group member won’t stop talking, snack bar is in a coworker’s work area, and more

by Alison Green on October 8, 2024

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Writing group member won’t stop talking and we can’t get any work done

I work at an academic institution, and am a member of a writing group that includes people across different departments. We meet every few weeks to write as a way of carving out time for this work, and to hold each other accountable. We usually talk a bit right at the beginning of each session, take a break in the middle, and then chat briefly before leaving.

One member, however, loves to monologue, mostly about their own work, which is in a fairly arcane field, and which the rest of us do not fully understand. This member will often come in late, when the rest of us have started working, and start talking. This is fine, but they will not. Stop. Talking. They talk at everyone else, with little in the way of response, often for 30-45 minutes at a time. Aside from it being extremely draining having to be at the receiving end of this, my time is limited, and I really look forward to being able to write during these sessions, not listen to the nuances of the other person’s work. Any time they reach what I think is the end of what they want to say, I try to turn back to my writing or say, “Okay, time to write now,” but they continue talking. This person has a strong personality, which is why I think other members have neglected to try to stop them as well. It has gotten to the point where, as much as I enjoy the group otherwise, I would rather plan some time to work myself then lose so much to this rambling.

The members would all like to meet again in a few weeks, and I am struggling with how to say that I am happy to meet again, but I really need to buckle down and work. Such a statement would clearly be directed at one person, and I don’t want to start any drama. Beyond that, this person and I had a minor argument over an unrelated manner the last time we met, and I don’t want them to think I am trying to isolate them because of that instance. I don’t have any problem with this person otherwise, I just want my writing group to function as a writing group!

In the discussion about setting up the next meeting, why not say, “I’d love to set up the next meeting, but I really need quiet time to write. We’ve had lots of talking at the last meetings, which makes it tough for me to focus. If some of the group wants to talk and some wants quiet writing time, could we split into two groups so everyone gets what they need from the time?”

And then if the monologuer shows up for the “quiet” group session, you’ll be on solid ground saying, “Like we talked about, I really need quiet writing time. Can we save conversation for the end?”

2. Boss gave me mixed feedback on a task, then framed an interview question for a new hire around that exact task

I have been struggling lately with how my manager, Carrie, communicates with me, and I’m trying to figure out if this is something I should swallow or if it’s worth raising with her, and if so, how best to do that.

A few weeks ago, Carrie asked if I would join her at a meeting with two senior leaders she reports to, to provide an update on a project I’ve been working on but that she is officially responsible for. Later, Carrie decided the meeting agenda was too packed for me to join, so she asked me to prepare two PowerPoint slides to share with them instead.

The project has been to track progress on a high-level organization-wide plan and to document the status of 40 recommendations across four work areas. This is not information that can be meaningfully condensed into two slides. Wondering if she had something specific in mind for how she wanted me to present it, I asked for more guidance on what she wanted me to share. She said, “Just a recap on how things are going – what’s stalled, what’s moving, what hasn’t started, etc.”

I made the call to present the information in five slides – an overall summary, and one each for the four work areas and the recommendations for each. I shared the slides with Carrie and she said over instant message, “Although you went waaaayyyy over 1 to 2 slides, I understand why you did based on the info you provided! Thanks for this — it looks great and I like how you’ve provided the context for each work area diplomatically.”

If Carrie liked what I did and understood why I chose the approach I did, even if it wasn’t within the parameters she initially set out, why belabor the point? It felt unnecessarily petty, and a poor way to give feedback – especially in a written format where any lighthearted tone she may have intended was completely lost.

Then, later in the week, she asked me to review and comment on a draft of interview questions for a new hire for our team. When I reviewed it, I saw one is a scenario-based question framed around exactly the task she asked me to do: “How would you approach creating three slides for a presentation your manager needs to give on a project you’ve been working on but they provided minimal guidance on the content they want?” The qualities the question is intended to explore are “initiative and ability to work with minimal direction, while ensuring the content aligns with project goals. Look for creativity, organization, and proactive communication with their manager.”

Asking this question feels like a dig at me, somehow, given the feedback she gave me on how I handled this exact task. At minimum, she seems wildly unaware of how asking this question in an interview I am participating in would make me feel. How should I handle this? Is it worth talking to her about it? Or should I just let it go?

I think you’re reading too much into it. First, Carrie’s feedback doesn’t sound that mixed; it sounds positive. She noted you produced more than she asked for but also said she realized why, and she said it was great. That’s positive. If anything, though, she might have appreciated an earlier heads-up when you first decided to do additional slides so that she’d have a chance to say, “That won’t work since I already have too many. Can you condense it into three?” It’s always smart to alert your boss in advance when you don’t think you can do something within the constraints they assigned.

The timing of the interview question is, admittedly, a little weird. But I wouldn’t interpret that so negatively either. For all we know, Carrie appreciated what you did and it spurred her to screen for someone who would similar take initiative to problem-solve — or, sure, maybe the mention of “proactive communication” instead is getting at the point above. But it’s also possible that the question has nothing to do with what just happened (especially if she asks for slides a lot).

If it’s bugging you, you can always ask her: “I saw the interview question on X and wondered it stemmed from how I handled the slides the other day. Is that something you’d want me to do differently in the future?”

But I’d bet it’s no big deal at all.

3. Coworkers’ snack bar is in another coworker’s work area

I’ve got a low-stakes question for you. My coworkers have decided to start bringing in different kinds of snacks for people to snack on throughout the day (on their own dollar, which I really don’t think they should be doing on principle, but hey whatever makes them happy). The snacks have been moved around to a couple of different spots, but eventually the snack bar coworkers moved everything next to the mini-fridge in our area. The problem with that is it’s encroaching into someone else’s desk space! (We’re in an open office space. The mini-fridge is in a corner, and someone’s desk is right next to it. They’ve lined up the containers along the windows behind the fridge, but the windows go into this person’s desk space.)

It’s not my desk space, so I don’t really have the grounds to say something. Do I say something to my coworker whose space is being used? She’s relatively new, so she might not want to rock the boat about this. I just feel like this is extremely rude! There are other places to set up these snacks, why are you choosing one that’s already being used?

(Note: the snacks are all either still in their sealed packaging or are in sealable tupperware-type containers. No one’s said anything about any possible issues of just leaving food out and about for weeks at a time, and I don’t think it’s serious enough to raise to anyone.)

Eh. It’s minor enough that it would be completely fine to leave it alone or to say something. If the coworker whose space is being used weren’t new or were known to be reasonably assertive, I’d stay out of it. But since she’s new, it would be considerate to either (a) say, “Hey, can we move these somewhere where they’re not encroaching on Jane’s desk space?” or (b) ask Jane, “Does it bother you that these are being kept here? I can suggest they move them if it does.”

4. What’s up with the term “grandboss”?

I keep seeing the term “grandboss” on your site, and elsewhere. I have an immediate, nearly physical reaction of disgust to this term. The idea that your boss or your workplace is your family makes my skin crawl, and the idea of my boss’s boss specifically being my “granddaddy” somehow crosses the line even more to the point that it feels really yucky.

I’m confused. Why do you use this term? Why do others use it? I genuinely want to understand, because I can’t even begin to fathom accepting this as a normal thing, it just feels beyond gross and creepy to me.

I love your blog and I nearly always agree with your takes and enjoy your responses, so the use of this term and general acceptance of its use from others really throws me.

It’s just because “boss’s boss” or “boss’s boss’s boss” is unwieldy” and “grandboss” captures the hierarchy quickly in a way that’s easy to intuit.

No one actually thinks of their boss’s boss as a grandparent figure; it’s just easy shorthand. (I would fully agree with your disgust if anyone was actually using “granddaddy,” “grandma,” etc., but no one is using those — they’ve just borrowed “grand.”)

5. Can managers ever really get anonymous feedback?

We are a small team (fewer than 10 employees) at a large hi-tech company. There are plenty of avenues for team leaders and managers to give feedback to their reports, but nothing official in place for employees to give feedback to their higher ups.

My relatively new team leader (a little over a year) wants to institute a way for our team to give him feedback anonymously but doesn’t know how to go about it. When he brought it up at a recent meeting, one of my coworkers pointed out that it wouldn’t be truly anonymous as we are a very small team and it would be easy to figure it out, especially as some issues only apply to one person. Is there a way to ask for and receive truly anonymous feedback from your reports?

If you have a very large team, yes. Although even then, a lot of people will worry the feedback isn’t really anonymous (sometimes it’s really not) and won’t be candid. But on a small team, it’s often very easy to figure out who said what (and even more so if the survey includes any sort of job function or demographics).

It’s better for managers to create an environment where people feel safe giving feedback, even if it’s not anonymous (and which ideally would include cultivating good relationships between the team and the manager’s own boss, so there’s another path for feedback if something is really significant).

Related:
why do managers say they want feedback and then get annoyed when they get it?
how to get your staff to be more honest with you

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  1. Marshmallow*

    I wouldn’t say no one is using grandma and grandpa in a work setting for describing work relationships. It’s very odd… and I don’t care for it, but there’s a small handful of people where I work that refer to your boss as your mom/dad, your colleagues as brother/sister and so on… usually brother/sister is the most confusing cuz it could be a number of people. The other ones are usually more obvious.

    Anyway, I will admit it is rare but I have run into it… I’m still totally fine with grand boss and great grand boss. I agree it’s utilitarian.

    1. Joron Twiner*

      I think that “work mom/dad” and “work wife/husband” are more loaded terms that I understand viscerally rejecting.

      Some cultures use familial terms like brother/sister, aunt/uncle, cousin, and so on more broadly. They’re not as heavy, in my experience.

      I’ve heard “grand” to mean “skip level” in other contexts too. For example in a program where new workers inherit a position one after another, we’d use “predecessor” and “grand-pred” (one friend used “nextie” for the successor). I think the prefix is pretty convenient, and isn’t always limited to family (though I agree companies should not act like families).

      1. Momma Bear*

        I’ve heard “work spouse” (which I personally don’t like but don’t hate) but not work siblings or work parents (except maybe “office mom”, which is annoying for other reasons). Parent/child in my line of work is related to things like data tables.

        1. Jack Straw from Wichita*

          Same. Because the term “grandboss” doesn’t indicate any type of familial relationship.

      3. Thinking*

        We use this in needlework. For instance, I have socks where one toe is blue and then on the foot there are orange stripes, beginning very thin and getting wider as they go up until the cuff is all orange. The other sock of the pair begins orange at the toe and ends blue at the cuff.
        These are called cousin socks. They are gorgeous and I love them.
        Long explanation for a simple thing!

        1. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

          I love that idea – both reversing the order of tue colors on each sock, and calling them “cousin” socks. They sound very cool!

    2. GammaGirl1908*

      It never occurred to me to be bothered by this just because familial terms come up so often in innocuous cases. Think parent organization, sister cities, fraternity brothers, twin towers.

      I often note that two similar but slightly different things are “cousins, not twins.” My eyebrow lady is always telling me that they are “sisters, not twins” (so I don’t overpluck the second one trying to make it match the first). Et cetera. This to me is just an extension of that.

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        I agree. I have full body cringe to overt declarations of “we’re a family” – but the words out of that context are used descriptively all the time. If you are in a “we’re a family” workplace I can see those terms being more problematic, but for most people they’re just shorthand.

        1. Pizza Rat*

          “We’re a family” workplaces that I’ve been in have had myriad issues (and always expect more loyalty than they give). So glad I’m in a sane place now.

    4. Karstmama*

      My high school (junior and senior years only, residential) uses ‘grandsenior’, ‘grandjunior’, etc, as a shorthand for where someone falls above or below you. It’s just a known shortcut to explain graduation year.

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        Maybe I’m missing something – if they only have juniors and seniors, why is a shorthand needed? Isn’t someone just either a junior or a senior?

        1. Archi-detect*

          Yeah even at a full 4 year high school we always just used what class someone was, upper or lowerclassmen for the upper or lower two grades.

        2. Lab lady*

          Ive heard it from non American schools that don’t use jr and sr to mean grade 11 and 12

          person who graduated a year before me – senior

          person who graduated a year after – junior

          person who graduated 2 years before me – grand senior

          person who graduated 2 years after – grand junior

          1. londonedit*

            I’ve never heard this in the UK. We’d just say ‘they’re in Year 9’ or ‘they left two years ago’ or whatever. We don’t use any of the junior/senior terms in state schools, definitely not any of the other American words like freshman or sophomore etc. 30+ years ago the primary school system was divided into ‘infants’ and ‘juniors’ (so you’d have ‘second year infants’ etc) and then when you got to secondary school it was just ‘first/second/third/fourth/fifth year’ and ‘sixth form’. Then they changed it so the entire system runs from Reception through Year 1 to Year 6 at primary school, and then Year 7 to Year 13 at secondary school (though Year 12 and 13 are often still also referred to as ‘sixth form’ and lower/upper sixth). So if you’re in Year 11 and you refer to someone from Year 9, you know they’re two school years younger (the school year goes from 1 September to 31 August here).

            1. Irish Teacher.*

              Yeah, in Ireland, we’d just say “he was the year above me/the year below me/two years above me/whatever” but I can believe it’s used somewhere.

              I actually did wonder before your reply if it might be the UK because of the school that only includes the final two years at school.

              And by the way, in Ireland, we still have Junior Infants, Senior Infants and 1st class to 6th class for primary school, then 1st year, 2nd year, 3rd year, Transition Year, 5th year and 6th year for secondary school. Transition Year is optional, so you can go directly from 3rd to 5th year.

              Your school system really confused me as a kid because suddenly all the characters in my comics who had been 3rd formers became year 9s (and then there was the Dimsie series, which I think is Scotland actually, but I didn’t know the difference when I started reading it at 8 or 9 or whatever I was).

              1. londonedit*

                Yes, I was at primary school when it changed and it was quite confusing! Scotland is different again, too – I think their primary years are still called Primary 2, Primary 3 etc.

              2. bamcheeks*

                Haha, I was almost exactly this age- first year, second year, thir–Year 9? What? I still have to think and translate for any years below GCSE level because I didn’t naturally call them that at the time!

              3. Shouldbeworking*

                A fellow Dimsie fan?
                I think her school was on the south coast of England and the Springdale books were set in Largs.

        3. Karstmama*

          Yes, but who is Chris to me? Oh, they’re my grandjunior. I didn’t actually attend with them but I know them through my juniors.

            1. Jamoche*

              Chris is two years below Karstmama, who doesn’t know Chris because they weren’t at school at the same time, but does know people one year below them who do know Chris.

          2. amoeba*

            I get the usage, but here, we’d just say “he was two years below me, so we didn’t overlap, but I know them from the people in the year between us” (or whatever). So not sure why special terms are needed, but then… hey, why not, if people didn’t like them, they probably would stop using them!

      2. Big Senior*

        In Japan and Korea there’s a very important concept of people who precede and follow you in institutions like school or companies, etc. This is a different relationship from who’s the same year as you. In Japanese it’s “senpai/kohai” and in Korean it’s “seonbae/hubae”. We don’t have a good translation in English, but you might choose to translate using the terms “senior/junior”, though it would require some context or explanation for those to make sense.

        In the west we would just say “we went to the same school” for people who weren’t your same year, but in those cultures you’d say “that person was ‘senior’ to me at my high school,” even if they attended at a different time than you. I don’t believe that the number of years ahead or behind that person is built into the terms, but in Korea if you meet someone who graduated from your institution many years (like decades) before you, you might refer to them as a “dae seonbae”, a big (or grand) senior.

        I’m guessing that Karstmama’s high school has a similar concept but their terms for junior and senior have an amount of time built into it. So only those a year apart from you is a junior/senior.

        1. Nightengale*

          I went to a historically women’s college and we had sister classes. The frosh/juniors were sisters and the sophmore/seniors were sisters. Each class had a lantern in a different color. The class that had graduated right before you, that had the same color lantern, was your mother class.

        2. amoeba*

          Same thing exists in Japanese martial arts! I hear that there are some dojos who take that kind of hierarchy quite seriously (not us, we’re an anarchic bunch!)

