updates: interviewer said my reading tastes were pretentious, problem employee lashed out at me, and more

by Alison Green on December 5, 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 four updates from past letter-writers.

1. Employer rejected me, then sent a list of everything I did wrong

Three or so years ago, I emailed you concerned about an interviewer who had sent me feedback for a job I didn’t get, including saying I lacked passion and some other stuff. (I was the one whose favorite book was Les Miserables and he said I was pretentious.)

As many commenters guessed, he WAS trying to hit on me in a negging sort of way. He later tried to ask me out via LinkedIn DMs. Needless to say, it did not work.

It took a while, and many other unsuccessful interviews (none of which were as rough as that one) but I eventually found a job in a field I had never considered, where I could put my writing skills to work with much less of a “bro culture” compared to writing for stocks/finances. I’m still in the job, got a huge promotion this year, and have even written articles about how great of a book Les Miserables is. It’s still my favorite and I still reread it regularly!

What prompted me to think of sending you an update is this: I recently as part of my job interviewed a long-time idol of mine, a celebrity I have looked up to for years, and he said to me at the end of the interview, apropos of nothing, that he had read some of my previous work and could tell how passionate I was about my writing and that he was so happy to be interviewed by someone so passionate about their work.

As for Mr. Interview Feedback, no idea how he’s doing, and no desire to know — but I’m in my dream job and happier than I ever thought I could be.

Thank you again for all of your advice.

2. Problem employee lashed out at me (#2 at the link)

The employee was laid off about a year after my email. He was very low-performing in hindsight, but I had very little to compare to at the time, him having been my first direct report. My boss several months later asked me if I thought he should be laid off, I said yes, and after a period given to the employee to job search while still employed (unsuccessfully), he was. (I believe he found a job within a year, but I think it was possibly a little lower level.)

It was somewhat of a shock to get your note that I wasn’t managing this person. It’s probably true that I wasn’t giving him strong enough feedback. But I did give him a LOT of coaching in work-related subjects, thus my shock. The loads of coaching didn’t help enough, though I sometimes wonder if it helped them later on with other jobs. In hindsight, your advice to manage more makes sense to me. Once I started giving stronger feedback, he reacted as you could have expected. One comment I remember is that he said, “You can’t compare me to twenty-something geniuses” after a comment I made that his performance was not measuring up to other (similarly compensated) analysts.

3. How to explain a family crisis to very demanding clients (#3 at the link)

I wrote in earlier this year wondering how to handle my emotionally needy clients’ reactions when I needed to be out-of-office sporadically while caring for a sick relative. Alison provided a great script, and the commentariat had a lot of helpful insight … and speculation on what, exactly, I was doing for work, where clients wouldn’t take “family emergency” for an answer.

I’ll get the sadder news out of the way first: I had to use this advice quite a bit, as my relative’s health declined and they passed away earlier this year. That said, I was shocked by how easy it was to deal with most clients, even the “needy” ones. I was massively overthinking this. I used Alison’s script almost word for word, but one commenter mentioned that these kinds of messages always felt “cold” to them, and I knew some of my clients would feel the same way. So for them, I’d start with “I wanted you to know,” so it felt more personal, before launching into the script. I’d end the messages with “… Since I’m back, I’m trying to get a bit ahead of schedule, so I know things are on track if I need to be away again.” And then I’d pivot into what I needed to keep their projects moving. I was anticipating a lot of responses hoping to help somehow, so framing “don’t ask questions and let me do my job” as a favor to me was wildly effective.

As for my industry: The folks who suggested editing and publishing were the closest. A lot of those comments were relatable! The thread about dogs texting their groomers also made me laugh during a tough time. Really, though, I build websites for a firm with a reputation for handling niche projects well. I have the technical skill to build the sites, but my main skills are organizing complex or confusing information and managing difficult personalities, so I get assigned our most unusual stuff. Much of what I do day-to-day is boring (ask me about my gravel database!) but I also have clients who are small nonprofits doing work they’re very emotionally invested in, or even individuals pursuing passion projects that I often compare to ghostwriting memoirs. These clients often share tons of really personal experiences to contextualize why certain things are so important to them. I’m translating people’s most dearly-held ideas, or beliefs, or experiences out of “thought” and into a format that other people can understand. There can be SO MUCH VULNERABILITY involved in sharing these thoughts and experiences, often for the first time, and a lot of anxiety about being misunderstood. Most projects are pretty creative in nature, and if you’ve ever nervously shared a creative endeavor of your own, you may know the fluttery, anxious, exposed feelings my clients experience. I’ve found that quick responses with reassurance and positive feedback help build the confidence they need to keep moving forward (so I can meet my deadlines.) The downside is that if I don’t respond as quickly as usual, the doubt sets in, and the whole project can grind to a halt until clients feel, emotionally, like they’re ready to move forward.

