open thread – December 6, 2024

by Alison Green on December 6, 2024

It’s the Friday open thread!

The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers.

* If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer.

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{ 692 comments }

{ 692 comments… read them below }

  1. Hypoglycemic rage*

    Hi! I’ve been a law firm clerk for almost a year, working under the office manager, whose boss is the VP of admin. I have a co-clerk who has been here for a few months. There are a couple of pretty major issues and I don’t know how to handle them – or even if they can be handled. Also we are between HR people so my options are kind of limited.

    Issue 1: she’s pretty condescending against myself and others (but oddly not my co-clerk). She makes comments about people and their level of competency (I think competency is a huge thing with her). She’s made a joke about my asking follow up questions on a project once. I wouldn’t be as bothered by this but she’s made questionable comments about a lot of people, basically everyone (staff even if not named, building staff, etc) except the attorneys and my co-clerk.

    Issue 2: she doesn’t seem to trust me. I think she trusts my co-clerk a little more, but she’s pretty hovering with us. As an example, we were setting up for a Halloween party and boss asked me to fill up a carafe. I did, as full as I could. She then said “not that I don’t trust you, but,” and then took the carafe from me to see if I did indeed fill it up all the way. Like I don’t know how to do that??

    My co-clerk (we have a supportive relationship which is great!) has noticed all of this and said that if the comments bother me I should talk to someone. She also agrees that some of what she hears from boss is outrageous. So all of this is not just in my head. But again we don’t have an HR person right now and any other managers are my boss’ peer and this feels weird to bring to them.

    But I don’t know what to do. I’ve definitely made mistakes at work but I’ve never had management not trust me or my work before like this. A former co-clerk was also let go for “attitude problems” (current co-clerk said this is whet she was told in her interview) so I’m worried that bringing up any issues or seeming anything less than generally happy and helpful will be a black mark. This job has really good health insurance so for that reason alone I don’t want to leave – and everyone else is kind and wonderful. But again, maybe these issues can’t be fixed. I know I can make improvements (as can we all) but I also don’t think all of this is on me.

    1. snowglobe*

      If you don’t feel able to go to the VP of admin with it, then it may need to wait until you have HR and you get a sense of how that person operates.

      Otherwise, you could try addressing some of the lower-stakes things (e.g. the carafe) in the moment with a light-hearted tongue-in-cheek comment. That leaves room to walk it back if she reacts badly.

      But if you think she’s the type to not react well regardless then it may be that you just make a cost-benefit analysis over your boss’s attitude vs the job’s benefits.

      I wish I had a better answer – maybe someone else will? – I know working in that type of environment can be draining and I’m sorry you’re dealing with it.

      1. hypoglycemic rage*

        In the moment, after the comment, I made a joke like “oh so you do trust me!”

        but yeah, I just don’t know what the timeline is for our next HR person – it might be a little bit before someone is hired, and then they’ll have to get up to speed with everything. so it might be a couple months, minimum, before I could address this with someone. and I don’t know if I could take it for that long. like you said, it’s draining.

        granted I’ve worked in not-great environments before, and this is not anything like those previous jobs, but it’s also not great.

        1. Momma Bear*

          Someone should be doing at least the HR admin work. Find out who they are and then you can decide if you can go to them about this or not. In the meantime, document everything. Have a CYA file.

          1. hypoglycemic rage*

            I believe the VP is doing a majority of the HR admin work, other people are handling the financial aspect of it (ie: payroll, timecards).

        2. StarTrek Nutcase*

          When I had such a manager and absolutely couldn’t quit, I started practicing focusing on a neutral outward response while inwardly responding like I really wish I could (“yeah dumbass I’m not 3 so I know how to…”). I practiced this on my commute and whenever she crossed my mind outside work. I was able over time to ignore most of her crap, and really developed my snarkiness and a great resting blank face.

            1. Seeking Second Childhood*

              I suggest practicing the professional neutral expression and bland phrases– not the snark. At home, I’ve heard myself say the snarky phrase that had been rattling around inside my mind…. so, er, don’t be me.

    2. College Career Counselor*

      This sounds like Queen Bee Syndrome(tm), with a side of micro-management to me. If this person has been there a long time, the rest of the firm probably either likes what she does (or is passively okay with it). Either way, she’s unlikely to change, and I think talking to someone else about her behavior is going to bring the spotlight of “attitude problems” down on you. From your comments, it sounds like she thinks she’s the only one who is competent (any chance she used to do your job years ago?) and if she doesn’t verify, it’ll blow back on her. (Law firm culture can be exacting and weird about details that don’t apply to the core work)

      As for what you can do about it because you want to keep the good insurance, is there any way you can treat it as “this is a weird quirk that my boss has?” Pretend you’re an anthropologist studying Office Manager Behavioral Rituals?

      1. hypoglycemic rage*

        So she’s been here for maybe 1.5 years, but the head of VP has been here for like 25. my boss is the first one to hold the office manager title – prior to that I think the VP did it.

        but you’re right that she probably micromanages because the VP will come down on her if something is not right. which I try and keep in mind, but I can only do so much with a boss that clearly does not trust me. and I don’t think all of this is because of the VP, I think a lot of it is just from my boss herself.

        however, I think you’re also right that talking to someone about this would bring “attitude problems” and that’s not what I want. I would also love to think of all of this as a quirk, but I think that’s more for stuff like wears crocs to work or something more benign than this, if that makes sense?

        law firms are weird!

      2. goddessoftransitory*

        With a side helping of projected-outward anxiety. If she’s this worried about water carafes, I would guess her brain weasels get a three times a day workout; but that’s no reason to make them everybody else’s problem.

    3. Generic Name*

      Other places have great health insurance without condescending asses for bosses. What if you did a casual job search where you were really picky about where you went? Only accept interviews that really excite you and only accept a position that has equal to or better insurance than you currently get.

      1. hypoglycemic rage*

        yeah, this comment thread has shown me that I should be looking for something else if I don’t want to take this all day.

        there’s als0 a few things about the job I don’t like – I want to find something where I can use my MLIS degree, so something more research or project based, law firm or not. I think I might tap into some job search agencies – I don’t want to leave for temp work, but I’m sure they can help me find something permanent!

    4. Jackie Daytona, Regular Human Bartender*

      I’ve worked for someone like this. I stayed longer than I should have and experienced burnout as a result.

      In your situation, I would not expect this person to change. This is who they are. Nothing you can do will change who they are. The question is whether the benefits of this job are worth being treated and talked to like you’re stupid, and whether that is some sustainable for you long term.

      1. Banana Pyjamas*

        Same. Hypoglycemic Rage, please get yourself out. If I remember your region correctly, it is a huge law city, with train access to a broader area. I would hate to see you back in the same headspace you were in when you left the library, and it sounds like that’s where boss is taking it.

        1. Hypoglycemic rage*

          Omg you remember my posting about libraries??? :’)

          I will say, the only good thing about my time there was that my coworkers and I were all on the same time. I didn’t feel singled out like I do now.

          Regardless, you’re right that I probably do need to think about leaving.

          The only thing that gives me pause: I have been in this job a little less than a year, my previous job before this a little over a year. But aside from that I have a decent track record of staying in jobs for awhile, and I’m hoping that’s enough.

          I do also live in a major US city with good public transportation options so I have that going for me, I’m not quite locked in to a specific area.

          1. Jaydee*

            Knowing you can leave can make a big difference in your mental wellbeing when you’ve got a situation like this at work where it’s frustrating and you want to leave but it’s also not so bad that you have to just jump ship to whatever you can find. You’ll burn out faster if you feel stuck there. But if you’re able to think “okay, boss has been totally bananapants this week, so I’m going to try to apply to at least X jobs next week” that can really help you feel more control over your situation.

            And that can make it easier to stay a little longer (if you’re concerned about having two shorter jobs in a row) and to be more selective in your job search so you’re more likely to find a good fit with a good culture and good boss for your next job.

            1. hypoglycemic rage*

              You bring up a good point – things aren’t so bad that I am desperate to take whatever I can find! and knowing that I have some agency helps, so I can be a little selective. unlike a year ago when I was job hunting and was unemployed, I could not be as selective. but yes, I think having something to motivate will really help!

    5. Heather*

      I am very direct so I would raise the issue with her directly, in the moment.

      “Surely you don’t think I am incapable of filling a caraffe with water so is there a reason you continue to check up on even the most basic of tasks with me? I would be happy to meet with you to review my resume and relevant work experience so you can understand my full ability in this role.

      If that doesn’t completely stop the behavior by naming it and calling out her actions, you should absolutely bring up the demeaning behavior with the partners.

      1. Tio*

        I believe this is a newer job for Hypo, and this kind of tone will set you off on the very wrong foot with someone who’s already difficult. I understand the instinct, but sometimes you have to pick your battles.

      2. Velociraptor Attack*

        As Tio said, this is a newer job but OP also states that her boss has been there longer than she has so presumably the boss was part of the hiring process.

        This is also just… a lot and feels very condescending so going this route would severely undercut calling out her boss’s demeaning behavior. This is one of those things you think in your head, text your best friend that you wish you could say, and never utter.

      3. RagingADHD*

        That’s not “direct.” That sounds incredibly hostile. If you get away with talking to your supervisor / manager like that on a regular basis, then you are in a far more tolerant and less hierarchical place than any law firm I have ever worked in. I would not respond like that unless I was going to immediately follow it by giving notice because I had accepted another job.

        The tactful way to address the issue head on, IMO, would be to ask for a meeting and then say something like, “I’ve noticed that you seem uncertain whether you can rely on me for even really simple tasks. I want to see if we can make progress on that, because it’s important to me to be a good contributor to the team. I certainly don’t want to make more work for you checking behind me on little things! What would you need to see from me that would give you more confidence that the tasks you assign me will be handled appropriately?”

        1. Tio*

          This, exactly. The initial response is SUCH a hostile tone, even in a regular industry. This or GirlInTheAfternoon’s wording is much better and more collegiate.

    6. TheGirlintheAfternoon*

      I think the best way to address this, if you haven’t already, is to treat it as a performance issue. I’d ask her for a few minutes of time, then say something like, “I know you’ve mentioned how important competency is to you, and I want to make sure I’m living up to those expectations. I was thinking back, and a couple of times, like X and Y, I’ve gotten the sense you had concerns about my performance. Have the attorneys shared feedback on my work product with you? Can you tell me what I’m doing or not doing that’s concerning you?”

      If she’s not aware she’s doing it (though I strongly suspect that she is), this will flag her that her “jokes” are coming across more seriously. If she is aware and there are actually concerns, this gives her a chance to address them and demonstrates that you want to perform well. If she is aware and there aren’t actually concerns or she says something like, “Oh, just wanting to make sure we’re all doing the best we can, etc.”, this convo gives you some CYA if you need to escalate.

      Also, if you are a law student clerking with the firm, I would have this conversation, document it, and check with your career services office – they may be aware of similar conversations that have happened in the past or be able to advise you about whether talking directly to an attorney would be useful here.

      1. Hypoglycemic rage*

        This response is lovely, thank you so much.

        (Can’t imagine she’s not aware of what she’s doing tho.)

    7. Yes And*

      In my job, HR reports to me. And when we were between HR people, I stepped in and did HR. It was exhausting and I hated it, but “tra la la we don’t have HR now” is not an option. HR issues come up unpredictably, and somebody has to be designated to handle them. Who does HR report to in your company? If that person can’t help, they should be able to point you in the right direction.

      That said… if I were HR and you came to me with this, I’m not sure I’d be able to help. I might coach you on ways you could address this directly with your boss, but an interpersonal conflict over management style is not something HR should be sticking their nose into.

      On issue 1: When she disparages others, what would happen if you said mildly, “That hasn’t been my experience with them,” and then changed the subject? Let her know politely you aren’t going to be her sounding board for her complaints about your coworkers.

      On issue 2: I’d recommend addressing it with her directly. Not in the heat of the moment, but at a one-on-one check-in. “Of course I’m committed to a consistently high level of work, and I’m open to your feedback, but I’ve noticed a level of scrutiny that makes it harder for me to complete my tasks. For example, [not the carafe issue, something more directly related to your work product]. Is there something in my performance that makes you think that level of oversight is necessary? If so, I’d like to correct it.” Either she’ll have a reasonable answer for you or she won’t. If she does, you have something to work on. If she doesn’t… then yeah, what everybody else said about this not being likely to change.

      1. Banana Pyjamas*

        Is a manager who is never happy with your work, but who won’t give any actionable feedback really not something HR can help with? Do you at least need to be aware in case it comes up with other employees?

        2. Yes And*

          If the employee asked for actionable feedback and was refused (or retaliated against), and/or if this behavior was a pattern for this manager with other employees, that might be a cause for HR to intercede with the manager’s manager. But from OP’s letter, we’re not there yet. That’s why I suggested OP directly request actionable feedback. That’s the HR-appropriate first step.

          1. hypoglycemic rage*

            boss is not like this with my current co-clerk, but I know they were like this with a former co-clerk. does that count as a pattern? or that I know it happens to other people, because I hear comments about them. it seems like a pattern to me, but maybe not from an HR standpoint?

    8. I Have RBF*

      As an example, we were setting up for a Halloween party and boss asked me to fill up a carafe. I did, as full as I could. She then said “not that I don’t trust you, but,” and then took the carafe from me to see if I did indeed fill it up all the way. Like I don’t know how to do that??

      This is rude and infantilizing, and would get at least a bit of side eye from me, and likely a sarcastic response. But I’m crusty like that.

      Your boss sucks.

      1. hypoglycemic rage*

        honestly if I had to name it, this was the comment that made me at least think about maybe looking for other positions. to not even trust me to fill up a carafe….. I do think this says a decent amount about her.

        1. Bike Walk Barb*

          If something this weird and infantilizing happened again I think my reflex would be to laugh and say in a very light tone of disbelief, “Really? You’re kidding, right?” Maybe not the right thing but if she had any ability to recognize that adults don’t need to be told how to fill a water pitcher (or another super low-level activity not related to the core competencies of the job) that might save you some of the oddball elements of her general approach.

          TheGirlInTheAfternoon had a great script for addressing the core issue head on. You want to know you’re working to expectations, she needs to be clear about what those are and where you can improve. Going into the conversation with genuine curiosity and willingness to learn will be the big challenge there.

          Good luck!

  2. SuperCommuter*

    Looking for for feedback on what location to put on my job applications and resume

    I am a super commuter- I live in one city but commute ~2 hours to a larger, VHCOL city. My job really doesn’t exist in my city and as long as I only have to commute 2x a week or less, I don’t mind this. I’ve noticed recently on job postings that there is a field for you to include your location (this is a general city, not an address). This is a field that generates addresses, not a drop down of locations to select from.

    This got me concerned about using my home address both on my resume and in these fields. I’ve already vetted the job posting for office presence required and I don’t want to scare off potential employers who might think I want remote only or be marked as a potential ‘trouble’ case in the ongoing employer vs employee RTO battle and tossed out. I am tempted to just leave my location as my old address (in VHCOL city) and address it during the interview if it comes up – similar to what people do when they are moving to a new city. I am aware of the risk of moving into a hybrid job and them upping the commute requirement- this is a bridge I’ll cross when I get there. I just don’t want to be preemptively put in the no pile – curious what other people in my position do in cases like this.

    1. dulcinea47*

      Just put the city where you live. No one is going to think about this in as much detail as you have, esp. in the initial screening process.

      1. RedinSC*

        I disagree, I know that in my last job, people would look at the city and say things like, “They’d never make the drive here, so let’s pass on this one”. Without even giving the person a chance to answer about the commute.

        I would use the location that is closest to the job you’re applying for. If it’s your home city, then use that, if it’s in the BIG city, then use that.

        1. snowglobe*

          Seconding the above. I’ve seen that happen when I’ve been on hiring teams as well, which is why I leave my address off wherever possible now.

        2. Helewise*

          Agreed, although for me it would work to include it in the cover letter as well. Hiring is time-consuming and a surprising number of applicants ignore things like remote not being a possibility or overestimate how willing they actually are to make that kind of drive when they haven’t done it before.

        3. Meep*

          I’d kind of just assume they would move if they were looking for jobs in my city.

          Then again, I live in a city with an airbase just south and a military base 90 minutes to two hours away from that. There are a lot of engineering companies as a result that have absolutely no qualms about expecting you to do a round trip of four hours a day, 4 days a week (they are generous and expect you to work 10-hour days). Like I’ve talked to several recruiters about it. Not because I was remotely interesting, but from the sheer audacity of expecting employees to work essentially 14-hour days for below market rate.

          Some employers really do not care about how you get there as long as you are there.

      2. Rex Libris*

        I agree, for what that’s worth. When I’m reviewing resumes, I assume that the applicant is capable of determining their own situation and commuting tolerance. If you’re further away and need to explain that you’re moving or whatever, that’s what cover letters are for.

        I may ask about it in the interview, but I won’t reject someone over it unless it really raises questions… for example I recently rejected someone from several hundred miles away applying for an entry level job that they were (on paper, at least) vastly overqualified for. It was more red flags than I felt like checking into.

        I do find it a problem if I don’t get an address or location on the resume. I’m usually not interested enough in any individual application to wonder about whether you’re actually applying from Bhutan and will expect us to accommodate travel for an interview, or want to try and bargain for remote work for an in-person position, or whatever.

        1. Momma Bear*

          Same. There are many reasons to leave an address off the resume and I think the only time to bring it up is if there will be a major relocation involved. I don’t need a mailing address but I do need an email address and phone number. One guy didn’t put either and I don’t know if his cover letter got separated from his resume or what happened. Shame because I otherwise would have reached out to interview him.

    2. snowglobe*

      I’m in the UK, living in a rural area, so ymmv but personally I don’t put my address on anymore. Where it is specifically required, I’ll list my county or “[nearest Big City] area” as like you I would be willing to make that commute 1-2/week but not more than that.

      1. Cananonical*

        I’m in Canada and I haven’t had my address on my resume for years, just my email and my phone, so I’d definitely leave it off (I do have cities beside each company I’ve worked for – you – this can help show you’re used to working there).
        For the field in the form if you’re worried about it I’d just put the city you’re looking for work in – honestly it’s weird they’re even asking for it.

        1. Weaponized Pumpkin*

          I took my address of my resume so many years ago I didn’t realize people still did that! This is exactly how I handle it — phone/email + city of employment by each position. That’s it.

    3. Hlao-roo*

      Do you track your job applications in any way (ex. with a spreadsheet)? If so, you could A/B test it to see if there’s a noticeable difference in response rates from resumes/applications with Big City address vs. Actual Home City address.

    4. Brooklynlite*

      Are you in the same state as the job if in the US? This matters a lot for reasons Alison has described on the blog before.

    5. Another Disappointing Australian*

      I also suggest using the larger big city as there is a real risk of preemptively being put in the no pile.

      These days, when every posted job ad can have 500+ applicants, recruiters are looking for any way to filter the list. Multiple recruiters (third-party and internal to the companies I’m applying at) have told me they are looking for excuses to exclude applicants and definitely use location and commute time as a filter.

    7. Locations*

      I always use the company location when this happens as anyone doing research on me to prepare for an interview likely would see that te company doesn’t have a location in the listed town. However, I only use town/city names so if I did use my home office as the location it wouldn’t necessarily be obvious.

      If you have to use an actual street address in the dropdown menus use the company address.

    9. cactus lady*

      I am in a similar situation to you and I have been considering getting a mailbox in the city I commute to and using that as my address (cost is ~$100/yr which could be worth it for me). I have noticed a lot of times the full address is required and I’m pretty sure I get screened out for that reason, I am wondering if this might help.

  3. Hanani*

    I have some tough decisions coming up and wonder how other people parse out the various factors of a job when deciding whether to stay or go.

    I like my current job, and particularly my current boss – in addition to being an excellent manager, we’re personally very well suited. There’s no perfect boss just like there’s no perfect job, and I know there are other good bosses out there, but I suspect I won’t easily find this level of match in the future. I have a lot of agency over my time, I find the work interesting, my benefits are amazing, my pay is okay but reasonable for the field. But. My office is going from 90% remote to fully in-person, so I’m job searching and will have to decide whether all the unknowns of a potential new job outweigh the (for me, many) problems with 100% in-person work.

    Particularly for folks where one thing was enough to push you to another job, how did you make that decision?

    1. PinkAxolotl*

      This is not what you asked, but my boss is the thing keeping everything else from pushing me into job-searching.

    2. Cananonical*

      Searching for jobs when you have a job you’re mostly happy with is a good place to be in. I’ve been there and I was able to be very picky about considering whether I thought the new potential jobs would be better than my existing one.
      In my case I was considering leaving over not being promoted but I later learned in talking to my boss that they were planning to promote me. I still considered leaving and continued with the interview process I was in, but after thinking about it a lot I decided that it was worth it to me to stay at a job I overall liked in a lot of ways given my concern was being mitigated.
      In your case that’s less likely to happen. Obviously this change is significant enough to you to prompt you to search (fair, I probably would too in your shoes). I think it’s worth taking some time to think about what you really want – do you for sure want to leave for something more remote, or only if you find something you’re confident is better? Would you hold out for a fully remote job or are you okay with something more hybrid (and if so, what level of hybrid is okay to you)? What other factors that you can detect might play in here – sounds like pay could be better but benefits might be worse, plus commute, how interesting the work is, etc – worth considering which of these factors is most important to you

    3. Arrietty*

      I was in a slightly different situation because I was able to remain 100% remote in a job I did love, but I needed more flexibility than they could offer, and I chose to leave and start my own business. You aren’t choosing between the known downsides of your current job and all the potential downsides of future jobs – if the next job has too many downsides, you aren’t obliged to stay there forever either. If you look at all the things that might be bad about a new job in aggregate, that will always outweigh the downsides of the job you have (because the new job could have the same problems AND all the other possibilities too!). Realistically, though, the chances of finding a hellmouth job with every possible downside are pretty slim.

      If you’re certain that 100% return to office would be a problem, I’d count that solidly in the “move on” column, and all the reasons why you might stay are just points in favour of the “but do it carefully” column, not the “stay” one.

      1. Hanani*

        Your comment has prompted me to think about this as “changing my timeline” – I was never going to be in this job forever, and now not-forever might be sooner than I originally thought.

    4. VoPo*

      I think I have a different answer than a lot of people I know.

      I am currently 5 days/week in the office. Most of my friends are fully remote or mostly remote and constantly ask how I can stand it. The truth is, it’s great!

      First, my job before this one was TERRIBLE. It was fully remote but my manager was a nightmare. I ended up quitting without a new role lined up because my mental health was in such a bad place. When I got my current job and realized I loved it, I learned that being remote is so much less important to me than other considerations like a good manager, opportunities to grow, fair compensation, etc.

      Second, I find I have way better work/life boundaries with an in office role. When I leave the office, I’m done for the day. And when I’m at work, I’m much more focused on my job.

      At the end of the day, this is all up to you, but I just felt the need to put in a few words on the side of in person work. It’s not for everyone, but it’s also not the end of the world.

      Side note: my commute is fairly easy, so that also helps!

      1. Hanani*

        In person works great for some people, but not for me – the commute, being “on” all day, needing to find pet care because it extends my workday by 2+ hours, etc.

        I’m happy to be in person for the things that require it, like certain events, certain kinds of planning meetings, etc. Not worth it for the “culture”.

      2. I Have RBF*

        I live in the SF Bay Area.
        1. There are very few “good” commutes in my area, where it take over a half an hour to go ten miles during peak traffic times. So even hybrid here involves a long commute unless you live within 5 miles of the office. And bus/light rail/train is just as bad.
        2. Most companies here have drunk the open plan koolaid, primarily because office space is so expensive, so they cram lots of people into a noisy, tiny space, and say it’s for “collaboration” while most people work in headphones due to the cacophony. How they get anything done is a miracle, IMO.
        3. Covid is still around, and I live with immune compromised people.

        So while in-office works out great for some folks, I don’t agree with the RTO BS being put forward by command and control CEOs.

        My advice to people on the subject is this: Be really, really clear about how much togetherness you will tolerate. For some folks it’s nearly zero, for others it’s the opposite. For most it’s probably in the middle, with 2 in, 3 out being the most common.

    5. Alice*

      So I haven’t technically made the decision yet, if by making the decision we mean actually resigning. But I have gone from “wondering what is out there” to “sending out applications and reviewing alerts from job sites every day.”
      One reason – and my best friend told me this five years ago and I sat on the advice for five years – I felt like my colleagues and managers really valued and respected me, and I was quite worried about leaving this sure thing” when I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about terrible workplaces. Then my friend said, “Alice, you colleagues don’t respect you because they are being nice. They respect you because you bring a lot to the table. You will bring a lot to the table in other working environments too, and you will be respected and valued in those other settings as well.” And I think it is probably true!

      2. StarTrek Nutcase*

        In a perfect world, you would be respected & valued – but in 40+ working years, I have found that not always true. This is no different than having a great workplace for years and then bam some change occurs (usually boss change) that makes it problematic. Ultimately, it’s all a crap shoot with staying or leaving. Try your best to make the best decision, and then live it.

    6. AnonAnon*

      When I’m making a decision like this, I make a matrix of all the variables for each option (WFH, pay, benefits, boss, intangible things, etc). Then for each variable for each option I assign a score of -10 to +10 according to how much each “weighs” for me. Then I add them up. If I have a visceral “That can’t be right” reaction to the score, either I need to add in more variables, or I already know my decision.
      This could be a bit difficult since you don’t have a concrete new job yet, but if you use the only the variables you’ll accept, it should work.
      Good luck!

    7. CallYourMother*

      This is such a tough question because there is no magic formula or single answer. Which means the responses will likely be annoying (sorry!!) A lot will come down to asking yourself questions e.g. what do I want, what are long-term goals, what are the tradeoffs, what is my ideal situation, what are top 3 most important factors etc– and reflecting on those answers.

      In your specific scenario, I’d ask myself two questions:

      1. What would happen if your boss left tomorrow? Would that change your math?
      2. What will I gain/lose from commuting to the office?

      My two cents — Bosses really do come and go. I held on in a job largely for the boss and poof! one day she was gone. Her team slowly left over the next year. If the boss is the major factor keep in mind she probably won’t stay forever. Or you may get a promotion etc.

      Commuting is a major lifesuck (not time, but life). It will impact your health, your relationships, your energy etc. Make sure it is worth it. I know folks who commute 4 hours one way, but it is once a week. It is worth it to them. I know folks who commute by bike or public transit so they gain exercise time or reading time. It is worth it to them. I’d do serious math with commuting – will the pay raise be more than my hourly wage. If you’re commuting an hour each day, you might find the commute “eats” up any pay raise. (Shocking how often that is not true.)

    8. HonorBox*

      The move from almost all remote to entirely in person is a major consideration, but one that only you can really decide on. Having said that, my boss is a really good boss, like yours. I’ve turned down opportunities for growth elsewhere because I like working with and for him and I know that while there may be patches of greener grass on the other side of the fence, I also know that the grass on my side is still pretty green and has stayed green for an awfully long time. I like the idea of knowing what I know, especially when other aspects of my job are good too.

      1. Hanani*

        You and Glazed Donut both make such a good point about my boss not being forever. He and I have talked about how much we like working together and hope we can keep doing so in the future, but course we can’t guarantee that either of our next jobs will have a role for the other.

        If not for my boss, leaving would be a much easier yes, so that’s something for me to keep in mind.

        1. Hanani*

          Sorry that was for CallYourMother

          But your point, that my patch of green is pretty verdant – I feel that

    9. spcepickle*

      For me – All remote work feels really flaky right now. Unless the whole company was 100% remote before COVID I would not take a hybrid schedule as a given forever.

      That said have you talked to your boss? I know there are some places that are going fully in person with an iron fist, but some are just paying it lip service. What is your culture like? How much agency does your boss have?

      I work for state government that just got a new governor, one of our unknowns is remote work. We work in a little building where I am the highest ranked person who is regularly there and I flat out told my people – unless our IT get WAY better (unlikely) the people who work remote and like it will stay remote regardless of what comes come from on-high. So it might be worth having a talk with your boss about it you can keep working remotely.

      1. Office Expectations May Vary*

        You’d be surprised. My company was fully in-office before the pandemic. Then we went remote, and they let the lease for our office lapse, because they didn’t like the space that much. Lots of colleagues moved farther away, and there were many new people hired who were nowhere near our original office location or our satellite office across the country. At this point we have a satellite office location and a co-working space in the same general area as the original main office. They are looking to rent someplace more permanent, mainly for client meetings, but they have no expectations to have people back in the office full-time. At most, there will be quarterly events that will either be for the company as a whole or for individual departments.

        I know that this isn’t the majority experience these days, but it can happen.

    10. Glazed Donut*

      I have had two or three bosses I really, really liked and respected. I learned a ton from them and felt like they trusted me.
      All of them left for other (better) jobs.
      So – while having a great boss is, in itself, great and a huge factor in enjoying your work, don’t let it be the only or main reason you stay.

    11. Throwaway Account*

      You boss could change!! You’ve got some great advice here, just remember, if you stay bc the boss is great, that can change.

      Ask me how I know! I found a job I love. But after about 2 years, she left. New boss is … not good.

      So factor that possibility into your decision.

    12. Harlowe*

      My one small thing turned out to be the tip of a giant iceberg, which I only realized in retrospect.

      I had been in my field for 14 years and at my company for 8. I spent the last 4 years asking for a dry promotion; all I wanted was a senior title to reflect my increased responsibilities. My department had an applicable hierarchy of seniority, so nothing about my request was unprecedented or out of bounds. My boss pushed every year during reviews, but got shut down.

      I had always considered my boss excellent, but at this point I realized that despite her kindness to me, she didn’t have teeth in the business. She didn’t have the respect of higher-ups, and thus had no power to advocate for her team. Everything was always going to be an uphill battle. (There was also a whiff of us being the only women in our STEM department.)

      I got hired with the senior title I wanted, at 60% more money, in a fully-remote role for a company four states away (thus no danger of RTO).

      When I first left, I found it hilarious that my old company lost me over a free title change. It would have cost them zero dollars to appease me! But as I reflected over several months in the new role, it really was more about not being taken for granted. My boss was a lifer, and upper management had bet that I would be too. I was never going anywhere at that company, so being refused that title change was actually a favor.

      1. Hanani*

        True, the insistence on RTO is part of a larger slate of cultural things I don’t like about my employer. I’ve known from the start that I really like my job and team but not my org, so that’s probably something to throw into the decision matrix.

    13. Wordybird*

      I left my previous job because I was doing all the work of being the manager of the department for a year+, including being required to attend monthly management meetings, but the GM refused to promote/title me or compensate me accordingly. Maybe there was some longer-term plan for promotion but it was never discussed or explained, even when I asked, and I already knew I was making less than someone else with a comparable job in the field. I might have stayed longer to see what would happen if I had been paid more as I liked my boss and the autonomy I had in the role. I was right, too, as I make $20K more in my current role doing the same job.

      I’m currently job-searching because of office politics and how my department is treated. My manager and I have both raised concerns and frustration about the way things are currently being handled and how our department is expected to drop everything to work on tasks that other coworkers and departments have been slacking on but to no avail; either my grandboss doesn’t actually care or doesn’t have the power to change things despite being part of the C-suite. Similarly to my previous job, I’m not interested in doing work that I’m not being paid to do. I’m not in a financial position where I could quit without another job lined up or without a job that pays as much as this one so this will take a while.

      I haven’t worked in an office in over 4 years so while I could and would if my family was in dire financial straits, I would have to take a pretty significant pay cut as the city where I live just doesn’t pay that well. As long as I still have the option, having any type of in-person requirement would be a dealbreaker for me. Having to wait more than 30 days for insurance to kick in or a company not offering insurance at all would also be a dealbreaker for me due to my family’s health needs.

  4. Ai ai oh*

    I used chatgtp on a job application recently and I have no regrets. I’m distrusting of AI but there’s a very niche role in another team that came up but my org loves to make incredibly specific thing part of the essential criteria at the best of time. seriously blown away at how it helped me think of how I met some of this. I’m not stupid enough to copy an paste a togk g but it’s got me wondering about doing interview prep with it as well

    1. bamcheeks*

      That’s so interesting! Can you give a [disguised!] example of what it suggested that you wouldn’t have come up with yourself?

      1. Ai ai oh*

        let’s say you that the application asked for a general knowledge of teapots but I’ve only worked with llamas but at a the same level. i love teapots but have only really looked at them. it basically summarized what general things I needed to find out without me having to trawl through different sources and cross reference all my notes.
        I’m confident in my situation that they do indeed just want a general knowledge and should be open to people with transferable skills.

    2. RedinSC*

      I do find it helpful in editing or giving me an idea of how to write something. I believe it has good uses, but like you said, don’t just copy/paste.

      I think it could be a good help in interview prep, too.

      My work has a policy that if you use AI to prepare something you have to acknowledge that only if it’s a “significant” contribution, which is a little grey, but still helpful. Good luck!

    3. Another Disappointing Australian*

      The Pragmatic Engineer has an article on this recently – specific to IT and mostly to Big Tech and startups. Summary: most hiring managers can spot AI-generated cover letters and resumes, and are increasingly ignoring them and trying to find other signals.

      The advice I use to the crew I mentor is LLM genAI is great for small-scope focused tasks. I discourage them from having it write a cover letter or resume. The quality is better and it is easier to check results for things like:

      – “Rewrite this paragraph to use 75% of its current word count.”
      – “I will give you a job description and my current resume. Do not rewrite my resume; instead, highlight areas that could be stronger and tell me why you think so.”
      – “Proofread this for consistent tense and tone.”
      – “Can you make this language simultaneously more professional and more warm?”

      My #1 tip for ChatGPT specifically:

      “set temperature=0.9”

      This tells it to use a much wider set of language and helps avoid the output sound like every other ChatGPT answer. (Temperature must be between 0 and 1. Higher means fewer constraints on word choice.)

    4. AI? More like A-YEAH!*

      I use AI in every aspect of my job prep work.

      – Evaluate the job position for what the org is trying to solve by hiring for this role (might only be good for non-profit which is my field); tasks and responsibilities; red flags; writing significant achievements; detailing top 3 responsibilities for my cover letter.
      – Revising cover letter writing that I do (I also cross-check with Grammarly b/c sometimes AI can give back errors).
      – Aligning my resume with the job posting; suggesting better bullets or statements

      Then I use AI and the posting to help in interview prep:
      – Write 1 interview question for each task or responsibility that an hiring manager might ask me? Write it in the STARI (situation, task, action, result, and impact / improvement) format.
      — Then I format it to me and my history.

      – Write 1 interview question I can ask about A) The problems they want to solve B) the red flags and/or C) each responsibility.

    5. Double A*

      I’m a teacher and this is how I encourage students to use AI/ChatGPT if they are inclined to use it. I think it can be very helpful for brainstorming or generally bouncing ideas off of, especially if the “blank page” is particularly intimidating. The problem is when people think it’s this magical oracle that knows everything, which it does not. I wouldn’t use it for anything that I don’t know well enough to know if it’s making mistakes.