    5. word nerd*

      For the OP, I wonder if it would help to reframe it not as “grand” like in “grandma” but “grand” in another word: a chess grandmaster, grand finale, grand duke/duchess, grand marshal, grand slam, etc. It doesn’t have to do with family necessarily.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        Yeah its a super common prefix. I am having fun imagining a visceral reaction to a grand piano though.

        2. Bringerofbrownies*

          I read that and immediately thought maybe this can be an invitation for the question writer to unpack that viscerally negative reaction to what is, really, a rather innocuous use of a common prefix.

          2. Bill and Heather's Excellent Adventure*

            Absolutely. There’s nothing wrong with the term in and of itself, why such a visceral reaction?

      3. Star Trek Nutcase*

        I too think “grand” isn’t used to imply a familial designation but rank. In decades past, I heard/used “big” boss but nowadays I think that would cause more offense (not to me) as again some would think it related to size not rank. Obviously, lots of words have varied definitions depending upon content – ex: rare, short.

        (On a side note, personally, I am tired of strict policing of words based on potential to offend someone(s) somewhere with total disregard for intent or traditional usage.)

          1. MigraineMonth*

            Well, now’s a perfect time to learn that both the term you mentioned (g*pped) and the origin term (g*psy) are considered racial slurs by the Romani people, who experience significant discrimination. I only learned the latter a few years ago! We learn new things every day, and we can learn to be more respectful by not calling people by terms *they* (not “virtue signaling” morality police) consider offensive.

          2. Irish Teacher.*

            That word actually is of racist origin though. I agree it’s harsh to judge somebody who was genuinely unaware of that but I don’t think it’s in any way comparative to using the term “big boss” which doesn’t come from fat phobia.

            With the example you gave, it’s not that it might be offensive to somebody. It’s that it originated from negative assumptions about a particular group, a group that still experiences appalling discrimination today.

        2. ecnaseener*

          “Big boss” is still used and I don’t think you’d be likely to have anyone thinking you meant physical size. But it’s not the same thing as grandboss. Grandboss specifically means your boss’s boss, no matter where you all fall in the overall hierarchy. Big boss could be any number of levels above you. You usually hear it used with “the,” implying they are the biggest boss of the context.

        3. Mockingjay*

          The hierarchy of family units is a universal concept which can serve as a metaphor for work hierarchy in these letters. It’s just a convenient way to describe the work relationships a letter writer is trying to convey in a few paragraphs.

        4. Johnny Karate*

          I think I would have to know some examples of what words you want to use without being ‘policed’ before I know if I agree with you. If it’s something like ‘grandboss’, I’m with you, I think it’s okay! But if you mean you want to use something racist or homophobic, I’m not with you. Offensive things are offensive, and as we get chances to listen to more voices of people who are not like us, we learn new things about language- even if you don’t intend it to be offensive or ‘traditional’ usage allowed it at one time.

        5. Petty_Boop*

          I agree. There is a lot of policing on this site for “potential offense” and “there may be someone out there with that very specific quirk you mentioned that could possibly not like it,” versus a legitimate,”Hey that’s not cool, don’t say that and if you don’t understand why it’s bad, here’s the history/reason it’s an ugly thing to say.”

      4. Buffalo*

        I’m more on the “grandboss *is* using ‘grand’ in the sense of ‘grandparent’ – but in a harmless way that isn’t meant to connote that they’re literally your grandparent” train.

        1. Reluctant Mezzo*

          Like the way the head of the university in Young Sheldon used ‘Grand Chancellor’ to fakeshuffle an important decision off to someone else that Sheldon couldn’t buffalo. Or find.

      5. Momma Bear*

        Yes, this. Also, “grandboss” is only something I use in informal context. Formally I would use titles “include the Director and VP”, with the understanding that the VP is the Director’s boss at our company.

      7. Pam Beasley*

        The first time I referenced my grandboss when talking to my boyfriend it freaked him out because it made him think of grand wizard (like the KKK). Once I explained that it was a skip level thing like grandparent he was fine with it. So the discomfort can go in either direction.

    6. Everything Bagel*

      I don’t blame you for being weirded out by someone referring to a co-worker as your brother or your boss as your mother! I’ve never ever heard anyone use terms like that any place I’ve worked in the last 30 years. Word nerd’s explanation in this thread of the term grand seems like a helpful way to think about it without bringing familial relationships to mind.

    7. wounded, erratic stink bugs*

      It’s also common or common-ish in academia— your advisor’s advisor is your grand-advisor.

      If it sounds like it’s supposed to be familial, I understand the squick! But it doesn’t sound that way to me.

      1. Panhandlerann*

        I never heard that in all my years in academia. I’ve been retired for six years now, though, so maybe it’s come up since I left.

      2. a clockwork lemon*

        Many college student orgs have a practice of pairing older students with younger ones and calling them “big/little.” My “little sister” isn’t my actual biological little sister, just like being her little’s “grandbig” doesn’t make me an actual grandparent.

        Any time someone chooses to be over-literal about stuff like this, I wonder what’s going on with them that they’re deliberately ignoring well-established vernacular in favor of the significantly narrower interpretation that gives them a hook to hang a grievance.

      3. amoeba*

        Well, in German, your PhD supervisor is literally called your “Doktorvater/mutter”, so… “doctoral father/mother”. Make of that what you will…
        (And yes, I mean, you do use that in official-ish contexts. Like, not on the document or whatever, but definitely in a work context. I actually wouldn’t know what else to say in German!)

    8. Nonprofit writer*

      I feel like it is only used on this site? I personally love it because I know exactly what it means. But I wouldn’t use it in a conversation because I don’t think people would know what I meant. I work with someone who was my colleague in another dept, then my boss, then my grandboss, and now that I am a consultant and he is working somewhere else, he is my client! When I explain this to others, I say boss’s boss, which I find unwieldy, but I use it to explain just how long we have known & worked with each other.

      1. WantonSeedStitch*

        I’ve absolutely heard people use it who are not AAM frequenters. I’ve generally heard it in informal contexts. For example, someone might post on Facebook and say something like “my grandboss said we could all leave early today,” or “my boss is nice but my grandboss is incredibly pompous.”

    9. fhqwhgads*

      Yeah but that’s not what’s being asked about. The phrase “grandboss” itself is not in any way intended to imply “grandparent”. It’s just taking the usage of “grand” – as in “grandparent” – to illustrate the hierarchy. Like Alison said.
      If some random individuals think of work people as grandparent-like, or parent-like, yeah sure that exists in the universe. But it’s a completely separate thing from the term “grandboss”. That word alone in no way implies someone thinks of their boss’s boss as a grandparent (or thinks of their boss as a grandparent). It just describes the degrees of separation.

    10. Dark Macadamia*

      I’ve only ever seen references to a “work spouse” or “work mom” (NEVER a work dad). It’s not a type of relationship I would want personally but they’re functional terms. Never heard of people extending it to other relationships!

  2. JSPA*

    LW1, would doing a remote option serve the purpose of carving out the time (and as a side benefit , let more people participate who can’t currently participate in person) while also allowing you to mute? I know a lot of people don’t ever want to do remote meetings again, But some of us still find them useful.

    If the chatty person were talking about things unrelated to writing I’d say you should just shut it down!

    But as they’re searching for feedback on something subtle that they’re trying to do with their writing? That’s an extremely normal thing thing that happens in any random writer’s support gathering–even if it’s not what your gathering has traditionally been focused on.

    There are any number of apps and non writer-specific groups that will match you with folks who are trying to carve out time to concentrate on something important to them. It strikes me that if you’re not primarily there for feedback from other writers and discussion about writing, you might even get as much or more support and validation from a set-up that’s not focused specifically on writers???

    1. Port*

      I’m not sure why LW needs to change up her routine or group membership or get an app when it’s the talking colleague who is misusing the space.

      1. Archi-detect*

        I also imagine virtual would negate a lot of the benefit too. A lot easier to slip off and check email that way.

      2. Crencestre*

        Because the talkative colleague has an overbearing personality that intimidates others in the group from telling her to be quiet; as a result, no one has told her that and she keeps right on turning the group into her personal monologue time.

        1. H3llifIknow*

          It’s interesting to me that you used “She” when in MY head the overtalker was a man. The LW was very careful not to use gender revealing pronouns, so I find it funny how we all form our own main characters in the story!

          1. Long time reader, first time caller*

            The use of “she” for the unnamed colleague may also be related to the default use of female pronouns on this site overall.

        2. Lenora Rose*

          This is still not an argument in favour of letting the overbearing personality drive others away, even if it is an argument as to why the overbearing personality is doing so and why the LW needs advice to stop it.

          I am a bit tired of hearing the argument that it’s better for the person suffering to leave than that the problem be managed.

    2. Academic who should be writing*

      Writing groups for academics are generally not focused on support and validation; they are focused on butts in seats to write. (No teaching prep, no email answering, no committee work!) As the LW describes it, in their group, people make small talk about their work around the writing (before and after), but it is generally a fairly unsociable practice. Only the one chatter is trying to talk about their work during the silent writing time. This group is not a venue for feedback or auditioning ideas or working through problems. (Not that academics don’t do those things! But that’s different.) It is a group to do the physical process of writing.

    3. KeinName*

      You could propose a schedule from a writing book. The schedule our researchers use is arriving on time, going around to share their goal today which is recorded on a pad, and then writing for 45 min, then a 15 min break, then another 45 min writing.
      I would be very pissed off if one member spent 45 min talking because it completely negates the purpose of the meeting.

      1. ecnaseener*

        It sounds like LW’s group already has a very similar schedule: talking a bit at the start, writing, taking a short break, writing some more. So they don’t really need to propose a different one, they just need to get one person to adhere to it.

    4. MK*

      If the gathering has traditionally been focused on allowing people uninterrupted time to write, OP has grounds to complain about it, though. That’s not simply changing the focus of the gathering, it’s completely changing its purpose and also making the original purpose impossible.

      1. Martin Blackwood*

        Yeah, like, it sounds like this person is the only one treating the group this way. Maybe im wrong but im picturing people talking, saying like “Today i need to work on this article to submit to a journal instead of my dissertation” or something like “my fridge died this week so dealing with that ate up a lot of writing time” not nitty gritty details about their writing. Plus, laymen probably are the worst to give feedback in an academic context? like, if you dont understand what theyve written because youve never read any string theory, you cant tell if its worded awkwardly or if you just dont know the jargon

    5. Tg*

      From listening writers talk, it seem sthat their writer groups are about sharing work, giving and getting feedback, and supporting each other. It seems like this person is trying to do this.

      It sounds like academic writing groups are structured quite differently, and he needs a to be told this.

      1. But Of Course*

        Just to clarify, the non-academic writing groups I’m part of are explicitly NOT set up to handle someone like this, and they would be asked to leave. While there are groups where sharing your writing (or probably even some about sharing your ideas or whatever) are the goal, this is not an academic/non-academic writing group split.

      2. Hyaline*

        It seems the rest of the group, per LW, is expecting an uninterrupted writing “accountability” session, not support and feedback. It’s understandable to hear “writing group” and think it’s support focused, but not all groups work that way and this one definitely doesn’t seem to. Setting clear guidelines and goals might be helpful.

      3. Sloanicota*

        I’d argue LW doesn’t have a coworker problem, they have a group problem. If nobody else has a problem with the chatty academic (enough to speak up or raise the issue) or cares enough to set and enforce group rules, then this person isn’t doing anything “wrong” – LW probably needs to find a new group. The usual move is to ask their favorite people from the existing group, who seem to have compatible work styles, if they’d like to breakaway and start a new, all-quiet group.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Yeah, I had to drop out of a writer’s group (a share/support/critique one, not a silent one) because there was one intermittent attendee who kept sharing the exact same disturbing content over and over again and rejecting any criticism or suggestions. I tried leaving the room whenever they read, I asked the leader to intervene, I suggested ground rules, I even offered to talk to the attendee myself about no longer sharing that content.

          They group was so determined to be “welcoming” and “inclusive” that I and everyone else who didn’t want to have to listen to the disturbing content over and over again left the group.

      4. Lenora Rose*

        I’ve been in different writing groups with different purposes for decidedly non-academic purposes. There are critique groups where the point is to read one another’s work between meetings and provide feedback and/or advice during the meeting. (They also aim as a micro-deadline for one to produce enough work to get feedback on, but the writing is done elsewhere.) And there are groups who get together like this academic one, to chat, share company, then lock in to 45 minutes of focus time to get down word count. During that 45 minutes, talking beyond a really urgent quick minute is pretty much verboten – as is looking up research or opening anything but the writing file on your computer/device (or a paper notebook for a few rare souls).

    6. Nina*

      At my institution we call these events ‘Shut Up and Write’ and it’s definitely acceptable to tell someone bluntly, ‘hey, Shut Up and Write means shut up’.

      1. Writer Claire*

        There is a Zoom Meetup group called Shut Up and Write. While I don’t belong to that one, I do belong to a similar group. We have 15 minutes of introductions and what each person hopes to accomplish. (Members often have wildly different goals, from poetry, to college dissertations, to novels, to business letters.) Then we all mute ourselves and write for an hour. At the end, another fifteen minutes to say what we did accomplish. The moderator is very firm about ending the chit-chat.

        1. Michelle Smith*

          I would love to try that group but it looks like it’s more geared for people who write freelance in my area, because the times are all at 10 am on weekdays. But still, I love the concept!!

          1. Writer Claire*

            The group I belong to meets at 7pm! It’s called Writing Together and has sessions on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. (Which reminds me, I need to RSVP for tomorrow.)

    8. the Viking Diva*

      Both writing “support” groups and writing “accountability” groups are known and normal structures in academia. A support group may do talking and brainstorming to help others resolve writing issues. An accountability group is a way to commit to putting in writing time, just as meeting someone at the gym helps you keep your exercise routine. The OP’s group is clearly the latter type and they need to be clear about their structure to the talky person, who may be assuming it’s the other kind and is annoyed that others don’t respond. (whether this is true or not, it could be a kind way to usher them on – “This might not be the kind of group you’re looking for, here’s how we do it.”)

      1. AmySantiagoStan*

        OP here. Thank you so much for all the insights! This is indeed a Writing Accountability group, although we do take breaks to chat and talk about both our work and non-work related items. We try to introduce what we are working on at the beginning, and then go over any obstacles we faced, and what we have accomplished at the end. So there is definitely room for sharing, but this goes above and beyond that, to the point that it significantly eats into our writing time.

        Great suggestions from both Alison and the commenters! I’m going to try reiterating the schedule and see what happens. A Zoom meeting might be a good idea to try too, especially as things get busier.

        1. anon here*

          This person has noodles in their braincase and I’m sorry that something that was working well is no longer working well because of the noodles!

        2. Petty_Boop*

          When I attended a writer’s retreat, we did “sprints” where we’d write for say 20 or 30 mins and at the end everyone would say, “I managed 5000 words and got a really great headstart for the next chapter” or whatever. Othertimes, we’d set word number goals to try to hit and everyone was head down silently doing that. Discussion was usually “I’m stuck at this point because I need X to happen and I can’t quite get there from where I’m at” and we’d “wordsmith/workshop” together. I’m wondering if you set specific goals like 30 mins, 5000 words, whatever, if that person would shut up and write to meet the goals. Sounds like he/she is using your group more for socialization than its intended purpose.

          1. Lenora Rose*

            Your actual point is good, and I know what you mean, but…

            Just here boggling at the idea anyone can manage 5000 words in half an hour. That would be an average speed of 167 words per minute…

            1. metadata minion*

              I think “30 minutes” and “5000 words” were example types of goals, not that you should do both at once!

              1. Petty_Boop*

                Exactly, sorry if I didn’t make that clear LOL. Petty_Boop. Each sprint or each “session” had a goal. We’d workshop someone who was stuck on how to get a character out of a situation or fix a flawed plotline, or whatever and then write for X amount of time, OR Y number of words. :)

          2. maelen*

            This, but maybe go even farther. Set up 2 meetings where one is a sprint and the other is tips and tricks or discussion–something like that with **really** clear expectations set out in the meeting invites. The sprint one should have clear time-boxed intro/wrap-up discussion periods. If chatty calvin arrives late to the sprint, tell him that it’s the sprint portion and he’ll have to wait until the wrap-up.

