open thread – January 17-18, 2020

by Alison Green on January 17, 2020

It’s the Friday open thread! The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on anything work-related that you want to talk about. If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to talk to other readers.

* If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer.

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  1. DreamTheImpossibleDream*

    The nonprofit I work for just finished an aggressive strategic planning session the first full week of January. We were all given tasks and action items with VERY hard, set deadlines, which is fine! I’ve been tasked with painting 12 teapots a year, one a month, plus an addition 6 teacups a year and 6 tea saucers a year.

    The first teapot is due at the end of January (I didn’t set this deadline and felt that I had no way to push back when it was set during the planning session) and despite my best efforts, I don’t think I’m going to get it done. I’m relying on others to design the teapot, produce the teapot, and then send it to me before I can even begin to mix the paint and start painting it. I’ve reached out to 8 people so far in January and gotten nowhere. I mentioned it to my boss this week and was told flat out I had to meet January’s goal. I pointed out that I wasn’t in the office the first week of January (the strategic planning and a work trip) and am gone on another work trip most of next week and showed her my reach outs for tea pots. Her comment was that I couldn’t miss that deadline.

    I’m so frustrated by this because I well exceeded all goals last year, hit new highs, and these teapots seem like a very old school way of doing things but there seems to be no wiggle room. I do have other goals that I’ll hit, but these teapots, teacups, and saucers are the big ones.

    I’ve been losing sleep all week because of this and feel sick and hopeless. I feel like I need to start looking for a new job now because I don’t see anything good coming out of missing my goal in January and have little hope that things will improve. February might be OK but March is a travel nightmare with me being in the office only 5 scattered days the entire month and my travel days are already booked solid and having no room for this new teapot painting, on top of the rest of my job, except for those 5 days. In comparison, in January, I’m in the office 10 days but it’s 2 solid weeks.

    I honestly don’t know what to do … start looking, try to talk about the deadlines again, slap myself around and find some way to pull tea pots out of thin air … ??? The only line I’ve drawn is out and out lying. I’m pretty much open to everything else at this point.

    1. Nonprofit Nancy*

      I’m sure you’ve thought of this, but is there no way to technically meet the goal on paper despite limitations? So like, you’re waiting for someone else to design the teapot but you paint a demo teapot and present that as your first one finished. Or you use last year’s teapot and refresh it for #1.

      People who play games with stupid quota systems get what they deserve.

    2. SomebodyElse*

      I’m assuming the people are the ones you are waiting on. If it were me, I’d start getting more aggressive in getting what you need out of them. So if needed, call a meeting, set the deadlines for the things you need and then set follow ups to keep the momentum. Then once you get past the January deadline, then move right into the February requirements.

      If nothing else it will help your case if you miss the deadline.

      1. valentine*

        You’ve told your boss the issue. The missing piece is what you want her to do about it. (Apparently, she needs to be led and won’t make the connections to how it affects her until it does, at which point she’ll blame you again.)

        set the deadlines for the things you need
        Write up a schedule of when you would need each piece by, including cushion for snafus and FUBARs. Pretend it’s doable, even if it was only doable in the past. Meet with your boss and tell her that, for you to do meet the deadline, you need her to X in week 1, Y in week 2, and Z in week 3 of each month. Can your colleagues double up so you can do February and March in February? Get creative, even though it won’t happen. The point is to be plain about what everyone else has to do and when for you to do your part in the time allotted.

        If you haven’t already, cc her on your requests. Also, send the schedule to your colleagues.

    3. Me*

      Meet with her again. Explain where you are and ask for explicit guidance on how she wants you to proceed. Perhaps she wants you to forgo the work trip. Perhaps she can light a fire under the other departments. Perhaps she expects overtime. That will give you more information about whether this place is turning into a toxic dump heap.

      1. NotAnotherManager!*

        +1

        Ask the second part of the question. “This can’t be done.”, “You just have to do it.”, “OK, can we make some time to game plan out how that can happen or what other goals can take a backseat so I can focus on this?”

        If your boss won’t do the last part with you, then you may need to start looking because not only is she unreasonable, but she also isn’t managing.

    4. PX*

      I would say this is an extension of the post this week about how to meet impossible deadlines with impossible bosses. You can try and explain in very clear concrete terms that these are impossible, ask your boss to help you prioritise, but if your boss doesnt listen…let them slip? Do what you can that is in your control, document all else, and accept that some teapots just wont get painted.

      Depending on what you think the consequence of this may be, you may then focus your remaining free time on job hunting or wait and see whether not hitting the goals will actually have the impact you think it will, or if halfway through the year everyone else will also say these were unacheiveable and shift the goalposts.

      1. Senor Montoya*

        I would not wait and see. I’d start putting out feelers, looking at job postings (however your industry does it) about jobs. Because if things suddenly go south, you want to be a step or two on the way. Also, doing some of this searching will give you a concrete way to feel that you are taking care of *yourself*.

        Looking isn’t leaving. But if you need to leave, looking now will be helpful.

    5. Miss Ames*

      I feel for you – that sounds like a very difficult spot to be in. You obviously care about your job and are making every effort to meet your obligations. The only thing I can think to suggest is having a meeting with your boss and making it (crystal) clear the effort you have put in (the reaching out you have done so far) and explain (if she doesn’t understand the “on the ground” situation completely) definitively that you cannot meet the January teapot painting deadline if you don’t have a teapot to paint. I’m not sure what to say about the travel – assuming it is work related travel, it seems reasonable to bring that up also because it is going to impact your time the rest of January.
      The situation sounds unreasonable on the part of management and also the fact that you weren’t part of the decision-making (or even asked if the plan sounded reasonable) doesn’t sound as functional as it could be.

    6. Colette*

      How much time in a month do you need to be in the office to paint one teapot and one teacup or saucer?

      Go back to your boss and say “I’m trying to figure out how I can meet my goal of 1 teapot and one saucer. I have tried X, Y, and Z this month, but I still need A, B, and C from person Q and R. Do you have any suggestions on how to get X, Y, and Z before the 22nd (or whatever date you need it)? Can you help?”

      And, when it comes to March, I’d say “My travel in March will make it impossible for me to get my teapot painting done. Which trips can we reschedule?”

      1. Bananatiel*

        Doing and presenting the math HAS worked before for me and a friend of mine so I highly recommend this as a next step. My friend was starting a new job where basically her whole job was making very well-designed PowerPoint presentations. On the first day, they told her the targets she’d need to meet for the year and I got a call from her that night panicked because she knew it wasn’t possible. I ran the math while she was talking and it worked out to like one slide every five minutes assuming she had absolutely no meetings, lunch breaks, vacation time, or holidays. The best part is that she has a design background so they expected additional custom illustrations, and even animations, on nearly half of the slides that would add extra time.

        The happy news here is that she immediately went back to her boss, explained that she had some concerns and explained all the math she did and they scaled way back on the targets. Like the workload dropped to a fraction of what they asked and they even brought on a contractor. Not surprisingly it turned out there were other structural issues at play so she’s now job searching. But in the meantime, she’s at least managing a sane workload now.

    7. Jules the 3rd*

      I find it very freeing to say to myself, ‘X is unrealistic’. It helps let go of the stress. Questions to ask yourself:

      – What happens when you don’t make the goal? ($ bonus lost? fired?, etc) Is the impact something you can live with? (If no, start looking elsewhere)
      – What are you comfortable letting slide?
      – Is there anything you can do before the teapots arrive (eg, mixing paints?)
      – Is it possible to schedule teapot arrival so that you can clear time in your calendar for painting?
      – Is it possible to paint 1.5 teapots in Feb?

      To ask your manager:
      – Here’s the tasks that block my goal. Which ones are we going to drop? (ie, are all those travel days in March critical? Could some be moved to Feb or Apr?)
      – Here’s the people I am waiting on to design / produce the teapot. Can you help me push them for an expedited teapot?

      For the Jan ones, send her an update 3 – 4 times / week, so that you have a paper trail. Document your efforts, and look at what works and what doesn’t?

      Good luck, you are totally reasonable to be frustrated by unreasonable goals.

      1. foolofgrace*

        Since you’re sure you’re not going to meet the January goal, I would tell the boss “I am not going to be meeting this goal. This is what’s standing in my way. I just wanted you to be prepared for when I don’t have the required item.”

        Don’t pussyfoot around it, tell her in no uncertain terms that you’re not going to meet it, so she can come up with a Plan B. As far as job hunting, yeah, maybe. But it doesn’t sound like you can salvage January.

      2. Lily in NYC*

        Good advice, but I suggest using the term “not feasible” instead of “unrealistic”. I could see some oversensitive managers getting defensive and seeing it as a dig against them.

    8. Kiwiii*

      … are you the only person in your role? can you see if other people in your role are waiting on teapots to paint as well?

    9. pearanoia*

      Also…are other people on your team facing similar unattainable goals for finishing these teapots? I’m guessing after 1 or 2 months of no one hitting teapot goals, your management team will start to understand a little better what errors their strategy has.

    10. WellRed*

      When a boss calls you silly for no reason, you’ve got a bigger problem then being invited to attend meetings.

    11. Not So NewReader*

      Start job hunting.

      But know that you cannot be the only person who is not able to meet the deadlines.

      Worst case scenario is what? You get fired? So this means you have a job until Feb 1. I can’t picture this one because it sounds like everyone will get fired some where along the line. But sometimes workplaces can become so miserable that it’s actually preferable to be fired. Sometimes I fear the misery more than I fear the firing. At least with firing you go home and it’s over then you can focus on job hunting.

      To gain some clarity here and really see this for what it is, suppose you actually hit the Jan. deadline? Now what. Let’s see, you get to fight this battle eleven more times this year. Just to get good reviews? Is it worth it? (I am not including the paycheck here because that will get spent on headache/stomach medicine and sleep aids.)

      You have at the base of this an ethical problem here. It’s really unethical to bank someone’s performance off of other people’s ability to produce. If the people before you cannot meet deadlines you don’t stand a snowball’s chance here. You are set to fail. Try, try, try to remember you are not the only person upset here, others are upset also. Perhaps you can find a peer who will join forces with you, minimally provide personal support or go larger and talk to the boss with you again.

      I worked for one company where BS like this was normal. I was able to bank off of other reliable people and find ways to cope. Management would eventually back down. But not before all of us had taken a thousand dollars worth of OTCs to cope with the incredible stress. The thing that is good to know here, that you get through 12 months of this and then next year it’s another BS thing that no one can do.

    12. Holy Moley*

      Im assuming that since its January and you work at a non-profit that the aggressive tea pot making is a result of a crappy December where expectations were not met for year end. I worked at a non-profit that had this happen and there were layoffs in Feb. My advise is to start job searching as it sounds like they are trying to find reasons to let people go.

    13. Aquawoman*

      Do the people giving you the inputs have “hard deadlines” also? If not, I’d suggest that you address with your boss that you can’t be expected to meet deadlines when the inputs you need DON’T have deadlines. If they do have deadlines–are those people meeting their deadlines? Also, I think you should ask which is the priority, the travel or the painting, since you can’t do both. If this teapot REALLY needs to be painted by 1/31, then they should cancel the travel. If there are never going to be deadlines for the inputs, but you have a month-end deadline, that means the last X days of the month have to be reserved for teapot painting, so you won’t be able to travel or do other assignments then.

      1. TechWorker*

        The phrase ‘day on day slip’ can be useful here, as in ‘I was expecting the teapot design by 18th January latest, as I’ve still not received them it’ll be a day on day slip to the final deadline’

          1. Indy Dem*

            I believe it to be – if my materials are a day late, my finished product will be a day late, but please correct me if I’m wrong.

          2. Sharkey*

            I’ve never heard it before either, but I’m guessing that if the design is delivered by 1/18 the 1/31 deadline can be met. For every day the design slips, the final deadline slips too. So if the design is delivered 1/20, it won’t be complete until 2/2.

            1. TechWorker*

              Yeah, basically the idea is to push the responsibility for meeting the deadline back on the deliverables, so that everyone is aware you really cannot even start your work until you’ve received the preceding bit of work. It’s used commonly in my company but possibly niche elsewhere!

            2. The New Wanderer*

              Oh, that seems incredibly useful. If you know it takes X hours or days to paint the teapot after it is delivered to you, then use this in your defense of not meeting a deadline that is subject to effects of delays from others.

    14. i_am_eating_cheetos*

      If only you could say, “Since I cannot meet this goal due to its dependence on others who will not deliver the necessary teapots to me in the appropriate time frame, would it be preferable for me to resign now in disgrace?”

    15. CRM*

      Sorry your boss is being so unreasonable, that stinks.

      Are the people you are waiting on input from in the same location as you? If so, I would pay a visit to them directly and explain the situation (put a brief meeting on their calendars if you have to). Being able to talk to them in person will have a much better response than an email, and you can express how much you know its sucks but it has to be done. I would also make sure they know about your goals for the year (one teapot every month) and tell them to prepare for this request once a month. That way, if you don’t meet this month’s deadline, you can assure your boss that you are on track for the rest of the year.

      I also strongly agree with Nonprofit Nancy’s advice, if doing that is at all possible.

    16. CM*

      Ugh. FWIW, whoever was in charge of setting these goals did a bad job if they created a timeline without factoring in a) when people in key positions would be away, and b) how long it actually takes people to do their work at each stage of the process.

      It’s tempting to blame the people further up the line, but they might have unrealistic targets, too.

      I think the first thing is to understand the timeline better. Go and talk to the team before you and find out when they reasonably expect to have the teapot done, and how long it takes them to do their part of the project in general, and be sympathetic to the fact that they might be getting screwed, too. If you need to, investigate with whoever’s before them in the project plan, too. Just get a really clear picture of when you can typically expect the teapots to arrive.

      Second step is to figure out whether the turnaround time is reasonable for you in a typical month (in which case the issue is just that you have vacation on certain months) or if it’s always going to be a case where teapot production takes longer than the plan allows. So, determine how long it takes you to do your part, and put that together with when you can expect to receive their part.

      If the issue is that the timeline is too tight overall, talk to whoever came up with it and/or set the goal. If it’s super inappropriate to do that for some reason (e.g., the CEO came up with it and it’s not normal to talk to the CEO without going through your manager), go back to your manager instead. Reveal what you’ve discovered about how long it takes to paint the teapots vs when you can expect to receive them and say that you don’t understand how it would be possible to finish one each calendar month. Then wait for an explanation of how it would be possible and go from there. (If you’re told you have to figure out how to make it possible, just say you thought about it and you can’t).

      If the issue is that the timeline would be okay if no one ever went on vacation, this is still a planning error, because people go on vacation. Do the same thing as in the paragraph above, but explain that the timeline is so tight and allows so little slack that it won’t work when you take vacation. If it WOULD work should you only take vacation at certain points in the month (like if you were always in the office the last week of the month or something) you could offer to book future vacation with that in mind, but point out that your current vacation was booked before these goals were set.

      But, either way, know that it’s a huge planning fail for someone to just say a deadline without taking into account how long the work will take or who’s available to do it.

    17. Mrs. C*

      I’m seeing a lot of great advice from everyone else on this already. I think the main thing I have to add is looking at it from a simplified/high-level perspective. From everything you’ve said:

      1. There’s no way you can hit that goal. Make sure you don’t beat yourself up when you inevitably fail. There was nothing you could have done.

      2. Your boss isn’t going to listen to reason. You’ve already brought clear evidence and made your points well, and your boss ignored all that and shot you down. I’d expect the same type of reaction from the boss moving forward, no matter how well you justify yourself.

      With those two points in mind, I’d be mainly thinking how to cover my behind when February 1st comes around. It sounds like you’re already doing a good job of documenting the steps you’re taking to advance toward teapot painting. Keep that up! It stinks that you’re in this situation, and hopefully realizing that you’ve done everything possible to succeed can help alleviate some of the (completely justified) hopelessness you’re feeling. It’s especially tough to do this in the nonprofit world, where you want so badly to advance the organization’s mission, but you’re human and you can only do so much. Forgive yourself for that.

    18. Former Govt Contractor*

      I agree with everyone else about it your boss and the deadline being unreasonable.

      However, I regularly have to depend on others to provide information I need to complete my projects by set deadlines. I always tell them my deadline and I follow up regularly if I don’t get a response. I’ll be a pest if I have to – the Court set the deadlines, not me. It’s not my fault. Reach out to their bosses if necessary; I’ve phrased it like, “Fergus isn’t responding on X project, is he out of the office?” That usually works.

      1. Mama Bear*

        Same. Let them know you have a deadline and need x thing in y timeframe because you have ABC due on 2/1 and this list of required work travel to accommodate. CC anyone who needs it, like your boss. Follow up every few days as necessary. Ask if there’s another POC (even if there isn’t) to show that you are working other angles. When it fails, because it probably will, you have documentation of the bottleneck, and evidence for a need for more staff if you need to travel and do this teapot thing at this speed. They can request miracles but not all water becomes wine.

    19. CM*

      What happens if you miss the deadline?

      Your boss says you can’t. You say it’s a hard deadline. But what is the actual consequence?

      Can your nonprofit afford to lose you? Because if you’re a valued employee, there’s a chance that you could repeatedly miss deadlines, and be criticized for it, and yet face no actual consequences beyond disapproval. If this is the case, you’re fine as long as you can manage your own emotions and anxiety about your boss being annoyed.

      Over time, if either you’re missing deadlines and they find they still need you, or others are also missing deadlines, the policy may change.

    20. Existentialista*

      As long as you’re not being asked to break laws of physics to make your deadline (e.g. teapot paint needs 14 days to set and you only have 10, planes take 14 hours to fly from Sydney to Los Angeles but you only have 5 hours), it’s in principle possible, but your boss will need to authorize you to go over budget.

      In projects, if the timeline is fixed, the only flex you have is in either Resources or Quality. If quality is also fixed, then you will need to look at adding resources – outsourcing more of the tasks to colleagues or contractors, dual-path-ing with another supplier, paying overtime and rush fees, buying a finished teapot at full price, etc.

      1. TechWorker*

        I would like to point out that whilst I think this is good advice in general, even without breaking the laws of physics this is not always necessarily true – eg if outsourcing the work would require training there isn’t time to give. This especially holds if you’re talking about a deadline in 2 weeks vs a deadline in 6 months.

    21. Jdc*

      I know you’ve mentioned reaching out to the others you need to complete your part but I’m curious how hard you’ve been on them, your ability to do that, etc. Sometimes something like this is best met with the “oh we are all so crunched I know but..”. And of course not just emails. Calls, face to face.

  2. Pretty Fly for a WiFi*

    TL;DR: I’m angry and demoralized because I’m excluded from leadership and board meetings that affect my job, then I hear about initiatives that they want me to implement second-hand or not at all.

    A little background: I’m the only HR person in a company of about 80 people. My title is HR Generalist, but I was hired to take over for the Director of HR when she left almost 3 years ago. The only thing “making” her a director was the fact that she supervised administrative assistants who had nothing to do with HR, and according to those people, she did it badly. Her background was not as a director at her previous position either – she’d been the same as me, a generalist. When I started, the HR department was in major disarray and didn’t have any systems in place to address very important parts of HR. So I cleaned everything up and set up new standards. I finished several things that had been on the director’s plate, single-handedly writing a compliant employee handbook, a safety handbook, an affirmative action plan (we’re government contractors), and a bunch of other labor-intensive initiatives. On top of that, when one of the VP’s retired, I inherited much of her work as well. In other words, other than managing people, I do the work of two very-high-up individual employees while making $20,000 less than my predecessor.

    The thing that has me angry and demoralized is that my boss, the CEO, has pushed for me to become a strategic partner, even approving seminars and classes so that I can develop that knowledge. But, whereas the old director of HR was invited to attend leadership and board meetings within a year of starting at the company, I have yet to be invited to any of those. When I pointed this out to my boss, she said it would be boring for me. Then she said I sometimes acted silly, but couldn’t give me any examples so that I could tone down whatever silliness she (or, I suspect, others) saw. I’m not one to interrupt meetings. Usually, I sit quietly (I’m an introvert) and wait until it’s my turn or someone asks me a question. I try to be professional in all my dealings with the leadership and board members. My boss has acknowledged that I’m the subject-matter expert in labor, benefits, payroll, recruiting, and on and on… including a very complicated retirement plan that the company has – my company is employee-owned and I have extensive prior experience with this.

    In seeing the board members assembled today, every single one of them is white. The old director of HR was also white. I’m Hispanic, which shouldn’t matter in my company as we have a large Hispanic workforce, albeit in lower-level jobs working outside (say, like construction crews). That’s one of the reasons I was hired: I’m completely fluent in Spanish and can interpret/translate and communicate with ALL our workforce. The old director wasn’t bilingual. I’m also one of two POC in “high” positions. The only other POC in a higher position works outside (say, like a superintendent in construction).

    I really enjoy my work and the people I work with. Even my boss is a very nice person – she’s not a great manager, but I’ve had worse. Before I go nuclear and call the EEOC, what can I say so that my supervisor includes me in these meetings that affect my job? I know that bringing up the issue of race/ethnicity might put my boss on the defensive, but I’m at a loss in trying to explain the huge problem I see with the way I’m being excluded.

    1. bleh*

      Can you use an example of you needing to implement something they decided and how your being at the table could have helped them decide something better and more efficient to implement?

      The $20,000 salary differential is a big problem too. Did they just “promote” you without a raise? And then add more to your plate still with no raise. Maybe you need to be searching or meeting with them about this as well. You need to write up all of these accomplishments (that the previous person could not accomplish) and get them to see the light – and or just find a company who will pay you better and treat you like an equal.

    2. Daisy-dog*

      “I know you think these meetings would be boring, but I believe that I can contribute by [example]. I also think that it would benefit my job because [example]. What can I do to demonstrate that I would be a key asset to these meetings?”

    3. Working Mom*

      I know you said you’re an introvert, so this may be hard – but don’t wait to be invited! Invite yourself! You noted that senior leadership wants you to be more of a strategic partner. Well, you can’t do that if you’re involved in these types of meetings! Why you’re not being invited… who the heck knows. But let’s get you into those meetings!!

      So – do you know when they are scheduled or do you find out after the fact that they’ve occurred?

      1. Shadowbelle*

        I must respectfully disagree — I don’t recommend attending a meeting, especially a leadership meeting, to which one has not been invited. It will be perceived as rude and pushy, and will not serve you well. *Never* go to a meeting without an invitation unless you are brought along by someone who has been invited (e.g. “I brought Julia with me because she’s an expert in this area.”).

        2. Respectfully, Pumat Sol*

          Hard agree. If someone invites themselves to *ANY* meeting in my company it is very odd and we kick them out. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small meeting between two people in marketing or a big one with leadership. If you weren’t on the list, don’t go.

          1. Working Mom*

            Yes – absolutely – I meant “Invite yourself” as an encouraging, go get ’em – let’s get you invited; but was dialing into a call and trying to be brief! Ha. Definitely don’t just show up – but advocate for yourself to get into that meeting!

        3. Shhhh*

          I agree as well–I was in a situation at a past job that shared some elements with OP’s situation, and it would have been a huge mistake to invite myself to the meetings I wasn’t invited to (which was part of the problem). I know this because I asked my boss’s boss at my boss’s suggestion and got a firm no accompanied by an explanation that was reasonable even though I disagreed with it. The situation was ultimately a factor in my decision to leave that job, but asking instead of just going let me maintain a good reputation until I did.

          For me, asking my grandboss instead of just resigning myself to the way things were without trying to see if there was room for change was the part where I broke from my more introverted tendencies. At least then I knew it wasn’t going to change and could act accordingly. So I think that’s probably OP’s best course of action – have another professional conversation about it. I think something like Daisy-dog’s script is a good way to approach it.

          1. Working Mom*

            Sorry – I didn’t mean *literally* invite yourself. Trying to be quick and muddled my meaning there. Where I was going with that is to advocate for yourself – find out when the next meeting is, and the go to you direct leader and say something along the lines of “as part of my goal to become a strategic partner, I’d like to attend this meeting to be a part of new initiatives and include the HR perspective in them, for successful execution.”

      2. Pretty Fly for a WiFi*

        I can look at the leadership’s calendars (my boss’ or someone else’s) to see when the meetings are scheduled. There’s also a standing meeting every week that I think I should attend, but without an invitation… :-/

        1. AccountantAnon*

          You have to know your culture – you can’t sit around and wait to be invited to meetings that you’re clearly being deliberately excluded from, but how much of a violation of office norms it would be is dependent on your workplace. I definately agree you need to push to attend – the method of that varies.

          “These meetings will be boring.” Reply: “I’m not here to be entertained, I’m here to work and I need to attend as part of my job for X, Y, Z reasons.”
          “This is only for senior leadership.” Reply: “I’m confused – my promotion explicitly said I was to be a strategic partner. Why, exactly, am I not counted as ‘Senior Leadership’ when I am the most senior person in HR?”

          And so forth… my grandpa used to say “Never tie your shoe in a watermelon patch.” It means the appearance of impropriety can be as damning as actual impropriety. The same goes for racism / discrimination. I’m glad you’re considering the EEOC. Good luck!

        2. Working Mom*

          Have you directly expressed desire to participate in those meetings and you’re still not being invited? I’d aim for a direct (but still respectful) approach. Clearly express that you wish to be included in those meetings for specific reasons – that you want to be a part of new initiatives, to ensure their success. If after you’ve directly requested to join the meetings and you’re not invited… that’s a different scenario. The leadership team may not have even thought about it – and sitting and waiting to get invited isn’t going to make any progress!

      3. Lily in NYC*

        Oh my god, that would be career suicide in many, if not most, companies. If someone did that at my company they would be marginalized and never promoted.

    4. Shadowbelle*

      If you are the only HR person, then it would be good for you to be in those meetings so that you can be aware of decisions/trends that affect the work you were hired to do. Can you go back to your boss and push again to be included? If she says, “You’d be bored,” again, tell her that you know that there are boring parts to everyone’s job and you don’t think being protected from boredom is helpful either to your development or your ability to do your job. If she says again “sometimes you act silly” (WTF?), suggest that you be invited to the meetings, and if you act silly in any of them, she will tell you about it (after the meeting!) and you will not attend future meetings until you have gone six months without being silly. Also ask her to point out any silliness as soon as possible after it occurs so that you can be aware of it and correct it.

      1. That Girl from Quinn's House*

        My experience is that someone who says, “Sometimes you act silly,” is repeatedly referencing one specific episode over and over again. Like, “PrettyFly spilled her bag and didn’t notice a banana fell into an accordion file until she went to onboard someone later and pulled out the banana from the file and started laughing hysterically!”

        Even though a situation like that might be a totally extenuating circumstance, it’s cemented in her brain as Who You Are As A Person, and she will not be convinced otherwise. It’s time to job search, IMHO.

        1. Nita*

          If you want to stay, it’s possible to change that perception, but it won’t change by itself. It’s hard work and you have to be kind of aggressive about pointing out what you do and how much you mean to the company. If you’re of the mindset that your work speaks for itself, this is not a good time for that mindset. You need to either insist you need to be taken seriously or, yes, start job searching.

        2. Mama Bear*

          I would go back to my boss and cite an example where it was difficult for you (and by extension the rest of the company b/c you handle so many things for so many people) and where it would have been better for you to be included. At my company, anyone manager or higher + other key leads are in a standard weekly meeting. I don’t speak much, but what I hear there often sets my priorities for the week so I asked to be included.

          If the boss continues to cite something as undefined as “silly” press for what they mean by that. “You keep citing that as a reason, but haven’t given me specifics. I cannot change what I do not know. What I do know is that the previous person in my role had a seat a the table, and not being at these meetings is impacting my job. I want the opportunity to mitigate this or to move on from this reason.”

          I might also reach out to someone else, like the organizer and ask how people are selected to be at the meeting and if you, as the sole HR person, could be included in the future.

    5. Meh*

      I’d explicitly ask to be included in these meetings, citing the work reasons you mentioned and that you need to have that information to do your job. And if your boss tries to tell you no for those wishy washy reasons, ask her for exactly what needs to change so that you can attend since you need to be present to do your work. I’d keep the race issues in your back pocket in case they keep giving you the runaround, but there’s just a little too much plausible deniability before going nuclear on them (since your predecessor was “technically” a director who did “manage” people, which could justify the inclusion of the meetings and higher pay). Though honestly, it’s ridiculous that you’re in this scenario, so I’d probably also be looking for somewhere better that treats you with the respect (and pay) that you deserve.

    6. NW Mossy*

      There’s a lot of stuff tangled together here, but it all seems to trace back to one thing: your boss doesn’t have a clear vision for what your role is. What you’re seeing in her behavior are symptoms of that, and while I can’t rule out that discrimination is the root, I wouldn’t rule that this is due to below-average management skills on her part.

      Instead of blowing up the whole thing (which I think you rightly recognize is maybe too much), try this: “Can we talk more about what you’re picturing when you say you’d like me to be a strategic partner? I want to continue to move in that direction too – I’ve accomplished a lot and I’m ready to tackle this challenge. I know you mentioned that I’d find board meetings boring, but those seem like a great opportunity to do more of the strategic work you’d like from me. The next one is [date], and I’d like to attend.”

      From there, really listen hard to what she says in response. A lot of your frustration is (quite reasonably) stemming from the disconnect between what she says and what she actually does, and this gives you a way to provoke that conversation in a way that doesn’t assume any particular motive on her part. That helps a lot to forestall any defensiveness and get a more truthful response.

