updates: boss says parents can’t be good at their jobs, how to get coworkers to actually help, and more

by Alison Green on December 19, 2024

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

1. My boss says people can’t be good at their jobs if they have kids or sick relatives

I’m still at the job. I think part of the issue was that Aria was really overworked and stressed out and I was coming off as too blase. She’s since come to trust that I actually know what I am doing and get stuff done so I had a good annual review and we get along. We also hired more staff for our team, so she has more support. I’ve been pretty firm with my boundaries and allowing my reports to prioritize their health and family when needed. I’ve also taken time off for family emergencies, unapologetically, even missing important meetings to do so. It was a rocky start but things are manageable now and I’ve learned I need to present as more serious moving forward. I am looking for a new job that will allow me to prioritize my family more, the job market is tight in my field so that might take another year or two.

Thanks for publishing my letter and to the commenters who correctly noted that it wasn’t a great environment and that I also might be giving off flaky vibes.

2. How do I ask for things and get people to actually help me (as a manager and as a volunteer)?

I have to report mixed results. First, thank you to you and your readers for your comments. I had read the post, and spent a long time reading all of the comments. Thank you to all of you who took the time to respond. I wasn’t able to respond in the comments in the way that I wanted, but I did read them all. Something that I had mentioned to Alison afterwords, but didn’t put in my initial question, is that I am a Black woman, and I wondered how much of my inability to get help from people was due to my communication style, and how much wasn’t. I know that it’s both.

Some things have changed, and some have stayed the same. I have taken from Alison and the commentariat to be specific in my requests for help. In my work, I continue to find that while the people who report to me lend a hand, the same does not extend to my direct manager nor the people who are at the same level as me. However, a new person joined our team this year, and he has been great about helping me. For example, I asked my same level colleagues to please help me with a specific, time-sensitive task (for example: “these teapots need to be glazed, and there’s no one available to do it. I need you to join me on Tuesday at noon to get them glazed, as they are being fired on Wednesday morning. It should take about 10 minutes to get the teapots painted”). No one responded to my messages, but he showed up to help paint the pots. I’m hoping that this help will continue. Unfortunately, I have learned that I will simply not get the help from the rest of my colleagues, but have learned who in other locations I can reach out to for help or advice.

As for my board, the lack of willingness to help is part of a larger issue that we see with a lack of engagement by the board members. That is something that we have been trying to work on with the members. I did find out that one of the reasons that people didn’t respond to my message asking for help with fundraising is because they couldn’t access the link (not because it was sent on a Friday — it’s a volunteer board, and I can’t send messages during the work day). Again, I have been working on being specific about what help I need. This year, I was clear that I couldn’t help with fundraising, and could only do one specific task, and let everyone else be responsible for the other things. I also exit-counselled one of our board members off the board (after she stopped taking minutes, tone policed me after I called her on it, then stopped attending meetings) and found new board members. I decided that last year was going to be my final year as chair and recently stepped down. This is my final year on the board, and I will move on to new opportunities.

I will continue to work on clear, specific requests for help, and hope that things get better.

3. My coworker announced she’s quitting and now is upset that she wasn’t invited to a conference (#3 at the link)

So, our coworker did not move out of state to be with her boyfriend immediately and actually moved only a week ago (10 months later) because her job search was so difficult. In the meantime, she actually did go to the conference!

From information I didn’t have at the time (but now know) is that other staff who were chosen for the conference were also planning on quitting sooner than her but for graduate school. My boss at the time equated their departures for graduate school as more worthy of professional development than her departure … which frankly was completely unfair. She brought this up and he agreed and rectified it by giving her his place at the conference. All was done right by Helga.

Since then there were some major changes on our team. Our boss moved into a new position in a different group as part of a promotion and I was placed into an interim supervisor role for my group. To hopefully ease some of the frustrations people had with this situation I’ve been more transparent in getting people more equal access to conferences and making sure they know which ones are on our radar so they can be better informed ahead of time and decide based on personal lives what will work best for them. I recently sent out a big list to employees which conferences we can go to and all the details — then I had them send back a ranked list of ones they could attend and were most interested in. I think overall everyone appreciates being able to choose and figure out what works for their life better even if they know they won’t be able to go to more than one or so in a year. And to Allison’s advice also not give off a perceived preference towards people on who ends up going or not.