        3. Jack Russell Terrier*

          In my zoom groups this is called a ‘co-working session’. You all get together, there’s someone who moderates. We talk (usually for 5/10 mins) and write in the chat our goal. Then the moderator mutes everyone for writing time. Moderator unmutes with 10/5 minutes to go and we all share how it went.

    9. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

      > One member, however, loves to monologue, mostly about their own work, which is in a fairly arcane field, and which the rest of us do not fully understand

      This doesn’t sound like “searching for feedback” to me. It sounds like “searching for an audience”.

    10. Girasol*

      I used to have problems with several people who would come up to me and say, “Hi, how was your weekend? Guess what I did!” while I was on the phone trying to chair a remote meeting that was like herding cats. They thought I was just listening to music. So I taped a dayglo sign on my headset: “In phone meeting. Pls do not disturb,” where it could be clearly seen from my office door when I had the headset on. Worked pretty well. Could you use a noise cancelling headset or something of the sort, labelled to make it clear that when you’re wearing it, you’re writing not chatting? Or if a headset would be rude, could the leader set ground rules that “from now until whatever o’clock, we’re revising in silence.”

  3. Nodramalama*

    The visceral response to grandboss is a bit odd to me. It’s just a more convenient term than boss’ boss. For one thing, you don’t have to worry about figuring out the apostrophes. I don’t think anyone who uses grandboss thinks of the boss one level above them as a grandparent.

    1. allathian*

      Yeah, I agree. It’s just a convenient way to state the organizational relationship. The LW would probably benefit from investigating why they have such a visceral reaction to a completely innocuous term.

      That said, there are a few nicks for coworkers that I’d be happy to do away with, especially work wife/work husband and office mom. They imply the sort of familial relationships that I’m not comfortable with in a work context.

      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        I don’t love the “work wife/husband” terminology too, but somehow I had never thought of the “grand” in “grandboss” being the same as the “grand” in “grandparent”. I thought of it
        as a more formal way of saying “big boss” – even though in most cases, people’s grandbosses aren’t the boss of the entire organisation.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          For me it makes sense because of the similarity between family trees and hierarchy diagrams. It doesn’t mean I think of the relationship as being at all similar!

        2. Cat Tree*

          It’s because we keep the “grand” part, not the “mother” part of “grandmother”. It’s completely different than work wife or work husband.

        3. Stipes*

          “Grandboss” does borrow the “grand” system from “grandparent”, but it specifically is modifying a work relationship (“boss”) instead of a familial one (“parent”)!

        1. Sing-lo*

          Yes this exactly! Grand-boss is a way of defining hierarchy- like an org chart looks similar to a family tree.

        2. londonedit*

          Yes, it’s exactly like ‘parent company’. Otherwise all the bosses can and do get confusing, especially for something like AAM where people are writing longer-form letters and trying to explain situations clearly. I’ve definitely read letters here where a good portion of the comments section has been taken up with people going ‘Hang on – is this your boss, or the boss’s boss? Or the boss’s boss’s boss? Or the boss of the whole company?’ ‘Grandboss’ and ‘Great-grandboss’ are just simpler ways to express the relationships, because everyone can imagine a hierarchy of Boss – Grandboss – Great-grandboss. It has nothing really to do with the whole ‘we’re a faaaaaamily’ thing. No one’s literally saying your boss is like your grandparent.

          1. Phony Genius*

            The term “sister location” makes me cringe, even though I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s a gendered term for something non-gendered? (I have the same reaction for calling boats “she” instead of “it.”)

            1. Observer*

              Calling a boat “she” is an inheritance from the Old English use of grammatical gender. I’m not sure why it stuck for some things and not others.

            2. Petty_Boop*

              I’ll not introduce you to our car, Dora (the Explorer) then, I guess. That might be too much!

    2. Spooky*

      Yeah, it’s visualizing it way too literally. It’s not that deep; no one is using it with that connotation.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        Yeah if people were trying to express that connotation, they’d use the whole word instead of just the prefix.

      2. Nodramalama*

        Yeah I also think it’s particuarly useful as a descriptor in a forum like this. Like, I do not actually call my grandboss that at work. They’re my director. But if you don’t work at my organisation, you do not know what that is

        1. londonedit*

          Yes, exactly – in real life there are all sorts of job titles and hierarchies that might not translate across industries. If letter-writers say ‘the director’ or ‘our senior executive’ or whatever, people would probably have a much harder time trying to parse the various relationships, even if those are the terms used in their particular workplace. Is the ‘head of department’ your direct boss? Or your boss’s boss? Or higher than that? And so on. And these relationships can be important when people are asking questions about what’s appropriate at work – is it appropriate to speak to the head of department if they’re three levels above you? Possibly not. Is it appropriate if they’re your boss? Of course.

          1. Potsie*

            Exactly! It can get very confusing when titles mean different things at different places. Using a colloquial short hand makes it easier for someone who doesn’t work with you to understand what you are saying with minimal words necessary.

            On a related note, I recently applied to the wrong position because of the title thing. It means something very different where I work and where I applied. Luckily the person in charge of hiring was familiar with my company and sent me a job post for the position I meant to apply for with a very understanding note that mitigated my embarrassment for applying for a high level position instead of near entry level.

            1. londonedit*

              We have trouble with that sort of thing in publishing – for example across different companies the titles ‘Managing Editor’, ‘Desk Editor’ and even just ‘Editor’ can either mean the same thing, or something different. A ‘Managing Editor’ could be a person who manages a list of books through the editorial process, or they could be a person who manages a team of more junior editors who are in turn managing the books. It makes it quite difficult sometimes when you’re looking at job adverts – you really have to look at the job description to make sure it’s at the level you’re after.

        2. Turquoisecow*

          Yes, saying “my grandboss” is easier than saying “the director of my department, who is my boss’s boss,” especially if, for purposes of the question they’re asking or story they’re telling, that person’s title isn’t really relevant. We/Alison just need to know where they are in relation to the letter writer, we don’t need to know that the details of the hierarchy.

        3. iglwif*

          Exactly! Different organizations use different hierarchical terms and have different numbers of layers in the chain of command, so if I want someone outside my org to understand that I mean “the person to whom my manager reports,” I’m not going to say “the Senior Director of X,” I’m going to say “my grandboss”.

          IME a lot of people think their specific organization’s structure and terminology are a lot more universal than they in fact are.

          1. londonedit*

            Yes, and then in this sort of forum it gets confusing, because people get bogged down in ‘Wait, is this your boss’s boss?’ and that can make a difference when it comes to things like who should be responsible, who it’s appropriate to speak to about what, etc.

        4. amoeba*

          Skip-level boss might work for somebody who doesn’t like the term “grandboss” for whatever reason (trying to sound more business-like, for instance, haha! I do use “grandboss” but probably not in a formal work context, they’d find it weird…)

      3. Jack Straw from Wichita*

        But it’s really NOT visualizing it literally. lol When you breakdown the word, neither grand or boss indicate a familial relationship of any kind. Which makes me think the LW might want to sit with why they are having a visceral relation to a fairly innocuous word.

    3. Myrin*

      I think what’s odd is the very strong familial association OP has with the term – although of course that’s where the idea originated, in the sense that your “grand” [something] is one step above your [something] – but a visceral response to certain words/expressions doesn’t seem unusual to me. I have several of those and sometimes I can explain why that is and sometimes it’s just that the term/usage/imagery annoys the heck out of me.

      1. Spooky*

        Yeah it’s a metaphor. Your grandfather is literally your grandfather; your grandboss metaphorically org chart/family trees in the same spot in relation to you.

      2. Nodramalama*

        Well yes, I’m sure everyone has a weird personal reaction to some phrases or things. But we know it’s irrational and don’t write in asking why people think it’s acceptable to use the word moist.

        1. Airy*

          Perhaps it’s because I’ve spent time on Tumblr but it feels like the writer really hoped on some level that Alison would realise from reading their letter that the use of “grandboss” is disgusting and unclean and apologetically expunge it from her site, validating their emotional response to the word as normal and correct. I hope they can accept that they have in fact misunderstood the vibe of the thing and let it go.

          I mean, I kind of loathe it when people use “niblings” in place of “nephews and nieces” for brevity and/or gender-neutrality because it makes me think of little rodents nibbling, but I can see where they’re coming from.

          1. Emmy Noether*

            I always feel like that should logically be “nieblings” with a long “ie” sound like “niece”, not “niblings”. I’ve never heard it spoken out loud though, do people pronounce it like “nibbling” or “neebling”?

              2. Emmy Noether*

                Well, that makes a lot of sense! I still find niebling more pleasing personally, but nibling is more logical.

                1. Retiring Academic*

                  Niebling makes me think of the Ring of the Nibelung – and you really don’t want to get into some of those familial relationships!

                2. Scholarly Publisher*

                  Retiring Academic, I now have Anna Russell going through my head. “Gutrune Gibich… who, by the way, is the only woman Siegfried has ever come across who hasn’t been his aunt.”

          2. ASD always*

            The little rodent association in part of why I like it! It may feel infantilising once they’re older, but mine are little kids at the moment, so appropriately small and cute like a hamster.

            1. MsM*

              Yeah, I don’t think of it as them nibbling, it’s me wanting to nibble them with kisses because they’re so adorable. (Only if they’re okay with it, though.)

          3. Good Enough For Government Work*

            Nibling is gender-neutral. Many people don’t want to say ‘nephews and nieces’, not just for brevity, but because it excludes non-binary people.

            1. Airy*

              I did say “brevity and/or gender-neutrality” and that I could see where they were coming from. You don’t need to explain.

          4. Former Admin Turned PM*

            Not to derail, but “sibkid” is also sometimes used as gender neutral for nieces and nephews, although it’s not as common. That’s why my sister uses for my enby kid, since I reacted to “nibling” as being too similar to “nibbling”

    4. RC*

      I’ve heard/used grandboss, or grandadvisor (your advisor’s advisor) in academia too.

      I’ve also heard boss^2 (and boss^3).

          1. stratospherica*

            I assume above that it’s boss-to-the-power-of-four, boss-to-the-power-of-five, etc…

      2. bamcheeks*

        In German you actually can use Doktorvater/ Doktormutter for your PhD supervisor, and continue to Doktorgroßvater/mutter for their supervisor. My Doktorgroßvater is Hugh Kenny.

        Academia is never knowingly underFreudianed.

        1. Emmy Noether*

          Oooh, when I was doing my thesis, I was fascinated by the different words used for it in different languages and what it says about attitudes.

          Is a “Doktorarbeit” (doctoral work) different from a “thesis”)? Does a “Doktorvater” see his role differently than a “supervisor” or an “encadrant” (French, literally the person who sets the framework)? Is a “soutenance de thèse” (French, support of thesis) less adversarial than a “thesis defence”?

          1. bamcheeks*

            Hm, I had a French colleague who liked to talk about the necessity of “killing the father” in your doctoral study — ie, the point where you take ownership of your own work and ideas and stop relying on your supervisor. Like I said, never knowingly underFreudianed.

            1. Emmy Noether*

              Hadn’t heard that one before! Very oedipal and dramatic.

              My lab usually assigned two supervisors, and there were definite parallels to parenting in that, too (like, which one do you go to with which problem?).
              It was good in my case though, because one of mine quit 9 months before I was set to finish and I was simply switched to someone else as co-supervisor (would that be my step doctoral father, then?) while keeping continuity in my work. Then my other original supervisor broke his collarbone a week before my defense…

      3. Harriet Vane*

        I’m an Episcopal priest and I was ordained by Gene Robinson, the dude who was famous/notorious in the 00s for being the first out gay bishop on the planet. In my supposedly pseudonymous internet forum chats of that era, I referred to him as my Archboss (because the priest who was in charge of the parish where I was a curate, was my direct boss) even though he is not in fact an Archbishop. “Arch-” in ecclesiastical terminology has that same useful connotation of “one level up” – for example, an Archdeacon is a clergyperson with authority over the other clergy in a certain region.

        2. Irish Teacher.*

          Just an aside, I’d love to hear more about your job if you’d be willing to talk about it on a Friday thread.

      4. Petty_Boop*

        I at first read “grandvisir/grandvizir” ala Aladdin, and really want to work for a Grand Vizir now :(

        2. Your Former Password Resetter*

          Ye dug too deeply and greedily, and have awoken a terror of downward trending graphs and budget deficits!

      2. Great Frogs of Literature*

        I used to use “boss-boss” and “boss-boss-boss” but “grandboss” and “great-grandboss” seem more common, so I’ve mostly switched to that.

      3. AFac*

        Every time someone uses that phrasing pattern I sing it to the tune of Handel’s Messiah. Though “manager of managers” doesn’t scan right.

        (…forever and ever, hallelujah hallelujah)

        1. Grimalkin*

          It makes me think of Fiddler on the Roof myself.
          Wonder of wonders, manager of managers…

    6. El l*

      OP is entitled to their opinion and to not like it.

      I’m entitled to my opinion that it’s a useful analogy to concisely explain a relationship. And all without recourse to sports terms. And that the visceral response is out of line.

    7. Learn ALL the things*

      My grandboss is younger than me, I’m definitely not thinking of him as my grandfather!

      1. But Of Course*

        All four of my grandparents were exciting alcoholics and terrible, terrible people (one to a felonious extent). Probably best that my org is so small I don’t have a grandboss, lest I think they deserve to be in rehab or jail because of the prefix connection.

    8. AnonInCanada*

      Agreed. When I see the term “grandboss,” or “great-grand boss” either in comments, questions or responses, I would never conjure the meaning as someone related to anyone in the workspace. It’s just a convenient way to establish hierarchy, and not end up with some tongue-twisting sentence like “boss’s boss’s boss.” Never mind the correct use of the possessives.

      1. Jack Straw from Wichita*

        As a former English teacher who understands them well, I still avoid possessive issues like the PLAGUE. It’s just too much for people to comprehend easily sometimes. lol

      2. H3llifIknow*

        Yeah I don’t think Oh yeah Bobby Fisher, the Grandmaster of Chess …wait.. .are WE RELATED?” Grand has zero familial connotations for me. I like “Grandboss” it means boss one step removed. I don’t call him that to his FACE, but when I need to make it clear to my team that “this didn’t come from me or *boss* it came from HIS BOSS, I’ll say “grandboss” now and then. Nobody has asked if they’re in his will, as of yet that I’m aware of so it seems to be working fine.

    9. Smithy*

      I think like many things our own baggage/experiences comes into play and sometimes that’s more cultural and sometimes less so.

      I will never forget when a German government development agency changed its acronym to GIZ and English speakers had a collective moment of “well we’re an immature bunch”. So I also think sometimes professional jargon or terms can live in a space that we might side eye but can also acknowledge a benign professional definition around it.

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        On a more safe-for-work note, I remember seeing amusement from non-Irish people online who came across our president’s twitter (I think it was when he met Bernie Sanders and Sanders tagged him or something) and thought he was having a laugh with his handle which is President IRL. It means “president of Ireland,” as IRL as the country code, but was pretty apt considering what IRL means in internet speak (and I bet Michael D. would get a laugh out of that too; being a poet, playing with language is sort of his thing).

      2. metadata minion*

        Heh, it took me a while to figure out why you were snickering at it because my brain automatically pronounced the acronym like it would be in German.

    10. Not that other person you didn't like*

      I’ve also used the term “boss-in-law” casually to describe a person who’s not my boss but at the same level as my boss

    11. Random Bystander*

      I agree–to me, “grandboss” is just a shorthand way to reflect the hierarchy–that it’s not just someone with a higher position in the company in general but someone in the chain of command one level above one’s direct boss.

    12. Daisy-dog*

      I used grandboss in a comment reply to an Instagram reel recently and people have lost their minds over it. Though they all think it’s just hilarious and also easy shorthand. I promoted AAM when someone asked where I got it from.

  4. postdooc*

    For #1, can you enlist another member of the writing group to help back up your desire for a productive and quiet writing session?

    1. KeinName*

      Yes! The group should agree on rules! Here‘s a book that proposes a schedule: Ch. 4 from Silvia, P. J. 2007: How to write a lot. A practical guide to productive academic writing, American Psychological Association.