As a result, I had made managing clients’ feelings a key part of how I manage their projects … which was effective when I could do it, but clearly not sustainable. The last few months have made me realize that most of my “borderline” needy clients are taking their cues from me. If I treat them like they’re going to be unreasonable, they’ll be unreasonable. But if I simply expect them to manage their own feelings and get me what the project needs, most of them will do it. This worked wonderfully for the group I was most worried about in my initial letter: a community of nuns whose archives I’ve been digitizing. They’re notoriously particular and a little bit nosy, and were taking my slower emails very personally. But when I sent them the script, they just added my family to their prayer list and relaxed. A few clients were clearly upset that I wasn’t sharing more, and one in particular reached out to my boss to ask for more details, because they “found it hard to be open with me when they knew I was hiding things.” The advice here really galvanized me against these clients’ pushiness, though. If they want to be upset, that’s their business. My business is getting their projects done.

And to answer Alison’s question: I don’t think this is common behavior from clients in my industry. My company tends to attract (or, rather, tolerate) needy clientele more than others. Many clients come to us when other firms drop them. Historically, I’ve been good at keeping even the neediest clients feeling secure, so the neediest of them get assigned to me. I used to wear that like a badge of honor. Now? I’m not so sure.

4. I know who’s unvaccinated because of my job — can I use that info to make personal decisions? (#2 at the link)

Thank you for answering my question earlier this year about how to handle information at work that relates to my personal life/health. I decided you were ultimately right about needing to use a polite fiction that I did not know their kids weren’t vaccinated. I just told the families that we were “busy” any time they invited my kids somewhere. The wild cards in the situation were my kids themselves who are old enough to figure out something was up when we were not actually busy the day of the event we skipped.

Anyway, baby is here and healthy and on his way to being fully vaccinated!

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{ 96 comments }

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  1. HiddenT*

    Negging someone because you sat in on their job interview… I know it’s way too late now and probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference, but I wish you’d reached out to the primary interviewer and expressed confusion and dismay over that guy’s email. I hope someone else did and he got fired over it.

    1. duinath*

      It would have been especially nice to send the original negging email along with a screenshot of the linkedin proposition.

      Ah, dreams.

      2. Chick-n-boots*

        This 100%. I went back and reread the original letter and that was my most sincere hope – that the LW shared his “feedback” (and the later DM’s asking her out!) with the HR team. What a tool that guy was (is?).

        LW1 we need an update to the update! Did you ever share his message with anyone else from his company?

      3. LW1*

        I absolutely did report him, but unfortunately never heard anything one way or the other, so I don’t know if he was fired or reprimanded or anything. At the suggestion of my therapist, I did a “block and move on” – blocked his email address and made sure I wasn’t Connected on LinkedIn with him or anyone related to the company, so I sadly don’t have a more detailed update in that area, although I do feel that the primary interviewer’s silence when I contacted him about the other man’s behavior does speak volumes.

        I have an absolute winner of a story though whenever the topic of “what’s the weirdest way you were hit on / asked out” comes up though. Not much can top “asked if you wanted to get coffee and learn more about stocks via LinkedIn of all sites.”

        The place I am in life now and level of contentment with my job and life is somewhere I never imagined though, especially at the low place in life I was when I sent my initial letter to Allison, so hopefully y’all are ok with my happy ending in lieu of anything concrete happening re: Mr. Interviewer being punished/fired.

        2. duinath*

          Sounds to me you did everything right and the rest is out of your hands.

          And yes, we will take your happy ending and be grateful for it. Well done!