    6. College Career Counselor*

      You could probably ask ChatGPT to come up with sample interview questions related to the specifics of the job description for you to prep with. I mean, I wouldn’t trust its *answers* to those questions, as the generative AI stuff is often very superficial, glib, and repetitive. The grammar is flawless, but its response may also pull information that is wrong/irrelevant for the position. You’re better off crafting personal, experience-based responses that you can deliver very well (rather than memorizing ChatGPT’s fluff).

    7. Generic Name*

      I recently asked copilot how to say “I told you so” but in a professional way. The results were amazing. It also helped me compose an email (but I didn’t end up sending it).

      1. Strive to Excel*

        I feel like a really good niche for AI would be putting it to work in places where we already use a lot of form letters/emails.

    8. Glazed Donut*

      For interview prep, you can copy/paste the posted job description and ask it to write sample questions, or ask it to describe the job’s main functions (good if the description is all over the place and all inclusive).
      You can also put your resume in and ask it to answer the questions (that it generated) based on your work.

    9. Rex Libris*

      Really depends on how in-depth you’re going with it. Personally, if I had any hint that an applicant had used AI to summarize what they need to know about the job to get through the interview, so they could basically pretend to be more knowledgeable than they actually were, I’d reject them out of hand. If I found out after they were hired, I’d consider it lying during their application.

    10. Banana Pyjamas*

      UC Davis has a whole reference page for how to use AI in your job search.

      I used AI to review my resume, and it was able to tell me which bullets needed improvement, how, and why. The most useful thing for me was being able to ask if a phrase was an exact match to the job description except for verb tense and declension.

    11. Procedure Publisher*

      I’ve used AI to help with these things in my job search:
      -figuring out where to start with tailoring my resume based on a job description
      -what other job titles I should look for based on my job description
      -figuring out what behavioral questions I should prepare for in an interview

      I’ve even asked AI how to go about updating my HTML and CSS knowledge. For tech writing, AI will likely be a part of the workflow for documentation creation or maintenance. In my opinion, AI could be very good at updating docs to match the new style of the organization.

    12. They knew and they let it happen*

      For an interview I recently had to put together a proposed 90 day plan – Chat GPT was a lifesaver in helping me prepare. Basically I typed in the assignment and let it do it’s thing. You can have it drill down or expand on certain parts too. Pretty amazing

  5. Tradd*

    @Tio – thank you for your mention of continuous bond insufficiencies in our recent discussions about tariff issues. I’ve used that in conversations with new customers with goods from China regarding increasing their bond amounts, plus with current customers whose bonds will be renewing in the next couple of months.

    1. Tio*

      Glad it helped! We had just renewed our bond in October so we’re probably going to have to replace it :(

      I have been revising my “what’s coming up” presentation to upper management 5 times so far and they still want me to somehow magically predict what exactly is going to happen. If I could do that, I could probably retire now!

      1. Tradd*

        Currently, I’m dealing with Lacey Act! Beginning 12/1, just about everything wood has to have it. I handle a lot of furniture imports that hadn’t required the filing up to now, so trying to get customers into the habit of sending the form and/or correctly filled out is a challenge!

        1. Tio*

          Oh yeah I have a specialist who had to go through our database and update everything, and I know we’re going to be sending out a lot more Lacey form requests over the next few weeks.

          Also, why does no one EVER do the genus ad species section correctly? It has to be in Latin. Please, I’m begging you, you can’t just put pine. The instructions are very clear and not even difficult. PLEASE, SUPPLIER.

          1. Annie*

            It might be a roundabout way of saying, “I don’t know, and I haven’t the slightest clue where to get that information”.

            When they answer “pine”, for example, what happens when you ask what kind of “pine” it is?

            If they’re able to answer that, it may be possible to help the supplier find the Latin name they need to use.

            If they can’t, you might have to run the risk of putting words in their mouth, e.g. “Could it be this kind of pine?”.

  6. Elevator Elevator*

    Starting a new job in a few weeks and the dress code is business formal. I’m a woman, not really fashion inclined, and have always worked in slightly more casual environments, so my technique was half a dozen pairs of pants and a decent selection of tops and sweaters. I’ve always had The Interview Blazer but that’s obviously not going to be enough to cut it now.

    It’s a hybrid position with three days a week in office. Any tips on easy ways to build up a decent wardrobe without breaking the bank? (I’ll be charging this and paying it off when I’m working, so expensive stuff is possible, but not ideal.) I’m worried going too cheap will come through in how I look, but I essentially need to build this out from scratch. How much is enough of a rotation?

    Dresses/skirts are out just as a personal preference. I’m thinking suits based on what I’ve seen while visiting, and will probably default as boring as possible just for peace of mind, but my primary contact often wears brightly colored blazers so that’s not the company’s mandate.

    1. Three Cats in a Trenchcoat*

      Do you have brands that you know your size in reliably? Then I would recommend ThredUp. In general, I find it easier to thrift business clothing, given that many people invest in it and then no longer need it. Full suits are harder, I use a lot of separates / contrasting colors so that mixing and matching is easier.

      1. DrSalty*

        This is what I was going to suggest. ThredUP is a great resource for lower cost work clothes, the caveat is you have to be reasonably certain about your size because returns are not free. One thing you could do is go to a physical store and try stuff on to identify your size and then order similar items from the same brands on ThredUp. It’s really hard for me to find pants that fit, so I typically only use ThredUp for shirts/skirts/dresses.

        1. Pool Noodle Barnacle Pen0s*

          Returns aren’t free, but they are super generous with giving site credit in lieu of returning something that doesn’t fit. But if you know what size you tend to be in a certain brand, they’re a great option because most of the time the brand is specified.

      2. A non-mouse*

        +1 to ThredUp! Especially around this time of year when they have a bunch of sales trying to move inventory.

        1. DrSalty*

          It depends on the brand in my experience. But that is the main reason why I only buy “easy” items that are fairly forgiving fit wise. Jeans? No way. Circle skirt? Sounds promising.

        2. Weaponized Pumpkin*

          It does vary, even within a brand. Of the resale platforms I favor eBay because I find there more sellers go to the trouble of listing garment measurements. And if one seller doesn’t have it, I can usually find another that does (but maybe has a higher price or the wrong color) and I can get the info that way. That’s the only way I have confidence buying online.

      4. Ostrich Herder*

        Seconding ThredUp here! Other thrifting sites like Poshmark are nice, but ThredUp lets you filter by brand and size much more reliably. I recently revamped my work wardrobe and used ThredUp almost exclusively. I set up saved search criteria, so when they did a good sale, I could immediately go into that saved search, choose a few sale pieces that fit my needs from each category, and then build up to the free shipping minimum. Just don’t let the “oh my god, that’s $6, I have to have it!” mindset get to you, or you’ll wind up with a bunch of theoretically-cute stuff that you don’t wear (I learned this one the hard way.)

        I also really endorse something that’s capsule-wardrobe or work-uniform adjacent. In my experience, people don’t notice if you’re repeating pants, unless you’re wearing some sort of colorful or patterned statement pant, so just a basic pair or two there should get you by for three days a week in office. I have a favorite shell that the company makes in a ton of colors and patterns, so I just have a ThredUp saved search that pulls those up, and I pick up a new one every now and then. Your existing rotation of shirts may work under blazers, too!

        Blazers will probably be your most challenging piece, because fit is everything and it’s much harder to buy a blazer without trying it on than a shirt. If you like your Dedicated Interview Blazer, maybe try to find it in other colors. If you don’t love it, first order of business will be finding one that you do love, and then riffing on that. If you have two colors that you can mix/match with two colors of pants, that’s four outfits right there, all of which can be varied by adding different shirts to the mix.

        When I was revamping my wardrobe, the key for me was figuring out what stuff I already owned and wore a lot, and adding things that matched those pieces. Now I can grab pieces blind from my closet and be reasonably sure they’d look good together, and that I like all of it. So be choosy about your more expensive pieces (likely to be blazers and maybe pants) and make sure you love them, and then keep an eye out for other pieces that will work with them.

        My last note: don’t underestimate the little practical details. I have a couple bras that I love. If the shirt I’m looking at would not work with one of my comfy beloved bras, I don’t buy it, no matter how cute it is, because I’m just not going to wear it. My job sometimes includes getting on the floor and messing with cables. If I can’t do that in a pair of pants, I just don’t buy them. I’ve been sad, leaving really cute pieces behind… But it’s better than the disappointment of donating those cute pieces a year later because I realize I’ve never worn them.

        Good luck! And congrats on the new job!

      5. Camellia*

        Keep in mind that you don’t have to have an entire selection of suits, each in a different color, for every day of the week. No one is ‘tagging’ your clothes to see if you wear them more than once each week. Pick two classic colors, e.g. black and navy, and buy one suit in each color. If your budget allows, add another classic color like gray. Make sure they are simple, with no outstanding characteristics that people will remember, just a plain pair of slacks/skirts and matching single-breasted suit jacket. One pair of dressy black shoes work for both. Then, each day, vary the tops you wear for each suit. And you don’t have to alternate the suits; you can wear the black one for two days in a row, then the navy, and so forth.

        Speaking from experience, you can do this for months and no one will notice or care. Trust me, men have ALWAYS done this! Most men probably don’t have 10 or more suits in their closet.

        Then, as your budget allows, add other suits, perhaps one with a more unusual color like burgundy, or another classic color but with a different cut (like double-breasted). Whatever you like best. Hope this helps!

        1. ThatGirl*

          Accessories also help – a couple statement necklaces, scarf, earrings etc can help mix things up.

      6. Pool Noodle Barnacle Pen0s*

        YES. ThredUp is amazing for everything but especially work clothes and accessories.

      7. Joielle*

        Yes! There’s a specific skirt that Express used to make and I loved it so much that I bought it in three sizes from ThredUp. It’s great if you know exactly what you’re looking for.

    2. ChemistbyDay*

      I’d try thrift stores – you can likely pick up a few high quality pieces for less; you can always replace them later.

    3. Balanceofthemis*

      Goodwill and other second hand clothing stores. You can buy a couple more blazers, maybe some skirts and dresses, and mix and match.

      Marshall’s and TJ Maxx can also be good places to shop for work clothing.

    4. Helewise*

      My office is probably a step down from business formal, but a little above what I usually see as business casual. I live in an area where thrift stores have nice things – something to check if you’re visiting a wealthy area – and have used ThredUp a lot. I have one color family I wear to work (to me, workwear splits between brown/tan and black/gray, with shoes to match, so I picked one color family based mostly on pet hair I sometimes need to hide). This lets me mix-and-match anything and I only need one pair of shoes. My three-part outfit then is slacks – dressy cardigan/blazer – blouse/shell/sweater/turtleneck depending on season. I think I have three pair of pants right now. Most people aren’t paying that much attention.

    5. MCL*

      I liked using Stitchfix a couple of years ago – you can set your preferences for formal business, I think, and you can send back what you don’t like. I didn’t use it for more than 5-6 months but built up a set of basics during that time. That said, I think if you just want to get a couple of really neutral blazer and trouser sets (maybe black, navy, grey? over time) you can then just invest in blouses. Honestly wearing a black suit (maybe your only black suit!) for your first month or two with different tops should be fine. Since it’s already business formal I’m guessing people won’t notice so much – it’s your work uni! Then you can add in stuff over time. I am also not very fashion inclined and always forget jewelry, but that can sometimes help change up a style, too.

      1. Bluebell Brenham*

        I used stitchfix, for a few years, but it’s definitely aimed at separate and not suits. I was always interested in trying MM Lefleur, but never got around to it. It’s definitely pricier than stitch fix.

    6. Froschkugel*

      I am a lawyer, but now working in a much less formal environment than standard law firm stuff. I have several pairs of black slacks, a few jackets (not full blazers, more like structured cardigans) in black or dark grey, and the same top (silky fabric) in I think 9 0r 10 different colours. That allows me to combine all pieces, and still not wear the same thing in a week. But it took my colleagues a year to figure out that I have the same top in different colours, so other people are noticing your clothes much less than you are. :)

    7. HE Admin*

      A good option to have for at least the start of the job is to give yourself a quasi-uniform; this is the outfit I wear Tues, this is the one I wear Weds, this one Thurs. Then you’re not repeating within the week (since some places have been weird about that) but you don’t have to do a huge outlaying of purchasing up front and you can add pieces as you find/like them rather than just whatever you can get in time to start.

    8. Admin of Sys*

      Agree with everyone regarding thrifting, so here are some thrifting tips:
      Don’t go for matching colors. You will almost never find a top and bottom combo that truly match unless they were a matching set to begin with. So aim for contrasting colors – black blazer, gray pants; brown blazer, rust pants, that sort of thing.
      Similarly, get pinstriped pants and a solid blazer.
      Find a local tailer to make things fit better – you can get a slightly too big nice wool blazer from a thrift shop for $7 and get it adjusted to fit for under $20 usually. Same with pants, if you’re not able or willing to take them in yourself.

    9. Generic Name*

      I suggest waiting until at least after your first week before buying a bunch of stuff. That way you can observe how the stated dress code plays out at your new workplace. Maybe buy one more suit jacket now to get you through your first week (alternating different pants and tops of course). I made the mistake of buying a bunch of workwear before my first job, and it ended up being too formal for the job I was doing.

      1. Workerbee*

        This. My org is business professional on paper, but it turned out that applied more to the men (i.e. because of the tie requirement; it would be more visibly obvious if the man wasn’t wearing one) and that the women could slide by with more business casual.

    10. Heather*

      Nordtsrom offers a private shopper experience for free (you need to make an appointment). You can give them your goals, budget, etc. and they will pull clothing for you to try.
      It is very helpful for people new to business or in your shoes when their current collection of items needs refreshing.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        Look for Nordstrom Rack or something like that, too; the discount outlets of big department stores can often save you some money.

    11. Chauncy Gardener*

      When I was in a business formal environment, I had only a few bottom pieces, black, navy and brown. I had quite a few pieces to go under blazers or structured cardigans. These could be really cheap. I generally had sleeveless polyester shells (because I am always hot) in a huge variety of colors and patterns. I got them mostly at TJMaxx or Macy’s on sale. The highest impact pieces were blazers and structured cardigans that read like jackets. Those took a while to build up, but thirding ThredUp, TJMaxx, thrift stores and consignment shops (especially in posh areas). I was always comfortable and was ready for whatever the day threw at me as an exec.

    12. CzechMate*

      How I’ve built my professional wardrobe:

      -ThredUp, sort by new with tags or exceptional quality.
      -Overstock companies such as TJ Maxx, Ross, Marshalls, etc.
      -Buying workwear out of season (ex. buying winter blazers from last year in July)
      -If I’m invited to, say, a shopping trip with friends or family, I set a rule that if I impulse/splurge buy anything, it has to be something I can wear to work.

      I’d say having at least a weekly rotation is safe to start. Start with at least one pair of good professional shoes and a few blazers or structured cardigans. You can wear existing nice pants and shells/nice shirts with those to give the illusion of a suit.

    13. HannahS*

      I’d hit up a mall and figure out what my size is in every brand that carries suits, dress pants, and nice tops(to keep in mind for ThreadUp or PoshMark.)

      I’m like you in my mode of dress. I was in that situation once, and here’s what I owned and how I managed it.
      I owned one “nice” outfit consisting of brown wool pants, a cream-coloured silky top with small navy flowers, and a blue blazer–that’s the formal end of business casual or the informal end of business formal (because it’s separates.) I bought a grey suit, a white dress shirt, and a blue dress shirt (if I’d had time, the shirts could have been thrifted.) I assembled outfits as follows:
      Week 1
      Monday: Grey suit, blue dress shirt.
      Wednesday: Brown trousers, cream silky top, blue blazer
      Friday: Grey suit, white dress shirt.
      Week 2
      Monday: Brown trousers, blue dress shirt, blue blazer
      Wednesday: Grey suit, cream silky top.
      Friday: Brown trousers, white dress shirt, blue blazer.

      That gets you through two weeks with no repeats, without a huge monetary outset (the one suit will inevitably be expensive, but the other things don’t have to be.) If I’d really been worried about appearing to repeat, I could have added a brightly-coloured scarf on Fridays draw attention away from their similarity to other days.

    14. Shoe Expectations*

      Don’t forget shoes. I find they cause the most problems when switching formality levels.

      1. blueberry muffin*

        Definitely. Wear the nicest shoes you can. Look at shoes worn by your co-workers and shop accordingly. The list of stores provided in the thread, can and do have “nice” shoes.

        Shoes can downgrade an outfit.

    15. Strive to Excel*

      A piece of advice I received a long time ago – if trying to dress up on a budget, try and mimic colors and shapes rather than buying specific brands/pieces. If shopping second-hand is an option, go for it! This is a pretty good time of the year to do it as well since a lot of people will be decluttering their houses/dressers.

      My go-to is a couple interchangeable pairs of black slacks plus 4-5 nice-looking blouses in blues and whites. A dressy black cardigan or open sweater is a good alternative to a blazer.

    16. Banana Pyjamas*

      Check your area for a Clothes Mentor. It a consignment shop for professional women’s clothes.

    17. Miette*

      All excellent advice above. One thing I used to do when I was acquiring wardrobe was to stick to buying foundational pieces in a single color each season so that I could mix and match easily and just add a bit of flare with a scarf, blouse, etc. So, buy a blazer and two bottoms from a single brand (back in the day it was a skirt and pants, but these days there will be straight leg and wide leg pants in the same line). This way, the shades match in bright sunlight (more important with navy or brown, less so with black).

      I also shop sales at the end of a season, and usually won’t buy clothes until those times: Christmas time for fall/winter stuff and July 4-ish for spring/summer. Those are ideal in that you can see deep discounts (50-60% off whichever brands you like) as well as decent selection. If you wait until too late in a season, you risk missing out on stuff you like in your size.

    18. RagingADHD*

      Even in business formal, it’s common to see a blazer with slacks instead of a suit. If you do a monochrome slack & top, and the top is a nicer material (maybe a silky blouse?) then you can do different colors and textures of blazer with it.

      If your existing work pants are more slack-like than chino-like, or even a substantial ponte knit, I’d start by updating your tops and add a couple of blazers and /or scarves, maybe 1 suit to start with, and that can be one of the blazers you rotate.

      MM LaFleur has a styling box option, so you could try that out. I have done Stitch Fix before, but I don’t think their business-professional or business-formal stuff is as good as their casual stuff, so I wouldn’t recommend it for your situation. I have had my eye on DailyLook to try one of their boxes – they look a little more sophisticated.

      One look I see a *lot* at the bank is a black blouse and slacks with a tweedy tan/ivory/brown blazer, if bright colors are not your thing. Another type of look I see from female execs and board members is a monochrome base in any color with a patterned pashmina crossed over and pinned at the shoulder, but it needs to be a really luxe pashmina.

    19. Observer*

      Any tips on easy ways to build up a decent wardrobe without breaking the bank?

      Start with a couple of good quality, structured blazers. Unless your tops and pants are sweats or jeans, the blazers will help dress up a lot of your existing clothes.

    20. Momma Bear*

      If you haven’t tried on business attire recently, I’d go try on a few wardrobe staples so you get an idea of your size. Then start looking for sales, outlets, etc. Also consider tailoring a few key pieces – maybe not a blouse but your slacks and jacket – to look more polished. I can dress casually here but my go-to in the past has been Ann Taylor and Land’s End, depending on the need. After holidays and end of season sales can net you solid items for less. Look up “capsule wardrobe” for ideas on how to swap out pieces to make less be more.

    21. Who Plays Backgammon?*

      Some of my nicest things came from thrift shops. You have to have a treasure-hunt mentality, but you can find treasures. Sometimes it’s a few dollars for some tailoring, but i’ve still come out way ahead of buying sorta-okay garments in department stores. And some kinds of basics where I shop tend to show up regularly, such as black turtlenecks and navy cardigans,

    22. Aglet*

      is there a wealthier city (or part of the city) near you? if so, go to Goodwill or another thrift store there. They’ll most likely have higher quality business clothes. (Like if you’re in Seattle, check out the thrift stores in Bellevue and Redmond.)

  7. Ms Remote*

    I’ve been anxiously waiting for the open thread. I have a reference emergency!

    I live in a country where references are Not A Thing, I’ve been employed for 15 years and never been asked to provide any when changing jobs. My current employer is a large international company, and they still didn’t ask me for references 5 years ago because they understood it’s not in our culture to do things this way. However, now I am interviewing with another international company, and along with an invitation to a final interview I was asked to provide three references.

    I’ve already reached out to three people. For one of them, I had his phone number and he easily agreed to be a reference for me. But the other two are contacts from previous jobs, I don’t have their phone number and their email might not be current. I don’t have many other people I can ask. Discounting internships and summer jobs when I was 18, I’ve worked 3 professional jobs: one was for a company that went under after I left and I don’t have any contacts there, and one is for my current company. In addition, due to references being Not A Thing in my country, my contacts that I’m reaching out to don’t really understand what is required of them and why it’s a big deal for me.

    I’m planning to email the hiring manager and ask them for a timeline for when they need this. In the meantime… how do people manage to navigate this world of references? How do you manage to find three of them? Three whole references? In this economy?? I would appreciate any tips as I navigate this.

    1. Alice*

      Maybe Alison has a post in the archives designed for early-career managers who are wondering how to field their first reference requests? If so, you could share with your references when you track them down, to give them some context about the role you are asking them to play.
      Good luck!

    2. MCL*

      If you have any colleagues (former or current) who are peers who can speak to your work, I have used those folks as references before.

      1. Miette*

        This. And they don’t have to be peers either–they can be managers in other departments you’ve worked with closely and can speak about your work with some manner of familiarity. For example, I am a marketing person and one of my references is a VP of sales that I have worked closely with–he was never my boss, but he was one of my in-house “clients,” and has always given me a good reference.

        As for getting in touch, is LinkedIn an option? You can send people messages via the platform and ask them to be a reference. Explain what may be expected of them (a brief conversation or a few minutes to complete an online form are typical), and also share with them what the job is you’re interviewing for. Good luck!

    3. snowglobe*

      Have you spoken to the hiring manager and explained that references are not common in your country? I would bet the request was boilerplate and they didn’t think whether or not references were a done thing where you live.

      Otherwise, if you’re working for an international company now is there anyone you’ve worked with on another team who is in a location where references are common who might be able to speak to your work? I appreciate there is a risk providing a current employer as a reference but if you trust them to be discrete it might be worth it?

    4. RedinSC*

      I would send the information for the 1 reference you have, with an explanation that they’re not really a thing here, but you’re working on finding another two.

      BUT is there anyone you work with currently who would be a reference for you? Someone you trust to not out you that you’re looking for a job? I have used colleagues in the past, we basically make an agreement that we’ll be each other’s references. Anyone like that you currently work with?

    5. Decidedly Me*

      Is LinkedIn commonly used where you’re at? That’s a good way to reach old coworkers/managers in my experience.

    6. Hlao-roo*

      I’m in the US where references are A Thing, which makes this whole process slightly easier, because past managers/coworkers are used to people asking them to be references.

      Some tips on references that might be helpful to you:

      – Are you on LinkedIn/is LinkedIn commonly used in your country/industry? If so, it can be a good place to connect with old managers/coworkers if you no longer have their phone or email information (maybe some people you worked with at the company that has since gone under are on LinkedIn?)

      – The best references are managers, because they have the best view of how well you did your work. If this international company didn’t specify managers-only references, you can also have previous coworkers and previous clients (if you were in a client-based job) be references at well. That might widen the pool of available references.

      – Are there any people you worked with at Current Company who have left for other jobs (or retirement or other reasons)? They can also be references, if you can get in touch with them.

      Good luck!

    7. Nonsense*

      In my work, I have both a direct manager and several project managers. I spend much more time working with the project managers than I do with my direct manager, so they’re pretty solid references – I’d have 4 that way alone. So try reaching out to people you’ve worked with who are somewhat senior to you. And you can always phrase the ask as “I know, I know, it’s a foreign company, you know how it is.”

    8. M2*

      Can you ask more people at your current role? If you worked there a long fine it’s fine to get multiple managers from your most recent company. Did the new company specify who they want for a reference? I have been asked for coworkers and people who reported to me as references before. Usually they want former managers but sometimes they want others. Do you keep in contact with anyone from previous roles or can you go on the company website and try and find an email?

      I think this is always a reason to keep in contact with previous managers/ coworkers. I find it’s good not to reach out just for references but send an occasional email, meet for coffee, or if attending a conference try and meet up with people you have worked with. A former boss comes where I live maybe 1x a year so we meet for lunch or a coffee. We also occasionally text or email. Another former boss who became coworker and I became friendly and what’s app (they live abroad) a few times a year. They usually message only when they need something so that’s getting old, but we both are up to date on work and lives. I also have a good 6+ managers, higher ups, coworkers, and people who report to me who would give excellent references. I have really made an effort to work out people on other teams as well so there’s a variety of people who know my work and think I am an asset and good to work with. I focus on the positive and collaborate.

      My spouse recently was told he needed 8 references including 2 prior people he managed and they would also do back door references. It was stressful because 8 people is a lot and not knowing who they would contact was also stressful. They also had to be from specific prior roles.

      You could give references a quick summary of what you want them to focus on. There may be information on here as well. I had a former boss ask me to email them what the reference should highlight. They also wanted an update on what I was doing now. Don’t make it super long but maybe points do it’s easy for the recommender to remember or go back to that email if needed. Highlight what you accomplished under them and then something short on how you had that to do what you’re doing now. Don’t write the same thing to every recommender as you don’t want them all saying the same thing.

      I have also had references ask me to send time an updated resume sometimes. I usually condense it and focus on what I want them to highlight.

      3 references are normal so I would just reach out to who you remember. I had someone reach out to me 5 years after I managed them but asked them to give me an update and what the new role was. I remember them being very strong with clients and people but struggling with time management and checking of work. So I told them on a call I would focus on those strengths but they would need a newer manager to highlight things I could not focus on. They were young when I managed them so I hope they would have worked on certain skills. I also recommended if they wanted to use me in future to keep in touch each year and just let me know what they are up to work wise but told them after year 8 I couldn’t be a reference anymore since it was so far back. So in future keep in contact with people you think would be good references.

    9. References*

      I find the best references are peers you work closely with. although you do usually need one manager. If your current workplace knows you’re looking or you have colleagues you trust not to spill who can talk about your work ask them.

      I echo the suggestion to use LinkedIn to find former coworkers and moving forward connect to new coworkers ASAP.

      As for how to prepare them for reference checks, I’m not entirely sure as they vary so much. I guess “be prepared to answer questions about what I’m really good at and my working style and you’ll probably get asked about my weaknesses too. Be honest. but if you think you can’t show me in a positive light please tell me now and I’ll find someone else.”

    10. Meep*

      As an American, we hate having to provide references too.

      Do you have any coworkers you are close to? References also can be from volunteer work or even former students you met and worked in a group with. Based on where you are on in your career, it is not really appropriate, but I have seen people use references from babysitting gigs if they are young enough. Heck, have a friend give a reference if you must. All they have to do is speak to your character.

      Expecting references unless you are applying for a position of power has always been nonsensical.

    11. TheBunny*

      I would connect with the hiring team at the new company and tell them exactly this.

      In my experience, companies who want references as a standard process are usually pretty aware that references are provided by people and are inherently a little quirky. Contacts are on vacation, etc.

      My current employer asked me to provide a reference from the company I was leaving as soon as I got the offer. This wasn’t how I wanted my now former employer to learn they were going to be a former employer. I explained this and they were fine but said they ask as sometimes candidates are open about the job hunt.

  8. Cafe au Lait*

    My coworker is a serial complainer. There’s always an issue with everything. Most of the time I can deal with it. Sometime I let her vent, others I tell her I disagree and move on.

    My 7 year old kiddo is neck deep in a whining phrase. Do you know what whining is? Complaining. It’s nothing more than complaining in a high pitched voice.

    I’m really struggling at work. I can’t listen to my coworker complain anymore without wanting to shout. It’s gotten to the point where somedays I only say 20 words to her because I just can’t listen to a complaint about what someone said on Nextdoor, or that our management isn’t doing enough, or the incoming presidential administration. I’ve had enough.

    I don’t know if I’m looking for advice, or just commiseration. It is not lost of me that I’m complaining right now.

    1. Arrietty*

      Is your coworker generally reasonable, just with a tendency to pessimism? If so, I’d tell her what you’ve said here – that at home, you’re coping with a lot of small-child-whining, and you’d love it if work could be a break from negativity.

      If she’s unreasonable, nothing you say will help and I’d go with the David Attenborough-style internal narration of the peculiar behaviour of the Complainosaurus.

      1. Generic Name*

        This is really good advice. I once shared an office with a depressed (she talked openly about it) person who had no boundaries and complained all the time. My now-ex was also depressed and complained all the time, and I just couldn’t handle the constant negativity and emotional dumping both at home and at work. I eventually asked to change offices when the opportunity came up.

    2. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      Address it. It only helps temporarily, but it is fine to short circuit it and say “Barbara, these are not items I can do anything about and I do not want to talk about it anymore as it is making me stressed” “Barbara, I am finding that too much negative talk is affecting my work, so lets change the subject”.

      If you think she can manage it you could try “vent window”. A coworker and I used it when we were really in a toxic work and toxic life situation and realized we could spiral each other. We set aside 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the afternoon. And when the 5 minutes was up we stopped and went back to work. We were both in the same mindset that listening to this all day wasn’t good for our mental health so we weren’t hurting feelings by saying it had to stop.

      I say this fully aware that I avoid asking a current coworker how her weekend was because it will lead into a 20 minute rant about things.

    3. A Girl Named Fred*

      I grew up in a family of serial complainers, and now in my 30s I’m working on breaking the habit. So my apologies on behalf of us negative Nellies!

      If you are looking for advice, Alison recently had a letter and/or an update from someone whose coworker was incredibly negative All The Time and in the update it sounded like Alison’s advice helped. Might be worth a read! Otherwise, Arrietty has some good advice too.

    4. Admin of Sys*

      Maybe try declaring that you are avoiding negativity and want to focus on positive actions? And then shut down any non-actionable complaints hard and fast. Especially if they’re not work related. I find that folks who want to vent actively tend not to want to focus on what they could or couldn’t be doing about the thing they are venting about. If they complain about not work things, you can just state you don’t talk about those things at work (especially politics).
      But if you do want to redirect, then “I’d rather be positive, have you ” And if they complain about how those don’t work / are too hard / are scary, then reiterate “I’m not the person to talk to if you just want to vent – I get that folks want to do that, but I need to stay positive”

    5. WorkerDrone*

      This is good time of year for a polite fiction.

      Next time she starts complaining, chime in and agree with whatever the complaint is – at first. Then, use that as a segue to request less negativity and complaining in general.

      Here is a stilted script as an example that needs to be translated into Real People speech, but you get the idea:

      Her: “Management is so terrible, being terrible people, terrible terrible terrible.”

      You: “Yes! So terrible! Terrible, terrible – wait. Sorry, Co-worker, I just caught myself complaining. My New Year’s Resolution is to be more positive and complain less. It would be so helpful if you could support me in this! Can you remind me to stop complaining if you catch me at it? I’m going to work on avoiding negativity in my chit-chat too, so just a head’s up I won’t be participating in venting/complaining sessions anymore.”

      Perfect excuse to shut her down in the future – if she starts, interrupt her with a friendly tone of voice and just say, “I completely get where you’re coming from, but I’m trying to be Pollyanna from now on for my New Year’s Resolution. Can we change the subject?”

    6. Goddess47*

      While “you complain as much as my kid” is on the rude end of the spectrum, in a quiet moment, ask if she’s having problems that she needs to vent about everything all the time. Sometimes, folk don’t hear themselves and don’t realize what they are saying is so negative, and negative all the time. My hubby is the same way and he doesn’t see it…

      If nothing else, you’re busy doing work since the complaints are not about work…

      “I have to concentrate on this, can’t chat now!” or whatever you can use to get her to stop talking. For really bad day, break out the painkiller-of-choice and announce you have a headache and would appreciate if she could not talk to you.

      Or, in your work allows for you, you’ve suddenly become addicted to podfic/audiobooks or something that requires you to wear a headphone while you work.

      Good luck!

    7. Charley*

      I wonder if she realizes that you find this annoying rather than cathartic, bonding, etc. I personally love a shared kvetch, though I understand everyone’s different. I think the scripts people have shared above are great, but in case there’s still some amount of complaining, I wonder if it would help you cope to frame it less as ‘this person is trying to bring me down,’ and more as ‘this person is trying to feel closer to me.’ It might also help, if you are interested in being friendly with this person, which you might not be, to introduce new ways to bond. Share a recipe, a little (work-appropriate) gossip, talk about your cat and show pics, etc. Signaling to her new ways to make conversation with you might help get the two of you out of this conversational rut.

    8. Anon Anon for this*

      Ugh, this is so hard to deal with! I had surgery recently and was in a rehab facility for some intensive physical therapy. (I am back at home now, yay!)

      \Rant: this situation is So Frustrating when the other person isn’t reasonable.

      My first 4 weeks there, my roommate was a perfectly delightful 94-year-old. She was really sweet and we had similar expectations of how often the TV should be on, how loud the volume should be, quiet hours for sleeping, and so on.

      Then she went home.

      Her replacement was awful. She only wanted to talk about certain topics and complained, complained, complained about all of them. Her tone was always whiny. And she would say things, like “I can’t reach my call button”, and expected me to help her out. I can’t count the number of times I had to tell her that I was a patient with mobility issues, too, and not her full-time caregiver. I finally got her to ask for help instead of demanding it, which was a little easier psychologically, but I still wasn’t able to help her most of the time.

      She would wake up every night around 2 or 3 and push the call button every 20 or 30 minutes for the next 3 hours. It woke me up every single time. And she would whine about her back hurting and demand pain meds. The aides would explain that she’d just taken a dose and would have to wait another 6 hours before she could get more. And yet 30 minutes later, she’d demand more pain meds. It was infuriating. (For reference, I have severe chronic pain that my pain meds don’t take away, either. But I never made it her problem and really resented her for making her pain my problem.)

      About a week before I went home, I totally lost it around 3a.m. and yelled at her to shut up and let me sleep. Not proud of that but it felt really good.

      The night before I went home, she woke me up several times asking me to call the nurse for her. I ignored the first couple of requests, hoping that she would take the hint that waking me in the middle of the night was unreasonable. I finally said “no, you have a call button, you should use it”.

      Lest you think I was too hard on her, she had one true emergency and I did call for help for that.

      /Rant over, thanks for listening

  9. Three Cats in a Trenchcoat*

    I managed to get my work to clarify our jury duty policies in light of the summons to grand jury duty (potentially one day/week for 9 months). Turns out we get 3 paid jury duty days/year, then you burn PTO (ours is combined vacation + sick), then you ask nicely for unpaid leave.

