updates: younger coworker thinks I don’t know about computers, people think coworker is having an affair, and more

by Alison Green on December 4, 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. My younger coworker thinks I don’t know anything about computers (#2 at the link)

I followed your advice and sat down with her in private and discussed the whole issue. The rudeness, the condescension, the age discrimination. She seemed to have had no idea she was doing it and apologized. I then laid out my past experience with computers, starting in the dim dark ages of the 1970s up to now.

Things have improved. She occasionally starts off (to me), “To do that, you have to …” then she trails off and stops. I’ll call it a win. The boss did ask if I’d spoken to her and I said yes. He said, “Did you hurt her?” and I said no.

Someone in the comments mentioned younger users not really understanding file structures and organization and, given that she buries things 12 folders deep, I’d say she’s in that camp.

2. How do I tell my team member to be less uptight? (#4 at the link)

I took your advice and honed in on where Adam was not succeeding in his role professionally. I repeatedly gave him detailed feedback on where his work needed to improve. Unfortunately, the improvements were not forthcoming, clients began to complain and I ended up having to redo all his work, late into the night again and again.

I gave Adam a good heads-up that he would not pass his probation, which, in my mind, should have signalled alarm bells and to start the job hunt immediately. I wanted him to land on his feet and not be left stranded without a job.

With clients at risk of leaving us because of Adam’s poor work and other staff already guessing he would not last, I made the decision to end his employment and invited him to an in-person meeting. I explained to him a week beforehand the purpose of the meeting. Unfortunately, despite thinking I had made it clear what was happening, Adam was blindsided by the news that he was being let go. It was quite a sad departure, and I had hoped it could have gone better. I am very aware that things we say as managers can leave a mark and be remembered forever, and I was very careful to be as kind as I could be rather than to leave him crushed.

On reflection, I think Adam needed more 1-2-1 time in-person from me, but I work almost fully remote. I think he needed coaching in a way I would expect from a far more junior position. I also wonder if Adam was somewhere on the spectrum (and whether he knows or not), and if I needed to adapt my instructions and cues to resonate more. A big learning from me is to be more ruthless in interviews in really interrogating skillsets and any resume gaps.

I have discovered that Adam managed to find a job fairly quickly in a similar role but in a very different type of company. I really hope he has a manager and mentor who will oversee his writing and continue to make him perfect the craft. And, I hope he will be happy and find his professional strengths and really blossom. I really do wish him well.

3. How to explain an angry ex-employee is review-bombing us on Glassdoor (#3 at the link)

Having been at this place a bit longer, I think I see where the bad reviews are coming from. It’s not exactly what a lot of people in the comments thought!

When someone messes up big, leadership seems to believe in having boundary-violating “heart-to-hearts” that encourage said employee to blame everything on deep emotional issues that become the company’s business. Then, depending on how much they cry and “come clean,” they’re allowed to proceed as if nothing happened? For some reason? Even if they repeatedly do things that would merit an immediate firing someplace more functional? And then, eventually, months to years and many crying conversations about their trauma later, these people finally get let go.

The end result is that every person who should be out within their first week is allowed to stay an unbearably long time, most of which they spend totally convinced they were in the right about things like trying to get AI to do all their work, lying repeatedly that their work was done and ready to send to clients when it had never been started, harassing coworkers, turning out not to have the technical skills they claimed when hired, and so on. Upper management spends so much time and effort placating these weirdos, and engages them in such intimate conversations about their mental wellbeing, that they are always shocked and indignant when their bosses, who have been acting like close friends and/or bad therapists, finally give them the boot. The rightfully fired then invariably respond by writing at least one, but sometimes two or three, totally unglued Glassdoor reviews about it.

It’s such a weird situation. We have many more of those bad reviews now than we did when I first asked you about it, each one a distortion of reality from a person who should objectively have been gone sooner — and yet, they’re accidentally right about one thing: This place is toxic.

