my boss hates that I blush a lot, I messed up a major project as my internship ended, and more

by Alison Green on November 22, 2024

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

1. My boss hates that I blush a lot

I have always been a chronic blusher. Whatever you’re thinking when you read that, it’s way more. I blush at everything. Someone looks at me — I turn red. I think about something slightly awkward that happened to me — I blush. As a teen, my parents even took me to doctors for it. It turns out I have a condition called idiopathic craniofacial erythema, which is basically a fancy name for saying my blush reaction is crazy over-primed. I tried CBT. I tried regular talk therapy. I even tried medication. No go. There is a surgery option but it’s scary and I’m not interested in doing it.

When I realized this is never going to change, I changed course and decided not to let it stop me. I’d always wanted to be more outgoing but the awkward feeling of knowing I was going to keep blushing made me stop myself. But I decided not to let it stop me anymore from doing what I want to do, and I started approaching people, striking up conversations, asking strangers for directions — all the sort of regular things I’d always held back from. People who know me now say I have a lot of social grace and I’m a pleasant, fun, outgoing person, even though I still turn beet red at the drop of a hat.

Where this meets work: I have a wonderful job that I love. The issue is that it’s client-facing, and about a year ago I got a new manager, Marie. From the beginning Marie took issue with my blushing. She could never get comfortable around me, I guess because she thought my blushing when she spoke to me meant I wasn’t comfortable with her? Coworkers have told me several times that she’s complained aloud about “how we let someone so shy have such a high-level client-facing position” and how the clients must be so uncomfortable. I am not shy. I do my job well, and I’ve gotten great feedback from my clients, even if it took some of them a bit of time to get comfortable with me in the beginning. My strategy has always been to act as if the blushing is not happening, and most people take that cue from me after a short while. My friends have told me that after getting to know me they no longer notice that I blush so much.

Marie has recently escalated her complaints and has started bringing them directly to me, almost every day. She’s told me that as a customer-facing employee I need to work on my presentation and interpersonal skills, and kept reiterating that she’s not happy with the way I present myself. I’ve asked my colleagues and they all agree I’m very good at what I do and the clients are very happy with me, and that’s the feedback I’ve gotten from clients too.

What can I do? I’m worried Marie is going to try let me go. She recently gave me a very poor performance review, even though I hit all my work goals and even surpassed many of them, and she’s started speaking about a PIP. Is this ADA-level stuff? I’ve never sought accommodations from HR because this diagnosis is a bit iffy — many doctors claim there’s no such condition and it’s misdiagnosed anxiety (which I, of course, think is nonsense). We don’t have great HR, but I’ve never had to defend myself at work this way before.

Talk to HR ASAP and explain what’s going on. Make sure to include everything Marie is doing — hassling you about it near daily, giving you a poor evaluation despite your performance and now talking about a PIP, and complaining to colleagues about you.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, this probably doesn’t qualify as a protected disability, but (a) some states have laws that go beyond the ADA and (b) most employers still don’t want managers discriminating against good employees based on a minor medical condition that doesn’t impact their work, regardless of whether it’s ADA-level. Use the wording, “I am concerned I’m being penalized for a medical condition and that my job may be at risk, despite my work results.”

2. I messed up a major project at the end of my internship

I was a student intern at a local media organization, and my term ended a few months ago. I was very lucky to have this position, and my coworkers were incredibly kind and gave me a lovely farewell.

Here is my issue: I had a deadline for a project I was working on for a couple months, and I submitted it on my very last day of work. I fumbled in the most massively horrifying way when I uploaded the materials to our shared cloud database and deleted them off my personal device as they took up a lot of space. Big mistake: the files I submitted did not get fully uploaded and could not be recovered, and I’ve since been in a scramble to redo them with only the raw footage left (some of which was also deleted). This is an objectively easy but somewhat labor intensive task, made worse by the fact that I myself got very sick for almost the entire month after my position ended, and as soon as I recovered, I had to relocate to take care of a sick family member.