      1. Sloanicota*

        Ha when I saw this update and went back to check the comments for my old user name and yep, there I am saying this is probably a guy trying to get an opening to ask out OP. The reason I said it is the same reason as in the advice; it’s weird that she never had any exchange with him before this, yet he looked up her contact info from her application and reached out to her privately. That’s just a shady move to start.

        1. Irish Teacher.*

          Yeah, who would think that being rude and obnoxious to somebody would make them want to go out with you? Like clearly there are people who DO, but I just wonder what is going through their mind. Especially since the part about the favourite book sounds like he is threatened by her.

          1. Chick-n-boots*

            It’s how guys like that think and operate. Because they think they are the absolute sh*t, they think that this kind of negging behavior will play on the insecurities of a woman they find attractive, and will make her seek their approval, thus reinforcing their overblown sense of greatness. Sadly, there are some women this works on (thanks patriarchy!) but for a lot of women it’s just gross and off-putting.

            1. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

              I think for those guys, it works both ways–it screens out women who will expect decency and leave them with women they can mistreat.

              1. MigraineMonth*

                Yeah, this is an important point. “Pick up artists” don’t want to waste their time on women with self confidence and strong boundaries, because it’s much harder to coerce those women into immediately having sex with them in the way they choose.

                The fact that a lot of their techniques (negging, compliance testing) will piss off women with self confidence and strong boundaries is a feature, not a bug.

            2. Hannah Lee*

              Because they think they are the absolute sh*t, they think that this kind of negging behavior will play on the insecurities of a woman they find attractive, and will make her seek their approval, thus reinforcing their overblown sense of greatness.

              If you drop the “the” from that first sentence, it explains the entirety of the rest of the sentence. It is such an awful awful tactic and mindset.

              The first time it happened to me, I was just baffled … like what? I just met you, why are you being mean and insulting me and then kind of flirty. Mean + Insulting is not a combo that makes people attractive, interesting; it makes them people I want to never be in the company of again.

    3. boof*

      Yeah my skin’s just crawling; how does anyone actually think this is a good idea? Negging women at job interviews… don’t answer that please. Hate to think what he’s like to anyone who actually has the misfortune of dating them.

        1. Selina Luna*

          Exactly. I hate that negging is taught as a valid way to get attention. I hate even more that it probably works sometimes-not often, but often enough to convince users that it’s valid.

      4. Crencestre*

        He sounds like the kind of guy who could make some nice young woman very happy by staying a bachelor for the rest of his life!

        But seriously…who on earth thinks that sneering at someone’s reading choices and telling them repeatedly that they have no passion is a great way to get a date?!

        1. Bird names*

          Massively overinflated ego? Having it reinforced by buddies or online?Doesn’t even bother to consider his approach, because he is obviously so great?
          If you can completely chuck your consideration of other people’s feelings out of the window I’m sure it seems like a perfectly viable approach to life.

  2. Ping*

    Update 3 hits somewhat close to home. I’ve prided myself on being the fixer, the one who can get done what other people can’t. But I’ve come to realize that I’m actually acting out my childhood role of trying to fix my broken family. And I have ended up burned out and unhappy from having just the sort of success at work as I had with the family. You can’t fix people who don’t want to be fixed, especially when it’s not your job to be their therapist.

    I’m working on building a healthier relationship to my job. I like being a good employee, I like fixing problems, but I am not going to burn myself out trying to fix our relationship with the client. That may eventually lead to me finding a different job, but for now I’m just focusing on finding my boundaries so I can enforce them.

    Oh the irony of “well at least I didn’t end up in a dysfunctional personal relationship” only to realize I’ve ended up with some dysfunctional work relationships! :)

    1. ferrina*

      Good on you for realizing this! It’s a hard road to course-correct on unconscious habits we learned in childhood and have spent decades doing. Good luck!

    2. LW3*

      That second paragraph hits hard! I love being able to solve problems and keep things rolling, but yeah, I’ve taken on too much emotional labor to keep that particular source of dopamine flowing, and it’s not sustainable long term. I always assumed I had good work-life boundaries because I comfortably ignored clients who texted me after hours, but I’m realizing that’s not the whole picture. Here’s to healthier boundaries for the both of us in the new year, I’m rooting for you!