      1. Lana Kane*

        I agree – ask these questions and really listen, because it will inform what you do next.

        You have a great skillset, so don’t discount starting to look for something else where they will be more utilized and valued.

    7. WellRed*

      When your boss calls you silly for no reason, you’ve got a bigger problem then not being invited to attend meetings. I also imagine it doesn’t help that your title is HR generalist and wanting to attend leadership meetings. Any chance you can also work on that piece of it? (with a raise).

      1. voyager1*

        The silly thing is serious. I had that used against me. Never could overcome it nor could I get an example of what the boss meant by it. Finally I concluded it was because I am extroverted and friendly to everyone.

        When I finally called this boss out about it, right before I left that job she said this:

        “The problem is you know your right and you are, but the problem is you know it.”

        This was in regards to knowledge and skills for a promotion and my skill set. In short I knew all the things, she just was threatened by a man who is confident and friendly. In short she zeroed in on friendly and twisted it into silly.

        I ended up leaving that job for a better paying job with more opportunity.

      2. Aquawoman*

        I think that BOTH parts of those objections are insulting. Saying someone would be bored is like calling them frivolous. My guess on “silly” is that someone at the C-level thinks that the idea of treating human beings as such is absurd and believes people should work without hard hats and doesn’t understand all of this “diversity” nonsense.

    8. Llellayena*

      “The person previously holding this position attended these meetings. I think that is critical to this position because of X. Can we arrange for me to attend the next meeting?” If the answer is “You’ll be bored” your response should be “Then I’ll be bored, but I need to hear the information from that meeting as it’s happening or I will be unable to implement the results of the meeting effectively.” If she says sometimes you’re silly you can say “If you give me specific examples I’ll work on that, but in the mean time I’ll make a concerted effort not to be silly in the meeting.” If you’re still stuck, the big guns you have are the affirmative action plan (which you wrote!) and the indication from the CEO that he wants you to become a strategic partner (do you have that in writing?). If you talk with the CEO, mention to him that you want to be in the meetings as part of that training. It’s a way around your immediate boss without specifically stepping on her toes since you’re asking him because of a different reason that you’re asking her….maybe.

    9. Mop.*

      Leave the company if at all possible. You have likely developed great skill sets, but without more exposure to broader business contributions beyond HR compliance stuff, your growth will be impeded. In general company leaders place less value on policy, payroll, etc. and more value on driving business initiatives.

      You are bright, bilingual and have an understanding of AA planning and recruiting. You deserve more than what this company may have to offer. Go somewhere that will include you in strategic decision-making so you can further grow your career. I’ve led various HR functions for many years at large employers and sometimes when I hear how my staff were treated at some (not all, of course) small employers, I cringe. They’d be told to be “strategic” but then relegated to just admin stuff and party planning.

    10. The Man, Becky Lynch*

      Argh, you’re such a valuable asset and they’re taking so much advantage of you.

      They gave you that generalist title so they could try to make an excuse to pay you 20k less, they also are under the impression the difference in title, but not difference in duties should shield them from equal pay laws, which as an expert you know isn’t how that works. I can see through these transparent bigots all the way from here.

      I don’t have advice because when dealing with bigots, my advice is always “Leave and sue them until they run headfirst into bankruptcy.”

      But you’ve got my internet stranger support who knows what your skillset is worth, coupled with your hard work and enjoyment of your job [HR sucks, I hate it on my best days but I know how fulfilling doing it well can be, so I get it on that level]. You would be making so much more money somewhere else without this nonsense.

      “Silly” without exact reference points, hissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss, that’s classic swerving in action. In accounting I want detailed receipts, I want it in HR too because details keep your ass out of the fire. It’s basic business sense. Hissssssssssssss, racists, hissssssssssssssssssss.

      1. Massive Dynamic*

        “Silly” makes me think that you’re also much younger than your predecessor (and most/all of upper management?) as well as female. I agree, you’re better off starting a job search to move to a company that’ll support your growth, pay you fairly, and not discriminate against you. Best of luck to you!

      2. CM*

        Yeah. There’s a theme here where the OP was hired into the HR Director’s job in every way that matters, but isn’t being treated as an HR Director. Part of what’s frustrating is that we can’t ever know for sure why, but my instinct is that the OP is probably right that race is involved.

        FWIW, it’s also really condescending to tell someone they can’t come to a meeting because it would bore them.

        1. Mama Bear*

          Right. How many jokes are there about meetings that should have been an email? Most meetings are IMO not very exciting. If that was the criteria, no one would attend anything.

        2. The Man, Becky Lynch*

          Also Massive Dynamic makes a good comment about possible age issues too.

          Meetings are always boring, I’ve never had an exciting one in my life.

          I’m drug into every meeting on a leadership level and I literally had my eyes blur awhile back because of how painful it was, LOL. We’re buying new furniture and the sales rep was so…so long winded and I’m like “Just show me some desksssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss zzzzzzzzzzzzz.”

    11. lemon*

      I wonder if when your boss says “strategic partner,” she means, “we want you to look out for the best interests of the business instead of the employees,” and *not* “we want you to have a seat at the table.” :(

      This sounds like such a frustrating situation. I definitely relate, as I’ve often been the only Latinx employee in an org/team who isn’t support or maintenance staff. I wish I had advice to offer, but at least wanted to send empathetic internet vibes your way.

    12. Not So NewReader*

      Her concern about you being bored is touching./snark.
      Let’s see I bet that very complicated retirement plan was so very interesting to read through. /more snark. I see more examples in what you say here.

      Go back and ask her what her real reason is for not allowing you to attend meetings. Tell her that it is not possible for the meeting to be more boring than the reading material for the retirement plan. Tell her you are compensated to find ways to work with boredom, that is part of your job.
      You say she is basically a nice boss. You may want to consider saying something like, “I have always thought of you as a nice boss, this does not fit with everything else I know about you. What’s up.” And don’t say, “What’s up” as if it is a question, no uptick in voice inflection. Say it like you know there is something she’d like to talk about but she isn’t talking about. You can press the point by saying that she supported you in taking seminars/classes in effort to become a strategic partner. Yet another reason why not allowing you at meetings does not fit with other things she is saying.

      1. Poppy the Flower*

        I really like this approach and I would try it before (not necessarily instead of!) going to the CEO to ask about a raise as suggested below. I had to do similar when I kept getting vague feedback at my last job. I was similarly direct and did mention how I’d tried specific strategies, but that didn’t seem to be working so I was there for specific suggestions/directions. Basically calling the person out on being too vague/constantly moving the goalposts. It worked and they seemed to really like me after that.

      2. AnonAcademic*

        Yes, I learned this from a department chair who was great at getting students to fess up about plagiarism. You go in with a tone of “I know SOMETHING is going on, and I need an explanation.” I had good luck with laying it out simply like, “You had me take xyz trainings so I could take on more of a leadership role. However you expressed concerns about me attending the meetings that would help me pursue that goal. Can you help me reconcile what’s going on?”

        I also like leading but non accusatory phrasing re: the diversity component, e.g. “It’s hard for me to understand the disparity in my pay and lack of integration into leadership here, particularly given that I am the only nonwhite person in such a position. Can you help me understand?” Be prepared with examples, like “Joe WhiteGuy attends all the meetings and makes XYZ, so does Suzie Caucasian in accounting and Bob Greyhair in operations. Without more context the pattern seems to be they are white and I am not. Can you help me understand?” Key is to sound mostly puzzled and mildly disappointed but not angry or anything implying “I have a lawyer on speed dial.”

    13. Former Govt Contractor*

      I think this calls for a big picture meeting with your boss. You deserve a raise, and you should make a case for one to your boss. You convinced me! As part of that discussion, you can stress again how important it is that you attend these meetings, and address the other discrepancies between your job and that of your predecessor. If you get nowhere, you might consider looking around. You sound like a valuable asset.

      1. CM*

        Yes, this!

        I would request a one-on-one meeting with the CEO to discuss your job responsibilities.

        At the meeting, make the case that you should get a director title, a raise to at least equal your predecessor’s salary, and treatment as a true strategic partner which includes being invited to leadership meetings. Refer to your own performance, abilities, duties, and track record; your company’s past practices; people in similar positions at your company; and norms in your industry.

        I’m a lawyer so I tend to be comfortable with being a little adversarial, but I would also say, “Given that I have VP-level responsibilities but am not treated as a member of the leadership team, and the large disparities in compensation, I have to wonder if being Latina is a factor. I’m sure nobody at this company would intentionally treat me differently, but I’m struggling to find explanations for why I make $20,000 less than my predecessor while having significantly higher-level responsibilities.”

        1. Triple Threat Diversity Hire*

          TBH I would be a little surprised if race wasn’t a factor in the “silly” comment. There is a big part of the stereotype people have of Latin@s that centers around being loud/chatty/frivolous (for femme types)/violent (for masc types), and it seems like often when a person in power just somehow can’t come up with any examples of a behavior they’re accusing us of, it’s a behavior that lines up with the stereotype… I understand why Pretty Fly might not want to come out swinging with that immediately, but they should probably prepare themselves to have to bring it up if they’re really looking for a resolution.

    14. Never Been There, Never Done That*

      “I have to attend those meetings if you want me to get the work done correctly. There really isn’t anyway around this, boring or not. If I can’t attend please give me the reason. ”
      That’s how I would push back for getting into the meetings. That said, I really think you should start looking at finding another job. You know you’re being hosed, they know they are hosing you. You have great skills and you should be compensated fairly for it. For crying out loud you aren’t asking for the moon! Start looking around for other jobs and I am sure you will find something better. Honestly, these people don’t deserve a great employee like you. They really don’t.

    15. Leap Year Conspiracy*

      I went through something like this in my own career (in HR). Here are my suggestions in addition to others suggested:
      – Start by asking to go to one or two meeting as a guest. Not all the meetings – just one or two with very relevant topics to your area or suggest a strategic topic you present and use the strategic partner requirement as a reason; your supervisor can say no but asking to go to one meeting to move the strategic partner request forward will make HER look silly.
      – Get yourself in front of the other leaders of the organization if you haven’t already, through the meetings but also through other ways like strategic projects (succession planning for example – if they don’t have a plan or haven’t updated it, use that to go out and talk directly to those leaders).
      – Start job searching casually. This will boost your confidence that you can find something else even if you want to stay where you are at ultimately.
      – Note how critical you are to them to gear up to the conversation with your boss about raising you up in title. I was key in a line of business my company was creating at the time – they were literally relying on my skills and replacing me would have been a huge pain for them. I was ready to walk if I needed to with a cushion so I felt like I had the power in the negotiation (which ultimately was with my boss’s boss – I had the longevity and connection to go over his head and knew his bark would be worse than his bite on it).

    16. CatMintCat*

      I’m completely stuck on the use of the word “silly”. I might perhaps use it with the 6 year olds I teach, but cannot imagine using it with any seriousness with another adult. If she’s using a juvenile word and can’t back it up with any sort of actual example, she’s the “silly” one. And a really bad manager. I’m not sure if this is salvageable, given her mindset about you.

    17. Tiffany Hashish*

      For the record, I’d like to plan a meeting with you, and we can only invite silly peeps who know their shit.

      You have plenty of great advice here for advocating for yourself within your company. I only add – if you end up looking for a new job, I think you’d rock in a small HR-centric business with all your niche knowledge.

      Trying to play those white dudes at their own game sounds exhausting. Go where you can make an awesome impact with folks who are aching to have you at their tables.

    18. Fey*

      Wow, this was me at my last job. The cleaning up of everything and setting up new processes, the having the lowest title (Office Manager) but doing everything my manager (also called the Director) should have done while she got all the credit…even the race thing (cept I’m Asian).

      You can try talking to the relevant parties as others have suggested. But FWIW when I did try talking, I was told I had “volunteered” to do HR tasks (like recruiting) apart from the usual OM duties (which were never clearly outlined) and was “not forced”. Based on that I had no right to ask for a raise or a change in job title because it wasn’t like she’d been praising me for all the good work I was doing and how much money I was saving the company for taking on things they used to outsource, etc.

      I resigned right away, without a new job lined up, because I was SO MAD. I don’t recommend that. I recommend developing a proper strategy. Talk to someone, but prepare to be told some bs, and start looking. Good luck.

    19. K8*

      Just commenting to say that I’m seeing the same thing at my company as well. My manager is the head of marketing at the company and she is excluded from all leadership meetings. She gets the same weak excuses as you do; it’s boring, it won’t change anything, etc. Demographically these meetings are also overwhelmingly male. It’s part of a wider toxic culture in the company where both my boss and me – the only marketers in the company – are not taken seriously as subject-matter experts and as colleagues who can make a strategic contribution. In spite of the fact that we are extremely diplomatic and have managed to make a strong contribution to the company (wherever we could) over the last 2.5 years. Needless to say I don’t see myself staying here for much longer and it’s the financial stability that’s keeping me around for the time being.

  3. Help*

    Any scripts for getting a difficult jerky coworker to work with me? Right now it’s like pulling teeth. The environment is toxic and he is the favorite among staff and the boss.

    We are supposed to work on projects together, but he will ditch me and then play it off as a joke, which really upsets me. He then tells the boss about the work that “we” did, when it was me and not him!

    He only attends meetings if the boss is going, otherwise he doesn’t show up.

    I don’t understand it because my coworkers seem to think it’s funny and enjoy the drama. (He tells them because I’ve heard them making comments about it.) Boss is conflict-avoidant, so nothing will happen to them.

    Is there anything to do or say?

    1. Clawfoot*

      Start documenting everything. Take minutes at every meeting, noting attendance specifically. Even if it just winds up being a meeting with just yourself (when he doesn’t show up). Note it. Document all the work you do on your own, and document all the work you and this guy do together (if any).

      Document, document, document.

      1. Colette*

        People often suggest this, but I don’t understand why. What’s she supposed to do with the documentation? The boss doesn’t need it, and there’s no fairness police who will review it and make him stop being a jerk.

        1. Jedi Squirrel*

          See the comments from Me and Shadowbelle below. This is step one of gradually putting the screws on jerky coworker.

            1. Me*

              They do though. One of the common questions when elevating to various levels of supervisors or HR is what have you done to work this out?

            3. Senor Montoya*

              Yes, you do. Otherwise, it’s just OP said vs. Jerk-Favorite said.

              You’re going to want it also if you are job searching — gives you great details for resume, cover letter, interviews. Not the fact that Jerk-Favorite didn’t do his bit. But all the stuff you ARE doing.

              Paper trail, baby. The most important How to Be a Successful Adult advice my dad gave me.
              ===============
              BTW, when Jerk-Favorite misses a meeting, I’d send an email (read-receipt it, this is an appropriate use of read-receipt plus also it’s gonna annoy him) summarizing the meeting. [this is part of your paper trail, and he’s a recipient, so it’s not “just you.”] Start with a bland statement like, “So sorry you weren’t able to attend our project planning meeting! Here’s what was covered:” Even if you were the only one at the meeting — use that time to work on whatever was the meeting agenda.

              If the meeting needed him to take action, then include that in your summary. I like to have a Summary section and then an Action Items section, with the action, who’s supposed to do it, deadlines, resources.

              Give your boss a weekly status report on your work, too.

        2. Another Millenial*

          Worst case scenario, if bosses try to blame OP for not getting work done, they now have proof that they at least tried and what kind of road blocks kept them from completing their tasks. The boss SHOULD need that.

        3. Alternative Person*

          It creates a trail of what you did. It might not be use to a manager, but HR might find it interesting if you can show you have a records of the work you did do but the other guy didn’t. And if not HR, it might be of interest to the Employment Board or whatever arbiter there is in your area.

          Also, for me at least, its a sanity check. I can look at my checklists, my e-mail chains, my records of meetings and remind myself, I’m not making a mountain out of a molehill, that there is a problem that needs to be solved and it is the co-worker.

          And one time, my notes got a shitty employer to pay out the wages they owed me, without having to go to tribunal. I had a diary of times worked (they didn’t), I had a signed note from them about unpaid wages, I had copies of the doctor’s notes, I had notes from a very contentious discussion, bullying text messages, the works. They lied about some stuff, but they couldn’t produce concrete evidence to support their side. It didn’t change the mind of the employer, but it made my case much stronger in the eyes of the Employment Board.

          1. Colette*

            I’m not sure what an Employment Board is, but I can’t imagine they’d care that the coworker is skipping meetings or taking credit for work he’s not doing. The person who should care is the boss – but if she doesn’t care, I doubt any amount of documentation is going to help.

            1. Alternative Person*

              Where I am, the Employment Board is basically a gov service for resolving work issues. If a workplace fires someone unfairly, or withholds wages (as in my case), then any documentation the worker can provide can potentially help them prove they were fired unfairly/owed money/set unreasonable targets. Certainly, they issue of the coworker skipping is likely not their concern, but the person can use their documentation to show they got screwed over and access their unemployment benefits/rest of their wages/get proper severance/agree wording on references to name a few potential issues.

              It’s not about winning the battle with the co-worker, or getting the boss to act, its about protecting yourself.

            3. Jedi Squirrel*

              Yeah, but bosses can come and go. If jerky coworker tries to pretend like he’s a star with new boss, Help can say, “yeah, actually he’s not; he shirks work, and here’s the proof.”

        4. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain*

          Even if THIS boss isn’t going to do anything about John, there are almost always other authority channels to try. The OP doesn’t even have to be subtle about it either; John and the boss will probably catch on to being called out and tracked and may either change their behavior, because they realize they might lose their jobs, or stop “joking” about it and become overtly hostile — which will then make it easier for OP to make a case.

          If there is ever a chance to show to the grand boss, great-grand boss, the next boss after this one leaves, HR, unemployment office (if this lack of cooperation leads to constructive dismissal), or even a lawyer if this is a pattern John does specifically to coworkers of a certain race, gender, nationality, religion… the OP will need more than just their word about what occurred — keep and create anything in writing that shows who what where when… send emails specifically calling out behaviors like ditched meetings, rude comments, or non-response to calls/chats/emails.

      2. Mama Bear*

        Agreed. Then send them to your coworker and cc the boss as “progress reports.” This might also be a case for something like Trello or JIRA to track tasks and assignments.

    2. Me*

      When he takes credit for things you worked on alone, a great response is ” John, you didn’t show up to any meetings or respond to emails on this project. I’m really confused why you would say you worked on this?” In a friendly yet puzzled tone.

      1. ReformedControlFreak*

        That sounds pretty passive aggressive but if the other person is a jerk and it’s the only way, maybe

      2. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain*

        Right! If it’s such a joke, lean into the “joking” and fire back with your own. “John, are you actually taking credit for my work? You didn’t even show up?!” ha ha ha, “John, while you were taking a nap, I went ahead and did XYZ.” ha ha ha. “John, in the meeting you missed, we decided you would take on X” even if the “we” is you, and X is the drudgery of the project.

        But mostly, try to stop showing that you are upset…because that’s what makes this funny for him (and the others). If you starve them of the laugh they get out yanking your chain, they MIGHT stop.

        1. Warm Weighty Wrists*

          Oh, I very much disagree that this approach will help at all! It encourages the toxic “joking” culture, when it seems like what Help wants is for there to be less passive-aggressive joking, not more. Also, if John enjoys the joking (if only to get a rise out of Help), but Help is only pretending to enjoy the joking but is actually mad, that will come through and people may come to the conclusion that Help is the source of the problem rather than responding to a problem.
          The way to approach this is to have a serious, calm, specific conversation with a higher up about what is happening and how it is affecting your work, Help.

          1. There’s probably a cat meme to describe it*

            I don’t know I’d dismiss Curtain’s approach. Help seems to indicate that there won’t be any support from above, and if the workplace culture already has toxicity ingrained into it there’s not much one person alone can do to change that.

            Help, you haven’t said it explicitly and I may be projecting here so please correct me if I’m wrong: it sounds like you are female and there potentially some gender dynamics coming into play? If so, returning the serve in the moment can sometimes be the most efficient way to shut that kind of immaturity down – as crap as that is. From my personal experience, showing frustration, or trying to remain uber-professional just ups the stakes for them and draws the whole thing out.

            Also, yes, document everything! Better to have it and not need it than vice versa.

              1. There’s probably a cat meme to describe it*

                What does your gut tell you is at the heart of his behaviour..? (Not probing for a response on that FYI!) Just that your intuition can be a valuable guide on the context and what to do when there’s gendered undertones.

        2. There’s probably a cat meme to describe it*

          “Your insights from the Penske file were invaluable John!” ;-P

    3. Colette*

      Is a new job a possibility?
      If you have to stay, your choices are to accept the way he is or find someone else to work with if you can.

    4. Shadowbelle*

      Provide weekly status reports to your boss about the work you have done on the project (bullet points, not detailed scenarios). Include comments like “Waiting for Joker to provide teapot diagrams.” Next week, the comment would be “Teapot diagrams completed (Joker unfortunately had to work on other priorities, so I did the diagrams).”

      1. valentine*

        “Teapot diagrams completed (Joker unfortunately had to work on other priorities, so I did the diagrams).”
        I would make this “Completed teapot diagrams” and plainly state when Joker did sweet FA on the project.

        1. Shadowbelle*

          My reason for saying “Joker had to work on other priorities” is that it makes the OP sound like a good, professional team player, and does not alienate Boss, since Boss and Joker are BFFs. It gives Boss the opportunity to ask Joker, “What were your other priorities?” and lets Boss play manager and be important.

          Strategic manipulation is a key part of corporate success. You look good, Joker looks bad, Boss looks managerial, and (hopefully) you haven’t gotten on Boss’s bad side.

    5. Alternative Person*

      There’s not a lot you can do when someone doesn’t want to work with you.

      For meetings, create an e-mail chain, things like

      -Hey Ass, Meeting at 3 in room 7 0n Friday 12th of Jan.
      -Hey Ass, just reminding you about meeting at three today etc.
      When he doesn’t show up, CC in your boss.

      Start sending your boss updates and make use of lots of ‘I’ language. Be clear about what you are doing (attachments are also helpful for in-progress documents)
      -I prepared the llamas for treatment.
      -I wrangled the sugar plum fairies
      Make it clear you are doing all the tasks.

      Be matter of fact in interactions. Resist the urge to snark or roll your eyes to his face. Take all the air out of his drama fire.
      -Oh, no, I did that.
      – You didn’t come to the agreed meeting. I followed up and looped in the boss.
      -Please do X task. (repeat, blandly, bored. He probably won’t do it, but he won’t get any drama from it).
      State what you want and walk away. Remove all drama (till you get to your cubicle or bathroom, the roll your eyes enough to create a new source of renewable energy)

      Given the way you describe it, there might not be any way to fix this situation, as if the boss likes this guy, there’s not necessarily much you can do. Might want to start looking at your options.

    7. ursula*

      Can you start letting his balls just drop, and letting things become a problem for Boss? And just being extremely, flatly, unexcitingly matter-of-fact about what work you have done and what you were waiting for or depending on Jerkface to do? (This tactic is a bad idea in some workplaces, like where you provide life-or-death services to clients, but I have found this sometimes will get a conflict-avoidant boss to do Something, Anything)
      Also I’m sorry, that really sucks and it’s super disrespectful of him. If it helps, he will not do well in most other workplaces.

  4. Frustrated*

    Is there a secret or way to get someone to give you the lowdown when you start a new job?

    I’ve never had that. I’ve seen other people bond and discuss that info, but I’ve never been lucky enough and had to figure things out for myself.

    To clarify, I don’t mean gossip or anything, just someone who can give you info on things and other stuff that people need to know.

    1. Antilles*

      I’ve never seen that kind of lowdown either.
      Instead, it seems to be far more common to get specific training on specific items- the HR person sits down to explain how our timesheet software works, the office manager says how to request PTO, etc…but not like a generalized sit-down with one person that goes through all the nuances. And if you’re trying to get these sorts of focused rundowns, the only real way to do that is to figure out a good person to ask and grab them with a “hey, since I’m new here, can you show me ___”.

    2. Oranges*

      I’ve done the “Hey, what’s up with [insert name here] they seem kinda [insert tactful descriptor here].” But I’ve never gotten a full scoop. Mainly it’s because as a newbie people don’t know if you’ll keep your mouth shut about what they’ll tell you.

    3. Bluebell*

      I think this can sometimes be accomplished by informal coffees or lunches when you are just starting a new job. You don’t have to explicitly ask people to tell you that sort of thing, but you can bring up the topic of “so what should I know around here“ over coffee or lunch. I actually had a colleague sit down with me right after she started, and asked me point blank “so what can you tell me that you couldn’t tell me during the interview?” We actually became friends and are still friends today even though we’ve both left that place.

    4. PX*

      Network and or just ask.

      Networking is trickier and depends on your personality type, but spend a couple of weeks observing office dynamics and then finding the right person who seems to know how things ‘really’ work can be useful.

      Alternatively asking friendly colleagues openly can be a way to do this. Something along the lines of ‘So what are the office/people dynamics like here?’

      Shameless eavesdropping on office conversations is also a thing…

    5. Adlib*

      I’d say it’s not the norm, but at my current position, an existing employee is assigned to new hires (not always in the same department even) to show them the ropes in general and answer any informal questions that they may not feel comfortable asking HR or their new boss just yet. (We call them “sherpas” which, I get it, but it’s goofy.) For example, I asked just how strict the dress code is when I started because I saw variations, and we are typically business casual or nicer as an industry. It was pretty helpful, and it’s something I’d like to see replicated elsewhere.

    6. You can't fire me; I don't work in this van*

      Support roles that work across departments like admins and IT pretty much know all the dirt.

      1. AvonLady Barksdale*

        I think the trouble is that if they’re good, they won’t necessarily trust a brand-new person with that dirt. The only times I’ve ever been given a “lowdown” by a seemingly friendly insider, I’ve realized within months that the person sharing the stories was a problem herself.

        The only insider info I’ve ever given was stuff like, “This entrance is easier to get to from your train stop. Don’t be fooled by the hamburgers in the cafeteria, they’re terrible. We have a regular standing meeting at noon on Monday, eat a snack before you go.”

        1. Selmarie*

          This! I make a practice now of being professionally friendly to everyone with a bit of a skeptical eye about overly-friendly, chatty coworkers, as I, too, have found that they often have their own issues in their employment. It doesn’t pay to become too friendly until you’ve had time to observe and get the lay of the land, and often employees with issues are looking for support; understandable, but it won’t help you. I think it’s wise to keep your own counsel and observe. It usually doesn’t take long to figure things out.

          1. Krabby*

            I completely agree with this. If someone is giving you the ‘lowdown’ on other employees and you haven’t been there for more than a month, that person is the problem.

            We had a very gossipy, negative admin assistant in my last job who would always get friendly with some of the new hires and take them out to lunch and “take them under her wing”. You could always tell who was going to be a problem by who didn’t shut down or minimize the friendship after that first lunch with her.

            Luckily we were able to terminate her employment before her little posse of toxicity spread too far. Most of her group quit or mellowed out after she left.

            1. Formerly Frustrated Optimist*

              Experienced this firsthand in my current job: One co-worker wanted to tell me about drama from almost day one, and for a while, seemed to want me to “find” my own drama. When I expressed zero interest in bad-mouthing others, and when I consistently demonstrated ease in navigating work relationships, she “gave up” on me.

            2. Jeffrey Deutsch*

              Yes, people (other than your boss and similar folk) who want to take you under their wing right away commonly (1) are on the outs and trying to shore up their position by ensnaring newbies before said newbies can find out they’d be backing the wrong horse and/or (2) have a bad attitude about management in general or specific others in particular, and want to get the first word in with the newbies.

          2. Lily in NYC*

            Huh, I am friendly and chatty and often help new hires figure out the lay of the land. The “lowdown” doesn’t have to mean it’s baseless gossip – it is things like, “if you fill out your timesheet this way you will accrue leave faster (weird loophole we have), or letting them know not to take it personally if the CEO’s assistant is rude to them because that’s just the way she is. Or that we are really easygoing about vacation time. But thanks for assuming the worst about those of us who try to be helpful! It’s great to know there are people like you who would look askance at a sincere effort to welcome them and would assume that I have work issues and can’t be trusted. Nice.

            1. June First*

              Lily, I am like this, too! Especially when I am training someone because it can be a culture shock to learn our org does things in a Very Specific (and sometimes counterintuitive) Way.

            2. Krabby*

              I think there’s a difference between telling someone “don’t worry about Alice, she’s like that with everyone,” and “Alice is in love with her boss and thinks she’s in competition with us all for his heart, so she can be pretty nasty.”

              One of those helps avoid drama, the other perpetuates it. I think that’s the distinction AvonLady and Selmarie are making.

              The type of help you give sounds like the positive version :)

    8. Daisy-dog*

      I’m awful at asking questions, so I get what you’ve gone through. Sometimes it’s just based on the personality type of the people that you work with. I’ve worked with people who love to talk and some that don’t. I learned more about my job from a talkative long-time employee once than from my actual supervisor.

    9. I'm A Little Teapot*

      I’m one of the people who will occasionally give that inside scoop.