My supervisor has since reached out to me a few times about the state of the work, and I gave a brief explanation and assured her I would be able to get it done, but I keep dropping the ball. In the last few months my region has experienced severe weather that caused extensive damage to my house, and my family member has had a major health crisis. I am only now in a position where I can get this done — nearly six months after it was initially due and only a few weeks before it needs to be shared. At this point, my supervisor could have very well gotten someone else to do it, I wouldn’t know because I’ve been to scared to reach out!

I will be uploading the completed materials by the end of the week, but I owe my supervisor an apology for my very poor communication and the egregious delay. I have already apologized a couple times, but it doesn’t really mean much if I continued to miss the deadlines I set for myself. How do I explain the situation and my appreciation for my supervisor’s patience without making it sound like a string of excuses? It’s been an awful few months and I’m really hoping to put this behind me without entirely ruining my professional reputation.

Oh no, I’m sorry — this is a perfect storm of problems that were largely out of your control. The original upload mistake was yours, yes, but everything that happened after that to compound it wasn’t.

All you can do is to apologize and explain what happened. For example: “I want to reiterate how terribly sorry I am about this. I should have confirmed that the original upload had gone through before removing the files from my device. Normally I would have been able to fix that fairly quickly, but I’ve had a string of difficult external events since then (a lengthy illness, a seriously ill family member, a relocation, and then severe housing damage from the hurricane). I say that not to excuse the delay, but to explain the context. I really valued my internship and everyone I worked with, and I’m mortified to have had this happen.”

That’s all you can do! If they knew you to be a reasonably conscientious person during your internship, this should do a lot to take responsibility and put it in context.

For what it’s worth, I’m not thrilled about them expecting all of this additional — presumably unpaid — work from you after your internship ended. I completely get why you’re doing it — you don’t want to leave them with a bad impression after the work you put in — and on their end they may not realize how much they’re asking of you (especially if they think the files are easily reconstructed)  … but I also don’t want you to go forward thinking it’s normal to have to fix mistakes after you’re no longer at a job. This was an unusual situation, made worse in ways that normally won’t happen.

3. I was told the salary range was flexible, but apparently it’s not

I was contacted to apply for a position at a company where I have many pre-existing contacts. The person who would be my boss set up an informal conversation about the role, during which we discussed the listed starting salary; I was told it was flexible. I asked how flexible, and was honest that it would be a significant pay cut — and was given the full salary range. I conveyed that my current salary is near the top of their range, and I would not be interested in taking a pay cut. I was again assured flexibility.

With that information, I decided to apply, and was ultimately made a verbal offer by the same person. They said HR would look at the job description, my qualifications, and the salary range and make a formal offer. To my surprise, I was offered exactly the starting salary, despite having significantly more experience than the minimum qualifications and despite the previous conversation.

When I met with HR to negotiate, they seemed surprised, confused, and maybe a little annoyed. They said everyone in this tier of positions starts at this salary, and what I was asking for was much more than everyone else made and it wouldn’t be fair. They said they’d try to get a little higher and would consult with the CEO, but I haven’t heard anything since.

I’m feeling a mix of irritation, disappointment, and self-consciousness. I’ve never negotiated before and feel like I flubbed it. I get the feeling HR thinks I pulled one over on them, but had I known this wasn’t a “starting” salary, but rather the salary, I’d have never applied and wasted my own time, let alone theirs. What did I do wrong here? And, how can I mend my reputation with my contacts at this company?

It’s not you who needs to mend your reputation with them, it’s them with you. They invited you to apply for a job under apparently false pretenses and wasted your time. That probably wasn’t intentional; it sounds like a miscommunication or misunderstanding between the hiring manager and HR, but it’s still what happened.

Get in touch with the manager who you originally talked with about salary and explain what happened: “As you know, we had talked about salary early on and I’d explained that I’d need to be offered near the top of the range since I can’t take a pay cut. HR offered me the very bottom of the range and seemed surprised that I had expected anything else. Is this something you’re able to intervene on? I can’t accept the salary being offered, and I wouldn’t have applied without our conversation about it initially.”

It’s possible the hiring manager can intervene and get this changed; it’s also possible that they can’t. But this is the right next move, both in the negotiation itself / to figure out if this job is still a real possibility for you or not, and in terms of making sure they’re clear on what happened.

