment. Because of this poor judgment, it puts the Firm at risk. Given the poor road conditions that night, some of you could have ended up dead. It is also unfortunate that a few have to ruin it for the whole group.

I would like to start the apologies by stating I am sorry for not handling the situation that I was confronted with in a different manner. I feel embarrassed, and it was not conduct befitting of the firm’s president. I also felt betrayed by some of you for patronizing the one individual from the adjoining group, who’s behavior was lewd and offensive, not to mention the outright theft by running up our bar tab.

I invite others to make some form of apology, either by email or in person for what they did or said, or what their spouse did or said. You can do this voluntarily, and you know who you are, or I will confront you by Wednesday of this week. I do not intend to ignore what happened. If I have to confront you, you could lose your job. I will be available Monday and Tuesday late afternoon, or you can email me and/or others. Let’s not let this one incidence stop us from being [#1 company in field]. We have a lot going for ourselves and let’s keep it going.’”

Read an update as well. 

update: my coworker is working alone overnight despite explicit instructions not to

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer whose coworker was working alone overnight despite explicit instructions not to? Here’s the update.

Your advice was really helpful, as were some of the comments (though many assumed that my colleague was making drugs after hours? Which is a wild thing to jump to, in my opinion!).

So a couple of quick notes:

A few commenters guessed correctly that safety isn’t actually my job, just something that was assigned to me because someone needed to do it. When I wrote in, all of my knowledge was based on personal research and reading guidance materials. I was in a position to make recommendations but I didn’t have any authority. I scheduled a meeting with my boss to talk about what that meant for me, legally, and his stance was that at the end of the day, I’m not on the hook for us being out of compliance. Making the company aware of safety issues was, at the end of the day, just a nice thing for me to do to help protect my colleagues. It’s the responsibility of the company to hire a trained safety specialist to manage compliance, and once we have the capital to make that happen, he will. In the meantime, he just wanted me to make sure that no one was storing open bottles of ethanol next to a soldering iron or wearing open-toed high heels while making 12M hydrochloric acid solution.

ALSO: THAT THING ABOUT OSHA NOT KICKING IN UNTIL YOU HAVE 11 EMPLOYEES IS A MYTH! OSHA guidance becomes mandatory as soon as you have TWO employees. The 11-employee thing is about reporting and posting injuries with the 300, 300A, and 301 logs.

Some people insisted that staying at the lab late was a definite, sure sign that my colleague was up to something nefarious, and he couldn’t possibly be a “good” coworker if he was having emotional outbursts or breaking rules. This is a thing I’ve noticed a lot while reading AAM comments: people tend to jump to the worst conclusions about what’s happening in the background, and have a really hard time believing that people can be complicated. My colleague has saved my butt more times than I can count, he is a team player to a fault, extremely detail oriented, and great to work with. Behaving badly in one area, or for a specific, limited time frame, does not erase that. (Note from Alison: Thank you pointing this out.)

The actual update:

I did end up mentioning it to my boss. My thought at the time was that, even if I wasn’t legally on the hook for anything, if he did get hurt or sick from working alone, I would never be able to forgive myself. I focused on the legal aspect when I wrote in originally because I felt like I didn’t have standing to say anything on any other basis, in part because he had insisted so vehemently that it was none of my business. Reading the responses helped me realize that actually, yeah, it was my business, for a whole slew of reasons.

It didn’t get fixed immediately, but I think coming forward helped flag the larger issue for my boss and his supervisor, who were able to communicate to him how big of an issue his general behavior had been over the previous few months. I don’t want to share too much of his business, but he was dealing with some really severe personal things and basically wasn’t able to sleep at all. Once he realized that we weren’t going to let it go, he made an effort to address the personal stuff, and over the next few months things got measurably better.

I want to be really clear about this: he wasn’t just being a jerk for fun or because he doesn’t care about people. He was dealing with things that no one should ever have to deal with, some of which were systemic and outside of his control, and it took tremendous effort for him to address those things (Extremely redacted version: a medical professional almost killed him through pure ineptitude and ego. Anyone here with a chronic, invisible illness is probably familiar with how hard it is to get doctors to admit that they made a mistake, or to listen to you about your symptoms.)

Things are much better now! I got some additional, real training on lab safety, I have a better understanding of the expectations for my role, and my colleague is back to working normal hours and being a pleasure to be around.