      -First, I have to feel like putting in the effort. I simply don’t always have the time/energy/interest.
      -Second, I have to feel like it’s safe talking to you. This isn’t quantifiable, sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. It’s probably not even based in reality. Tied up with this is do I like you enough/feel bad enough that you don’t know the backstory to make the effort.
      -Third, there needs to be backstory important enough to bother. Sometimes it’s just not critical. If you’re going to walk into a firing line without some warning, I’m more likely to try to warn you. If you’re just going to look silly for a bit, eh, you’ll live.

    10. DANGER: Gumption Ahead*

      I have given the low down, but it was in a situation where we already knew each other and the boss was a toxic, hot mess, but the work was super cool and unique so worth doing. I had recommended she apply, but felt I owed it to her to give her a heads up.

    11. Undercover Bagel*

      Probably not the answer you want to hear, but I think it mostly depends on luck or just having a disposition where people feel comfortable telling you things. I definitely have that, and often receive company lowdowns or gossip without going out of my way to try and learn anything. (Not saying that I enjoy it, I actually really hate talking about people when they’re not around.)

      I will say over the years I’ve noticed that people who are willing to share “secrets” with you are often the same people who contribute dysfunction to a workplace.

    12. Holy Moley*

      At my new job I asked a few people like this “Is there anything about the office culture here I should know about so I don’t step on anyone’s toes?”

      Worked for me!

    13. Skeptical Squirrel*

      My company raised the rates of insurance this year so now I am making less per paycheck than last year. Yay for a negative raise!

      The insurance itself is really terrible with high deductibles to be met before anything is covered.

      I will be very surprised if we get any increases at all this year. Last year was 3% unless you were promoted within the year. The year before was 1%. This year doesn’t look very promising.

    14. Getting the Info*

      Some of it is putting yourself out there and some of it is being the type of person that others feel comfortable telling you about things.

      I find the easiest way is to start with harmless/no stakes questions. This is very much position dependent, of course, but I sometimes just start with “Hey! Any tips on dealing with X?”

      If you’re in a role that deals with repeat clients/people and someone is acting different than others you’ve dealt with, depending on your comfort level, I’ve done the “Hey! I was dealing with X on Y and I noticed [something neutral but just off]. What’s been your experience with X?” If they’ve had positive experiences, then follow it up with asking for tips. If it’s been negative, they’ll tell you and you can both laugh about it.

      I ask a lot of questions. You have to take the initiative. If you make people feel like they’re an expert, they’ll want to share information with you.

    15. Not So NewReader*

      Ask people. Try to be deliberate, such as don’t ask a random person for help on a problem with the shared printer. Ask the person you noticed is the one who lifts the covers off and pokes around inside. There is at least one such person in a group or building.

      Another example, but this is kind of stupid, if you see Tim cleaning his desk and you would like to clean your desk ask Tim where and how he got the cleaning supplies. The general idea is when you see people doing something you want to do, ask them the how’s and where’s. “Gee, I’d like my AC installed, too. How do I go about that?”

      Different scenario: You do all X’s and then pass them to Sally. You start realizing that you could streamline the X’s and do them quicker/more organized/whatever. Go ask Sally if that would be helpful on her end. You can also ask her for her ideas.

      Follow ups are great. If you ask for advice and it works, go back and say “It worked, thanks!” Or if someone comes to you and asks you for something that is a bit involved, after you get it for them, check to see if they have what they need. (Not all the time, just randomly check back with people where it makes sense.) Follow ups can leave the door open for more information exchanges.

      Let’s say you find out Sally used to do X’s but she has moved on. Ask her if you can come to her with a question or problem if the need arises. I do mean ONE question or problem, not ten. If she says no, just say you understand, it’s not a problem. Ask permission to ask random questions from appropriate sources.

      I am not sure how much this would be useful for your setting. Some jobs I have had, I could not do this because I had constraints I had to adhere to. But if you have the wiggle room, tell people that you are happy to help them any time. In other words, show your availability/willingness. There are a staggering number of people who do NOT help their cohorts. Showing willingness to help will open doors as the recipient will be more willing to help you also.

      It takes time to build this. What appears to be add water and stir instant friendships or bonding at work probably isn’t or the relationship fades shortly. This is good to keep in mind. If we want to convince ourselves we are on the outside looking in, we probably will. It’s not hard. The part that is hard is going ahead and building working relationships anyway. I have worked with people that I consider a privilege to work with. Sadly, we were not friends outside of work, I would have enjoyed that, too. They were just quality people. But there are many people out there who, just like you, want a work friend who is consistent and thoughtful and reliable. Be that person and you will attract those people.

    16. AMT*

      Is there a Facebook group or other online group in your city for people working in your field? I’m a member of my grad school’s alumni Facebook group and it’s great for these things. There’s always a “does anyone know what it’s like to work at X clinic?”-type thread going at any given time.

      Some workplaces will let you chat with potential coworkers, too. Just yesterday, I sat down with a group of coworkers and answered questions about my work environment/boss/clients/etc. from someone applying for a position on my team. I wish more organizations did this. You could ask the hiring manager if it’d be possible to talk to someone in the role you’re applying for and/or on the team you’ll be working with. If they say yes — good sign!

      1. AMT*

        Read your question again and it occurs to me that you meant as a new employee on the job, not someone applying for a job. Sorry!

    17. Squidhead*

      You might be able to frame (some) questions as “At my oldjob the process for X was A-B-C. Is it the same here or is there something special I need to know?” Obviously some of those things should be covered in your training, but tasks you don’t do frequently might be missed.

      Here’s an example from my hospital workplace: To give a patient a blood transfusion, I need an order for the transfusion, an order for the blood, a current blood sample (they expire every 3 days), and the patient’s consent. Then I need to fax the order to the blood bank for them to match a unit. Then (after the tell me it’s ready), I need to fax them a different form. Then they’ll send the blood by pneumatic tube with a form that has to be returned primptly! Tips a new person wouldn’t know include: call them to make sure they received the fax if you’re in a rush, don’t fax the 2nd form until the blood is ready, and make sure someone is listening for the tube system to deliver it or you won’t know it’s here.

      So, having a friendly person walk you through that process will definitely make your life easier. And framing it as “I’m generally familiar with X, what do I need to know to do X here?” might help you establish credibility and get helpful info. This probably applies to some interpersonal “lowdowns” as well but I read your question as feeling uncertain in general.

        1. Squidhead*

          Yep, as long as the patient is in the new wing! The tubes have some sort of tracer on them…losing a unit of blood due to a stuck tube is Not Okay. In the old wing we walk to the blood bank to get it.

      2. Three Cats in a Trenchcoat*

        That’s really good phrasing! In my experience, hospitals are rife with non-intuitive workflow that everyone assumes is intuitive because its always been that way. It was particularly difficult as a medical student rotating at different hospitals, because I would know how to order x at one institution that used y system, but that was no guarantee that I would know how to order x somewhere else!

    18. NicoleK*

      I’ve given tips and relevant info beyond the very basic training to new employees before. It just depends on if I click with the new person. We just hired my replacement. And I had been planning to share key tricks and tips with this new person, things that would make her tasks easier or efficient, but she was giving me attitude her third day on the job. Sure as hell not going to share tips that I’ve learned in my 3 years with her now.

    19. Ruby*

      Honestly, handover from the current person in the role.
      I’m starting at a new workplace, and I’ve got a week with the person who is leaving. They have been great with telling me where the problems are buried. The issues that they’ve flagged I think would have taken me a loooong time to figure out by asking the current employees, who as everyone else has mentioned may have more hesitations and self-interested reasons to not share with me.
      I’ve had to move heaven and earth to get our schedules to match up but it has been invaluable and I would recommend it where possible.

  5. Salary Woes*

    Super frustrated with this year’s “increase” which yet again does not meet inflation. Company is crying poor/bad economy, despite being in the midst of a multimillion-dollar acquisition. I finally got up the nerve to specifically ask my boss if the annual “increase” (which is always worded specifically that way) is in fact a COL adjustment, or if they are considered raises. I got a three-minute song and dance about the way the company structures “increases” per department, and how distributing those funds is up to the director of each department, but no actual straightforward answer.

    I’m tired of this company stonewalling me on market rate…they refuse to acknowledge the data I present (both BLS and Professional Society for my field) and instead insist that they only use salary data they purchase from some rando number-crunching firm.

    Does anyone have experience with these places that package and sell salary data? What’s the scoop?

    1. ThatGirl*

      I don’t know if it matters whether they consider it a raise or a COLA, the fact is, that’s what they’re giving you. I personally have only seen my raises labeled “merit increase” even if they were a piddly 0.9%.

      If your company is refusing to consider any additional increases, your data doesn’t matter — they’re telling you you’re not getting anything additional. If you want better pay, it seems like it’s time to look elsewhere.

    2. Rebecca*

      Commiserating – my employer says “we pay well above market rates”, based on job posting websites here, BUT…being a customer service rep at a dollar store (running cash register or stocking shelves) is very much different than being a full on teapot account manager, which is what we do, under a customer service title. I rec’d an hourly increase of less than 50 cents an hour this year, and it’s not COL, they don’t do that here, and my insurance premiums went up. I’ll be lucky to have the same take home pay as last year. The insurance is awesome, it would be considered a cadillac plan, and that’s the only reason I’m still working here.

    3. Antilles*

      Clarification: Do they actually show you the “salary data from rando number-cruncher”? Because I’m skeptical whether this data shows what they claim it does or even exists at all.
      That said, I’m only asking for my own edification, because it actually doesn’t matter to the outcome for you. Whether or not they truly have such data is irrelevant; they’re not going to change their mind either way. Any company that’s pushing back on your (fairly thorough, it sounds) data and citing their own structure…that’s a company who’s unlikely to be flexible.

      1. irene adler*

        Yes, exactly my question.
        IS there a local employer’s association that your company belongs to? That may be the source of the salary data.

        Here in San Diego, there’s SDEA (San Diego Employer’s Assoc). They compile salary data via a survey of all of their members. This is touted as the “going rate” for San Diego. And yeah, it’s well shy of professional organization’s salary data and BLS too.
        It’s also skewed. It represents a small fraction of all employers in San Diego.

    4. Natalyst*

      Payscale has salary reports that some orgs pay for. The reports I’ve seen have a range and are based on general location.

    5. CAA*

      You will never get an answer as to whether your increase is a “COL adjustment” or a “raise”. That terminology typicallly doesn’t mean anything unless you’re in a union and have a negotiated contract. At most companies budgets just have one number for “labor”. It’s not broken out into “base”, “inflation increase”, “merit increase” even though that’s how employees sometimes think of it, so the answer your supervisor gave is very likely the only one there is, however unsatisfactory that may be.

      Salary data is usually purchased from one of a few companies that do this type of data collection. It’s pretty accurate as long as your job fits in one of their categories. The problems I’ve seen mostly have to do with the person’s real job covering parts of several of the rated job descriptions. Sometimes that lowers the overall value of the role because the person only does a few of the higher value activities, but sometimes it raises the value because the person uses a broader range of skills and accomplishes more tasks than one person would normally be expected to do. Another issue with the data is that it only accounts for metro areas. If you’re in a more remote area where people with your skills are vary hard to find, then it might undervalue you; or if you’re in a more remote area where cost of living is lower than in the nearest city, it might overvalue you. The data is a starting point, but the person evaluating it has to apply their own judgment and experience as well.

      The bottom line is that your true market value is whatever another company is willing to pay for your services. It sounds like it might be time to put yourself out on the market and see what kind of offers you get.

    6. I'm A Little Teapot*

      Companies that won’t pay in line with market then deserve to lose the employees they have. Look around.

    7. Tarable*

      You have my sympathy. My own firm has given the staffers the same flat dollar amount raise every year, which when you work out the percentage means our raise decreases every single year. My last raise equated to about 1.9%, and I’m considered a stellar employee. My advice is to look out for yourself. Evaluate the pay, the benefits, commute, and any other perks and decide if it’s worth it to stay. Keep your eyes open for better opportunities in the meantime.

    8. Not So NewReader*

      Eh. If they won’t identify it as a COLA or a real raise then go ahead and name it yourself.

      To my way of thinking if it doesn’t even match inflation, I would it call it an Attempted COLA. In other words they are not even successfully giving out COLAs.

    9. Ms. Anne Thrope*

      Soul Sista! I’ve gotten a grand total of maybe 5% over 7+ years. Whoopee.

      There’s nothing for it but to leave, though. Executives always think they need another bonus but the actual workers don’t need to keep up with rising rents and medical costs.

    10. Desk Luncher*

      I’m in the compensation side of HR and there are salary surveys that exist that have legitimate, strong data. It depends on the quality of survey company and the data they collect – they can get quite expensive but you get what you pay for. Unfortunately if that is what your company’s philosophy is for establishing pay (to use whatever company they seem to like), it will be hard to change their mind about using other data.

  6. irene adler*

    I encountered an HR person recently who limits phone screen interview appointments to 8:30 am to 11 am daily. No afternoons. No exceptions.

    Seems a little too inflexible to me. Many applicants work days. Stepping away from one’s desk for 30 minutes in the morning might not go over well with one’s employer. Only way to accommodate this interviewer would be to use the doctor’s appointment excuse. Fair enough.

    I should add: This limited availability was not indicated up front. Initially, I was instructed to submit my availability for a phone interview, which I did (any afternoon after 2 pm). She immediately rejected this- appointments must be before 11 am. I then asked for a very early morning appointment as I start work at 4:30 am (3:30 am). She said that she is only available during the “core hours after 8:30 am”. Next, I told her I’d take a half day off on Friday (today) for a 10:30 am or 11 am appointment.

    It’s been a few days and there’s been no response to my Friday appointment request. So, I guess I’m out.

    This position is at a big employer with multiple divisions. I’ve been phone screened for other positions at this company, albeit by a different HR person each time. Probably even a different HR department too. For these interviews, there has been no issue with an afternoon appointment. I wonder if the inflexibility is inherent throughout this specific division, or just with this particular HR person. Course, I’ll never find out.

    Maybe a blessing in disguise not to get this job. Is such inflexibility with scheduling HR phone interviews normal?

    1. Faith*

      I wouldn’t say this inflexibility is normal, but did I understand correctly that you had suggested a 3:30 am interview time to her? Are those hours typical/normal in your field? And more importantly, would the interviewer have those same hours (it didn’t seem like it from her response). Otherwise it comes across very weird.

      2. irene adler*

        Regarding the early hour, it’s hard to say. Biotech has multiple shifts and strange start times and folks working all sorts of odd hours. Thought perhaps while not a normal interview time, that if she’s already up early, then why not? Or she’d be amenable to say, 5:30 or 6 am. I would then have a late start that day.

        1. ThatGirl*

          Being rigid about 8:30 to 11 a.m. interviewing is not normal; sticking to, say, between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. IS normal. While you may be alert at 4 a.m., I can’t really imagine that’s true for most HR departments. Especially if you’re in the same time zone.

      3. fposte*

        Yes, I wasn’t clear on that either. That would be unlikely in most fields.

        I definitely think this interviewer was particularly inflexible, though; it’s just that for some jobs inflexibility doesn’t hurt the hiring result, so they can keep it even if it hurts some applicants.

      4. General von Klinkerhoffen*

        If it can’t be after 11am, I’d assume it was a time zone issue (eg I’m in the UK and deal with someone in Sydney, so 11am my time is a hard cutoff for him for anything) and therefore 3.30am might be possible.

    2. bumbletea*

      This is definitely not normal. Many candidates are unable to talk during that time, and for it to not even include what could feasibly be someone’s lunch break shows that the HR person isn’t prioritizing the candidates at all.

    3. Researchalator Lady*

      It’s definitely not typical, but I think you probably took yourself out of the running by suggesting 3:30 am (that would be considered the middle of the night relative to a typical 8:30 – 4:30 shift) and then suggesting 11:00 am when she said appointments must be during core house before before 11 am. I would have suggested a time on the hour – 10:00 – rather than a half hour, but you do well to assume it’s their loss.

    4. Threeve*

      They’re being unusually rigid and formal about it, but being offered set blocks of time for phone screens (“a half-hour phone call between 11a-2p on Tuesday, or 2p-5p Friday”) is pretty normal. Some interviewers will be happy to look at other options, some will say they’re happy to but they’ll end up prioritizing the candidates they speak to first, and some will be strict about it.

      People don’t generally view a half-hour away from your desk as something you have schedule time off for, although I realize that’s not the case for everybody. I work in a low-walled cube farm where people absolute notice if I’m away from my desk for a while, but I’ve always just casually told people something like “I have to make a call about an insurance thing, I shouldn’t be too long.”

    5. Aquawoman*

      I think that if someone will only do phone interviews during 2.5 hours of an 8-hour workday, that should be disclosed up front rather than doing the “guess!” “Nope, guess again!” method.

      1. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

        This seems to me to just be part of good “trying to schedule a meeting/appointment of any kind” practices. If you know which specific chunks of time you’re scheduling something during, giving people that information up front and asking them to suggest 3-ish times within it that would work best for them seems like the standard way to try to schedule something like this by email to minimize how much back-and-forth you need with each person.

    6. CRM*

      I would agree that she’s being a bit rigid, but I think for a 30 minute conversation (it sounds like this would be an initial phone screen, which may even take less time than that) it’s worth trying to accommodate their schedule if you truly want or need a new job. . If you can’t step away from your desk for 30 minutes, you could have chosen the 10:30 slot and say you have to leave work early for a doctor’s appointment or something. For me, doing stuff like that is par for the course during a job hunt.

    7. Mama Bear*

      What I would find annoying is that she only said “before 11” and did not specify the “after 8:30” part. While 3:30 AM would make me pause, if the person asked for the interview before their workday and I knew that, I wouldn’t hold it against them. If you really want the job, ask if you are on the schedule before you take a half day off work.

      1. Beatrice*

        Yeah, if she listed 11 am as the latest, and the field has a lot of swing shift/weird hours, I might assume she started super early and 11 am was the end of her day.

      2. Mia 52*

        Hmm. Isn’t it implied that it wouldn’t start before say 7:30 or 8 at the earliest? If someone says “in the morning” before 11am, I would not assume that 3:30am is included in that. 3:30 am is the middle of the night to most people.

    8. Oh No She Di'int*

      Both sides seem a bit dodgy here to me. She certainly should have told you the time window up front. That would have saved a lot of back-and-forth and is just good recruitment etiquette. However, once you were told about the 11:00 cutoff time, it does seem slightly peevish to then suggest a 3:30 am interview time. I suppose it depends on the industry, but it would seem a safe assumption that a typical HR department would start business at 8 or 9 o’clock.

      So while the time rigidity may be unusual, I don’t think the response here was necessarily the best possible one either.

    9. june june hannah*

      Maybe this person is on a part-time schedule and that is why only a few hours per day are available for interviews. I agree with others that I’d be taken aback if a candidate asked me to interview them at 3:30 in the morning.

      1. Mia 52*

        I think I would assume they were sending me a snarky joke email if they asked to be interviewed at 3:30am. Honestly, my guess is they thought that you suggesting 3:30am was you taking yourself out of the running, as I don’t know anyone who would think that was anything aside from a joke or a snarky retort.

  7. Rayray*

    I’m planning to quit my job soon. I got the job back in April and I am frankly miserable with it. It’s an admin assistant job which I didn’t want long term anyway but I desperately needed an out from a dead end job at a toxic office. It’s a very small company, only three of us full time. My boss micromanages me and treats me like a child. It’s absolutely insane. I really wonder if she gave up babysitting me if she’d then have time to just do my tasks anyway. She’ll spend more time making me do checklists, email her what I’m working on, making me go through her to contact people instead of doing it directly myself, CCing her on everything, listening to me while I talk on the phone, and so much more. I tell people stories about things she does and everyone tells me to quit. It’s unlike anything I’ve dealt with before.

    Anyway, any advice on what to say when I give my two weeks notice? As much as I hate the job and she drives me crazy, I feel a little bad quitting so soon. I don’t have a new offer yet and I am not going to quit till I do, but I did send out a few resumes and contacted a temp agency. I’ve never quit a job after so little time, and where there’s so few people that I know it will really rock things for my boss which may trigger a bad response. I’d almost be more relieved if she fired me on the spot because I bet she’ll make me miserable for a two week notice period.

    Here’s a fun story from yesterday: I updated a spreadsheet, and had been asked to add a note about one thing that gets automatically billed each year. I typed in “Automatically bills each year”. I then emailed it to her as I have to do with everything even as minor as that. The response? “Please change automatically bills to automatically billed”.

    Oh. My. Hell.  Even if the semantics mattered that much, it definitely took more time and effort to email me that than to just make the change herself. She could have even made the change and just emailed back to say so and I wouldn’t have even been phased at all. She’s just ridiculous that way. I have more stories but this comment is already way too long.

    1. Birch*

      I don’t have a ton of usable advice but just to commiserate–I have a boss who pulls similar obnoxious micromanaging. I’ve been advised to “grey rock” it–i.e. give her exactly what she needs, no more, no less, and act aloofly confused if she reacts negatively or tries to make your work life difficult. And be happy that your time is limited!

      1. Rayray*

        I like that. I already really try to be a step ahead and give what she wants ut she can be unpredictable. I like the idea of trying to act more aloof when she tries to be difficult. It may tke it down a peg.

        1. Arts Akimbo*

          This is a bit crass, but I read this in a Robert A. Heinlein book– one of the characters, a writer, was talking about editors. “After they pee in it, they like the flavor better.” This passage always comes into my head when I’m dealing with a micromanager. Once you realize this is what they’re doing, and that it is absolutely no reflection on you but only on them, it makes it easier to get through the absurd, ridiculous day. Just smile blandly and make the changes, thinking that you will be out of there soon.

          When you give your notice, just say “Another opportunity has come up that was too good to pass up. Thank you for all you’ve done for me, and I wish you and the company all the best.”

    2. fposte*

      Quitting announcements in that kind of situation are strictly template. “I wanted to let you know that I’ll be leaving Teapots, Inc., and my last day here will be March 15. I’ll put together transition documents for you in the remaining two weeks.”

      1. Another Millenial*

        Yes, you aren’t obligated to give a reason. If pressed, and you really feel like it’s going to affect your reference, just say “I got a great offer.” Doesn’t have to be true.

      2. SuperAnon*

        Agree. And stop feeling bad for quitting this job. Your boss made it untenable; it’s nothing to do with your dedication.

        1. Rayray*

          So true. Thanks for the help. I’m a worrier, and I know it will be okay. What a great day it will be to quit this place.

          There’s a sort of sister company, owned by someone in the family we work for. All those people are a delight and it’s what made this just a little bearable.

          1. WoodswomanWrites*

            Also, she might fire you on the spot and it would be good to be prepared, both mentally and financially. It could happen. Do you have any vacation time she’ll have to pay out, etc.? If you can afford it, leaving as soon as you give notice could be a blessing. Good luck getting out of there soon!

    3. Calathea*

      That sounds SO exhausting. I worked for a boss who also loved to micromanage – I had to print out drafts of emails to bring to him, which he would then mark up with pen and make trivial edits to before I got permission to send them. I’d love to hear more of your stories!

      1. Rayray*

        – I don’t get my own email address. Usually it’s “yourname@company.com” but I’m stuck with “blahblahsassistant@company.com”

        – When I need receipts for a credit card used by someone off site, I Email her the scanned statement and she emails him and then forwards it to me, rather than just having me email him myself.

        – I know she occasionally rifles through my desk, to make sure I’m doing things.

        -I know she has gone through the recycle bin to make sure what I’m rrfying vs shredding. I’m most certain she dug stuff out of the shred cabinet once too.

        – told me I wasn’t allowed to delete old emails from the last unfortunate soul with this job, even though they were years old.

        – Sets tasks for me on outlook.

        Many more but there’s a few!

        2. EinJungerLudendorff*

          Some of those things sound more like a stalker than a manager. I’m glad you’re getting out of that situation.

      2. ReformedControlFreak*

        That is INSANE. The new CEO at my last job, nonprofit of ~13 people, required that we all emailed her a daily list of the tasks we did that day. Since there was no context and she did not know the programs we worked on, their contingencies, etc, you can’t even chalk it up to situational awareness, just baddddd management.

        2. Rayray*

          Hahahaha.

          So a new thing now is that I have to email her at the end of each day what I’m working on and what I have for the next day.

          Fortunately she comes in an hour later and I do my lunch and then she does hers, so I get some time away from hear each day.

    4. Stornry*

      as for what to say, I’d just go with “I’m sorry, but this position just doesn’t seem to be the right fit for me.”

      1. CM*

        Great suggestion — keep repeating “just not the right fit” until she gives up, as if you’ve never thought beyond that and have nothing else to say. If she keeps asking, every third or fourth time respond with something equally bland like, “I’m sure you’ll find a great replacement,” or “I appreciate the opportunity.”

    5. !*

      When you have your next job in place, and know you are leaving, why not start to push back and see what happens? Even if she fires you, so what? It really sounds like you are working for someone incredibly unreasonable so deserves what they get.

      I’m curious, were there any red flags when you interviewed for this position?

      As others have said, you have no need to tell her any reason why you are leaving, just that you are leaving, period.

      Good luck!

      1. rayray*

        Not too much. She did ask personal questions in the interview, but I thought it was maybe more ignorance of how an interview should be handled, and I thought she was trying to be friendly. The job sounded better in the offer, and I was in a job that I’d had for years and wanted out of. I did feel a little iffy, but I just took it. I thought it would be a little more chilled out and would take away stress I had at my old job. I wanted to take time to sharpen some skills or consider grad school. I had no idea it would be this nightmarish.

    6. Richard Hershberger*

      Do you think the wording was the real issue, or is it that she feels the need to edit? In other words, had you initially put in “billed” would she have changed it to “bills”? If so, there is an old trick of drafting documents with something obvious to “correct.” You can even save a version with the “correction” made ahead of time, so you don’t have to go back to it later.

      1. Alli525*

        I have had a manager that felt she needed to justify her job by making useless tiny edits. Changing something from “bills” to “billed” indicates to me that Rayray’s manager is probably the same way.

    7. KX*

      I don’t know if she is micromanaging or not, and I am not responding to so much as the situation! It is truly annoying and grating. But!

      1. Semantics matter! I broke my own automation because I used the word “Complete” instead of “Completed” and I didn’t catch it until the next morning, and had to go back and reenter a bunch of stuff manually.

      2. People who can change mistakes faster and want to fix things personally instead of telling someone else to fix it are hiding flaws in processes, and it is better to expose the flaws in a process so you can fix them.

      (With only three people full time that is likely not the case here.)

      This manager may not be an example of either of those two things. All the other things: UGH Commiseration granted. And a job like that you’ve been at the better part of a year? I suspect they are used to high turnover. Just go!

    8. Super B*

      I’m a career admin, currently an EA at an awesome job with great bosses , but about 4 years ago I quit a job with a very similar manager than the one you’re describing. She was a super control freak micromanaging beatch who made my days hell and the day I gave my notice was the most liberating, empowering day of my life. But looking back I realize how much I learned from her, and became a better assistant, more attentive to details and to avoiding mistakes the first time around, willing to go the extra mile to show good work, more organized in general and allowing myself no slacking, even though my now-bosses could care less what I do for most of the day as long as I get my job done. You may be learning some valuable lessons there that you will only realize once you have wonderful bosses that trust your work and your judgement. I hope you are able to get out of that situation with good self esteem and remember she’s the problem, not you!

    9. Escapee*

      Oh gosh this sounds just like my last job: nightmare micromanager boss; three core staff; everyone telling me I needed to leave. I got the job last January, started applying for jobs in June and left in July. Was just about ready to leave without anything to fall back on, and then got an offer for a dream job (six months on and it is still the dream!).

      My boss was out-of-state the day I needed to put in my notice, and I couldn’t delay because a) I needed to get out asap!, and b) the date dream job ideally wanted me to start. So I sent a very brief form email saying I had a job offer, my last day would be X as per the notice period in my contract, I was on track to be able to deliver Y by the time I left, and I would create a handover document to outline all of my duties and where I was up to on everything. Kind regards, me.

      I spent the notice period hating it and also wishing I had just been fired! But it was fine, I made it out alive, and now I’m not living it I have some truly excellent bad boss stories.

  8. Implications for walking down FT employment?*

    I am planning to leave my FT job to freelance (please no advice about that – just trust that I have lots of savings, clients beating down my door, etc). However, I recognize that this is very poor timing for my organization because another coworker just quit. Since I don’t have a deadline to leave, I’d like to offer my current job a step-down departure, if they choose to go that route. I’m just not sure how to handle this offer. I might be willing to spend a month or two as a part-time employee while they work to hire two replacements. But it depends on what what that would do to my benefits and taxes. Are there other implications of switching from FT to PT that I might be missing?

    Ideally I’d love to offer them a contract like my other clients (X deliverables at Y rate, or Z hours a week at Y per hour) maybe even transition them as a future client, but I doubt they’d go for that: paying my new hourly rate (more than double what they pay me now) probably won’t appeal to them, and I’m guess what they really want is someone to keep a hand on the wheel, not pop in and out delivering specific components like my new jobs.

    Of course, I understand that they may just ask me to wrap up my leave period and they’ll hire some temps. I’m just afraid as soon as I open the door I’ll be in negotiation mode with my boss.

    Help me think through this, AAM community!!

    1. CAA*

      One thing to watch out for is non-compete agreements you may have signed. Taking clients from your current employer to start your own business is one of the times when these agreements can be enforced. It depends entirely on the specifics of your situation, which I don’t have, so this may not apply and I’m just throwing it out as something to think about.

