June 2021

our employee lied about having a sick child

A reader writes: I’ve worked for a company for a little over 10 years. “Lysa” started soon after me. We work in a semi-small and close department, and about a year after she started she ran into a streak of bad luck. Her husband asked for a divorce and she found out her young daughter […]

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how can we get older members of our field to stop complimenting women on their appearances?

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I am a member of a prestigious society for my field, several thousand members strong. We include student practitioners, new practitioners, experienced practitioners, and people retired from our industry. So we have a very large age range — 20s to 90s. As you can imagine, […]

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are all jobs bad?

A reader writes: Are all jobs… bad? Because right now I’m looking around and feeling very hopeless about the idea of having a job that checks all the boxes: 1) pays well (or just a living wage), 2) isn’t totally toxic and/or managed by total clowns, 3) allows you to have decent work-life balance, and […]

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manager keeps talking about astrology, recording video calls, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Manager keeps talking about everyone’s astrological signs I work for a large, regionally significant nonprofit. My manager-twice-removed has been with our office for about three months. I have not interacted with them much, but every time we’ve met one-on-one they’ve asked me my zodiac sign […]

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update: I accidentally threw a sandwich and it caused a work crisis

It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager, where all month I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Remember the letter-writer whose coworker accidentally threw a sandwich, which hit their elegant, frosty grandboss, leaving an oily splotch on her suit? The grandboss mistakenly thought a […]

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