  3. duinath*

    3…I can’t be the only one who thinks a client who will go over your head to your boss to try to get more information on your personal situation, is a client who needs to be dropped, can I?

    1. IrishMN*

      No, I found this to be incredibly inappropriate and OTT too. At the very least I hope the boss told them some version of “if she doesn’t want to tell you, that is her choice, and MYODB.”

    2. Oh boy, those clients*

      I have a sense that some of these clients are like some of the people I’ve known to write memoirs: delusional about their importance in other people’s lives. (Although after they sell only 3 copies of their book they start to get a stronger sense of reality.)

      My main fear for OP would be people with strong feelings expecting that, once the website is built, millions of people will see it. Her company must have done a good job of managing expectations for those clients, making it clear that they are responsible only for the site going live, not for whether anyone actually sees it.

      1. LW3*

        You’re on the money here. This is someone whose project is very memoir-ish and who requires a lot of handholding, so I’ve heard their entire life’s story probably four or five times now. The disparity between what I know about them and what they know about me is really getting to them, apparently.

        We manage expectations as best we can, and basically decline to do marketing work for these kinds of clients, telling them that for projects this personal they’ll need to promote the project themselves for authenticity’s sake. I often tell clients “this isn’t the Field of Dreams – just because we build it, doesn’t necessarily mean anyone will come.”

        1. Chick-n-boots*

          That is the perfect framing – I love it! And good for you for figuring out what boundary you needed for these clients and holding to it. (And good for your boss, backing you up on them!)

          I’m so very sorry about your relative but glad you were able to make the space and time you needed to be with them for those final weeks and months and hope that having that time together brings you some comfort in your grief. *jedi hugs*

        2. Bike Walk Barb*

          I’m so sorry this happened to you during such a difficult time.

          What struck me about the pushy client was that they weren’t just asking about you. When you’ve indicated there’s a family emergency, they’re asking about someone else’s private life. They have no business prying for health information on a total stranger (or on you for that matter) and you weren’t “hiding something”, you were protecting the privacy of a loved one.

          If these kinds of clients come along again and you or someone else has a challenging schedule I hope your boss could say “We’re not going to share any information about an employee’s family or personal life” and leave it at that to convey the message that this is a highly inappropriate inquiry.

      2. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

        And they made a MUSICAL! (Practically low-brow. Should have been an opera.)

  5. StellaDoodle*

    LW1, I’m here to say Les Miserables is also my favourite book! It’s so beautiful. I love everything about it :)

    1. CET*

      Also it became a hit musical then a movie. I’m having a hard time imagining it being a “pretentious”.

      2. Chick-n-boots*

        Personally, I find his sneering disdain for it pretentious. Who the hell is that guy to think his opinion on what book she loves matters even the tiniest bit? GET OVER YOURSELF DUDE.

      3. Arrietty*

        Didn’t you know? It’s pretentious to read the book when you could just watch the film. Ask Mr Wormwood.

    2. Coffee*

      I wonder how the topic of favourite book even came up and what kind of books would have been acceptable answer?

      1. Bast*

        In Old Job, HR would regularly throw in questions about things like favorite movie/book/TV show, etc., into the beginning as a way to try to relax people before getting into the real questions. I’ve seen many posts questioning these types of questions and their relevancy, and do have to say that it “relaxed” people to varying degrees — some not at all and some became pretty animated talking about something they liked. The answer itself didn’t actually matter unless you said something like, “My favorite thing to read is Penthouse.”

    3. lanfy*

      It’s not my favourite by a long chalk, but I have read it two or three times, and I’m quietly fond of it. The Count of Monte Cristo, now, that was one of my favourites as a teen, and I had a battered copy that I had read… a lot.
      At the moment I’m mainly out here reading biographies of the Founding Fathers and Aaron Burr’s treason trial transcripts. (I’m British. Shush.)
      My conclusion is that people who think that reading certain things is ‘pretentious’ are telling you that they don’t like learning, don’t like being challenged, in all probability don’t like reading all that much, and don’t like becoming aware of their inadequacies. Which is useful information, at least.
      (Note: I also read a lot of YA and gay romance. None of these things are incompatible.)