      You could give a long notice period of a month or so if you think they’d use it effectively. If they seem really sorry to lose you, you could say that you’d be willing to stay on part time for a while if you can agree on a reasonable hourly rate that would cover any benefits you’d be losing. Once they express interest, then it’s perfectly fine to ask to meet with HR or the benefits specialist to find out how you’d be affected before you propose a new rate to them. Also, don’t be so sure they won’t pay your freelance rate for contract work. When they hire a freelancer, they’re not paying for payroll tax, benefits, breaks, any of the times when you weren’t that busy and spent a half-hour surfing the web, overtime when you are busy, etc, so even at double your hourly employee rate it can still be a deal for them.

      1. valentine*

        Do what’s best for you. Don’t put the ball in their court because they can not hire and blame you for any shortfall.

    2. CoffeeLover*

      I think it’s important to define the expectations and terms up front. Something like “My last day as a full time employee will be X. I can work as a part time employee 20 hours per week, remotely, until March 15. After which, we would need to discuss a new contract with new rates through my consulting firm.” And then be upfront and strict about how much work you can actually do in 20 hours. They will probably try to get 40 hours of work out of you anyway and you need to be the one to push back.

      Honestly, I would go straight for the contracting and skip the part time work, unless you want to do it for yourself (so you still have some regular income coming in). It’s too much of a hassle to keep boundaries and not get overworked.

      Also, I’m not sure about specific tax rules in your country, but employers pay much more for you than what you get. The difference between your contracting fee and what they pay for you now might not be as big as you think. In my country, employers pay 30% tax on top of gross salary.

    3. CRM*

      I’m always a little wary about offering lots of notice. I tried to do that at a job once, it was a really good company and I wanted to leave on good terms. They didn’t know what to do with it, so they basically just pretended that I wasn’t leaving until the final two weeks, where we then had to cram in all of the transition/documentation stuff. I would just provide the standard two weeks notice. If they really need you for longer than that, they can contract your services.

    4. Triumphant Fox*

      I agree with switching straight to freelance. You can offer them your new rates and let them know that you’d be happy to keep them as a client in the future – it’s been great but you need more flexibility, less commute, whatever makes sense.

      You may be surprised that they are willing to pay your rates. I charged my last employer 3x my salary hourly wage to finish work for them while starting my new job. Frankly, I still don’t think it was worth it to me – it was exhausting, but if I had been going freelance, it would have been perfect. They also had no one who could do what I did, were very understaffed (which is why I left – so overworked).

      1. Implications for walking down FT employment?**

        You sound like me haha. Well hopefully my story ends as well as yours. I fear they’re just going to be PISSED that I’m leaving them “in the lurch.”

        1. Triumphant Fox*

          I would maybe not give them your rates as you quit, just say that you are striking out on your own and would love to keep working with them in the future if that fits into their business strategy (or whatever). I had another friend from my last job give up a ton of PTO (she’d been with them a long time) for the ability to go freelance (graphic design for her). They kept working with her, partly because they are used to working with contractors. In the long run, she ended up getting other clients who had steadier work, so she ended up being too busy for them, but in the short term they weren’t down an artist – things just shifted around.

    5. Seeking Second Childhood*

      If I understand this right, you want to start contracting for the company where you are currently an employee. If I got that right, check your company’s rules about converting employees to contractor. My company and others have a one-year mandatory waiting period.

  9. Me*

    OMG. We have a new employee. There’s a lot of issues but today…well today he shows up to work in a t-shirt that says a curse word. Like there’s no person on earth who would think it’s appropriate for an office. Maybe a high school kid. Maybe. But this guy is 30 and former military so I know he knows it’s not kosher.

    I’m afraid the standard issue not addressing problems and then their off probation and now we’re stuck is going to happen. (government trust me it’s close to impossible to get rid of people)

    1. Imaginary Number*

      Former military doesn’t necessarily mean anything (and I get to say that because I’m a vet.)

      You will have people who go in at 18. They are told what to wear and where to be every day. They do the bare minimum to get by. They may even get promoted several times, if they’re fortunate to be surrounded by other leaders who can hand-hold them along the way. Trust me. There are 30 yo Soldiers out there with ten years experience who can barely function in terms of life skills but they’re a decent mechanic/admin/whatever so they get their job done well enough to get promoted and stay in for a decent amount of time. But common sense decisions make you scratch your head. Like the 35 yo who couldn’t understand why marrying the woman he met two weeks about on R&R is a bad idea or the 40 yo NCO who bought a $120,000 car with a high-interest loan and monthly payments he could never afford long term.

      Sometimes you actually do have to treat that vet who just transitioned out of the Army like a high school grad (not saying this is the average, but it’s not uncommon.)

      1. Me*

        He’s not Army nor has he just transitioned.

        By BIL is ex army so I’ve hear lots of fun stories :)

        But I do operate under the impression that wearing a shirt that says “straight outta f&cks” (and yes the curse word is spelled out) in an official capacity is something that most military members would know is an absolutely not ok. Perhaps I’m wrong.

        Regardless, most adults do know that’s not remotely acceptable.

        1. Wild Blue Yonder*

          Accurate. I’m a Veteran and I’ve seen my Airmen wearing these as civvies but no, we don’t hold hands such that he’d think that type of shirt is acceptable. We’re not mind blown automatons people – we’re humans.

          And let’s not apply Veteran or military to this because now we’re perpetuating unfounded stereotypes.

          1. Me*

            Agreed. There’s plenty of people not military who make the dumb types of decisions referenced.

            I do however notice there’s often issues adjusting to work culture as I stated below, but that’s the difference between work cultures, which while is in this instance military vs our office, but there’s also other work environments that someone would come from and also have trouble adjusting right away and vice versus. I’m certain that if I went from working here all my career to a financial industry job I’d struggle hard core with the work culture.

            1. Wild Blue Yonder*

              Thank you for your response. I would have a challenge moving to a for-profit work environment from non-profit. But, I would also know that this shirt wouldn’t work anywhere and probably not even a start-up staffed with 20-year-olds (at least not until I saw what they were wearing first).

              This is just bad judgment and perhaps – some weird entitlement – all around. I say that because your other posts include the person being passive-aggressive and has been given bad guidance.

              1. Me*

                Absolutely. My inclusion of is military status was less about military and more about look the dude has had a job where he 100% knows it’s not cool and has not been living under a rock. Certainly not intended to create any kind of stereotype about military. Some of these responses have shown me I need to be more cognizant of peoples perceptions. In hind sight I would have simply stated he has previous experience in a working environment that would have given him an understanding of appropriate work wear.

            2. Junior Assistant Peon*

              I made some mistakes along these lines when I was adjusting to the culture of a former job. My previous work experience had been at big companies with traditional norms of professionalism. In my first week at a smaller company, I took a work trip where I shared a car with my grandboss and HR manager. The jokes they told in the car were wildly inappropriate by big-company standards, and I got the impression that these people are out of their minds and the usual workplace rules don’t apply here. It took me a while to figure out that you couldn’t do this openly at the new workplace, only in private among certain individuals. I definitely got myself in some trouble when I thought I could do whatever I wanted at that company!

      2. You can't fire me; I don't work in this van*

        I am not a vet, but I can see this. In the service you will be told “you can only wear x; any deviation is not allowed” so sometimes you do have to spell out what is not okay.

          1. Me*

            I can’t tell him anything because I’m not his supervisor. If there weren’t other issues, I’d give him a friendly heads up as a coworker. As it stands I’m not touching it with a ten foot pole.

            1. valentine*

              sometimes you do have to spell out what is not okay.
              Or you can not coddle grown people. He knows it’s not a benign or neutral garment and that, apart from anything else, it’s a rotten attitude. He knows full well not to wear it to most places of worship and that businesses may ask him to cover it or to leave. He is a grown man.

              I hate people who want to be confronted.

              1. Zona the Great*

                Man do I love that you said this. So many times I want to answer that I prefer not to correct grown adults and would rather react accordingly. Inappropriate shirt like that, I assume you’re unprofessional and will act accordingly.

            2. Arts Akimbo*

              You can complain about the shirt to his supervisor, though, and/or HR. It’s completely inappropriate for the workplace and potentially offensive.

        2. Jeffrey Deutsch*

          One fine day, I met a US Army sergeant major*, who told me that a first sergeant** had once issued an order to wear only GI (government issue) belts and boot laces.

          The sergeant major felt it necessary to suggest the first sergeant clarify the announcement, lest one or more troops wear nothing at all except the GI belts and boot laces.

          * Top sergeant and senior enlisted adviser to the commander of a battalion, regiment, brigade or even larger unit.

          ** The “topkick,” the top sergeant and senior enlisted adviser to a company commander. (Several companies go into one battalion.) Has a good deal of hands-on contact with the soldiers, and may run the company at least as much as the official commander.

      3. Not All*

        Gotta agree with this. I’ve been a fed since the late 90s & have reached the point where I absolutely DREAD hearing the new hire is a fed & it’s their first civilian job. 100% odds that our high school/college interns have better concept of appropriate office (& interpersonal for that matter) norms & behaviors. 50/50 if the individual is male whether we’ll get a sexual harassment complaint against them in the first 6 months.

        Ugh.

        Good luck!

        2. Me*

          We’ve had issues before but it’s usually like not understanding how offices functions, struggling with a looser hierarchy, expecting everything to be rigid and not grasping gray areas and maybes.

          This guy….whole nother level. Actually were pretty sure the shirt is intentional because he’s gotten guidance from individuals he believes he doesn’t have to listen to (both due to job title and gender). He’s been pretty passive aggressive.

          1. Librarian of SHIELD*

            Well, he sounds…special. I hope you don’t end up having to interact with him very often.

          2. Elizabeth West*

            He sounds like one of those people who likes to poke the bear with something rude and then yell “FREE SPEECH!” when it pokes back. Completely not getting that 1A only applies to government interference with speech, not a private employer.

            1. EinJungerLudendorff*

              Or that they’re acting like a twatwaffle either way, and will be judged accordingly.

        3. Wild Blue Yonder*

          “I absolutely DREAD hearing the new hire is a fed (updated to Vet) & it’s their first civilian job.”

          – hard eye roll – We’re sorry that we cause such disruption. Maybe we should be resettled into the basement for convenience. We appreciate being grouped together as if we have no individuality and being stereotyped.

          1. AndersonDarling*

            That is how it is with Millennials, and Boomers in the workplace. Welcome to the club of stereotypes.

            1. Wild Blue Yonder*

              I haven’t experienced the Boomer vs everyone else drama. I’m 45 and am totally in love with the younger generations. They’ve kept me on my toes, learning and trying to keep up with current non-profit approaches, if not new life approaches. I’m a Veteran and have no preconceived notions about how people should act because of my service or that I’ve been in my non-profit career for two decades. We all failed in the bias training class and yet we still try to improve.

              1. LunaLena*

                “I’m a Veteran and have no preconceived notions”

                That’s great, but that doesn’t mean other workplaces and people don’t struggle with this issue. I work at a university where a relatively high percentage of students are former or active military, and they are absolutely different from the traditional students. Frankly, both sides look down on or misunderstand the other, but in different ways. I’ve heard this firsthand not only from students from both groups, but also from my husband, who is both former military and currently a student at my workplace.

              3. EinJungerLudendorff*

                I honestly doubt that working in the military didn’t leave any sort of impact on you, or your opinion of how people should and shouldnt behave.
                Because humans form and those opinions constantly. Especially in regulated environments like the military. Even if that opinion is very broad and inclusive, it has (and should have) it’s limits on what you consider acceptable. And I think it’s better to find out what that bias is then the comfortable pretense that we don’t have them.

            2. Seeking Second Childhood*

              It’s sort of funny from the sidelines because obviously us in Gen X are so perfect it makes invisible.

                1. Arts Akimbo*

                  I like Gen Z so far! :)

                  *Gen X and Gen Z hold hands and skip off into the sunset together while listening to Bruno Mars or something*

        4. pony tailed wonder*

          We had a guy who was former military and they will usually get preference over others (state university). I think it is a law (?). Most work out fine and we are happy to have them work with us but this guy said he would sue us if he was not hired before other students for a student assistant job. So the person in charge hired him. And then there were problems. Lots of problems. He told a lot of females in my department that he was their boss (it was the other way around). There were sexual harassment incidents. There was a “I know better than you” attitude to people ho had been working here for decades when he was the new hire. We finally had to have him work by himself in a warehouse until the powers that be could figure out how to get rid of him. Looking back, I bet the military had problems with him too. So it isn’t their background, it is them; but it does add to the story.

      4. Steve*

        The military aspect might be relevant, yet I agree that it’s mostly because he might not be familiar with having to choose clothing to wear to work. The military is also more used to swearing, so he may have worn the t-shirt on a ‘dress down day’ and it was acceptable within his military unit.

        Every workplace has good and bad, including the military. It sounds like the t-shirt is one of many problems, which is unfortunate.

    2. Welling*

      Does your office do casual Friday? Some people have a very loose interpretation of casual office wear.

      2. ReformedControlFreak*

        For us it basically means, hey you can wear jeans and sneakers today! We’re business casual usually (very flexible). Most of us wear whatever we’re comfortable in unless we have meetings w/ externals that day. So you see a range on a regular basis.

        1. Richard Hershberger*

          There’s always the guy who comes in wearing a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and flip flops. Idiot. But I’m old enough to remember when casual Friday meant business casual, as contrasted with suits the rest of the time.

    3. Maya Elena*

      I feel like by itself this wouldn’t be so annoying if there weren’t other issues. As it is though, I was at a company where a fairly high level guy used to be that analyst who bought such an expensive lunch for interviewees they had to officially cap the amount going forward …. I’m guessing they reprimanded him once and it wasn’t an issue. One explanation might be enough.

      1. Me*

        That is the entire story of this guy. There’s A LOT of things. Each of them individually are eyebrow raisers but not omg fire now. All together though, I’m wondering why he’s still here.

        There’s some information required for non-provisional hire still pending and there’s issues there so I’m not certain we will continue to have issues if you know what I mean.

    4. Mia 52*

      I misread that as “showed up to work in a T shirt” AND “said a curse word” and I was like c’mon you can overcome saying a single curse word and maybe it was laundry day? But yeah showing up with the curse word on the T shirt…That’s just a No Go

      1. CM*

        Yeah, me too. I was picturing some dude in a plain t-shirt walking out of the elevator and going, “Damn.”

        I kinda want to know which curse word it is.

      2. Curmudgeon in California*

        Yeah. I’ve worked in warehouse and fieldwork environments where everyone wore jeans and a t-shirt. However, while innuendo *sometimes* was fine (usually bar shirts), a straight up NSFW or seven dirty words shirt was straight out. You could say “Fuck”, etc., if you weren’t in front of a client, but you couldn’t wear it.

        If I had to put it in words, it would be “Printed tees may not have obscene, racist, sexist or bigoted words, sayings or images on them.” This is basic in a diverse workplace, even if you’re out climbing on client roofs.

      3. Curmudgeon in California*

        Yeah. I’ve worked in warehouse and fieldwork environments where everyone wore jeans and a t-shirt. However, while innuendo *sometimes* was fine (usually bar shirts), a straight up NSFW or seven dirty words shirt was straight out. You could say “F*ck”, etc., if you weren’t in front of a client, but you couldn’t wear it.

        If I had to put it in words, it would be “Printed tees may not have obscene, racist, sexist or bigoted words, sayings or images on them.” This is basic in a diverse workplace, even if you’re out climbing on client roofs.

    5. LKW*

      Oy vey. A friend of mine had a report show up in a dress shirt, with t-shirt, as expected. However through the dress shirt, you could read “One tequila, Two tequila, three tequila, floor” very clearly. My friend made him go back to the hotel to change and put in that time to the end of his day.

      Another time I saw a client wearing a tshirt of the cracker jack logo but it said Crack Whore Jack. I assume some people have blindfolds on when they dress.

      1. SuperAnon*

        I was at an agency (pretty loose atmosphere) where a young fellow showed up in a t=shirt that said, “CUNNING LINGUIST.”

        It was just too cringey.

      4. Jeffrey Deutsch*

        My friend made him go back to the hotel to change and put in that time to the end of his day.

        I’m a little bit confused. What does “put in that time to the end of his day” mean in this context?

        Thank you!

    6. Chronic Overthinker*

      Is there an employee manual? Does it include the dress code? Is this shirt in violation of the dress code? If so, forward him the appropriate information and for today have him wear the shirt inside out or send him home to change.

      1. Me*

        Nope. I mean there is a personnel handbook, but not to that detail. We work in an environment where it is not expected that everything must be written down or “policy” to be pertinent. Agencies are allowed to set their own standards and tend to be unwritten until it becomes a problem. Its the whole if it’s not written down I can do whatever vs if it is written down I can do only this. We *try* to treat people like the adults they are. Some people are determined not to be adults it seems :)

        1. Chronic Overthinker*

          Ah, then that is a trickier situation. I suppose it may be a situation of pulling said employee aside and saying hey, not appropriate work wear and giving him a short list of what is appropriate. Granted, I work in a highly visible position where I have to be business casual (emphasis on business) all day every day. I can’t even wear short sleeves due to visible tattoos! Otherwise this might just be the impetus needed to create a generic “dress code” so that everyone is aware of what is and isn’t appropriate work attire.

          1. Curmudgeon in California*

            Maybe print out some choice quotes from this discussion and leave them on his desk? I know subtle may not be his strong suit, but that’s a bit too far.

        2. Jeffrey Deutsch*

          It’s kind of tricky because while some things are out and out unacceptable by common consensus, other things the boss might simply disagree with but the employee legitimately thought could be OK.

          For example, one could think business casual (eg, dress shirts, pants that aren’t jeans, dress socks and dress shoes) is too obvious to spell out, but some folks feel it’s OK to wear T-shirts and/or sneakers to the office at least if they’re not seeing clients (or other visitors) that day. By all means the boss has every right to lay down the law, but let’s not accuse the employee of irresponsibility or disrespect just yet — at least not as long as the employee goes forth and sins no more.

          And I’m not just referring to dress.

          1. Me*

            It’s a government office job. We have the potential at any given moment to have meetings with very important people.

            Wearing a shirt with the F-bomb on it is not really in the same thought process of wearing a t shirt on casual Friday when the boss means a polo.

            There is zero reason a grown adult who has been employed in the past and does not live under a rock doesn’t know it’s inappropriate.

    7. LGC*

      As someone who once had to tell a literal dad he couldn’t wear a shirt that had slang for a female-associated body part written in gold foil script on it: I sympathize, but also he might actually be that oblivious. Life is a rich tapestry.

      (Part of it is background, too. One thing I’ve learned at my job is that I’m EXTREMELY privileged because I learned a lot of professional social norms early on. With one of my employees, I find it’s a triumph if he wears pants that stay up.)

      I’m more impressed he broke out that shirt in his first few days on the job, though. Like, I have a couple of randy shirts myself, but I save those for people I know and I’m comfortable with. And that I don’t work with.

      It also sounds like he’s still on probation now – did you bring this to your manager’s attention? This is definitely something I’d mention. It’s not something that he should be fired for on its own, but it seems like there’s a lot of other problems. (And if you didn’t say anything it’s not too late – you can just tell your boss Tuesday.)

      1. Jeffrey Deutsch*

        One thing I’ve learned at my job is that I’m EXTREMELY privileged because I learned a lot of professional social norms early on.

        Big-time privilege. And a majorly underappreciated one.

    8. Me*

      Just want to thank everyone who commented, commiserated and made me think/challenge how I say things which is always appreciated.

      Also a bit more info/update for those who are interested – a coworker did say something along the lines of dude what are you wearing. His boss wasn’t there (we have problemo’s with him too), but the highest ranking supervisor (H.S.) came in and was informed. H.S. went to address it with him, but offensive shirt guy was no where to be found. Presumably “at lunch” for well over an hour that didn’t appear on his time sheet. And no we don’t get paid lunch. He also left early. Did I mention there are multiple issues?

      The grandboss (mine) found out and to say displeased would be a gross understatement. I eagerly await the fallout/drama that is sure to ensue. I’m sure somehow it will be all my fault (running theme with this guy and his boss – no worries grandboss knows they’re full of poo), but I’m used to that by now.

  10. merp*

    I cannot think straight today. Trying to get work done but expecting important phone calls from the vet and I can’t have my phone on me when I’m at the reference desk. Tell me about your best work things that happened this week to distract me?

    2. Liesl and Fritz*

      I finally received needed feedback from a non-profit group I’m helping with a survey. Finished the survey. And they liked it and put it into play this week!

      (also know you’re plight. I had to rush to the vet last week with our doxie in massive storms/tornado warnings. everything’s good now)

    3. AppleStan*

      Started a thing at our team meeting where everyone has to bring up one interesting work thing that they’ve experienced since the last team meeting. Then we vote on the winner. That person gets a gift from me. Just started it this month, but the gifts are just silly stupid things from a 75% off clearance rack (like a card game shaped like the poop emoji, and it’s called “Who Did It”) or a DVD from the $5 bin at Walmart or a Beanie Baby or some such.

      It went over so much better than I thought it would. Everyone knows each month will be a different “gift” and they are already looking forward to the next team meeting.

      Just something to make having a “meeting” not so bad, you know?

      Anyway, that’s my contribution.

    4. Book Badger, Attorney-at-Claw*

      I swung a really tough case (bad facts, unfriendly client, unfamiliar court/judge) this week and got exactly what I asked for in settlement. Also I got a nice reimbursement check in the mail and applied for a professional growth class!

    5. Laura H.*

      Don’t work, but I volunteer with my church’s middle school age group. (I know it’s not a job but I’ve been doing it for seven years and it’s the constant in the midst of my job stints/ joblessness and it helps me not feel like a failure.) We had our social kick off for the semester, and all the participants had fun.

      But the director lost their challenge with a participant and as per the rules had to take odds as to whether 3 eggs were raw or boiled- all 3 were raw and, again as per the rules, were gently smushed on the director’s head.

      The director, all the adult and high school helpers, and middle schoolers were all really good sports about it. I kinda think that social is definitely a keeper.

      (There were 6 raw and 6 boiled eggs, and the volunteers all lost their mini games with the participants (coincidentally) and all but 1 of the chosen eggs were raw- was 1 egg per round and the last round used 3 eggs cause it was either the last one or cause when its the director of the program, the stakes could have been increased. Dunno which but it was fun. And I’m pretty sure we would have gladly figured out an alternative if a participant (middle schooler) didn’t want to be egged- the volunteers knew and we could abstain from putting our name in our drawing jar).

    6. Ariana Grande's Ponytail*

      I am finally wrapping up a project that I’ve been working on since May, that was wildly disorganized before I took over and has been kinda trash the whole time! I’m literally just unifying variable names and labels in some data now and finishing up a few loose ends.

    7. A tester, not a developer*

      My company celebrated our rebranding by having an amazingly good ‘foods of Canada’ brunch. Crab cakes, poutine, Canadian bacon, etc.

        1. A tester, not a developer*

          They told us it was to represent our offices in Atlantic Canada. I suppose it was a better option than bottles of screech. :)

        2. Jeffrey Deutsch*

          If their company ever has a ‘foods of Maryland (USA)’ brunch, they can just re-order the crab cakes.

          PS: I lived in Maryland for over five years.

    8. Chronic Overthinker*

      After working six months and complaining (to myself) that I wasn’t getting extra assignments I finally got my first official assignment. It was a simple task of drafting a letter, but I did it from start to finish, sent it to be edited, and got it back with no edits needed. Wahoo!! I feel accomplished!!

    9. Moi*

      I reduced the frequency of a meeting from weekly to quarterly, and had a director tell me they love me.

      Honestly made my day, I could not have been happier.

    10. JustaTech*

      I found a really important document that is going to make my life 1000 times easier on a really complicated and difficult project.

    11. Lalaith*

      We’re switching a client over from an old system to our new one, and I thought it was going to be really complicated but the solution I came up with just… worked. I’m kinda still waiting for the other shoe to drop ;-P

      (I also had to wait for vet news this week. My news was good and I hope yours is too <3)

      1. merp*

        A new system working immediately? That’s almost unbelievable, good job! And thanks, appreciate the good thoughts :)

    12. Funny Cide*

      This morning we got an office-wide email saying “Fire alarm testing for 2020 will commence at 4:00PM today” nearly immediately followed by another office-wide email saying “The Teapot Foundation will be closing at 3:3PM today in celebration of the holiday weekend.” I have a sneaky feeling we are closing for reasons other than the holiday weekend but ain’t mad about it!

    13. LunaLena*

      An owl was saved at my workplace this week! A staff member noticed an owl hanging around on the campus of the university I work at. He checked on it periodically (from a distance) for most of the day and noted that it was moving around a little, but staying on the ground. Eventually he called the Department of Wildlife, and they came and picked it up. He said the owl was very docile and didn’t panic at all when he put a towel around it and put it in the carrier.

    15. OtterB*

      I finished the first stage of a small project for a committee of our board members, and two of the members emailed the committee (which includes my boss) praising my work. Such a good feeling.

    16. Maseca*

      I got an unexpected bonus! It’s extra sweet because I have a slightly odd/special role that means I get to skip the day-to-day grind and just work on the big, fun, high-profile campaigns — but that also sometimes means I’ve got nothing to do for days at a time when everyone else around me is swamped. And when it’s this slow for me (a couple weeks go by with about 2-3 days’ worth of work spread across them), I get conscious of whether I’m really pulling my weight and if the bosses might have second thoughts about my favored status. (I’ve been through some layoffs, does it show?) I also had a family emergency that resulted in a lot of time off this fall, so I felt like I was involved in even less work than usual toward the end of the year. But apparently my status is still intact, and the boss repeated how much I’m appreciated by all of management and that they want to make sure I know that. A nice feeling after a tough few months and a lot of stress that was probably feeding my job anxiety.

    18. Seeking Second Childhood*

      I learned that the company’s now providing free coffee again, after a gap of many many years.
      It’s been a rough week, but I had to give you something. :)

      1. Kat in VA*

        It’s amazing, isn’t it – how those little perks can make you slightly happier in the long run?

        To me, though, coffee/tea/water (whether bottled or a filter station) are not perks, they’re something you get at work including pens, post-its, and pads of paper to jot things on.

  11. Oranges*

    I’m having a medical issue which has severely limited my life, started last fall. One of the fun ways it has manifested is I can only do around 20 hours worth of work a week. I’ve been using FMLA but it’s now running out. I still can’t work 40 hour weeks. I keep on hoping we can figure out what’s wrong but it’s been 6 months.

    I want to go part time while keeping full time benefits. Since we’re in the middle of coding a huge project that I have institutional knowledge on and also would be impossible to replace at this time, I kinda figure I’m safe asking for this.

    My question: when you go half time I assume I’d get half pay but my friend told me to ask for 3/4ths? What is the accepted practice?

    1. fposte*

      I’ve never heard of the 3/4ths for 50% time and it wouldn’t fly in my state job, but who knows in the private sector? Are you currently exempt, though, and would reduced salary take you down below the exemption threshold of $35,568? Is that close enough that you’d want to argue for hitting the threshold so you can stay exempt (yes, you can be part-time exempt)? Or would that raise the problem of being technically part time but being asked to work the equivalent of full time?

      1. Oranges*

        I am currently exempt. I would go below the threshold. And my work is beyond excellent about my capacity. I mean I’d give it five stars.

        2. fposte*

          I brought that up because that might be a little bit of a wiggle possibility for the money since you think your work will be respectful about your part-time even if you’re exempt. I’d say if your part-time pay would be within $5k of the threshold it could be worth proposing the threshold as your part-time salary for the simplicity of keeping you exempt.

          (And how nice to hear about a workplace that’s coming through for its employee.)

    2. Professor Moriarty*

      I’m in the UK but everyone I know who has gone part time has had the pay cut by 20% for every day they’ll not work anymore (but with income tax rates it can make less of an impact on total pay but IDK if that applies where you are)

    3. General von Klinkerhoffen*

      In the UK you get pay prorated for hours, usually quoted as a decimal FTE so eg four days is 0.8FTE. Someone working five six-hour days would be doing 0.75FTE of a 40-hour week.

      But we have strict laws about prorating benefits so you’d also get 0.8 of the usual PTO entitlement, and equal access to things like pension contributions, private healthcare, childcare contributions, free lunch Fridays, or whatever.

      Anyway my suggestion in your case would be that you request pay with an equal hourly equivalent, but full benefits. You’d need to pay attention to the national/local tax implications, of course. And you could formally waive certain benefits you don’t use if that affects your tax burden

    4. a*

      I think it depends on the benefits. If you can keep your full-time benefits, 1/2 pay would be reasonable. But if you do not get to keep your full-time benefits, you could ask for 3/4 pay, both because it’s costing the company less to employ you and because you will need that to pay for your insurance.

      (When I was on leave from my employer, I worked part-time, but they stopped deducting my benefits. I had to pay those out-of-pocket, due to their arcane rules. So, while my pay rate was the same, my take-home was larger than expected…but then I had to pay out my insurance costs.)

    5. OperaArt*

      Your FMLA is running out anyway so this info won’t be of immediate use. For future reference, if you drop to too few hours in a rolling 12-month period, you will no longer be eligible for FMLA. Important to note—PTO is not counted toward the required hour total. I work part-time by choice, 26 hours a week, and do not qualify for FMLA. It would take me several months at full-time to regain my eligibility.