4. Coworker’s office is gun-themed (#2 at the link)

I loved reading the comments and discussion on this topic. Home office decor is highly personal, and with that thought, I decided to not say anything (and, the co-worker in question was assigned to a different project and we didn’t have many meetings together). However, in the last month our work got closer again – and now this co-worker uses an aggressive background blur. So although I didn’t say anything to him in the end, I imagine someone else did.

5. Is this too many interviews? (#3 at the link)

Thank you for answering my question. Commenters clearly have very strong feelings about the interview process! Lots of speculation but I assure all that this was very much an entry level role and we’re not trying to sneakily underpay a mid-level. We hired someone fresh out of university with a few internships under their belt.

For context, my hiring process was happening in the midst of a wider organizational rejig of the hiring process so there was not a lot of up to date guidance. My team is small and retention on it is high, but this is the first entry level we’ve hired for in several years and was trying to avoid some pitfalls I saw on other teams and ended up trying to over engineer slightly.

After I flagged candidates from review of CV/cover letters, I did round one interviews with six people with a colleague and moved 3 candidates to a written skills assessment (short, discussed in interview, explicitly designed to take 30 minutes, really important for the role). That actually cut down our field to one person, so was a really useful tool! I still had the candidate meet with the ED as the hire would partially support him (20% of role) and thought it was important for the candidate to have the chance to connect before the role started given that they would be working together. The new hire has been in the role for five months and is doing very well and looking forward to supporting his further growth in the role and wider team.

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{ 23 comments }

{ 23 comments… read them below }

    1. Guinea pig in winter*

      LW 2: have you tried contacting your coworkers individually? you’re still working from an”ask the group” perspective rather than going directly to each person you’d like assistance from as suggested by Alison in her response to your first letter. While I personally wouldn’t give all the context in my first ask (I’d save my breath for a follow up if I get crickets), I also never have a problem getting the help I need. So let’s say you sent that email Mon morning. by 3pm Mon afternoon, I’d start popping by desks or sending team’s messages to each individual privately until I get enough responses. Then you can also tailor your message to who they are, rather than being spam-y in your general plea for help. Though from the tone of your update, it sounds like there’s History with your established colleagues and maybe a little bit of bad blood?

      The other thing that hasn’t come up is: how helpful are you? Probably super helpful given your personal voluntary work, but people like to be there for the person who is always helpful and responsive, not so much for the person who is always asking and taking help but too busy to help in return.

      If all else fails, add “I’ll bring in cookies for the teapot painting party!”

  2. Perihelion*

    I find 2 a little confusing. If I need something from a client or coworker and they won’t get back to me, I follow up and escalate as needed until they do. And I’m not even a manager. OP2 is still framing this as asking for help rather than telling people what they need to do.

    1. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

      She may be framing it that way, but saying “I need you to do this task on this day at this time” is telling people what they need to do. In fact, that example gave me pause because to me it swings the opposite direction into being demanding/too much like an order, but maybe that’s normal for her office. I’ve worked in offices where that would have caused my coworkers to be really mad at me for not being “nice” enough.

      I’m assuming that she is mirroring how her peers speak, they all help each other, but when it comes to LW, they don’t help. Are all the colleagues white men? Because they might see any woman, much less a Black woman, as “too pushy” when she’s just doing the same thing they are. I’m glad the new person helps out though. Thanks for the update, OP.

      1. Hula-la*

        OP here. Thank you, as that’s exactly my issue, when peers ask for help in the same manner, they receive help, but when I ask, I don’t. What’s interesting is that when I ask for help from the people who report to me, I get all sorts of help (and I’m very intentional in letting them know that they are not required to help, and I will never hold it against them if they say no). But, I will keep working on being direct and intentional with my requests for help.

        2. Dido*

          I think it’s pretty obvious that your direct reports would go out of their way to help you compared to peers, at the end of the day it doesn’t sound like there’s any consequences to your peers for not helping and some people will never bother if they don’t have to

      2. Adam*

        Yeah, I agree. In every work environment I’ve ever been in, that wouldn’t be an appropriate way to ask a peer for help (though it would be a totally fine way to assign work to your reports), and people generally wouldn’t respond well to it. If that’s the case, I would expect what the OP is seeing: reports do what was instructed, but peers don’t.

        If that’s normal language in the OP’s workplace, then it makes sense to use that approach (and the lack of response may well be due to race or gender issues), but it’d be worth double-checking if others are phrasing things differently and that accounts for the difference (or at least, some of it).