I have a ritual now where I microwave a little popcorn to eat while reading the latest reviews. Sometimes my better coworkers and I forward around the more delusional ones. Then I go back to covering the work of whoever lied about meeting their deadlines this week, fielding angry Teams messages from the conflict-prone people who haven’t cycled through our bizarre disciplinary process yet, and applying for work elsewhere.

Update to the update:

I got an offer for a new job with a 30% raise 48 hours after writing you my last email. My boss and other leadership keep saying how surprised they are, which I assume is because nobody usually leaves this place without having dozens of overly emotional meetings about it and they don’t know how to handle an employee who just calmly peaces out.

My HR person wrote an email this morning setting up a last-minute meeting to pressure me to sign some paperwork on the spot, so I emailed back to ask if I could receive and go over said paperwork ahead of time. Weirdly for people who are obsessed with having long, detailed discussions about their employees’ private lives, upper management seems to have forgotten I’m married to a lawyer.

4. Should I tell a colleague people think she’s having an affair with a coworker?

I took Alison’s advice and left it alone – and fortunately, they both made it easier for me by kind of freezing me out for my notice period. I’ve hardly spoken to them since I left, but the twist in the tale is that they have both now also left my old company to start a new business together!

I don’t imagine I’ll ever find out if they were or weren’t having an affair but as the commentariat pointed out, whether they were or not, the vibe their behavior created was super strange and uncomfortable to be around, and I’m glad to have moved on.

Thank you for your advice, both on this matter and in general!

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  1. CubeFarmer*

    I feel like I’m the opposite of LW #1’s update. I’m in my late 40s and we just hired someone in her late 20s who can…actually figure out tech stuff on her own!

    I work with a bunch of people who are minimally competent with only very, very general stuff, so I’ve grown accustomed to talking people through, what should be, extremely basic tasks because otherwise they won’t get done. I quickly realized with my new colleague that I don’t have to do this and it’s been so amazing.

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    1. Throwaway Account*

      I work with college age students – I teach in a library. I spend a good chunk of my limited time with classes giving very basic Word/Google Doc tips. I usually teach them how to google for the types of questions that come up often. Most of the time I find out they did not think to google their questions.

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      1. Shellfish Constable*

        Oof, I feel this. My college students both don’t know how Microsoft/Google suite stuff works and think *I* don’t know, either. So they do stuff like submit a jpeg of the writing assignment they generated on AI or “update” a group doc with just their name after the whole team has finished the project without them (not in my classes but in my colleagues’) and then wonder why they got a 0.

        Trust me: 9 out of 10 of them are great, my assignments are mostly cheat proof, and they learn awesome stuff in our classes … but they’re not super savvy and they think no one else is, as well.

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      2. Alternative Person*

        I was teaching a HS writing class recently and some of the questions I got.

        So many times I had to ask them ‘Did you google it?’ then ‘Well did you check in google scholar?’

        I spent a whole lesson on referencing and they seem to have retained nothing.

        Convincing them to use the sort by year buttons in Scholar was a near herculean task.

        I’m going through their essays now and I’m suspecting a lot of DeepL and ChatGPT went into it.

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    2. Bitte Meddler*

      At my last job, I became the SAP guru on our team.

      We had hired two interns 3 months after I started, and then hired them as FTEs at the end of Intern Summer. So we basically started at the same time. We also graduated only a year apart from the same school in the same degree program.

      After the 30th or 40th time they had to ask me for help in doing something — despite the How-To docs I had created with step-by-step screenshots — one of them said, “HOW did you learn all this stuff? Did [university] have an SAP class that I didn’t know about??”

      I told him that all I did was “click everything and see what happens,” which is truly how I learned SAP and all the other programs I use / have used.

      The interns were in their mid-20’s and I was in my mid-50’s. (I had gone back to school, which is how we’d graduated only a year apart).

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    3. Crashing into Middle Age*

      This happened to me! For years I was basically office tech support for really basic things. In the last couple years, we’ve been able to bring in some younger folks and it has been amazing.* I went up to one of them right before she went on vacation and asked if she needed me to show her how to set her out of office message in Outlook. She told me she hadn’t known, so she just Google it. Tears in my eyes. You guys. She just Google it.