But you didn’t mess up. They did.

4. Could questions about low-performers be explained by the person working a second job?

As an avid AAM reader for many years, I’ve wondered in the last two years if some of the questions about managing remote staff who are not making deadlines, under-responsive, or not keeping their cameras on during meetings are really about staff who are holding down multiple full-time jobs. Do you ever consider in your responses that the underperforming employee might actually be “over-employed” and that’s the reason for the performance issues and subterfuge?

The beauty of those situations is that it doesn’t really matter, because the answer for the manager is still the same: lay out clear the expectations the person isn’t meeting and what needs to change, and then hold them to that. If someone isn’t meeting deadlines or isn’t responsive enough, regardless of the cause, their manager needs to address those things forthrightly, and with a relatively short timeline for improvement. More here:

is there a way to find out if someone secretly has two full-time jobs?

Good managers should always be keeping an eye out for problems, giving feedback, and being direct about problems. In a lot of these “is this employee working a second full-time job?” cases, the root of the issue is that the manager isn’t paying enough attention or is being too passive.

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{ 43 comments }

{ 43 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. Daria grace*

    #4 while it is of course possible a struggling employee is working a second job it’s something a manager should probably be hesitant to raise with them without evidence as it’s an accusation about their honesty and integrity whereas just bringing up that they seem to be struggling with the requirements of WFH is not

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    1. Anonys*

      100% If I was struggling with meeting expectations and my manager accused me of something like that, I would think “wow my manger is really suspicious of me, even if I improve my performance, I will probably never have very good standing with him. Better to focus on job searching”

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  2. Jessica*

    LW3, even in the unlikely event that you do manage to get an acceptable offer out of this, I’d think very carefully before taking it. Are you going to find yourself in a situation where you can’t get a raise for years because you’re so overpaid relative to peers, or where people resent you right off the bat?

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  3. fpg*

    I’m Asian, and the blushing problem reminds me of some friends who get “The Asian Flush”. So for some people, one sip of alcohol turns them red. People who don’t understand this will obnoxiously say “You’re soooo drunk!” to the person, after seeing the red shade. And I’m talking about – a sip. No advice, just commiserating here.

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    2. stratospherica*

      Haha, I’m white and living in an East Asian country, and I used to be shy and blush a lot whenever attention was focused on me. People would ask if I’ve been drinking and I had to tell them that no, my face doesn’t do that, I am just very embarrassed right now!

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    3. Wayward Sun*

      My wife isn’t Asian, but alcohol sometimes gives her a blotchy blush. It’s oddly inconsistent; sometimes just one drink will do it, other times she can drink quite a bit and not have it happen at all.

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  4. Astor*

    For LW#1, would it be comfortable/reasonable for you to describe this as “my face turns red” instead of blushing? Since it’s dissociated from your behaviour, and they should comment only your behaviour, I think it might make sense to stay away from the word that has the additional implications that blushing has.

    Good luck! I’m so sorry your new boss cannot see past the colour of your face and is assigning so much judgement it.

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    1. Zombeyonce*

      I really like this reframing; it’s a great way to remove the stigma and classify it as a medical issue rather than an emotional one.

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    2. Ellis Bell*

      Yes, I feel like there’s definitely a language issue here. It doesn’t sound like the manager even uses the word “blush” about OP but goes straight to “shy”! I think words like “skin reddening” and “medical condition” and things that put this clearly as a physical reaction, not an emotional one.

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      1. duinath*

        Yeah, I would have wanted Marie to specify what, exactly, she wants LW to change (so you could say no, that is a medical condition I have no control over), but at this point it’s absolutely HR time.

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      2. Tau*

        The “shy” thing jumped out at me. I don’t have OP’s situation, but I do have a disability that people like to ascribe to emotional regulation problems – I stutter, and sometimes people jump to the conclusion that stuttering must mean the person is feeling extremely nervous or anxious. This is a huge problem because it results in people assuming something that is plain and simply *not true* and can have extremely damaging outcomes on their perception of you; see the manager jumping straight to PIP territory because she assumes OP has problems with crucial parts of the job. Someone telling me “oh, you seem nervous” when they’re clearly basing it on the stutter is red alert, get rid of that misconception *immediately* territory.