      1. Natalie*

        Although check your state laws as well, they may have broader eligibility. FMLA in my state kicks in for people who have worked at least half time over the past 12 months, so you would still qualify. (It also kicks in at a smaller employer size than the federal law.)

    6. Alternative Person*

      It really depends on your job.

      In my area part timers often have a slighter better rate than FT because they’re often working odd schedules and and don’t have regular office hours, or benefits so their pay reflects that. You’d have to research industry norms.

    7. Pommette!*

      Do you anticipate a change in the makeup of your work tasks? For instance, is there a chance that you’ll keep doing higher level aspects of your job while someone else takes over some of the more mundane/generic ones? If so, that could be a good argument for getting more than 50% of your full-time salary.

    8. ReformedControlFreak*

      As someone who has struggled with medical issues for nearly 2 years now, I can relate. I’ve had 2 mis-diagnoses in the last year, including wrong medication that caused entirely new issues. Thankfully I think we’re on the right track now! Hopefully there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for you too. Don’t be afraid to “fire” your doctor if you aren’t getting results, either. WRT work now, I don’t know what your situation is but are your only options PT -or- FT? Are there other options, like for me during the worst of it I worked every other day remote, which helped me out a tonnnn with managing symptoms. My in-office days I knew I would have a reprieve the next day, which enabled me to get through it (psychologically) much better. I don’t know what “accepted” practice is, and it might vary by industry anyway. But you might have more creative options than you’ve engaged thus far. Good luck, internet friend!

      1. Oranges*

        Sadly I can’t think of any. My work is excellent about WFH so I do that whenever I can’t go to the office. Sadly it is physical capacity so WFH only makes it a bit better.

    9. Gumby*

      Be prepared to get less than half pay if you want full benefits. If you go to half time, I assume most companies would halve your full compensation, not just the salary part of your compensation. They *might* be willing to give you full benefits if the cost-to-the-company of half of the benefits comes out of the salary portion.

      1. Triumphant Fox*

        I think a lot of places require 30 hours for benefits – maybe that’s just where I’ve worked.

        1. Hound Fan*

          No, you are correct. The ACA set the threshold of “full-time” employment/benefits eligibility at 30 hours. Employers are not allowed to require more. Most companies moved to the 30 hours. Some companies will go down to 24 or 20 but most companies do not offer benefits for part-timers and they cannot legally offer them to a single part-timer.

    10. Vanellope*

      I hope your Dr is able to figure things out and get you feeling better.

      A quick comment about benefits: it might not be up to your company to decide if they want to keep providing you benefits – they have to adhere to their stated eligibility requirements so as not to show favoritism and to keep things fair to all employees. I would check your employee handbook and try to structure your part time plan around that – for example at my company you have to work 30 hours per week to be eligible for insurance, but for 401k you just have to be 21 and have been employed for 90 days. Good luck working things out!

      1. Oranges*

        Thanks! I didn’t even think about that. I really wanna keep my benefits because medical issue.

        1. DeeEm*

          Yep, I was going to say the same thing. At my company, if an employee is NOT eligible for benefits, we cannot give them benefits because of the contracted eligibility requirements.

    11. Curmudgeon in California*

      Can you get partial disability (short term or long term) then drop to half time? This is what disability is for. Just don’t go above 28 hours/week or the disability insurance carrier might cut you off. (I had a stroke and short term disability was great for me returning to work, but when I went above 30 hours they said “Oh, you’re full time now” and cut me off, stuck at 3/4 pay.)

  12. Beancat*

    I’m trying to figure out what to do with my life and boy it’s frustrating. I went to school for education, which ended up being a horrible fit for me. I’ve been working administration since then but….I don’t know what to do with myself from here. I don’t know if I want to stay in administration, but I have no idea how to figure out what’s a good fit for me.

    How did you figure out what career you wanted to do? Any advice would be really appreciated. Thank you in advance :)

    1. Jellyfish*

      What worked for me was looking at job ads. I was in a similar place – working in admin & realizing it was a poor long term fit, a degree I wasn’t using, and no idea how to move forward.
      I started reading ads for open jobs in my area without any limiters. I looked at jobs I’d never be qualified for, jobs I’ve never considered at all, jobs that would require a completely different education. The titles and companies didn’t matter so much as the job descriptions themselves.

      Eventually, I started to notice a pattern: I was drawn to a field I’d previously rejected as being uninteresting. It took a few years, another degree, some resume-building volunteer work, and a lower paying job to get my foot in the door. I did it though, and I absolutely love what I do now. My previous work and educational background turned out to be useful in unexpected ways too. Transferable skills are everywhere; sometimes they just need a good spin. :)

      1. CoffeeLover*

        This is fantastic advice. They should use this as a high school exercise to help kids figure out what they want to do. The only problem is you sometimes need to look through the BS when it comes to job descriptions (at least in my field).

    2. Nessun*

      Honestly, my short answer is – I fell into it. Not useful, I know. But for context, I took an entry level job as an admin assistant on order to get benefits and regular hours (and I lucked out – they were desperate so my lack or experience didn’t phase them). I spent some short time learning the job and then started asking other people if I could help them with anything. I usually got the things they hated, or repetitive tasks, but it did give me a chance to explore pieces of their jobs. Through that I learned what I enjoyed doing, and what I was good at (in my case, highly organized work, lists, excel, etc) and then I looked for things that applied those skills. I kept putting my hand up too – so I gained a rep as helpful, willing to learn, and dependable. Eventually I parlayed all that into my current role in project management.

      Which is all to say – keep an eye put for the parts of any job that you enjoy and/or excel at, and build on those. In the meantime, be open minded about your future, and try not to say no to anything new – opportunities and experiences all help, even if only to teach you what you don’t want.

        1. Nessun*

          No, actually it’s from the Puccini Opera Turandot, the aria Nessun Dorma. But thank you for leading me to a new author – I’m going to look that series up!!

    3. anony*

      I was working as an admin assistant also and am in the process of making a career shift! What helped me was some really good leadership giving me an honest assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. I contrasted that with what elements of my role I really liked, and reached out to my network to ask more about their jobs. Now I’m retraining! Is there any fields you want to know more about that you could attend a seminar or free intro course in? I found that really helped me explore without committing any money or much time.

    4. Sherm*

      My path has taken some meandering turns, and what has always helped was to sit back and reflect on what am I actually good at. When did I feel in my element? When were other people turning to me for help? Odds are that, whatever you are good at, you do enjoy it, too. If you can’t think of anything, consider gaining additional experience through classes, volunteering, interning, etc.

    5. Spreadsheets and Books*

      I work in FP&A (financial planning and analysis – it’s a back office finance roll that primarily handles financial analysis and reporting for executive use) but my undergrad is in English.

      Honestly, I took some time to think about what I’m good at. I like numbers, I like order, I like structure, and I like when things are clean and organized. That eventually led to enrolling in a master of accounting program. I thought I was going to end up in tax, but I fell into a corporate finance internship that led me here. I like what I do. It’s a good blend of raw numbers and analytical thinking and written commentary so it fits me well.

      Find out what your strengths are and what you want to be doing on a day to day basis and work backwards from there.

    6. RabbitRabbit*

      For me it was noticing my reactions towards different areas of work ‘focus’ – not so much the task type but the actual area – and following after that. So say I started in llama breeding research, and at one point my boss (who really had no idea of my actual work) told me that if felt I was overworked, I should stop being on the corporate farm’s livestock breeding research regulations oversight committee. I had a strong negative reaction to that, stronger than dealing with other problems with that boss. Not only did the committee need representatives, it also helped us with networking. And I realized I liked it a lot.

      So I got a different job working instead in the same department as the regulations oversight committee, and then when I had a similar (but positive) reaction when talking with a manager about education around that kind of oversight, I knew what I wanted to do. So I got a job working directly with the committee, and have been shifting some of my job goals to producing more documentation and educational materials around what we do and what people need to know.

    7. Mid*

      I feel like I say this too much, but temping was super helpful for me. I worked with an agency, and got a good variety of work, and it helped me figure out what kind of work I liked and hated, and what kind of working environment worked best for me. But, that comes at the cost of a regular salary, etc.

      You could see if your university career center has resources. Try local networking events and see if people’s jobs sound interesting. You could try volunteering for places that seem interested.

      I’d start by making a list of things you like, dislike, need, and want in a working environment. See what things come up from the list. Do you need a lot of social interaction? Quiet? Lots of small projects or bigger long term things? Lots of data or more abstract work? What jobs have you been happiest in? Least happy? What did you like about the jobs you hated? Are there any trends here? Try to focus on the work more than the people.

      Once you get those kinds of things, you can start looking for careers that sound like they’d meet your needs.

      But also, I feel like most people don’t particularly love their careers/jobs. Not that everyone is miserable, but most people don’t have a huge amount of passion for their jobs. And it seems like a lot of people fall into their careers. My parents both had massive career changes later in life (education to banking, sales/logistics to investing) also, and both have said that they wouldn’t have been happy in their current fields earlier in life. So your needs and goals will likely change over time too.

      1. Mr. Shark*

        Yup, I think temping is a good thing in that regard. You get experience (even if it’s just admin) in a lot of different types of companies, and maybe you see something that you find interesting. Sometimes those places if you excel will look to add you permanently, or even if they don’t, you have knowledge of the company and some people, so you can apply separately for a different job if one is available (depending on the temp company rules).

    8. bdg*

      Oh boy. Teaching was my backup plan, only my plan A fell through and then I taught a year and hated it. I worked another job I also did not like before I just went back to school. My dad (an engineer) said, “if you just get an engineering degree, just scrape by to graduate, you can be a project manager and never do math.”

      So I got an engineering degree (did indeed scrape by lol) and ended up in a job that’s baaaaasically the engineer equivalent of my plan A. I love my job so much! And I still don’t do math! It did take a little moving around to get the exact right position (I don’t enjoy super detailed work, so editing long, technical documents was frustrating for me) but once I found it I knew.

      What convinced me to do engineering was this:

      – I wanted a job that changed — I worked in a church, and church stuff doesn’t change. Christmas comes every year and it’s always going to have candles. It was so boring.

      – I’m motivated by money and titles. I wanted a ladder to climb, so any sort of job where you start and just… keep doing the same thing wasn’t going to work for me.

      – I wanted a job where I’d learn things a lot, not just keep using the same skills. I looked for jobs that talked about problem-solving and applying rules to different cases, that sort of thing.

      – I’m not great with money or planning for being poor, so I needed a stable job. This cut out manufacturing. Guess what the world will never quit using? Electricity. Bam. My industry.

      Basically, I was the frustrated honors kid — I wanted a job where I couldn’t coast, I’d have to keep learning, and I’d get a gold star when I did good.

      1. AnotherAlison*

        I suppose engineering in power is more stable than manufacturing. I’ve been lucky to be gainfully employed for 20 years, but I’ve survived too many layoffs and wholesale shifts in what we’re doing at my consulting companies to have the warm, fuzzy feeling of stability about power that you do. The market for what I was doing from 2014-2018 is about 10% of what it was then. Do you work for a utility? It’s interesting to hear different perspectives.

    9. Richard Hershberger*

      I was in my thirties before I figured out what I wanted to do. I was always working, but in jobs I knew weren’t it. I figured it out eventually, and have been doing what I do for about twenty years now.

    10. lemon*

      What helped me get started is coming across that Venn diagram that’s always making its way around the internet: circle 1 is things you love doing; circle 2 is things you’re good at; and circle 3 is things you can make money from. The idea is that the things that land in the very center (the things that meet all 3 criteria) are how you’re supposed to find a career you love.

      I also second the suggestion to read job postings. That was just good for me to get a sense of what kinds of careers exist out there. I’ve also spend a good chunk of time reading lots of different entries in the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook.

      After getting a sense of what my interests and skills are, I just had to go out there and start trying stuff. I knew I liked reading and writing, so I tried writing. That failed on the 3rd Venn diagram circle (making money), and I also didn’t love it as much as I thought I did (writing for money and writing for fun are very different things). So then I tried pivoting to an academic research career, which I had plenty love for, but again, ran into the problem of there being no money and no jobs. So, then, I kind of explored technology, because, obviously, it’s a high-paying field, and I’ve always had an interest in tech. So, I got a job as a writer on a tech team, and did a coding bootcamp. I found that while coding was interesting, I missed those other things: research, creativity, writing. By hanging out with tech people, I learned about this discipline called human-computer interaction, and it sounded like it was perfect for me– it’s interdisciplinary and involves research, writing, design, technology, and it’s a growing, well-paid field. Finally, I found something that checked all my boxes.

      I’m doing a master’s program in it now and I love it. I finally feel like I’ve found the thing that’s going to make me happy, career-wise, long-term.

      Sometimes I feel flakey for having taken a long time get here, and for having tried so many other things. But, I learned valuable info each time about what I did and didn’t like. And with each job I took, I learned more about what kind of work environments make me happy (and which don’t). I don’t think I would have been able to find a career I like without doing all those other things.

      1. Arts Akimbo*

        I have to laugh at this, because my current career is one I never would have put in the “can make money from” circle! It’s why I waited so long to pursue it. I find that people are generally unwise to the breadth and variety of jobs and opportunities out there, until they do as you did– start hanging out with people in an industry they think is cool.

        1. lemon*

          Well, “can make money from” is relative and open to interpretation. :) My interpretation is: at the most basic level, it means that somewhere out there, someone is willing to pay you money to do this thing (so you can eliminate things like, “sit on the couch and drink beer all day” from your Venn diagram, lol). But beyond that, “make money” really just means being able to make whatever amount you deem necessary for your happiness and survival, not necessarily raking in a ginormous piles of cash and living the high life (unless you’re into that).

      2. Jeffrey Deutsch*

        Good luck with your human-computer interaction career.

        Circle 3 is essential. Circle 2 really helps and is probably also necessary long-term.

        Circle 1 is nice but strictly optional. Speaking as one who’s in all 3 circles himself, I daresay Circle 1 is a luxury. I suspect a large majority of U.S. workers are nowhere near Circle 1.

        As career consultant Marty Nemko has pointed out time and time again, mundane careers often generate the most happiness. He says that the best career for you will offer you things like moderately challenging work, growth and learning opportunities, a kind and competent boss and co-workers, good pay and benefits and a short commute.

        For that matter, most humans love mastery. If you get good at something (and it’s not soul-crushing or evil), it will make you happy.

        Keep in mind that glamorous (including “social cause” and many public service) careers often feature low pay, mistreatment and other rottenness…because you’ve got so much competition the employers can afford to screw you over. You’re basically buying a really expensive lottery ticket.

        1. Avasarala*

          I agree, I think Circle 1 is the most negotiable.
          Plus most people like lots of things, and you may be able to find something you like about a job even if you don’t love all of it. For instance, you like solving puzzles so you don’t mind troubleshooting tech issues, or you like planning and organizing so you become a project manager, or you like creative writing so you do tourism writing. It’s kind of adjacent.

    11. WantonSeedStitch*

      I fell into mine by mistake. After going to school for journalism and being unable to get a job in that field that would pay enough for me to live in the city where I wanted to live, I ended up taking on an admin job. It was a terrible job (terrible company), and I quit without a new job lined up after three years. I ended up temping for a while, which was nice because it gave me a few different kinds of experience in a few different companies. I had previously temped during vacations as college, mostly doing entry-level HR work (lots of employee data entry, some HR help desk stuff), and thought I might want to get into that field, especially after a longish temp position doing HR after quitting ToxicJob, since it was the bulk of my experience. But then that position ended, and I ended up in a new temp role as an admin in the fundraising office of a university. I really enjoyed it. After a few months, I asked about going permanent, but my boss said she was going to be leaving to go to another school. She offered to give me a good reference for a job in the fundraising research office. I applied for that, and got the job. It was good because it was an admin role with some data entry and research duties involved, so I got a nice start in the industry of prospect research. When an actual researcher position opened up, I applied for and got that. Now, more than ten years later, I head up the research team here, and absolutely love my career.

      Starting in an admin role at a company where you like the kind of work they do, and where there’s a culture of promotion from within, is a great way of getting out of admin work and into a new field. My sister did the same thing by starting as an admin at a pharmaceutical company, and now she works in their compliance department.

    12. ten-four*

      I did a fair bit of noodling around trying to figure out what to do with myself too. One thing I did was look around at industries I thought were interesting and that looked to be on a good growth path, then start poking around in job ads in different companies in that industry. I was able to parlay my skills into a project management job (although man – steep learning curve!), and have done really well in the field. Tech as a field continues to boom and has a lot of good opportunities, even for people like me who don’t code.

      If you’re an admin now you might look to project coordinator jobs with a company working in the education vertical. From there you might get a sense of what else might be interesting. If you like to write content strategy is a thing to explore, as is UX writing.

      Another thing to consider: look for fields where you don’t have to go get a bunch more education to break in. I didn’t do any schooling or certificates in tech (not that I’m knocking it; just that there are lots of opportunities that don’t require extensive credentialing). The last thing you want is to re-train and then find that your new field still isn’t a good match!

      I think the main thing for me in my job noodling was really looking for a field that had a lot of different types of jobs and that was pretty stable, and then figuring out how to break in.

    13. Bug*

      I kind of fell into my career as well. Post college I did one thing- really didn’t like – took the total opposite as another job, didn’t like that either. Found next job- closer to what I wanted but not quite the right fit. Then I got another job… and after about 3 years I knew *this* is it. It takes a few years – don’t be afraid to keep looking, but balance with giving a job enough time. I usually suggest staying somewhere for at least a year – unless it’s a toxic environment or something. It’s like dating – you don’t really know what you want in a partner until you know what you don’t want. And you only find that by trying different jobs!

    14. public facing librarian*

      I worked in many jobs until I decided to be a librarian at 32. I was a bad fit for most jobs. Almost fired from one. Fired from another. (with good cause- was such a bad fit) Endured unreasonable supervisors, unpredictable hours, years of retail, children’s museums, bookstores, editorial, marketing, theater admin, sales, direct mail, call centers, a short stint in food service, and was the world worst executive assistant. I did all of the exercises in What Color is Your Parachute. Figured out that I liked non-profits, working with kids, education, anything that is the opposite of predictable and rote, project management, people management, coaching, supportive environment, life-long learning, professional development, books. Took a step back in pay and prestige and started at the bottom as a librarian trainee.

    15. Windchime*

      I stumbled across my career. When I returned to work after having kids, I got a job at a medical institution because a relative worked there. I did some medical coding (it was a lot simpler in those days) as well as some data entry. Years later, I kind of wanted to work with computers so I went to my local community college to take classes in network administration. My first college teacher was a young programmer dude who actually started working at our clinic a few weeks after I met him. I had to take a programming class for my certificate, and knew immediately that I loved it so I changed tracks and studied programming. An opportunity opened up at work, and the young programmer dude/co-worker encouraged me to apply. The rest, as they say, is history.

    16. Lizzo*

      The book “What Color is Your Parachute?” might be a good place to start exploring what your interests and skills are. Lots of exercises to help you get ideas down on paper.

      Also, keep in mind that careers nowadays are rarely linear. If you prioritize 1) finding something you enjoy, 2) being a role where you feel challenged just enough to keep growing, and 3) working for an employer who treats you well and compensates you fairly, you can’t go wrong. Good luck!

    17. Ana Gram*

      I wasn’t super satisfied being a paramedic and I thought long and hard and what I liked and what I didn’t like.

      Liked:
      – not being surrounded by people (mostly, I dealt with my partner and my patient and that was cool)
      – constant change
      – a weird shift schedule
      – autonomy
      – being the person who made everyone breathe a sigh of relief
      – wearing a uniform! Sounds silly but I’m not into fashion and makeup and it’s sooo easy to wear a uniform.

      Didn’t like:

      – not many options for a long term career- you’re a medic or a medic instructor and that’s kind of it
      – money and benefits weren’t great
      – stress! Y’all it is HARD to have people’s lives depend on you.
      – the somewhat repetitive nature of it. Sometimes I felt like Newman in Seinfeld- the sick people just keep coming!

      So, I thought about what careers could tick most of my likes and few of my dislikes and…I’m a cop. I’m 5 years from retirement and I’m largely very satisfied with my career. I’ve done a few different things and it’s been good. I’m highly motivated to contribute to society and public safety is a good field for me. Maybe a list like that would help you, too. Good luck!

  13. Miss M*

    I have an interview in a few hours today and I am SO SO SO nervous! More nervous than usual because this would be a part of my field I have not much experience in, but have been super interested in. I made that clear in the cover letter and somehow am interviewing. Imposter syndrome is really kicking in. Any good vibes or thoughts appreciated! Have a great Friday~

        1. Sarah*

          Thanks. I hope you rocked it! I’m wondering if it’s positive visualization if I keep hoping that I don’t have to do any of the things I’m working on at this time next year.

    2. KJ*

      Something that helps me is to think of it as a two-way street – they are interviewing me, but I am also interviewing them. Best of luck today!

    3. Nita*

      Good luck! I had a similar interview last week, and am supposed to get some feedback at the end of today. Totally on pins and needles over here! I was very up-front about not having all of the right experience, but that the thing they’re hiring for is my real passion and I’d put a lot of effort into learning it.

    4. From The High Tower on Capitol Hill*

      Good luck! If it helps, I always listen to Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen right before I get to an interview. For some reason that song just really amps me up.

  14. Potato Girl*

    The comments earlier this week about never using a work laptop for personal things made me wonder — do most folks actually carry two laptops when they go on vacation? In tech jobs, you usually have to take your work laptop with you just in case, and I’ve never carried my personal laptop as well. That’s just too much stuff to drag through airports, not to mention the snide comments in the security line (“Well that’s a lot of gadgets,” the woman behind me said when I pulled out my work phone, personal phone, work laptop, and Nintendo 3DS… she was quite disapproving about it, very embarrassing). So, tech folks – do you carry two laptops when you go on vacation?

    1. ThatGirl*

      I’ve never even carried a single laptop on vacation, but to be fair, I don’t personally own one, though my husband has a personal chromebook. We did take two iPads, two phones and a Switch on our Christmas travels.

    2. Oranges*

      Heck no! The only thing I don’t use my work computer for is porn. That’s my iPhone’s job. But seriously, having two computers one for work and one for personal use is just…. no. I know that my friends have been surprised when I tell them this so I do think it’s field specific.

      1. TechWorker*

        +1, I don’t even own a laptop any more as my phone suffices for most things and my company is totally fine with using work laptops for limited personal use (like I happen to need to write a word doc or use a website that doesn’t load well on a phone).

        I’ve managed to avoid taking my laptop abroad in general but take it home most weekends ‘incase’. Having to go back to the office in the very rare case something does come up is worse!

    3. KAG*

      I used to. A large part of the reason I got TSA PreCheck was so I didn’t have to remove all the electronics from my carry-on (travel tip: if you are carrying two laptops AND a bunch of books / papers, remove the papers before putting the laptop through- the combo almost always triggers a search).

      1. Ama*

        Yes, that was always my worry when I’d travel with my husband before we got pre-check. One time he had half a dozen devices in his carry on and I was terrified I would miss one when I was trying to grab his luggage (he also has knee replacements and thus always has to be patted down so picking up his luggage off the conveyor belt is usually my job while I wait for him).

      2. hamsterpants*

        Same here, down to the detail of getting TSA pre-check to avoid the hassle. Individually taking out two laptops, two phones, my kindle, plus toiletries, coat, shoes = too much, man!

      3. Elizabeth West*

        Books look funny on the X-ray. I had an extra duffle full of books and tea tins that got me pulled out of line at Heathrow. The guy was nice about it, though. He said they couldn’t tell what was in there so he had to check.

        Also, once at OldExjob, someone had to fly with a wood sample. I usually taped them up in white foam to keep the corners from getting crunched, but this time I used a rubber band because I figured security might want to unwrap it and see what the hell it was.

    4. Attack007*

      I only bring both if I am driving somewhere and I am going to be home for close to 2 weeks. If I am flying I got an iPad that I carry with me. I can do basically everything I do on my computer, but it is much smaller and easier to carry with my work computer. I am going away for the weekend today and I have my iPad in my backpack and I don’t notice a difference. I have done the two laptops through security it will get you looks and have also gotten me pulled aside for extra screening, but in the end it wasn’t that big of a deal, it’s just heavy and a hassle.

    5. Millennial Lizard Person*

      I bring work phone, personal phone, and personal ipad. Who care what one snide person in the airport security line says? You’re bringing what you need. Also, reconsider if you truly need your work laptop on vacation. Unless you’re on-call, you’re on vacation!!

    6. Admin of Sys*

      I try really hard to never have to bring the work laptop with me. My personal laptop has decent security and we’re permitted to connect over vpn to our network with it. So if I’m vacationing with a computer, I bring my personal one along – and if something critical catches on fire, I’ll vpn and then remote into a work machine. But I don’t really do anything on my home computer I would be forbidden from doing on the work computer, other than ‘waste time’, so ymmv.

    7. Welling*

      I try not to carry any laptops when I go on vacation, but I frequently do business trips where I have to take my work laptop and if the trip lasts more than a week, I’ll bring my personal laptop too because there are things that I just don’t want to do with my work laptop. I’ve never run into disapproval from airport security. You probably just had a run-in with a particularly grumpy TSA agent. I do try to prepare for security while I’m in line by taking out both laptops and having them ready to place in the bin. That makes the process faster and easier.

    8. Dragoning*

      Well, I get paid hourly and don’t currently get PTO. I don’t bring my work laptop on vacations. I’m not going to work.

      That said, I do occasionally bring my personal laptop to work for my lunch breaks (an hour is a long time to kill, and I have games/other software on my personal laptop that I can’t install on my work laptop). A lot of my department at work seems to think it’s beyond the pale that I…have a personal laptop at all. They seem confused why I don’t just use my work laptop for everything.

      What? Is that normal some places? It seems crazy to me, but maybe they just use tablets or something…?

      1. GothicBee*

        I’m hourly too and I don’t even ever bring my work laptop home unless there’s the possibility of inclement weather or some other issue that might mean I have to work from home (I’m not allowed to WFH for stuff like sick days).

        Personally I’d hate using my work laptop for everything. Mine is a pretty basic model and I prefer Mac, so that’s what I use for my personal laptop. If I ever had to bring a work laptop on vacation, I’d definitely bring my personal one too (or just my ipad depending on my plans).

      2. Elizabeth West*

        I used to do that at OldExjob, since my computer at work was a desktop and I couldn’t exactly pick it up and take it to the lunchroom to write on my break. At Exjob, I just used a flash drive.

    9. SomebodyElse*

      I have a work laptop and a person iPad that I travel with. I don’t bring my laptop on vacation, but have bitten the bullet and added work apps to my iPad. That’s more for my personal convenience than my employers.

      To be honest I’m not all that uptight about blurring the work/personal lines as far as technology goes. I am fully aware of the implications and find them an acceptable risk.

    10. KoiFeeder*

      I once brought a backpack full of stuffed animals through TSA. Now, I’m merely a grad student, but I am technically an adult, and the sooner you stop caring about what random people think, the more fun you have with your army of plushies.

      1. Golden*

        I’ve kind of adopted this mindset too. Those people have seen it all, and no matter how strange you think your luggage contents are they’ve probably seen something weirder before and will see something even weirder tomorrow.

        I’ve brought a backpack filled with several loaves of bread before, and I know someone who was shocked when they got to the scanner and was told they couldn’t bring fireworks on the plane. I’ve read about people sneaking pet fish through those too. A plushie army sounds fun!

        1. KoiFeeder*

          You are living deliciously. Now I want bread…

          (Although, to be a touch of a killjoy, fish don’t enjoy flying. Unless you’re transporting them via Salmon Tube, they’d probably prefer to stay home. Then again, my fish are all about 2-3 feet of carp, and the plural of anecdote isn’t data…)

          1. Golden*

            Oh no, I wasn’t suggesting that people bring fish on planes. Please leave them home or make another plan for them! That was an anecdote I read about of someone sneaking their fish through TSA (and the accompanying comments section of other stories). Someone’s college roommate who was supposed to feed it bailed on them at the last minute and they either had to smuggle it on or leave it to starve over semester break (or something. I can think of other alternatives but the person apparently didn’t explore those).

            Your fish are huge! Koi are so beautiful – here’s to hoping they never have to be smuggled through the TSA!

        2. Campfire Raccoon*

          I have (on many occasions) brought a wooden duck decoy. His name is Maynard and he takes pictures at exotic locations.

          I have also brought 2 still-steaming deep dish pizzas freshly purchased in downtown Chicago in my carry on. I was searched (of course) and sent through by some amicably jealous TSA agents.

        3. emmelemm*

          Many moons ago (pre-TSA), I had a pet garter snake (they’re pretty small). Moving across country. Called airline, they said you can’t take him on the plane. Put a small plastic travel box with airholes, empty, in my carry-on. Brought snake to airport in box. At airport, took snake out, put him in my zipped coat pocket, put carry-on through x-ray machine. I didn’t want them to see him wiggling on the x-ray! After the x-ray, took him back out of my pocket, put him in his box, went on plane. Fin.

          1. KoiFeeder*

            Okay, I’m glad he was safe and happy throughout that, and garter snakes are incredibly personable and charming dudes, but there was a very important reason you weren’t supposed have a garter snake on the plane, and that is because they’re native to most states and as such aren’t permissible pets in most of America.