    Thankfully the court accepted my request to be excused because it was going to be a logistical nightmare (cancelling clinic for 9 months! finding coverage! what happens if I need unpaid leave!). I’m also left really frustrated that doing my civic duty would have left me with such a nightmare, given how important it is.

    1. Chauncy Gardener*

      That’s really awful. Jury duty is such an important part of our society. I wish companies were required to support it.

    2. JuryDuty*

      Unfortunately 3 days is pretty typical in my experience. I have had some places make exceptions to their formal policies and give up to 5 at manager discretion but I’ve never seen nor heard of any place that gives more.

      1. fhqwhgads*

        That’s interesting. I remember the first 3 or so times I was called in, the Before Everything Starts announcement they said most trials were 3-5 days. So I guess in a weird way that being the common amount of time off makes sense. That said, the last 3 times I was called in, the same spiel made it very clear that if selected we’d be there no less than 2 weeks (and 2 weeks is exactly what my employer will pay for jury duty).
        I know grand juries are different than regular juries, but it was still interesting to me.

        1. JuryDuty*

          In normal jury duty they usually have a large group of people called at once and the vast majority of people aren’t selected and go home in 3 days or less (the amount of time you’re in “holding mode” varies by jurisdiction but is usually 3 days or less). In my jurisdiction, you’re literally put in a room with about 100 other people for up to 3 days and told to sit quietly unless called (no electronic devices allowed, even offline). Staff come in periodically and ask for X number of people to bring into a trial for evaluation. If you’re called in you’re either assigned to the trial for however long it lasts or dismissed from jury duty (you do not go back to the holding room). If the trial schedule is light and they decide they don’t need any more potential jurors they may release the holding room early as well, either for the day with instructions to return the next day or overall and you’re done until next time. The majority of people are dismissed without being picked for a trial, meaning their jury duty ends up lasting 1-3 days. If you include shorter trials, the vast majority of people do finish their jury duty in less than a week (and probably most in less than 3 days).

          1. fhqwhgads*

            Yeah, where I live it’s 1-day/1-trial. You’re very much allowed electronic devices. They have wifi and it’s posted on every wall. They no longer call a ton of extra people. They do account for some people rescheduling and some people being dismissed, but the days of “wait around and the bulk of people are dismissed without even entering the courtoom” ended in 2019 round here.

    3. Yes And*

      I fundamentally don’t understand why grand jury duty is set up the way it is. I can’t think of a single full-time work schedule that wouldn’t be blown up by an absence of several days a month for an extended period of time. At least regular jury duty, the time is usually concentrated; very few trials last more than a couple of weeks. But how do they expect any employed person to undertake grand jury service without a financial hardship?

      1. Lily Rowan*

        A friend of mine just had to keep doing her job when she was on a long jury. The jury’s day isn’t usually the full workday so she just had to work early in the morning and into the evening to keep up. It was terrible!

      2. epicdemiologist*

        I knew a truck driver who had to serve on a grand jury–IIRC, one day a week for 13 weeks with jury pay of $35/day. That not only kept him from working on those days, but often meant he couldn’t take long hauls on the adjacent days either.

      3. Lady Lessa*

        From what I have read elsewhere, grand juries tend to be made up of retirees, independently wealthy, and other folks who don’t work for a paycheck.

        1. Momma Bear*

          Gee, I wonder why.

          We also get 3 days. I have no idea what they’d do if someone was on a jury for longer.

    4. Csethiro Ceredin*

      Here you get $25/day for serving on a jury. I’ve been called up twice, and I wanted to do it, but the first time I was barely scraping by in my 20s and could not miss work, and the second time I was much more established, had some savings and vacation time etc., but the prospective trial was going to last 6-12 weeks, which was also too much of a financial hit.

      So I guess a jury of your peers means a jury of the wealthy or retired, which sucks.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        I did it once in my 20s, but it barely lasted a day due to a mistrial ruling. I’d be hard-pressed to cover everything if they asked me now, especially if it was a Karen Read-length trial.

    5. Our Business Is Rejoicing*

      My workplace seems to be great about jury duty (you’re paid while doing it, with the caveat that you have to return anything you’re paid.). I’m in a Canadian province, and we get nothing days 1-10, $40 a day up to 49 days, and $100/day after that. There are some allowances if you have to drive a significant distance, but nothing for very expensive daily parking in our downtown areas.

      I was summoned in earlier in the year for missing jury duty (never received the letter). I got mine rescheduled, and then had to defer that and never heard back again. But in the elevator there was a woman in tears because not only would she have to miss work (and not get paid), she had no way of getting to the courthouse.

    6. They knew and they let it happen*

      I was on a grand jury about 30 years ago. In my case it was five days a week for three months

    7. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

      A coworker at my last company (US, very large corporation) got a Grand Jury summons which was one day a month for a year and a half. The company policy was for 5 days paid (which I had used previously), but there were some other words implying that it could be longer with approval. She applied to HR and was approved.

  10. Alice*

    I applied for nine jobs last week! I am happy that I’m finally taking action instead of just lookng around in a desultory fashion and feeling sad and anxious.
    But – I am pretty much at BEC stage with my current job. I have eased back on new work commitments; if it’s neither part of my core responsibilities nor potentially useful in getting a referral for a new job, I’m letting it pass by. So I’m not contributing to the implementation of a new initiative from my grand boss in the way I typically would – commenting substantively on the plan, volunteering to sort out an assessment plan.
    What will be worse: if grandboss asks, “why are you not contributing” and I have to make something up, or if grandboss doesn’t actually notice that I’m quiet quitting? ;) ;) ;)

    2. Cananonical*

      I would just have an answer ready about realizing you’ve been overcommitting and are trying to be more mindful of bandwidth, in case they do ask. And I know it’s hard when you’re at BEC stage, but keep in mind that asking may also be concern for if you’re okay (obviously, depending on how it’s asked) and not asking doesn’t necessarily mean they haven’t noticed

      1. Alice*

        Good advice, and phrasing I will keep in my back pocket. All the more important because, upon reading your comment about “concern for if you’re ok,” my hindbrain immediately started throwing up unhelpful sarcastic remarks…. An impulse I definitely need to keep under control! (And probably a sign that I waited too long to start searching in earnest, hah)

    3. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      I’m shocked at how seldom they do realize when someone pulls way back. But I would go with “I’ve been overcommitted lately”

  11. Dave*

    I work at a place that is under 50 people and has no other state level FMLA type protections. My company does offer employer sponsored short and long term disability insurance.
    I am having an issue with the small company HR giving me the forms I need for my doctor. They have been paying my salary while I have been working part time, but I also saw they posted my job. Is it possible to ever file a claim directly with the insurance company and skip my company? Also since it is employer paid can they cancel the policy while I am on it? Some of this feels like a ruse to hire someone and fire me so their insurance policy doesn’t take a hit.

      1. Chauncy Gardener*

        Agreed. I don’t think your HR will actually have those forms.
        Does your company use a PEO for benefits and such? If so, give them a call. Otherwise reach right out to the insurance company. You’ll be dealing with them anyway.
        Good luck!

  12. Tech Newbie*

    Performance review advice needed. I’m going through my first performance review at a company that I’ve been at for almost a year. My boss is very inconsistent and I’m honestly hoping they are in a good mood when they write my review because I could see that making a difference in the percentage of my bonus that I get.
    This is my first year in tech (non-tech role) and I was in a completely different industry before. Any advice for how to best represent myself in my self evaluation? The team I am on is brand new so I don’t have any peers that I can ask how it went the year prior.

    1. WantonSeedStitch*

      Take a look at the goals you had for this year, and try to come up with specific, preferably measurable things you did that prove you accomplished them. If you’ve had feedback to improve in any way, talk about the ways you have demonstrated that improvement.

    2. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      Always praise yourself more than you think you deserve in a self evaluation. Call out accomplishments.

      1. Miette*

        As a former manager, please do this. It can be hard to recall what everyone has done over the course of a year, especially if you have a lot of direct reports. So if your company has you do your self-eval before the manager delivers your review, reminding your manager of your many accomplishments may impact what they put in the review. I know it did for me, not because I didn’t appreciate each person’s contribution, but because I struggled to recall all the details.

      2. Momma Bear*

        Over the year (for next time if not this one), keep a folder of emails that praise you for something or show you accomplished something. Those will give you fodder for your own self-evaluation. I’d be honest but positive. If you really did paint 500 teapots, don’t say “hundreds.” Be specific and give yourself credit.

    3. pally*

      IF nothing else, sit down well before the performance review and create a list of everything you did, achievements, improvements (with a metric, if you can) over the past year. Might include something that you want to learn-or achieve- over the next year.

      This way if the boss overlooks something, you’ll have your list right there to point out that your llama grooming rates have doubled: six per day in Jan, and 12 per day in Dec. And that you learned and took on the llama ear cleaning role after the only other person who did it left in Feb. Stuff like that.

      If the boss wants you to have some goals for the next year- you’ll have that covered too. Better to name the goals you want than to let someone else do that for you.

    4. beautiful, talented, brilliant, powerful musk-ox*

      This past year, I did a thing that helped me a lot: I acted like I was writing about a coworker who just happened to have accomplished everything I had accomplished that year. It helped me raise accomplishments that I probably would have otherwise brushed off as “not a big deal”.

      Try for measurable and specific if you can , and be sure to mention areas that you’ve helped in that are outside of your normal duties. Also, I known not every company has this, but the last two companies I’ve worked for have had an interface on the intranet for coworkers to essentially give kudos to each other for helping or going above and beyond. I review any of those I receive during the year to make sure I haven’t forgotten about something I did for someone else.

      1. Kes*

        This is really good advice. ‘Pretend it’s someone else’ is such a good trick for getting distance in general.
        Start out by building a list of accomplishments, and review positive feedback you got, potentially for inclusion if appropriate but also to remind you of things you did well or that were particularly helpful to others or the company. Keep in mind feedback doesn’t have to be formal either – it could also just a be a quick message from someone thanking you for a piece of work or a comment on how helpful something you did was. I actually keep a folder of impactful feedback I’ve gotten – it’s a nice boost when I need it and also helpful for these kind of activities to remind me of what people thought I did well

  13. Another Disappointing Australian*

    I know we have a bunch of tech workers here… how much IC (Individual Contributor, i.e. Not A Manager) work is expected of the Senior++ Engineers in your org?

    I’m finding in my current (contract) role I barely do 4 hours of tech work a week and most of my time goes in meetings where my deep & wide tech skillset unblocks problems that require specialist knowledge in multiple domains. And that’s great, I like this!

    I also applied for a job as a PE where the expectations was 40% of their time would be spent coding. That seems… kinda a waste of the organisation-wide impact a PE could and should have. I don’t mind rolling up my sleeves and getting my hands dirty, and if they wanted me to spend 40% of my time making coffee I’d do it – bananapants at a Big Tech PE salary though.

    If you’re in IT what percentage direct personal coding work is expected of your most senior tech ICs? (As in cannot be any more senior and remain an IC – I know this level varies greatly by company and industry.)

    1. fhqwhgads*

      What you’re describing is backwards in my experience. The Eng 3s are more like 50-50 coding vs meetings, unblocking other people, generally being an SME, mentoring, etc.
      PEs probably only spend 4hrs a week on coding, and the rest of their time doing…All The Things.
      Then again, don’t underestimate that whoever is quoting the 40% number might just plain have no sense of proportion.

    2. TaskDistribution*

      In my experience it’s closer to 20% higher level/planning/deep thought type tasks and 80% coding, and that’s across a whole bunch of different companies. 50-50 is more the distribution for managers. It isn’t until you get to managers of managers (this may be C-suite in smaller orgs) that you get to jobs that aren’t significantly hands on.

      Are you in a giant organization? I’ve never worked on a job with enough staffing that things could get done with the type of hands on vs strategy time you’re talking about, not even at the few larger orgs I’ve worked at.

  14. AnotherAcademic*

    Wondering if fellow academics/professors have experience with seeking/receiving counter-offers. I’m interviewing for positions at other universities, though ideally I’d like to stay where I’m at. I’ve heard that a colleague asked for a counter-offer last year and got an insultingly low one (which she did end up taking). I know Alison typically advises against counter-offers, but since the academic world is so different from corporate, thought I’d ask you all.

    1. It's complicated*

      On many campuses, it’s the only way to get a raise. I have a friend who used this technique FOUR times in two years to get his salary bumped- but he was a bit of a rock star in his field. (The fifth time, he took the offered job.)

      I’ve had a few professor friends who used an offer to get a counter-offer. They got a little more money but were often bitter they had to spend so much time interviewing elsewhere. At least one friend went into the interview thinking they were using it for leverage and then decided to jump ship.

      In my case, my then-boss, upon hearing about my new offer, flat-out told me the university had no budget to counter-offer. I wasn’t really expecting a counter-offer and this new role has been so much better for me.

      I’ve also been on search committees where the best candidate turned out to be leveraging us for a counter-offer on her current job. That felt not-great. So just be warned, if you use an offer in this way, you may be burning some bridges with the other university.

      good luck!

    2. Slippers*

      I think it’s pretty typical. A colleague of mine asked for a [very reasonable] raise, was told he had to go get another offer from another university, came back, and the counter offer was so offensive that he ended up just taking the other job. It was a university 250 miles away and they’re letting him work remote. Sucks for us, because he was a good faculty member. We’re just cheap and we suck.

    3. LMS manager*

      During an especially rocky season in a former role as professor, several colleagues negotiated endowed chairs. Not sure how, but their income jumped.

    4. Manchmal*

      I asked for a received a counter offer. The difference was that the new job was at an R-1 in a HCOL city, while my previous institution was an R-2 in a small town. So they were clear they couldn’t match but it was a decent bump for that context. It felt like a respectful earnest counter. I ended up leaving though. I really didn’t love living in the middle of nowhere.

  15. Complex administrative services*

    I am applying for a Business Support Officer job in a local authority. One of the criteria on the job spec is experience to provide complex administrative tasks. I obviously know what an administrative task is and I have some experience, like recording accurate information on databases, answering queries by email and phone, organising and maintaining a filing system, scheduling meetings and booking rooms, but none of these tasks are complex.
    What do you understand by complex in regard of admin tasks ?
    I had a look on Google, but I only got simple admin skills.

    1. AndersonDarling*

      I’m guessing that they mean tasks that have multiple steps to complete, or tasks that don’t have an obvious solution.
      So, if you had to get a check cut immediately for a client. You may not know how to get that done, so you would have to ask around to find the right person to approve it. And then you’d have to get all the required documents signed to make it happen. You would need to think ahead to ask the right questions and find the right people to ask.

      1. Strive to Excel*

        I’d agree with this description.

        Similarly, any tasks that involve communicating with people both ‘in’ and ‘out’ of your sphere of influence. IE, if you’re the admin for a specific department, the people ‘in’ your sphere are the people in that department with whom you could easily coordinate, and the people ‘out’ of your sphere might be people in other departments, divisions, or companies.

        Tasks with decision-making authority would count for me as well. For instance – if you’re the person ordering supplies, are you restricted to only buying exactly what’s on that list? Or are you allowed to manage the supply cabinet and buy what you feel as needed as long as it’s not over a certain dollar threshold?

    2. Another Disappointing Australian*

      Travel arrangements for multiple people and/or multiple stops. For example, a business roadshow could be traveling to multiple cities.

      Event planning, e.g. organising and running a conference or employee retreat.

      Preparing the Board packets for Board of Director meetings. (Multiple documents, often written by different people, needing proofing and approvals.)

      Shepherding processes of other teams or departments, for example onboarding new staff when this is not automated – this may involve coordinating HR, IT, Facilities, the hiring manager, Legal, and more besides.

      Office supplies – inventory, ordering, logistics for lead times so we don’t run out of [X], liaising for deliveries, finding storage.

    3. Ai ai oh*

      hi, on my phone so sorry for any typos. from my admin days I answered questions like this by focusing on any bigger projects I supported and/or showing a strong understanding of excel, word etc although I imagine that’s another essential criteria
      have you monitored or reported on any of the data you collate? set up or adjusted an office procedure? used Countifs on the petty cash sheet to see what trem has spending on certain things? if you set up a filing system that’s a good one to use if you can describe what exactly you did, how and the outcomes e.g. “now 3 days quicker to retrieve archived folders from storage”

    4. Brownie*

      When I think about complex tasks I’ve heard our admins complain about it’s been things like conference bookings with all the associated travel and hotels, purchasing of office supplies (never straightforward, is it a company card, invoice to be paid later, who’s an allowable supplier for which items, and so on), organizing 50+ person meetings with associated catering and dietary requirement concerns, and even contacting outside vendors and suppliers to set up meetings because of building access requirements for visitors. From that job title my guess is that they’re looking for someone more like an office manager/assistant than a normal admin, someone who greases the wheels of daily life and takes care of the tasks that let the business SMEs focus on their work.

    5. Lou*

      Does the job specification say what kind of things you’d be doing? If not, they might mean bigger projects like helping to organise events or financial stuff (reporting, reconciling budgets, paying invoices, etc).

      1. Complex administrative services*

        The job spec also requires “to be numerate in order to compile statistics”, and “the ability to present complex information to a range of audiences”.
        The rest of the job isn’t really administrative, despite being advertised as a Business Support Officer role,

        1. DJ Abbott*

          I would ask for an example of the “numerate” thing. Does it mean you have to have experience or education in statistics as a specialty? Or does it mean you need to be good with math and data to analyze data sets and understand them, and/or make reports? It could mean almost anything.
          “Present complex information to a range of audiences” might mean you need to compile reports and present them in meetings. At my previous job. I did that once in a while. My title was data analyst.
          I would ask for examples of any tasks that aren’t clear to you.

  16. Seagull Wings*

    Trigger warning: suicide

    When I accepted my current position, about six months ago, I asked why the role was vacant. I was told the usual spiel – people had moved on to other jobs, with the caveat that it was chaotic, with little documentation, and they’d had a lot of staff leave unexpectedly.

    I recently discovered the truth. My predecessor died by suicide in one of the office store rooms. They had had issues in their personal life but the work pressure was a big part of it.

    I’m now locked into a three-month notice period (normal for my level in my field) and I’m considering handing in my notice in the hope that I’ll be able to find another job within those three months.

    Am I over-reacting? There’s no way I’d have taken this job if I’d been told the truth, but maybe I should stick it out for another 18 months for the sake of my resume?

    1. Decidedly Me*

      How do you feel about the work and company itself? What happened is awful, but if you’ve been there for months already and like what you’re doing, I don’t see why this information should change that.

    2. Double A*

      I can’t say you’re overreacting, because I know different people react differently to being around a place where someone has died, but what is it specifically that makes you want to leave? If the person has just left abruptly, or died in another way, would you still want the job? Are you worried what this says about the pressure of the job?

      Does your job have an EAP you could access? That might help you get some more perspective on what the core issue is. But you sound really uncomfortable, I can’t imagine it would hurt to look around for another job.

    3. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

      Are you ok with the chaos, lack of documentation, and high turnover? Do you have a solid grasp of what that specifically looks like, what your expectations would be in the role, and how the chaos would intersect you? If it were me, I’d be making the decision based on that.

      What happened to your predecessor is awful, and, there’s no way of knowing what interaction of work stuff, personal stuff, etc. got them to that breaking point or how the same work pressures would impact you. I’ve seen some people thrive in chaotic environments that wreck others, depending on the specific nature of the chaos. I’ve seen other people look at chaos through rose-colored lenses when accepting an offer, and struggle horribly (both in work product and in how it impacted them personally). You have all the information now (or if you don’t, definitely ask more, and more specific, questions!), so this seems like something you really have to self-assess.

    4. Arrietty*

      Gosh, what an awful situation.

      If you didn’t know about your predecessor, how would you feel about the job? You’ve been there six months, so you probably have a fair sense of the pace you’re facing. Is it manageable for you? Did you already have worries about it?

      How much of your concern is about the possibility that this knowledge has uncovered something about the way your employer communicates (because they didn’t tell you the specifics of how someone left unexpectedly), and how much is about it representing a much worse situation than you’d realised or yet experienced?

      Keep in mind that what can be overwhelming pressure for someone in a particular set of circumstances is not only not necessarily overwhelming for someone else, but may not have been overwhelming for that person under different circumstances. Nothing about the predecessor’s death is a predictor of how you will experience the role.

      I think there’s also middle ground between handing in your notice immediately without anything lined up, and staying for another 18 months.

      1. Banana Pyjamas*

        I agree that there is middle ground, if you’re decided on leaving. As long as it’s not normal to walk people once they give notice, I would wait until I’d been there 9 months, then give my 3 months notice. That way you get your minimum one year, but you still have a reasonable end in sight.

    5. Jackie Daytona, Regular Human Bartender*

      I don’t think you’re overreacting. Saying the predecessor had moved on to another job was breathtakingly deceptive of the employer. It’s a shocking and tragic thing to happen at work, and they just decided to lie about it? Like you wouldn’t find out the truth? I would be questioning the employer’s judgment and integrity.

      1. Zephy*

        By the same token, though, that’s really not the kind of thing you can reveal in an interview. Maybe “unfortunately, we had a team member pass away unexpectedly,” but even that’s going to be awkward.

        1. Jackie Daytona, Regular Human Bartender*

          You also don’t have to make up a blatant and ridiculous lie like that they moved on to another job.

          If the answer is, “we can’t disclose that,” then that’s the answer. Let the chips fall where they may.

          The answer is not to make something up. The company has done the equivalent of lying on the application.

          1. Elizabeth West*

            Agreed — a death is unfortunate, but the lying would make me want to leave because what else are they being cagey about?!

    6. Empress Ki*

      I don’t think you are over-reacting. I’d feel like you (it may also be because I have been affected by suicide). I wouldn’t want to work in a room where someone suicided.
      How is your work history ? Did you often leave jobs after a short time (less than 3 years) or will it be a one off ? if you generally stay a long time in jobs, I guess it will be fine.
      The most important is your well-being, but you also need to consider the risk of not getting a new job during these 3 months.

    7. Bonkers*

      Can you tell us more about your concern? Are you worried that the position is too high pressure? Or is it purely the discomfort of knowing what happened to your predecessor?

    8. Hlao-roo*

      Not questions for you to answer here, but ones you might want to think about on your own to help sort out your feelings/your plan of action:

      How were you feeling about the work pressure in your role before you learned about your predecessor? Were you feeling good/OK/bad about it? If you were feeling good/OK, are you now worried that it will ramp up to unmanageable levels as you become more settled in the role?

      If three-month notice periods are common at your level in your field, would a new job be ready for you to start right away, or would they expect you to on-board three months post-offer? What are the pros and cons of handing in your notice now and then starting to job search vs. job searching and handing in your notice after you have an offer? How much savings do you have (how long can you support yourself if you don’t find a job in three months)? How is the job market in your field/area right now (how soon are you likely to find a job that’s a good fit)?

      It’s probably a good idea to dig into what exactly you’re reacting to. Do you feel the company lied to you during the interview process by giving you a canned answer on why the role was vacant? Are you a little freaked out by your predecessor dying in general, dying by suicide, dying by suicide at work? Does this knowledge make you fear for your own mental health working in this role? (No wrong answers here, by the way–you feel how you feel. These questions are just to hopefully make it clearer to you how urgent, or not, it is to leave this role/company.)

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        I think this is the right approach. The information itself is so shocking and upsetting it may be clouding the other and equally legit reasons you might want to leave.

        Is it the fact of the suicide itself? That it happened on the property? That you were actively lied to about what happened (this would be big for me–I get not wanting to disclose something so derailing during the general interview process, but being untruthful even after you were hired and bound to hear about it would be very concerning.)

        If the job/business was humming along like a top and the chaos not a factor, would that affect how you feel?

    9. HonorBox*

      When you say that if you’d been told the truth, why would you not have taken the job? I’m only curious because while the situation is awful and tragic, there were other things contributing to the person’s suicide. Not just the job. Are you (understandably) uncomfortable working in a place where someone died? If so, then I’d say you should take the opportunity to turn in your notice and aggressively search. But if it is more related to what I mentioned initially…just the stress of the job or something like that…I’d weigh how you actually feel about the job. Do you generally like it?

      BTW I don’t love how the employer explained the situation, but given the fact that you started with a trigger warning (thank you, by the way) I think that situation is hard to explain and might move the interview or subsequent conversation into territory that is extremely difficult to talk about and talk about well.

    11. Dancing Thru Life*

      I’m confused why this information has caused you to consider quitting? It’s tragic that this person took their life, but that’s not really anything to do with you. Work pressure means different things to different people, and there’s nothing to indicate that you will experience the same difficulties they did. Even if the pressure is a lot, you are a different person with different skills, different needs, different abilities, and a different mental state. So I’m wondering why learning this has had such a significant impact on you. Can you identify what it is that’s really bothering you about this situation? Obviously you feel what you feel, but it does seem like a strange reaction (and yeah, over-reaction) based on the limited info you’ve given.

    12. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      I am going to say that it is possible they were told not to disclose or did not feel comfortable disclosing for the sake of the privacy of your predecessor and their family.

      Also, to pinpoint the cause as being work pressure is problematic, even if there were indications that they were feeling work pressure. As someone with a family member who attempted suicide what we discovered in the aftermath, was that the reasons everyone (including the family member) thought might be the reasons in the end really had only tangential influence.

      I would evaluate how you feel about the actual job and the job environment. If this knowledge had never come to light would you be looking to leave.

    13. HannahS*

      I’m not sure I understand your concern, exactly. Suicide is tragic, and I don’t think it’s wrong for the company to keep someone else’s cause of death private; doing that can be part of respecting someone’s dignity after death. Suicide is also very complicated–I wouldn’t necessarily believe someone who told me that a certain person killed themselves because of X reason. People talk like that: So-and-so killed themselves after being diagnosed with cancer, or because of work, or because their wife left them–but actually most people who go through those things (or have a lot of work pressure) don’t die by suicide. You’re not the same person as your predecessor, and you may or may not have similar vulnerabilities.

      You’ve been working there six months–do YOU feel overwhelmed, burnt out, depressed, or suicidal? That’s really the main question.

    14. Brain the Brian*

      Is the three-month notice period standard enough in your field that potential new employers would also be okay with waiting that long for you to start? If so, I would wait to turn in your notice at your current job until you have something else lined up.

      I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. We had an employee in another department take their life in our office building this fall, and management hasn’t even begun to search for a replacement. It’s been dreadful for everyone, and I can’t imagine hiding it from a new employee.

    15. Momma Bear*

      Work pressure for one person may not be the same for another. You didn’t say that you were experiencing work pressure beyond what you could handle so perhaps your situation will be different. If you think you need to put out feelers about a new job, I’d do that before giving notice. See what’s out there. If it’s standard to give a long notice, then the new company should expect that you can’t start in 2 weeks. I’d take this information under advisement but evaluate leave/go based on YOU, not the person before you.

    16. Anon4this*

      It was not their job to tell you personal and medical information about your predecessor. I would have found that awful if they told you that.

      How do you feel about the work and company? I had a parent die by suicide and it was complicated, a mental health issue, and not just caused by one thing. You don’t know why this person did what they did and you should not try and guess.

      I also think it depends on your resume. You say you want to stay 18 months and leave, but do you have a lot of 2 year and under roles on your resume? I would consider that a job hopper and I want to see someone who has been at organizations at least 3 years minimum and hopefully been promoted if there longer then 3 years. BUT if this makes you really uncomfortable then leave but I would stay in your best role a minimum 3 years.

      I have friends in tech that say job hopping is normal but is frowned upon where I work. During covid is understandable or if you have 1 or 2 in a 10 year period but not in a row and not more than a couple. But it may depend on industry too because I worked in an industry that was grant and funding based so they ended sometimes after 18-24 months and you needed a new role.

  17. More than just hope and duct tape*

    Final Interview Advice for an in-person meeting with everyone you’ve virtually interviewed with individually.

    I’m interviewing with a non-profit that started in the 2010’s but took off in 2020. I would be their first paid staff member although they’re going pay the Founder/ED as they’ll assume the fundraising/corporate relations functions vs operations.

    I first met with the Founder/ED who recommended me to the next Bd member who recommended me to the final Bd member. The Bd members are active in the day-to-day operations. Yes, I’m comfortable with this and it’s necessary (done it before). My role would work with these 3 members and be responsible for 3 Fed funded interns/volunteers. The role is fully remote and everyone, but one intern/volunteer (who is in the state), is local.

    I was very impressed with the individual interviews. While everyone asked their specific questions there was strong continuity of vision, goals, and activities across the meetings. I feel like I have a good lay of the land to make an informed decision if I were offered the position. They’re an optimistic, and organized, group. The Bd members have strong non-profit experience as Bd Members and pro bono in the sector. The only con is that the position salary is under market baseline by $5k (although I’d say with scope of work at least $10k) with the only benefit being 3-weeks PTO although the day to day is rather flexible.

    ** We have a time/date for a final interview. What should I prepare to be asked or to ask them?
    Previous interviews lasted an hour, and I was given ample time to answer their questions and ask questions. We discussed:
    – My interest in a program manager role as I would be transitioning from fundraising although PM is involved in most of my previous roles.
    – Their focus on customer service which translates from donor relations and other roles I’ve held.
    – My management style.
    – Their desire to be proactive in recruiting new partnerships
    – My suggestion to time study the new role so we all knew what was being done vs what they thought would be done (I’ve done this twice in other roles).
    – My ability to learn new tech and implement their new CRM into the model
    – Their vision for the future. They know they’ll hire more people, and I would be part of that process.
    – I know the KPI’s or metrics the PM will be accountable for in the first year
    – The Treasurer shared the financials and fundraising goals (not part of my job).

    I’ve been in the job search for 8.5 mos. It’s been challenging but now I can’t think of any other job than this one. I haven’t had this since early April when I thought I was going to get another job that I really like.

    1. AndersonDarling*

      If it’s down to the last interview, I’d like to see dedication to the work and passion for the mission. Well…and dedication tot he mission and passion for the work would be good to!
      They should know at this point that you have the skills and knowledge to do the job, so this would be the point to connect personally to the team and show that you are ready (Excited! Thrilled!) to get to work.

    2. noname today*

      Given that the three interns are federally funded, what is the funding cycle for those positions? How do they see a new federal administration affecting that funding line? What happens to their tasks if their funding is cut?

      1. Pete Pete - Go Away*

        Those were questions they addressed in the interviews:
        One will end Feb 2025
        Two end June 2025

        And they’re concerned that this govt program funding might be de-funded. Thankfully they don’t want backfill those positions with volunteers or interns either.

        Your 2nd part is a good one to ask: knowing what we know about these positions, what are your immediate plans to backfill the Feb 2025 expired role (I believe I’ll be doing the work) and when will we make decisions about the June 2025 roles? I don’t know the application cycle for these positions.

  18. AndersonDarling*

    Our remote hires keep flaking out.
    I’m more or less venting about it. My department started hiring remote to get the ‘best of the best’ and the first round of hires has been great. I was hired in that pool and all my colleagues are solid workers and communicate well.
    But then we tried to expand the team and each hire went through months of training and then didn’t produce any work when it was time to take on projects. And it’s really obvious that work isn’t getting done, and each tech covered up their lack of work, made excuses, and just generally tried to wait out the paycheck as long as they could.
    I’m grateful that my managers took swift action to fire each one because it drug down the whole team when one person was lying about their work.
    It’s frustrating to me on a personal level because this is the best job I’ve ever had! I’m respected, everyone communicates well, and we are paid well. Managers are skilled managers! My work is flexible. I get to work on amazing projects!
    So that’s my rant. The core of it is that I’m pissed that people are applying for jobs with no intent of putting in the work, while this job could be life changing for so many others who lost out on the opportunity.

    1. Double A*

      This is also the kind of thing that ruins remote work for other people and causes offices to want to go back to in person.

      1. Busy Middle Manager*

        True. Also the remotework and overemployed subreddits. 100% pro-employee regardless of performance or any mistakes they made. There is a complete denial that things such as what AndersonDarling wrote happen (albeit it sounds worse than most stories I’ve heard IRL). It’s maddening to read when you’re unemployed. “My boss is making me go to an hour-long in person meeting down the street, should I quit? I am underpaid at $150K three years out of school.”

        I slightly exaggerate of course.

      2. Anon4this*

        This. We went from remote to 2/3 days hybrid and now mandatory 4 days hybrid because of this. It isn’t a hiring issue it’s people who didn’t work during Covid, still got paid, and expect the same thing now.

        Does your company have an office? We make it mandatory for the first 6 months new hires must be in office 4-5 days a week for training reasons. Of course make this clear and don’t spring it on people! If you have an office maybe you can do something like this for the first few months? They should also be working on projects while they are training so you can see their actual work product.

        Also, give honest references! Another department hired someone who had decent references and they turned out to be awful and did no work. The manager contacted a reference again and was basically told the person slacked off but they didn’t want to say that in the reference. Be honest.

    2. Strive to Excel*

      It sounds like these employees should be starting on projects *before* they get months of training. Surely there’s something simple you can get people contributing on, even if it’s just data entry?

      1. AndersonDarling*

        Yep, they are included in projects while they are training. They shadow a tech and are assigned pieces, and attend meetings. The intent is that they get to meet more people and understand the workflow.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          I think the suggestion isn’t to include them as part of training, it’s to figure out immediately if they’re going to contribute to the team by forcing them to start contributing immediately (however small that contribution might be).

          Or are you saying that they do contribute during training, but not when given their own projects? In that case, it sounds like there needs to be more management at that transition point–to identify if the employee has stopped contributing because they need additional help (e.g. more structure, a mentor to bounce questions off of), or if they’ve just stopped doing any work for your company.

          1. AndersonDarling*

            ” …forcing them to start contributing immediately” That is brilliant!
            We do have them contribute, but they get direct instructions in this case. “Code check ABC” or “Track down reports that use ZXY.” Those are small tasks, so we may need to to step up to more thoughtful tasks, like troubleshooting a simple bug, or “a customer asked if we have an ACME analysis, see if you can find an existing analysis that we could start from.”
            Working in some independent problem solving tasks is a great idea!

          2. Strive to Excel*

            This exactly. You need some in-between tasks between “find the bug in code Y that’s making it do Z” and “this is your project now, have fun!”.

    3. Laggy Lu*

      It’s weird that this has happened more than once. There is possibly a flaw in your hiring process that is more pronounced for these roles, than the process you and your colleagues went through.

      1. AndersonDarling*

        We’ve been looking at that too. It’s all the same process, but projects were more critical with my cohort since the team was so small.
        Hmm, ya know…since the team has grown, maybe a piece is that we cover so many projects and processes at this point. Maybe it’s too overwhelming to go from training to ALL THAT. But I wouldn’t expect it to be unsurmountable, we are hiring folks with years of experience.