        HR is definitely called for, but I do kind of wonder if OP has ever spelled it out clearly for the manager before? Like: “I have a medical condition that makes the skin on my face turn red much more frequently than most people’s. This happening doesn’t mean anything about my emotional state, and I’d appreciate it if you’d ignore it if it happens.” Or calling out “shy” as a descriptor – “how odd! I don’t think of myself as particularly shy and I’ve never felt I come across that way. What’s giving you the impression that I’m shy?” Personally, I’ve actually developed an “intro” for when I meet new people where I briefly explain that I have a speech disorder and how I’d like them to deal with it, and it helps immeasurably. Possibly overkill for OP in general, but something to think about for future managers.

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        1. Dog momma*

          I used to blush all the time, from childhood on, and was always called out on it. and yes I was shy. who wouldn’t be. anyway, it took a I my time but I’d come back with, yes my face is red but I’m not embarrassed, upset etc. Eventually it went away. LW has a different issue but she might try to say something like that. And yes HR STAT. What a horrible manager. I bet most people don’t notice.

          Now when my face ( & chest) turn red, I can blame hot flashes. lol.

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    4. whistle*

      Good advice. As I was reading the letter I thought of a couple I know who often get red in the face, and I had never thought of it as blushing (or thought of it much at all) because it’s clearly not connected to their emotional state or alcohol, etc.

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  5. Viette*

    LW #4 – this is in a way a version of the “what if their poor performance is due to undisclosed factors” considerations where it thankfully is up to the individual to mange their individual situation via time management, requesting accommodations, whatever. Employers should be open and willing to work with employees on how to succeed at their jobs, but otherwise they’re not policing the judgment of their workers’ life decisions, just their work output.

    Obviously you can’t request accommodations for a diagnosis of Two Jobs At Once, but a person could get two shift-work jobs and manage the shifts so they didn’t clash and work 80 hours a week if they wanted to, and if they produced good work no one would know or care (except their friends who want to hang out with them after work).

    Ultimately all the employer wants is the job done, whether that means a physical presence, machines inspected, or cakes decorated most beautifully.

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  6. Emma*

    For LW1 – I’m a bit surprised this wouldn’t be considered illegal in any way. There are medical conditions that don’t impair you physically and don’t require an accommodation other than “I need you to not remark on this” (e.g. acne) and I feel like there should be something in there for that.

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    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Yes — the ADA only covers “physical or mental impairments that substantially limit one or more major life activities,​ such as seeing, hearing, speaking, walking or breathing.”

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    2. Anax*

      It… *might* be covered under the ADA if LW1’s manager *believes* she has an anxiety disorder. The ADA covers not just disabilities, but the perception of disability.

      That might be hard to prove, but LW1, you might want to keep record of any emails or conversations where your manager does state or strongly imply you have an anxiety disorder, even though you don’t.

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  7. RCB*

    #1, since this is a diagnosed medical condition I’d suggest taking the medical paperwork to HR with you so they know for sure that it is a medical issue and have no plausible deniability. Remember that most HR is actually pretty bad at their jobs (don’t get defense HR people, the vast majority really are bad at the nuances of this kind of stuff) and would not at all know that this is not a protected medical issue, they’ll just see that it’s a documented medical issue and likely take it seriously. And since your performance reviews directly mentioned appearance it’s a direct line from your medical condition to you being punished for your medical condition, so this is a very solid case (lawsuit or otherwise) to make without much ambiguity as to what is happening, so I think you have a very good chance of this being taken seriously. Even if HR did know the very nitty gritty details of the ADA and was very condition that this condition probably didn’t qualify, it’s still a very odd hill to die on, and most places just aren’t that dumb, especially if you really are a good performer like you say.

    Speak up, I think you have more power than you realize.