        4. GS*

          I brought some homemade prosciutto through once and the person asked me what was in my bag purely out of curiosity, he didn’t ask me to open it or anything. Apparently semi-dried meat is very dense.

        5. Witty Nickname*

          Last time I traveled for work, I brought my own coffee with me (I’m particular and the coffee at the hotel we stay at when we go to that location does not work for me). On the way home, I discovered that a bag of ground coffee can look like something else entirely on the TSA scanners, and they have to pull it out and swab it. And sometimes it triggers the alarms when they do that, so they have to unpack ALL of your luggage, swab everything, and you get a pat down too. That was fun.

          The agent that was searching my stuff was surprised and unsure about it all, but his boss had definitely seen it before because he was all “this happens sometimes.”

      2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        A few years ago, I had a KitchenAid stand mixer in a duffel bag, padded with towels, as my carry-on. And these days, a lot of my travel is to and from Orlando, and those guys probably see a hundred droids and two hundred light sabers a day these days :)

        1. KoiFeeder*

          The last time I visited my cousin in Orlando, our plane had to wait on the runway while they chased a three-foot alligator (assuming the mop they used on him was approximately three feet, I had an excellent view of the show) off the tarmac. I love Florida.

      3. Librarian1*

        I agree about not caring what people say, but at least with stuffed animals, you don’t have to take them out to go through security. It just seems like too much hassle to bring two laptops if you’re flying because they both have to come out and placed into their own containers and get screened separately, etc.

    11. Person from the Resume*

      In the past, I carried two laptops when I am travelling for work. There are things I could never do on government furnished equipment much tamer that what that LW’s employee was doing to cause her to want to resign.

      But why carry two laptops now? Your personal phone can do what you used to need a laptop for.

      1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

        Spouse used to take an additional Chromebook with him when travelling for work so he could binge Netflix on a screen larger than 5″.

        We have a stupid number of devices in the house – 2 work laptops, 2 chromebooks, four active mobile phones, two active tablets, and three smart TVs, between five of us.

    12. Jules the 3rd*

      Yes, I often take two (manufacturing procurement, Fortune 500 tech co). At Christmas, driving to spend 6 days away from home, we packed 5 computers for 3 people; my husband had one he wanted to change hardware config on. We also took 3 phones, 4 board games, a tablet, a handheld game, and my e-reader (200 books in one).

      I did actually have to log on to my work computer a couple of times to deal with EOY emergencies. If I’m flying, I probably would not take both computers, but I’d have to have my e-reader. I do not do anything recreational from my work computer except maybe skim a few Pocket articles.

    13. Aerin*

      I mean, I carry two laptops to work every day, although my personal device is a Chromebook. But I’m first-level helpdesk and don’t have to worry about on-call stuff, so the only time I’ve traveled with the work laptop has been when I’m going to be working remotely from my destination (like, dialing in from the hotel for a full shift).

      Four devices would be a bit much for day-to-day, but that’s nothing for a trip. That lady was just a jerk, that’s a her problem, not you. My inclination would be to say something like, “Yeah, welcome to the 21st century” and return awkward to sender.

    14. WellRed*

      The only laptop I have is my work one. I use it for personal stuff, but within reason. IN only travel with a laptop on work trips. If I’m going on vacation somewhere fun, why would I want to lug a laptop?

    15. Anonymous Educator*

      The comments earlier this week about never using a work laptop for personal things made me wonder — do most folks actually carry two laptops when they go on vacation?

      Do people actually never do personal things on their work laptop? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who does that. Everyone I know does personal things on their work laptop. I definitely do. But there are smart ways you can compartmentalize:
      1. Don’t use your work email for personal stuff (banking, online shopping for yourself, etc.).
      2. If you have logins for stuff and websites you visit for personal things, keep them in a separate browser from your work stuff (e.g., work on Firefox, personal on Chrome).
      3. Never do any personal stuff on your work laptop that could be professionally embarrassing if discovered.

      In answer to your other question, when I’m on vacation, I’m on vacation, so I don’t actually take my work laptop with me. In fact, on a lot of vacations, I don’t even take my personal laptop. My smartphone usually handles all of my computing needs.

      In tech jobs, you usually have to take your work laptop with you just in case, and I’ve never carried my personal laptop as well.

      Depends on the tech job? I work at a tech company doing technical things (not a software engineer, though). It’s the kind of stuff that affects employees’ laptops and software, so my department’s not actively encouraged to do a lot of stuff off the clock.

      That’s just too much stuff to drag through airports, not to mention the snide comments in the security line (“Well that’s a lot of gadgets,” the woman behind me said when I pulled out my work phone, personal phone, work laptop, and Nintendo 3DS… she was quite disapproving about it, very embarrassing).

      Yeah, those comments are super uncalled for, and I hate them. People often travel for work, and even though I don’t carry around two laptops, I can see why some do (some may even carry two work laptops).

      So, tech folks – do you carry two laptops when you go on vacation?

      No.

      1. Anonymous Educator*

        All that said, I do carry around two smartphones! My workplace has very strict management they put on smartphones that use company email (e.g., screen timeouts after mere seconds), so that is just way too annoying to have on my everyday personal device. My main phone is my personal phone, and then I have an older phone (with terrible battery life) that I use as my work phone.

      2. emmelemm*

        I definitely do the two browsers thing. Not that I would ever look at porn on a work laptop, but it just keeps all my bookmarks, etc. out of the way, if you know what I mean.

    16. Daughter of Ada and Grace*

      So, I don’t actually have a work laptop (yet – that’s supposed to change in the near future). But I don’t even take my personal laptop if I’m going on vacation – my iPad is easier to carry and it’s what I usually use at home when I’m goofing off anyway. (If I were driving, and going to be gone more than a long weekend, I might bring my personal laptop. But not on a plane – it’s more than I want to carry through the airport.)

      But I’m also not in a role where I’m likely to be the only one who can do something, and that something can’t wait until I get back. However, one of my coworkers did take their work laptop on a cruise last summer, and was able to expense the internet package on the ship since the company was requiring them to check in on certain systems a couple of times a day.

    17. Lemon Zinger*

      I don’t work on vacation, so I don’t take my work phone or laptop with me. I work from home and on the weekends and at 5 PM, the cell phone and laptop are powered off.

    18. Two Dog Night*

      I do. I try not to use the work laptop if I’m on vacation, but I bring it, just in case. And my personal laptop flips around like a tablet, so it’s better for watching movies etc… plus I don’t use my work laptop for anything that requires a personal login. Probably paranoid, yeah, but I feel better.

    19. Sarah Simpson*

      I have a personal laptop and a work laptop – when I travel, I just take one. I used to take my personal one as it is lighter and faster and has a longer battery, but now I need the VPN sometimes, so I’m lugging the work one along. I use it for normal personal stuff – web surfing, Facebook, personal email. I just make sure I don’t save anything that is personal to me to the hard drive, but since everything is in the Cloud these days, that rarely comes up.

    20. Mid*

      I’m not important enough to be needed while on vacation, but my workplace uses a cloud system, so I would bring one computer and remotely work on our system.

    21. ElizabethJane*

      I work in tech and I straight up refuse to bring my computer on vacation. They aren’t paying me enough for that.

      I also realize that hard line in the sand of “If I’m off work I’m unavailable” is not something a lot of people are willing to do and I’m rare in that regard. I do have 2 phones though. And I have two computers (work computer is a mac, I prefer pcs)

    22. fhqwhgads*

      I do not bring my work laptop on vacation. I am in tech, but I had some bad jobs in the past where “just in case” turned into “we can always contact you no matter what even if it’s not actually urgent but because it’s more convenient for us to interrupt your vacation.” I don’t work there anymore, and consider myself a bad cultural fit for any job that would require me to bring work with me on vacation “just in case” when I was not officially on call.

      If I am traveling for work (or if I have a vacation tacked on to a work trip and thus would have it with me anyway), it’s acceptable within my company we might use work laptops for occasional reasonable personal use – checking personal email (I don’t but they wouldn’t mind if I did), ordering food delivery, etc. Although so much of that can be done on a phone at this point there’s almost no need. But I still wouldn’t really use the laptop for anything truly personal. I’d just not do laptop-related things during the trip. I do bring my personal tablet with me when I’m traveling with my work laptop and that would be my gadget of choice for personal stuff not suited to smartphone.
      Don’t let anyone shame your 3DS though! I’m going to a conference for work soon and have been debating bringing mine.

    23. Qwerty*

      Tech person (software engineer) – No, I have never taken my work laptop on vacation and I actively tell my reports not to check their email while on vacation. I’ve handled a few phone calls while on vacation when I was in a high pressure environment, but the conversations was always “Super sorry to bother you, we’re having a production issue, do you have time to answer a few questions?” and the calls never lasted more than 15min.

    24. HBJ*

      I don’t take a laptop on vacation. Anything I need can be done on my phone in a pinch, even if it would be more convenient to have a full keyboard and screen.

      1. HBJ*

        Oh, and for the record, I never had a work laptop, but I did have a work iPad. I never logged into personal social media, personal email, or browsed the web. The only personal thing I did on it was log into prime video, so I could download shows to watch at home while at work. I never took it or my personal computer on vacation.

    25. Elizabeth West*

      I only did once, when I worked while traveling. It was a company-provided laptop that I could use to hack into the one on my desk through the VPN. I couldn’t use my personal laptop for work and I was also doing a blog challenge at the same time, so I needed both of them. In hindsight, I could have used a flash drive for the other, but I’m more comfortable on my own machine.

      Next time I go on holiday, I am NOT also working, at least not the day job kind of work.

    26. Windchime*

      I don’t have a work laptop; just a personal one. We wouldn’t be allowed to have any work material on a laptop at any rate; everyone who works remotely is required to log in via VPN and then all the work is done on your workstation in the office.

      My workplace is pretty much against working on vacation; that’s for relaxing and recharging. I take my personal laptop on vacation for personal stuff; I suppose that, if they absolutely needed me that they would call and I could log in. But it’s definitely not the norm.

    27. Mina, The Company Prom Queen*

      I don’t think you had any reason to be embarrassed for carrying lots of devices with you. That person in the security line was rude for making that comment. My response to a comment like that is to smile and say “Yes.” And then just cheerfully carry on with what I’m doing. Some people have more devices than others. So what?

    28. Kat in VA*

      Oof, I have a Dell and a Macbook for work, my personal Macbook, a work phone, and my personal phone.

      And yeah, all four of them go on vacation with me. It is what it is.

  15. Pessimistic Marketer Needs Your Help!*

    I’m tasked with coming up with a marketing strategy for a new service. While this is a type of work I usually enjoy and thrive in, I’m struggling big time. I could really use some advice. There are a couple of things going on:

    1) Fundamentally, and this is the hardest part for me: I don’t believe that the service provides great value to customers. The idea is great, the technology is almost there, but truth be told, it’s still not a fully-fledged product and it’s not ready to be sold (in my opinion, at least).

    2) I’m not convinced that it can be successful commercially, either. There are some flashy competitors, and they’ve gotten press coverage along with hefty investments, so everyone thinks there’s a huge opportunity in the space in general, as well as for us specifically. Me? I doubt these competitors are breaking even and suspect that it just means there’s excess investment money sloshing around. :(

    3) There are a few other major things in my professional life that I’ve been having a hard time dealing with emotionally in the last 3 months or so–new execs coming in; nonsensical decisions made way above my head and handed down in shitty ways; growing sense that something is going on and nobody is telling each other anything. Some of these changes have been exciting and seems positive, but they are changes nonetheless (i.e., stressful). My partner is also going through some challenges professionally. So, I’m not entirely sure how much of my pessimism for this particular new service is coming from this dreary headspace I’m in, but I know I’m majorly stressed out, as in I’ve never been *this* stressed.

    I’m sort of the leader in the team, and I need to be upbeat and forward-looking when we are developing a marketing strategy, so this is a big problem for me and the team. I’m really struggling to match the rest of the team’s enthusiasm and feel like I can’t see the service with clear eye to find a way to make it work.

    Has anyone in marketing of similar fields dealt with a similar situation, where their emotional/mental state is interfering with the forward-looking work they have to do? How did you cope? How do you approach a project like this when, deep down, you don’t believe in the value of what you’re tasked to get out there?

    1. Wonderer*

      It can definitely be hard to motivate yourself when your personal life is a mess. I think for this kind of situation, it can help to imagine what they *want* the service/product to be. Try to imagine what the service will eventually be, once it is ready, and then base the marketing strategy around that.
      Definitely don’t ignore the flashy competitors. You need a marketing strategy that differentiates you from them. Are they really the same thing? Find a way to highlight an important difference.
      If there’s lots of money sloshing around, you can either try to chase investors that just want to be generally in that space, or you can define a specific market segment that you will target. With several splashy competitors, I think they will attract the money from general investors and so it’s better to define your own ‘slice’ of the market and claim you are the best for it.
      As an example, the same basic electronic product with a simple function might be used in retail, military, medical, or whatever. But, paint it white and claim it’s the best one for medical and you might be the one to attract all the investors in the health care space.

      1. Wonderer*

        On trying to motivate yourself to care, maybe try thinking of it as a more theoretical training exercise? How do you think you would approach it if you *did* believe in the product? Maybe you can learn a lot from forcing yourself through the process instead of just going on enthusiasm.

        1. Pessimistic Marketer Needs Your Help!*

          I really like the idea of approaching it as a theoretical exercise. That might help me get over the “I don’t believe in it” issue. I’ll try this. Thank you!

        2. Triumphant Fox*

          Totally. Think of this as a portfolio piece, not a genuine expression of the product in the real world. When I started thinking of what I want to be able to put on my resume, instead of what is best for our general brand (when there is no vision, no metrics, absolutely no goals – just a void where I can do literally anything), I got a lot more focused. I want to leave this brand with a strong public presence I can point to and say “Look what I did.” What strategy can you do defend? What do you think will be convincing and memorable two years from now, when your in an interview and someone asks what impact you made at your company?

          1. Pessimistic Marketer Needs Your Help!*

            I love this reframing, too. What strategy can I defend? What will be convincing and memorable two years from now? What impact can I say I made in the company? Those are all really good questions, and I like how this framing makes the work meaningful to me on a different level than what I’ve been focused on. Thank you!

    2. jj*

      I’m absolutely on the same page. I work in marketing for a regional restaurant chain, and I know the company is going to go under because of poor leadership. I’ve only been here for a year, but they’ve been shutting down locations and really letting their standards slip. Every single person on my team is gone now. My boss quit, and everyone else was fired. It’s been a nightmare. To really top it off, a family member is likely going to pass away soon from cancer. There’s nobody to pick up my slack when that happens, and they won’t even consider hiring anybody else. I don’t care about this company, so I decided that, until I go back to school next year to follow what I figured out is my actual passion (clinical psych), I’m going to lean into the ridiculousness. They’re so desperate that they’ll let me try almost anything right now. Advertising steamed vegetable specials in Candy Crush, anyone?

      1. Pessimistic Marketer Needs Your Help!*

        So sorry to hear about your family member. It does sound like a crazy situation at your workplace, but it’s good you have your next step figured out. That’s something I should work harder on.

    3. Solving real problems or wasting time*

      Who at the company is doing research? You say you “don’t believe that the service provides great value to customers.” Are there numbers to back that up, or show that it is valuable to customers? Can you sit in on some usability studies or customer interviews, and hear firsthand how your audience feels about or uses the product (even if it’s just a test version)?

      If the answer is no one at the company is doing any research, then yikes. I recommend reading “Just Enough Research” by Erika Hall to learn how a little data from the target audience can go a long way in understanding the value of a product. Then get others to read it, or bits of it, and work cross-departmentally to get a clear picture of the value of the product or how it needs to change to be valuable to customers. You may have to do this guerrilla-style if the new execs can’t understand why research is important (and double yikes if that’s the case).

      1. Pessimistic Marketer Needs Your Help!*

        Good question, and we fall on the “yikes” side of things–it’s a small company with leaders with Strong Opinions. Just ordered the book. Thank you for this suggestion! Sounds like an awesome resource for my own future.

    4. Mrs. C*

      Is there someone else at your company you can informally interview to spark inspiration? E.g. if you’re marketing llama grooming services, go talk to a llama groomer. Ask that person: what do they think makes the service special, what kind of person’s in the market for those services, how does this product solve a potential customer’s problems or fulfill their needs, etc. You’d approach the conversation with a tone of wanting to learn more about what this person does & wanting to be an awesome representative of their work.

      Once you have those responses from a colleague, then channel that person; use their responses as a basis, and combine it with your talent for honing a message and knowing what channels to use for that message.

    5. theguvnah*

      I hear that you’re struggling. I don’t have advice – i think it is fundamentally immoral to try to sell people a product that is Not Good and that they Don’t Need. Is this something you generally need to do in your job? Am I misunderstanding the general summary of the situation?

  16. Lena*

    I know and have read posts about finding a diplomatic way to explain leaving a job in an interview, but how open can I be about a really bad situation? I’ve been at my small nonprofit for 2 years, in my current position for almost 1. I’m actively applying for many reasons, but it’s become more urgent recently as the org is in extreme financial stress, we recently lost our ED with no immediate plans to replace them, and in general I feel insecure at a place that was already toxic for a bunch of reasons. There are also believable things I could be looking for in a new position/at a new org, but should I stick to those in interview situations (“I’ve found I really am interested in pursuing x and this offers that more than my current role”) or can I calmly say, e.g., there’s no ED and the lack of structure has been difficult?

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Ideally you talk about why you’re interested in the new job, but in some cases where you need more than that (like if you haven’t been at your current job for long), then all you need to say is the part about the money problems (“we’re having some financial troubles and I’m looking for more stability”) — that on its own is enough of an explanation, and you can skip the rest.

      1. Jedi Squirrel*

        This is a perfect response. Employment is totally transactional. I give my employer so many hours of labor, and they give me so much money and benefits. If I can’t hold up my end of the deal, my employer can replace me. But a lot of us forget that if our employer can’t hold up their end of the agreement, we can also replace them. This is a completely reasonable expectation, but a lot of workers don’t see this aspect of employment.

        As someone who once had a payroll check bounce, if I were interviewing someone who said they were looking for more stability on the part of their employer, I would completely understand where they are coming from.

    2. Operation Glowing Symphony*

      “but how open can I be about a really bad situation?” Not open at all.

      I left a bad non-profit 4 months ago and I have conversations with myself all the time about this. I asked a similar question a few Fridays ago and it’s suggested that you say, “Looking for stability and focus” Non-profits know one another and they might already know the plight of your org and why you’re leaving. And it’s no good giving up the goods because they do know one another, and sometimes each others Board members.

      Good! “I’ve found I really am interested in pursuing x and this JOB/ROLE offers that more than my current role”

      I’m right with you and trying to fashion a positive statement can be challenging but we have to big the bigger person especially when the circumstances were beyond our control.

    3. Half April Ludgate, Half Leslie Knope*

      I was laid off from my last dumpster fire job, and I always gave pretty bland responses in interviews, or focused on looking for new opportunities/growth/etc. I figure the drama/issues are something I can share (light on the details, obviously) IF anyone asks me about it after I’ve gotten the job (which my new colleagues already have, as my old company’s drama is the worst kept secret in town).

      In interviews where people alluded to the problems, I mostly just did the chuckle and “Yeah, it’s a time of change at the organization. I was proud of the work I accomplished there, but I’m excited for a new opportunity!”

    4. Anonymous Educator*

      I know the conventional wisdom is not to badmouth current or former employers, but I haven’t really found that to work against me in a job search, provided that…
      1) I also speak highly of other former employers
      2) I speak about it an even-handed and professional way and don’t come across as gossiping or bitter

      People are human and generally understanding that bad situations come up. If you’ve had four employers, and you speak well of three of them and badly about one, that isn’t some mark against you.

      Yes, of course, emphasize the appeal of the new position instead of the badness you’re leaving behind, but it’s okay to mention the badness, if it comes up.

    5. ReformedControlFreak*

      This is so similar to my situation when I left a NP I worked for. I mostly just focused on why I was “pivoting” and hoping to grow. Intelligent interviewers should pick up on hints, like “I’m looking for a place with stronger leadership”

      I got very open with my boss after a few months of building a relationship, and seeing how strongly he feels about good management and leadership. Some people in your professional life you should never open up to, it really depends on the person, situation, and dynamic.

      1. Seeking Second Childhood*

        Oooh thanks…. ‘consistent leadership ‘… you may just have found the positive spin on what I’m looking for.

    6. Chronic Overthinker*

      When I was “forced to resign” from Ex Job, I spun it as positively as I could. I said “I found the training to be unstructured and lacked focus and had training been a bit more structured/focused I would most likely still be there. I do wish them well and hope they find the right person for the job. However, I did learn some valuable skills like; .” Be diplomatic but spin it positive!

  17. Oogie*

    Why do upper management types always deny real issues and pretend everything is puppies and rainbows when in reality it’s a huge dumpster fire? My job has been hard the last several months and it’s affecting everyone and everything at work. Because of the problems I am tired and struggling every day at work. Then we get these messages that everything is soooooo great and that adds insult to injury. What is the mentality behind pretending there are no issues?

    1. Nonprofit Nancy*

      Ugh, I feel this so hard. Management MUST be aware that everyone is miserable and there’s huge morale issues – people are quitting right and left with nothing lined up – but they refuse to have a real come-to-jesus conversation about it, and just treat each departure as an outlier while blithely continuing on an ambitious new strategic plan that none of us have a clue how they think we’re going to add all this shiny new stuff.

    2. Birch*

      My theory is that sometimes it’s just inertia. Doing something requires taking action and committing to that action, which is more difficult than continuing to skip that missing stair.

      If it makes you feel better, our management keeps rolling out “wellness strategies” including things like
      1. yoga over lunchtime (as everyone knows, the BEST time to do yoga is right before or after eating! even better if it’s in a dead silent room, led by someone who is not a yoga instructor, and involves downward dogging in front of your boss! /s)
      2. “nature walks” including the one where they specifically invited an expert and then proceeded to completely ignore and talk over the expert the whole time
      3. daily coffee socials (who has time for this?)
      4. various infographics and email reminders that there are mental health services available…. services which, I know from personal experience, involve several layers of “signposting” which dead-end at a 9 week wait for therapy with the NHS

        1. Birch*

          I work at a university.. all of the things I listed are volunteer led, not hired professionals. Except the coffee, which we pay for ourselves. Well, I don’t, because you have to pay a different person for the coffee than for the milk, and that’s ridiculous, so i bring my own.

    3. designbot*

      In my experience, it’s because they see negative talk as contributing to or escalating the problem. They either don’t think they can improve the fundamentals of why people are unhappy, or have plans forming/in motion that will take time to gel, and have confused acknowledgement of the situation with spreading it. They think if they say “we’re aware of the dumpster fire, crews are on the scene and have it 50% contained, and furthermore are in talks to replace the dumpsters to make sure this isn’t a regular occurrence.” that everyone will just go “FIRE!!!” and flee the building.
      I happen to agree with you that acknowledging the situation is necessary to demonstrate that you are taking it seriously and are not blind. But I’ve come to accept that I am in the minority at my office at least.

      1. Oogie*

        I must be too. I prefer to be honest (admittedly sometimes to a fault) and address things head on.

    5. Book Badger, Attorney-at-Claw*

      Toxic positivity. The people who get promoted are people who are positive, optimistic, and fun to be around, which makes them suck at acknowledging real problems or conflict. Check out Brightsided.

    6. CoffeeLover*

      If you admit there’s a problem, then you need to fix it. Fixing giant dumpster fires is a lot of work and it’s easier to pretend they’re not there.

      I think it’s a rare person who’s willing to take on major organizational issues. Once you open that can of worms, there’s no closing it. And you’re the one who gets fired if you can’t fix it… even if you werent the one who caused the problem to begin with. And of course, solving these kind of problems involves major changes including things like firing management. Good luck pulling that off especially if you don’t have buy-in from every other leader in the org.

    7. Not So NewReader*

      One big boss said that angry people work harder. Angry was okay with him.

      One big boss said less people do more work and he could not figure out why. (Because they were trying to protect each other from being fired.)

      Yet another boss said that developing thicker skin was part of working anywhere.

      This all to me is on the par with a doc who says, “It’s all in your mind” and his workload suddenly gets lighter for him.

      I do think that some people believe that “you have to pay your dues”, the problem with this is that it assumes everyone will get promoted and rise above their current setting. We KNOW that’s not true. If these bosses knew that the rest of their work lives would be the same toxic setting would their answer change?

    8. Jean*

      I have seen a lot of “fake it til you make it” mentality applied in these types of situations over the years. Some leadership seems to think that if they act like everything is great, they can convince everyone that it really is? IDK. True story: I once worked for a pretty dysfunctional department under an incompetent wack-job of a director. One morning in our stand-up check-in meeting (we did these on Mondays and Wednesdays) he made a big speech about how much morale had improved and how pleased he was that all his new policies had done so much to make things better for everyone. (None of this was true, we all hated him and he was actively making things worse for everyone.) He got so much pushback after this that in our next stand-up meeting 2 days later, he actually issued a RETRACTION AND APOLOGY for being so off-base. It was kinda hysterical in retrospect, but I have to admit, I did respect his honesty in the moment. He was generally not known for being honest. He ended up getting fired about 6 months after that. I don’t miss that job.

    9. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      As far as they’re concerned, there are no issues; everything really is puppies and rainbows (in their eyes).

      They’re too detached from what goes on at the coal-face to know that individual people are tired, struggling every day, and so on. There are layers of management (I assume) between you and these upper management types… each just reporting what their boss wants to hear, with the hope of shoring up their own short-term position. The upper managers collect their salary, maybe cross through a couple of positions in the org chart if they need to “course correct”, no idea of who any of those people are anyway and no sense of them as a human, just a “line item” on a budget spreadsheet somewhere.

      I feel you and have been in similar situations (in a company with about 100 people and a company with over 8000 people!)

      The part I don’t understand though is that these people (with some exceptions) didn’t just be born in the world, get some education and then become upper management of a big company. They must have had their own time at the ‘coal-face’ so the part I’m struggling with is at what point that empathy and sense of the bigger picture evaporates.

      It’s ironic as presumably the higher the level of management the more the “big picture” thinking is needed. But I find it’s the opposite quite often.

  18. CC issues*

    Anyone have advice for working opposite someone who will not CC the appropriate people on emails despite being asked several times? I’m an attorney, and the paralegal on the opposite side of this transaction will send things only to me even though we have asked her multiple times over the past week to include my two colleagues (one of whom is our paralegal) and our client’s representative. I understand not wanting to spam people, but 1) it’s adding just three people who have affirmatively asked to be included and 2) we keep missing things because she will only send them to one person and therefore no one on our team is on the same page. Short of straight-out asking her why she won’t do this, is this just a grin-and-bear-it situation? And if so, any advice for my team to reduce confusion? We’re getting close to closing, and I’d hate for us to miss a settlement statement draft because the one person she sent it to missed it.

    1. merp*

      Nothing super helpful here, I’m afraid, just sympathy. When this has happened for me (not at work so much as coordinating house things), I just reply back copying the person I need to include and say something like “thanks – in the future please include x because reasons,” which it sounds like you’ve been doing. But for some people, it just takes doing that every single time. :(

    2. Alice*

      If you’re only dealing with this paralegal on one transaction, can you set up an email filter that automatically forwards everything from her to your two colleagues?
      I mean, it would be better for her just to do what you’ve asked….

        1. Clever username goes here*

          Yep, this. I have one of those colleagues, and I just auto-forward anything from them that does NOT include certain people to those who need to see it. If you use Outlook or similar, the rule engine is pretty good. In my previous job we had transitioned to gmail, not sure if it’s that flexible (good riddance, seriously).

      2. Flyleaf*

        Whenever this happens to me, I usually do a reply-all immediately, adding the people who should have been included. The message I add is “+Sally,Bob” which indicates that I am adding Sally and Bob to the email thread. It’s a bit of a pain, but it does two things. First, it explicitly adds Sally and Bob to the email thread. Second, once it happens a few times the other sender usually gets the message.

    3. KayDeeAye*

      I think this sounds like a legitimate performance issue – as in, this is part of her job. So if she’s not doing her job, I think you have the standing to tell her employer.

      1. CC issues*

        Well, for the bulk of this transaction, everyone we’ve worked with has seemed pretty unorganized (it took them a month to give us the name and information of one of the companies that’s party to the transaction, they’ve asked me to send them their own client’s organizational documents that they drafted, etc.) so I’m guessing that it’s an office culture that’s totally fine with her performance.

    4. Ginger Baker*

      Can you start ccing the attorney on the other side and, if that doesn’t work, escalate with them directly? Since it sounds like this is almost wrapped up, you may not want to do much on that front, but please know it’s completely reasonable to expect the mailing list to include…all the members of the team you’ve requested to be on it.

      In the meantime, just to get you through this closing, you can set a rule in Outlook to auto-forward ALL emails from [paralegal] to the folks on your team/client contact. It might mean a few duplicative emails (when the paralegal actually DOES include them) but it’s a better-safe-than-sorry solution and will get your through the woods for now.