        1. Laggy Lu*

          Ah interesting. A few times in my career I have been in a job that has turned into a Frankenstein’s Monster over time. For me it was doable because it happened so piecemeal over time, but for someone coming in new, it probably wouldn’t be doable for them. In fact, when I left my first job, I was replaced by 2.5 people, because the job was such a hodgepodge (not because I was so amazing!).
          I wonder if something like that is happening. You and the team have been there since day 1 and so the breadth and variety of work doesn’t phase you, but new team members are overwhelmed. Maybe start them off with smaller chucks and work up to a more full picture. Also maybe recognize not everyone can be generalists and some specialization in your team may be a better goal.

        2. Momma Bear*

          Years of experience in a thing is not years of experience with your products/company. I’d save the critical path for the more established people and start with lower-hanging fruit with the others. Maybe ask people who were hired and successful from the last round what worked/didn’t work with their onboarding.

        3. goddessoftransitory*

          I’m guessing that your specific group formed a really cohesive structure (first wave of hires, smaller group) that might not be translating to a larger and less “report to each other all the time” setting as things expand. It may seem to some later hires like they were told to do X and then much later asked why they weren’t also doing Y and Z, since that was always “understood.”

      2. fhqwhgads*

        Yup. I’ve been remote for years. We just had this happen with 1 employee a week ago. It was the only time it’s happened in the last 6 years, as far as I’m aware. A bunch at once suggests a bigger problem.

    4. Momma Bear*

      It sounds like your managers take action when necessary, which is good. I’d focus on what affects you and talk to the managers about work processes that leave you hanging less when people don’t work out. Maybe take a look at the work and re-evaluate what they are given to start with and what kind of oversight they have. Are your managers doing anything differently with the new hires vs in the past? Not everyone is going to work out, in-person or not.

    5. Leslie Santiago*

      how are the reference checks? could you specifically dig into their ability and track record working independently and/or remotely?

  19. Wallaby, Well I'll Be*

    I very strongly suspect that I am going to be laid off this coming week. Company announced layoffs were coming this past Monday, but I knew about it earlier than that, because of my position in our union.

    This is tough. This will be the second time this company has laid me off. For much of my adult life, I’ve been terribly underemployed, and this job was my first time making a really good salary. On top of that, this is an extremely small, niche field, in which I do an obscure, niche thing. It doesn’t translate to other industries. And on top of that, I LOVE my job. It is a dream job. It’s the kind of job lots of people want but will never have.

    So, it’s hard not to feel like I’ll never have a job ever again. It’s a terrible way to feel in general, but especially right before the holidays. Also, I would have been in a better financial position to weather this, had I not had a mountain of cancer-related medical bills earlier this year.

    Not really asking a question, or looking for advice. Just venting. I hope everyone else is securely employed, doing something they enjoy.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Lol, mine too. I’m so sorry you’re losing a job you love, Wallaby.

          A lot of us get along in jobs we tolerate well, and which pay us enough or give us the security to spend some of our time doing things we love. Hardly the “follow your dreams/find a job you’re passionate about” advice I got as a child, but hey, a lot of that advice was crap. Is it time to look at a less-niche field with more stability?

          1. DJ Abbott*

            Yes, that “follow your dreams/do a job you want” advice really slowed me down.
            My revision is get a job you’re comfortable with – in the sense of having the skills and confidence to do it – in a place that you don’t hate, that pays enough and has good benefits.
            Temping can be a good way to bridge the gap and see what else is out there. Good luck!

          2. Wallaby, Well I'll Be*

            Nope. I don’t give up. Maybe that works for you, but that won’t work for me. I’ll find something, I always do. It will just take time.

            1. DJ Abbott*

              Being open to new things can lead to unexpected goodness! The job I was “meh” about while interviewing turned out to be challenging, satisfying, and fulfilling. :)

    2. Elsewise*

      Sorry to hear that you’re going through this, Wallaby. That’s really tough. I’m sending the best job-getting vibes your way!

    3. Chauncy Gardener*

      I’m so sorry about this!
      Seconding Heather’s suggestion about starting your own company or possibly freelancing if that’s a thing in your industry.
      Here’s hoping they hire you back quickly and that you stay healthy!

    4. Momma Bear*

      I’m sorry. It’s been a tough few years for a lot of people. We had 2 layoffs in 2 years. Maybe rather than focus on getting same-same, get something you don’t hate that pays the bills and focus on regrouping. I hope you are not laid off or if you are that you get a good severance package.

    5. Anon4this*

      I’m so sorry. Can you use your skill set you acquired and try and pivot to a different industry? Make sure you have good references from this company and keep in touch with people. Network. Let people know you’re looking. Skills even in a niche field can be used in other industries!

      Maybe look into temping and see if there’s another industry you like that pays a decent salary. Look into higher education even and just get a job so you have something coming in with medical care as well.

      Good luck!

  20. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

    I might have an opportunity to negotiate a 4-day workweek in exchange for a 20% pay cut. I’ve been desperately wanting more free time for several years (to the point that I browse part-time jobs almost daily but have never seen anything that would pay enough), and I’m confident I can meet the expectations of my position while working fewer hours. I can afford the pay cut and would still be able to save a reasonable amount of money, and it wouldn’t impact my insurance benefits. But some part of me is still terrified of putting the idea on the table – partly because until my early 30’s I had never had living-wage amounts of money and the idea of voluntarily giving up money – even money I don’t actually need – seems somewhat insane (I know I’m being irrational here), and partly because I think if I made the switch, I’d never be able to go back to full-time in this role if I ended up wanting to down the road.

    Has anyone considered something like this? What made you decide what you decided?

    1. Double A*

      I would do it in half a heartbeat. The best job I ever had I was able to work 4 days a week. It was a very intense job, and that schedule made it not just doable but left me generally refreshed with life. It was incredible. It’s everything I could want in a job, maybe even more than being independently wealthy and not having to work because I’d get bored. I mean maybe the most ideal would be 6 hours a day, 4 days a week. But 8×4 is a dream. Do it.

      1. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

        That is so good to know! Thank you! I am particularly interested in having my “off day” be mid-week, so I have fewer consecutive high-energy days (my job is also fairly intense during the work days).

    2. noname today*

      A good friend did so for her kids early years—like the commentator above, it was life-changing. Then, when they were older (MS/HS) she re-upped to full-time (and full pay).

      1. A Significant Tree*

        I also did this after my first child was born – it was an option to go to minimum 32.1 hrs/week and keep full benefits but paid for the hours worked. I think I averaged a 36 hour workweek for most of the 9 years I did it, so the hit to my salary wasn’t the full 20% either but I would have been willing to do that. I didn’t set up to take one whole day off per week but it gave me much needed flexibility for each day.

        If you can swing it, do it!

    3. FashionablyEvil*

      Are you actually going to be doing less work? I have seen people do this and they end up doing 100% of the job for 80% of the pay.

      1. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

        I have a good sense of the tradeoffs I’d need to make workload-wise because my whole company goes to four-day weeks for three months in the summer (without changing goals). It’s intense but manageable, and I haven’t had to work extra hours on my work days to stay ahead of expectations.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Wait, if everyone is able to do 100% of their work in four days, why are they making your come in five days for the rest of the year?

      2. Momma Bear*

        This. If you drop hours, drop workload accordingly. I know people who got moved to say 60% time and are struggling to accomplish everything within those hours. You know what it’s like in the summer, so if it’s not worse than that, it might be ok.

    4. Hlao-roo*

      I used to work at a place where this was an option, and if I ever work there again I would strongly consider it. It seemed to work well for the people I knew who had a 4-day work-week. Some things I would take into consideration:

      – Do other people at the company/organization work an 80% schedule?

      – Would my manager and I sit down and draw up realistic performance targets for an 80% workload (to try to get ahead of the pitfall FashionablyEvil mentioned)?

      – Is switching back to 100% work/pay an option in the future? How much notice would the company/organization require of me if I wanted to make the switch?

      1. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

        We do have a couple people who work 80%, and my whole company goes 80% for three months in the summer. I don’t think the performance expectations would change, but I’m confident I can manage the workload more efficiently based on my experience with the 80%-summers. And one big concern is I don’t think I’d be able to switch back to 100% – part of the reason this opportunity exists is because of a need for cost cutting.

    5. UnpaidWork*

      Are you confident you won’t have to put in the extra time anyway to meet some deadlines? I’ve never worked at any job where there isn’t too much to do and I’d be very concerned about actually getting the lowered hours for the lower salary. If you do it and you can, I’d try to ensure you get paid extra for extra hours.

      1. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

        Part of me doesn’t even really care about that? Like if I work an extra 1-2 hours on the four days I’m working, say, 30% of the time, but in exchange I get an entire day where there is no expectation that I’ll be available, that may not be by-the-book fair but I’m willing to accept that tradeoff. (I’m exempt and salaried, and very much trusted to manage my schedule independently, so if I did have a particularly intense week with long days I’d absolutely be able to take some informal comp time to make up for it – which aligns with busy/quiet cycles in my role.)

        1. Cordelia*

          If you’re ok with working longer hours on the 4 days you are at work, is it worth trying to negotiate compressed full-time hours? I do a nine-day fortnight, so have every second Friday off, and just start half an hour earlier and leave half an hour later on my working days. Which tbh I was doing anyway previously and not getting paid for it.

          1. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

            Probably not – the whole reason the opportunity exists is because there’s a need to cut costs. So if it doesn’t save the company any money, it’s probably a non starter.

    6. Put the Blame on Edamame*

      I have done it and would never go back! When I got a promotion it increased my salary ahead what it was when I was 5 days, anyway. But time is so much more valuable, if you have covered the essentials.

    7. WestSideStory*

      Yes, I did this although not for a great reason (went from 5 to 3 day workweek for less pay) at the time a family member was in last stage of stage 4 cancer. It was a huge help during a stressful time.
      It sounds like you could really use some time for yourself. See what may be offered, but be very sure the pay cut won’t really affect your ability to, for example, build savings so you have a financial cushion. There is really no thing as “money you don’t need.” Any money you don’t need to use on a daily basis in your current work life should be put to work as emergency fund or eventual retirement.

      1. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

        If I lost my job tomorrow, my liquid savings are good enough to get me through several years of not working, without touching long-term, retirement or emergency savings. (I’ve always been an obsessive saver and have a low cost of living.) And I’ll still be maxing out my retirement contributions with the pay cut. so logically I’m in about as good of a financial position as you can be to make this kind of shift, just emotionally attached to the money beyond rationality!

        1. Hlao-roo*

          With these details, I say go for it!

          If, for whatever reason, you want more money and going back up to full-time hours for full-time pay isn’t an option at this job, you are in a very good financial position to look for a new (higher-paying) job.

          Also, would it help at all with the emotional/psychological side of things to think about it as “spending $X to buy 52 extra days off work per year” instead of “taking a 20% pay cut?”

    8. Raisineye*

      I worked 0.8 FTE for 13 years and LOVED IT, mostly in my 30s. I changed jobs due to management changes and now I’m stuck on 5 days a week. I would take the pay cut in an instant to have that time back. I vote do it!

    9. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      Since you have some reservations, is a 40-hour, 4-day (4×10) option on the table?

  21. Red Wine Supernova Stoner*

    My question is about THC. I have a rather unique (pleasant) reaction to it and I wanted to start a personal social media account showing what happens, probably twitch because YouTube doesn’t let you monetize channels if they’re drug related. This would be just for fun but I wouldn’t be sad if it went viral.

    I work in an industry that requires drug testing upon employment. I plan on hiding my identity in my videos so that no one can doxx me and reveal to my employer that I’m a stoner.

    Is this banana pants? Should I not do it? I really want to.

    1. Another Disappointing Australian*

      FYI cannabis use shows up in drug tests for up to 90 days depending on the method used. If you’re in an industry that requires testing then apart from anything else you’re giving yourself a 3 month lead time to ever change jobs. Plus these industries tend to also be the ones that can require random drug tests after the job starts.

      As an IT person I’ll also say you have misplaced confidence in your ability to hide your identity. It takes significant effort to even attempt, and is ruined by a single slip.

      Maybe a helpful question here: why do you want to do this so much? Would you feel the same if you could do it openly? (i.e. is the secret and “getting away with it” part of the attraction?) Would you feel the same if this was not drug related but, say, ASMR or a rather unique reaction to sneezing?

      1. Red Wine Supernova Stoner*

        The main reason I want to do this is to potentially get an answer to WHY it’s happening. In short, it causes muscle spasms and tremors that I can control to a degree but for the most part it looks and feels like I’m dancing to music. It’s very relaxing and an outlet of pent up energy

        Multiple neurologists have said they don’t think there’s anything wrong with me, although one did mention functional neurological disorder which some people have said is a code word for hysterical. But I have done my due diligence in trying to make sure via doctor that it’s safe for me to do this.

        I met with a therapist who specializes in autism and thc and he is 100% convinced that it’s autistic stimming. Ive never been a stimmer but now at 50 it’s apparently all coming out.

        Honestly, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me in my life – it’s just extremely relaxing, it’s like my meditation. I just want to have a channel where people can chill and listen to music and meditate with me.

        1. Tio*

          If you are fully set on doing this – do you need to even mention that THC is involved Why

          If you want answers, I would go with inline discussion forums like this but geared towards medical discussion.

          If you really just want to be streaming your dancing/vibing/meditation, then just call it one of those, or stimming (you’re allowed a white lie, if you consider it that) and stream it without any THC connotations.

        2. Maggie*

          That is one of the most well documented “reactions”. A simple google search will provide the explanation.

        3. WorkerDrone*

          These are “weed shakes” – they aren’t actually all that uncommon. Though a channel focused on meditation, music, and dancing is still a fun idea! But you can just google the term to learn more about it and why it’s happening. Though there are no formal medical studies that I know of, there’s a few popular theories.

        4. RagingADHD*

          This is a well known thing, it’s called the Weed Shakes and it usually means you’re taking too much and have overloaded your receptors. There’s nothing wrong with you – this is a normal reaction to the overload. They aren’t usually dangerous on their own, but if you have other conditions like low blood sugar or high blood pressure, the overstimulation can make it worse.

          Frequently getting the weed shakes is also associated with developing elevated heart rate, anxiety or paranoia, so if you intend to induce them on purpose you should keep an eye on those things and have someone you trust to reality-check with.

          I would not assume that you can scrub your identity from this channel if it goes viral.

        5. Twitching*

          Do you really think there’s a market for that?

          I think you should spend some time doing actual research on trends and marketing in content creation, and see what it would really take to do this. Right now, you’re going to put your drug use online, risk getting doxxed and losing your job, with a 99.9% chance of getting a total of three stoned viewers leaving creepy messages.

          1. Tio*

            Random side note – if you want a channel to chill and “listen to music” you’re also gonna have to find/make copyright free music or license some, or you’ll probably get dmca’d by the bots pretty quick.

        6. Heavens*

          This just isn’t something worth risking your career over. Enjoy your fun, actually fairly well-known reaction (I promise it’s not nearly as exciting or unusual as you are trying to make it seem – I know you want to feel special but this isn’t it. It’s pretty well understood, and it’s super weird that your doctors don’t know this, which makes me dubious about aspects of your story) and enjoy your job, and don’t screw your life up by doing this. Or do, and enjoy living that FAFO life. Your call.

          1. RagingADHD*

            It is really odd that “multiple neurologists” and a therapist specializing in autism didn’t bring this up, unless OP just means they’ve been checked out overall and didn’t specifically mention the cannabis. Cannabis as an aid for autism and ADHD, as well as the general tendency of neurodivergent folks to get overstimulated easily, are such common knowledge that it’s very surprising indeed.

      2. Strive to Excel*

        The moment you attach your actual face to any online info, no matter how well you’ve covered your electronic tracks, it’s a question of when you’ll be caught rather than if. Especially if it goes viral.

      3. Rex Libris*

        Agreed. I do online research professionally, and chances are high that I could find out who you actually were if I made the effort.

    2. Anne of Green Gables*

      It sounds like if your employer did learn of the videos/channel, there is the potential to lose your job. Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but that’s what I assume when you day that your industry requires drug testing upon employment. If that is correct, that your job would be in jeopardy: could you live with that? Because I think that’s what you’d be risking. Whether your employer would actually find out depends on a lot of things, including how popular it got, but I don’t think you can discount that them finding out is a real possibility, and do it only if you could live with what that would mean.

    3. Arrietty*

      I’m pretty risk averse, so I would not do this. I think it’s daft that you could lose your job for publicly admitting you do something that has no discernible impact on your work (if it were discernible, they’d have discerned it without the doxxing), but since it is a risk and the reward is far less significant than the risk, I’d steer clear personally.

    4. Generic Name*

      If you are in the US in a state where it is legal, I wouldn’t worry too much unless you work for a buttoned up (uptight) industry. But if you work on federal contracts even if you live in such a state, I would be wary. My personal opinion. I’m not anti cannabis (I voted for legalization and my husband partakes daily).

      1. Tio*

        Even in a legalized state, if you ever move, this could come back and bite you if the hiring manager discovers it. Heck, even in a legalized state, I might still. I agree with the above commentors that you’re likely overestimating your ability to disguise yourself, although it’s probably true that most hiring managers won’t try and go full sherlock on you.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          And if the LW is working remotely, it might be legal in their state but not where the company is headquartered.

      2. Antilles*

        From an employment perspective, the fact it’s legal in the state doesn’t matter. Even if it’s legal in your state though, individual companies can still test for it and disqualify you on that basis; it’s not a protected right.

    5. MsM*

      Always assume that any anonymous online account can be cracked and doxxed. It may not be likely if things don’t take off to the point that you’d consider quitting your job anyway, but if you’re not comfortable with the risk, don’t do it.

    6. WorkerDrone*

      Honestly, it can be a lot easier to doxx than a lot of people realize – even to doxx people who take seemingly strict measures to protect their privacy. And people are a lot more willing to both doxx AND go after someone by exposing them their employers/friends/family/the general public these days than a lot of people realize. Sometimes even something that seems innocuous can set someone else off and prompt them to do that; sometimes even nothing other than the desire to be a jerk will prompt them to do that.

      So for me, this would depend a lot on how seriously the industry takes drug use and how much your job would be at risk if you were doxxed.

    9. Still Twitching*

      If you lost that anonymity, what would the consequences be? I’d work on the principle that it’s entirely possible you will be revealed at some point, and decide based on that. Maintaining genuine anonymity is hard, and there’s a good chance you will be revealed at some point, so what then? If you could take getting fired and being ineligible for rehire, losing your references etc., assuming those were likely consequences, then go for it.

      (And forget about going viral, the chances of that are so tiny with any content that it’s not worth considering. Assume your videos will be seen by a few dozen people max, as that’s the likely reality. The vast majority of Twitch streamers have up to ten viewers maximum.)

    10. ham sandwich, esq.*

      You might also want to consider whether your reaction is as unique and interesting as you think it is. Thinking things are way more significant than they really are is a hallmark of getting stoned. If your reaction is one in a million, there’s eight people in New York having that exact same reaction right now.

      1. Moose*

        That’s what I was thinking. Aside from the potential to lose your job, this sounds like the most boring thing on the planet to try and watch on Twitch and viewership would likely be incredibly low.

        Like, it’s hard enough for actual talented dancers to get an audience online. I can’t imagine “tremors that I can kind of control that look a little like dancing” to be much of a hit. But like, you do you I guess. If having 2 simultaneous viewers watching you get high is how you want to spend your free time, go for it I guess.

        1. Moose*

          Looks like I misunderstood the actual reaction. But yeah, there’s not going to be a big audience for “get high, relax, and meditate with a 50 year old” on Twitch. Sry OP. But maybe this is something you could build a community around IRL.

    11. Texan in exile on her phone*

      You will be identified.

      I wrote a blog about my in-law for years. Fake names, fake locations, but real situations.

      When my husband’s mother died, someone identified me from my blog and left a comment on her online obituary, saying he had heard about her from from my blog.

      My sister in law asked me if I knew anything about The Golddigger – she said she had seen the oddest comment on the obituary.

      Don’t do it.

      Signed,

      Texan in Exile, AKA Diary of a Golddigger

  22. ASD always*

    Do I have any standing to ask for a raise in this context? If so, how on earth do I approach it?

    Context: my workplace does strict salary grades. If you are grade 3-2 you earn the exact same amount as everyone else on grade 3-2. There are 5 levels within grades, you move up a level based on performance, and once you hit e.g. 3-5 you can’t get any more merit raises without a new job description and reclassification at a higher grade, where you start at e.g. 4-1 again. Cost of living raises are done separately at a different time of year.

    I hit the top of my grade in 2022, and since my job didn’t at all match my job description I asked that it be reviewed, which was accepted. Early 2023 I was solely responsible for migrating all our data to a new IT system (until I started having a nervous breakdown and they got someone from the outsourced system-building company to help me – he kind of made a hash of his bits so I later had to fix a bunch of them). As a special consideration I was paid overtime (at my normal pay rate) and come performance review time (October) I got a nice email from HR saying “you can’t get a payrise, but we appreciate you”.

    I was also told shortly after my performance review that my new job description would bump me into the new grade and was meant to be ready in time for said review, but for various reasons had been delayed, but it should be done by December. Then by mid-January. Then May. Then July. Then definitely August. Then absolutely by my next performance review (October). Where I got the nice email again. I still don’t have the new job description, but I got the new salary grade in November – an annual increase of £720 before tax etc.

    I’m annoyed. From where I’m sat it looks like I missed out on at least one merit payrise, and to be honest I’m still miffed that they let me have a nervous breakdown saving the company £100,000 (more than double my annual salary) and didn’t even offer a bonus, which the employee handbook says “will normally only be paid in exceptional circumstances”.

    I can’t quit because I’m about to go on maternity leave, and day to day it’s a great place to work. I just feel like I’ve been financially disadvantaged for my manager and the head of HR having crises in their personal lives (a lot of the delay was them each having stress leaves).

    1. Tio*

      My company uses basically this same system – it’s a little weird but I do think it’s nice for fair pay, so I have mostly gotten used to it.

      I would go to your manager with the pay grade you are on, the one you came from, and the one you think you may have missed. They might move you up a year on the scale – that’s the most common solution within my company for this type of thing, and the easiest way to get you what you want. I would have that potential solution in your pocket to offer up.

      I would give up on the bonus, if it lists exceptional circumstances. If you’re at a large company, saving 100k is laudable, but not necessary exceptional. I have literally saved my company millions of dollars and not been offered a bonus, but I am also at a higher management level where that kind of thinking is generally more expected. I would start with the scale year bump and if that’s not possible then maybe bring up the bonus, and if they say no you can ask what kind of circumstances they have been approved in before. I’m betting it’s going to be much higher bar to entry on the bonus than you think.

      1. ASD always*

        It’s a service-based charity of about 100 employees, so not exactly large, and £100k is a significant amount to the annual budget. I’m sure you’ve saved your company more than mine brings in each year.

        If being the lynchpin that allowed a once-in-a-decade project vital to every part of the business to launch doesn’t count as “exceptional” I can’t think of anything that would. But I don’t expect a bonus has ever been given to anyone, it’s more of an “insult to injury” feeling than anything.

        1. Tio*

          Ahh, yeah, that would definitely be more significant! I am still not optimistic about the bonus, but if all else fails, or even if the conversation is going ok, maybe you could ask about that line with your boss, and see if they know if/when a bonus has been given. But also, if 100k is significant to your company, then the bonus will probably not be a lot even if it’s gotten, which might make it feel even more annoying even if you got it.

    2. WellRed*

      If they wanted to give you a raise they would have, instead of this BS two step. I’d ask for a meeting and ask again with your accomplicments etc and ask for it retroactively. I’d also reconsider whether this is really a great workplace between the raise and the nervous breakdown workload. Otherwise I wonder if you can squeeze in a job search over your leave.

  23. Busy Middle Manager*

    Unemployed and feeling extra-disenfranchized today. Another government jobs report of “solid hiring” but again, when you dig into it, it’s mostly low pay jobs. I had been looking for a while before losing my job and there was just a lack of roles to apply to. Of course, there are many food service and nursing jobs, but those are not my fields. I tried networking but the response is always “my company has a hiring freeze and I can’t remember the last time we hired anyone but some other company might be hiring”

    I have been hoping for the economy to proverbially rip the bandaid off. It feels like we’ve been teetering on the edge of a good/bad economy for two years. I keep thinking, just have the recession already, or, have solid organic growth that will actually create jobs the organic way. I’m dreading the idea of more years of a “good” economy cobbled together by subsidies and deregulation and tax cuts and lowering interest rates and clever accounting; that doesn’t benefit me or create jobs in my field! I was in a better mental space during my last layoff because I wasn’t bombarded with constant headlines that the economy is the most bestest ever.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      I agree; there’s always a huge difference in availability between “jobs” and “jobs that pay enough for you to live on.”

      It’s funny, I haven’t been reading a lot of headlines recently (for my own mental health), but nothing I’ve seen implies that the US economy is “great” right now. Unemployment may be low, but wages aren’t even close to keeping up with rent increases. The housing market is FUBAR. The stock market is doing so well right now in part because the bond market is panicking. With the promise of deporting undocumented immigrants, a trade war and repealing Biden-era spending, we’re looking at higher prices for food and manufactured goods, and the possible collapse of some sectors of US manufacturing.

      So, um… Yeah. I agree, the economy is not doing great! I’m sorry you’re having trouble finding a job in your sector that pays enough to live on, you’re far from alone.

    2. Unemployment*

      I sympathize. I was out of work for 19 months after my 9/11 layoff (which actually came in March 2012) and I didn’t get an actual, real fulltime job until 2006 (all I could find for intervening years was short term contracts so I was constantly looking for work). It was incredibly disheartening to hear about the economic recovery and booming job market while it was do bleak for me. They do a slightly better job of this now, but one thing that caused the disparity was the accounting of who was in the job market – if you were unemployed for six months or longer you were considered n
      uninterested in working (I forget the exact term they use) and you’re taken out of the unemployment statistics. So when the actual layoffs have slowed down but folks haven’t gotten back to work yet there’s an improvement in numbers that doesn’t reflect reality.

      They’ve made some adjustments to better account for the realities of work, but there are still a ton of issues in this regard.

  24. Jaid*

    Sigh. I got into work yesterday, to find emergency vehicles with flashing lights outside my building. Security said that there was a medical issue being resolved. Later, my unit clerk told me that she saw EMTs wheeling out someone, doing chest compressions and there was blood.

    On the way home, another co-worker asked if I’d heard about the person trying to un-alive themselves…

    Of all the things to do at work.

    3. Strive to Excel*

      I’ve been told by friends in the medical profession that this is an incredibly busy time of year for them. Stress + travel + rich food + elderly family members all kind of add up.

  25. Aggretsuko*

    So I contacted a former coworker of mine (C) this week. I had two coworkers with MS and the one I talked to told me that both she and the other one were having their accommodation requests denied. Specifically, H was being told to walk around the entire campus in summer and C made a request to not have to go to a “voluntary” ice cream social when it was 109 out. C has been working on contract for about 5 years and they told her for six months it’d be renewed and they just had to get a signature, but after she made the request, “somehow” they just “didn’t get the signature in time” and she was thrown out of the job as a total surprise to her. H is having all of her requests denied. It sounds like they’re trying to drive out H too, but H is a permanent employee rather than contract, so I can say from experience it’ll take awhile.

    I was also told that H’s department is being forced back in twice a week (they don’t need to be on campus for the job at all) and all of them are “calling in sick” every single time they are scheduled to go in. I was totally shocked that they’re “getting away with this” and C said “if they have the sick time, there’s nothing they can do,” and I was all, “yeah, but they can start writing them up for every single thing like they did to me.”

    I told C that she should report the denial to the campus–I found the info for it and sent it to her–because at this point, they can no longer harm her and she might as well. I hope she does it because there’s a pattern of this crap, and obviously H wouldn’t be able to do it out of fear of retaliation. I realize it’s probably pointless for anyone to try to fight back against them and these people get away with everything, but I had no idea they were being that cruel to everyone. I expected them to refuse my accommodation requests, but canning someone out of a job for not wanting to go to one “voluntary” event is just crazypants.

    Anyone ever dealt with this sort of thing before? Is there a point to trying to report refusal of accommodations?

    1. MigraineMonth*

      One of my coworkers has MS, and before I joined the organization there was an issue with one of his accommodation requests. He asked the workplace to install a push button door opener for the department door. Their accommodations “expert” decided it was too expensive and unnecessary.

      The impasse finally broke the morning there was an unscheduled fire alarm and my coworker was trapped inside the department, and the door opener was immediately approved.

      The kicker? We work for a division of the government responsible for disability services.

  26. AnonForThis*

    This is more a grumble than anything, because I know the answer is to let it slide.

    But at what point does misspelling someone’s name due to typos become rude? I’ve got used to so many people dropping the last letter of my name that I assume they’re just more used to that spelling or something, but recently someone sent me an email where they’d added an extra letter to the beginning as well.

    (For example if my name were Sarah, I’d be getting Sara a lot, but this is the first Nsara.)

    I know it was a typo (and I’m used to seeing typos in this person’s emails tbh). But I just don’t get why people don’t care enough about how it looks to the recipient to not proof read at all.

    /Rant, sorry, I just needed to vent.

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      While it doesn’t help with common first names, I love the fact that my organization adds people’s first and last names to spell check for all MS products. That little red squiggly line has stopped some potentially embarrassing typos.

      But I agree it can be annoying. Since not everyone is a great typist or speller, I try to give grace. It’s when people mispronounce names that they should know that I get most frustrated.

    2. Ruby Tuesday*

      As a Jessica who is all too often called Jennifer, even by people I’ve been working with for year, you have my empathy

    3. BellaStella*

      Also outlook and other email services have a function to spell check before sending. My boss has an average of 3-5 typos every email. I tried explaining this and he does not care.

    4. DisneyChannelThis*

      Increase the font size of your name +1 each time they mispell and you have to reply. like 12, 13,14,15,16,17 etc. It’s low stakes (they won’t notice) but satisfying.

    5. Lily Rowan*

      I just saw a reel where the first step in “emailing like a man at work” was deleting “Dear Sarah,” and replacing it with “Nsara.” (Not the actual example, but it was definitely the same gist.)

    6. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      I was just commenting that someone “Sara”‘d me who has known me for 15 years and they were replying to an email from me. My name is literally right there.

      Typos on the other-hand don’t bother me if it is an email, I don’t consider them formal communication and at least in my field we send so many quick replies.

      OTOH I still proudly display an engraved plaque from an award I got where they made a type in the award letter and then engraved the same typo into the plaque. It is hilarious.

    7. Neosmom*

      In the grand scheme of things, there are not many of us out there who had an intro to newspaper article writing class with a professor who would give your submissions an “F” for any person’s name being misspelled.

      I was fortunate to have that professor. Because of that, I am rather hyper-sensitive to name misspellings. And I share this story with team members regularly (as appropriate / in context). Did so last week and this week! Good luck, AnonForThis OP.

  27. Lauren*

    My new manager “Bob” started 2 weeks ago, overseeing me (a Sr. Teapot Specialist, at the company for 1.5 years) and “Tom” (a Jr. Teapot Specialist, at a company under 1 year). While I’m senior to Tom, I don’t delegate tasks to him or work with him on projects. During my 1×1 with Bob this past week, I asked him about the new “teapots” we were getting back, that an external company was working, and how they were going to be divided up between Tom and myself. First he asked what I thought, and I replied that those teapots go back under the “tiers” they were originally assigned, and that Tom and I would take them back based on the tiers we each manage. Then he said he was going to look to *me* to re-do the assignments for the new teapots. I said I can do that, but then gave him the background that previously our previous manager and his director had divided up the teapots between Tom and me. Since I’m senior, I got the more complex teapots. His response was that one day *I’ll* be a manager, and even be in his role!, and I need to be comfortable delegating tasks. 

    That just rubbed me the wrong way! I responded that in terms of career goals, I was happy where I was and don’t want to be a people manager because I liked the technical side more. I also briefly touched on the point that in previous jobs I was in roles where I delegated tasks out to jr. team members and oversaw projects they did, but that I still didn’t want to be a people manager. He responded that he’s known people who also went the technical route, and even they ended up having to be people managers on the technical side. I also felt defensive because at this company, I’ve overseen several high priority projects that involved working with people from other departments, as well externally. I also created several new processes and procedures for the team. But since he’s so new, he doesn’t know that! There have also been a few other instances of him seemingly not fully understanding some of our products and best practices, which is totally fair because he’s so new. I’m just thinking that I wish he would try to understand our company a bit more, and why we do things a certain way, instead of jumping in and trying to seem like an expert so far. Our company is also a hot mess and has weird office dynamics, and I’m not sure if he understands that.

    Would it be worth asking him if he has any questions about the company, or why things are set up that way, or if he has questions on my past roles or skills? Or would it be a waste of time? 

    1. DJ Abbott*

      He sounds like he thinks he knows best without learning what’s actually going on, so I would tread carefully trying to teach him or help him.
      We had a new manager start in my department last year, and I tried to help her understand our processes and give her useful information. I didn’t realize she wasn’t interested in that because she already thought she knew best.
      She gave me a bad review that said nothing good, and said I was uncooperative.
      Meanwhile, we got a new Director who is very friendly and supportive, and I took my concerns to him. Our new manager finally admitted I have some value and gave me a decent review just recently. She still thinks I was being rude trying to help her, even though I explained what I was trying to do.
      I think it might be best to just wait and see what happens with this manager. Maybe he’ll be so clueless he flames out. Is there someone above him who you have a good relationship with and can tell your concerns? That way maybe he could get on someone’s radar.
      Since you said your company is a mess, there may not be any good managers to go to. Either way, I would focus on protecting myself and my job and wait to see what happens.

  28. Daisy-dog*

    How can I communicate that I understand something is urgent? I don’t think I do a good job of letting people know, so sometimes I get others who need to constantly reiterate that said thing is urgent which sends my anxiety through the roof. I get physical symptoms of anxiety that sometimes continue to affect me outside of work (which I’m trying to work on and know isn’t anyone else’s responsibility), and I just want to try to prevent someone from feeling like they need to be so overtly heavy-handed.

    Currently: I express shock/sympathy at the issue. I advise that I am working on it and if it requires outside assistance, I will ask them to escalate it to the highest level. I then provide updates when I have them.

    1. WorkerDrone*

      I would start literally saying that. Express shock/sympathy at the issue, advise them that you are working on it, then say: “I understand this is very urgent. I want you to know I am taking it seriously and prioritizing it because of the urgency. I’ll provide updates as soon as I can.”

      1. FashionablyEvil*

        Definitely just say it. Alternatively, “How awful/stressful! I will get right on that and will be back in touch ASAP/within the hour/whatever time frame is reasonable.” It’s really just about managing expectations: you know it’s urgent and they can expect to hear from you by X (even if X means, “still waiting on Y.”)

    2. Charlotte Lucas*

      My job often has urgent work (and sometimes the urgency is the fault of the person making the request). It’s work that can require focus. Which of course means I often get multiple people “checking in” and delaying the process.