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  8. J*

    LW1, I feel for you as I’ve been in a similar situation. In my case, the senior manager thought I had a crush on him because I kept turning red when he spoke to me, and he was really off with me for a little while until he realised he’d got it wrong. That was awkward to say the least, especially as I’d recently taken a sideways move into a new role where I had a lot more interaction with him. One thing I found helpful was to have a bottle of ice cold water on hand (we had a freezer at work so this may not be a helpful suggestion if you don’t!) as drinking cold water can make it harder for blushing to happen. Also, I don’t know if this is any help but deep breathing at the time that you feel yourself blushing helped me reduce the intensity a bit. I really hope this gets resolved for you; it’s sad that your manager can’t see past this and judge you on results!

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    2. Anon For This*

      I don’t think I can recommend the surgery.
      A number of years ago, my (then not yet) boyfriend was a blusher. H wasn’t of adult age yet (only 16), so his wealthy parents had the surgery performed on him.
      Afterwards, he didn’t blush, but always had a cold and a warm hand.
      They psychological issues stayed, and he was unhappy with his parents.

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  10. JeezLouise*

    I have anorexia (relevant, I promise, and I’m totally fine these days). When you have something visible that operates in flare ups, people love to comment. Last time I lost a lot of weight really quickly, people did the usual “ah, you look great!” Eventually I snapped and responded seemingly joyfully with “thanks! it’s a disease!” (To be clear, this person was a jackass and was not actually trying to be nice.)

    While HR is absolutely the way to go here, matching energy with bad news can be a great way to burn things to the ground. I think I’d go with “I called my doctor to see if he thought a PIP would cure me of this disorder. He doesn’t think so.”

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  11. Syderia·os*

    Regarding #4, at my old job, we had someone who wasn’t performing to expectations (a young person just debuting in the professional world), and when their manager had The Talk with them, they revealed that they were a very highly ranked international League of Legends player and they spent most of their nights playing the game. Their manager congratulated them on their ranking, and then told them they had to pick League of Legends or us. They picked us.

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  12. WorkInnit*

    Letter#1: Marie sounds like a bully. She may not be standing on a school playground shouting insults, but it’s the same behaviour in principle: excluding someone because she wants to dominate others, dealing with her own low self-esteem and wanting to feel better about herself. Marie is making her own discomfort someone else’s problem.

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      3. Seashell*

        I would be interested to hear about what anti-bullying legislation that applies to adults covers in other countries. I have never heard of such a thing.

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  13. a commenter*

    LW #3,

    Even if you do end up getting the amount you requested as an offer, without knowing anything else about that place I’d be incredibly wary of working there. You’re basically at the top of their salary band then. That means you have incredibly limited room for raises without taking on more responsibility.

    Additionally, even if this works, your coworkers will likely be making a _lot_ less then you. That means if they find out how much you make, it has the potential to make them resent you.

    All around this is just not the play in my opinion.

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    1. T*

      This! The manager stretched the truth to keep you in process and probably has no way to influence the pay. Depending on the salary equity laws in your state, HR might really not be able to change that. I’d be weary that the raises will keep you at a low rate if they end up increasing your starting wage due to keeping your peers in the salary band with you.

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  14. r..*

    LW3,

    this smells of a HR who is allowed to be penny-wise and pound-foolish, and been given primary decision making authority over salaries without ever being held accountable for situations where bad decisions led to substantial costs to the actual business units not being able to hire well.

    Beyond that, unless the role is really in an essentially commoditized field, the notion that “we pay everyone the same for this role when we hire them, because there is no way at all some of them could be worse than others in ways that are material” is bananapants. Being annoyed by the situation is just the extra bonus cherry on top.

    Personally, I’d withdraw my candidacy at this point. Yes, your hiring manager might be able to intervene on the starting salary, but they were kind enough to give you strong hints about how things like raises or CoL adjustments would work at this company. Are you really willing to put up with this year after year?

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  15. Falling Diphthong*

    Re #3, someone should analyze how much standard business practice is just trying to get other people to fall for the sunk cost fallacy.

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  16. MakeHerSayIt*

    OP1, I have several medical conditions that qualify as disabilities and several that don’t, and almost always it’s the ones that technically don’t that cause issues at work. Most employers don’t get that far in the weeds. Once you indicate it’s medical then it’s medical and treated as such.