      1. Helena Handbasket*

        Group rules really help in this instance. I was part of a writing group, and we all agreed to use the Pomodoro Technique, where would would do 25 minutes of quiet writing, then a break of either 5 or 15 minutes, then another 25 of writing, and so on. As a group we all agreed to use this method, and when a new person joined the group, we were very clear about this. They did try to talk several times and the group members (kindly) shut them down, which worked very well.

        1. Slow Gin Lizz*

          I agree! There likely are others in the group who find the talking frustrating and are afraid to say anything because they think they are the only one who feel that way. This is one of those situations where organizing as a group would be really beneficial, because then Talker won’t hold it against OP if others also tell him they need him to be quiet.

          And if you have the rules spelled out, it can empower the group members to speak out when the rules are being broken, but if there are no official rules it might feel awkward or rude to tell someone to be quiet. It’s kind of like the Quiet Car on a train; while on other train cars you might feel awkward telling someone to turn their music down, if you’re in the Quiet Car you might feel more empowered to tell someone to please be quiet.

        2. MrsBuddyLee*

          Since it seems that the OP is worried about being the “bad guy” shutting down the talker, I recommend pairing this agreed to timing method with an actual timer that enforces the time. It could be on the computer (there are various good solutions online) or an actual physical timer (I like to use a visual timer like I use with my preschoolers at home).

          Once you have agreed upon time frames and a timer tracking them, it should be a lot easier to interrupt the talker with something like “We’re in the quiet writing time, can you please saving your conversation for after the timer goes off?” or “The timer just went off, so let’s get back to quiet writing now!”

          1. Helena Handbasket*

            Yes, that is exactly what we did! We used the website Pomofocus which has built in timers. Since most of us worked with headphones on listening to music, I was the person that could hear the timer, and would do goofy hand signals to indicate the start and stop of writing time.

    2. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      OP can’t be the only one bothered by the incessant chatter. I can see why OP doesn’t want to be the one to bring it up, academic tiffs can become overblown and the next thing you know its 20 years later and people are being warned OP and Talker can’t be seated next to each at the faculty dinner for reasons lost to time.

      But surely there is someone OP can speak to in the group who can push back on talker. Or find out everyone else is annoyed and each thinks they are the only one so feel better about enforcing the group rules when they find out nope its the while group.

      1. Elbe*

        Yeah, I wonder if the “no talking during writing time” is an informal rule that is never communicated, and this particular attendee is very bad at picking up social queues.

        If that’s the case, then formalizing the schedule and communicating expectations clearly is the way to go. Having a formal process would also help down the line, if they eventually have to ask this person to leave if they don’t follow the rules.

        Having to say unspoken rules out loud makes people really uncomfortable, because they imagine how embarrassed they would be if they failed to read the room that badly. But other people don’t have the same reaction, and a lot of people are actually grateful to have clear expectations laid out for them. If the LW is the one organizing the meet ups, then its within their power to make them more formal.

        1. Marion*

          As the person who frequently misses these ‘unspoken rules’, yes PLEASE TELL ME when I am doing something that goes against the unspoken rules of the group! There is nothing worse than thinking you were having a nice chat with people and months later finding out they were all annoyed at you. This is why I think formalizing the ‘talk time’ and ‘concentration time’ in the session would help everyone.

    3. AsstPlantProf*

      And are there any friendly senior faculty in the group? Especially if the talker is also senior, asking them if they’d mind saying anything might be an option. Most senior faculty are aware enough of the politics to know that they’re in a better position to push back if needed.

    4. Honoria Lucasta*

      LW1, I just finished my dissertation and over the years of writing I was part of several writing groups where we had that temptation. The best solution was to have a leader/organizer who would sort of guide the session. Everybody chats at the beginning, and then the leader formally says “All right, everybody, we’re now going to write quietly for an hour. I’ll set a timer and we’ll take a break at 3. No conversations until the timer goes off!” And then socially all of us would work together to enforce that rule (so if someone arrived late in the middle of quiet time, we would all wave silently and then go right back to writing; if somebody wanted to borrow a sticky note, they would ask very quietly and the response was as wordless as possible). If people started getting out of hand the leader could say “no talking until the timer goes off!” or something like that.

      We all treated it a little bit like a game, which kept it from feeling fussy and dictatorial, but we also took the rules of the game quite seriously. It was important to have little conversation-and-snack breaks built in; none of us were interested in trying to (or, honestly, able to) write for four hours straight. The promise that we would get to talk later helped keep us on track during silent work time.

  5. Bambue*

    I think Ask A Manager started using “grandboss” before I regularly started hearing “skip manager” in my workplace for the same concept. At least in tech adjacent in Seattle, people know the skip terminology and don’t know the grad versions.

    1. SALC*

      Yeah I’ve always heard ‘skip level’ coming from a tech company in Seattle

      I still knew immediately what was meant by grandboss but I would feel weird actually referring to somebody that way heh

      1. Medium Sized Manager*

        My first and only corp job is based near Seattle, and I never realized it was a local term, not a common one. How funny!

    2. TechWorker*

      Yea I definitely wouldn’t use the term ‘grandboss’ at work but tbh we don’t use the term ‘boss’ either! We do use for eg ‘2nd line manager’, which I suppose would extend to ‘3rd line’ etc though for that you’re more likely to start using job titles (director, VP, or whatever it is…)

      1. ASD always*

        If someone talked about their second line manager I’d assume someone on the same level as their line manager in the hierarchy that they also report to in some capacity. “Grandboss” feels much less ambiguous.

        1. ASD always*

          Though in real-life conversation I would refer to my boss’ boss as “John” to coworkers or “the CEO” to non-coworkers (it’s a fairly small company)

          1. amoeba*

            Yeah, I mean, we’re a large company but everybody still knows the names of our entire reporting line up to the CEO – it’s only four people for me! (And at least the two directly above me have distinct enough names so we don’t have to go “no, Peter the grandboss, not Peter from accounting…”)

      2. Beth**

        This works less well in financial services where “second line” = the risk department and “third line” = internal audit

      3. ItsAllFunAndGamesUntil*

        Yea at work I would not say “Grandboss” we just say “down the hall” as a colloquialism for the higher ups, as they are, well, down the hall from our department lol.

    3. SkipToMyLou*

      Is that what skip boss means? I’ve never heard it before except every so often in the comments here. I thought it was a particular position, not grand boss (which has been in common use here in Boston for at least 30 years).

      1. TechWorker*

        Yes, clearer if you know it comes from ‘skip level’ (like, skip a level in you org chart).

      2. Eldritch Office Worker*

        I’m also in Boston and people in my org know skip-level but not grandboss (I’ve used both but the latter I had to explain to some head tilts). It probably varies by industry and group.

    4. ThatOtherClare*

      I’ve never heard or said ‘grandboss’ in the workplace either, but it’s useful online when nobody knows (or needs to know) where the COO sits relative to my role in our organisation chart. At work I’d just say ‘the COO’ of ‘Geoff’. Online, ‘grandboss’. Skip manager works perfectly well also, but personally, it sounds funny to me. I feel like I’m talking about the cool kid who decides who’s allowed to play hopscotch at lunch.

      1. ThatOtherClare*

        Typo, I meant to say: OR ‘Geoff’.

        Although, ‘The COO of Geoff’ is a great imaginary title.

    5. Your credit's fine Mr Torrance*

      I wouldn’t say grandboss in real life because it seems a little cringey, not because of the grandparent connotation, but because it sounds too AAMish/cute if that makes sense. Like I wouldn’t say bananapants at work either instead of crazy.

      It makes total sense here however when you’re describing a reporting relationship in a company.

      1. there are chickens in the trees*

        I used “grandboss” in a group meeting a few months back. At first there were looks of non-comprehension, then you could see as understanding dawned and the looks turned into smiles and nods. The group manager in particular seemed to get a kick out of it.
        Still haven’t heard anyone else use it yet…

      2. AngryOwl*

        I use bananacakes at work since I’m trying to expunge words like “crazy” from my vocabulary and I’ve had nothing but good feedback/delight on it. Very formal workplaces may differ, but in that case you may want to avoid words like “crazy” anyway.

        1. Wendy Darling*

          I have used “bananapants” at work and the other day my most whimsical coworker replied, “I don’t know what you mean, bananas make excellent pants.”

      3. Annie2*

        Exactly. It’s a bit cute (in real life I’m just going to say “Jim” or “the director”) and you know there’s going to be that split second pause while people put together what you mean, but it’s not offensive because of the familial relationship.

      4. Lizard the Second*

        I agree! Grandboss sounds like cutesy internet slang to me. Skip level manager is the business term I’ve always heard used. (Based in Australia.)

    6. Dana*

      I agree that in in the Seattle tech scene skip is much more common in professional settings. But outside tech, even in Seattle, people don’t know seem to know the term skip, or direct, or even peer when describing office hierarchy. Also, “skip” alone can go both directions. Skip-level manager or skip-level report.

      I’ve been using grandboss since probably 2007? I honestly can’t remember when I first heard the term. I don’t use it in formal work settings, but if I’m chatting with a co-worker over drinks after work or sharing an anecdote from work at a party, I use it because I never have to explain it even if someone hasn’t heard it before.

      1. JustaTech*

        “Skip” is usually what I hear from my tech friends, but I’ve always used “grand” because my undergrad thesis advisor in college described how your advisor’s advisor is your “grand” and so on back in time, and if you were really smart you could manage to get an advisor who was linked back to someone famous in your field.
        So I think the term might be common in science academia?

    7. Petty_Boop*

      Funnily enough if someone said “skip manager” to me, I’d probably look blank and say “scusi?”It is not a term I’ve ever heard/used…BUT I’m a govt contractor working for DoD so… things that go on in acadamia and *waves hand vaguely* other realms often don’t trickle into our vernacular.

  6. EA*

    On #2, I don’t think your boss was being petty. I remember struggling with condensing info that I felt was really important and feeling miffed when my then-boss cut info from presentations, but this is a know your audience issue – the fact is that the senior leaders don’t need a full rundown of all four areas. They just needed one slide flagging any major issues. This is definitely something it took me some time to learn, though, so I understand how you feel.

    1. Nodramalama*

      I agree. It’s not clear to me that boss was actually unhappy, but if they were i don’t think it’s a petty critique at all. I’ve been asked to summarise some of my work for exec in two lines. It doesn’t matter that I might feel like two likes isn’t enough to demonstrate the complexities of the issue. It needs to be a digestible snapshot, so two lines it is.

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        Agreed. It’s a constant battle at my organization to get people to agree on what “one or two bullet points” means – because there are inevitably folks who will write a novel per bullet. Sometimes you need to squeeze things down more than you feel is natural!

        But I agree the boss here doesn’t sound mad – I think they’re right to point out the instructions weren’t followed, especially if they weren’t looped in ahead of time, but they rolled with it.

      2. Le Sigh*

        This is 100% something my boss would get annoyed about … and I kind of get why. The C-suite staff have to give presentations at each board meeting and are allotted a specific amount of time. They have to carefully prioritize what info the board actually needs to hear (ie know your audience) and how to condense that into say, 8-10 min. And if every C-suite person goes 5 min over, you’ve now lost 30 min of your schedule to people going over time.

        Prioritizing and condensing info is definitely a skill and one I sometimes have to teach my team. If you only have 2 min with someone, what is the key info you need them to have or remember? What are the most important points? Start with that, and go from there.

    2. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      I have to do a lot of powerpoint-type things and I agree it’s really important to be able to condense info. From the letter I would have done it in 2 slides like this; slide 1 overall starus, highlights, issues, eetc.- slide 2 table showing status of the actions by area and overall red/amber/green status if used: Area 1 10 actions completed, 1 in progress, 2 pending etc.

      I think what does come off as petty and passive-aggressive is conspicuously inserting this into an interview rubric for OP to read rather than, you know, having a conversation about it. It is a pretty common phenomenon though that recent or notable events loom large in the mind of interviewers who then just focus on that.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        I think it’s your last sentence, rather than a passive aggressive dig. The boss liked the work done, and wondered if someone else would take the same approach.

        1. Allonge*

          Yes – interviews are high-enough stakes that any otherwise reasonable manager will not want to mess with one just to mess with an employee.

          And the question (if the person would regularly need to create presentations) is a good one – it covers a lot of things like seeking advice elsewhere, preferences on the detail of instructions and so on.

          1. Great Frogs of Literature*

            Even if you don’t need to do a lot of formal presentations, I can absolutely see why the manager liked it as an interview question (though personally I think it’s a little vague and would do better if you tied it to a concrete experience somehow). There are a lot of jobs where being able to concisely convey the most important details of something horribly complicated is a useful skill.

            I had a coworker who would write a 20-page dissertation explaining his chain of thought when we really wanted a 2-3 page project plan, and it was incredibly annoying that we couldn’t get him to cut to the meat of the issue. Upon reflection, it’s the same coworker whose resume was WAY too long and needed massive edits, and while I generally try not to judge how someone will do in a job based too strongly on how well they’ve absorbed resume conventions, in this case it was very much true.

            1. another Hero*

              Yeah, it’s vague enough that I could see missing something obvious, and my answer, even if good, would be very brief. Like, “think about what this specific audience most needs to know – especially what we might need them to be on board with going forward. Limit info accordingly; sort according to what makes sense with the actual information I’m talking about.” I’d feel a bit unmoored faced with that question.

        2. ecnaseener*

          Or even if the boss didn’t like the work done (or didn’t like the length of it), that doesn’t mean the interview question was directed at LW. It might just mean the boss noticed that their usually-great employee LW seemed to struggle a bit in this situation, meaning it’s a tough enough situation to make a good behavioral question. Or the boss is trying to round out the strengths and weaknesses of their team with this hire. Or of course it could be a total coincidence. If LW has never noticed the boss being passive-aggressive before, I doubt that’s it.

      2. Not That Kind of Doctor*

        I make a lot of slides for clients, and this kind of request is usually a lose-lose scenario: they really do want all 40 individual statuses plus an overview and they also want it to fit on 2 slides, and they usually don’t picture what that would have to look like until they see it. We’d usually end up with something along the lines of your suggestion plus a detailed back-up slide for each area (they won’t use it, but they’ll complain if they don’t get it).

        1. Dek*

          Yeah, that’s the vibe I got, that for OP it wasn’t as simple as “just do two instead.”

          Probably the best way to handle it would’ve been to directly tell the boss “I don’t think I can fit all of that onto just two slides. Could I do three or four? Or possibly just present Y information instead?”

          BUT. OP may not feel like they were in the position to push back like that. I’ve had managers where just asking would’ve been seen as insubordinate, because they *told* you to put *X* information on *two* slides. And now you’re doing the forgiveness vs permission calculus, because if you *didn’t* ask beforehand, you can probably get away with doing an extra slide or two, but if you *did* then now you definitely have to just do two AND have all the information requested, and it feels a bit Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme, y’know?

          BUT. That’s not a particularly healthy workplace. If OP used to be in a place like that, those are habits that take a while to unlearn.

          1. MA Dad*

            That “forgiveness vs permission calculus” succinctly explains every role at every job I’ve ever had. It’s so tiring.

      3. Archi-detect*

        When I was in high school, our valedictorian was praised for never doing a short answer on essays and whatnot; if it was 3-5 paragraphs they did four pages. It took me years to realize that that is actually a bad thing. No one wants 15 powerpoint slides and I have sent a 5-6 paragraph email maybe twice- doing that regularly is extremely rude to your colleagues.

        1. Learn ALL the things*

          I did competitive public speaking in college, and being able to write a speech that comes in under your time limit is a hugely important skill. There were always a handful of people in every competition who were eliminated in round one for going too long. Once you reach a certain level of knowledge on a topic, it’s usually harder to keep to a low word count than it is to meet a high one.

          If it were me, I would have gone back to the boss and said “this is actually more information than I think we can comfortably fit on two slides, here’s what I’m thinking of doing instead, would that work for you?”

        2. Emmy Noether*

          When I was in high school, I had teachers that would strike through anything over the word count limit (X) and grade only the first X words (they only actually counted when it was obviously too long, so you could get away with going over by a few).