      Unfortunately, I think it’s an aspect of the job.

    3. Cordelia*

      I wouldn’t bother with expressing shock and sympathy tbh—either you don’t feel it (in which case your response is inauthentic) or you do (in which case you probably need to manage your emotional investment; it’s just a job!). Your role sounds like it involves urgent requests, so just focus on the task: let them know you’re working on it and will provide updates when possible, and ask them to escalate if necessary. Perhaps you could consider creating a standard response template to save time.

    4. cmdrspacebabe*

      It sounds like a lot of these might be reactive situations where someone’s dealing with a problem they need you to solve. If that’s the case, a lot of it is probably more about their own stress than anything you’re saying – they’re just anxious themselves and projecting it onto the nearest person they can get a response out of. If you’re coming in expressing shock at the issue they’re having, that might even be reinforcing or validating their anxiety a little – or at least signaling that you’re receptive to it.

      Maybe you could bring some of the emotion out of it while also clarifying how an item is prioritized – something more neutral as a standard opening: “We have received your report. We consider XYZ a very serious issue, and are addressing it as an urgent priority.” Then move from there into the detailed response – “I’m working on it, will be doing X, I’ll contact you if I need Y.”

      I would also make sure that you’re explicitly telling them that you will provide updates, if you aren’t already. Maybe even schedule them – “I’ll get back to you in [3 days? a week? whatever] and let you know where it’s at.” Then do that whether or not there’s been progress, so they’ll know it’s still being actively worked on.

    5. MigraineMonth*

      So, I’m not sure about your context, but I usually 1) emphasize that I understand the importance; 2) say that this is my highest priority (if that’s true); 3) estimate when it will be finished or when I will have an update.

  29. Elsewise*

    I’m getting married soon. Should I change my last name at work?

    Let’s say my legal name is Ellisandra Wise. I go by Elsie Wise at work and everywhere else- Elsie is on my resume, my LinkedIn, my work email, etc. Ellesandra is only used for legal paperwork.

    I’m marrying Sam Miller. Sam is non-binary, and has a rough relationship with their birth family, so they’re changing their last name. They’ve chosen to hyphenate Wise with a last name of their choosing. Their new last name is a legitimate name, but is a little twee. Kind of sounds like a hedgehog that wears a suit and has a job in the British countryside. Let’s go with Poppins and pretend that we’ve never heard of Mary.

    So Sam is legally changing their name to Sam Poppins-Wise. I’m not currently planning to legally change my name, but I will change it socially, so people will know me as Elsie Poppins-Wise. Should I tell my coworkers and change my name in our work systems and in my professional networks, or should I stay Elsie Wise at work and only add Poppins for people who know me?

    Other considerations: I’m queer, working in a very liberal field and a liberal area and unlikely to change either anytime soon. I’m out at work but don’t discuss my personal life with clients. Another woman recently hyphenated her last name after marrying a man and had no pushback, and my bosses are all queer and very excited about my wedding. Am I overthinking it?

    1. Tio*

      Probably overthinking. If they’re all queer and had no issue with someone else doing it, it shouldn’t be an issue. I would just say “Hey, I intend to use a hyphenated last name after my wedding, how would we get that changed?” And they’ll probably just give you some basic steps like setting up an email change/forwarding depending on the system and updating your signature.

      1. Hlao-roo*

        I also vote overthinking, but maybe talk to your coworker who recently changed her name first? A few of my coworkers have changed their last names in the past few years and there hasn’t been any pushback, but we need to log into a lot of different systems for our jobs and it is A Pain to get all of the systems changed to the new name and talking properly to each other. If your workplace is similar, you may decide it’s not worth the hassle, and your coworker can give you the inside scoop about changing your name in your particular workplace.

    2. Dinwar*

      Don’t go by different names on work from what’s on the tax paperwork. Makes things VERY confusing in the system. If I have to look up Elsie Poppins-Wise in the system, and that person doesn’t exist (because it thinks you’re Elsie Wise), it can create a lot of confusion. And this isn’t things like “I forgot your email address”; it can be things like finding your name on a drop-down menu for an expense report, or to put your name into a field on a form, or the like.

      I had that happen with someone who uses their middle name. Never knew it was their middle name until I tried to look them up and couldn’t find them. It’s a common thing in the South, apparently, but if you don’t know that’s what’s happening (because their email signature, cube name plate, and everything else just has Middle and Last Name), you simply can’t find the person in the system.

      1. Elsewise*

        I haven’t run into an issue with this with my first name not being my legal first name, and I’ve used that at work my whole career. Do you think it’s different when it’s your last name?

        The systems I mostly have to use are google suites. Our expense reports use preferred names, the only real difference is the name on my pay stub and tax forms (which HR already has). Their backend systems has a field for preferred first name, and I was going to leave my last name the same with HR since it’s not legally changing and just change essentially my “display” name.

        1. Strive to Excel*

          I think a lot of systems are better at first names; the better ones have a ‘preferred name’ field, like you have, and things can match up pretty nicely there. That makes a good crossover between the legal name and the name you actually use at work. That said, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a software with a ‘preferred’ last name field! I’d say if you’re not legally changing it, I wouldn’t add it.

    3. ecnaseener*

      I do think you’re overthinking it. People will simply think you married someone with a name that happens to be a little twee — it’s not going to occur to them that your spouse chose that name, so they’re not going to have any thoughts on whether it says anything about you or them.

    4. Kimmy Schmidt*

      Totally up to you! I’ve known several people of varying genders and sexual orientations who’ve hyphenated their names socially but not legally, and most of them do elect to use their new hyphenated name at work. Apart from the standard “oh shoot, I forgot you’re a Poppins-Wise now” for the first month or so, it’s never posed an issue.

    5. Strive to Excel*

      It depends how thoroughly you want to keep clients out of your personal life! It sounds like your workplace would be fine one way or another, so it’s all the other professional people to think about. If you do get your workplace to change the name in the system, be prepared to be Poppins-Wise for everyone though.

      Congratulations!

      1. Elsewise*

        Thanks!

        I’m not too concerned about keeping clients super separated from personal life, I don’t work in a field where that’s a major issue (I’m not a therapist, for example), and it’s pretty common to use surface-level personal topics for bonding. I’m comfortable with them knowing that I’m getting married, or that I’m gay (honestly a lot of queer clients probably already know just from how I dress and look). I think I’m more just worried that there will be some sort of administrative nightmare I’m not considering (which is probably something HR could tell me more than the commentariat), or that I’ll be perceived differently for having a slightly more “fun” last name. But no one will know it’s made up! Y’all are probably right that I’m overthinking it.

    6. DisneyChannelThis*

      Your question is “I’m getting married and changing my name to be hyphenated socially but not legally, which should I use at work?” I would stick to the legal name at work. Your taxes and other paperwork will come through with the name you use at work, and those need to be legal name. You could legally change it though.

    7. Generic Name*

      Here is my experience changing my name. I’m a straight woman married to a man. I took my first husband’s last name, and reverted to my original name when I got divorced. Frankly, it was such a giant PITA to change it, I said to myself that I’m never changing my name again. So when I remarried, I legally kept my own name, but added his last name to the end of my Facebook profile. That’s pretty much it, and some people assume I changed my name (like my mom, who sends me checks in that name). I still use my original name at work.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        I’m kind of surprised to hear it’s such a hassle in the “common” case (woman marries man and takes his name). I usually hear what a PITA it is in every other case.

        1. Generic Name*

          Oh no, if I had taken my new husband’s name when I married him, changing my name would have been easy peasy. It was going back to my original name after my divorce that was a nightmare. Some places basically just took my word for it, but other places required certified copies of my divorce decree. They would not accept my updated drivers license or passport even. The places requiring excessive paperwork didn’t require the same level of paperwork if you were changing names as a result of marriage though.

        2. Tio*

          Oh it was a massive annoyance to change. I also changed my last name on marriage (mostly because I didn’t want my family name for reasons) and you have to hit up the DMV, any deeds, loans or titles, bank accounts, credit and debit cards, work info and retirement accounts, and the big one, social security (for the US). And SS has a waiting period, and a lot of the other options require the SS change before you can change anything else. A lot of managing paperwork and timing and the things that pop up because they fell between the cracks.

      2. A Significant Tree*

        I did this too – kept my original/legal name for work stuff, go by his last name socially. In coming to that arrangement, I basically told my husband that if he felt strongly enough about me changing my name, he could help me with all the paperwork and appointments to have it legally changed everywhere. Neither of us was interested in doing that!

        FWIW I had a friend who hyphenated her last name and changed it legally – she advised me against that due to her challenges with having the hyphenation accepted everywhere she needed to use it. So the issue was the hyphenation, not the change itself. I recall past discussions on AAM about work IT systems that don’t recognize legal name changes, preferred names, and so on, so hopefully that won’t be an issue for you.

    8. HannahS*

      I think you’re overthinking it, in the sense that I don’t get why the cutesiness of your partners name matters, nor is hyphenating your name going to reveal your partner’s gender or your marital status (except to the small number of clients who knew you before your marriage; lots of single people have hyphenated names because of their parents.) Whether or not you legally and/or socially change your name is not the fulcrum upon which feminism, marriage, and queer rights sit, and neither choice will change how married you are.

      Do you want your last name at work to be Wise or Poppins-Wise? If you want to sign emails “Elsie Poppins-Wise,” then yeah, you should talk to IT and consider changing you name legally to Ellesandra Poppins-Wise, so that your paycheques also come to Ellesandra Poppins-Wise. If you don’t care, and just want your friends to refer to you as “The Poppins-Wises,” then it’s probably not worth the bother.

      I’m a doctor and so my own last name is in constant use, and I need to know and use the last names of my colleagues when I’m talking to patients. I’ll call Dr. Jenica Grey “Dr. Grey” to patients, and if she tells me she’d like to be called “Dr. Grey-Hedgington” because she got married, I’ll start calling her “Dr. Grey-Hedgington” to patients. If she chose to continue being “Dr. Grey” at work, I’d continue calling her “Dr. Grey” to patients at work. If she told me she’s “Dr. Grey” at work and “Jenica Grey-Hedgington” socially, I would wonder why she’d bother telling me, because unless I’m speaking about her to a patient and referring to her “Dr. Grey”, I call her Jenny and her non-binary partner Alex, and refer to them as “Jenny and Alex” when I invite them over for dinner.

    9. Pomodoro Sauce*

      I think if you’re not legally planning to change your name, I wouldn’t change it at work. Ten years from now a gap between your email address/professional name and the name used for payroll/insurance/disability could become an enormous pain in the neck to resolve during an already stressful time.

      A well-meaning person at my job updated my records to reflect the name I used professionally, did not let me know, and then retired. I did not have an ID that matched the name on my health insurance. I found myself having to explain the discrepancy, over and over again, during active labor and the first weeks of parenting. It worked out but I would have preferred to avoid it.

      Congratulations on your upcoming wedding (and marriage)! Best wishes!

    10. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Our process has two parts, the HR process (which is required, to update your legal name) and then the IT process, which is optional and changes both your login (in my case, from ROldname to RNewname) and your display name in our various systems (from Red Oldname to Red Newname). If I didn’t go through the IT half of the process, then even though my legal name has been updated with HR so that my W2 and paystubs and all that jazz are correct, then I will still log into our systems with roldname and it will still show my name as Red Oldname.

    12. Velociraptor Attack*

      I can’t tell if you’re still considering not changing it legally but going by it socially and professionally or if you’re reconsidering not changing it legally.

      The ability to go by something other than your legal name at work will vary. My current employer allows nicknames/alternative names in emails, while a previous employer did not.

      I started there a week after I got married, and I had to start everything under my maiden name until the legal change went through and I was able to get my email, business cards, nameplate, etc., etc., changed. I’m a member of the same union in each of them – the field didn’t change, the city didn’t change, the type of employer didn’t change, just the organization itself.

  30. softcastle*

    Update on my Open Thread comment last Friday about my entrepreneur boss who last-minute demanded we all work mandatory overtime/all 5 Saturdays until New Years’:

    We all confronted her about how it was an unfair request, mostly because it was given to us so late (and we mostly all had weekend plans). She laughed it off, said she “never requested that, we’re crazy and didn’t read the memo properly” (we have it screenshotted) and reduced to only 2 mandatory Saturdays. She also promised she’d revise her schedule so she’d be in-office with us every day, 9-6, so we “feel supported.”

    It’s going as you’d expect. So far, she’s only come into the office 2x (not on Saturday, of course) and spent 3 total cumulative hours….one of which was spent pulling us all in a meeting where she told us (through long, dramatic sobs) she’s “onboarding an investor” (selling the company) because her “toxic empathy for everyone is killing her, and she needs to put herself first.” Which must have started immediately, because she left right afterward for an EDM show the next city over because she was invited onstage. And no, she didn’t come in this morning because she was too hungover.

    Anwyay, I have two second interview rounds for other companies next week. I’d appreciate any good juju you can offer–I need to get outta here!

    3. Plate of Wings*

      Please keep updating us! Sending all the good luck your way (but seriously I look forward to your update, this is hilarious).

    4. Chauncy Gardener*

      She is 100% full banana ensemble! Good luck to you and your coworkers on getting on to bigger and better things ASAP.

    5. beautiful, talented, brilliant, powerful musk-ox*

      It’s always the people claiming to have superhuman levels of empathy, isn’t it?

      I’m so glad you’re working on getting out of there! That sounds maddening.

    6. Jinni*

      This is so LA. (Even if you’re somewhere else). She could literally be one of 100 people here. Good luck finding a new normalized workplace.

    7. goddessoftransitory*

      OMG, that is insane. I hope whoever buys this shambles knows what they’re getting into. Flee!

  31. Fish out of water*

    This came up in a discussion I read on AAM this week about IT taking control of someone’s work computer while they had their personal bank statements open (I can’t remember if it was a letter published from the archives or something I read while contextualizing updates). Many of the comments were rightfully wary about opening any personal information on your work computer.

    I have a follow-up: my password manager is installed on my work computer’s browser because secure passwords are required for my work accounts. Of course the same password manager is full of my personal passwords. Does this give people the same heebie-jeebies as opening personal, confidential information on a work computer? My password manager does have my banking info saved, though I never log into my bank website on my work computer.

    As a follow-up, does anyone have a secure solution to this problem? I don’t particularly want to manually type in a secure password when I log into my 5 work accounts at the beginning of each day, but I also don’t want to open a new password manager just for the sake of work. But maybe I should?

    1. Millierose*

      I manually type my secure password every day, but that’s a personal preference. I don’t like having passwords saved at all if I can avoid it. I have a spreadsheet where I will save usernames, and a hint to the password, so even if someone accesses it they don’t have the actual password. Might be overkill, but I work with a lot of sensitive information for a state government, so I’m covering all my bases.

      If I were to use a password manager, I would use separate password managers for work and for personal accounts, just to be safe.

    2. Roland*

      You should open a password manager account with your work email, yes. If you find that you need paid features it would maybe even be fine to request officially depending on company culture.

      My work actually requires us to use 1password for various required shared passwords (not gonna doxx myself but I promise it’s not bad security in our case) so I just log into my own account in a different browser (separate chrome profiles also work).

      Also ngl, my work account has a much worse master password than my personal one because I care a lot less about it.

    3. KeepItSeparate*

      I would absolutely keep them completely separate. Always create new accounts for everything using your work address. There should be a rigid barrier between work and personal data/info/apps/stuff.

    4. fhqwhgads*

      I have a work-mandated password manager and my account for that has all my work-stuff. None of my personal stuff is in that password manager. I have my own password manager for my personal stuff, and it’s not on my work computer at all.

    5. MJ*

      I have a paid 1Password subscription that allows me to share “vaults” with others. I have a separate vault for each client I work for and share it with my work email. So when I’m on the work laptop I only have access to work passwords.

  32. Chirpy*

    I don’t know how to stop coworkers from undermining me. My department head, who has previously listened to other people saying I don’t do anything because “multiple people said it so it must be true” (her response when I asked why she believed them over me, it was one person who convinced the others) today apparently thought the reason I didn’t turn in an adjustment sheet last night was because I “don’t finish things” or something, turned it in before I got here this morning, and now the inventory guy is just refusing to do the whole thing because it’s wrong. I didn’t turn it in because I wanted to check a few items before turning it in! Sometimes stuff shows up in the inventory days before it arrives and apparently I’m extra unlucky on that today.

    I just feel like I don’t know how to get people to realize that I do know what I’m doing, because apparently it just takes one guy who trash talks everyone else to cover up how useless he is to override my years of good work. And it’s a pattern of bullying I’ve been experiencing since I was a child, so I never figured out how to deal with it successfully (other than leaving, which I’m trying to get a better job, but I can’t just leave every single place in my life when stuff gets frustrating.)

    (if ever someone asks “why do you care what people think about you, just live your life”, this kind of stuff is why. can’t do anything if other people think I’m useless/weird/etc)

    1. Strive to Excel*

      If this is happening to you consistently from one job to another, it suggests to me that you need to start setting up better ways to be visible to your boss when you are completing things. For instance – with the inventory adjustment sheet, do things like add a status or note on the document saying “Received, holding for accuracy review, will be turned in on X date”.

      On a bigger pattern, having a pattern of regular check-ins with the boss, clear communication about what deliverables you have and when, and visible documented paper trails are the best argument you can have against “he-said-she-said”. It’s harder to say “well they don’t just get stuff done” when you can point to timestamps that say you received the inventory sheet at 4:40 PM on a Friday and queued it for Monday Review by 4:50 PM on Friday.

      Also, you can ask your boss why they feel like you don’t do anything. This will feel both stupid and annoying, since you know that it’s a gossip problem, but what it can prompt is setting up some of those systems above. “Hey Boss – I’m really concerned with what you told me the other day in that multiple people are telling you I don’t do things. What would be the best way for me to make sure that I’m getting tasks done as assigned? [Insert suggestion for weekly email/meeting, status updates, paper trail here].”

      Unfortunately, the most effective way to respond to gossip is to take the emotional high road. “It’s really weird that you would say that, I thought you were happy with progress in the check-in we had on Monday”. That and CYA, CYA, CYA.

      1. Chirpy*

        The problem is, there’s very little way to document my work- either things are done or not, and while management says my work is good, my department head seems to think that I should be able to finish everything by myself no matter how busy it is. And when I asked her why she believed the other coworkers over me, she said “because multiple people said it”. (Also, she doesn’t seem to ever be satisfied with what I do. She’ll bring up the stuff I didn’t do while I was out sick several months ago (I was literally home sick! Of course I didn’t do work!) and also just blames a lot of stuff other people do wrong on me, because I’m the only one from our department. (I don’t know who it is, either, it’s someone else stepping in to “help” or doing their part wrong. )

  33. Exhausted*

    I don’t know if I’m looking for advice or just commiseration, but I’m just so exhausted. I’ve had a string of jobs with terrible middle management and I’m trying to decide if it’s me or if it’s just really that bad? In the past 10 years, I feel like I’ve worked in more toxic environments than normal environments, and I’m just so tired.

    I’ve been at my current job for just under 2 years and my department has had 100% turnover in the last year because our director is an abusive bully. I’m starting to feel that it won’t be better anywhere else, and it seems so hard to get a feel of what a work environment is like before you agree to take a job.

    1. Dinwar*

      It could depend on your field.

      A lot of experiences I’ve heard are very similar to mine: If you’re good at your job they believe you’ll be good at managing people doing your job. Which means an increase in pay, but zero training beyond “You screwed this up, what’s wrong with you, are you incompetent or something?!” This leads to a lot of folks making the same mistakes over and over again, because we simply don’t know.

      For a lot of people, the way to handle uncertainty is bullying. If you don’t know what to do, do something and do it as hard as you can! And if something goes wrong, blame someone else. Remember, each person is looking out for themselves; if someone has to take the blame it’s better for me if you take it than if I take it! (Note that I DO NOT believe this. I’m describing it.)

      And add a healthy dose of “alpha male” culture, where bullying and abuse are seen as signals that you’re powerful and potent and virile. The biology is completely nonsensical (I’ve read the paper where the term “alpha” was coined, and the author’s retraction; THE AUTHOR said it was horrible science); it’s pushed hard in a lot of circles. A surprising amount of management training and consulting involves former military officers, which feeds into this to an extent–managing people in a combat situation, and training them for such a situation, is very different from managing people in civilian life, but you fall back to the level of your training.

      There’s a lot more to add, and different people will have these in different doses. It all leads to horrible managers and toxic work environments.

      The reality is that we need, as a culture, to recognize that management is a job again. And to treat it as one in terms of training. NO ONE would send you out to operate a piece of equipment without training, but we expect people to do so with human beings all hte time.

    2. WantonSeedStitch*

      No, it’s not like that everywhere. My own management is pretty damn stellar. And not to toot my own horn, but I’ve had a lot of appreciative feedback from my own reports, so I figure I’m not screwing up too badly. As far as getting a feel for what a work environment is like before you agree to take a job, if a place has you do an interview with a peer (or agrees to set one up if you request it), I feel like that’s a potential green flag: they aren’t worried about you talking to people in the trenches, and if it’s a normal part of their hiring process, it’s a sign they value the input of those people as well. Also, you can use interviews as an opportunity to ask specific questions about how managers manage. Someone I was interviewing recently asked if I could give a recent example of a time when I took feedback from my team on board and implemented changes as a result. I’ve asked candidates for a management role to give examples of times when they had advocated for their reports successfully. Turn those behavioral questions right back on them!

  34. TexasTexas*

    Hi! I’m 59 years old and on the fence if I should go back to college, and finally get a degree.
    I attended college in the late 1980s, but dropped out just before senior year to work in sales. I still work in sales (same industry/sector for 20+ years), but never got as far as I wanted in my career because of no degree.
    I can get a BA in 1 year, from the same school I attended 40 years ago, a state college. So my question is, is it worth it to put a year in at my age, in hopes of a better job at 60 years old? Or will I be spending time and money, only to realize I should have doubled down on my efforts elsewhere?

    1. Tio*

      Here are some important questions to ask yourself (no need to answer these here!)
      1. How long do you think you’ll be working or want to continue working?
      2. How much money is this going to cost you and how will the cost affect your current budget?
      3. Would you enjoy the schooling, or will it be a stressor?
      4. What specific jobs/promotions do you think you’re going to get with this new degree?
      5. Have you looked to see if there are similar opportunities perhaps in different companies that wouldn’t require a degree? Usually at this point experience would trump a degree at most places

      What kind of income change would this mean to you? If you’re only hoping/intending to work another 5 years or so, you’d want to have a real strong idea of what the actual earning potential increase of a degree is.

      Personally, if I were in these circumstances I probably wouldn’t do it. You can probably shift to a different type of job that’s not sales in your current industry based on general experience, and looking for new training in that industry for a year will probably be more useful than a new degree in a new field.

    2. Yes And*

      I think it depends on what your game plan is for post-degree. Are you thinking of jobs for which your experience otherwise qualifies you and you just need the piece of paper to get past the screeners? Or are you thinking of a complete career pivot?

      If the former, I’ve done that successfully myself (although with an advanced degree, and in my 40s). My mother did it at age 60 as well. If that’s the case, I’d say go for it.

      If you’re looking at a larger change… I don’t know. I wish I could tell you to go for it, but ageism is real (even if it is super illegal). I’m not saying don’t do it, but I can’t offer you the same level of encouragement that I can in the first case.

    3. Charlotte Lucas*

      I think this is something only you can really decide, but is it something you have always really wanted to do? If so, do it for yourself.

      I’ve known a few people who got their degree in middle age, and they definitely have been happy about their decision, because it was something they had always wanted to do.

    4. DisneyChannelThis*

      You’re going to face age discrimination when job hunting at 59. People are going to be doing the math on how long until retirement age, is training Tex worth investing a lot of time and effort if they’re only going to be here a few years. What doors does the BA open? If the goal is just to have the BA to have done it, maybe save it for that retirement as a fun thing. If you see dream jobs but need the BA look seriously at their hiring, are they going to be fair and transparent and not discriminate? If it’s like company you currently work at has a position that’s a step up just need the official degree, then that’s worth doing. But if it’s going to be jobs who don’t know you and your work ethic it might be a challenge to get hired unfortunately. My godfather is 62 and he’s encountered this a lot in trying to leave toxic job. The retirement age here is 67, so he’s got 5 years but there are a lot of stereotype about older people being slow learners, bad at tech, and other things he keeps having to counter in his cover letters etc.

    5. pally*

      Good advice already given.

      I just wanted to note that those pesky ATS programs are not gonna cull you out of the running because of your college graduation date. So that’s a plus!

      I can’t tell you how many times the only question asked at the HR screen was what year I graduated from college. After I told them, there was nothing but crickets.

      1. Annie*

        Oof. This is where the “give a reassuring non-answer” tip recommended by some career experts or giving an answer-plus response or even responding with a question that professionally says, “Why do you ask?” comes into play.

        Scenario 1:
        Q: What year did you graduate college?
        A: I have extensive llama grooming experience and training, including a current certificate from Llama Groomers of America and I have been keeping up with the latest developments in llama grooming best practices as part of my essential duties in my current job at Llamas R Us, Inc.
        Q: But what year did you graduate?
        A: If you need an answer for a form, it’s 1992.

        Scenario 2:
        Q: What year did you graduate college?
        A: 1992. Since then, I have kept up with the latest developments in llama grooming best practices as part of my essential duties and training in my current job at Llamas R Us, Inc. I also have a current certificate from Llama Groomers of America.

        Scenario 3:
        Q: What year did you graduate college?
        A: Before I answer, are there are any reservations about how current my experience and training might be that I can address for you?
        Q: We’re looking for applicants who can show recent experience and training in llama grooming best practices. To help us answer that question, what year did you graduate college?
        A: I graduated in 1992. Since then, I have kept up with developments in llama grooming best practices as part of my essential duties and training in my current job at Llamas R Us, Inc., and my Llama Groomers of America certificate is up-to-date.

    6. Emotional support capybara (he/him)*

      50-year-old college freshman here! At the end of the day that’s something you really need to decide for yourself. My decision was more based on realizing I don’t want to do my current job until I croak so your mileage may vary. That said, I feel really good about finally grabbing my future by the scruff of the neck and even though it’s finals week and I have two brain cells left, I’m having the time of my life.

    7. NotMyRealName*

      I got my great new job at 59. Get the degree to go with your experience and then go get ’em!

    8. Chauncy Gardener*

      I think it really depends on how much you want to move “up” in your career. If you’re happy in your current sales role, are making the money you want to, how much is it worth to you to move to a different role? Is this different role guaranteed if you get the degree? Are you sure you would like it? I know many sales folks who move into sales management (not sure if that’s what you’re aiming at) and REALLY hate it because it’s not sales, it’s management and taking heat from on high for your team not hitting their numbers, etc.
      If all answers are yes, I’d say go for it! You could be working for a bunch more years if you like it/need to. Good luck!

    9. Forrest Rhodes*

      I’m firmly on the go-for-it team. Yes, the BA may lead you to jobs etc., etc., but it’s also highly likely that being in the academic environment as a nontraditional (i.e., not directly-out-of high-school) student will lead you to interesting, informative, and challenging conversations with profs and other people on campus that you hadn’t expected—and also likely that in the process of completing your BA, you’ll encounter possibilities you hadn’t even considered, in the best possible way.

      I’m saying this badly, but hope it makes sense. I started college at the age of 40, was a full-time student (with three part-time jobs to fund it all) for four years, and while I didn’t end up exactly where I’d expected, it did take me in directions that I wouldn’t trade for anything today.

      Do it for you, enjoy it, and I’m wishing you a great academic journey.

    10. DefinitiveAnn*

      I didn’t get a degree either, and up until about 4 years ago I was also not making what I would have been able earn if I’d had a degree (I am 64). I was nowhere near as close as you are to finishing. My husband has a PhD, and I have always had a lot of shame about my lack of higher education (it’s a big deal in his family), and kept thinking, I could go back at night, and get loans to pay for it, etc., etc., and then I took a look at my work timeline and decided that I should just put the future student loan payments into retirement savings. And then I got a great new job working for a former co-worker for a lot more money.

      I know it’s a different world today, but my father (now 86) made a great living in sales with nothing but a HS diploma and two years in the Marine Corps.

      I agree with the person who said that a lot of this depends on how long you intend to keep working, and whether anybody will want to hire you for the expanded opportunities when you are 60.

      Tough choice.

  35. Jess R.*

    If you could magically make one of the following options true (in a work context only), which would you pick and why?

    #1 – Everybody immediately knows and follows reasonable reply-all vs. reply protocols
    OR
    #2 – Everybody immediately knows and follows reasonable protocols re: using (or not using) all-caps in emails, documents, etc.

    1. Ashley*

      Option 2. I can create systems for 1 and generally fix what I need to looping people in. I can’t fix two individually and it is problematic outside of emails as well.

    2. Charlotte Lucas*

      Definitely 2. And I would add fixing random Capitalization because a word feels Important to the writer.

      I estimate this could save me 1-2 hours of editing time a week.

      Reply All mistakes just amuse me.

    3. Tio*

      1. I haven’t seen a huge amount of all caps emails in my career and I would find it less annoying than say, one warehouse copying an entire division full of unrelated people including executives on an email chain about them being overstocked on bananas and needing to stop all banana deliveries asap, which is definitely not a true story that locked up a division in reply all heck for an hour.

    4. Elsewise*

      Number one without a doubt! I don’t see all caps very often, and when I do it’s something that’s a lot more easily fixed or ignored.

    5. Strive to Excel*

      #1, no question.

      Capitalization is annoying but the bigger problem we have is people not getting copied on some things and then being very much copied on unimportant things and there is NO coherence. This results in people not getting info they need.

    6. Slippers*

      Can I add a third option? Everybody immediately knows and follows reasonable protocols re: conciseness and order in the body of the email.

      Reply all debacles make me giggle, and I don’t see much all caps, but boy do I have someone chairing a hiring committee in my inbox this week who says in 500 words what could have been said in 50.

  36. AlexandrinaVictoria*

    I have a new manager who about 2 months into her position decided I was her “problem employee.” I’ve never been in this position before. I’m not setting the world on fire with this job, but my work is timely, thorough, and garners me plenty of kudos from others. I’m not sure where she got the idea that I’m bad at my job, to be honest! She has been very demanding and sometimes personally just nasty. I would like to try to deal with this myself before going to my grandboss. And I have asked her what she needs from me. Any suggestions?

    1. ecnaseener*

      This may or may not be a good move for you, but one thing to consider is asking your coworkers who seem to have a better relationship with her if they have any tips. In a less-extreme version of your situation I was asked “what’s your secret for dealing with Difficult Supervisor” and I had suggestions that seemed to be really helpful for the coworker who asked.

      1. Carrots*

        And to see if anyone else is having the same experience. My coworkers and I bond over our Evil Boss and managers. (Not healthy, I know, but at least you know that it’s not just you that feels this way.)

    2. WantonSeedStitch*

      Out of curiosity, what is her answer when you ask her what she needs from you? Is she providing vague responses that make it impossible to prove you are meeting her expectations? Asking you to do impossible things that she doesn’t seem to expect of anyone else? Saying she needs X, but when you say you are already doing X, she moves the goalpost? I think that might influence what I would say or do. But I agree with ecnaseener that talking with a trusted peer might be helpful.

    3. goddessoftransitory*

      I’m guessing it’s the exact opposite: you are very good at your job and she feels threatened.

      I would start a CYA document and record every incident, even minor ones.

    4. Good advice from others*

      I’ve picked up some good advice here, from other commentators, about handling a toxic boss. If that’s your situation. Here are suggestions I got:

      Don’t expect them to be reasonable. Ie, don’t approach them with logical solutions or suggestions if those solutions/suggestions are ANYTHING other than flattering and unchallenging to them. Assume they are very thin-skinned, and train yourself out of saying anything remotely challenging (even if YOU just think it’s nothing, or helpful).

      If you have a boss like this, then your job is not your actual job description. Your job – in their mind – is to soothe their ego. Flatter them when you can, and really pick your battles (ie, only “challenge” when you Have to). Try inventing a minor conundrum and asking them their opinion. Make them feel important.

      Praise whatever they like praised.

      If all this sounds dishonest and sycophantic, it is. I wouldn’t do this unless dealing with a bully. And don’t morally compromise too much – Eg, don’t mistreat others to please your boss.

      I am having success using these tricks. I have an abusive boss who started bullying me, but with these tricks I have mostly turned him around. It’s never safe, but I am managing him well.

      Obviously, work on changing your job as soon as it’s practical and as soon as you’re able.

      I agree with documenting everything to CYA.

      And keep confidence in your own skills and value.

  37. Carrots*

    Any advice for having managers checking up on you by looking at your computer screen? I’ve heard my boss instruct one manager to check up on people to see their computer screen and what they’re working on and witnessed the manager looking at people’s screens. Why can’t they just ask what we’re working on instead? It’s a toxic place, but until I can leave, does anyone have any advice on how to handle this? Do you just ignore it? I’m always working so I’m not concerned if they want to stand behind me and watch what I do, have fun. But I feel it’s annoying/uncomfortable. I guess I could ask “Is there something that I can assist you with? I’m working on a,b,c.”. Any advice is much appreciated.

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      Ah! The last resort of bad managers.

      When I was a trainer, I looked at people’s screens, but that kind of a requirement of the job, to make sure everyone is following along. But these were new, entry-level employees, who generally wanted me to look at their screens.

      Professionals who know what they’re doing and are getting their work done shouldn’t be treated this way.

    3. MigraineMonth*

      I would say hello and ask if I could help them with something. That’s what I do whenever someone is watching me or in my personal space.

  38. Hang up*

    Question for folks in client-facing roles… I’m a project manager with a client who has absolutely no regard for our time. We meet every other week for half an hour. I provide updates ahead of time so they have time to review them and prepare to discuss them on our call. And yet every time, the call goes on for an hour or so, and it’s not usually all that productive. Just lots of thinking out loud on the client’s side.
    We have a fairly large team and really don’t have time for everyone to spend on thinking out loud. I have tried everything I can think of to end calls on time (hard stops, getting kicked out of the conf room because someone else has it booked, calling out that we have X mins left and let’s wrap things up, etc), and they just steamroll over me. Short of literally hanging up on them, I can’t figure out how to corral things.
    I’m at my wits end. Aside from it being disrespectful and unproductive, it keeps our team members from being able to efficiently manage their time on other projects. Please, if you have any ideas/experience in shutting down this kind of stuff, please share them with me! My sanity might depend on it lol

    1. Ashley*

      Can you organize the agenda so you have people that can start dropping off the call as pieces aren’t relevant to them? It won’t save you but will save others.

      A few times you can have your phone blow up with notifications to get it to stop.

      Generally though you have to weigh the politics and you may need to allow for longer calls if you can’t have a name the problem conversation. Also next project look at raising the rates to accommodate the added costs.