      *this is not ageism. We’ve got one new younger guy who constantly asks the same questions, is effusive in thanking you for your help, and never remembers a word of it.

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      1. CubeFarmer*

        I finally realized that one of my colleagues was purposefully not doing stuff so that I would do it instead. I started ‘not having time.” I’d like to say that prompted some initiative to learn stuff independently but no, it just doesn’t get done. That’s not my program, so not my problem, but geeeez. Google is a thing. Do you know how I learned most of my computer stuff (most not all–I had to take a class to do basic ArcGIS stuff and use InDesign)?? I googled it!

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  2. T'Cael Zaanidor Kilyle*

    The comment about younger users being less likely to understand file structures is really interesting to me. Is this because the mobile devices they grew up with (and in some cases, may have learned to use before they used a more traditional OS) tend to mask file structures and be mainly chronological (like camera rolls or a phone browser that defaults to recent downloads) or oriented around searching for the desired item instead of navigating to it?

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    1. Santiago*

      I used to be a High School teacher. In my experience, kids use phones a lot for things we used computers for.

      Also, a lot of programs now don’t make you interact with file structure: when you save in word, for example, you have to click several times to see the actual folder you are saving in, instead of some baloney recent locations window.

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    2. WFH4VR*

      It’s all Apple’s fault. When 99% of the world was Windows, you had to learn how to use the system if you wanted to customize it, or get programs to run on start up. The Fruit locked down the OS and now people who have only ever used Apples don’t even realize there is code underneath everything.

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      1. M*

        And, as Santiago points out above, that approach has bled into plenty of non-Apple systems, including Windows. It’s not as bad as Apple – I can’t imagine ever willingly purchasing a computer that won’t let me even *uninstall* the bloatware – but these days it also buries things like folder structure and makes you open deeper options when saving files. Let alone the endless takes on in-built “personal/AI/whatever-today’s-hype-is assistant” as a replacement for putting something where you want it and going there when you need it.

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      2. Peanut Hamper*

        I used Macs for 20 years and this was never an issue. OSX is actually based on Unix, and you really do need to understand file structures there. I don’t think it’s Apple’s fault, just the general trend to make things as simple as possible, which means that you never interact with the actual mchanism. Think starting a car by turning a key instead of sticking a crank in the front of the engine and cranking it by hand.

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        1. Jamoche*

          Yep. Back in the days that were desktop only, you could find plenty of examples of users on either major OS who had no clue about file systems or all sorts of things that power users thought were basic.

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    3. Caramel & Cheddar*

      I thought it was odd that the LW attributed to burying things 12 folders deep as not knowing how to use folders! Anyone I know who does that does it specifically because they’re incredibly detailed about how they parse their files (Budgets > 2024 > Department Name > Project Code > Itemized Charges > Receipts), vs those who care less just do things like save a million files to their desktop computer so that they’re “easier” to find.

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      2. Florence Reece*

        Yeah, same. Some of my older coworkers do dump every file into one big ole folder and they can’t find anything without searching for 5 minutes, but weirdly I just let them do their own thing without judging them.

        I can imagine the outrage if the ages in LW1 and the update were reversed though lol. Especially with the added detail that LW1’s boss apparently *expects* her to be a bully (and/or openly shares his disdain about LW1’s coworkers with her for some reason). Sounds like a really healthy environment over there!

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        1. Frieda*

          I have a colleague who saves everything – and I mean *everything* – in his downloads folder. Just unsorted madness.

          Unsurprisingly he also has totally random naming conventions and can never find anything.

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      3. Moose*

        Yeah, I have everything very organized so I can find it, but know some people that just leave all sorts of stuff in downloads and such!

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      4. Archi-detect*

        my desktop is only temporary working stuff that is not important, as I feel it should be. if it matters, put it away

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      5. Deck cat*

        Yeah I thought that comment was pretty weird. I grew up learning how to navigate file structures (“elder millennial” so I’m in my early 40s now) so I tend to organize my hard drive (or cloud storage) with various sub-folders. As opposed to having them in one big folder and constantly searching.