        1. Perihelion*

          I don’t see a problem with that email. Commenters like myself told OP to be more direct but clearly there’s no winning here.

  3. Required*

    With respect to LW1, where does it come off as being “flaky” in the original letter? It seems like the LW is just making excuses for their boss’s actions.

    1. Nah*

      Yeah, I’m not really seeing the good in LW’s boss here. The original letter even says she got rid of an employee for having a kid and also (seemingly) being disabled (or at least sick). It feels like I’m really missing something here, ngl. Was there added context in the comments that would give off that impression?

      1. Hlao-roo*

        FWIW I’m not reading this update as particularly positive about Aria (the LW’s boss). I think the update is mostly saying “Aria has made some changes that make working for her more bearable (for me) and I have made some changes that make working for Aria more bearable (for me). I am still looking for a job with better work/life balance.”

    2. Hlao-roo*

      I think that part of the update might be a response to a comment made on the original post made by Purple Halo (posted August 10, 2023 at 6:29 am). The comment reads (in part):

      But I do want to ask – is Aria right?

      There definitely are jobs where someone who prioritises family while at home will not be that successful. For some jobs – success does mean putting the job always first. Coming in at short notice, long days and long weeks. A lot of travel. No long holidays etc. I’m not interested in that lifestyle (I don’t have little ones – so it’s not that I can’t, I just don’t want to). But I recognise that I am limiting my advancement in my industry by taking that balance, and I am ruling myself out of other roles completely to do so. If you are in a toxic industry that prides itself on overwork and burnout – it is very hard to stand against that.

      …

      I think it is important to consider – is your boss just being unreasonable? Or is it that, given the roles people have, and the number of people in the team, that these absences are collectively excessive? Even a well staffed team will run into problems if everyone needs to use their sick/carers/cultural/etc leave in the same month.

      1. LW 1*

        Yes, I was responding to some of the comments that noted I might be giving off flaky vibes.

        Hlao-roo is right – the job is bearable now, not awesome, and my hope is that a better opportunity will come up in the new year.

        1. rebelwithmouseyhair*

          ToxicBoss1 was furious that I refused to bump up my hours to work full-time when he asked me to. When I first interviewed there, he was advertising for a part-time position, with the understanding that if the workload increased, it would be bumped up to full-time. However, the workload was very variable, and there were plenty of freelancers we could send work too. To work full-time, I would have needed to pay for more childcare, and I would probably move up a tax bracket too, so I wouldn’t any difference in the actual amount of money left over once I ‘d paid for the childcare and the cleaner and the taxes. He couldn’t force me to work full-time and he couldn’t fire me for refusing to change my contract.

          Ironically, I was more productive than my full-time overtime-working colleagues. Not just on an hourly basis either. I got more work done in six hours than they got done in ten. Somehow the boss couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that a decent work-life balance makes you more productive.

  4. Generic Name*

    No. 2) I really sympathize with you. My last company was terrible about this. For whatever reason, getting field staff to actually do fieldwork for me was almost impossible. I wasn’t the only one who had this issue. I think part of it was a company culture that centered the clients needs so if a client wanted fieldwork done on day X, you moved heaven and earth to do exactly what the client wanted, when they wanted. And I think another part was that I, personally, just was not respected at that company. So after I joined my new company, imagine my surprise when I sent out my first email asking for someone to help me with a project task that I got several enthusiastic replies, and I had several volunteers to choose from. Every time I’ve needed folks to pitch in, I have the support I need, and it feels amazing. So while I do think it is good to be specific about exactly what your ask is, it could just be the culture at your particular company (and maybe even the volunteer board) isn’t supportive.

  5. Jenesis*

    I missed the original thread at #4, but as someone who lives with a person who doesn’t normally WFH, but has gun crap in his home office because it’s the only place he can put it where it won’t intrude into the shared spaces in the house – aggressive blurring is the way to go.

      2. Arrietty*

        I use Google Meet, which gives me the option of gently fuzzy, or sucked into the endless void of nothingness. I usually go for the latter, because I am untidy.

  6. Jules the 3rd*

    OP2: I have found that general ‘anyone who can help show up at x time’ messages are usually ignored. What can help is asking one or two specific people who would have the skills you need, and then rotate who you ask each time. “Hey Donnie and Marie, do you have an hour to do x with me, to help get Y order out?” Then next time ask Fred and Thelma. As long as you spread the requests around, it should be ok.
    Good luck.

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