      1. Hang up*

        Unfortunately, I can’t generally start letting people drop off. We need the entire team (or at least key people) to make sure we’re aligned on everything. Just the nature of our work.
        I’ve already recommended we charge them a hand-holding fee, but I don’t have much say in that beyond a recommendation. Also they’re a huge non-profit with pretty strict rules around how grant money is used, including how much profit we can make from their projects. So I don’t know what’s even possible.
        It’s just super frustrating! FWIW, they have one very pragmatic team member who also tries to end the meetings on time, and they steamroll over her, too lol. At least it’s not just me!

        1. Ashley*

          That is definitely frustrating. The added costs should go under time allocated and not really profit. Most likely you bury it in a soft line that is hard to prove. Or you flat out add a line for meetings.
          Maybe their team member has minor coping strategies…

          1. Strive to Excel*

            Flat out add a line for meetings.

            This isn’t profit. They’re actively occupying your company’s time. If they’re a not-for-profit, lighting a fire under their tails about “hey, you are wasting our time and your money” would be the best possible approach to get them to stop.

    2. Strive to Excel*

      Depends on how much power you have.

      Most power/best option – start charging them for it, and charge them for it steeply. Nothing gets a client to knock it off faster than realizing that their waffling time is coming at them at $800/hr because they’re taking up the time of six senior engineers.

      Next best option – start hanging up on them. “Sorry, we’re out of time for today and will have to pack up next week”. Tell your team to log off at the hard stop and then you can sooth whatever ruffled feathers.

      Third best – this is assuming you don’t have boss backing or financial power – start tracking how much time it’s eating and telling your boss. Then don’t rush to make up the time.

      Fourth best – give them meeting invites for half an hour but plan it as 1 hour on your/your team’s schedules.

    3. Antilles*

      Assuming you’re the meeting organizer, here are a few tips:
      1.) Start off your next meeting by announcing that you are going to be more aggressive about sticking to the time tables, cutting off tangents, and limiting excess debate. Setting the stage like this at the very beginning of the meeting really helps frame things.
      2.) Be very firm about tabling discussions that are on tangents. I will typically start with a polite “let’s table that and we can circle back later, for now, we’ll move on to Jim’s update on the budget. Jim, what do you have for us today?” That usually solves things because even most steamrollers tend to back off. But in the rare occasion it doesn’t, I will again interrupt them more directly, talk over them and say “I’m sorry, but we need to set that to the side, it’s Jim’s turn to present on budget”.
      3.) If it’s on Teams, use the Mute function liberally. You can also soft-pedal this by starting off the meeting by announcing that you’re muting everyone, then just ask people to temporarily unmute when they have something to say and remute afterwards. This has the added benefit of cutting down on background noise (and if you’re uncomfortable, this can be your “out” to explain it).
      4.) If it’s on Teams and you’re the organizer, when the meeting is over and you’re announcing “Thank you everyone, we’ll have to wrap up here, I’m going to end the meeting here”, you don’t just wait on people to leave, but actively use the end-meeting function to force everything to end (it’s in the drop-down menu next to the word ‘leave’).

    4. MigraineMonth*

      “Short of literally hanging up on them, I can’t figure out how to corral things.”

      Sounds like that’s the solution. Will there be blowback if you say there’s another call/meeting starting and you have to end it right then?

      Alternately, can you avoid all meetings with this client? If they aren’t an effective use of time, can they be turned into emails instead?

    5. Ann O*

      Address the pattern before the next meeting – “I’ve noticed that our 30-min meetings are going significantly over time.” Suggest solutions, like maybe have fewer but longer meetings, a dedicated brainstorming session, or whatever makes sense. If your business model and pricing supports it, suggest adding a strategizing component to their contract.

      In the actual meeting, give a 10 or 5 minute warning before the end and move to wrap up with action items.

      Develop and practice a few phrases to use to stop the meeting, even mid-steamroll.
      “This is an important discussion, but unfortunately our time is up and we’ll need to pick this up next time.”
      “We need to be moving on to our next commitment.”
      “Bob, I’m sorry to interrupt but you know we have a hard stop. We can follow up via email or in our next meeting, but we have to stop here.”

  40. Kwebbel*

    Hi!! Oh I need people’s help. Any thoughts would be so greatly appreciated.

    So, I’m a manager (been doing it 16 months) and today had my first performance review calibration, where I shared my case for my 2 direct reports and why I felt they deserved ratings of “exceeds expectations”. The case is strong, but my manager nixed them and said they’ll both receive ratings of “good performance”. His case is an awkward one: it’s because the two of them did projects that he assigned them that aren’t strictly related to their job titles, but they need to exceed on the roles within their job titles in order to get that rating. They unfortunately raised to me throughout the year that they wanted to work on topics within their scope, and I raised this to him, and he forced me to give them projects that were out of their wheelhouse, and even though they exceeded their expectations within that capacity, he’s told me they “technically” can’t get the higher rating. It was made abundantly clear to me that there is no way around this – no recourse, no appeal. I now need to share this news with my team.

    I have no idea how to do this! If I say to them “I disagree with this rating, but here it is”, I’m poisoning the well. And that will reflect badly on me to my manager. But I find it really difficult to toe the line of saying “You did great, and the performance rating is a reflection of that. Good is still good! Yes, you did projects well beyond your scope, but that’s something our team has to do, and therefore you met expectations of your role, and you’re getting this rating.”

    How would you approach the situation?

    1. Jackie Daytona, Regular Human Bartender*

      Ugh, what a terrible position to be in. You also need to know how to answer the question, “How can I get an ‘exceeds expectations’ rating?”

      The truth is that at your org, they can’t based on how projects have been given to them. I think you need to be honest with them about what the criteria are. To get ‘exceeds,’ you have to exceed on X. That’s the company policy and out of my hands. I know you wanted to work more on X this year, but were assigned Y. You did a great job on Y. I’ll advocate for you to get more opportunities for X, but I you may still get Y assignments.

      I worked somewhere where it was IMPOSSIBLE to get an exceeds in a certain category. It affected raises. I was pissed but appreciated that my supervisor didn’t blow smoke about it (unlike the messaging from upper management).

      1. A Significant Tree*

        I agree with this. Explain to them that they did great but due to company policy, their review doesn’t reflect this accurately. I would expect them to be disappointed, the situation sucks: asking to do work in line with your job title, being given unrelated work, excelling at it anyway, and finding out that great work doesn’t count because it’s not work in line with your job title.

        I’ve been in the employee role of being shut out of “exceeds” ratings (sure, “good” is good but “exceeds” is necessary to get promoted) because my work product was needed but wasn’t valued by the senior manager who decided final review scores. It did help to know my managers (two of them, anyway) tried to advocate for me, but ultimately I left that job over it.

        If you have the opportunity to raise this again with your manager, you could point out that not allowing them to do work they were hired to do and effectively penalizing them for it is probably going to drive them out. But I suspect, based on how he ignored your advocating for them on project assignments, it’s going to fall on deaf ears.

    2. MsM*

      I’d be honest – if it was your call, they’d be getting “exceeds expectations,” in no small part because you recognize the work was out of their wheelhouse, but it’s been made clear to you despite your efforts to advocate on their behalf that that’s not how the criteria works. If they’re upset, then that’s the price the company pays for being stubborn about this. (And frankly, if you don’t make a point of standing up to your manager that either the job descriptions need to change to reflect the full scope of work or you’re not putting them on projects they won’t get appropriate credit for, now that you know it’s going to be an issue come review time, they probably should be upset enough about it to start looking elsewhere.)

    3. BossGotMyBack-Sorta*

      I’ve worked at a bunch of places that didn’t allow exceeds expectations for various reasons and, while I still got spitting mad about it, it helped a lot to know my boss advocated for me. So please tell them.

    4. WantonSeedStitch*

      I would stick with this: “You did great, and the performance rating is a reflection of that. Good is still good! Yes, you did projects well beyond your scope, but that’s something our team has to do, and therefore you met expectations of your role, and you’re getting this rating.”

      But I would also add, “I do want you to know that I think you’re doing stellar work, and I plan on continuing to advocate for you to get projects that are within your wheelhouse and will give you an opportunity to really shine on X, Y, and Z.”

    5. Ann O*

      It sounds like the highest possible rating they can receive is “good performance” given the work they were assigned and required to complete. If this is the case, can you frame it this way? Maybe something like,

      “I want to start by saying how proud I am of the work you both have done this year. You’ve taken on challenging projects, gone above and beyond in many ways, and delivered exceptional results. Performance reviews are based on specific criteria tied to the responsibilities within each role. While you exceeded expectations on several projects, the focus of the ratings is on how those efforts align directly with your core job responsibilities. As a result, the rating for this year is ‘Good Performance.’ I know this may feel surprising given the extra work you’ve done, and I want you to know that this rating reflects how your work aligns with the broader performance framework—not the value of the incredible effort you’ve shown. This doesn’t diminish the impact of your work. You’ve made a huge difference this year, and we’ll use this as a foundation to focus on opportunities that align even more closely with your role. Let’s talk about how we can keep building on your strengths and set you up for even greater success in the coming year.”

      Ugh, even that seems wordy and awkward. I’m sorry you’re in this position. It feels really unfair to the team. I’d be tempted to go back to the manager and ask them for advice on how to explain it in a way that won’t completely demoralize a team that’s gone above and beyond, but it now getting penalized for not getting assigned the work they literally asked to do.

    6. Kwebbel*

      Thank you all very much for your thoughts. I do appreciate hearing how the experience was for a few of you on the receiving end of these kinds of ratings, and how your managers supported you. I’ll use a lot of what you said to phrase -my- the feedback to my direct reports.

  41. Put the Blame on Edamame*

    Looks like I’ll become the manager of Austin in January – a colleague I’ve collaborated with but never directly managed before. He’s always been an awkward fit in the role, but lately his problems have gotten worse, I talked to his current manager who was very frank, but compassionate, about the issues – it all started with a really defensive reaction to feedback. This obviously bodes badly if I am taking them on! I kinda get it, not only does negative feedback suck to receive, I also know Austin dealt with bullying about 18 months ago, which we were able to shut down at the time, but still – it leaves such a mark.

    So if anyone has perspective or tips I can use when I inevitably have to deliver feedback I’d appreciate it. I know that it might just go badly, but I want to try and set him up for success as if he does change his current behaviour, it’s going to be a PIP.

    1. WantonSeedStitch*

      Have a conversation with him up front about what kinds of communication work better for him. Frame it as wanting the two of you to have the best working relationship you can. How does he prefer to receive feedback? How does he like to be recognized for good work? Does he prefer to get assignments by writing or in a conversation?

      1. Put the Blame on Edamame*

        Thanks, this is very good actionable advice. Funny how confusing a situation seems when you are close to it!

  42. Kwebbel*

    Another one for y’all.

    I have another direct report, and I’m trying to figure out how to give her some feedback.

    She’s good at what she does, but she’s getting behind on tasks. The reason she’s getting behind is because of family emergencies. Her MIL was in the hospital last week, so she went to be with her. Her husband’s friend went to hospital a month ago, so she was taking care of their daughter during work hours and had to take the day off. And today she couldn’t work because she has a cold.

    I don’t really think I can say “don’t attend to your MIL in hospital, or take care of your daughter when childcare falls through, or take the day off sick”. But the issue I face is that she _is_ getting behind with tasks, and our team moves at a fast pace which means this isn’t sustainable. All told, she’s off an average of 1 working day every week.

    Any thoughts on how to approach it with tact?

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      Have you asked her how you can support her during this time? Do you have EAP? Are some of these tasks things that could be spread out among the team temporarily?

      1. Pocket Mouse*

        Yeah, this. Her falling behind in her tasks is itself a form of feedback for you: as a people manager, you need to be able to adapt when Life Happens (two crises in a month is really crappy for her and her family, but it’s basically expected that like 50% of people will be sick …*checks watch*… literally right now. Your plan can’t be to chide your direct reports about Life Happening to them. Your plan has to be to support them—and the rest of the team—to complete work to the best of your collective ability, increase your team’s capacity if you can, and to push back on deadlines that are unreasonable due to a refusal to acknowledge that sometimes Life Happens. A tall order? Maybe. But that’s your (read: management’s) problem to solve, not hers.

    2. Tio*

      Has she exceeded whatever time off she has? Because it sounds like this is more of a coverage issue. Who is her backup when she’s out? If there’s none, that’s a problem. People get behind a bit while they’re sick/out and generally you look to coverage options, because it’s not really a performance issue if she’s using the amount of time she’s been given. If she’s gone over and is in the unpaid level of time off, it might be time to talk to her about using FMLA, but you still have to focus on coverage.

    3. DisneyChannelThis*

      If she’s within her PTO allowances I think you need to have more compassion for her circumstances. If she’s out of PTO hours then suggest resources for going on a temporary leave. FMLA includes usage for immediate family member caregiving, if FMLA applies to your company.

      Coverage ideally needs to be designed so when 1 employee takes a sick day, the workflow is not crippled. That’s one thing you could look at addressing instead of trying to tell her not to have any more emergencies or not to get sick again which isn’t going to help.

      1. Double A*

        Yes absolutely! Have you talked to her about what to prioritize and if there’s anything you can help her take off her plate since she’s having a rough season?

    4. Donna A Eis*

      Would you consider looking at this differently? It seems unreasonable for any employee to function at 100% all the time. We’re human and life outside of work is important and real. As a (good) manager, there is a responsibility to support employees when life means they have to be away from work or can’t work at their highest level and a responsibility to your organization/company to manage work across your department or work group. Your employee may be able to suggest ways to redistribute tasks or manage timelines, but you should have a higher level perspective and know of more or other options that is essential. In addition, she’s entitled to time away consistent with your organization’s/company’s policy without detailed explanations. If she’s using leave consistent with those policies you shouldn’t pressure her. If she’s not, then that’s something to manage.

    5. Kwebbel*

      Really appreciate the advice, everyone. You’ve given me some great food for thought, and some excellent ways to frame the issue in my head!

  43. Seashell*

    Any advice for a college student who is a computer science major and looking for a summer internship for next summer in the New York City area? I know these things come up sometimes on typical job websites like Monster or Indeed and that Handshake is supposed to be good for college students, but just curious if anyone has other methods/suggestions.

    1. Roland*

      If your school is reasonably known in CS, definitely attend careets fairs (CS-specific if you have them, engineering or all majors if you don’t). And see if your department or the career center has dedicated job postings. Career centers may not have the best advice, but if the school has good relationships with companies, they can still be a good way to get your resume looked at. I got both my software internships through school postings and fairs (for context, over a decade ago).

      Ask friends for referrals of course!

      Good luck!

    2. Pickles*

      Are you located in NYC? If you are local, I would go to your college’s career center and your professors to find out about internships.

      If you are not local, look up the major tech employers in NYC and research their internship programs.

  44. Bilateralrope*

    Question for anyone who works at an employer who uses the app Deputy for rosters/timeclock/timesheets: Has anyone noticed odd behaviour from it recently ?

    For months now it’s started reminding me to clock off or clocking me off shifts automatically *before* the shift is scheduled to end. But the shift was showing as what it should be in my timesheet, so I wasn’t too bothered. Most of the time I have to clock myself out, as it should.

    On monday, I worked a shift. I clocked on normally, then got clocked out automatically. Then my shift was completely missing from the timesheet. I contacted my manager, who seemed unsurprised by the error. Then he corrected the timesheet, so everything points to my next paycheck being correct.

    I’m looking for some insight on how widespread this problem is. Is it happening to other employers who use it ?
    Is it something that happens due to Deputy being misconfigured or misused by management ?

  45. Laggy Lu*

    Happy Friday!
    Has anyone failed the “random” audit for applying to take the PMP exam? I would like to reapply, but I will be audited again, according to the email I received. Has this happened to you, and did you subsequently pass the audit?
    Thanks!

    1. Synaptically Unique*

      My experience isn’t with PMP, but I’m involved with an industry credential that requires specific experience prior to sitting for the exam.

      There are people who are clearly in the field, doing the work that falls within our scope for the required period of time and are approved quickly. Then there are the people who wear multiple hats and only one of the hats fall within our scope. That requires more discussion, and often a little more time in the position/field. It’s not uncommon to see applications from people who are in an adjacent role, and feel that the parallel experience is equivalent to the requirements. It’s a case of they don’t know what they don’t know. Maybe have a colleague with the credential review your application for some advice on how close you are to what they want for credentialing. Good luck.

  46. Chirpy*

    Another question: long story short, on one day a week, I am the only one in my department. The usual procedure is for me to radio everyone else when I go to lunch/ break, so other departments know to step in to cover. Usually, in this situation, people leave their radios on for questions that can’t wait, but I have permission from management to put mine on mute, because absolutely no one was respecting my time and I was getting half a dozen calls during my (unpaid, half hour) lunch – so I was not getting any breaks or lunch.

    The worst offenders were in the neighboring department, as that’s where the two awful guys and the clueless woman (who often just repeats what they say without questioning) work, and the guys are the ones saying I don’t do anything, because I “don’t help them” (because there’s one of me, and 4-5 people in their department! I don’t have time!)

    Clueless (who can be reasoned with, she’s not a terrible person, just a bit of a bandwagon jumper) has figured out that she can override the radio mute to contact me on lunch. I let it slide this time, because I actually was on the way back, but if she does it again, how do I say “please don’t” ? I actually leave on lunch most of the time now, specifically as part of avoiding this (radios do not turn off, only mute) and so quite often, I won’t even hear- but the override isn’t just for one call, it puts you back in regular mode, so the next person would just think I’m ignoring them instead of getting the “engaged” message. And I don’t want to tell her she’s specifically one of the reasons for me not answering, but as it gets colder, I can’t exactly eat in my car all winter either.

    1. WorkerDrone*

      I would be short and factual: “Per management, my radio is on mute during my breaks. Please don’t contact me on lunch, as that overrides the mute option, and I won’t respond until I’m back on the clock anyways.”

      1. Chirpy*

        The one thing is, I’m afraid she’ll tell everyone, and it will end up as “Chirpy is antisocial and unhelpful” through a game of telephone to/by the other guys, and they’ll all never help out again. I don’t think they know I’m allowed to not have the radio on, I think they were just told to step up more (it is part of their job, even if the guys don’t think so.)

        1. WorkerDrone*

          But they’re already saying things like this, right?

          Personally, I would do it anyways and if that was the reaction I’d go back to management and let them know you’re not getting the help you need from their department, and management needs to step in to help resolve it.

          But you know your workplace best, and if management won’t step in or doesn’t care, that does limit your options.

          I would still say do it anyways. If you don’t get help, and things are not getting done due to that, I’d again just be factual. “I needed the TPS report from Unhelpful Department, but haven’t gotten it.”

          1. Chirpy*

            Yeah, management doesn’t really care. I kind of have to limit what I say to the most egregious stuff if I want them to listen.

    2. Rick Tq*

      Why even carry your radio at lunch? Announce you are breaking for lunch and will be offline, leave the radio at your desk, and eat in peace. Announce when you are back on the clock and responding to calls.

      2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        I was gonna say – if you’re muting the radio anyway, just turn it off and leave it in your desk.

      3. Annie*

        I think there’s a Reason she’s keeping it with her, e.g. she’s afraid something bad will happen to it and then they blame her with no way to completely prevent that; management tracks availability and productivity in minute detail and keeping the radio on her is the only way to keep those numbers looking passable, especially if the radio gets moved, broken, or otherwise messed with.

        CONTEXT:
        Chirpy’s a frequent flier here: Stuck in a retail survival job due to lack of success with getting something that uses her college degree; dealing with coworkers who won’t work and management who won’t manage; essentially ordered to act like a perpetually smiling superhuman who can do all the things in multiple locations at once or face the prospect of homelessness.

      4. Chirpy*

        I don’t carry it, a lot of the time. I leave the building and stash it in my locker. But if this coworker overrides the mute, then the next person won’t get the “engaged” auto-reply, and everyone thinks I’m ignoring them when I don’t answer (because I’m out of the building!)

        The radios physically cannot be turned off. There’s only “on” and “mute”, and if I put it back on the charger, I may not get one when I come back. It doesn’t log anyone out until the battery dies or overnight, either, so you really want the same one all day.

      5. Chirpy*

        Also, the reason I am putting it on mute is because nobody listens when I announce I’m going to lunch, and they call me multiple times anyway.

        General procedure is to have it on to be able to answer a quick, urgent question. Unfortunately I just have coworkers who abuse that.

  47. Arctic Elsie*

    I am looking for general thoughts and experiences with taking a job that is a step down. I am currently (upper) mid-level in my role and responsibilities. I have been looking for a new job for about the past year to burn out, responsibilities not matching autonomy, general toxic/dysfunctional work environment, and an increasing work load (I was just told that we are not going to be hiring a new position to help me in 2025 which I was assured we were for the last 8 months). I am a team of one and cannot do all of my responsibilities even working 60 hours a week. I saw a posting for a position in an adjacent field, that I am looking to move into, but it would definitely be a step down (it is advertised as a upper junior position). But, it’s more money. From the job posting, the benefits do not seem as good as my current position, but even with health care and PTO costs considered, it would still be at least $5k more a year. The idea of less responsibility and more money has me really excited, but for some reason I am hesitant about it. Maybe it is the idea that I am not moving up in my career? Will this look bad in the future?

    1. WantonSeedStitch*

      Just have an answer ready for if an interviewer is like, “hey, this is a step down. Are you OK with that?” that makes sense. I’ve had people apply for step-down roles who have said things like “I found out that people management just wasn’t my strength–I want to do more of the actual work.” Or even “I was in a more senior role at Acme because I was doing everything on my own, but I feel like I want more depth of experience in X instead of doing a little bit of X, Y, and Z.” If someone has a reason why the position is attractive to them, it feels less like “I’ll take anything right now but will jump if something higher comes along.”

    2. MigraineMonth*

      I don’t think you’ll have trouble explaining taking a position with higher pay, even if it has less responsibility. It’s also very common for people to take a step down in level (usually pay too) to break into a new field.

      You will want an answer to “why are you interested in a lower-level role” that doesn’t reference burnout or how shitty your current job is. Wanting to break into this adjacent field is a good one, wanting a role that focuses more on [part of your job you enjoy but never have time for now] is great, etc.

    3. A Significant Tree*

      It sounds like the current job has grown beyond the job description in untenable ways, so it almost doesn’t seem like a step down but more of a step away from an overburdened position. I think between noting the better compensation and job description that will help you focus and excel at a more manageable, focused set of tasks in a new field that you’re excited about, you’ve got a number of positives to use.

    4. Analytical Tree Hugger*

      Great advice from other commenters. I’ll add another angle you can use, which is that this is a shift to an adjacent field. Framing it as an opportunity to shift to the adjacent field is totally reasonable.

  48. The gourmet cupcake*

    How do you deal/recuperate from an energy sapper?

    I’ve got a coworker “Jae”, who has a multitude of problems. Her back hurts, she has “immense” pain shooting down her leg, she really *beep*ed up her finger (and holds her finger up til I look), she hates her roomie, she can’t make rent, and so forth. Every day it feels like an endless stream of negativity.

    I’ll check the schedule, see I’m working with her, and my heart drops. A couple other coworkers shared they have the same experiences. Sure, we all complain at work, but she takes it to another level.

    So how do I deal with this person? I gray rock her, but then she asks me why I’m not “chatty today” (I’m usually very energetic, and used to like work.) Is there a way to make a buffer, or a way to feel normal again after work?

    1. WorkerDrone*

      I suggested above that someone use the polite fiction of a new year’s resolution to be more positive to try and shut down a complainer.

      Could you give that a try?

      Alternatively, if she asks why you’re not chatty, can you just shrug and let her wonder? Give a vague “Oh, I guess I’m just not chatty today” response?

      1. Chauncy Gardener*

        I like the polite fiction idea. “Sorry. I’m trying to be in a more positive place. Hope you’re OK. Now about that TPS report….” or “must get back to work!”

    2. WantonSeedStitch*

      Gray rock of “sorry to hear that” followed by immediate subject change to something more neutral or positive.

  49. CJ*

    I’m leaving my job after 9 years and I’ve had the same manager the entire time, they’ve been an incredible champion and advocate to me from day one and really shaped me to be the person I am today. I want to get them a meaningful and thoughtful gift as I leave – I know it’s not usually recommended to get gifts for managers, but I feel really moved to make a gesture to show them how much I appreciate them and how much they mean to me. Any ideas?

    1. Pomodoro Sauce*

      Gotta do the meaningful letter! It’s the only way!

      I think art, if you know their taste, can also be a thoughtful gift.

      1. Hlao-roo*

        I second the meaningful letter! I recommend buying a nice card that’s blank on the inside and writing a bit about how they have been a good boss. Include the sentence “You’ve been an incredible champion and advocate to me from day one and really shaped me to be the person I am today,” and then add in a few examples of them advocating for you and how you’ve learned from them.

      2. MigraineMonth*

        Definitely with you on the meaningful letter.

        I don’t know about art. I definitely wouldn’t get someone something to hang on their wall, even if I knew it was to their taste; that’s someone’s private space and their choice to decorate, you know? I might go with something meant to be used (like a beautiful mug or vase). I honestly think a beautiful card would be the best, though.

    2. Decidedly Me*

      Honestly, a card or letter of your appreciation is really valuable; more than a gift would be.

    3. Chauncy Gardener*

      As a very long time manager the letters I’ve received from my direct reports have been the BEST. And I’ve kept them all!

      1. A perfectly normal-size space bird*

        My mom managed quite a few people in her career and she still has every letter and card she got from her direct reports, interns, and volunteers after they left. She loves knowing that she made a positive impact to help others in their careers.

    5. WantonSeedStitch*

      As everyone else is saying–meaningful letter or card! And maybe email their own manager and say, “I wanted to share with you that I sent this to $boss to let them know about the great impact they have had on my career. I wanted you to make sure you know how much I have appreciated their role as my manager!” And include the text of whatever you send to your boss. I think sharing kudos with someone’s manager is always nice.

    6. noname today*

      Hubby got the meaningful letter—loved it so much that it’s now framed and hung on our wall. So two gifts in one—meaningful letter AND art!

  50. Pomodoro Sauce*

    My (new-ish) boss dropped the ball on something with a firm deadline, and so I worked late into the night so that I could get it done and head out to my parents for Thanksgiving. I’m not in a job where that’s expected, normally, and that is on purpose. I sent it to my boss to review and update with his part, and when I returned from Thanksgiving he said:
    1.) He got food poisoning Tuesday afternoon, immediately after we found out he dropped the ball, and so hadn’t done any review or update of what I sent. (I mean that’s fine. These things happen. Conveniently.)
    2.) He also drafted the document I drafted but wrote pretty much the same things I drafted because our work is the same. Let’s go with my version as the final draft, because we have the same things! He still hasn’t done the part he agreed to do. Because of the food poisoning.
    3.) He did not say “sorry I dropped the ball” or “going forward let’s make sure everyone knows deliverable timelines” or “thank you for fixing that last minute, I appreciate it.”

    So I guess I’ve learned an important lesson about burning the midnight oil.

    1. Chauncy Gardener*

      Hmmm. I think we’ve learned something about your boss. In your next meeting you could maybe ask him how he’s feeling and see if that triggers a thank you or some other form of acknowledgement.
      I might say something like “Gee, it’s too bad we couldn’t get that out on time. I worked on it until midnight Wednesday” But I’m petty like that…

  51. Angry and Disappointed*

    A couple days ago, my work announced that we’d be receiving a bonus this year. I was excited because I wasn’t eligible for it last year, because it only applies to employees that have been employed for longer than one year (I started in August 2023).

    I was hoping for at least one percent of my salary, which would be about $500.

    You know what it is? $125.

    That’s .25%.

    And this comes on the heels of a Town hall meeting where they bragged about how successful the company was and how much of a profit we turned this year.

    I just do not have the words to describe how angry and disappointed I am.

    My husband’s been out of work for over a year. He’s a software programmer, but isn’t even having any luck finding even finding a tech support position. I was hoping this bonus would help us breathe a little easier for Christmas. but well $125 is better than nothing, it’s far less than I was hoping for. We have six children and that amount barely puts a dent in our weekly grocery bill.

    I’m sitting at my desk crying because I’m so disappointed.

    1. Pomodoro Sauce*

      Oh NO, that’s terrible! A decade ago I got a $200 bonus and about a month beforehand the owners were like “it’s not going to be a good year for bonuses, please don’t count on it being a reasonable bonus” — and that was for a seasonal job where I was a recent grad.

    3. WantonSeedStitch*

      Ooof. I’m sorry, that sounds terribly disappointing. We don’t get bonuses in my workplace, but being a nonprofit, there’s no sting of “the company is profiting because of my work and I’m not sharing in it at all.” That has to suck.

    4. NotRealAnonForThis*

      I understand the feeling and I’m sorry. Its beyond frustrating, maddening, and (with your spouse being out of work) probably scary too.

      My own “are you kidding me right now” bonus was from retail 25 years ago – we actually MADE our plan goal for our location (never happened because corporate didn’t understand the market). That meant that the SM and ASM (me) were supposed to received $250 and $100, respectively as a bonus. $100 was approximately 33% of my weekly take home pay. They decided for December to “treat” all the locations who earned the bonus by giving everyone in each store…a stupid holiday themed incense burner that retailed for $20.

      And if you made it that far – that was 25 years ago…so the $125 bonus made by a company that just bragged on its profitability…is really bad optics for the company.

      1. Angry and Disappointed*

        I’m surprised they didn’t give you a subscription to the jelly of the month club.

      2. Jaunty Banana Hat I*

        When I worked retail 20 years ago, we got told we were going to get really good bonuses, because it had been a good year. Keep in mind, many of us–including me–worked until midnight on the Saturday of our busiest day.

        I got $25 in store credit.

    6. 653-CXK*

      I’m getting the same bonus this year ($125, and it’s 0.20% of my salary), but compared to ExJob, which gave out bonuses very rarely (1 week’s pay, less a boatload of taxes taken out) and tried to avoid the gift tax by giving us $24 Target cards, CurrentJob is at least consistent on giving out bonuses and raises.

      That said, six kids and a huge grocery bill…ouch. I do not blame you for being angry and disappointed.

  52. Soup Stirrer*

    I work at a mid-sized company as a digital asset manager maintaining a system of primarily marketing assets. I also manage licensing and occasionally help with commissioning new assets. This job is very niche and I’m worried about what my next step could be. My manager is very open to members of our team pitching new projects, but I’m not sure what kind of experience would be valuable! Do folks have thoughts about in-demand positions that this kind of experience could be parlayed into? I live in a high-cost of living city and need positions that would pay $80k+.

    1. WestSideStory*

      One suggestion: Look on the job boards for positions that mention “licensing” – it sounds like you are in a media/entertainment field. Then look under the job requirements to see what skills are required.
      Skills related to data management, such as Tableau can also be helpful.

  53. Crickets*

    I am in a work Unit of 7 with my “grand boss” Marnus, his senior managers Pat and Nathan. There there are 3 of us at policy level (all early 30s) and one other guy who is an admin. I am the only woman in the Unit and Pat is my manager.
    Recently Marnus asked me for ideas on what to get Nathan as a gift as he is getting married soon. He also asked me to pick up a card for Nathan. Nathan manages the guy in admin and a policy guy, and they would work closely together. I bin the other hand have not talked to him much at all.
    The only thing I could think of was to say, “I’ll ask Travis and Josh if they know what Nathan would like.” And only managed to avoid picking up the gift for Nathan (which I think Marnus was expecting me to do) since I don’t have Revolut.
    Again, Nathan is not my manager and I barely know him. Really struggling to find any other explanation for this than sexism? What can I do if it happens again?

    1. Hlao-roo*

      Really struggling to find any other explanation for this than sexism?

      I think that’s because the explanation is sexism.

      What can I do if it happens again?

      If something similar happens again, I would politely demur to the appropriate person (likely the admin for most of these things):

      “Oh, I don’t know Nathan that well, but Travis works with him closely and would probably have a good idea of what would like, try asking him.”

      “Oh, I think picking up cards is a job for Josh. He’s the Unit admin.”

    2. Charlotte Lucas*

      Ah! The Occam’s Razor of sexism. Yes, this is sexism. There is an admin. The logical response is to act as if Marnus is thinking aloud and say something to about having the admin figure it all out. Also, turn it back on Marnus: “Good question! What did you see when you checked Nathan’s registry.”

    3. Crickets*

      I want to note that Josh, though technically an admin and on a more junior level than the rest of us, doesn’t do office admin. There isn’t any one person generally in the department (of 30+ people) who organises things like the Christmas lunch, retirement gifts etc. We’re also not in the US.

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        In that case, just throw it back to Marnus. And mention that you don’t know Nathan that well, so maybe a different coworker would have ideas. (Or Marnus, who should know something about his direct reports.)

        Sounds like getting a card and buying a present is a job for the manager in this case.

  54. PropJoe*

    Whether to, & how much to disclose to coworkers?

    There will soon be a death in my family. My father in law is in hospice care and is no longer eating.

    My boss is aware and has been for a while.

    Is there any reason to make my colleagues aware?

    If it affects your answer, me being out for a couple days won’t affect anyone else’s ability to do their work.

    Also, he and I aren’t particularly close. He was a good provider but was very lacking in most other areas of being a good husband & a good father.

    (Pro tip for those with children: don’t wait until your deathbed to tell your child you love her, or that holding her on the day she was born was the happiest day of your life.)

    I am leaning towards “don’t disclose to anyone other than boss, who already knows.” as I’m generally one to keep these things on a need to know basis, but I’m open to hearing a case to the contrary if someone has one.

    1. DisneyChannelThis*

      Sorry for your upcoming loss. I went through similar recently, and I decided not to loop my coworkers in. There was only so much good intentions I could take. If you feel like them knowing would help you (at work with tasks or emotionally) then tell them. But if it is one more thing to handle and overwhelming then don’t. For me, having to repeatedly say, he’s dying, it’s going to be soon, no there’s nothing you can do thanks, was just too much.

      You can also ask your boss to tell the team for you (Boss, I’m going to be out today through next wed for the rites and funeral, can you let Sue and George know for me?) if that helps. Virtual hugs if you want them.

      1. PropJoe*

        Yeah, I’m leaning towards disclosure after the fact, including why didn’t I say anything beforehand (which is half your reason of it’s inevitable at this point, and half what I hinted at earlier – he’s a very hard man to like, and I’m more sad for my partner for having a terrible father than anything else).

        Am I probably still going to go see a therapist at some point after he passes? Likely so. But I’m unlikely to start sobbing from grief like I did in therapy after my dad died and again after my mom died.

    2. WantonSeedStitch*

      You don’t have to let anyone else know. If it’s affecting you at work in any way, you can disclose as much or as little as you want. (“Sorry, I can’t be the one to drive out to see the client tomorrow. I have a family situation right now that means I will likely have to take time off without much notice soon.” or “Sorry I’ve been distracted lately. My wife’s father is in hospice and supporting her through this has been my main focus.”)

