Ask a Manager

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. Employee is chewing tobacco at his desk and in meetings (#3 at the link)

The advice did help!

I had to reinforce the policy before getting your advice, and I don’t think I was assertive enough since I did notice he was still doing it, but only at his desk. When addressing the issue the second time, I took your advice and told him straight, “You can’t do that on company property, only at the designated space and during break time.” This time, it worked, as I haven’t witnessed it since!

This employee has a different personality, almost teenager-like. He doesn’t seem truly interested in growing and learning, but he still asks how he can get more money. I have tried to follow the standard leadership routines to get him somewhat motivated: meeting with him weekly for 30 minutes, meeting monthly for 1 hour for feedback and goal reviews, talking about career aspirations, taking the team to lunch for birthdays, etc.

I’m not sure if sometimes you just can’t create the connection and must deal with the non-motivation. (He always has an excuse to work from home when he should be working in the office: back pain, moving, cold, headache, etc.; forwarding me requests without really looking into them first.)

Thank you again for all you do! Your advice is greatly appreciated!

2. Contacting kids of family friends about career opportunities

I’m finally heeding the update call since my question popped up again in the Inc. archives refresh!

So. A day or so after I called and got laughed at and hung up on (and wrote into AAM), my friend emailed me in a panic saying that she had sent me the wrong number by one digit. Ahh! Ahahahaha! Makes so much more sense now! (Though I wish I knew who I’d ended up calling instead …)

After that, I emailed her son the details, per Alison’s suggestion. He thanked me and then proceeded to forge his own path as a thriving software engineer.

In the spirit of learning from AAM, I haven’t done any cold calls or sent any unsolicited career leads to friends’ kids since.

However … though it wasn’t a useful career lead for my friend’s son (or for the stranger I totally did robocall), it ended up being a super fruitful path for me. Turns out, I was fired up because I would’ve wanted the opportunity myself. A year later, that chance popped up. I’ve since co-authored a book with the founder of the college grad program and helped him launch a company to help those advancing social justice and care/support for others here and around the globe. He’s been by far the best boss I’ve ever worked for. I still can’t believe my luck.

Anyway, I hope you’re well. I’m forever grateful to you for continuing to be a voice of reason during these 9+ years of @&!?.

3. My old high school started a mentoring program and it sucks (#3 at the link)

Ultimately, I did not opt out of the program. Whether or not my message to Alan had anything to do with it, I at least stopped receiving messages from Alan asking me and dozens of alum on a CC line to do the labor of reaching out to students. I only received messages directly from students and alum who were interested in talking to me. Of course, Alan still posts on this site and uses some kind of tagging mechanic to invite every alum to every event they’re hosting, even if it’s not in my geographic area or my field. So I get tons of email that I frankly consider barely better than spam from this program. So, good job making the people you’re asking favors of do the labor of weeding through the email to figure out if the latest message is an invitation to the Llama Grooming Meetup in Antartica, or a kid who had enough courage to ask for mentorship.

But fast forward to … literally the day you emailed me asking for an update, and I received an email from Alan, asking me to contact a high school alumni who is a COLLEGE GRADUATE to talk to them about attending a graduate program in my field. I simply responded that I’m happy to talk to the student or any other student, but I prefer to let students reach out to me if they’re interested in talking to me. I don’t know that’s it’s my duty to correct Alan, and I don’t know that it would help. So … the program still sucks. But I feel reluctant to penalize kids who may or may not want to get into a challenging field just because the management of this program sucks.

4. Coworker talks about his religion all the time

God is real! My physical relocation inside the office took longer than expected due to some hiring hiccups, then the religious dudebro left the company within days of me moving into my new space. Sorry it’s not very climactic, but it could not have been more exciting for me personally! And he left of his own volition, so I felt zero guilt for internally celebrating his departure. Thank you again for answering my question, but it resolved itself before I needed to implement your advice!

5. What to do when peers constantly miss scheduled meetings (#2 at the link)

Way back in 2013, you answered a question about colleagues missing meetings and failing to provide information I needed to do my job. You and the commenters had excellent tips, but the problem boiled down to working in a dysfunctional organization that prided itself on being a big family, with gossip, black sheep, skeletons in the closet, and all. I couldn’t get information and I was criticized for moving forward with my best guesses. Millions of dollars were on the line for projects that helped students and underserved community members. My writing was used as a model by one of our federal funders.

Things got much, much worse. The new manager I mentioned in the comments had been the fifth choice for that position. She did not understand my job. She put me on a PIP with no end date and no measurable outcomes or changes. She pulled up the job description I HAD WRITTEN as evidence that I had been failing, although a previous manager documented how well I’d met all the objectives. Etc. I’d been told my communication was too terse, with no examples, and then commanded to survey everyone I’d worked with on projects. Fortunately, their responses were glowing. I asked for HR mediation with my manager, and we were told we just had different communication styles and to maybe take a Myers-Briggs or something.

I had been unhappy for some time and tired of the work itself, but I had no idea what I wanted to do. Then a close family member nearly died in front of me, and I thought about the idea of working in health care. I toughed it out at the organization on the never-ending PIP and tried to fund a few crucial projects dear to me. I also used my tuition benefits and took as many science classes as I could. Ironically, I was able to take a class for free that had been funded by my own grant a few years prior, and that set me up to (eventually) refuse to sign a horrific contract. I was begged and courted to stay on for one more multi-million dollar project, although I wanted to be done. I agonized over whether to take it on. When I reluctantly got back to them with a timeline and high but fair consulting fee, I was told they’d decided to go with someone else (my stomach had been in knots thinking about doing it). Before I left, I tried to schedule time to hand off my work for weeks. Just as I was walking out, box in hand, the person who would be managing it showed up. I told the terrible manager that I hope she appreciated what I’d been talking about.

After more hard work and harder classes, I was accepted into a competitive PA school, and I’ve been working in medicine for almost five years. I love my specialty and the people I get to work with. Thanks to the ordeal, I have a much more realistic view of organizational and systemic problems as well as understanding of what I can change and what is worth changing my own situation for.