    For example, I am medically unable to wear a bra because of skin conditions. I have infrequently gotten some complaints about this. In most cases once I explain it’s medical that’s the end of it. Once I had to engage a bit further and explain more and also address it more than once (“are you sure you can’t…”), but even then it was mostly dropped when I got a note from my doctor (who couldn’t believe they wanted a note for something so minor).

    I’m legally blind and I now need to use a walker, both of which do fall under ADA, but they rarely come up, and certainly less often than things my doctors don’t consider a big deal or at most minor inconveniences (my current job is the first job I’ve had in maybe 20 years where I’ve even had to discuss my vision – normally I just ask someone to increase the size of a display without specifying why and they comply because someone asked – and that’s only because one of my coworkers doesn’t really care and sometimes refuses to do it on request/repeatedly claims it’s not possible).

    So sympathies, and I understand why you choose to ignore the blushing as a matter of course until it comes up as an issue, but have you even asked Marie what she feels you need to change and then told her it’s a medical condition? Because that would be the first step in my experience. If not, you don’t even know that the blushing is the problem for certain. In most places I’ve worked, the first question I’d get if I went to HR would be have you discussed this directly with Marie and they would send me to do so before anything else could happen if I hadn’t. Further, escalating to HR can sometimes limit the possible/acceptable solutions, slow things down, and require pretty rigid medical documentation, especially for conditions they don’t deal with every day. That’s not to say you won’t end up there anyway, and if Marie is solely basing her comments on your blushing it may even be likely, but you’ll probably have more success in the end if Marie has explicitly called out the blushing and you have told her it’s a medical condition.

    Good luck!

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  17. Redaktorin*

    I’ve got a sinus tachycardia, which is a fancy way of saying that a couple times a year, I sit in a room with doctors who tell me I’m clearly stressed out and need to quit my job. I am not stressed out and will not be quitting my job.

    It’s absolutely maddening, and it sucks that doctors like this have made OP feel like they can’t discuss their very real medical issue with HR. I hope they do so anyway. OP, the truth is that you are not showing signs of an anxiety disorder, and there shouldn’t be anything wrong with telling people the truth.

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  18. Turingtested*

    LW 2, something really struck me about your letter: you were using a personal device for work. The entire situation could’ve been avoided if your former employer had supplied you equipment. (Maybe it’s not standard in media.)

    Second, who waits until someone’s last day to have them upload their important work? It’s extremely predictable that something could go wrong and it would be hard to fix because you’re no longer working there.

    To me this 100% reads like someone new to the workforce not being given proper guidance or expectations. It speaks well of you that you take this so seriously but I don’t see what else you could’ve done.

    All that said, this type of thing is the experience employers are looking for.

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  19. I should really pick a name*

    #1

    She’s told me that as a customer-facing employee I need to work on my presentation and interpersonal skills, and kept reiterating that she’s not happy with the way I present myself

    Has she ever been specific about the changes she wants to see?

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  20. Anon. Scientist*

    #1, I have a very similar thing but I refer to it as flushing, not blushing. I go red at Everything and in my case I’m usually not embarrassed (getting older and not caring so much about dumb opinions really helped) but any negative emotion (usually irritation) shows. I also look absolutely toasted if I’ve been in the sun/wind/cold and all this extreme redness has resulted in rosacea that cannot be fixed unless I get lasered. People will assume that I have some horrible burn when I come inside, and I’ve taken to saying drily, “no, just the way I am, it’ll calm down evetually”.

    I would absolutely go to HR and say that my appearance is due to a medical condition rhat I cannot change and that my boss is treating me poorly because of this medical condition.

    As a side note: I was a shy, young looking girl and I would get bothered/teased by boys/men So Much because it was so easy to get a visible reaction out of me. It made my natural shyness infinitely worse and it sucked because it was just One Time for each guy and every time I was noticed socially it was miserable for me, leading to maladaptive behaviors that I had to really work on when I was starting my career.

    Reply ↓

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