        He said, “Did you hurt her?” and I said no.

        IDK, this seems a little weird, to me, to be honest. In a “that escalated quickly” way. Like yeah, the coworker sounds kind of annoying and yes, the boss is joking* but uhh, still seems like kind of overkill??

        *hopefully!

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      6. carrot cake*

        And don’t get me started on useless or in-the-moment naming conventions for folders. Just another layer of wasted time. (That’s not toward you, Caramel and Cheddar; your example is quite logical).

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      7. Lions and Tigers*

        Yeah. Like. Part of my day job is to teach computer programming? And my folder structures are often Highly Detailed, in that way? Especially when you add in all the nonsense that my employer adds (it’s like five layers before you get to something I have organisational privilege to edit).

        As opposed to my students, who stick everything in their downloads folder and call it a day.

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    4. Strive to Excel*

      I would park it firmly in the “we all assume this is a basic skill so no one’s actually teaching people how to do this” category. There was a relatively short period where basic computer skills were being formally taught, then we all just…moved to using computers. It’s like teaching english language skills; a lot of places just start kids on reading rather than going through phonics and building blocks, with negative results.

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    5. Throwaway Account*

      I work with college students at a uni where the entire school is apple/iPad based. They all get one. Everything is auto-saved and the students have no idea how to find a document or where it goes. If it is not in the “recent” folder, they cannot find it at all.

      And I have trouble sometimes figuring out how to tell the damn iPad where to put things or where to look for them if the student does not know the doc name.

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    6. nanani*

      Yes, and also a lot of places scrapped computer classes from the curriculum on the grounds that kids are “digital natives” and don’t need to be taught.
      Obviously, everyone needs to learn, and once the primary device for school aged people became a smartphone instead of a PC, that “digital native” nonsense was exposed but the computer classes didnt come back.

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    7. Happily Retired*

      I’m a bit mystified at all the Apple/Mac bashing. I bought my first computer in the early 90’s, an Apple clone of some sort, and have lived in the Apple ecosystem at home ever since. And I organize THE HELL out of my files, with 8 main folders for different topics on the desktop, and then subfolder after subfolder after subfolder within each, using “save as” each time and kicking myself if I save to whatever generic downloads or whatever location might pop up. Most of my files are at least 4 folders deep. I can find anything in minutes.

      Doesn’t everyone do this?

      But I’m 70, so maybe not.

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      1. Happily Retired*

        I read a few more posts. Apparently, the whole subfoldering thing is considered complicated by many, with obscure naming logic. But anyone can make the logic perfectly clear, as in Caramel and Cheese’s example.

        I’m retired now, so I can’t give a work example, but here’s one from my home laptop. I’ve gone back to school to get my BS in Ecology, and I have to obsessively organize to keep up with the coursework.
        If I ever have to dig up a lecture slide or paper or reference from a class taken in the past, I can go there in seconds because of the way I structure my files. So this example goes:

        Desktop > UNCA > 0 UNCA 2024 fall – Helene > ENVS 358 Agriculture > ENVS projects > ENVS 358 3 nutrient budget activity > envr358_nutrientbudget.pdf

        (The final pdf file contains the instructions for a project tracing and quantifying nitrogen moving from the air, water, and any fertilizer through the soil and plants and then released to the air and water, which is what I should actually be working on right now, instead of reading updates on AAM.)

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  3. TeenieBopper*

    Why… Why are you continuously reading your company reviews on Glassdoor? Like, enough times to have a ritual?

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    1. Heart*

      Yes, yes, yes. As an empath, it would crush my heart to absorb such negative vibrations… especially over something as delightful as popcorn

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      1. Tea Monk*

        I’m not an empath, but even though I work in a cult etc I don’t read the glass door reviews because I don’t care that much

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    2. Silver Robin*

      because it is entertaining and folks like drama that is close enough for them to understand but not actually directly related to them.