          I’ve never had problems being succinct, quite the contrary, but it was a learning experience for some. I was a rule follower, however, so I spent quite some exam time counting words, and trying to land on exactly X.

        3. Dek*

          I remember in the “gifted” classes, we eventually had a teacher who would straight up dock points for giving information past what was asked on the test or going over the requested answer length. At the time we found it petty, but in retrospect, it’s a good lesson to learn, ESPECIALLY for Gifted Kids

          1. Hawkwind1980*

            I teach writing at a community college. I’ve actually established in my syllabus (because if it’s not in the syllabus, they can always whine to someone higher and appeal the grade, but that’s a whole separate issue) that going more than 25% above the maximum length I give for a writing assignment means the highest possible score they will earn for the assignment is 65%. That tidbit of information is also something on my syllabus quiz.

            I otherwise get a few too many students who have been trained by some combination of previous teachers and popular media depicting educational settings that more is always better, so doing double or triple the maximum length should equal bonus points!

          2. i am a human*

            My teenaged daughter competitively applied to a creative writing camp this past summer and wanted to go over the essay word count (by like, 200%). Took some time to convince her why that would be a bad thing. She got some experience editing her work, which isn’t something she has to do very often in her regular classes. Agree that it was a VERY good lesson for her!

        4. amoeba*

          Hah, yeah. The report on my PhD thesis used the word “succinct” multiple times and it was definitely meant in a positive way! It was much shorter than may others because I just… couldn’t be bothered to write a novel of introduction that actually absolutely nobody wanted to read, so I kept everything as short as possible. My advisor was obviously happy about it.

      4. Trout 'Waver*

        Yeah, I 100% agree. If you boss asks for 2 slides, give them 2 slides. Insisting on 5 densely packed slides is a little tone-deaf to the situation. It reminds me of the quip, “My apologies for the length of this letter; if I had more time to write it would be shorter.”

        And, your second point is important too. Coming up with behavioral questions for an interview is tougher than a lot of people realize. The manager may have thought conflicted about the situation and thought it would make a good question to learn more about applicants.

      5. ferrina*

        For the interview question, I think the boss realized that the situation that they gave OP was really tricky. The boss realized that they had asked for a lot of information to be condensed in an impossible way, and that to get a good result required a lot of critical thinking and good judgement. They are using it as a test scenario to understand candidates’ thinking process.

        That doesn’t mean that they did or didn’t like OP’s approach to it. Maybe it’s passive-aggressive (I’ve had bosses that would be that petty), or maybe they are using OP’s approach as the gold standard. I think it really depends on what else you know about your boss.

      6. H3llifIknow*

        I do HATE when I’m told “I need ALL this info in 2 slides”. Give me a quad chart, and I’ll fill it in, give me INFO you NEED and I’ll try to make it work, but what you might get is 2 slides, with a LOT of talking points and I’ll still talk 4 -5 slides worth of material; it just won’t all be on the slides. But I also hate cluttered slides that people read from instead of bullets to guide the discussion….

    3. niknik*

      Also a really good skill to have, reducing complex data into something short and intuitive. I might be in the middle of it all, where all the details matter, but not so much for management, stakeholders, etc.

    4. EngineeringFun*

      Engineer PHD: this is a huge problem for many researchers and scientists. I coach people to answer: what are the decisions and what information is needed to make them. Do not show complicated graphs. Just directional result plots. It’s a skill to present to management. Try looking at the agile 1 pager as a template.

      1. Insert Clever Name Here*

        I had to give a presentation to executive leadership for a project I did where they had to sign off on the resulting contracts (this was a Big Deal because these were great-great-grandbosses) and really struggled with this. My boss gave me excellent advice: don’t show your work, show the outcome of your work.

      2. Ama*

        I used to run conferences for medical researchers. For one conference that was specifically for early career researchers, we regularly had someone talk on presentation skills. Inevitably, the rest of the conference would be speakers getting up explaining why they were breaking most of the guidelines laid out in the presentation skills talk (including going over the time limit).

    5. Cat Tree*

      It’s like in high school your assignments have a minimum length, but in college they have a *maximum* length. Knowing how to summarize is its own skill and it’s worth learning.

      1. Gumby*

        Ah, fond memories of the one prof who had word maximums for our assignments but then said that we didn’t have to include the articles (a, an, the) in the count. I do not know why said policy started but it was well entrenched enough by the time I ended up in one of his classes that someone had written a utility to generate the word count that met those parameters. (Was it just a macro? I don’t remember – this was almost 30 years ago.)

    6. Cat Tree*

      Yeah, since LW had 1 overall summary slide, why not use just that one?

      At my work we do “backup slides” which we just set to “hide” in PP. Then if someone does ask for deeper information we have it ready to go. But we don’t volunteer it if they’re not interested.

    7. Drago Cucina*

      Yeah not petty. If everyone who is supposed to have two slides now have 5 it has a domino effect. I have all day meetings where people are supposed to have 5-10 minutes. The people who take 15-20 really put us off schedule.

      We will have back-up slides that are at the end of the total presentation. If a question comes up we can have those pulled up to provide information. Otherwise, it’s a high-level overview unless specifically identified.

    8. Yorick*

      It makes sense for the boss to flag that this wasn’t what they asked for, even if they’re ok with it this time.

    9. Anon for this 1*

      In a toxic job, so my thoughts were exactly as OP #2 and it was a little jarring to realize Allison’s answer is the normal response.

    10. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      Agreed. I think the boss’s ask was impossible, and there were two possible approaches; condense everything to the one slide, or provide the full breakdown as you did on four slides. (I probably would have done the single condensed slide with the other four available in an appendix at the end of the deck that would be available if anyone had questions).

      As EA says, knowing your audience is a skill; for the project I just wrapped up I have a deep-dive technical deck of ~30 slides, an overview for non-technical stakeholders of ~10 slides, and an executive summary of 2 slides we presented to the CEO as part of a larger meeting. It isn’t minimizing the importance of your work to summarize for top execs; think of it as the first paragraph of a news article. Nobody doubts there’s more you could say, but it’s the job of top leadership to have an overview of everything at the company, not a deep understanding of any one part. Maybe all they need to know here is that everything is green except for two areas – one slide says that, one gives recommendations for getting those two areas to green.

  7. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

    OP3 (snack bar) – I think the issue here will turn out to be not the use of space as such, but the fact that the snack bar will become a bit of a congregation and social point and the desk neighbour will be disturbed many times a day by people going “ooooo, who brought these in? nice”, “how many calories do you think this has in??” etc etc. This happened to me when my desk was next to the spot where people would bring in stuff (food, books they were giving away, etc).

    1. Nodramalama*

      Surely the solution as Alison is suggested is to ask Jane if she’s bothered though? I know plenty of people who aren’t bothered by/like people socially dropping by to chat as they get snacks, especially if they’re new and trying to get to know their coworkers

      1. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

        Maybe, but as OP suggested, she’s new and “may not want to rock the boat”. Often when asking someone variations of “is this ok” the person does feel like they are expected to give the ‘right’ answer rather than the true one. Especially as she’s new it may be quite difficult to say, in effect, “this established social club is bothering me and needs to move”.

        1. Nodramalama*

          Or she’s new and doesn’t care, slash actually enjoys having people stop by. I don’t see any reason to proceed on an assumption that Jane is unhappy based on what our personal preferences might be. Imo it’s ok to treat her as an adult and ask her, rather than assume that she must be bothered even if she tells you she’s not.

        2. Emmy Noether*

          Agreed. I can see myself getting into a situation where I’m new, so I reflexively say it’s ok because I want to be perceived as easygoing. And then it starts to be a problem over time but it’s awkward to go back on that.

          But it may also genuinely not bother her – the two aren’t that easy to distinguish (unless you’ve already noticed that she speaks up easily and frequently when things bother her – then it’s all good).

          It can also come across as overstepping to speak up on her behalf. I think I would leave it alone for now, but keep an eye on how she deals with it. For example, does she enthousiastically get involved in conversations? Or does she roll her chair to the far side of the desk while frantically searching for her headphones?

    2. LW3*

      LW here – from what I can tell, my new coworker doesn’t seem to mind! I think I was conflating the fact that *I* would have cared about this if it happened to me and thus wrote in about it. I might still ask her just in case.

      1. the 1%*

        You seem really bothered by people bringing in snacks, which most people would consider pretty innocuous behavior. Is it possible you have some background annoyance at your coworkers which is being channeled into finding problems with the snacks?

        1. Hlao-roo*

          Eh, there’s “I’m bothered by people brining in snacks in general” which could be a sign that another annoyance has started to spill over into innocuous office things like snacks. But I think LW3 is saying they would be annoyed at communal snacks taking up space on their desk, which seems to me more like a personal preference thing and not a sign of anything deeper.

          1. LW3*

            Yes, I would be bothered by people bringing in snacks and parking them on my desk lol.

            the 1%, you seem to misinterpret comments – is that a sign of something deeper?

        2. londonedit*

          Let’s remember that letters to Alison don’t have to be major, life-or-death situations. Sometimes they can just be ‘People in my office are doing X, is that usual or am I right to feel like it’s a bit weird?’

          If I was the co-worker, I’d definitely be annoyed if people suddenly started bringing in a load of snacks and putting them right next to/encroaching on to my desk. Firstly because I don’t really want the temptation of snacks, secondly because it feels a bit rude to do that without asking, and thirdly because as someone else pointed out I’d be irritated by people coming and going for their snacks. If the co-worker in this case doesn’t mind, fine, but what’s the harm in asking Alison in general whether it’s normal office behaviour?

        3. JB (not in Houston)*

          Not everything is that deep! The LW seems bothered not by the snacks in general but by the snacks encroaching on someone’s workspace, and that is definitely something that would be bother me if it were my workspace.

          1. Cracker eating subordinate*

            lw3 said their coworkers shouldn’t be buying snacks “on principal.” I don’t think it’s a deep reading to believe lw3 is against the whole scheme (even despite their protests otherwise).

            1. Nameless*

              LW3 they’re buying snacks **on their own dollar,** which i read as an objection not to snacks in general, but rather into this expense being absorbed by employees & not the company. that’s a very different flavor of objection than not wanting co-workers to snack.

        4. metadata minion*

          I adore snacks, but I don’t want my desk to be the snack bar. The frequent movement and interruption would be really distracting. Other people would be delighted because they like the background hum of socialization and easy access to the snacks. I’m guessing both of these positions are fairly common.

    3. H3llifIknow*

      My cubicle in the basement of a govt building shared a wall with the coffee pots, creamers, sugar, etc… When it started to become way too normal to look up and see a roach crawling on the top of the cube wall, I threw a FIT and demanded it be moved FAR AWAY. People are slobs and they’d leave dirty napkins, crumbs, coffee pots out all night, sugar canister wide open, etc… It finally did get moved to an unused corner of the office. I still shudder at the memories of mice, asbestos and bugs that infested that basement.

    2. ThatOtherClare*

      It does seem as though they deliberately chose to use the word that has the maximum number of inappropriate alternative connotations, rather than, say, ‘Grandmother’, which carries a far more dignified air to it.

      Etymonline (not the best source to be fair) says the prefix grand- simply means ‘a generation removed’.

      Sometimes, my dear letter writer, one simply has to accept that other minds aren’t quite as far into the gutter as one’s own.

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        “Sometimes, my dear letter writer, one simply has to accept that other minds aren’t quite as far into the gutter as one’s own.”

        I had to recently remind my older boss that they couldn’t use the phrase “who has the D” with a largely millenial and gen-z audience when trying to use the RAPID framework for decision making.

        Many people just aren’t running things through the “would the internet make this dirty” filter on a regular basis (I mean clearly I am but I still don’t think grandboss is problematic)

      2. Observer*

        It does seem as though they deliberately chose to use the word that has the maximum number of inappropriate alternative connotations, rather than, say, ‘Grandmother’, which carries a far more dignified air to it.

        I noticed that too.

        LW, this is most definitely a *you* issue, not a matter of standard usage. Neither current nor historical.

    3. Blarg*

      OTOH, really struggling with the podcast I just learned about “Call Your Daddy” which did an apparently great interview with Harris. And it seems the host is the most financially successful woman in podcasting. Which, cool. But the name makes me cringe so hard.

      2. Bella Ridley*

        It’s “Call Her Daddy” not call Your daddy, suggesting that the female host specifically (and women in general) are strong/powerful/respected enough to be called “daddy” just as a man would be.

        1. Jackalope*

          Oh, is that what it’s supposed to mean? I just heard of the podcast recently (related to Harris’ interview), and I could not for the life of me figure out why telling people that they needed to contact the (podcaster’s? Listener’s?) father would be a feminist thing. It didn’t occur to me that you’d be calling the (podcaster? Listener?) by the name/title “daddy”.

    4. Aquamarine*

      Yeah, it’s grandBOSS – it’s right there in the name. Nothing about a father, let alone a daddy – ick.

  9. Luna*

    I think I’d just be honest with the chatter box that the constant monologuing is distracting to the group and takes the focus off the writing.

    1. Persephone Mulberry*

      Yeah, I was kind of surprised at Alison’s take on this one, as usually she’s in favor of just talking to the person causing the issue and against using group messaging to (hopefully) influence the behavior of just one person.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Me too! Especially if the talker is speaking to you directly, it’s okay to be a bit blunt. It sounds like OP tried, “Well, I should get back to writing,” but they could definitely try something very clear like, “Sorry, I can’t talk, I need to write now.”

        Getting them to stop talking completely may require other people in the group, though.

  10. Maths and bosses*

    In France, we use N+1 to refer to our direct boss, N+2 for boss’ boss, N+3 for boss’ boss’ boss… and we can go as many levels as needed, which I find really convenient!

      1. Trout 'Waver*

        Given their user name, it probably refers to math where in a series of values, N is the term in consideration, N+1 is the next term in the series, N+2 is the following term, etc. It doesn’t really have a definition; it’s just the convention for how people refer to a specific term being referenced in relation to the ones around it.

      2. Person from the Resume*

        Conversely we use the term “1-n” list which is a prioritized list where you don’t know how many items are on the list. In this case, n = unknown number/highest number.

        n+1 would be one level higher, n+2 two levels higher. The LW’s level, N, is unknown (or irrelevant for the purpose of discussion.)

    2. GiantPanda*

      I’m German, and in my company we use Chefchef. Which has nothing to do with cooking and translates to bossboss without the annoying apostrophes.
      But great-great-grandboss sounds much better than chefchefchefchef (that’s the CEO).

      4. fhqwhgads*

        My (English speaking) US friends used to use bossboss and bossbossboss – they still do sometimes – but maybe a month or two ago someone first heard of “grandboss” and that circle since switched, mostly due to not needing to keep track of so many “s”s I suspect.

    4. DancinProf*

      I learned this from my French friend and I love it! But it just now occurred to me to wonder: if I’m “N,” are the people who report to me N-1? Or is it only ever used to refer to those above one’s own level?

      1. amoeba*

        We use n-x! (And we are indeed a science company, however, not math…)
        It’s usually used to refer to the levels below the CEO though with “n” being the CEO – so it’s “n-1 roles will be announced this week, n-2 by end of November” etc. (We had quite a bit of that kind of communication because of a recent merger, and then a harmonisation of job titles, etc.)

        I generally like it; it makes it pretty easy to figure out which roles people are talking about. Certainly much easier than “director level” or whatever, because a lot of the time, people on the same level have wildly different titles.

  11. Beth**

    Welcome back Alison!

    My husband has been using the phrase “uber boss” since long before the ride hailing app stole the term. He uses “uber uber boss” for his boss’s boss’s boss. Everyone always seems to understand what he means by the term, so I’m throwing it out there as an alternative to grandboss for anyone who needs one.

  12. Beth**

    Re #5, we have a theoretically anonymous 360 feedback process (normally administered by an external company) but I can usually tell which of my (3-8 person) team wrote which comment based on our previous interactions, my knowledge of their writing style etc.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      I try so hard not to do this/not to let other people do this when we’re discussing data – but it’s a natural thing for the brain to do. We have pattern recognition and we want to assign context.