      But if it’s NOT affecting you at work, there’s no need to say anything. Well-meaning people might ask about holiday plans, and in that case, again, say as much or as little as you want.

      1. PropJoe*

        My office shuts down for a week and a half, from about 12/23 through 1/1. My partner’s work will shut down for most of that same time.

        Our holiday plans, prior to my FIL’s very recent downturn, would likely have been “go see partner’s parents” so we weren’t going to be out on a day when our respective offices would’ve been open, regardless.

        My boss has actually already provided me the leave code to use once he does pass. Huzzah for having a boss that cares!

  55. Amber Rose*

    Talk me down please.

    I finally got a job offer after 7 months. On paper it’s great: massive step up in responsibility and title. I’m an actual manager now.

    This is day 2 and I just feel sick to my stomach. This place is a mess, the culture is awful, I’m being asked to change the culture but my predecessor is sure I can’t, it’s not a great company…

    I’m terrified and I wanna run away screaming… but its only day 2, like maybe I should try? My boss seems cool?

    1. Rick Tq*

      You are still in the Finding Out Why The Gate Is There phase of Chesterton’s Fence, so no one should expect you to start implementing changes that aren’t driven by legal or ethical compliance issues for a few months at least.

      If your boss has your back and is cool just watch, wait, and take notes for a while.

    2. Cordelia*

      Give it a bit more time, you won’t be able to change the culture straight away, you have to understand it first. And your predecessor is not a reliable narrator on this topic – ok they couldn’t change it, but who’s to say they weren’t part of the problem? Your boss seems cool, that’s a good start. You don’t really know enough about the company on your second day to conclude that it’s a mess, wait and see.

    3. WestSideStory*

      Stay calm. Talk to people and listen a lot before recommending any changes.

      Expect to spend a few months finding out all you can, where the bodies are buried, where the assets are located and what bottlenecks seem obvious.

      Making institutional change isn’t easy, and no one expects you to clean up Dodge on your first week.

    4. WantonSeedStitch*

      What others have said. This isn’t the time to change things, YET. It’s time to listen to people. Find out what they feel is wrong. Find out what has been tried to fix things and why it didn’t work. Listen to people on both sides of every issue. Get a feel for what kind of power you do and don’t have in your new role, so you know what you might realistically be able to do.

    5. MigraineMonth*

      I don’t think you should quit right away unless the job is affecting your health (including your mental health). You’ve been looking for 7 months, maybe take a couple of weeks to get a lay of the land and see how much support you would have from your boss/upper management when you tried to make culture changes in the future.

      In the meantime, though, don’t stop that job search. “This place is a mess, the culture is awful, I’m being asked to change the culture…, it’s not a great company…” doesn’t sound promising, long-term.

    6. Baling Twine*

      You took this job for a reason. Change is scary and it’s completely normal to be anxious and have the fear – but right now is not the time to make that call. You don’t have nearly enough info to go on!

      Take a deep breath, forget about changing anything for the next few weeks, and focus on getting to know the people, processes and systems you need to know. Right now that’s your priority. And ignore your predecessor – they have a vested interest in the status quo and may be trying to defend their own failures so forget about them, they are not the person you should be looking to on this.

      It can take six months to a year to get your bearings and figure out how to operate in a new role. Focus on being a good manager for now – set clear expectations, communicate honestly and directly, be a good role model and get things working in your own way gradually. Then you can evaluate what can be done about the bigger picture of the comapany culture etc.

    7. Lady Lessa*

      With the holidays so close, I’d just give it a try.

      But, why is your predecessor still there? In the job that brought me back to the Midwest (good thing), my predecessor and I over lapped for 3 months. I had to bring in my own lap top to work and they NEVER taught me much about the area I was the weakest in. I knew 2/3 of the company’s areas of production but not the one they were an expert in.

      Sympathy and enjoy your favorite adult beverage this weekend.

  56. Margali*

    TL;DR How to appropriately investigate employee absenteeism?

    “Greg” works in our production area, so working from home is not an option. In the last 5 months, he has taken 14 unplanned sick days, and half of them were Mondays. He uses his sick time faster than he earns it, so he’s burning through his vacation time too. We don’t have a “doctor’s note” policy, and his absences are typically 1-2 days. I don’t want to push him out for real health reasons, but his manager is getting pretty frustrated, and we are suspicious about how many of his sick days end up giving him a 3-day weekend.

    (I did try to do a quick search through the site, but I’m having a hard time figuring out how best to narrow my search terms.) Thanks!

    1. WantonSeedStitch*

      Do you have HR? Next time he’s out, you could talk to him and say “hey Greg, you’ve had a lot of sick days lately. It might be a good idea for you to talk to HR and see if intermittent FMLA is a possibility for you.” FMLA DOES require documentation, so if he has a legit chronic medical issue, he would be able to get it documented and take the time off as he needs.

    2. WorkerDrone*

      Well… if he is using his leave time in accordance with whatever internal policies you have, this isn’t absenteeism. This is just him using leave time.

      If he isn’t in accordance with internal policy, address that.

      If he isn’t completing his work, look at whether you have enough coverage for employees to use their leave time.

      What is frustrating the manager, specifically? In what way is workflow impacted? Focus on addressing that issue, whether by creating policy around leave time or ensuring enough coverage when employees use it.

      1. Margali*

        It’s disruptive because we’re currently in a hiring freeze, so staffing is tight. When the manager finds out Monday morning that Greg is out again, it throws off production scheduling. Greg’s team feels like he is unreliable.

    3. Jules the First*

      Name the problem – focus on the work impact. “Greg, you’ve had 14 sick days in the last six months. We’re happy to support you if there’s something going on medically where accommodations would help, but it’s not sustainable to keep asking your colleagues to pick up additional workload without notice because you are continually unwell. What can we do to help?”

      2. Peter*

        I like that script, and in response to WorkerDrone above the other thing to add (if it’s true) is that vacation time requires a certain amount of notice to allow your manager to plan production, and what you’re doing breaches that policy. We might not be able to pay vacation for occurrences that aren’t booked through the system in advance.

  57. TheBunny*

    Tips for dealing with a really hands off boss?

    I’m new-ish at my job (less than a year) and my boss really only appears if there’s an issue or a question.

    I’ve gone to her a couple of times and asked for feedback and she’s been…not so communicative. She’s said she trusts me which is great and she was prompt in giving me some minor feedback (once) but that’s it.

    We have 1 on 1 meetings, but she’s canceled the last 2.

    It’s oddly stressful feeling like I never talk to my boss and not feeling like I can get a read on her.

    Any thoughts on better ways to deal? Do I just let this go?

    2. MigraineMonth*

      Not so much advice as commiseration, but my boss is also a bit too hands-off. It *isn’t* a good thing, and I don’t think you (or I) can really let it go. This is the person who’s responsible for giving you feedback necessary for growth, evaluating your work and identifying your strengths, advocating for your raises/promotions, etc. Having a checked-out boss can do real damage to your career if you spend a long time in the role.

      I think you’re on the right track with scheduling 1:1’s. Personally, I’m going to talk to my boss in January and explain what more I need from them going forward. I think I’ve heard this referred to as “managing up”, where you have to tell your manager what you need from them.

    3. ferrina*

      Ugh, this is frustrating and problematic. It sucks that you’re not getting feedback, especially just the generic “sounds good, keep going!” That’s helpful stuff to hear!

      You can try naming the issue for your boss. “Hey, I need more feedback from you. Even if it’s a quick “yep, sounds good”, that let’s me know I’m going in the right direction. And it reassures me that you have all the information that you need about what I’m working on. Can we make sure that we’re keeping our 1:1s? We can shorten them to 15 minutes if it’s helpful.”
      Some managers dont’ realize that 1:1s are as much for their direct reports as they are for the managers.

    4. Boggle*

      Yup, we have the same boss only mine is male. He’s the disappearing manager, we never know when he’ll show up in the office or be off in another country. Any time I *try* to get him to manage anything his response is the same, we are all long time employees and he trusts our judgment. The problem is not all of the team is on the same page, and some need serious managing. My manager has leaned on me to take the lead but that’s made me resentful. Thankfully I only have 12 days left before I retire and have been really pulling back and focusing on wrapping things up. I feel for my replacement, but my time is done.

  58. Ann O*

    My boss, Katie, is too busy to effectively manage me. She oversees seven middle managers across different functions, only one of which she has direct experience in (spoiler: it’s not mine). Most of her time is spent in meetings with people from other parts of the organization. I assume these are important meetings, though I have no idea what happens in them.

    We used to meet weekly, but now we’re down to two 30-minute meetings per month, which are usually rescheduled multiple times or canceled last minute. When we finally do meet, she arrives late or leaves early, so there’s barely enough time to discuss everything on my list. Team meetings? Nope. Shared project meetings? Also nope. Maybe we’ll pass in a hallway or piss in adjacent stalls on occasion. That’s about it for our interactions.

    I send her weekly updates, which she occasionally acknowledges with groundbreaking feedback like, “Amazing job! ” or, if she’s feeling especially detailed, a thumbs-up emoji. Deeply insightful stuff.

    Katie often talks about how busy and stressed she is – her stress is palpable – and while I’ve offered to help lighten her load, she always says her work isn’t related to mine. Unfortunately, when I do need her help, she’s rarely able to provide it—either because she doesn’t know how or doesn’t have time. Advocacy for our team? Haven’t seen it. Maybe it’s happening behind the scenes?

    To top it off, Katie avoids conflict. If I bring up my concerns, I’m pretty sure she’ll get flustered, hem and haw, and then… nothing will change. I’ve never had such a hands-off manager before, and while I know some people might love this kind of freedom, it’s starting to feel less “empowering” and more “adrift.”

    So, what do I do? Any advice on how to approach this conversation? Or tips for embracing the laissez-faire management style? Katie’s manager has the same hands-off style, albeit with less emotive stress, so maybe it’s just the culture.

    1. ferrina*

      I’ve been in similar situations. I had a boss that never had time for me, couldn’t guide me, and would hold up projects by not talking with me. It was so frustrating, and I definitely never had any advocacy (and it hurt my raises).

      You can’t change Katie. I think you know that. Nothing you say or do will make her a good manager for you. She might be a lovely person, but she is not a good manager for you.

      For what to do, there are several options. Which one you choose really, really depends on your exact circumstances, what you want, and what is feasible at your particular situation.
      – You can lean back. If you want to rein in what you are doing, you can stop going above and beyond. Keep doing the weekly updates and bimonthly meetings; get as much from Katie as you can. But if she is holding up the project, let her hold up the project. Tell her the dates that you need things by, and if she misses them, don’t move ahead without her. Pros: you have a reasonable workload. Cons: Katie could get frustrated with you. Either way, this approach requires caring less about your job.
      – You can start owning more of the role. Get Katie to empower you to make more decisions on your own. You are doing the right thing by keeping her updated; in your bimonthly meetings, let her know that you feel comfortable making decisions for X and Y if she gives you permission to use your judgement. Pros: You get to own more of what you do, and it can be a great stepping stone. Cons: You are going forward without support, and it can feel like you dont’ have a safety net.
      – You can try to get moved under someone else. Is there a different person that it might make sense to report to? Try to see if you can get a project with them so you can get a sense for how they would be to work with, and let them get to know you. At some point you’d have to ask Katie if it makes sense to move your work under that person; this can be very tricky, depending on the culture of your office.
      – You can look at other roles outside of your current workplace. This isn’t a situation where you have to get out soon, but is this a long-term sustainable role for you? If not, do a low-key job search. You don’t need to devote a lot of time to it, but just a few hours per week to keep things moving. The idea is to find a job in the next couple years, not the next couple months. It gives you a better sense of what’s out there, and it means that you are leaving before you get desperate (giving you higher standards for what you will/won’t take).

      Good luck!

      1. Ann O*

        Thank you for such good advice. I like the second piece of advice (taking more authority). And when it’s a project I don’t care much about anyway, number one!

    3. Mimmy*

      Following because I too am in a somewhat similar situation. I got a new supervisor a couple months ago. This supervisor has far too much on their plate and, because of this, I don’t feel as well-supported as I did with my previous supervisor. I can definitely relate to the “less empowering and more adrift” feeling.

  59. A perfectly normal-size space bird*

    A tale of warning for what NOT to do if you’re concerned about network security:

    Our company has a new device policy for non-work issued computers and we now have to use proprietary software to get behind the company firewall. But as I discovered last week, not only are the installation documents behind the firewall, the install file for the software to get behind the firewall is also behind the firewall.

    When I posted about it in last week’s open thread here, I had spent half a day trying to get IT to understand why this is a problem. I failed to explain it and wound up using a much older, insecure version of the software I found buried in my downloads folder so I could get behind the firewall. Then I emailed a copy of the new instructions and new install file to my team to their personal emails because everyone’s work email is behind the firewall. Then word got around and I had other team leads and other departments begging me for a copy.

    So fast forward to this week: There are now umpteen unsecured copies of this proprietary firewall software floating around and IT was furious. They traced the source back to me, assumed there was some kind of breach, and remotely wiped my computer (which the software allows them to do). Fortunately*, I recently got a second computer for work so all I had to do was copy over my backed up files.

    I was pulled into a Zoom meeting with a furious head of IT, my boss, my grandboss, and my great-grandboss. The head of IT started to tear into me for being “so stupid” for “falling for an obvious scam” which…has nothing to do with anything? and that because of me, protected company IP is now “out there where our rivals could get it and cost us money.” My grandboss stopped him and told him to STFU and let me explain what happened.

    So I did. And I forwarded every email, every help desk ticket, every phone transcript where I tried to get them to make the instructions and install file available outside the firewall so we could, you know, do our jobs. I included (with permission) copies of emails from my team, other leads, and other departments asking for help. I also sent a copy of a colleague’s lovely spreadsheet estimating the amount in wages that the company wasted while employees couldn’t get work done because of lack of access.

    They didn’t even finish all the emails, once they got an eyeful of the dollar amount on that spreadsheet, great-grandboss said “I think we’re done here,” said I wasn’t in trouble and called the head of IT into a private meeting.

    You’d think the smart move would be to move the install files to the one employee system we don’t have behind a firewall so we can get access. But they’re still behind the firewall. Someone created a dropbox for the install files and we’ve quietly directed new hires towards it. One of the new hires is on my team and used to do network security. He is absolutely appalled at how badly this has been handled.

    * I have real issues with an employer refusing to issue work-critical devices to remote-only employees and then insist the employees grant them the ability to have their personal devices remotely wiped at any moment.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      Wow. I’m speechless.

      Personally, I would have just taken the holiday. “You won’t let me past the firewall to download the software to get past the firewall? Cool, I’ll just read my book while you pay me my full salary to wait for you to resolve this.”

      1. A perfectly normal-size space bird*

        At OldJob, I worked out of a satellite office and was usually the only one there. The company was run by a bunch of cheapskates, but also they were just terrible about things like paying bills. Things I absolutely needed to do my job were: electricity, internet/phone/fax, and toner.

        One week of no electricity. Two weeks of no internet/phone/fax, three and a half weeks without toner. Each time, my work ground to a halt and I was paid to read comic books all day and send daily reminders that they were paying me to not work.

        The toner was the most ridiculous. $30 for a new cartridge at Staples down the road, but boss wanted to save money because he found two for $30 at some sketchy third party seller that took three weeks to arrive, didn’t work in our machine. It took another half a week to convince him to deposit $30 in petty cash so I could buy a new one.

        I had learned early on at this job to never, ever use my own money and ask for reimbursement later because it would never arrive.

    2. Fluff*

      Wow. Your gboss sounds awesome. I now have gboss envy.

      This is a perfect example of why employees find work arounds to security. Files are locked down, inaccessible or impossibly restricted. Thus we get employees who have to choose between
      1 . cannot do my job because I cannot access stuff
      or
      2. go the grey hat route and find the stuff I need to do my work and it is not secure at all.

      This is the informatics trolley question.

    4. Strive to Excel*

      What in the what.

      I’m speechless. Why. What. Who even.

      Also I like your colleague with the spreadsheet.

  60. Ms. Frizzle Lost her Sizzle*

    I had an interview that felt like a conversation this week! That has never happened to me before–I struggle with interviews. At the end of the conversation, I was invited for the on-site interview as one of 3 finalists.

    Does anyone have advice on how to convert a final interview into an offer?
    Twice already in my current job search I’ve been the runner-up. My field is very niche, and there are usually only 5 openings per year. I’ve been following “The Way of Allison” for 10 years now, and it gets me far, but I keep coming up short at the finish line. My sister keeps yelling “it’s a numbers game!” but the number of openings in this field are very limited.

    So what are your best tips for a final interview? (This is a two-day affair, with both casual and formal elements. The organization is arranging transportation and accommodations.) I’m great at being a runner-up, but this is a job that I’m very interested in.

    Any and all tips are welcome!

    1. Jules the First*

      That’s great news that you had a great interview! I have everything crossed for you!

      But the trick to getting over the finish line is to be laser focused on whether this job is the right job *for you*. Their job is to find the optimal hire for their culture and the role; your job is to find the optimal culture and role for you…if that fit isn’t there, no amount of hoping or praying will get you that job (and, in truth, having been hired twice for jobs that looked perfect on paper but in reality weren’t me, there’s little more unpleasant on this earth than being in a job that you shouldn’t have been hired for). Bring your whole self to this last interview and trust that it will be your job if you are the right person to fill it.

      1. Ms. Frizzle Lost her Sizzle*

        That’s well stated.

        And yes–the reason I’m excited is that the actual job is an excellent fit for my skills (been at it 25 years) in a state I’ve been wanting to get back to for over a decade. I’ll get a better feel of fit when I get there and meet lots of people. I’ve got a good radar for whether or not I feel simpatico with a place, and have been lucky to have never (yet) gotten hired for a wrong job.

        I’m just looking for magic phrases and secret rituals to the volcano gods…

    2. ferrina*

      Congratulations on your interview! That’s great!

      The only thing you can do is put your best foot forward and give them a clear picture of who you are, what your skills are, and how you approach your work. From there, they will decide which candidate’s skills and approach best matches their needs. That means that their is no sure-fire way to get the job; there’s a lot that’s out of your control. It’s like dating in that regard- you are both looking for the right match for each of you, and even though you like them, there’s nothing you can do that will guarantee that they like you. In fact, approaching it as though there is something you can do to obligate them to like you is off putting! (I remember the candidates who thought This One Trick Will Guarantee Me The Job….spoiler alert, it did not.) When in doubt, just be your best self and try to enjoy the experience. When you know who you are and enjoy what you are doing, it makes a good impression (even if they go with another candidate, they will have good memories of you and that could play out in unforeseen ways. I’ve called back a candidate when the original hire didn’t work out).

      Good luck in your final interview!

      1. Ms. Frizzle Lost her Sizzle*

        Ah, yes, I see what you did there–applying clear thinking and rational sense to my silly question. And you’e seen through my cheap wish to hear ‘One Weird Trick to Guarentee You Land the Job!’

        And in fairness, I’m not worried about whether they like me–they will or they won’t–but this is a situation where organizations notoriously do not know what they are looking for because it’s tangential to what they are doing.

        Imagine that a regular corporate office also happens to have an onsite pottery to hand make tea cups for employees. The head potter also leads a small team to help grow their potting skills. Yet all corporations like this tend to hire people who have sold tea cups to celebrities. I have been a finalist many times when they chose someone who sold tea cups to celebrities. The job only requires someone to make cups and help others get better at making cups, and has no sales component. But the corporate people don’t understand or deeply care about pottery (why would they? it’s not their field, and at the end of the day, it’s just a nice cup), so they get very excited about the guy who sold to a celebrity, because they think it’s cool and it will impress their clients.

        What I will do is make a strong case for my skills, and find a clear way to communicate how that can solve their current problem. I was just hoping for some weird tricks for a minute there…

  61. Jules the First*

    Apologies for the sensitive topic but I need some help with some delicate phrasing…

    I have been off work for a little over a week after miscarrying my last embryo (which means there won’t be any further pregnancies in my future). I’m devastated and not keen to talk about it, but this kind of time off is long enough and my absence has been complete enough that people have noticed and will ask questions/express sympathy (hope you feel better soon/glad to see you recovered/what happened…). I don’t look like I’ve been sick. Any ideas for noncommittal ways to close the subject without being rude? Or am I overthinking this?

    1. MsM*

      Yeah, I think you’re overthinking it. Respond to the expressions of sympathy with “Thanks” and the questions with “Personal/family business; I’d rather not get into it. How is [work thing] coming along?”

      I’m sorry. I hope the pain eases.

    2. Cordelia*

      I’m so sorry. You are overthinking though – people don’t need to know your medical details. Yes I’m ok now thankyou, oh just a medical thing I’d rather not go into details, how is the XYZ project going?

    3. Lizy*

      gah I’m so sorry. Fertility issues sucks major monkey balls and my heart goes out to you.

      tbh I’d just go with a “mm-hmm” and change the subject. I’ve had some success with responding “No, everything’s not ok but it won’t be so whatever – what about blah blah”. or “No I haven’t recovered and doubt I ever will but it is what it is”. At least for me, if I just give an emotionless “no” people are like “ohhhhhh sorry” and then move on (verbally if nothing else).

      And no you’re not overthinking it. And no you don’t need to worry about being rude. If anyone dares pry more then THEY deserve a very curt “well I’m f%#ked and can’t have kids so thanks for bringing it up again.” Jerks.

    4. Mark This Confidential And Leave It Laying Around*

      I’m so sorry. I am guessing no one at your office knows why you’re out? It’s probably least painful to keep it that way. I’ve seen lots of gray-rock rinse-repeat suggestions here over the years, and I think adapting one for a medical event is the way to go. And I think the term “medical event” is useful because it is so deliberately non-communicative. Anyone who says, “Medical event? What’s a medical event? What kind of medical event?” is definitely the person who won’t handle your real news discreetly and with the minimum fuss you need. So you can gray-rock that, too. “I’m back at work now, so we can let it go.”

    5. WantonSeedStitch*

      If they don’t know what happened and you don’t want to tell them, the “hope you feel better soon” and “glad to see you recovered” can just be met with a “thank you” and subject change. “What happened?” can be “I was dealing with some medical stuff, but I’m back now” and subject change. If someone you’re closer to asks and you decide you do want to share, be sure to tell them that you want to keep it private.

      I’m so sorry for what you’re going through.

  62. Lizy*

    New Outlook question… still hate it, still stuck with it. Now there’s even a little “new outlook” toggle that seems like I can go back to the old Outlook. NOPE. grrrrrrr…..

    Anyhow – the biggest thing I’m missing is the tasks functionality. I really don’t want a whole new other program, but whatever. What’s the best alternative? I’m honestly leaning towards just using old Outlook for the tasks and suffering through new Outlook for emails…

    And yes, I’m truly stuck with new Outlook. Long story, but for email purposes, I’m stuck.

    1. Jules the First*

      Michael Linenberger posted some stuff about tasks and New Outlook in one of his recent newsletters…you might have some luck googling with his name?

  63. Analytical Tree Hugger*

    Advice, perspective, or commiseration welcome.

    How do I accept that my career will never “take-off” and that my career aspirations aren’t ever going to happen? I’m almost 40 and about 15 years into my career (project management and program evaluation). I’ve had some progress/advancement in my career, but have been actively and repeatedly discouraged by people higher up each time I try to get to the next level. Examples:

    1) Our HR representative at one job invited me to talk about my long-term career vision. I said I’d like to be a director someday. Instead of saying, “Okay, here’s the long, LONG path in front of you”, the response was a blanket “No, that’s not possible.”

    2) A manager had nothing but praise for me going above and beyond in my role, even to the point of taking on work from someone who is two levels above me (because said person just didn’t do their work. Whole other story). Still, I had to fight tooth-and-nail for almost two years to get a promotion more in-line with my longer-term career goal and current work (no raise, just the title). A couple of years later, after I announced I was leaving, they asked me to help them craft a replacement position. The new position was the EXACT JOB I had been fighting to get for over four years with the company (and a seniority level in-line with the work I had been doing for the past few years).

    There are other anecdotes/examples I could share, but this is already long. So, any advice on how to make peace with the fact that managers/the universe/whatever has told me repeatedly the job/career I want will never happen?

    1. Chauncy Gardener*

      This sounds super frustrating and also that it’s probably not you! It sounds like you’ve been at the wrong companies and stayed at them for too long, IMHO. In your next search, can you really probe what kinds of promotion opportunities there are for you? Ask for concrete example of internal promotions?
      One thing I’ve found is that there are companies who promote from within and those who don’t. The ones who do are culturally set up to do so (it’s a big part of their culture in other words) and have clear processes in place to make it happen over and over again. It’s one of their key methods to hire more senior people.
      The ones who don’t, just DON’T. They tend to be reactive about their hiring needs, don’t proactively give raises and promotions and are surprised when good people leave.
      Good luck!

      1. ferrina*

        All of this.
        I’ve worked at a couple different companies that didn’t want to promote me for whatever reason. In one case it was that there weren’t many openings for promotions; in one case it was because my boss didn’t want to put any budget toward me or my role because she wanted to use the budget for other stuff, but she was happy to heap on responsibilities; in one case it was because the company simply didn’t want to invest in my department. None of these were a reflection on me at all.

        Don’t stay at a company that won’t encourage your growth. If you can’t get the growth you need internally, look externally. I finally got the position I wanted (and had been doing de facto without the pay or title) by applying to that position at a different organization. Good luck!

    2. Aggretsuko*

      Well, it won’t happen at *this* company. They don’t seem to like you very much.

      I can say that I was in the place of “I will be in this job for life because the universe is against this” for a long time, moved employers and now I get to be an analyst, which my old job would never allow. So…look elsewhere.

    3. WantonSeedStitch*

      Definitely sounds like it’s not you, but the places you’ve been working. If it were you, a good manager would have said “these are the kinds of things that you need to work on if you want that. I have to be honest that you seem to struggle a lot with X and Y, but if you can skill up in those areas, it will give you a much better chance of seeing that happen.” Also, some places just don’t have much of a career pathway in place. There might be only so many senior role slots available, and the people filling them don’t leave, for example, and getting HR to approve a newly created position that provides an opportunity for advancement is like pulling teeth. In those cases, you need to go elsewhere to get what you want.

      When you interview at other places, make sure to ask about whether it is common for people to be promoted from within, and what a common promotion pathway looks like.

    4. Decidedly Me*

      I don’t think this is a career issue, but a company issue. Some companies are great about career progression and others…aren’t. One of my direct reports was told at a previous company that they would never move up from an IC. Under my management at a different company, they went from IC to lead to manager. I serve as a reference for them now.

    5. cmdrspacebabe*

      I wonder if this is one of those cases where you’re doing so well in the lower-level, lower-paid role that the companies you’re at don’t see the value in letting you move up. Seems like we hear from lots of people around here who quit, only to see 2 or 3 people hired in their place – or in your case, a new grade of position created, except apparently they’d already pigeon-holed you into the lower role. Who knows what kind of internal politics were in play there.

      When you’ve moved between companies, has it generally been lateral? Maybe you need to be applying to higher levels of position in the first place instead of trying to move up internally.

      I’m also curious about demographics. Are you a different race/gender/neurotype/etc. than the leadership teams you’re working under? Any chance bias is a factor keeping them from seeing you as a potential leader?

    6. Busy Middle Manager*

      #2 hurts to read.

      On a practical level, focus on what you get out of the job. Namely, if you’re never getting promoted, try to get as much money as possible. Get that 401K and H.S.A. funded as much as possible, so you at least with money.

      On a general level, I think this is a macro issue. We’re definitely going through a period of cutting positions, cost cutting, outsourcing, not backfilling roles. Austerity to boost earnings, no matter the long term consequence. Of course careers are stalled in that environment. The question is, how long can it last? Will there an some economic boom in the future? Will outsourced jobs come back? Will older people retiring open up key jobs?

      That being said, what was the rational for saying “no” in #1. Unless you were looking to become an HR Director, I’m not sure HR would be able to give you a path to success in any given role outside of their area?

    8. Synaptically Unique*

      Have you ever directly asked what you would need to address to be considered for a supervisor role? Beyond specific skills, I’ve seen people kept at the IC level for negative attitudes, gossiping, timidity, unwillingness to make decisions, refusal to accept responsibility for mistakes – all sorts of issues that 1) aren’t related to technical ability to do the job and 2) hard to articulate to the impacted person because you’re basically saying their personality is the problem and that feels like an icky conversation. Not saying this is the problem, but if this has happened at multiple companies, there’s something else going on.

  64. unoffical job coach*

    A woman I work with, who is in a management position, often asks me for advice … and I tell her to check out AMA all the time … I am not in any way in her line of responsibility so sometimes she overshares. My question is this … her boss often volunteers for projects to look good to her grandboss with no thoughts on how to accomplish said projects. My friend, Sally, who already has her full time position managing her team, was told she now has to take on a new project managing an additional 7-8 people. This includes training, scheduling and all the other usual management work. Sally did ask if this means less work from her current job; no it does not, or additional monies for the new work; no it does not. How can she push back without risking her current job?

    1. MigraineMonth*

      One technique Alison has suggested in the past is to ask the boss which things they want to get done. The formula is along the lines of “I cannot do A, B and C. Which two do you want me to do?” If the boss pushes back, the employee can try to offer other compromises–she can do half of A and half of B, or she can do all three if she can hire an assistant, or she can do all three if she gets a raise of $X to cover the overtime–but has to hold firm that “just do all three” is not possible.

      It’s possible that the boss will not be reasonable and hold it against your coworker. It’s even remotely possible the boss will fire your coworker, though that’s unlikely when there’s already more work than the current employees can do. However, if your coworker doesn’t stand firm there’s a 100% chance she will be saddled with all these additional uncompensated responsibilities.

    2. ferrina*

      Sally should be looking at other opportunities. Do a low-key job search, just applying to a couple openings each week.
      I’ve been in Sally’s shoes, and it generally doesn’t get better. Sally can’t force them to value her work or give her a reasonable workload; her power is in her ability to walk away. She needs to have options and be willing to walk to really give her the ammo she needs (side note: good organizations also don’t have a long-term strategy of “make the competent person do everything and don’t pay them enough”.)

      That said….she can say “I can’t do all of this. I can do X and Y, but not Z.” This will set her boundaries on her time (so she’s not doing crazy amounts of overtime).
      She can also say “These responsibilities are more in line with Role X than with my role. Are we looking to hire a Role X or transition my role into a Role X?”
      Finally, she can say “Hey, this amount of work isn’t sustainable. It’s also above my pay grade, and while I’m happy to help out short term, long-term I wouldn’t be working at market rate. Can you let know what the company’s long term plans are around this?” Sally should not say “I might leave over this!”. That’s already implied, and a manager that has to be told isn’t a manager you want to work for anyways. Sally also doesn’t want to risk being pushed out before she’s ready.

  65. HonorBox*

    Just wanted to share that I told a colleague in a similar position with a different company about AAM the other day. She was wondering about places to learn more and also how to be “creative” in a role that is fairly inward facing and focused on procedures. I told her I’ve been able to learn a ton here and thinking about how I’d respond in any of the situations presented in the letters has made me think creatively in a work-focused way.

    Also told her I wouldn’t be telling her what my handle is, just in case we ever take opposing sides in the responses. :)

    Thanks, Alison and everyone for being a great resource!

  66. Runny nose in Nebraska*

    Just a crazy story.

    Years ago, I moved after a divorce. I had been a stay-at-home parent, and moved with absolutely no money into a home owned by my family. I was happy to get a public facing position in a municipality, a job in my dream field. Then in my second week, a coworker told me it was my turn to purchase tissues for the front desk (and the public). It seemed the city did not approve of supplying the public with tissues, so the staff did.

    At this time, I had not yet been paid, and a friend of mine was visiting every few days with a bag of groceries so I could feed my children. My ex didn’t start paying child support until two months after I moved. I had been browbeaten enough in my marriage that I went ahead and purchased three boxes of tissues, but I wish I had stood up to her and told her no. A few months later the boss realized what was going on and said staff no longer had to buy tissues for the snotty noses of the town.

    1. Aggretsuko*

      Wow. And I thought my job was ridiculous for saying they can’t provide Kleenex and you have to provide your own.

    2. ferrina*

      Ugh, I’m sorry. fwiw, I think you did what you needed to do. You were the new person, and you needed the job enough that the tissues were necessary price to not jeopardizing the goodwill in your new role. When you are in such a vulnerable financial place, you’re not in a great place to push back. You did what you needed to do to keep that job and keep your relationships in the job (not rocking the boat)

      I’m glad your boss had your back on this!

  67. Feminist Killjoy*

    I’d love some perspective on my upcoming office “holiday social/all hands meeting”. It has been scheduled at a church, but we’ve been told it’s NOT a religious event. We’re a government agency, with a wide array of internal spaces available to us. It’s hard to believe that there are no spaces on our property where we could have this event and for the past several years it has been onsite. Since it’s also a meeting and in the middle of the work day, I think it will be hard to bow out of. I can’t exactly put my finger on why it’s weirding me out, but it seems inappropriate? I have no idea if we are paying a fee for the space.

    1. ferrina*

      Yeah, that doesn’t feel great. They are giving money to a religious organization (space rental fee) and it looks like that was not necessary at all. The optics are bad, and it makes me wonder if someone involved in the party planning is a member of the church and found a way to funnel money toward the church. Maybe not, but the optics point that way.
      Not to mention the highly likelihood of being subjected to non-work related religious messaging while at a work function (since I’ve never been to a church without religious decor).

      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        I definitely don’t think it’s okay to hold this event in a church, but some churches don’t charge venue rental fees (or give discounts) to members of their congregations. So it may have been spun as a money saving thing.

      2. noname today*

        I would choose to schedule a Dr appt for that day and not attend. But that’s me feeling that in government these days the old separation of church and state are being trampled and it’s beyond my pay grade to actively fight it. So I’d go the passive aggressive route and just have a conflict that I can’t get out of.

    2. CTT*

      Just it be clear, it’s an actual, active church, and not an event space that used to be a church? I only ask because we inexplicably have a few of those where I live and it would not be immediately obvious they’re not religious institutions (venue names like “The Church on South Street”). If it is a church, I definitely think it’s inappropriate. If there’s someone higher up you have a good relationship with, I think it would be worth asking why it was chose .

    3. Double A*

      I mean, I’ve been to electoral caucuses and political meetings in churches and have voted in churches (in the bluest of blue areas). They are community spaces that government entities rent sometimes. Would you feel as awkward if it were a mosque or a synagogue? If not, that’s something to explore. And I ask these questions as an atheist, but one who values diversity which includes religious diversity. Religious spaces can be genuinely welcoming to all. Part of living in a pluralistic, multicultural democracy is seeing symbols and ideas you don’t agree with. If they are displayed passively, they can’t hurt you. If you think you might be converted against your will to Christianity because you see a cross on the wall, that’s really a you issue.