    5. JimmyJab*

      I don’t know how this would go over, or if you have already tried, but can you reply to her every time and say please resend and CC x and y? Maybe the annoying repetitiveness will help it click? She really should obviously just do what she is asked but for some reason isn’t which is weird . . .

    6. Swingbattabatta*

      I’m an attorney, and have dealt with this exact issue with a paralegal at a client. We couldn’t escalate it, because she worked for the client and was notorious there for her BS, and they just let it slide. In my case, the paralegal was 100% aware of what she was doing and it was a super passive aggressive power move.

      The way I dealt with it was (1) always always always checking who received an email; (2) replying to her emails, adding my CCs (and sometimes her supervisor), and stating “please CC so-and-so on all future emails”, (3) calling her and asking her outright to do it, waiting for a verbal acknowledgment of my request, and (4) every now and then when I thought I could get away with it, going directly to her supervisor about the blatant lack of cooperation. If things were missed or dropped because of her non-compliance, I would also let people know “due to so-and-so being excluded from this email, this happened. In the future, PLEASE include so-and-so to avoid a similar issue.”

      She also used to REMOVE my CCs before replying, which drove me batty. I did actually ask her outright why she did that a few times. Good luck. People are so frustrating sometimes

    7. LKW*

      I just reply to everyone, add the people who should be added and in the message type

      “++ Person A, Person B” and then may add a note.

      That way everyone has the list. If you forward, there is a chance that the email branches and each branch runs in separate directions.

    8. Not So NewReader*

      [snicker] Sent all your communication just to her boss./ Do not actually do this but fun to think about.

    9. Katiekaboom*

      I have the opposite problem. I LOATHE CC’s and Reply All. And since I work at a non-profit, everyone wants to look superior by tooting their own horn and sending out “look at this great thing we’re doing!” emails, when in reality it’s just an excuse to be like “look at this great thing I’M doing”. And then of course everyone feels obligated to reply all so everyone else can see their “support” and “encouragement”

      1. CC Issues*

        Agreed, I hate useless reply-all’s, but that’s not the issue here. She’s not including people who have asked to be included multiple times and who need to see the information she is sending.

  19. Brennanite*

    Is there anything I can do about this situation?I work in accounting, and recently discovered my manager routinely lies to the higher up about our profitability (he admitted to me that he just makes up numbers to give) he claimed he’s too busy to devote the time to be accurate. These numbers are for internal use so I don’t think it’s illegal but could I get in trouble for knowing about it? If I tell his boss he’ll know it was me, I don’t think my job would be protected from him firing me.
    I’m extremely low level and relatively new.

    1. Frankie*

      Wow. Because it’s finances that impact the viability of the business, and because it’s that egregious, you might have to tell someone.

      The logic for me is that the business could literally go under due to these pretty insane lies. So your job would be at stake in that case, anyway.

      I’m sorry, this is a terrible spot to be in.

    3. Jules the 3rd*

      Something that’s really weird to me about this: profitability numbers that are only for internal use? Do you mean numbers for just your group, inside a larger org? Is there some allocation that’s going on?

      We don’t know the context, and can’t assess whether this is a Big Problem! or just a problem (ie, if this is a group that does .05% of the company’s revenue, no one cares) Unfortunately, only your boss / their bosses can tell.

      Might be worth asking someone else in your dept if they can give you context on how the reported numbers are used. If anyone says ‘Sarbanes Oxley’, then it is a Big Problem!, other than that you’re going to have to use your judgement.

      If it is a Big Problem, it is *highly* likely that your boss told you as a loyalty test, and yes, going to someone else about it will probably cost you your job. But as others said, so might not talking, when the company goes down.

      1. Brennanite*

        Yeah, so he sends grandboss how much each of our projects for the week made, ex. the teapot consultants generated X amount in revenue this week. But he isn’t generating any financial statements it’s just for the weekly meetings

        1. CoffeeLover*

          Is it possible that the numbers generally don’t vary much from week to week? Like sometimes it’s 21k and sometimes it’s 20k. I think his bosses would still be really pissed that he’s not doing something they explicitly asked him to do and that he’s lying, but I can see how this could happen in that situation.

          Honestly, if you have a template set up then doing this kind of weekly analysis should take no time at all. I guess it’s not a time thing and it’s more of a skill thing – your boss isn’t good at tech and/or analysis. Why not ask your boss if this is a task you can take off his hands? Set up a template and do the analysis. I bet he would be really grateful you helped him out of this situation.

          You can argue the ethics of doing it this way, but career-wise I think it’s the smarter move. No one likes the bearer of bad news and being a whistle blower rarely has a positive impact on your career (unfortunately). Plus, there’s no way they could ever know you knew that he was fudging the numbers even if they catch it later on.

          1. Jules the 3rd*

            I like this solution…

            It *should* be that the mgmt team is getting real financial info from somewhere, and if it was wildly different from what your boss is reporting, then someone in mgmt would have noticed by now, so your boss is at least in the ballpark.

    4. WellRed*

      I’d be worried he’s stealing from the company. You need to tell someone, if only to cover your ass.

    5. Lemon Zinger*

      Tell his boss ASAP and say you are worried about retaliation. Hopefully his boss can protect you. You really do need to tell someone.

    6. I'm A Little Teapot*

      Um, that’s fraud. Doesn’t matter if it’s legal or not (sometimes the law is curiously silent), it’s fraud. Several options I can think of. First, start job searching, you need to protect yourself. Remember Enron? WorldCom? that kind of fraud (high level, details are obviously different).

      If there’s a hotline, call it. If you have an HR, legal, or compliance department (or all 3), see if you can report it to them. Either openly or anonymously. If possible, get a copy of whatever report your mgr gave to the higher ups, then get a copy of the REAL numbers. This can be packaged and sent anonymously to whomever. Get your 2nd cousin 5 times removed to mail it to the CEO type stuff, or just put it on someone’s desk.

      People you might consider reporting to: legal, compliance, HR, the higher ups themselves. Your manager’s manager. If there are any external regulators, them. External auditor. Internal audit (if you have an internal audit function, they are likely to be an excellent place to go to).

      But job search, just in case.

      1. CoffeeLover*

        I don’t think we have enough information to come to such a strong conclusion. Giving ballpark figures on internal presentations is not fraud. It’s not a good idea, but its not fraud. It depends on if he’s actively trying to deceive or not… for all we know the numbers are “close enough”.

        It does make you question his integrity though especially if he works in accounting.

    7. Clever username goes here*

      Is the manager in question a project manager? It sounds like they might be – if they are, and are PMP certified (by the Project Management Institute), there is a code of ethics and conduct they have to uphold. Might be worth pursuing, if they belong to PMI or a similar accreditation body with professional practice guidelines.

    8. Not So NewReader*

      For your own clarification, look at this a bit longer.

      If he tells the boss that the company made 30k last week and they actually made 35k, I am almost okay with this. I am not really worried.

      If he tells the boss that the company made 50k last week and they actually made the 35k, I am worried.

      And how is the boss using those numbers? Is the boss making huge, critical decisions or just inquiring over the health of the finances this week?

      Does the big boss expect accurate numbers each time?

      In casual conversation I might say to my boss we made $x,000 this week. But if we are talking about the money for the week as part of a conversation then I would get a more accurate number such as $x990.40.
      Generally my numbers for casual conversation are low ball numbers. We have an amount slightly higher than what I am saying.

      1. Campfire Raccoon*

        Same. I’ve been at jobs that wanted weekly reports on job costing- which was silly because most places billed out monthly, and our customers were all government/gaming organizations anyway. Big, ancient, lumbering billing and payment processes. Week to week the jobs could be 100% profit or 100% loss – and would vary wildly – but in the end they all had XX%

        No one had time to hunt down missing vendor invoices before the Friday Sitrep. Big bosses were only concerned with outliers. Jobs where something went WAY wrong. (Like when a riverboat casino caught on fire and sank, and our project manager had wade out of his room and swim to safety in his chonies in the middle of the night.)

    9. Jean*

      If you know about this, you could be implicated if sh*t hits the fan down the line (legally or otherwise). If I were you, I would tell this person’s direct manager what they told you, if only for due diligence and to cover your own ass.

      Talk face-to-face and then send a follow-up email referencing your conversation to document it. If the person you tell doesn’t care, they don’t care, but at least you know you did what was right. That’s all you can do in a situation like this. Good luck and please update!

    10. WantonSeedStitch*

      How hard is it/how much time does it take to pull those numbers, for you, or for someone else working there? It’s possible that your manager is committing some kind of embezzlement as mentioned in another comment. It’s also possible that he is trying to hide his ignorance of how to use the tools he has to actually find those numbers. If it’s something you could do, maybe with someone else, on a weekly basis, maybe you could send him an e-mail and say “I know you said coming up with the profitability figures every week is a real time sink. Would it be helpful if I provided them to you by EOD on the day before your weekly meeting?” If he says no…I would be very concerned, and I would try to find someone higher up to bring it to. Someone who can protect you from retaliation. I might be less concerned in another field, but in an accountancy field, the idea of fudging financial figures for ANY reason seems really fishy to me (to be alliterative).

    11. Coffee Owlccountant*

      Yikes. Like Jules said, we don’t have enough information to know if this is a “definitely not ideal” situation or a “MASSIVE COMPLIANCE ISSUE” situation or, most likely, somewhere in between, so I recommend doing some evaluations:

      – First, is it even possible to BE accurate for the report requested in the timeframe required? If it’s an internal revenue review that management is aware is always going to fall victim to timeliness over accuracy, management might be okay with Boss’s good-faith ballpark estimates.
      – Second, if you’re in a position where you have access to the source data, try to get an idea of just how far off Boss’s numbers are. If he’s off by 3%, the materiality factor in play is probably not enough to worry about it. If he’s off by 100% and telling management that you are making money when you are in fact losing it, that becomes a much bigger concern.
      – Third, sniff around if you can to see if any of the questionable numbers in play are or possibly could be reaching outside the organization, even as forecasts, and especially to any kind of external auditor. This is where the possibility of MASSIVE COMPLIANCE ISSUE is most likely to rear its ugly head and this would definitely be the situation where you would have a duty to report. Again as Jules said, if the words “Sarbanes-Oxley” (oh god and especially if you’re in an industry that could hear the words “Dodd-Frank”) are ever uttered in connection with this report, that is a Big Problem! and you need to think seriously about who you should be talking to and how quickly you can get on their schedule.

      You said you are new and low level, so think about your current relationship with Grandboss. Do you trust her enough to take the information straight to her? If you’re not sure yet, consider a conversation with HR, especially if any of the above evaluations give you a gut feeling that the situation is not altogether kosher and you believe you should report.

    12. Automated*

      I think you have practically no grounds to whistle blow here.

      He admits to making up numbers? What does that mean?

      I’ve been an analyst for 10 years. Often you can come up with a variety of answers to the same question. And often accurate = weeks of time. So if they need “quick” numbers then ballpark numbers, lowballed are very normal to provide. Its not a problem, like some above have suggested, to have an “accurate enough” bar even in finance.

      I know I and a lot of analysts jokingly refer to subbing reasonably assumed constants into finance models for 11th hour requests as making up numbers. Its as fraudulant as using 3.14 in place of 3.14159.

      Seriously spend some time on the numbers before going to anyone. I also highly recommend your read about the mormon whistleblower twins to get an idea of how even years of research can be handwaved as not a problem.

  20. MOAS*

    One of the managers in my department (she’s the same level as me so I am not coaching her) told us that she talks to clients directly and stays late all the time to fix her teams work.

    I asked her why is she talking to them, she said because her team member doesn’t know the right questions to ask. 

    *facepalm*

    It doesn’t affect me or my team, but. I — 

    1. NW Mossy*

      I swear, every management team has at least one of these! It makes me cringe every time, because you just want to shake them by the shoulders and remind them that THEIR job is hire and develop people to do the work, not do the work of an individual contributor at higher cost.

      1. MOAS*

        She got promoted because she has an excellent work ethic (always staying late and doing whatever she can to get the job done), and knows her work subject very well. I have nothing against her, she was great as an individual contributor.

        1. valentine*

          She’s either hurting the team (because there’s other stuff she should be doing, including telling them how to do their jobs) or she’s not needed as a manager.

      2. WantonSeedStitch*

        Er…sometimes. A lot of middle managers are individual contributors as well as managers. I certainly am. That said, a manager who does individual contributor work because she doesn’t trust her reports to do their work correctly isn’t managing well. Or at all.

        1. NW Mossy*

          That’s a good clarification! I was thinking of the context where it’s a manager that doesn’t specifically have individual contributor/production work as part of their overall duties, but you’re certainly right that roles like that exist and would be handled differently.

          That said, those sorts of hybrid roles are really difficult for people like MOAS’s colleague who have a tendency to tilt too far to one side. Strong skills in both individual contributor/SME work and people management can co-exist in the same person, but it also requires the ability to recognize what hat to wear when and perpetually fine-tune the balance between them. It’s no easy feat, and I have a ton of respect for people who can pull it off well.

        2. MOAS*

          I think it’s a cultural issue too. Half of us are of the “you’re all working adults and it’s your responsibility to get your work done and speak up if you need help” (but still communicate effectively) camp while the other half are “hold their hand and hover over them until they acknowledge item.” My direct boss is like the former, coaching when needed but not micromanaging.

        3. MOAS*

          So in our case, our job is to review our work product for clients for accuracy. If it’s incorrect, we talk to the person who did the task, coach them through it if necessary, and teach them how to do it correctly. She told us she gets tired of going back and forth with the worker, and just ends up contacting the client herself to complete it.

          OH–so, me, personally, I’m taking on a few tasks until I get a staff member in place. I had someone who we thought was fantastic, but she ended up ghosting us this week, so I’m pitching in to pick up the slack, but I don’t consider myself an individual contributor, but a manager who is pitching in. Is this different, or am I being a hypocrite?

    2. Automated*

      I am not surprised to hear they were promoted for working long hours. These types are usually inefficient work hoarders. I feel sorry for her direct reports.

  21. Meeting Insanity!*

    TL/DR: I’m a longtime mid-level manager who will be involved in a multi-departmental initiative that will last an entire year, with monthly check-in meetings. The person chosen to lead the initiative is a relatively new employee, and–under the influence of a high-level department in our organization–has come up with an insane agenda for the first meeting that is mostly fluff and little substance. What should I do — or, how do I survive?

    The organization I work for is launching a year-long initiative and I have been named the ambassador–think faculty advisor–to the team working on it. I have 10 years of experience within the organization and expertise in the subject area, but I am not the team lead for this project. The team lead is someone who works in a different department of the organization and has 1 year of experience. I’m generally enthusiastic about this initiative, but…

    The team lead sent out the agenda for the first meeting, and it’s totally out of control. It’s three and a half hours long, and includes ALL of the following:

    1. Welcome and introduction
    2. A large-group icebreaker where we name our “work superpower” (what?)
    3. “Collective agreements” (setting the working rules for the group, I think)
    4. Review of timeline and logistics
    5. A small-group icebreaker
    6. Setting a communication plan
    7. A “clapping circle” (!!)
    8. A brainstorming exercise
    9. A research exercise
    10. Setting the agenda for the next meeting
    11. Lunch from a caterer that is almost universally hated by everyone for having rubbery and almost inedible wraps, and cheesy, vinegary salads that positively reek.

    Out of all of those things, I think only 1, 4, 8 and 10 are necessary, and the meeting could easily be 90 minutes. But there is a long-standing culture of long, inefficient meetings in our organization. Also, this initiative is being spearheaded by our “strategy” department — which answers directly to the CEO and is lavishly funded at the expense of everyone else — and believes staunchly in things like work superpowers and clapping circles. (I asked someone in the strategy department what a “clapping circle” was, and was told, matter-of-factly, “a fun exercise that involves clapping.”)

    I’ve met the team lead and found them to be friendly and level-headed, but they’re very inexperienced and clearly eager to please the strategy department — and there will be a high-ranking person from that department in attendance at the meetings. I overall have very little clout in the organization, but as a veteran employee assigned to provide guidance to the team, I wonder if I should let them run the show and see what happens in the first meeting, or try to rein them in and risk making them look bad with higher-ups who can impact their future. As a veteran employee, I’ve been on a number of unproductive committees during my tenure here (but never with an agenda *quite* like this!), and I know that this first meeting, as it’s planned now, is going to be a colossal waste of everyone’s time.

    How would you navigate this situation if you were me? Alternatively, since my gut feeling is that this organization is totally bananas and the meeting is going to end up being run with all the icebreakers and clapping circles and whatnot no matter what I suggest… does anyone have any tips for *surviving* a meeting like this?

    1. lcsa99*

      Work Superpowers? Oh boy. Not really sure there is much you can do, so I would suggest just try to have fun with it since it sounds like you’re stuck. Try thinking of the most absurd work superpowers you can: able to file documents faster than a speeding bullet! Keeper of the invisible lunch – you put it in the fridge every day and within hours it disappears! Able to clear out a busy restroom in a hot second! Okay, so that last one wouldn’t be fun for anyone involved but it could be useful. I don’t know that I would share any of those, but it can make it easier if this is an absurd game and not something you’re taking seriously.

      To keep yourself from falling asleep (this definitely sounds like the kind of meeting that would put me to sleep) you can also make up your own superpowers for everyone there while they prattle on: he can use his fingernails as a hole punch! She can defend any position in stiletto heels! Whatever. Just do whatever you can to survive it.
      Good luck!

      1. Meeting Insanity!*

        This is genius. Thank you. The work superpowers you came up with were a lot more charitable than the initial ones I could think of.

    2. You can't fire me; I don't work in this van*

      I think you’re within your rights to offer constructive feedback on the agenda. I do agendas all of the time and senior people ask me to make changes.

      1. Meeting Insanity!*

        I tested the waters by providing some minor feedback to the team lead — that having two icebreakers was excessive when one would be ample — and got polite but definite pushback. I don’t think that bodes well for saying what I really think.

      2. Gidget*

        I agree with this. Provide constructive feedback. Multiple icebreakers are not necessary. Clapping circle definitely not necessary. To me this sounds like a first day of school lesson plan. I think you could subtly hint to the organizer that this is not the best use of time and they should highlight 3-4 main items for the agenda because people are busy.

    3. SomebodyElse*

      Oh dear…. well at the very least please take good notes and observations of the “Clapping Circle” for your report back to us.

      Other than that, I agree with you, not much you can do to alter this train wreck in the making. As for surviving it, I’m sure that it will provide ample entertainment for you. My suggestion is to reframe it in your head that it’s their circus and you are just one of the monkeys. It doesn’t reflect on you and you’ll most likely have a lot of good stories to tell after.

      1. Meeting Insanity!*

        I have a feeling that for all the bells and whistles, this is going to end up being a very humdrum meeting where nothing much of value happens. If I’m wrong, I’ll definitely update!

        1. WellRed*

          Nothing of value will have time to happen because the whole meeting is padded with fluff and fillers.

    4. Llama Wrangler*

      My strategy in situations like this is to support the facilitators thinking through what the goals of the meeting are and what they can do that will most effectively accomplish this. For example, I could imagine that they feel like there are needs to build relationships and set norms for the group, and that’s where some of the activities are coming from. But maybe they don’t need all those activities to achieve those goals. Asking probing clarifying questions about their goals and plan to achieve them can help them articulate their thinking, without being overly negative.

      In terms of surviving, to be honest, I dissociate (sing silently in my head) during quiet activities and take lots of strategically timed water/bathroom breaks.

      1. Meeting Insanity!*

        Huh, I didn’t think of using my overactive bladder to my advantage. I will be drinking lots and lots of water that morning. Too bad I’m not a coffee drinker; that would work even better.

    5. LKW*

      Three and a half hours – you’re not getting any of that done. Especially if you are having lunch and all of the ice breakers.

      Can I suggest that as part of the introductory part you have a meeting objective and outcomes slide? Yeah ground rules are important but so is knowing why you are there and what you’re supposed to walk out of at the end of the meeting. That way you can gently nudge and say “Well, if the outcome is getting this work done, we’re behind schedule and maybe we can skip the next ice breaker” but if the outcome is “getting to know one another and have stinky salad – sit back and enjoy the ride.

      1. Meeting Insanity!*

        The objective and outcomes slide is an excellent idea. I think I may have a broader question here of how to change the meeting culture at a very large institution that is generally resistant to change. We never do things like that, but always have things like ground rules (not necessary – we are adults, not schoolchildren) and inane icebreakers.

        1. LKW*

          You can’t, but you can make it clear to your team what a good meeting looks like and what you expect they bring to the table every time. I try to use the following

          Meeting Objective
          talk talk talk – redirect to objectives if the cats stray from the pen
          Meeting objective met/not met
          Summary of Action Items to confirm I didn’t miss any

          Sometimes when people can see an effective meeting, they are more likely to request others follow that lead.

    6. Ginger Baker*

      If this meeting organizer is super invested in a big “everyone hugs and we all sing a song and clap together!” vibe (terrible though this sounds to me for work, but I digress) maybe one area you CAN successfully push back on is the catering! Could you say something like “Hey, I noticed you plan to order from WeHateFood…I know folks have gotten a bit tired of that since it gets ordered so often [or whatever white lie or ego-stroking inducement you want to throw in here], I think you might get a lot of engagement if you order from ShinyNewPlace…you know how folks get about food at meetings!” and maybe that would at least get you some better food along with your kindergarten introduction day?

      1. Meeting Insanity!*

        I actually already have pushed back on the food! This is our longstanding caterer and while everyone hates them, going to any other caterer is Not Spoken Of here. I should also add that I work for a government-funded agency and while I can’t prove it, I suspect that the caterer and most of the members of the strategy department are all patronage favors to the CEO.

    7. Nicki Name*

      Can you suggest that they have a way to provide feedback anonymously after the meeting? Like through SurveyMonkey or something similar?

      1. Meeting Insanity!*

        That’s an excellent idea. Thank you. I assume that the team lead and I will have a debriefing session shortly after the first meeting (if not, I’ll push for one) and I’ll suggest this.

    8. Achoo!*

      Imagine you’re narrating a nature documentary in your head? “Here we see the congress of wild strategists assembling for their morning icebreaker. Normally solitary creatures, they’re known for coming together to form elaborate clapping circles. Scientists theorize that it is some sort of ‘make it rain’ dance.”

    9. Not So NewReader*

      If you know or can estimate the hourly rates of everyone in attendance you can write an estimate of how much all this huggy stuff will cost the company. Then ask if it is cost effective to do this. Be sure to add your hours in as you said you have to be there also.

      1. Meeting Insanity!*

        Unfortunately for me, this company is not a private industry and that’s not an argument that would hold any water here. (That’s on me; I intentionally worded everything to be vague.) The cost of people’s time is never a factor — hence meetings like this.

        1. lcsa99*

          I would actually think being a public industry (I would assume a non-profit?) would make for a stronger argument. If public money is being wasted, people would likely object.

          1. LKW*

            Yeah – if I knew my tax dollars were funding clapping sessions I’d be less than pleased. Unless it’s a Head Start class, then we’re cool.

    10. There’s probably a cat meme to describe it*

      What are the chances of finding a willing coworker to learn a few schuhplattler moves with? When the clapping circle convenes you can jump in the middle and bust out.

    11. theguvnah*

      I actually think you are wrong about what this meeting needs though. You clearly don’t value team building and relationship-building in this work context, but for a company-wide initiative there are real values to this kind of approach. I think this agenda looks good and in line with other initiatives I have been part of.

      1. Avasarala*

        Dear lord. I hope that your coworkers don’t require multiple icebreakers and a “clapping circle” over 3 hours to kick off a project.

  22. FutureLawStudent*

    I am looking to switch careers and go to law school. How frowned upon is it to demonstrate you want to work in a higher ed institution to obtain the employee benefit of tuition reimbursement? The university I am looking at I know pays 80% of the law degree after a probationary year.

    1. Frankie*

      Do you mean if you interview for a higher ed position? You would probably want to lead with other things about the job that appeal to you, but lots of people are in higher ed partly due to the benefits offered, so it’s probably fine to mention it…especially presuming the job would need flexibility for you to attend classes, etc., so you’d essentially have to bring up your plans for law school.

    2. Not a Real Giraffe*

      Don’t bring it up. In my experience (5 years in higher ed), most institutions want you to value the work they do, the students, the alumni, the core values, etc. When they ask why you want the job, it truly needs to be about why you want THAT job. They have hundreds of applicants for any given role who are passionate about higher education. While their benefits may be what’s attracting you, you need to come up with reasons for wanting the job beyond that. I would say this is probably true of most companies generally. You wouldn’t go into an interview and say “I want this job because you offer paid vacations” (or at least I hope you wouldn’t) and the same thing applies here.

      1. ellydee*

        ^^ 100% agree! After 10 years in higher ed, you need to convince me that you want THIS particular job at THIS particular college, preferable in your cover letter to start with. It is a given that the salary/insurance/tuition benefits are also attractive to you.

    3. Admin of Sys*

      It’s totally okay to say that one of the reasons you want to work somewhere is a benefits package – but it shouldn’t be your only reason unless the job you’re going for is related to the degree you are pursuing. If you’re trying to get hired as, say, a project manager and you state that you want the job because of the law degree, the hiring team is going to (rightly) assume that a) your focus is going to be partially distracted by your coursework and b) once you achieve your jd / pass the bar, you’re going to leave the project management position.
      On the other hand, if you’re looking for work at the university counsel, pursuing a law degree that you might very well leverage for the university may work in your favor.

    4. Tuckerman*

      Did you explicitly ask whether the tuition benefit covers the law degree? Law is often excluded from tuition benefits.
      I would frame it more that you know they support learning and professional growth, both of which are lifelong endeavors for you.

      1. Not a Real Giraffe*

        Yes, this! I know my institution’s reimbursement program doesn’t cover any doctorate-level degrees (which includes the JD).

    5. Lemon Zinger*

      I work in higher ed and you should NOT bring this up. Almost everyone considers benefits when taking a job. The tuition benefit is often a factor in higher ed. To use tuition benefits, you almost always need the approval of your supervisor AND the time to take the classes.

      In my previous role, my supervisor was pretty unhappy when I told her I wanted to get a master’s degree, and she was not supportive during those two years. On days when I had to leave 30 minutes early for class, I lost 30 minutes of my lunch (not a big deal, we didn’t always get lunch). I had to use PTO several times for school stuff, including graduation. I was taxed on my tuition benefit as well.

      Basically what I’m saying is that it can be a lot harder than people think. And definitely do not bring it up in a job interview. You need to want the job because you want the job. There’s no tuition benefit without the job.

      1. Tuckerman*

        Yes, the tuition benefit tax really surprised me! Non-job related courses were taxed at something like 37% (after a certain amount) and that money was taken directly from my paycheck.

        1. Flyleaf*

          They might have taxes deducted at a 37% rate, but the actual taxes owed on April 15th would be at the tax rate you are paying on your total income, most likely less than 37% (unless you are making over $622,050 in 2020 and filing jointly).

    6. FutureLawStudent*

      I haven’t started interviewing, but I’d definitely say that I want the job for reasons unrelated to the benefits package, but the three universities I’ve looked into DO cover the law degree. I guess I was wondering, how usual is it that someone takes a higher ed job, uses the benefits package to pay for a degree then uses that degree to move into a different career? I mean, if I am working in the admissions office, use the benefits package to get a law degree, wouldn’t it be obvious I plan on moving on eventually? I’d want to know how supportive an institution would be for you to use your tuition benefits.

      1. lemon*

        I think it really depends on the culture.

        At the university I work at, there aren’t a lot of opportunities for growth, so it seems tacitly understood that people are working here as a stepping stone to something else later on down the line. So, there are admin assistants using their tuition benefits to attend coding classes, for example, and everyone seems fine with it. I’ve also noticed, though, that a lot of people get that career-change degree but then just… stay. I don’t know if it’s because they decide they love it here, or because they can’t find a job elsewhere, or what.

        It might be worth looking into the tuition benefits policy to see if the university even *needs* to be supportive/know you’re taking law classes. We have two tuition benefits here: one that can be used at our university, and one that can be used elsewhere. The portable benefit (for other universities) has to be approved by your supervisor to ensure that the degree is relevant to your position. But to take classes at our institution doesn’t require any supervisor approval at all. So, it’s entirely possible to take classes after work and your supervisor never has to know.

        However, it’s also policy that we can’t use tuition benefits for classes taken during work hours, so that’s something to keep in mind. If the universities you’re applying to have a policy like that, it’d be worth making sure there are enough evening law classes offered to be able to actually complete the degree.

      2. Not So Little My*

        I was an administrative staff member at a university a few decades ago when I was in the middle of a career transition and hadn’t figured out my next move. A few years into my job, I did begin a graduate degree in Library and Information Science. Based on my work towards that degree, I was able to get a new job outside of the university and move into a new career field (not librarianship). However, I did not go to work at the university specifically in order to do this, it just worked out that way.

      3. Not a Real Giraffe*

        I think you can ask about this in a later stage interview. Like, as part of getting a feel for the culture of the institution and that department (they can be different!), you can ask if people often make use of this part of their benefits package, if their schoolwork typically corresponds directly with their professional work, and how the office supports this type of professional development.

    7. Mid*

      Don’t mention it while interviewing. Like probably don’t even ask questions about it. Sometimes there’s a weird stigma around openly taking a job for the benefits and compensation. Even though academia tends to have good benefits to make up for lower than average pay. (Obviously broad generalizations here.)

