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 four updates from past letter-writers.

1. My boss threatened to kill himself over a minor work issue (#2 at the link)

You and most of the comments told me to report my boss to HR or up the chain to our department lead, and consider reporting him to authorities for his safety. My boss lived in a different state (we were remote) and leadership already actively disliked him, so I was afraid that if I reported him to HR he would be fired and then actually harm himself.

I reached out to my coworker to see how things had been for her, and she told me that she had been having issues with our boss as well. He had been taking credit for her work, asking her to do his work and provide it to him through text so it wasn’t on company property, making her work during PTO, and calling her and crying about losing his job. She told me he was highly manipulative and I realized that he had been using my sympathies against me to take the heat off of him.

After that things started going downhill even faster, my department leader was let go, and thus the only buffer between my team and the leadership that had been causing issues was gone. The leader that was put in charge of social media was now overseeing our team. A week later I’m told that I no longer report to my boss, but instead to this leader.

This broke my (now former) boss, and he would call me frequently to say how scared he was about losing his job and that they were out to get him, and would ask me to affirm that he was a good boss to me. Things were awkward, with my former boss asking me to do work without input from the new leader. Then my former boss rolled out a new product too early, causing some issues and a mess to clean up. The next week, my boss was let go.

Leadership told us that they were committed to fixing the department and a consultant was then hired to revamp it, but a week later he was let go because he “didn’t do anything.” About a month later they hired an assistant for the president, and suddenly I had to work with her on some of my major tasks. The assistant also asked me to show her how different programs worked and how I did some of my work. I was suspicious that I was next on the chopping block and offered to show her more in depth at a later time, but she brushed me off.

My suspicions were correct because just a few days later I was laid off and my coworker was offered a demotion or the option to take severance. I knew it was coming, but I wasn’t really prepared to be let go that quickly. But I was also happy to be free of the stress and drama, and no longer having to worry about everything.

This was not the update I expected to share, but in the end my mental health is much better and I’m taking this time to recharge and viewing it as a long vacation.

Thank you to everyone for your advice, it really did help me get through a difficult time and I frequently read over the comments. Hopefully my next job is a much healthier environment!

2. Manager plays inappropriate music in a family-friendly store (#2 at the link)

The music continued to play for well over a month before she switched to other music on her own. The disgusting song didn’t come back for the rest of my time there, and she plays more mainstream songs. I’m not sure if that was because a complaint went through or she just decided to change the music.

Several commenters tried to guess the song in question but none of them were it. When I googled the lyrics, nothing came up. I can only assume the music didn’t have an actual record label behind it and was some sort of garage band home job CD. The sound quality was good, so someone had a decent setup, but it wasn’t an officially released song.

On the plus side, I moved out of state a few months ago and am continuing my life away from the store and the toxic manager. According to friends among the staff, she still works there, and bullies the staff for not working fast enough. She manages to keep it just below the threshold of crossing legal lines, such as trying to push unpaid work. But it’s apparently a job that doesn’t exactly get the cream of the crop employee-wise due to the hours and minimum wage pay. So people who work there now are sort of desperate to get a job and not likely to produce high turnover rates.

Nevertheless, I am free and clear, and going to a local college for a degree in a better field.

3. How am I supposed to contact a friend of my dad’s? (#4 at the link)

I wrote to you about how I had moved to a new city, and my dad was pushing me to get in touch with an old colleague of his. At the time I was a bit annoyed (my parents have always been a little too in my business), but you encouraged me to meet the contact. We had a nice coffee, he was very friendly, spoke warmly of my dad, and welcomed me to the city with some tips for fun things to do. About a year later my dad was in town and we all went to a nice lunch.

Alison, my dad passed away this year. After he died, I reached out to his colleague to share the sad news, and he replied with a lovely and thoughtful note. In addition, my dad was an expert in a niche topic, and ran a popular website about it for a number of years, in addition to writing some books. It was through this topic that he met his old colleague. I am a writer as well, and after giving it much thought, decided to take over the website and continue his work. His colleague was delighted to hear about it and said he would be happy to help.

Although my dad’s nagging annoyed me at the time, I’m so glad now that I honored his wishes and met his friend.

4. Is a past run for office keeping me from getting job interviews? (#5 at the link)

I got a new job with the candidate info still on my resume! It was actually pretty quick (I had submitted the application before I wrote to you/had the letter answered). I started in mid-November. It’s a much bigger org than I’m used to, but I’m excited for this next step in my career.

I hope to be here for a long time, but when the time comes, I’m still going to remove the candidacy from my resume moving forward and just leave it on my LinkedIn.

Thanks again so much for all your amazing advice! Commenters, too — y’all are great.