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    3. Generic Name*

      I agree. If I had to guess, it’s what kept them sane in a toxic workplace. I’m totally unsurprised that their new job is such a massive pay bump. Same thing happened to me when I left a not-great workplace.

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    4. OP3*

      Hard not to read the reviews when both everybody you try to hire and the CEO of the company won’t stop talking about them, LOL.

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  4. Soul Sister*

    I find number 3 so real. It’s so easy to feel my employees emotions as my own, and I didn’t realize how badly I was enabling some problem employees, until one stole several thousand dollars worth of merchandise. I weep to think of what my other employees went through!

    Eventually, my company’s group therapist suggested we bring on a less empathetic business partner to round things out. Now I think we found the balance between seeing with our heart and seeing with our mind

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  5. H.Regalis*

    He said, “Did you hurt her?” and I said no.

    You handled this very deftly, but if you had torn her a new USB port, I wouldn’t have blamed you.

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      1. H.Regalis*

        Ok, for the painfully literal among us:

        I am not saying LW1 should have literally or metaphorically torn her coworker a new asshole.

        I am saying that if she had let her coworker see even slightly how much what her coworker was doing bothered her, that would have been okay. Her coworker was being a jerk and you do not owe everyone perfect calmness 24/7/365.

        However, it sounds like while LW1 did explain to her coworker how Coworker was being a jerk, she, LW1, chose not to be visibly angry or annoyed. That is also okay.

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  6. All het up about it*

    Number 1’s statement of “She seemed to have no idea she was doing it” is wild. In the original post, OP said that several people had talked to the younger co-worker about her behavior. Why was she still unaware? People are just… a lot these days.

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  7. Kricket523*

    #3 that is the BEST update. I wish you every success in your new position… and though you probably can’t tell us, I’d love to hear what was in those last-minute documents. “They seem to forget I’m married to a lawyer” gave me such a set of giggles!

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  8. voices carry*

    Ooh, I’m mid-50’s woman, been using computers forever. This comment got to me: Someone in the comments mentioned younger users not reallly understanding file structures and organization and, given that she buries things 12 folders deep.
    I do that! Well, not quite 12, but 5 or 6 easily. But the linux find command is my friend! Isn’t that the logical (tree-like) structure you want for organization?

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    1. Archi-detect*

      as long as it is logical. it is super easy to over-folder to the point of not being able to find something unless you remember exactly what it is called in my experience, or accidentally split up things that should be together. If it’s working for you, it’s working for you

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    2. I own one tenacious plant*

      I love me some sub folders, but my interpretation was that OP was referring to the length of the file path name. I think that can cause issues in some programs.

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  9. Tradd*

    I’m mid 50s and learned how to do things like Outlook, Word, and Excel on the job in the early 90s. Years ago I had a coworker who was in her late 50s. She was generally decent with using a computer and the industry software, except for two things. She was terribly afraid of right clicking. She thought she was going to break everything. She also had no concept of email folders. EVERYTHING was in her inbox. She was on vacation once and our manager told me to organize her email (I did one folder for each customer which kept it simple plus a miscellaneous folder). She did keep the organization up once she was back. The search function was a huge revelation to her!

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  10. Dawn*

    LW3, I hate to tell you this, but it sounds like those negative Glassdoor reviews were substantially accurate.

    Glad you’re getting out of there and I hope you land somewhere that you can get your perspective back quickly.

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    1. Dawn*

      Side note: I refused to sign my “severance agreement” when I was being laid off (because the company wasn’t giving me anything I wasn’t entitled to anyway.) They – a major corporation – were absolutely shocked by this. Apparently nobody ever refuses.

      They also told me to have my lawyer send them a letter if I wanted to negotiate. When I said that we didn’t need to make it a legal issue, they informed me that the company does not negotiate with former employees and cut contact.

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    2. OP3*

      I understand some people really want to believe this. But look, I’ve been in the new job a while already, and the only difference I’m seeing is that my new place doesn’t constantly hire and indulge people who are both bad at the work and deeply unpleasant. The copywriters posting that they shouldn’t have been let go for plagiarism were *not* “substantially right.”

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