      1. honeygrim*

        Yeah. The best bet with things like this is if the outside administrator can summarize comments and remove all direct quotations. But that still won’t work if comments are about incidents specific enough to make it impossible to genericize. And if you’re talking about an informal version of anonymous feedback, who could summarize it that also doesn’t know the players? It’s definitely not easy.

        1. ferrina*

          Having an outside administrator really is the gold standard- many 360 processes leave it at the discretion of the boss (who is sharing the review), and plenty of them aren’t trained on how to disguise language.

          This is also a niche that AI can help with. AI is great at rephrasing and summarizing things, though AI doesn’t know what is priority for your company. As always, use AI responsibly- always edit results to ensure they match your desired messaging and they make sense, and never share proprietary or sensitive data with unsecured AI.

        1. Artemesia*

          I have a friend who is a consultant who does evaluations which can assure the participants that the boss etc don’t have any access to the discrete data but only get summarized information. He has had companies hire him and then insist he tell them who gave what feedback; he has fired clients over it.

          I would never trust any system like this to be anonymous and thus would not provide any feedback I’d be unwilling to share publicly

    3. Aggretsuko*

      I think the only way you can have anonymity is if nobody has the option to write out their own comments and just sticks to ranking on a scale from 1-10 or whatever. People will ID what you say.

    4. Free Meerkats*

      I conquered the writing style problem with this method.

      Type up your comment outside the commenting platform.
      Run the comment through an online translation to a different language.
      Run the results of that through the translation to a third language.
      Run that through back to the original language.
      Make the minimal corrections needed to make it say what you want it to say.
      Paste that into the commenting platform.

      If you use different language pairs for every comment, they won’t even be identifiable as coming from the same person.

    5. Always Tired*

      When we do 360 reviews and surveys at year end, despite it going in “anonymous” I can generally still tell you exactly who wrote each feedback, and we’re a staff of 40. Writing style, specific things they commented on, etc. It’s really hard to do anonymous feedback. I rewrite and summarize everything to make it a little more anonymous before filling out review sheets for meetings or taking feedback to the company owner.

      It’s not a perfect system but it’s the best I can do, bar shelling out for a third party to do the summaries/rewrites, or giving myself a concussion after writing them.

    6. DisgruntledPelican*

      We do a 360 feedback process where the feedback goes to a board committee who then distills the feedback. So the boss you’re giving feedback to doesn’t ever hear verbatim what was said.

  13. WritingGroups*

    OP1, are you sure the talker understands that your writing group is actually a place to write? Every writer group I’ve ever been part of or heard others talk about was actually a group where folks could either get advice about their writing (which in an academic setting would mean their research) or get it critiqued. I wouldn’t think it out of line to talk about my esoteric research should I have any, and I have sat through some weird discussions driven by other people’s passion. Monopolizing the time would likely still be a social miscue, but one I can definitely see a socially inept person making if no one else were “taking advantage” of the time.

    I’m not saying this is what’s happening, but it seems very possible to me. In my younger, more academic days I might have done this and been oblivious to some of the missed social cues.

    1. Marion Ravenwood*

      Yeah, when I was in writers’ groups a few years ago we would talk far more than we wrote in our sessions. Maybe like a 10-15 minute writing exercise, but then we’d read them out and get feedback from the rest of the group. Or we’d just talk about what we’d been working on that week and our goals etc.

      What OP1 seems to be describing is more akin to the type of thing you get during NaNoWriMo where groups meet at cafes with laptops and work for a couple of hours quietly together. (There is almost certainly a proper term for this but it’s eluding me right now.) Which is totally fine but I don’t know if it’s been made clear that this is what this group is.

    2. STEMProf*

      At my university, writing accountability groups are really common, and it is clearly spelled out that you only talk for the first and last 5-10 min. The rest of the time is for writing. I assume that this is something similar (in which case it might be helpful for OP and their group to agree on some ground rules)

    3. Ellis Bell*

      While I think it should be obvious, I don’t understand why it is seen as rude to correct the talker? OP is even using their opportunity to speak up by merely hinting “time to write” without using the words “quiet” or “talking” or anything that directly tells you the deal at all; I suppose their history with the talker must be really very strained if OP feels they can’t say “Hey, sorry to interrupt, but we usually get our writing done at this point without any talking until 3pm, can we come back to this topic at the end?”. I think if the talker really is that easily offended, then giving some forewarning “Can we keep talking to the first fifteen minutes when we meet up next time?” or “Can we split up into talking and no talking groups next time? I’m finding I really need some quiet to write”. Or maybe moving from one location to another: “Hey, this conversation is so fascinating that I am not getting much writing done. If anyone wants to join me next door for a silent writing session, you’re welcome.” If there’s any meeting places with two distinct areas, that might work for the latter idea – a social area (maybe with some refreshments) and a quiet area. I realise they might come in late, blow past the now-empty social area and interrupt the talkers, but just walk her out. “This is the quiet bit, but let me get you some coffee. How is Arcane Subject area?” Give her a minute of chat before returning to the ‘quiet area’.

      2. Hyaline*

        I think it might be an academic thing—no one here is “in charge” so no one feels comfortable enforcing the rules which actually aren’t hard and fast rules at all but more like tradition. LW totally can and should speak up but I understand why they might feel they don’t have the authority to tell their peer how to act.

    4. carrot cake*

      “OP1, are you sure the talker understands that your writing group is actually a place to write?”

      —————-
      Being able to read the room is important here. If no one else is speaking, or the talk is intermittent, or everyone is mostly writing, then that’s the norm for that group. I mean, it’s not complicated.

  14. Irish Teacher.*

    LW2, have you reason to believe your boss is a petty, passive-aggressive person? Has she a history of making indirect digs while outwardly saying she is pleased with what people did? Sometimes reactions like you are having come from a wider pattern.

    If this is not the norm from her, then I wouldn’t assume it now. It would be a pretty bizarre way of telling you she was displeased and one many, perhaps most, people would miss. And yeah, there ARE bosses who are that bad at giving feedback but unless you have reason to believe she is one of them, I’d take this as her simply saying, “it’s fine that you went over the limit as the presentation was excellent” and possibly not even thinking of the individual questions she asked when asking you to review them.

    One thing to consider too is that we tend to assume that much of what our bosses do and say when interacting with us is about us, but very often it’s not and can often be more about them. Not in a bad way, but like the guy who spilled…was it condons? on his interviewer’s desk and after he got the job, he found out she’d hardly noticed because she was busy worrying that she had spinach in her teeth or a colleague of mine, when new, was asked by the principal about “any difficulties she was having” and worried that that was the principal’s way of implying she wasn’t coping or that there had been complaints about her but later realised it was most likely that the principal was worried SHE wasn’t being supportive enough of new staff and felt the new colleague might not have confidence in HER.

    In other words, the initial part of the message could be more a “yeah, I realise I was wrong” that a criticism of you and the request to review the questions might be more about her being nervous about interviewing rather than creating ways to have digs at you.

    LW5, as a teacher, I can say, it is VERY hard to make feedback truly anonymous. Unless you are dealing with a company of 100s of people. I have asked for anonymous feedback from students but usually know who wrote a fair bit of it based on writing style, what they mention, handwriting if it’s done as handouts, etc. Not that I let them know I’ve any idea who said what.

    1. DawnShadow*

      This is so insightful for LW2.

      I was thinking before reading your comment that of course she would know her own boss and her boss would probably have a history of making passive aggressive comments this way.

      Now I’m thinking that I’m interpreting this in the light of my own issues. Like many people, I was raised in an environment with a loose cannon anger type of parent, and I had to get really good at reading people. As I’ve gotten older and (slightly) more self aware I have to try to take a step back lots of times. I don’t actually HAVE to know if my boss is irked at something like this. If she was upset enough she would talk to me; it could be that she is annoyed but it doesn’t rise to the level that she wants me to do anything different.

      Sometimes it’s good to think, is this something that most people would notice? If not, I try to take a deep breath and put it out of my mind. I don’t always have to act on something I’m reading as subtext and besides, I might be wrong! Not everyone is my erratic and angry parent. I don’t need to be acting as though they are.

      1. ferrina*

        Great insights!

        Our perception of other people is always contextual, but it’s not always in the context of that person. Often it’s in the context of what our personal history has been.

        I would also encourage LW 2 to reflect- is their boss normally passive-aggressive? Was there another authority figure who was passive-aggressive, and who primed LW to expect passive-aggressive communication from authority figures? Most common culprits for the second question are parents and bosses from earlier in our career.

  15. Academic Annie*

    OP#1, my writing group uses an agreed format for these types of events: from the hour to quarter past is social time, when chat is welcomed. From quarter past to the hour, it’s silent writing time. Everyone knows this and has agreed to it when they signed up for the event. This format might not be exactly what you need, but hopefully a) you could adapt it to suit your events, and/or b) you may get some comfort from knowing that other groups have had similar issues and found ways to handle them.

    1. ThatOtherClare*

      This is good advice. I think the work of Nobel prize winner Elinor Ostrom is relevant here.

      If we think of the shared writing group’s time and mental resources as ‘public commons’, the ‘tragedy of the commons’ can be averted in the usual manner: by establishing group rules.

  16. Green great dragon*

    Yeh, saying she understood why you did it that way isn’t the same as saying she thought it was the right decision. Take it as nuanced feedback. There were lots of good things about the slides, sufficiently good that she went with them instead of asking you to shrink them down to the 1 or 2 she’d requested, but she’d have preferred a smaller number.

    1. ecnaseener*

      +1. LW seems put out that their boss would “belabor the point” (I guess writing “waaaaay” instead of “way” counts as belaboring, but really it was half a sentence) if she overall liked the slides, but sometimes there is nuance and that’s okay! It can be frustrating, but I don’t think LW would actually want their boss to flatten all feedback into 100% good or 100% bad.

      1. ferrina*

        And bosses aren’t always good communicators. Sometimes they convey something different than what they mean. I suspect in this case that the boss meant “usually I wouldn’t be okay with you going over the slide limit, but this is a rare case where the extra slides are the right call. This is great, but please don’t do this again.”

        If you aren’t sure, you can follow up with the boss about it later that week (I recommend later in the week rather than right away, because it gives the boss a little more time to think about it). “Hey, I want to make sure that I’m understanding your feedback about those slides. I read that as [rephrase goes here]- is that right?”
        This is a common active listening technique that I’ve found really useful in work interactions.

  17. bamcheeks*

    The interview question includes “[the manager] provided minimal guidance on the content they want”. To me that is at least as much recognition that she didn’t give actionable advice as it is of you for technically breaking the “two slides” format.

    I don’t think there is a problem here, but you could certainly ask whether she would have liked you to do something differently.

  18. Kwebbel*

    OP 5 – I’m a manager of 4 in a department of 25. Every 3 months our company sends out a staff survey with the ability to comment. My manager goes through the overall results with me before sharing with the wider team. Every time he’s done this, he’s taken guesses at who gave which feedback.

    For our last survey, which was during a period where there was good reason to believe the survey results would be extremely bad, my manager sent a message to the whole team saying “please, please add as many comments as possible. They’re 100% anonymous, and I promise you, they do get read. Feel free to go crazy, or just tell us how great everything is.” I…think he thought that was a cute little joke, but it really rubbed me the wrong way. It was particularly tone deaf for our situation, but also deeply lacking self awareness at how he treats the comments.

    Anyway, I decided not to leave any comments at all because of this behavior. And I also gave my direct reports a heads-up that this might happen as well.

    Short answer: If the team is small, comments are technically anonymous, but managers will probably try to guess who said what.

    (Also, if exactly one person on your team is, say, a non-native speaker, or is dyslexic, or uses Random Capitals, or uses a lot of semicolons or hyphens…well, they’re automatically outed in “anonymous” written feedback)

    1. Emmy Noether*

      Oooh, what if the person who writes in all caps does it purposely so that they can disguise their writing by writing normally in anonymous surveys? No one will ever suspect it was them! Genius!

    2. Great Frogs of Literature*

      I would say that managers may try to guess who said what. There are also people who take the anonymity in the spirit it was intended, and know based on the writing style that this was probably Jane or John, but aren’t going to go digging for evidence of which.

      One thing that can help in anonymizing results is to aggregate the comments per question rather than per respondent, so that even if someone is de-anonymized for a particular question, you don’t necessarily know what they said for everything. (That said, if you’re going to do that, it’s a good idea to TELL the respondents that you’re doing that, otherwise they may assume that you’re getting their answer to question 5 in the context of their answers to questions 2 and 3, or whatever. Also it means that people can choose to out themselves on question 8 without worrying that you’ll then also know it was them on question 4.)

      1. OP 5*

        Ooh, I like the idea of aggregating the comments per question instead of per respondent! Thanks for the suggestion.

      2. the Viking Diva*

        and scramble the order so readers can’t just match up the third comment on each question…

      3. Tony Howard*

        I just asked my executive assistant (back then we called them secretaries, I’m sorry), to type all the comments in random order. And give them to me on a single sheet of paper (see how old I am!) while destroying all the originals (yes, in a shredder!) . We also used a ranking system 1-10 on a variety of topics and management skills (effective listening, open communication, access to necessary resources, fair evaluations, etc.) where again, I would only see the overall team score for each category . As I recall , sometimes my secretary would “throw out” the high and low scores if she determined they were skewing the average.

    3. OP 5*

      My team leader doesn’t strike me as the type to try and play guessing games on who said what, but as you and Alison both said, sometimes it is pretty clear due to communication quirks or particular circumstances. Anyway, he sent out the survey, we all responded, and even though I would not have a problem expressing any of my concerns to his face, I did catch myself being a little more conscious of how I phrased some things.

  20. Cardboard Marmalade*

    For LW1, if the direct approach won’t work with this person/group, you could float the idea of instituting a one dollar “admission fee” to attend the group, with the pot then being given as a prize at the end to whoever has produced the highest word count while they’re there. If this doesn’t have the effect of getting the chatty person to buckle down and get to work, it might at least spur the others to be bolder about telling them to hush so their own chances at the pot aren’t spoiled. If anyone dislikes the gambling feel of this, I’m sure there’s another way to gamify it, but I feel like even a small amount of money is usually enough to get people to focus.

        1. Ferret*

          Fair point although I tend to use guy as a gender neutral term especially in contexts like these where we are talking about what sounds like a fairly informal mixed group. But I can see LW1 used neutral language so I’ll be more careful on this one

      2. Cardboard Marmalade*

        I agree, I was just trying to brainstorm alternatives to the obvious solution which is just telling them to stop or else they’re not longer welcome to join, as the LW is concerned that being that direct will cause drama. If it’s not a good idea for their group, they won’t take it and that’s fine, but maybe it will at least get them thinking creatively about other ways to address this that feel more community-building and less community-disrupting.

    2. Seeking Second Childhood*

      If it were a Nanowrimo style event that could be fun. But for technical or academic wtiting, word count is not the point. Your suggestion would penalize someone who needs to create a synopsis or initial project statement.

      1. Hyaline*

        Like…even as a novelist I would nope out of the competition aspect because I don’t write a lot in an average drafting session—not a fast drafter (but my first drafts aren’t as word dumpy as many folks’!). It’s a fun idea but if people are reluctant chalk it up to differing writing styles or, as SSC said, differing goals.

      2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        Or someone who’s trying to edit their grant proposal to cut out half a page to get it under the limit!

  21. flutter by*

    OP1 – I think my suggestion would be to get some kind of sign that says “Silent Writing Time” which can be set up when writing time starts and taken down at the end. If this person arrives late, don’t make smalltalk at all, just indicate the sign.

    Obviously you need the group’s buy-in on this but explaining it as “this makes the situation clear to passers-by and late arrivals without interrupting anyone’s focus” might be softer than calling out the problem person directly.

    1. DJ Abbott*

      Yes, or I’m wondering if OP and the others can just tune this person out. It sounds like the talker doesn’t need a response. Just ignore them, and maybe they’ll get bored and stop talking. Maybe use both approaches, put up the sign and then ignore them if they talk.
      I once gave my phone number to a man for hobby reasons, not dating or friendship. He began calling me every couple of days, and as soon as I picked up the phone would talk for an hour nonstop. He just wanted someone to talk at, not any kind of connection. It wasn’t long before I began screening his calls. :D
      I still see him occasionally as part of group activities. That was 19 years ago, and he’s gotten even weirder since then.