      1. Lady Lessa*

        I see two types of spaces in churches and other religious places. Some, like where voting would take place are more open and room set ups more variable (like fellowship halls), and other spaces are in the worship center. Mainly, when a concert is at a church, it is in the main worship area. But even those don’t have a religious leader welcoming the visitors to the concert.

    4. Busy Middle Manager*

      There technically might be other spaces but churches tend to rent spaces really cheap. I have co-chaired AA meetings in the past and you’ll see ridiculously low rates in churches, like $50 for a room fitting 80 people for an hour meeting (so more like 1 1/2 hours in prime time, so no other events can occur) in an expensive area. It may just be a cost thing. Also it helped me learn the physical underbelly of my area and there are so many large/nice or at least quaint spaces in churches. they may not be the fanciest but they meet your needs and usually have a kitchen/kitchenette and copious bathrooms

    5. Head Sheep Counter*

      This isn’t good. Add in that you are a government agency this might be on REALLY NOT GOOD end of things. Especially if there’s onsite space.

      I think one bows out with the seasonal ick that is surely going around your office… can’t you feel those sniffles?

    6. EventSpaces*

      I live in a very expensive city and it’s very common for churches here to rent out spaces for community events as an extra source of income. They are only using the spaces a few times a week for their congregation so they figure it’s a win-win as they’re a lot cheaper than local hotels or restaurants. All of the job networking meetings I’ve attended have been in churches. So have several baby and bridal showers including for Jewish and Hindu friends.

      One thing to be careful about is that some of the spaces are not accessible – I had to stop going to a regular job hunt networking meeting because they moved from the ground floor meeting space to the basement meeting space in a church with no elevator. I also had issues with a baby shower in a different church’s basement that had its lift locked up when the church staff wasn’t working.

      PS I know there’s an international audience, so an explanation of terms: here in the US elevators and lifts are not the same thing. Electrified rooms that travel up and down on cables at the push of a button and often stop on multiple floors are elevators. Lifts are more mechanical (although usually also electric these days) and are generally open spaces just large enough for one person that go between two floors. Basically you close a manual door on one floor before you can operate the lift then slowly go up or down by holding down a button or handle (it stops if you let go) and then open a ,aual door at the destination. They’re most often used for mezzanines or other “half floor” navigation.

    7. Jinni*

      Oddly when I was in NY, I never had feelings about voting in a church. To me it felt like a fair trade off for being tax exempt. (Though now I wonder if the government pays…)

      But a work event feels icky somehow. As an atheist I stay the heck out of religious spaces unless it’s a wedding or baptism/christening. I’d object if I know that’s how government money was being spent. I’ve never lived in a place where there weren’t a million empty/usable spaces in schools/buildings – but I’ve only lived in big cities.

      At the end of the day, I think the question is whether this is a sign of a bigger issue or developing issue.

  68. Info Overload*

    I don’t know if I’m looking for advice or just reassurance. I am in the unenviable position of Knowing Too Much. My boss gave me a heads-up that a friend’s position in the company is going to be eliminated in the New Year. It has been a rough year for our company and the position on the chopping block makes perfect business sense to eliminate. My friend is smart enough to know this and has asked me to let them know if I hear anything. My problem is that my boss and I also have a very close relationship and I don’t want to break their trust. My boss has been nothing but a kind, supportive mentor and a fair-minded and even-keeled leader in the company. I feel bad not telling my friend the truth, but it would be pretty obvious I was the one to spill the beans. Playing dumb feels like I am being selfish, prioritizing my own future career over a friend’s immediate livelihood. Am I making the right call to stay quiet?

    1. Jules the First*

      There’s an option C here, which is to say that you don’t have specific intel, but this position would be a logical choice for the company to cut because reasons x and y and in your friend’s shoes you would be job searching hard.

      1. Info Overload*

        This is the advice I have been giving my friend even before I knew it was true, so I will stay the course if they bring it up again. Thank you!

    2. ferrina*

      I’m so sorry. That’s why you can’t make these types of promises, and you needed to tell your friend “I can’t promise that”.
      If you can, I would say nothing and act as shocked as everyone else when your friend is laid off. It sounds like this is information that you aren’t supposed to know, so you have plausible deniability.

      1. Info Overload*

        Thankfully, I never actually promised I would tell them. When they asked, I genuinely didn’t know anything and said as much. I’ve more just been feeling guilty since learning the information. And yes, my boss is candid to a fault with me. A beast of burden in its own right.

    3. RagingADHD*

      Can you go back to your boss and explain what a tough position they put you in by revealing this information? I’m not sure why they would give you a heads up at all unless they kind of assumed you would drop your friend a hint.

      If your boss isn’t going to give you any oblique assurance that they are ok with you telling your friend, and there is no substantive business reason why you should know this and not reveal it, I would probably say something like, “you didn’t hear this from me, but there is scuttlebutt about potential layoffs in your department and if I were you I’d start sending out resumes now.”

      1. Jinni*

        This is where I land. I just had a Zoom call with a friend and she said something revealing. About ten minutes later, she clarified that she was giving me actionable information, which I hadn’t clocked.

  69. Oops*

    Is it normal for a work environment to make you wonder if life itself is worth it? Is that reason enough to leave a job?

    1. Jules the First*

      Yes, this is reason enough to leave a job! Any situation that leaves you questioning the value of continued existence needs to be jettisoned post haste.

    2. ferrina*

      That is absolutely a good enough reason to leave a job. That’s at least 35% of your waking hours each week. If you are spending more than a third of your time in hell each week, LEAVE.

    3. is the math right ?*

      Are you feeling okay about other aspects of your life ? If the answer is no, leaving a job may not help your mental health.

      Otherwise get the heck out !!!

      1. Oops*

        The rest of life is pretty good – it’s pretty much work. I’ve never had a situation like this and I’ve been trying to push through.

        1. MsM*

          Yeah, stop pushing. Please leave. If you can afford to do so without lining anything up in advance and you truly feel like you can’t stay another day, that’s a valid option. If not, then just put your focus on job searching and doing things off the clock that can sustain you.

    4. Hlao-roo*

      Not normal for a work environment to make you wonder if life is worth it, and that is a very good reason to leave a job!

    5. DrSalty*

      No that’s not normal and yes it is a good reason to leave a job. It’s a good reason to quit with no notice and nothing else lined up if you have to. Put yourself first!!

    6. Chauncy Gardener*

      YES! Get out of there ASAP! No place of employment should be making you question if life is worth living. Flee!

    7. RagingADHD*

      Not normal at all. Absolutely a great reason to leave.

      But also you should definitely get support from a professional, because that’s a bad place to be in and you deserve to have help getting through it.

    8. beautiful, talented, brilliant, powerful musk-ox*

      That was my sign that my stress levels at work were *way* too high and that I needed to get out of the position I was in. I’ve had mental health struggles in the past, but some dark thoughts came out of nowhere so suddenly that I was able to go, “Whoa, what is causing that?” And I realized it was literally *just* work. I was able to get out of that department a couple of months later and start recovering from extensive burnout.

      No job is worth that level of despair. Like, all jobs are stressful to a degree, but if the work or the environment is taxing your mental health in that way, I’d suggest getting out.

  70. driver*

    I work for a non-profit organization that has a group of employees that really value environmentally-friendly lifestyles (their work is tangentially related to conservation). I don’t work in their area, but share an office with them. We are all recent college graduates. I drive to work, and a lot of them know this. It’s causing friction and awkwardness for two reasons:

    a. Several of them personally disagree with my decision to drive since I live 1.5 miles away
    b. We don’t get paid much (under 45k) and parking next to our building is ~1000 dollars per year. some coworkers have outright questioned how I have the money to do this, and how I have the money for a car

    I never know what to say because honestly, I don’t have a great defense. Really, I drive because:
    a) our weather can be as hot as 100f or as cold as 10f, and I don’t like sweating or freezing in my nice work clothes.
    b) we don’t have reliable public transit here. some of my coworkers bike but they have a lot of close calls in traffic that worry me.
    c) I don’t like spending time on my commute and I like the flexibility driving gives me with my time (I get a little extra time at home! I don’t have to worry about getting home if I decide to stay late!) and the ability to run errands after work

    as far as money…my parents are rich. they bought a car for me when I graduated college, and they pay for my parking as a yearly gift. for reference, I’m 23. I’m very appreciative my parents are emotionally and financially supportive of my decision to work at a non-profit.

    Yes, I could suck it up and walk every day. I had 40+ minute walking commutes in college and it was fine, but I also had a lot more free time in college! my college campus was also safer for walking commutes than my current route would be. I’m in a stage of life where time is tight and I really value not having to spend the extra mental energy on dressing for the weather and only having to spend 4 minutes on my commute.

    Whenever comments get made, I just say driving is my preference and change the subject. Is this the right way to handle this? Or am I being an entitled rich kid who should really just save the environment and walk? My decision to drive is just a preference. I don’t use more than 10 gallons of gas in a month, so my gasoline use is 1/4 of the average car owners, so I’d like to think my guilty pleasure isn’t too consequential…I do care about the environment and make an effort to recycle, don’t buy fast fashion, pack a plant based lunch everyday, limit my energy consumption at home, ect., but I don’t want to go back to a walking commute.

    1. Decidedly Me*

      You don’t need to walk if you don’t want to walk! You don’t need a good defense. Would it be more environmentally? Sure, but none us of do everything that we could for the environment and the entities that could make a meaningful difference aren’t either…

      The way you’ve handled it so far sounds fine, but if it’s continuing, name that! It’s really weird that people would keep harping on it after the first time.

    2. Yes And*

      As a city person who works in the suburbs, my mind boggles at the short distances some of my colleagues drive. (I’m talking about driving into the town center, about a quarter of a mile away, on a nice day. I think they must spend more time dealing with parking than they save on the trip.) But I keep my opinions on the subject to myself because I’m not an a**hole.

      As for your situation… I don’t know. 1.5 miles is a robust walk (at a moderate 3 mph, about half an hour each way), and I wouldn’t want to do it in extreme temperatures either. It’s the perfect distance for a leisurely bike ride, but I’m not going to try to convince anyone to bike if the infrastructure to support cycling isn’t there. But yeah, I can see people being (privately) judgy about someone driving that short a distance, especially if they work in conservation.

      I guess the question is, how much do value your coworkers’ good opinion? (And let me be clear that, whether I agree with them or not, they’re being jerks.) Would you be willing to walk the distance on nice-weather days, and save driving for freezing and boiling days? I think that might serve to mollify your coworkers, if that’s your goal. But really it’s up to you. If you would rather politely but firmly tell them to knock it off, you’d be well within your rights.

    3. Millierose*

      I don’t think you’re being an entitled rich kid. There are plenty of factors that would lead someone to prefer driving over anything else — especially because you said public transportation isn’t reliable. I wouldn’t want to walk 3 miles every day just to get to and from work, especially not with unreliable weather. I think you’re handling it as well as you can. Driving is your preference, you have things you need to do after work, etc. If they mention the money and you feel the need to respond, you can just say it’s worth it for you and you don’t have to mention your parents paying for the parking.

    4. HannahS*

      I would continue doing exactly as you’re doing. Getting mad at one’s coworker for driving a short distance is basically being more concerned with aesthetics compared to real action. This is my personal pet peeve, but actually cities are for everyone and no one is obligated to put their safety at risk to ride a bike.

      I have a relative who (rather smugly) bikes everywhere, but flies internationally 5-6 times a year. The environmental impact of biking in that circumstance is negligible against the carbon emissions from the airplanes.

      Picking on individuals for driving to work instead of walking, or for buying lunch once in a while is focusing on the aesthetics of environmentalism over the actual impact–which your colleagues should know, if that’s their field!

    5. Double A*

      I mean, if you drive 3 miles a day… that’s like 60 miles a month. That’s maybe 3 gallons of gas. That’s a few cow farts. You have very good reasons to drive. And if you one some nice days feel like walking or biking, then do it! If you’re feeling like you really need to balance it out, tell them you gave up beef to balance out the few gallons of gas.

    6. WantonSeedStitch*

      While what you’re doing seems an unimaginable luxury to me personally, it’s your car, your parents’ choice to gift you the spot, and your life, and your coworkers should drop it. I think “driving to work is one of the things I’m lucky to be able to do to make my life a little better” is how I would respond, and then change the subject.

    7. Charlotte Lucas*

      I also drive somewhere that I could reasonably walk to. But my morning commute includes driving my SO to a farther away location. And I often bring things that can’t be easily carried or run errands after work. And sometimes I walk.

      I get it, because I live somewhere with extreme temperatures and unreliable public transportation. Nobody but you gets to determine your comfort level in regards to committing to the environment or any worthwhile cause. (And let’s all stop shaming everyday people just trying to live their lives, when there are entire companies/industries/governments who could do so much more to help the environment.)

      1. Chauncy Gardener*

        This. Especially in extreme temps and where biking isn’t safe. I hate to come to work all gross too, FWIW.
        And I think your coworkers are being self righteous and should stop shaming you for living your normal life. As mentioned above, everyone chooses their environmental battles. Folks could rag on me for driving everywhere (not that I have a choice), but I haven’t been on a plane in a decade.

    9. MsM*

      “I’ve heard and understand your feelings on this. I will not be changing my commute. Please put your time and energy into changing the technological and societal conditions that would make it easier for me and everyone else to give up driving rather than continuing to hassle me specifically about this, because it’s only going to leave both of us frustrated.”

      Is your boss and/or HR part of the no-car purity movement? If not, it might be time to talk to them and have them remind your colleagues that good intentions don’t give them the right to police other’s lifestyle choices.

    10. KL*

      Just use this as a good opportunity to learn to live with ignoring people when their judgement doesn’t actually matter. You don’t need to justify your reasons to anyone. You can just give a bland ‘I’ll think about it’ and change the subject.
      On an environmental note, any individual actions won’t make a difference, but many like to pretend otherwise.

    11. Jinni*

      OMG you get to ignore this. I say this as a person who drives a gas-guzzling luxury SUV, though I drive about 3000 miles a year. I fly internationally about 6 times a year. (which is why I don’t drive for months at a time). My main mileage? I drive to the beach to bike. My son’s pediatrician was killed biking to work. I’m not willing to take that risk.

      I know it’s not a great choice and I own that. I have my reasons and they’re no ones business. I live in LA and people make all sorts of judgments that, IMHO, don’t align with what they say is important. This doesn’t change in life in any way as you get older. Keep doing what you’re doing. I have a rule…if you’re not paying my bills, you don’t get a say.

  71. Annoyed Owl*

    In your experience, what happens to things like discipline write ups and PIPs when there is a change in management? Does the new, incoming manager follow up with those? Or are the new managers not informed of them?

    1. Decidedly Me*

      My experience is that they continue through a transition. Past ones are disclosed, as well.

    2. ferrina*

      The new manager is brought up to speed and usually follows through as planned. PIPs are usually heavily documented, so there isn’t much that a new manager would need to do except continue on as planned (HR will also help the new manager navigate the PIP process). Discipline write-ups are usually less of an issues, and the new manager goes through them at their leisure. Some managers put a lot of weight on past discipline write-ups, but most like to get a feel for their people themselves.

      If you are on a PIP and getting a new manager and you want to pass your PIP (no judgement if you decide to put your energy toward job searching instead of the PIP), then proactively reach out to your new manager. Explain what the PIP is for, why it was started and what you’ve been working on, and how you were planning on proceeding. A good PIP is a tool for helping you know exactly what you need to do to get to where you need to be. (of course, all the caveats about certain organizations using PIPs as an inevitable exit and certain managers thinking no one should ever be on a PIP)

    3. Cordelia*

      Yes, the new manager is made aware of the ongoing issues and continues the process, unless the company is highly disorganized. A change in management doesn’t mean the problems leading to the PIP are forgotten—those issues still need to be addressed and resolved.

    4. Guiver*

      In my experience, in a good company where processes work effectively, these things are handed on to the new manager who will oversee their completion. HR are involved and aware and can ensure consistency.

      In a badly managed workplace these things can slip through the cracks during such transitions, which is just another symptom of poor leadership and ineffective procedures. This is a bad thing for all involved.

  72. is the math right ?*

    Is there anyone in the org within the broader umbrella who you can look to for guidance / feedback ? Advantage is that you get visibility / network in case you need to get out.

  73. Alex*

    I guess this is mostly a rant, but I’m so frustrated with management’s habit of sending group emails that scold people for doing something incorrectly instead of addressing shortcomings individually with those who have them. We just received an email (again) which was something along the lines of, “For those who paint llama faces, please be sure to mix the paints at the end of your shift so that there are some ready for the next group. Also, make sure all of the paint trays are back on the paint tray racks.”

    This is not a case where they can’t tell who is not doing what they ask–it is very obvious. But they are so non-confrontational that they only send these mass emails, such that those who are inclined to slack off can easily ignore them and those who don’t slack off feel chastised all the time.

    Managers, don’t do this! It is bad management. It doesn’t address the problems. And it pisses off your good workers.

    This is not the first time, and sometimes we have been punished as a group for some people dropping the ball. It irritates the heck out of me.

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      Has this ever worked anywhere? Unless most of the staff needs a refresher or the reminder is for an uncommon occurrence, in my experience, all that happens is the problem people assume they are fine, some good employees are irritated, and some good employees worry that they’re doing something wrong without realizing it.

      No suggestions, just sympathy.

      1. considerate cad*

        Truly. Has it ever happened that a thoughtless person has read a vague directive addressed to a large group and thought, “hmm, perhaps I should reflect on how I might be complicit in this concern?”

  74. AnnieMouse*

    Does anyone have advice on how to narrow down what job category or job title might fit for a particular position?

    I work for a smallish department in a multinational corporation. The department isn’t what most people think of in relation to the company and what I do isn’t particularly obvious in relation to what the department does. I started out years ago doing data entry and then data clean-up/quality control, working from paper documents. When some projects started going digital, I learned some coding and automation to handle the QC for those, and the automation has since gotten significantly more complex and covers more of the overall process. From the start I’ve been creating my own workflows and then team workflows, since at the time there wasn’t much in the way of official processes. We’re now trying to make my work more official and visible (for a long while it’s been magic that happens in the background), disentangle it from work on specific projects, and get some documentation and backups in place.

    Even internally, the best way I’ve been able to describe it is “knows where the dominos go”. If someone wants to change X, I can tell them they’ll also have to change Y and Z and it’ll make Q a lot more difficult so we probably want to enhance that also. And then either make the changes or work with the appropriate person to make the changes. For the QC processes and increasingly in other areas, I’m generally the one training project teams, answering questions, and troubleshooting.

    …and I have no idea what to call all that. Either in networking/conversation or in the kind of research that gets referenced here. Process management? Workflow something? It’s all learned on the fly, so I’m wary of using a specific title that might suggest knowledge or experience I don’t have.

    Any thoughts on how to approach this or where I could start looking to find something that fits?

    1. Jules the First*

      Where I work that role is titled a Systems/Process Analyst, a Business Analyst, or a Data Quality Controller, if that helps?

  75. Xarajaz*

    I just got out of a (virtual) meeting with a really weird dynamic. I’m in IT and the meeting was with our main software company to talk about a new tool we’re going to start using and how it works. There were two guys from the software company, regular contacts of ours that are involved in a major migration/upgrade project we’re doing with them, and a lady who is an expert in this new tool, and then three including me from our side. The lady spoke pretty much the entire call, but she emphasized over and over that this was a favor to one of the guys on the call, that her boss couldn’t find out, that if we had questions after the call we should filter them through the two guys and she would get back to us, etc. She said that last bit at least five separate times. The odd thing was she told us she’d moved from the team that works on this tool to a new team that deals with education (of customers), so it’s hard to understand why an hour of her time for education on this new tool was such a big deal! Which is probably why she did it, but then why would her boss be mad?

    I thought it was mostly funny but also weird and that I would not want to have to deal with a situation like that myself, and just needed to tell someone!

    1. Rick Tq*

      I will bet her time is billed to customers in her new position, so this was a freebie for her old team.

      Having all your questions filtered thru your primary contacts makes a lot of sense, they can facilitate getting answers from the appropriate source even if she isn’t available.

      1. Xarajaz*

        Ooh billing time, that makes sense. I’ve never been in that position so it didn’t occur to me. This company does have “education” that costs money though so it’s entirely possible. I am not entirely sure how they get away with charging you to learn about how to use the software they are charging you to use, but I suppose it works for Microsoft so why not this company?

    2. Busy Middle Manager*

      She’s trying to prevent that dynamic in software companies where one person ends up taking all of the questions for an entire team. And where upper management at every customer is always calling and emailing one person, ignoring the rest of the team

  76. Mx. Snuffleupagus*

    No question here, just sharing good news: After a 153 applications and 10 first-round interviews (16 interviews total), I got a job offer! I had one a couple months ago that I turned down (it was in an area I was unfamiliar with and I had a bad gut feeling about it), and I was beginning to worry about finding something else, but this job offer actually came with the same sign-on/moving bonus and the pay is a little better (albeit in a higher COL area), and it’s near my hometown which is a big plus. This year has been rough on a professional and personal level and I’m really excited and relieved to finally have a win.

      1. Mx. Snuffleupagus*

        Thank you! (Also, if you had a similar number of applications, congratulations to you, too!)

  77. ecnaseener*

    What entertaining absurdities did work bring you this week? Here’s mine (this took several weeks of course):

    Collaborator: We need an agreement for this. Do you have a template or can we use ours?

    Me: Your template is fine, just tracked one change from X to Not X.

    Them: Ohh that’s not necessary, our language already left the option open for Not X

    Me: uh well it reads like we’d be agreeing to X, so I’m not comfortable signing it. Feel free to propose a change to my Not X wording.

    Them: Ohhh, well, we really can’t change our wording. Do you have a different template we can use?

    Me: Uh, sure……..*renames file, accepts my own tracked changes* Here’s our template, can you sign this?

    Reader, they signed it without complaint. I can only guess at what tortured bureaucracy made that make such a difference to the SAME LANGUAGE.

    2. RagingADHD*

      When I was coordinating a student clinical experience program at a healthcare company, some of my counterparts on the university side were authorized to sign externally generated contracts at their discretion as long as it met certain parameters, but any changes to their own template would have to go back for legal review.

      Wierd, but it happened more than once.

  78. Very Anonymous For This*

    This is probably a weird, niche celebration, but … I just had my end of year meeting with my manager and I got a raise that puts me into the six figure salary range.

    I know that quite a lot of people start out well over six figures and my new salary would be peanuts to them, but I grew up very much not in that environment. I never felt deprived, but now that I’m an adult I do realize that some things I considered normal were definitely indicative of us not having much money.

    I just never thought I’d get here. And I did. And I’m really happy about it.

    1. ecnaseener*

      Congrats!! That’s not weird or niche at all. Median income in the US is still very solidly 5 figures. Be excited!

    3. WantonSeedStitch*

      Congratulations! I felt the same way when I got to that point (which, for what it’s worth, happened something like ten years after I started this job).

    5. Rara Avis*

      I work in a field (education) where 6 figures is a distant pipe dream. Your raise is worth celebrating!

    7. voices carry*

      I know that quite a lot of people start out well over six figures and my new salary would be peanuts to them

      I want to take issue with this. Sure, *some* of people start out at 6 figures, but the average salary in the US is about ~65k/year. And average starting salaries for college grads is around $50. So … you’re making double that. You should celebrate! Over 6 figures at any time puts you definitely in the top 40% of earners, in the US. So, yes, that’s a great accomplishment and celebrate! And, appreciate your luck and hard work to get there.

    9. Chauncy Gardener*

      That is wonderful!! I remember getting there and thinking “Whoa! This is different”
      Congrats!

    11. Pickles*

      Congratulations! It took me 19 years of working in my field to hit that milestone and I am very appreciative every day.

  80. rob m.*

    Does anyone have any idea why jobs keep demanding prior experience? even entry level jobs these days seem to want a full year of experience. maybe this is me being selfish and not knowing it, but one of the jobs I applied to was a mailroom clerk position that wanted a full year of experience. does that feel ridiculous to anyone else?

    1. Chauncy Gardener*

      This is SO STUPID. I actually went slightly viral on LinkedIn a few years ago posting that entry level jobs need to have ZERO experience requirements, unlike the ones my kids had been seeing with FOUR years of relevant experience. What the actual f–k?

  81. Banana Pyjamas*

    If you are a hiring manager or HR person in an organization with AI, this infodump is for you :)

    Debates around the Ethics of AI come up here a lot. Actually, it inspired a group project. I wanted to share some of what the group found. The debates here tend to be very focused on LLMs, which is a bit of a red herring. There are huge ethical implications for AI in the business world, primarily how AI is changing business and its use in hiring.

    – AI is changing the job-scape in a way that is inherently discriminatory by economic status and gender. Read more at the World Economic Forum, “These are the jobs most likely to be lost – and created – because of AI”.

    -AI in applicant tracking systems can increase discrimination by magnifying existing biases. Read more at the ACLU, “Why Amazon’s Automated Hiring Tool Discriminated Against Women”. It starts as a case study, but goes into wider implications.

    In order to use AI ethically for hiring businesses:
    -Must have human oversight for AI systems
    -Must regularly audit AI systems for bias and discrimination.
    -Provide appropriate training to anyone who will use AI.
    -Need to communicate how and why AI is used. 
    -Must allow candidates greater access to ask questions. 
    -Commit to providing reasons for rejections. 
    -Have an appeals process.

    Read more at:
    UNESCO, “Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: The Recommendation”

    U.S. Department of Labor, “Artificial Intelligence And Worker Well-being: Principles And Best Practices For Developers And Employers”

    White House [dot] gov, “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights”

  82. Pizza Friday*

    Too much for a first round interview

    9 interview questions each with 4 sub questions

    Read an article beforehand to discuss during the interview and be able to answer the seven questions in the article.

    Run a database query, in a database you don’t have access to or have ever used, to turn in before the interview so you can discuss it at the interview.

    Interviewing with the chief development officer, chief finance officer and finance manager. Who’s left to meet for the second interview?

    1. glub*

      Unless this is a high level position, this seems like overkill even before factoring in a second (third???) interview.

    2. Banana Pyjamas*

      Not all places do multiple interviews. The query seems odd though, since you really can’t do that without knowing table names and field names.

      1. Pizza Friday*

        It was scheduled as Round 1 interview so I’m going with there’s Round 2.

        And this seems like ‘that kind of org’ they like to do multiple interviews with lots of people who aren’t relevant to your role but b/c their vision is ‘community-driven solutions advancing ‘various’ justices’, everyone has buy into who is hired. Hence the article topic: charitable social justice (which I think we should be working towards but this is an internal database role).

        The db is available on the open market however the db vendor prides itself as ‘the db’ of a nationwide non-profit brand with affiliates. So this db isn’t common for most non-profits ergo them asking for a candidate to create a query for a system most of us haven’t used either means they’re filtering out for only those candidates who have experience with this non-profit name before (which would be on the resume) or they want to see if other candidates can figure out what they’re asking for and translate it to the db/CRM we know.

        1. Banana Pyjamas*

          It’s a bit much anyway. It’s giving big pick me energy from the employer. It also seems a bit much for a first round that isn’t an only round. I think I migh feel differently if the query was a skills test, in a locked-down environment, at the first round.

          Even if you decide it’s not too much, you should consider whether you want to work somewhere where pick me is baked into the culture. What other weird ways will this show up?

          1. Pizza Friday*

            I like your phrase, ‘big pick me energy’ Some non-profit indeed have that vibe and this is a great way to put it. I let two people in my network know that I was interviewing and they said, “You’ll see how interesting they are.” Indeed, they’re starting out that way.

  83. At least I can walk and chew gum*

    How do I get people to stop asking me questions when I’m in meetings?

    I attend a lot of meetings, and note-take at most of them. Note-taking is a hard won skill for me and while I take great notes, it takes a combination of regular follow up with an audiologist, adhd medication,and intense concentration. On top of note-taking, I also facilitate some meetings or portions thereof, so it’s not uncommon for me to be facilitating AND taking notes, which is only manageable in very short stints.

    But there are a handful of people who routinely pepper me with questions while I’m doing this. Sometimes it’s requests for relevant information but often it’s not, or could easily wait until later, be answered by someone else, or is readily available in, for example, the carefully drafted agenda I sent out to everyone ahead of time and that has everything Right There.

    I try answering as many requests as I can, but it breaks my concentration when I’m presenting and probably makes me seem very scattered or unprepared. I can set my Teams chat function to do not disturb which filters out some, but that doesn’t work with zoom. I also don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater and miss questions that are relevant to the things I’m presenting.

    I’m starting to feel like human google, but on a dial up connection.

    1. Pocket Mouse*

      Are these people in the meeting asking questions? Are they interrupting or using the chat?

      I’m assuming people in the meeting and chat, in which case: try ignoring the chat until you come to a Q&A point (schedule one if you have to) then say out loud you’re going to review questions from the chat that you missed while presenting. You can even say at the beginning that this is what you’ll do to make sure you are able to stay focused while still answering everyone’s questions.

      1. At least I can walk and chew gum*

        Yes, these people are also in the meetings and usually use the private chat function which means others can’t readily step in to assist.

        I like the idea of being more intentional about naming break points to review the chat, I feel like maybe I’ve been expecting myself to just… handle it, even if that’s not a realistic expectation for even the people I perceive as being more capable.

    2. Reba*

      If you’re running the meeting, hold questions for designated times in your presentation or agenda. This is absolutely manageable if you (re)set attendees’ expectations.

      Around here when someone is presenting more formally, usually someone else has the job of watching the chat and calling on people etc. could you ask for this support?

      Also. I wonder if not taking notes and being more “present” would actually make you more effective? and maybe also feel better? I was talking about this with a colleague recently who said she used to always take great notes but now, as long as someone is capturing some info somewhere , she feels she gets more value by having more capacity to interact in the meeting itself.

      It sounds like note taking is hard for you, but perhaps there is someone on your team for whom it’s less of a burden, and you could pass on your note requirements and tips.

      1. At least I can walk and chew gum*

        Note taking is a core function of my job, so as much as I’d enjoy being able to take a more active participation role that’s not within the scope of my position. The facilitation has been slowly creeping in over time, and I think it’s been so gradual that I haven’t taken a step back to consider how I’d handle it if I was actively planning for facilitation.

        1. Reba*

          re: facilitation, yes it’s real work! My department has a lot of meetings where no one acts like they are in charge. It drives me batty. I think people will appreciate if you give clear signals for how the meeting should go and the best way to share and discuss the info you have to get through.

  84. Jaya*

    So I start part-time work Monday. And… I am a bundle of nerves. It’s my first time working in six months, and I feel burned by how I lost my job before even if this is a new set of skills, a completely different field, and public rather than corporate. I’m trying my best to prepare appropriately and taking advice from a friend who works in the same field. But this whole year has been bad luck, and I don’t want bad luck to affect this new workplace.
    I’ve never been this anxious before when starting a new job after a pause. Has anyone else suffered this?

    1. Analytical Tree Hugger*

      This reminds me a bit of when I was starting a new job after having been at my previous employer for about 8 years. Went from being a known expert to being seen as a useless newbie.

      Advice I would give my past self: Use the method from the Stoics by listing all my anxieties of what could go wrong, then come up with a plan for how to deal with each scenario. Eventually, you’ll run out of scenarios and anxiety, but you’ll have an outlet if it comes up again.

    2. Chauncy Gardener*

      Agree with the above and also, try to visualize success! And I’m not some pollyanna-ish person, but if I try to look forward and see positive outcomes, I tend to have more success than trying to mitigate potential negative outcomes.
      Good luck!!

  85. Dinner Costs How Much?!*

    Am I stuck paying more than my fair share for our department holiday dinner?

    I am the most junior faculty member in an academic department of 25 people (21 faculty, 4 staff). I just joined the faculty 2 years ago and I don’t have tenure.

    Every year, a different senior faculty member organizes a holiday dinner for us all at a high-end restaurant. It’s a lovely evening — but it’s not cheap. I was told in advance that the faculty picks up the tab for the staff members, which is appropriate.

    For medical reasons, I don’t eat much. Last year, I ordered one modest drink and a small entrée, and I was very happy. My bill came to $50 plus tax/tip (which is indeed modest for this restaurant). Meanwhile, some of my colleagues were ordering 3 and 4 drinks with top-shelf liquor, along with $70 steaks + appetizers + dessert. It would be physically impossible for me to indulge in that way, but it didn’t bother me that they were enjoying themselves.

    I expected to hand over my credit card and tell them to bill me about $65 + about $25 for my share of the staff dinners. Instead, the person in charge collected all faculty members’ credit cards and told the restaurant to split the tab evenly. My bill was $240.

    Ouch.

    The same dinner is coming up next week. At the same restaurant. Do I just suck it up, knowing I will be stuck paying $150 for food I won’t eat, when my colleagues all make waaay more than I do? (Because I am junior and non-tenured and I don’t want to jeopardize my position or come across as a spoilsport. And I like these people, and cost aside, it is a lovely evening each year.)

    Or is there any way to not get stuck w/ this massive bill? Is there a way to thread this needle?

    I know I’m posting late, but appreciate any thoughts!

    2. Anon4This*

      Could you volunteer to collect cards or payments and work out the tab? It’s more work, but that way you could have more control over what you contribute.

      1. A Significant Tree*

        If you can’t do this, could you ask the waitstaff directly about getting a separate bill? It’s possible they won’t provide separate tabs for everyone at the dinner, especially if everyone appears to be sharing apps and desserts and bottles. But they may be able to make an exception if you explain the situation ahead of time.

        Another option is to eat at home first, then time it so you can grab a drink at the bar and join the party after they’ve ordered. It sounds like one of those dinners that lasts for a while so you’d still get the socializing part but without the outsized bill.

    3. Pocket Mouse*

      Ouch indeed. At the very least, the calculation should be your own dinner plus one-faculty nth of the staff members’ total… but that’s a lot of math to do tableside, so it probably won’t happen. Maybe a quick conversation to the person in charge would clarify how it’ll work this year, and you can proceed with that info? You can definitely frame it as “I am on board with picking up the tab for staff, but I was surprised to be expected to cover a share of senior faculty members’ meals as well. Asking junior faculty to do that doesn’t make sense to me, so I want to check on how it will work this year.” Key points: surprise, point out lack of fairness, opening to do it differently this year

      If you have a suggestion for how it can be done in a more equitable but still feasible way, it would be good to bring that to the conversation – otherwise the person in charge may not out in the effort to generate a workable idea themselves.

  86. Over the drama*

    Has anyone ever had to request a meeting with admin over a coworker’s rude behavior? Their behavior doesn’t cross into hostile work environment territory, but it’s definitely uncomfortable.

  87. Fried CC Prof*

    Hey.
    does anyone have any good tips to relieve burnout? Particularly cheap/free ideas! LOL.

    1. Analytical Tree Hugger*

      Recently, Alison wrote a post about this titled “this one weird trick cured my burn-out” (you can find it on this site by typing the title in the site’s search). If you didn’t read it, give it a look.

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