Ask a Manager

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

1. Offensiveness in the fantasy football league

I wish I had a better update for you. I’m pretty low in the HR hierarchy with my company, so all I could really do is tell my boss that we need to keep an eye on this manager because his response was incredibly concerning. This concern was well placed as someone else reported him to HR shortly after I wrote you for his public conversations on LinkedIn- more abrasive and politically controversial stuff the company does not want to be associated with. My boss had to speak with him again, and this time he sent her a wild 2 page diatribe on feeling persecuted at work. I wish I could send it to you because I’ve never read anything like it before, especially in a professional context. My boss, again, simply took note and moved on. She has since retired and her replacement thankfully takes these things way more seriously than she did. We now, months later, have someone transferring out of this manager’s department solely because of personality conflicts due to the manager’s abrasive demeanor.

The manager is excellent at a very difficult job and his boss loves him, but in my opinion he should not be managing people at all. He has since completely cleaned out his LinkedIn profile. He seems to have finally decided to keep his beliefs to himself, and my new boss is keeping a close eye on him to ensure he stays in line. I think that the changeover in HR was more necessary than anyone realized, as my former boss was more willing to accept some of these behaviors than my current one. People are more engaged in the culture and we’ve had more referrals than ever before. I wrote to you because I was questioning my reaction in comparison to my former boss, and you gave me the reality check that I wasn’t overreacting but rather she was underreacting. I am much more confident in my position now and know that if something like this happens again I won’t let it get pushed under the rug.

2. My boss says I’m not ready for a promotion, but is giving me work above my pay grade

In my original letter, I wrote about how my boss has been giving me work above my pay grade but said I was not ready to get promoted. I am happy to report that I started a new job shortly before the letter was published, which came with a 25% salary increase and a more flexible work-life balance! I had the best interviews of my career.

There are some things I wanted to touch on in my original letter. A key element that I did not include in my original letter is that my boss said that our department would be hiring for a newly created position, a Senior Z, which would have required several more years of experience and I knew I wasn’t qualified for it.

In addition to “not being ready,” my boss said that creating this new position would not leave enough room in the budget to promote me. I did not include this information because I thought it would out me if my boss reads AAM. It is possible a lower budget was a legitimate reason for being able to promote me, but there was never any conversation about other jobs that would fit me at our university. (“We can’t promote you to Senior X in our department, but this other department is hiring for a Senior Y which has a very similar role”).

I work in higher education, and I was surprised to see that so many of the commenters went through similar experiences. Contrary to what some commenters guessed, I do not work in Res Life or in any student-facing role. I do not envy anyone in those positions – y’all are seriously doing the Lord’s work!

I honestly did not want to leave the university or the people I worked for. I tried very hard to stay within the company – I applied to 5 different jobs in my field and while I came close a few times to a job offer, nothing really stuck. But at the end of the day, you have to look out for yourself and that’s what I did. I chose my career – and more importantly, me – over my employer, and I don’t regret it one bit. I like my new job, but I will keep the same mindset.

Thanks again to all of the commenters and of course to Alison for giving me helpful advice that I’ll take with me throughout my career!

3. My boss interrupts me while I’m presenting (#2 at the link)

My 20-minute presentation was sandwiched between two other 20-minute presentations that hour, so nobody had extra time. The boss didn’t have time for comments or impulsive encouragement to add to my talk, but I did write down some of those phrases to remember, because that’s really what I needed; a polite and pointed way to remind her to let me give my talk in the order of my slides. And trust that I know more about the topic than she does (which I do).

My talk went well enough that I have been asked to do a more in-depth training for the leadership in our company on the topic. This might be where those interruptions happen, but now I will be prepared.

Thank you and your readers for the advice!

4. Can I contact a CEO who offered me a job previously to ask about job openings now? (#4 at the link)

tl;dr: I didn’t reach out to the CEO but I did get a new job!

I work in tech, and obviously there have been lots of layoffs and hiring freezes lately. Shortly after I wrote in, the CEO’s startup took all their job postings down, so I figured it wasn’t a good time to reach out. I also hadn’t heard back from any of the companies I had been applying to, so I was feeling discouraged.

But! It was a blessing in disguise! I spent some time getting extremely clear on what I want in my work life: what I liked about my job, what adjustments I would have to make to find it tolerable, what an ideal job somewhere else would look like. When I eventually did start getting interviews, that clarity became super helpful! I was able to pretty quickly rule out roles that would not have been better than the job I was in and to find a few that were all green flags. I started at my new job a few weeks ago and so far, it is wonderful.