      1. Person from the Resume*

        I would not be able to tune him out. I work in silence and background talking or tv would be a huge distraction from writing. I think a number of the writers would find someone talking nearby to be a distraction during their silent writing time.

        LW could purchase and bring noise cancelling headphones, but really needs to be done is tell the rude guy to stop being rude and interrupting the designated quiet writing time.

        I love the sign idea. I hate anything else that avoids telling the rude inconsiderate guy to stop his rude activity. That should not be drama inducing.

      2. Sacred Ground*

        I think if someone has that ability to “tune out” ambient noises and distracting conversations when writing, then they probably don’t need a designated time and quiet space to write in. No point to even having this group, one might as well just write at the local coffee shop or home.

  22. Lost in academia*

    LW1: Lots of writing groups that I know of use the Pomodoro Technique whereby you set a timer for 25mins silent writing and then have a 5 minute break, also timed. If you go over two hours you have a longer break, but most groups I know of limit themselves to four of these cycles. Many groups also use the acronym SUAW (shut up and write) for themselves, but you might feel it’s a bit pointed to use this given the circumstances. Could you propose using this for a couple of sessions as you don’t feel you’re currently using the time as well as you might and you have had this technique recommended? (Side note: it is also a really good technique when you are writing on your own, I bashed out large chunks of my PhD thesis using it.)

  23. Your credit's fine Mr Torrance*

    I don’t think you need to say anything at all in #3, but imo you shouldn’t do (a) in the response – for all you know Jane likes it and finds it a good way to meet the office people.

  24. FashionablyEvil*

    LW1–there’s a lot of good, practical suggestions in this thread, but I’d also suggest looking more closely at your reluctance to assert some pretty normal boundaries and how you can get better at that in general. Asking that a writing group meet your needs as a writer isn’t “drama.” It’s a normal, necessary request.

    1. carrot cake*

      Asserting boundaries with a peer is naturally awkward; that’s the reluctance. Seems a bit much to extrapolate this one situation into all others that incorporate boundary-keeping.

  25. Ebar*

    On the grandboss I’m a firm believer in the term since I came across it here. My Great-grandboss’s official title would – to anyone outside of the (government) organisation – makes her sound like she’s someone who gets the tea. Instead of someone at very nearly the top of the organisation. Whereas Great-grandboss is a good deal less ambiguous.

  26. Can't spell 'Who Cares' without HR*

    LW #4: As someone who’s not a native English speaker, I always thought of “grandboss” in terms of importance –a grand entrance, grand gesture, grand opening– rather than it being related to family

    1. A Simple Narwhal*

      That’s a great way of describing it. “Grand” elevates the word it’s paired with to a higher level. A grandboss is the next level of boss, it’s describing the hierarchy.

      (Native english speaker, fwiw)

    2. fhqwhgads*

      Reasonable point. Also the only alternative I can think of would make it sound more like family “boss once-removed”.

    3. amoeba*

      That’s the way it automatically sounds in my head as well, took me a while to go to the “once removed” interpretation – but I actually like the latter better, unless used in a joking way. We’re not very hierarchical and the idea of “Very Important Big Boss TM” just… doesn’t fit with my work life.

  27. Hyaline*

    OP1, since you’re in academia, I’m wondering where this group “came from”–was it formed by a group, department, an individual or individuals? I’m getting the sense that, like so many areas in academia, you’re feeling like no one is really “in charge” so no one has “the standing” to say something let alone enforce something. If the group kind of coalesced like so many do in academia, rather than being, like, a formalized working group under the auspices of X Department with pre-existing rules, or a writer’s group explicitly led by Jack Penhand or whatever, I can understand your reservations, but maybe it’s helpful to take up some leadership here. Before the next meeting, consider either articulating some rules and just laying them out, or if that feels like an overreach, suggest a discussion about goals and rules for the group. Even something as simple as “Hey, we’ve been meeting two years now, and I feel like it would be really helpful to lay out some guidelines on how we use our time. Can we take ten minutes to discuss that at our next meeting?” Or if you want to just lay it out there, “Sure, I can set up the next meeting–but you know, in general, I’d like to see us set some firmer boundaries on time. Are we all ok saying that the first ten minutes will be for discussion and we commit to quiet after that?”

    Then, if you have majority buy-in, you (or anyone else) would have full standing to say to Prof. Chatterbox “Hey, we all committed to quiet writing time until 5” in the moment, and even to pull him aside and suggest that the group may not be a good fit if he prefers discussion to writing time (bonus points if you can suggest a campus book club or working group that focuses on discussion for him to join instead–he’s striking me as possibly lonely and awkward and just so happy to have HUMANS to TALK to that he’s forgetting all decorum).

    Lots of good suggestions here for ways to set up your time; I might suggest that you keep a keen eye on what happens when you take breaks (either using pomodoro or your usual midway break time) and see if that’s a point of derailment. If it is, you might better served with a longer bookend chat time before and after and just work straight through. You might also think about, if it turns out a lot of people want to work through ideas and bounce them off people in discussion (even though only Prof. Chatterbox is rude enough to disregard the quiet time rules), having alternating “writing” and “workshopping” meetings.

    I apologize, I wrote a book…I would love to join your group! :D

  28. Somehow I Manage*

    OP2 – I agree that the timing is potentially something you could read into, but I don’t think the feedback was at all mixed. You produced more than what you were asked for, but your boss acknowledged positively that there was rhyme and reason for it. Maybe you could or should have noted earlier that you were doing something a little different, sure. Your boss might have appreciated that – hence the wording of the question – but it sounds like the question is simply informed by the situation and they just want to see how others might handle the situation.

    I think I’d just ask them if they’d have preferred you handle things differently. You’ll know and it’ll put your mind at ease. You don’t owe them an apology necessarily, but you could frame your question through one. Something like, “I saw the question and wondered if it was related to the situation that happened last week. I apologize that I didn’t ask you in advance before changing course.”

  30. Lacey*

    #2

    It’s unclear to me if the boss is being petty or not!

    I’ve had bosses who would say something like this and put in the interview question and it would actually mean they’re really pleased with the work. They’d be putting in the question bc they want someone else like the OP.

    Those bosses really valued that I’m an independent worker who can adjust projects as needed.

    On the other hand, I’ve had passive aggressive micro-managing bosses who absolutely would be doing this as a dig. The implication would be, “You couldn’t do this right, lets see if we can find someone else who can!”

    These bosses liked to play mind games & see their minions dance.

    I expect the OP knows which kind of boss they have, but it sounds more like the first. If it was the second their boss would have made them redo it 3 times, the last time while standing over their shoulder and telling them exactly what needs to happen.

  31. DisneyChannelThis*

    re #1 I would address the group as a whole , both via email or however the schedule is announced and then remind everyone again at the start. “Next meeting time is blah blah details. Just as a reminder the format is 10-15min of social, then 1:15pm prompt starts silent writing time, at 2:15 we’ll hold time for social as well before ending at 2:30pm.” . “Ok, everyone it’s 1:15pm it’s time for writing, if you want to keep chatting you can step outside”.

    Then, you have better standing to address offenders. If it’s unspoken rules it’s a lot harder to call out Mr/Ms Chatty. “Hey George, this is silent writing time please stay on task”. And if it’s one person consistently, you have the ability to pull them aside privately as well. Hopefully it doesn’t turn into a situation where you need to kick them out of the group. Captain Awkward has good advice if it does.

    1. Bear in the Sky*

      But to enforce a quiet rule, you have to be prepared to kick any violators out of the group. You might not necessarily have to, but you have to think as if you’ll have to. Not just hope you won’t.

      OP1 and their group do need to be ready to kick out Professor Chatterbox, whether or not they end up actually doing it.

  32. Tee2072*

    For Q1: I belong to a weekly writing group that meets in a coffee shop bookstore. The one way we get around people disrupting our group, even though people come in and out obviously because it’s not a private area, is that, at least for the people participating, there’s a clear leader.

    So if someone is being disruptive, the leader will say, “O’kay, we’re writing now” or similar. That usually stops the chatter.

    But since we are in a public place, we also suggest to people that they bring sound cancelling headphones if they need them. OP might want to try that too.

    BTW, the group is called Write Club and the first rule of Write Club? You don’t talk during Write Club.

  33. SBH*

    I hadn’t heard “grandboss” until I started reading this column, but I remember thinking it was a concise and amusing way to get the point across. I still tend to use “boss’s boss” then “our department level boss.” Or occasionally I’ll say “boss 2 levels up” (or however many levels I need).

  35. MicroManagered*

    OP2, I’m saying this with the care and gentleness I’d want to show a very good friend:

    I think you are WAY overthinking this and getting it ass-backwards! I read your boss’s reaction to the 5 slides as positive! Once she saw the 5 slides, she understood why it was not possible to do it in 2. The only thing I can think of that you could’ve done differently was to let her know earlier that hey, I cannot get this down to 2 slides and I need you to help me either understand what’s ok to trim away here or let me know you’re ok with the 5 vs. 2 you asked for. But really, if she felt that way, it would’ve been on her to say it and she didn’t so take her at her word.

    The interview question doesn’t sound like a dig at you at all? It sounds like she knows this is a thing in your work and needs to screen for people who can think independently, like you did. I read it like she wants another “you” in her next hire — that’s praise, not a dig!

    This actually reminds me of how I sometimes perceive (or misperceive) similar stuff from my boss. I have big imposter syndrome that I’m working on in therapy, and sometimes that shows up as taking something (like your situation) as major criticism when it’s not. It’s a combination of my “stuff” and my boss’s “stuff” that other people perceive from her too, so it’s not just me. I’m not trying to diagnose you or whatever, but it might be worth looking at whether you have a pattern of perceiving negative things that aren’t really there?

    1. londonedit*

      Yeah, I agree with Alison that the interview question probably just stems from the boss thinking ‘Hey, the thing I asked OP2 to do with the slides would be really useful as an interview question – it’d be really interesting to hear the candidates’ approaches’. I wouldn’t interpret it as a dig. Also agree with you that the OP could feasibly have said ‘I’m working on these slides but there’s so much information that I don’t think I can usefully condense it into just two slides – I’d prefer to have an introduction, and then a slide about each point. Is that OK with you?’ but that’s with the benefit of hindsight. The boss accepted the OP’s reasoning when she submitted the slides, didn’t say ‘No, I need this to fit into two’, and said she’d done a good job with it. End of story!

      Last year we did some hiring in my team, and something similar happened – we had a particular scenario with a particular author, and my boss realised that asking the candidates how they’d respond in that situation would give us some really useful insight into how they approach things, and how ruffled they’d be by unexpected issues cropping up. So we included it in the list of questions we had for all the interviewees, and it actually did work really well. So I can imagine that the OP’s boss might have thought the same.

  37. Sneaky Squirrel*

    #2 – Is Carrie normally a passive person or are they usually pretty clear? If they’re normally direct with feedback, then I would say leave it and assume that it’s great.

    The interview question seems pretty out there to be a random question unless the job will be to regularly make powerpoint slides. It could be a recency effect question, that Carrie remembered that she asked you to make slides and thought it was a good ask. Or, sure, it could absolutely be a passive-aggressive way of saying she didn’t like your work too. That seems like Carrie’s problem more than yours; she’s making much more work for herself and making a rigid definition the job than just giving you feedback about how you could do the job if that’s the case.

    For my role, powerpoint slide making is one of those creative tasks in which everyone has their own vision. It doesn’t mean that I’m wrong or that my boss is wrong when visions don’t align. We could both be grand presenters, and just have a different idea on how we choose to visualize the data. Sometimes I have to remind myself when I see a lot of changes that I’m not bad at my job just because my boss didn’t seem to like my slides. It’s one small facet of my job which has many tasks.

  38. Jennifleur*

    I absolutely am someone who talks ferociously in writing groups. For me it’s a form of avoidance of the task. I can’t think of any solution to this that won’t involve a bit of social awkwardness, because you do need to make it directly obvious that it’s not ok.

  40. Amanda*

    I work for a small business that has about 10 employees. The owner decided to ask for anonymous feedback, which luckily I recognized as not being anonymous, but did try to provide helpful thoughts. Rather than the owner playing her own game and pretending that she didn’t know that they were my thoughts, she addressed me directly to tell me why my feedback was wrong. I have since decided that these surveys are not anonymous and a waste of time being that the owner really just wants praise.

    1. Jayne*

      That has been my experience at a much larger organization in academia. The survey that taught me not to answer was one where the dean of the area tried to figure out who said what and tried to pressure IT to reveal the names of respondents.

      Every since then (twenty years or more ago), I have not responded. Once, I compiled my responses and put them in a drawer. With that one, it was the five year review of the dean (yes, same one) and one of the committee members remarked that he couldn’t identify my input from the surveys. Hmmm, is all I said.

      The latest one was all spiffy with technology, with email reminders to fill out the form which showed that they kept track of each individual who had responded. Despite this survey being the first done by an outside (supposedly) professional organization, they reported findings that were too identifiable. One of their graphs was of what the people over 65 responded and also revealed that there were only 4 in that group. Another was what the three military veterans had said.

      Yeah, no survey response is less dangerous than actually trying to help. My cynicism also leads me to think that the admin wants to be seen doing a survey rather than actually get actionable items that might bruise any egos among the managers.

    2. carrot cake*

      At a new job many years ago, I respectfully but honestly answered the qualitative part of a survey, and the boss singled out it and a few others for public shaming. I don’t think she knew my comment was one of those she singled out, but I remember thinking “WHO does that? Who pro-actively requests feedback and then publicly berates comments that don’t sit well?”

      That was the one and only time I ever participated in one of her surveys. Her fishing for compliments was just so “dear leader” creepy.

  41. CubeFarmer*

    LW#2: You’re reading way too much into this. While I generally like to give my higher ups exactly what they ask for regarding stuff like this, and when I can’t I generally give them feedback why, you acted differently.

    Maybe she was looking for feedback about what she might have done better as a supervisor, or getting a neutral read on the situation.

  42. Techno Support*

    Re: grandboss, I have ended up using the term ‘overboss’ to refer to my boss’s boss, because she’s also the department head. I also use it because it amuses me.

  43. Emily*

    I wrote in about grandboss! It’s interesting to hear the different reactions people have to this term. I understand now that a lot of people aren’t immediately reminded of a grandpa or grandma like I am. But I’ve asked quite a few friends and they all share my disgust. I think it’s just because it’s so similar sounding to a title you would give to a family member, and for many of us, family is the only context for “grand” as a prefix for a person? (Though I see counterexamples e.g. grandmaster.) I’m still super weirded out by the term even if that might not be totally rational, and so are many friends and coworkers. I wish it would fall out of use, and I still think it has a creepy connotation to it (in the context of toxic “we’re all a family” workplace culture, I’d love if we could stay away from even vaguely familial terms?). But I’ll begrudgingly accept that others like it and have justified its use. :-)

    1. Petty_Boop*

      Interesing. I don’t associate “grand” with family AT ALL. I think of “ornate” “masterful” etc… Maybe because we call our parent’s parents “gramma and grampa” and not “grandma and grandpa” so the “grand” part just isn’t as ingrained?

    2. Phony Genius*

      Since your response indicates that your family and coworkers also strongly dislike the term, I wonder if this is a regional thing. May I ask if you are in the U.S.? If so, roughly what region?

    3. musical chairs*

      Hey I just want you to know I hate it too! You’re not alone! To me, it’s overly familial in a way that rings as juvenile. It pulls me out of letters sometimes! I only ever see it here. I think I would wince a little if I heard it in real life.

  44. fhqwhgads*

    I’m going to quibble with the boss in #2 for a slightly different reason. Number of slides is a particularly useless guideline for something being presented. I’ve seen 2 slides be a 2 minute pres, and 2 slides be 10 minutes. So if the concern is time, you gotta give either a time constraint or both time and number of slides. If the presentation is something that will be read but not ever actually presented, then I guess number of slides could be a logical way to frame it. So to me, it is a bit obnoxious of the boss to have commented on “waaaayyyy over 2 slides” – assuming that spelling is a direct quote. If OP had the same 4 pieces of info smashed into the second slide, but just smaller, that’d have been a worse way to convey the info, but would’ve met the criteria. By pointing it out it seems to suggest there was some real need to stick to “two” even though that doesn’t make sense. So, yeah, I agree with LW 2 that this aside does seem to be a negative thing and does seem to belabor the point.