      1. Chick-n-boots*

        Right? Like, I also really liked Les Miserables and Wuthering Heights and other “classic” novels, but I also like to read research papers and advice columns and fanfic and pulpy thrillers and romance novels because, well, I just like to read!

        Why do people feel the need to ascribe value to different types of literature? Read what you like! Who cares?

        1. lanfy*

          Oh yes, fanfic! I read a lot of fanfic for a while (until I ran out of halfway readable Founding Fathers fanfic and had to start writing it instead).

          Because I also just love reading, and I think that’s exactly what people like Creepy Interview Negger don’t get.

      2. Strive to Excel*

        I just read through the Scarlet Pimpernel as a precursor to giving the Count of Monte Christo another shot. Which is, in retrospect, not a particularly dense piece of ‘classic’ lit haha..

  6. Redaktorin*

    Imagine confidently announcing that a person must be pretentious if they enjoyed a world-famous work of art.

    Imagine just assuming that anybody who likes Les Mis must be pretending.

    Imagine trying to neg somebody, but instead you accidentally reveal you don’t read.

    1. Wolf*

      Can’t do it right. If you enjoy something fancy, you’re pretentious. If you like something popular, you’re basic.

      1. Selina Luna*

        I’ve never understood why classic literature is fancy. It’s old, but the stories aren’t all that different from the stories we tell now, at heart. It’s like deciding that opera is fancy. It’s not. Bizet wrote Carmen for everyone to enjoy, and the main characters are certainly not upper class.
        I have read pretentious literature, but the classics that survive to modern times usually have SOMETHING that makes them speak to people generally.

        1. lanfy*

          The classical Athenian comedy Lysistrata would work as a script for the British ‘Carry On’ films of the 50s. There are (apparently) modern anime serieses based on The Count of Monte Cristo.

          Language and format changes, but what humans like – not so much.

      2. JustaTech*

        And if you like something genre, oof!
        Like, there’s nothing shameful at all about my favorite book, but people are weird about fantasy – I don’t want to have to guess how they’d respond to “Rapunzel but set in Germany in the 1880’s in a Wild West Show”.

    2. lanfy*

      Imagine just telling people that you don’t appreciate art and literature, and expecting that to earn you some kind of respect.

      1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

        Whoa! I just did a search on the word itself and YOUR MEME was one of the top search results.

    3. Koala*

      Irrelevant, but when my son was 4 he got mad at me and called me a “booty stonk” and that phrase is still in regular use in our house.

  9. PMaster*

    Hey LW3 – I’m a civil engineering project administrator, and I’d love to hear about your gravel database!

    1. Rae*

      I second that! I’m also very interested in the gravel database. How is it organized and what keywords are in use?

    2. Elitist Semicolon*

      I’m just a plain old nerd (I have a spreadsheet for my knitting needles!) and would also love to hear about the gravel database!

      1. Always Tired*

        I have a massive excel file for all my projects, yarn and fabric stash, tools, etc. So lovely to meet a kindred spirit.

    4. Bert is awesome*

      My husband has databases on seed potatoes and peas – he works for an agricultural think tank – and I’m a geotechnical engineer so one on gravel is perfectly normal to me! Is the focus on supplier, parent rock, or type of gravel?

    8. LW3*

      I was joking but I am genuinely happy to tell you about my gravel database! It was built for the sales team of the company that sells the gravel. Well, I said gravel because it’s funny, but they do all sorts of stone, up to rip rap and boulders, and it’s a LOT of products. They can filter the product database by category (gravel, crushed stone, decorative, etc.), rock size, the type of actual stone it’s made of, what it’s best for (drainage, erosion, etc.), color, and availability. Then the entry for each one is laid out like a traditional sales sheet, with photos and stuff, and includes a calculator section where they can determine how much stone the customer would need to cover, say, a 10′ x 40′ area at a depth of 3 inches. We tried to get the pricing built in there, too, but they have so many customers that get special rates, which change often, that it just wasn’t practical for them to maintain a dozen different pricing tables for every entry. So instead the calculator area works like a webform and the salesperson can input the client’s name and send it off to their office for an official quote if needed.