    1. Pummeled by PowerPoint*

      Reading the letter made me wonder just how much information she expected to be crammed into those two slides.

      It’s a major pain point with me being expected to read huge amounts of text during presentations. Not to mention too much text means you have less room for eye-catching graphics to keep the audience’s attention.

    2. NewHere*

      Just wanted to chime in and say that sometimes there’s workplace-specific or team-specific context at play. My personal preference is for information to be spread across more slides, but I was once on a team where everyone preferred 1-2 slides maximum. And I later found out that it was because when they presented to executives, the execs would always jump in and start asking questions on the first slide! So most of the meeting time was spent on the first slide, and sometimes the 2nd slide, but we rarely ever got to the last few slides.

    3. carrot cake*

      Anyone can splash all available details over multiple slides.

      But condensing all available details is an important writing skill, and means knowing the details of a project intimately so one can artfully decide how to present significant details succinctly. That’s where the real work is in communicating those details. Even one slide would suffice; boss was generous to offer two.

  45. Stop the insanity*

    Re #5…I was 2nd level of management in a department with about 120 people total. There was almost nothing that was anonymous. Even at that size. A survey was done once where someone wrote they appreciated one manager’s attempt to address X. Told me the director took credit for being that person but it wasn’t the director he was referring to. He was afraid to say anything at that point. So even if you hope for anonymity in a larger group it might not happen!

    1. H3llifIknow*

      The fact that at our company, we get reminders that “you haven’t completed the XYZ survey yet! Your feedback is important AND anonymous” or whatever gives me NO fuzzies that it’s anonymous or they’d not know I didn’t do it yet. I think the links in each person’s email link to the survey but with some sort of identifier. I either do neutral all the way down, or just continue to ignore the surveys. If there’s a TRUE issue I feel needs taken care of, I’m not waiting for a survey; I go to my boss or Grandboss and talk to them about it.

  46. Texan in exile on her phone*

    LW5 – even at a big company. I worked in a 4,000 person department at a big company. A coworker left very tactful, thoughtful, relevant allegedly anonymous feedback about a VP’s presentation after a town hall.

    The VP was so angry that he tracked her down – I think each form had a unique ID linked to the employee – and forced her to apologize. Our boss did not defend her.

    She had a new job in a week. She is absolutely fabulous at what she does and was a huge asset to the company and they drove her away.

  47. Brad*

    We used to have “anonymous” surveys for our office of around 100 people to check in with how they were doing. That would seem to be enough that there could be anonymity, but each answer was marked with the person’s department and position and number of years at the company. There weren’t more than two or three people with any specific title, and the tenure pretty much showed who they were. The person who evaluated the results would just say “Michele wrote X about IT. IT- can you follow up?” and “Facilities- Kevin has an issue with Y. Give him a call.”

  48. Flibbergibbit*

    I’m in a management consulting field and I do employee surveys for specific purposes, usually about policy and process, employee engagement on specific business direction but never about employment satisfaction and other HR type stuff. I always tell senior leadership that all responses will be aggregated and comments honed down to themes and they will not get the raw data. Then we tell employees that is what we’re doing and they will have access to summary findings.

    The comments we get even so… some with vitriol and mistrust on anonymity, especially if past surveys were touted as anonymous but weren’t. I couldn’t understand why people would say as one did “I’ve been burned in the past, but here is what I actually *&#$ think and if it comes back to me I will quit and burn it down as I go.” But beyond the angry tone there was some useful stuff also reflected in others’ feedback. And we did what we said, kept all raw data off site, and the senior leaders never pressured us to reveal sources once we laid it out that way. Smaller departments were rolled up to a higher level to keep from outing anyone by accident, and anyone could provide feedback about processes and management of them that they rely on from other departments.

    It’s so easy for a manager to screw it up just once and by confronting staff and they’ll never get useful feedback again. It’s a real shame.

    1. H3llifIknow*

      I responded to a survey from an AF organization our office (we’re all DoD) works with. They’re sort of customer focused, but more of a policy compliance org. It was “ANONYMOUS”. I asked if our links to the survey had tracking info linked to individuals etc… and was told NO. This is 100% anonymous. About a week later, I got asked by the head of that organization (a friend) about something I’d said in the survey. I said, “so much for anonymity!” and he replied, “your comment was written in YOUR voice–exactly as you speak. We all read it and said “I read that with H3ll’s voice in my head!” So, I guess even if not “tracked” if people answer the way they’d SAY something, it can be easy to figure out who wrote it.

  49. Chopin Broccoli*

    What’s up with “grandboss”? The usual issue with slang — some people enjoy it and find it useful or even playful, some people hate it and read more into it than was intended.

    I’ve heard “grandboss” in the real world, but always in casual conversations about someone else’s workplace, because it’s useful shorthand. I doubt it’s in many actual org charts, or even something that a company would use internally and officially to describe a relationship.

    As is almost always the case with words you don’t like that other people use: Don’t use it yourself, and otherwise let it go.

  50. KayZee*

    I love “Grandboss” and it never, ever occurred to me to associate it with an actual grandparent. I thought it was clever.

    1. jane's nemesis*

      I use it all the time and it definitely has nothing familial in connotation for me. It’s just a way to denote “level removed” from myself.
      (Grandparent = one generation above parent) is the same as
      (grandboss = one level above boss)

  51. AnotherSarah*

    OP 1: This would drive me nuts! Writing time is precious! There seem to be two or more things going on–first, it seems that other group members don’t care, or don’t want to deal with this person. Are they able to focus in a way you’re not? If so, it might be that the group’s rules have de facto changed, unfortunately. But also, the talker is being REALLY rude, as you’ve clearly stated your needs. Could you approach another group member to get their take, perhaps a bit subtly? For example, “I’m hoping I can stick with the group this term, but I’m finding it really hard to focus–do you think people would be amenable to going over the guidelines again?”

    OP 5: The only time I’ve seen really anon feedback was when it was digested by another person–usually your boss or someone in HR–and delivered re-written or orally. That’s also helpful for not letting one comment throw you (like, if you hear from the summary that 8 people said you’re organized and 1 person thinks you’re not, that’s going to land differently than reading that one “OP is the most disorganized person I know” comment).

  52. H3llifIknow*

    LW2: I think you’re both overthinking and negatively spinning the interview question. I would take it as your boss seeing you take initiative and doing what needed done, when there really wasn’t a lot of context around what she wanted. She wants to see if an interviewee would do something similar is my guess. “Well, I’d put together the information I believe is necessary to complete the task in as concise a format as possible; and if that meant exceeding the 3 slides I’d do so but give my boss a heads up in case they want it edited.”

    Turn your telescope around. Your boss isn’t dissing you with that question; she’s complimenting you!

  53. Jack Straw from Wichita*

    The prefix “grand” does not indicate any type of familial relationship, nor does the term “boss.” I get what the LW is going for, but it doesn’t make sense when you look at the word.

    Grand is defined as (among other things) “having higher rank than others bearing the same general designation” [Merriam-Webster]. That’s it. So while grandparent does indicate a familial relationship, it does so because of the word “parent” not the word “grand.”

    Grandboss just means the boss above someone with the same title.

  54. Dawn*

    #1: Hi. I’m a talker. I babble a lot sometimes, and hardly even notice that I’m doing it.

    Please tell me directly that you’d like me to shut up, or I won’t know. It sounds like nobody has done this, just said, “Hey, social time is over now, could you please stop chatting?” and you should really, really, REALLY try it before making plans like “remind the whole group this is quiet time” or whatever.

    Be direct! For the most part, talkers know that we talk and we’re used to hearing that you’d like us to stop, but we do need you to say it.

    1. Statler von Waldorf*

      I’ve tried that. It’s a mixed bag. I’ve found that only a small minority of “talkers” respond well to being told to stop talking. The vast majority do NOT. Some just sulk, which is fine if not ideal. However, some people get quite offended when they are told to stop talking. So now I have to deal with a talker with a chip on their shoulder. That is so, so much worse.

      If people honestly thought that saying “Hey, social time is over now, could you please stop chatting?” would resolve the issue without the risk of causing drama, they’d probably do it. But they don’t, because that risk is real. Sure, maybe you’re cool with being told to zip it. But I’m not going to gamble my workplace reputation on that. A pissed-off talker can cause a lot of reputational damage, especially because they won’t shut-up about it.

      In a social situation, I’ll call out the talkers freely, mock the people who sulk, and walk away if they get too salty about it. That is not the same as a work situation, where I am being paid to maintain professional relationships with these people and cannot do those things.

      For all those reasons, that’s why I strongly disagree with you that it’s on us non-talkers to actually say anything about this to you directly. No, we don’t need to say it. You’re adults, you should know this by now.

      1. Dawn*

        “If people honestly thought that saying “Hey, social time is over now, could you please stop chatting?” would resolve the issue without the risk of causing drama, they’d probably do it.”

        In my experience that is 100% untrue. People are afraid of being direct.

        Heck, just read this site; 80% of the answers boil down to “you have to say something to them if you want someone to do/stop doing something”.

        And yeah maybe we should know when to stop talking, but obviously the guy in the letter doesn’t, so you can say shoulda woulda coulda all day, it’s not going to change things.

  55. Dana*

    OP #2

    So while I do think you are overthinking it a bit, you will likely need to learn how to summarize the material down to 2 slides or even 2 sentences as you grow in your career. That is pretty standard in business even for complex and mission critical things. A typical way I’ve seen this handled is to have the summary slides in the main presentation and to put backup information in hidden slides at the end in case you need them. Or to put the details in the speaker notes. Asking how someone approaches this task in an interview seems completely reasonable.

    I’ve managed someone who regularly gave me 5x what I asked for. At first I would respond with “I asked for 2 pages, but I can see you put a lot of thought into this.” And then likely summarize the material myself. As I became a better manager I started sending that person back to fix it and give me what I asked for. “I understand this is complex, but I need 1-2 pages maximum. If you can’t figure out how to do that let me know and we’ll work through summarizing it together so you can learn.” It took me a couple years to learn that with that particular person I couldn’t give any praise mixed with constructive feedback because they would ONLY hear the praise and not onboard any of the constructive feedback. I hated being that manager, but that is what that particular person needed to be successful.

    1. Mad Scientist*

      Yeah, your example phrasing of “I asked for 2 pages, but I can see you put a lot of thought into this” is how I interpreted the boss’s feedback in this case. It sounds like someone who is softening constructive criticism to me. “Why belabor the point” just comes across as dismissive of boss’s criticism.

      That being said, I think the interview question thing is weird on the boss’s part. I’m not saying it’s not a good question. But it’s weird timing and weird to have OP involved in drafting / asking the question. If it were me, I’d have to ask the boss if they had any feedback for how I handled that situation or if they had any constructive criticism to share. If anything, it would clarify what they’re hoping to learn from candidates, but it would also put my mind at ease in case it WAS passive aggressive.

  56. Seacalliope*

    I guess I’m out of the norm here, but I think the boss in LW 2 is out of line. She was wrong about how to do the slides. She gave virtually no guidance, the guidance she gave turned out to be wrong, and then she gave mixed feedback without acknowledging her own piece. If the number of slides was absolute, she needed to give more information on how to distill the update, or perhaps engage in editing collaboratively with LW. If the take away for LW is not to do it again this way, she should say so — but again, I think it would be baffling to be told the work was excellent, but don’t do it again.

    1. Dawn*

      The boss may have been wrong – that’s up for debate – but the OP also erred in just deciding “well, boss is wrong, I’ll do it my own way rather than follow the guidance I have been given.”

      If your boss is wrong, you go back to your boss and say, “Hey, I don’t think this is going to work this way, I think it will work that way, would you like me to do it that way?” and then if your boss insists on doing it wrong anyway, you follow their directions.

      The whole point of the manager-employee relationship is that ultimately you, subordinate, are responsible for following the superior’s directions unless those directions would be unsafe or illegal. You can’t just decide to throw out your instructions and do it the way you want to without potentially facing consequences.

    2. Mad Scientist*

      I wouldn’t say out of line, necessarily, although I do think the interview question thing is weird. Even if it wasn’t malicious, it’s a bit careless, since I think most people would have a hard time not reading into that, and I think it’s worth asking boss if they have any additional feedback related to the question just in case. And I do agree that if the take-away is not to do it again this way, she should simply say so.

      But to your other points, it definitely depends on the role, but it’s not always reasonable to expect a lot of guidance or expect your boss to engage in editing collaboratively with you. Sometimes your boss needs you to be able to complete a task independently. Of course, for more junior / entry level roles, or for tasks that are really far outside of someone’s wheelhouse (which might be the case with LW2 if she doesn’t make presentations often), it makes sense to need more guidance, and I’m not saying people should never ask questions or seek input! But ultimately, in a lot of roles, people simply won’t get the level of guidance / involvement from their boss that you’re describing, especially as they get more experienced.

  57. Delta Delta*

    #1 – This person isn’t taking hints. Try this, “John, I need you to stop talking for a bit so I can concentrate.” Don’t specify “a bit” because what you really mean is “for the rest of the day.” John can spit and sputter and whatever, but really, you need to communicate clearly with him to be quiet.

  58. LL*

    RE #4: The way I view the words grandma and grandpa is that “ma” and “pa” are the words that designate someone as family and “grand” is just an adjective tacked on that denotes their positions in line of direct ancestors. Grand doesn’t imply family, to me.

  59. Funbud*

    The whole grandboss thing has always bothered me, also, not because I find it unseemly, but because I find it unbearably “cutesy” and “cozy”. Ditto for the “Llama Handler” and “Teapot Designer” tropes. I get the utility of using terms like this to streamline discussion, I just wish the terms chosen had been less precious.
    Before I began reading AAM I had never read the term “grandboss”. I have never heard anyone use this term in actual conversation.

  60. PlainJane*

    LW1,
    I think there may be a communication problem. I’m a lifelong writer (hobbyist), and when I hear “writer’s group,” my immediate thought is that it’s not a group to actually write in, but to talk and cross-critique each other’s projects. If I were your co-worker, I’d probably be awkwardly wondering why I was the only one who seemed to be talking. Didn’t anyone else need to workshop?

  61. Margaret Cavendish*

    OP2, I agree with Alison – your boss’ feedback is very clear and direct! She provided
    ~a statement of fact (you went over the requested number of slides)
    ~a general evaluation (it looks great)
    ~and specific feedback (I like how you’ve provided the context for each work area diplomatically.)

    Honestly, this is the gold standard for providing feedback – it truly doesn’t get better than this.

    And that’s why I don’t think the interview question was intended as a dig at you. From this one anecdote, Carrie sounds like a great boss who really wants to help you succeed! Why would she take this incredibly convoluted and passive-aggressive way to provide feedback, when she had already given it to you directly? It’s far more likely that she recognized this as a situation where you and she had different expectations, and thought it would be a great question for the interview.

  63. Raida*

    1. Writing group member won’t stop talking and we can’t get any work done

    Please take this in the nicest possible way – “They have a strong personality” is not an excuse for not telling a person there’s an issue. It’s just a *reason* for why you *have to* tell them because they will not figure it out alone.

    So. Bloody. Well. Tell. Them.

  64. Penny Pingleton*

    LW#1: as a fellow academic, I feel your pain. I have the same person in my department. They monopolize every conversation, seem to think everyone wants to hear their amazing ideas (and no one has ever thought of those ideas before), and are just overall insufferable in their self-absorption. Unfortunately, the solitary nature of scholarly work feeds these personalities. Lots of people who are aware of the existence of other humans go into academia and thrive, and also, unfortunately, so do these self-absorbed blowhards who think their scholarship is the only thing that matters in the world. And if they have to be the smartest person in the room about anything anyone else says? Forget it. Take care of yourself and opt out. It will ruin your work life.

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