      They don’t use it quite as much anymore. We built it during Covid, when they were constantly running out of some types of stone and adding new ones to try to make up for them, while enduring a lot of turnover in the sales team, so knowledge of what products to recommend to customers was… low. Their suppliers are more reliable now, and the current sales team has been around for a bit, so most of them know the product lines pretty well. But it’s still useful for them to show customers photos of product and, apparently, customers LOVE to do the little calculator part for themselves.

      When I say it was a “boring” project, I mostly just mean it didn’t demand anything of me emotionally, which is probably telling on myself. In all actuality, it was pretty neat. I got to learn about mining, quarries, and the difference between natural gravel and mechanically crushed rock, which I was assured are NOT the same.

      4. StoneBear*

        I follow the Practical Engineering channel on thou cylinder, and decades ago when I worked as an electrician’s apprentice, gravel was an integral part of what we did (making concrete to put conduit in to run wires safely, using it as a drain medium around electrical installations, sand – really fine gravel :) – for direct burial cable… so of COURSE I wanted to see your database! Thanks for sharing! (Ironically, I still work with rock today – rock _music_ :)

      6. Peter*

        The update we all needed, thank you! (Though I am biased by having done a stocktake at a distribution centre for a company in a related business last weekend)

  10. Mr. Mousebender*

    If I were to live a million years, I would still never understand how anyone could think that negging would possibly turn out well for the negger. But then I’m autistic and react extremely badly to BS.

    1. Hroethvitnir*

      As an actual, pretty evil form of manipulation, it’s very effective a lot of the time. It’s actually a core component of abusive romantic relationships generally, though extra effective because they build trust first. Someone effectively negging someone is subtly making them doubt themselves and feel off balance so they can take advantage of them.

      Most people, NT or not, are not immune to this (in fact, autistic people can be very vulnerable to being manipulated like this due to knowing they can misread situations).

      Fortunately, many if not most of the credulous fools who have this sold to them as an effective (and acceptable) dating strategy are terrible at it.

    2. bamcheeks*

      Think of it as testing, like any kind of scam. It’s not supposed to work on everyone: it’s supposed to identify the people who are vulnerable to being manipulated so you can manipulate them more.

  11. Brooklynlite*

    LW2, did you ever talk to him about being late/slacking off etc? I get that you provided technical feedback but that’s not enough when you’re a manager.

    1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

      Right? Job coaching is about how to do your job, but managers have to pay attention to a lot of other things in addition to the specific work (which it sounds like this winner wasn’t any good at regardless). Managers have to pay attention to things like, oh, reliably being at work during work hours.

    2. Jen*

      Yup. I did. But we focused on getting the job done so much less because my job offers some leeway in terms of time, if, and only if, they are doing okay at the job.

      Once I did, they stayed late once to get a job done and then sent me a message saying something like if this isn’t enough I don’t know what is.

  12. So surprised*

    #1: I am so surprised how often updates show the commenters were spot on.
    I re-read the original letter and would have thought this guy is a jerk, unprofessional, and taking out his personal business on me. I would not have landed with negging and him aiming to ask her out. Amazing swarm knowledge.

  13. SpringIsForPlanting*

    LW #3- are you getting paid more to be the one who can handle these clients? If so, yay! Awesome use of skill set. If not… time to use Allison’s tips to negotiate a raise? Don’t get paid in “pride”, but if you otherwise don’t mind being the one who can do this, it’s totally OK to embrace that about yourself.

    1. Chick-n-boots*

      I love this suggestion! Clearly the LW has a special skill set or they wouldn’t be the go-to person for these particularly challenging clients. That should absolutely merit some kind of additional benefit – maybe a raise, maybe a bonus, maybe flexibility….but something! There’s real value there!

      1. LW3*

        You know, I’ve always gotten a passing “… and to have high client satisfaction with your caseload is pretty impressive.” in my performance reviews, but I don’t get the sense it’s really been factored in beyond mentioning it. Might need to push on that one a little next time!

    1. Always Tired*

      In my experience, once you mention serious illnesses to any form of church rep (nun, priest, pastor, deacon, self-appointed Church Lady) you convert into Someone In Need of Care, be that prayer, God, personal grace, food, etc. and they know what to do with that and often become much nicer.

  15. Beezus Quimby*

    Obvs. this guy is horrible, but the fact that he asked her out *on LinkedIn* is just icing on the cake.

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