      Also, be aware there might be hoops to jump through that aren’t readily apparent. You might need approval to take classes. You might be capped at a certain number of courses over a certain time frame (e.g. 4 classes per year, or 20 classes total). JD might be excluded from the tuition benefit. The tuition benefit might mean that you aren’t eligible for any other scholarships or financial aid. If there are job cuts, it’s usually by seniority, so you’d be the first one cut.

      Further: Is this a part-time JD program? Does the tuition benefit apply to part time employees? Because full time JD program plus full time work is realllyyyyyyyyyyyyy difficult. Most programs strongly recommend that 1Ls don’t work at all. Are you mostly sure you can get into the law school at the institution you’ll be working at? What if the school you work at isn’t a good law school for you? (Eg in my state there are two law schools, comparably ranked, but with very different focuses, one is much better for environmental law, one is well known for business and taxation law.)

      I was a work study student for my college Dean, and I was often time put in situations where I knew things that students shouldn’t/didn’t know, and it was complicated at times. There can be conflicts of interest that come up that you wouldn’t expect. For example, I knew about changes to financial aid structure before it was released to the student body. This might not be an issue, but it is something else to consider. It was also super helpful, because I was on a first name basis with the dean, and when I (and many other students) had a conflict with a professor, I had more credibility that I otherwise would have had, because the dean knew me and my work ethic.

    8. JelloStapler*

      I work in higher ed, and have been on many search committees. So long as you do not lead with it, and do not make it sounds like the rest of the job is “meh” to you, it should not hurt you. Don’t lead with it, only apply if you are genuinely also interested in the position 9we can tell if you aren’t) and dovetail it with your enrollment in law school and looking for a way to work during your tenure. I will say though, there may be concern that you will then leave immediately after you graduate. So if the position is looking for a long-term candidate, it may hurt your chances.

    10. Lizzo*

      I wouldn’t ask about it during the interview process, but before going down this road, I’d also make sure that you’re clear on the financial implications (for your personal finances) if you leave, get laid off/fired, or for some other reason are no longer employed at the institution before you finish the program. It would suck to suddenly be in a position where you have to cover 100% of the costs in order to finish the degree.

      Good luck to you with your next step, whatever it may be!

    1. Teapot Translator*

      I’m doing okay. I bought myself some new pens and I made colour-coded notes for myself. If I run out of time further along the semester, I can always switch to computer notes.
      The class is interesting, but it’s a lot of information and I’m still not sure yet how to prioritize the information.

      1. Me*

        I’m not currently but I wrapped up a BS last year.

        I found those accordion folders 1 per class helped me a lot better than binders or anything. I’m a notebook user for notes.

        I didn’t learn this trick until after but my college freshman is using it and she says it works super well….do the reading BEFORE class. Then you have a frame of reference for what the professor is covering. Then you can go back and easily focus on the stuff that they talked about.

    2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      I got extra credit in my intro to legal studies class for referencing the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in a discussion about laws and societal standards and the ways they impact each other.

      1. E*

        Yay for extra credit. And here’s a fun fact for you. The Triangle Shirtwaist building is now owned by NYU. They used to teach chemistry there, who knows what is housed there now.

    3. anon24*

      My semester starts Monday. I am not looking forward to it at all. I’m only taking 2 classes, but I work 40-55 hours a week and have a lot of work/personal stress right now. I’ve been having a lot of anxiety about adding school on top of all this but I did ok managing it all last semester so I know I’ll be ok this semester!

    4. Middle School Teacher*

      Better this week. The weather here is horrendous, which means half my class stayed home on Tuesday. Good news for the newbies like me who actually got a word in edgewise during discussions? Reading load still heavy though.

    5. Mimmy*

      10 more days till my classes start (yippee!!), but I’m getting nervous about managing my time. When I did an online program a few years ago, I was not working and was only taking one class at a time. This time, I’m working (3 full days a week) and am taking two classes. Plus, I’m part of a volunteer county-level advisory council that sometimes keeps me busy (usually around early fall).

      1. anon24*

        Last semester was my first semester taking classes and working full time. I found that for me the best way to manage my time between work/school/personal was to sit down at the beginning of the semester and “schedule” it out. I programmed reminders into my phone calendar for all deadlines, papers due, quizzes due, test days, etc, giving me reminders several days before the due date and on the due date itself. I scheduled blocks of time every week for when I needed to be working on school. I did not schedule anything else over these blocks of time, I considered them as unmovable as work time. Oh, sorry, can’t do anything that day, I have another appointment, even though my “appointment” is really just spending 5 hours writing that midterm. As the semester went on I got pretty good at realizing how many hours a week I truly needed to dedicate to school and I was able to schedule it out pretty accurately. On weeks where things were particularly crazy I made sure to schedule in some relaxation time. I also scheduled “clean my apartment time” so that I knew my household chores were still getting taken care of. I’m not normally much of a scheduler at all but this really helped me keep my sanity. I also kept 2 running “to do” lists on my phone, one with household tasks and one with school tasks that needed completed. Every morning when I woke up I would pull up my calendar and then pull up my to-do lists so I could mentally prioritize and plan my day.

        It sounds complicated but I am really scatter-brained, and honestly am probably undiagnosed ADHD or ADD. Using this method I was able to work my 40+ hours a week, get complimented by my boss for staying on top of my work tasks so well, and get As in both my classes, so it did work for me.

        1. Lyudie*

          Seconding all of this. I’ve used Todoist (app/website for to-do lists) and a paper planner at various times. I have actually written out what readings were due for each week/module, scheduled them for specific evenings, etc. In heavier-workload courses I will try to spend an hour (or more, as needed) every night on school. I sometime squeeze in a reading or forums on my lunch break too. My professors have always had really good class schedules available from the start of the semester with specific due dates and expectations (but I am in an instructional design program, so one hopes my professors would be very good about that sort of thing lol). If you don’t get that from the professor, try to plan out something like that for yourself to keep on track.

    6. Gidget*

      Just started an accelrated career switcher program for teaching. It’s time consuming. Especially given that I have 2+ hours of commuting everyday. My big takeaway at this point is that thankfully I don’t find the assignments particularly challenging more nitpicky It’s very much a “I don’t have time for that foolishness” situation.

      How are your studies going Teapot Translator?

    7. Lyudie*

      I took my first quiz for this semester…thank goodness we have two attempts because I only got 60 the first time. Interestingly she has the quiz set up to have the same questions for each attempt so I was able to get 100 on second try (though I still am salty about one of the questions I missed the first time).

      I’ve also come to the conclusion that research journals need to hire a dang copyeditor/require spell check, no one should be misspelling “spreadsheet” in a scholarly article for heaven’s sake O.O

      My prof seems nice but the first assignment description is kind of vague so I’ve asked for additional guidance/samples from other semesters/what are you even asking for here. Maybe I’m just salty in general, oops.

      1. Elenna*

        Yeah I had a few online courses that had that kind of “take the same quiz twice” sort of thing, from my understanding the intention is more to help/force people to learn the material by giving them that free 100% if they check what they did wrong the first time. I imagine it won’t be a significant amount of your final grade?

        1. Lyudie*

          Yeah that’s definitely a thing but all my other online classes had a pool of questions, so it surprised me a bit. The highest score is counted so I got the 100% even if I’m cranky that at least one question is wrong lol

    8. Havarti*

      Survived my first semester this past fall, starting spring classes in 2 weeks. Hoping I learned enough from my mistakes on the first go-round to do better this time and have fewer panic attacks. :P

      Good luck to everyone!

    9. Over40Learner*

      I am in my second full week. Taking 4 classes this semester as well as working 40+ hours. I know am a massachist! Nothing too hard yet. One of my classes uses an online textbook and it was down for 3-4 days and I couldn’t read the chapter so I didn’t do so well on my first quiz.

    10. CB*

      It’s been a rough week! I started the final course of my program on Monday, and my boss started his new grad program on Tuesday. The third coworker on our team had cookies and a sweet note sent to our office, which was a nice gesture. :)

  24. Here we go yet again*

    I’ve been in my job for 5 months and I’m really struggling. I have someone who is aggressively trying to ice me out (ie: not inviting me to meetings, not going to meetings if I’m there, refusing to give me the info I need, refusing to talk to me unless boss tells them to talk to me, dragging heels when the boss would say I needed materials, talking to literally everyone around me EXCEPT me, stop talking and glaring at me when I walk by, tattling to the boss, etc).

    I even had one coworker say to me, “I had to suffer this way, so you should too.”

    They’re all older than me and when they’re having a general conversation, will ask me, “Do you even know what X is? Do you know what Y is?”

    (I think they’re just asking for entertainment purposes, not to see if I actually know or not.)

    On the actual work side of things, there is no training. Boss loaded me up with projects – but there is no guidance. Boss has high expectations and it’s basically sink or swim. There is six-month to a year backlog of work that needs to be completed as well leftover from the previous person in the position. I am intuitively supposed to know everything- who to go to for X, when to do Y without ever having been trained. They expect you to “just do it” and get mad if you make mistakes.

    When I ask for help from the boss, he just yells, “Get it done! I don’t give a f-!” Boss yells obscenities every time he receives an email from someone he despises, which is basically everyone.

    His admin will randomly refuse to answer questions and make comments under his breath about having to train me. Most days, he’ll flat out ignore me.

    Apparently I’m a magnet for toxic jobs as this is my third one. Either that or my expectations of the workplace are way too high.

    Any advice or tips on hanging in there until I get a new job and get out?

    1. Jules the 3rd*

      Is becoming friendly with the gating coworker an option? Kinda drafting them into a mentor position? I’m thinking about asking them out to lunch, your treat, and trying stuff, depending on what you think might work with this person:
      Appeal to practicality:
      ‘yeah, I get the feeling you don’t like me, but I’m not going away, and if I did, someone else would just take over what I’m doing. We’ll both be better off if we work together.’
      Flattery:
      “You know so much! I’ve been struggling with X, do you know how to do that? I would love to learn from you!”

      It’s important to get them away from their audience when you try this. The food bit is also useful, we are socialized to like people we eat with.

      If you think they’d refuse a lunch, watch what / when they eat for a few days and show up at their desk with the kind of lunch they like a little bit before they usually go to lunch and offer it. Or even just bring them a drink they like – it’s not as effective as food, but it has some of the same social impact.

      Also, ask your coworkers if there’s any documentation around at all. And ask your boss if you can have the emails of the person before you. A big chunk of me passing my job along will be ‘Here’s 10 years of emails about what we buy. Search by part number if you have questions, and see what we did last time.’

    2. Another Millenial*

      The first paragraph seems awfully personal. Have you tried talking to them 1:1 and asking if you unintentionally stepped on their toes by trying to be helpful (or something along those lines)? I had to do this recently, I just apologized if there was any misunderstanding.

      When they ask you if you know something, say “Of course I do, do you need help with it?” This kind of turns it back on them (especially if it’s something they SHOULD know).

    3. LQ*

      I’m pretty far to the “Eh, it’s fine, sometimes work sucks” side of the thing. I’m unlikely to say every job is a toxic job. And this is pretty bad even to my eyes. UNLESS! You’re hired as a very high level role, like at least director or svp in a large organization. In which case, yeah, they would expect you to know everything without any training and there’s no training and a huge backlog that you’re just supposed to intuit the answer to (and the giant paycheck to go with all that confusion and bs).

      You can consider this training for your svp role in the future as one way to hang in there. A sort of variant on the pretend you are a researcher observing the wild beasts of office suite 200. Think about how you’d say, “Well, the reason I’m going to be incredible at this senior-level role is I’ve been able to navigate complex office situations for years including situations when I had to get the work done despite a, quite frankly in hindsight hilarious, attempt to exclude me by never talking to me. Like in a sitcom.” Imagine how you could spin this as a positive in 10 years. It’ll be hard right away, so trying to make it funny today can be hard, but imagine long term future you looking at this and telling a really funny story about it.

      Workplace bingo has also been discussed if you can do something nice for yourself every time you fill a card that’s a good thing.

    4. Meeting Insanity!*

      Not providing adequate training is unfortunately normal for many fields. Everything else you mention is not. Rest assured that your expectations of workplace norms are not too high.

    5. JelloStapler*

      That’s not high expectations, but I would wonder if you need to learn to ask pointed questions or have the chance to ask potential colleagues about the culture before you accept a position. Or, it has become a vicious cycle of running to a new job to escape the old, so you are not taking that care. This is not said in judgment, as I completely understand just wanting to get OUT of a job, I just wonder if that is causing you to rush into another one without vetting it.

    6. Chronic Overthinker*

      My goddess! Sounds like my exjob to a T! If you cannot find a mentor/get additional training or guidance, I would get out while you can before you actually get “canned.” (sorry) And you might want to revamp job searches for the future to avoid another future toxic job.

    7. RagingADHD*

      I’m always so curious when I hear about jobs like this, as to what the interview process was like. I’ve taken a few toxic/semi-shady jobs out of desperation before, but it was very clear going in that it was a bad situation, and I viewed it as a stopgap.

      Was there a concerted effort to give candidates a false impression, or was the hiring process handled entirely by a third-party recruiter, or what?

      1. Here we go yet again*

        The typical red flags were not there. They were extremely formal and almost “too perfect”. When I asked my boss to describe the environment, he did pause and ask me for clarification. He still answered the question though. Again, they were all on their best behavior, so I couldn’t spot anything. They were vague on why the person before me left, but I really didn’t find anything out until I started.

  25. Berry*

    I’m a few years out of college and this is my first job in media (an industry I want to stay in). Is it normal for you to “do first, ask for permission later” in terms of work projects/new initiatives, or is it a media thing, or is it just my company?

    I can tell that I’ve been more the ‘check in with people before doing big leaps’ type than my coworkers are and I’m worried it’s been hurting me and I’m not sure if this is something I just have to unlearn or it’s just the environment I’m in.

    1. Former Non Profit*

      Enh, don’t sweat it. I’m guessing you’re still new-ish (nine months or less)? And people know that you’re building up experience and you’ll get more comfortable. I doubt it’s hurting you, unless you’re asking about routine things repeatedly.

      1. Berry*

        I’m relatively tenured (1.5 years at a company that’s only been around for a few years). I’m not asking about routine things, that’s for sure! It’s the big leap projects that feel like most people just do things and I scramble to do my work around them. I’ve been told that I should be doing more of the same thing, and just seeing if this is normal.

    2. Purt's Peas*

      It depends–I’m in tech where that kind of thing is relatively admired–not releasing some product on your own, but going ahead and doing a bulk of work and then showing it to your boss, coworkers, etc.

      For your stuff, it sounds like it’s kosher and expected to spend a little bit of time doing “ask later” work. I’m not entirely sure what it’d entail, but certainly at first you’d want to make sure that it’s nothing permanent and it’s not public.

      That said, it’s also super reasonable to spend a little more time getting experience before you dive into that kind of thing :)

    3. Anonymous Educator*

      I think it really depends on the org/company you’re in. I came from a very “better to ask forgiveness than permission” place, and I’m now in a much more “you’d better go through proper channels” place. It’s been an adjustment, definitely.

    4. Lemon Zinger*

      It really depends on the work environment. Has someone actually alluded to your asking for permission to be a problem? Have you asked your boss what they would prefer, and what is generally appropriate in your office?

    5. Probably Taking This Too Seriously*

      In media, unspent budget can have huge negative consequences….for an agency, that’s lost commissions and for a brand, it’s a dip in impressions that your team may be expected to grow. Most people I know would err on the side of bad targeting vs. not spending.

  26. a nosy commuter*

    I have a light question for everyone: What do you carry to and from work every day?

    I bring my laptop and lunch bag, plus miscellaneous small things, in a backpack, but I see people on the metro schlepping actual luggage! I really don’t get it, but I’m sure there are…things? Papers? Files? Gym clothes? Jelly beans? Puppies?

    1. DataGirl*

      way too much stuff. Laptop is in a rolling case with other work supplies and change of shoes in winter, since I’m wearing snow boots. Water bottle, lunch, any food I am giving away that day (I cook too much) are in another bag or two, and purse.

    2. Niniel*

      I’m tempted to bring luggage some days! I have 3 to 4 things every day:

      1)Purse, fairly large. Has my wallet, bullet journal, lotion, lipsticks, etc. Fairly heavy.
      2)My lunch box. It varies in weight depending on what I am bringing for lunch that day
      3)Laptop bag. My laptop is fairly heavy
      4)Water bottle
      5)Contigo coffee mug unless I am lazy and then I use my k-cups at work

    3. ThatGirl*

      Purse, coffee in travel mug, lunch bag. That’s pretty much it. I occasionally bring in boxes of kleenex or snacks to stash in my desk or extra shoes if I’m wearing snow boots, but not every day.

      1. ThatGirl*

        I will say, at my last job I WFH two days a week plus occasional evenings so I was frequently transporting a laptop back and forth, and had an additional bag for that.

    4. Potato Girl*

      A laptop bag, a little tote bag to carry my gym clothes and food for the day, and a messenger bag with everything else I need.

    5. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

      I’ve got a briefcase with gadgets (music player, power bank, headphones, tablet, bluetooth keyboard) and a writing pad in it, and then my lunch.

    6. merp*

      oh my gosh I wish I could bring puppies to work. while I’m dreaming, a case full of lunch ingredients instead of whatever’s easy to fit in a tupperware, and maybe a fancy dessert?

      in my current job, I became a tote bag person – I was never someone who had a big bag before, but I was tired of carrying lunch/tea thermos/purse/etc as all different things. so I bought a clutch/wallet that mostly lives in the work bag, and add lunch/tea/random necessary paperwork/headache meds/etc. seems like the more space I have to carry things, the more I find to carry, which I wish wasn’t true.

    7. Threeve*

      Yes, many people have to bring books and files to work. People might have their gym clothes, and many women change shoes when they get to the office. And the weight of a laptop alone is more than many people are able to carry on their shoulders for an extended period of time.

    8. Nope, not today*

      I dont need a laptop or other ‘work’ items, but I always have my regular purse plus another bag that usually contains my lunch, a book or two, my hat/scarf/gloves in winter if its cold out so I can take a walk on my lunch break (I drive to work), and sometimes a pair of shoes if I am wearing snowboots because the weather is bad. And then random things I bring in for my own office as needed – tea, boxes of kleenex, cans of soup for the days I forget to bring an actual lunch… it isnt much but some days it feels like rolling luggage would be easier! I’ve pared down my daily haul by leaving a pair of walking sneakers under my desk, I used to carry those to and from work every single day.

    9. Sighhh*

      1) Work laptop
      2) Umbrella
      3) Wallet and keys
      4) Makeup case
      5) Lunch tupperware
      6) Corksicle with coffee
      7) Heels/impractical shoes to change into

      I fit this all into one of my three “commute” bags I feel okay taking on the train, which is either a Herschel backpack, a Madewell Transport Tote, or a Doc Martens vegan backpack. They’re not huge. I always assume people carrying more either have gym stuff or are heading to some sort of event they have to overnight to.

    10. StellaBella*

      Laptop in its case, purse (huge), badges, change of shoes in winter, lunch, thermos, sometimes books, sometimes extra gear if needed for events (camera gear).

    11. LionelRichiesClayHead*

      I carry a large tote that holds my laptop, small clutch type purse for my wallet and cell phone, a toiletries case, and an electronics case. Plus keys and badge. Sometimes I will also shove my lunch in there too if it’s small or bring a separate lunch bag.

    12. knitter*

      Probably a teacher bringing endless grading or reports or planning materials home. I’m up to three bags and a box to and from home pretty much every day. I can’t just finish after school because I have to pick up my kids (well and the fact that it is endless…).

    13. K*

      I work on a college campus. I bring a backpack that normally has my laptop, notebook, wallet, pens, and water bottle. Then I also have a tote bag that carries my lunch and an extra pair of shoes along with whatever else I need to bring that day. Some days I bring crafting stuff to do on my lunch, and others I bring a book.

    14. Half April Ludgate, Half Leslie Knope*

      I have a canvas tote bag to carry my lunch and heels, if I’m wearing them that day (I walk a lot at work, so I usually wear a pair of stylish sneakers or flats on my commute), plus my small purse and coffee tumbler. I try to travel pretty light. When I worked at an office with a gym, I often brought my gym clothes and yoga mat, too, and felt like I was moving in to the office every day. Right now, since I’m new in my job and still setting up my cube, I’ve also been bringing in a reusable grocery bag with a few of my decorative items each day.

    15. Aerin*

      I’ve seen a lot of people in my office with rolling bags, and it’s always seemed a bit excessive to me… though since I’ve been schlepping around the hard copy of my manuscript as I work on rewrites during breaks/downtime, I’ve started to see the appeal. Sucker’s heavy.

    16. Admin of Sys*

      Very dependent on office and transport options. In my last job, I was on public transport, so I carried a backpack that had the laptop and cables, my purse (which held wallet, phone, and a collection of edc things), my lunch, a waterbottle, and a change of shoes. (+/- umbrella , scarf, gloves, etc). Now that I have nearby parking and a spare laptop, I’m down to the purse and a small lunch bag.
      But when I was both on public transport and didn’t have much of a dedicated workspace, I carried the public transport list above, plus a change of clothes and a lot more ‘just in case’ things, like a mending kit and some first aid options, and a small toolkit, etc. Because I didn’t have a desk drawer to stash those items in, I had to drag them around with me.

    17. littlelizard*

      My purse (phone, keys, wallet, eye drops, maybe a lipstick?) and lunch if I’m bringing lunch. But I drive to work, and there’s usually a gym bag or an overnight bag in my car if I have plans later.

    19. SomebodyElse*

      My laptop bag looks like luggage (it’s a roller), but it is a laptop bag. I use a big one mainly because it’s more convenient for work trips.

      If I’m in my home office, generally I just have my iPad shoved in my normal (but on the large size) purse and my Yeti cup.

      If I’m traveling; laptop, bag with cords & mouse, bag with ear buds/iPhone/iPad charging cords/charging blocks, nightstand bag (glasses, drugs, lipstuff, etc), small knitting project, snacks.

      I gave up on packing light a long time ago… schlepping a bunch of stuff is much easier and less stressful than not having what I need or want.

    20. Anonymous Educator*

      I used to bring a lunch, when I worked at a place that didn’t provide lunch. In the past, I’ve also tried bringing a change of clothes for running home after work.

      Now I bring a water bottle full of water, hand sanitizer, headphones, tissue packets and random other stuff in a backpack.

      I see people on the metro schlepping actual luggage!

      Honestly, you never know what people need for work. Or sometimes people take the metro to go to the airport (I have in the past). I took a training once, and my trainer flew in from another state with a giant suitcase full of laptops and iPads.

    21. Llama Wrangler*

      I have a medium size backpack and I carry:
      (1) My breakfast and lunch
      (2) A kindle or book
      (3) An umbrella, and in rainy seasons a lightweight raincoat
      (4) A small pouch with medication, portable charger, liptsick, etc
      (5) A smaller pouch with hand lotion and bandaids (this one lives in my work backpack, #4 moves bags with me)
      (6) My glasses case
      (7) Assorted small items (a tube of sunscreen, sometimes some teabags, a business card holder)
      (8) A tote bag so I can run errands on my way home

      If I’m moving between sites, I’ll carry my notebook (a 9″x12″ hardcover), but unless I have that and something for after work, my bag is generally pretty empty.

    22. LKW*

      I travel a lot so I’m always carrying two emergency kits:

      Tech kit. Spare hot spot, wires, mouse, backup power stick, etc.
      Personal: spare lipstick, cortisone cream, antacid tablets, bandaids, pens, tampons, tylenol, nail file, cuticle clipper, hand cream, capsacin rub, hair tie, safety pins, tissues, alcohol wipes, hand sanitizing wipes, etc. This is on top of whatever other normal things are in my purse.

    23. Nita*

      Usually just a medium-size purse, but sometimes a very large backpack (I guess it looks like luggage?) that holds instruments, a hard hat and equipment. I don’t have to carry the equipment around every day, and I don’t drive to my office if I can help it, so I’d rather just haul the stuff around on my back now and then.

    24. Goldfinch*

      If I’m going to be at the office all day, just a laptop bag and a gigantic tote bag that serves as a purse.

      If I’m going out on the field, then add a variety of shoes (including steel toes), hardhat/vest/other PPE, weatherproof notebook, digital camera/tripod/accessories, one or more meals and a ton of water, and possibly TP (depending on what stage of completion the job site is in).

    25. Donkey Hotey*

      Note: I drive to work. That said, every day out the door I carry:
      Bag 1: gym clothes, trainers, padlock
      Bag 2: lunch, journal, pen case, book, charging cables, headphones.
      (phone, keys, wallet on my person)

    26. Laura H.*

      1 bag which rotates between a walker bag that attaches to my walker, a backpack that I hook on to said walker with large stroller carabiner style clips or a tote bag that I hang on one of my walker’s handles. Sometimes add a laptop bag that can hold a standard size folder in addition to holding a laptop.

      Contents of the three bag options vary but usually include phone, keys, and wallet. But that’s also not just my commute bag- it’s kind of an everyday thing.

    27. Ariana Grande's Ponytail*

      This is fascinating. I usually just bring myself and my backpack, which contains: my morning coffee, all water I need for the day because water comes out kind of yellowish and stinkyish at work (???), lunch, kindle, computer glasses, IDs, wallet, sunglasses, phone battery charger, and other backpack detritus. I keep extra sets of flats at work that I can change into if I need to, but usually I just wear my snow boots all day anyways. During the summer I wore Chackos to and from work every day! I’m considering bringing a gym bag now that my gym is on the way home from work, but I don’t want to add more to my already full load. My gym’s rented lockers are not large enough to accommodate my backpack, either, which is an odd conundrum.

    28. LadyByTheLake*

      A small purse that has wallet, lipstick/lip balm, cell phone, keys, glasses and sunglasses. Lunch.

      I leave my work shoes at work (don’t schlep them back and forth), the water bottle and coffee mug also live at work.

    29. Ama*

      A smallish purse (it’s not as small as my last purse but it basically holds my wallet, a little makeup bag , keys, phone and a few other essential items).
      A medium sized tote bag that has my coffee mug and umbrella in it — it’s big and sturdy enough to hold groceries or other purchases if I need to stop for something on the way home, and I can also fit my work laptop in there if I need to (usually just before/after work trips or if we’re expecting an office closure due to weather).
      I also usually have a knitting project in the tote in another small bag (usually socks or a hat).

    30. Nicki Name*

      Backpack containing laptop, lunch, something to read, umbrella in the rainy season, sandals & T-shirt if it’s hot.

    32. Retail not Retail*

      I have to drive and we park right by our office and shop so if I need a certain tool (they’re ours while we work here and then we turn them in. Locking it in my trunk is easiest!) or my ID or a warmer layer, I can walk right over.

      I try to remember headphones and a book and sunglasses and my meds. Having a car has made me far lazier than when I biked/bussed/walked.

    33. so many resumes, so little time*

      1) backpack, which contains laptop (sometimes two), lunch, extra throat drops, sometimes a container of tea, newspaper or book

      2) purse: wallet, eyeglasses and case, tissues, business cards, analgesics, earphones, pen, stamps, flash drive, phone charger, MetroCard, lip balm

      If I’m planning on running an errand, I’ll stick a cloth tote bag into my backpack, so sometimes I carry one more bag at the end of the day than I do at the beginning. If what I purchase isn’t large, though, it goes into the backpack.

      If it’s going to rain, I’ll stick an umbrella into my backpack, and sometimes an extra pair of socks in case my feet get wet. If I’m wearing snowboots, I carry a pair of shoes to change into at the office.

      A few years ago I had shingles and couldn’t wear my backpack for weeks; had to switch to a tote bag. The experience taught me I was carrying too much stuff every day, so I purged almost all the “extra” things that somehow had taken up residence in my backpack. I don’t even remember what it all was, now.

      (Phone and house keys go into pockets unless what I’m wearing doesn’t have pockets. Then they go into my purse.)

    34. BelleMorte*

      Just my Micheal Kors tote which is pretty big, fits my ipad and laptop, lunch and water bottle.

      I also bring a puppy daily (service dog), but she doesn’t fit in my bag as she’s a 11 year old lab.

    35. BC Lower Mainlander*

      Knapsack with:
      1 – 1L pouch with miscellaneous medical supplies; suture scissors, large bandages, alcohol wipes, nitrile gloves, gauze packs, epi-pen, clear plastic bags, acetaminophen, ibuprofen…
      2 – water bottle, paring knife
      3 – lunch and at least 3 snacks
      4 – reusable shopping bags
      5 – umbrella
      6 – pens, usb stick, usb cables (always sucks to go searching for one!)
      7 – spare shoes (only cuz of the snow boots right now)
      I want a lighter bag, but I feel naked without all of my “stuff”

    36. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

      I have:

      * a backpack, which has “office stuff” in it: work laptop, assorted tech things (mouse/cables/10 key pad/whatever), my paper stuff (binder and notebooks) for both work and usually for my evening/weekend volunteer work (since it’s easier than changing it back and forth depending on whether I’ll need it that day, general “office supplies” (pens, tape, correcting tape, highlighters, scissors, index cards, post-its, etc.) mostly because I also do a fair amount of remote work from various non-home places in addition to the office.

      * a purse, which has miscellaneous “personal stuff” it: money/credit cards/ID, personal calendar, camera, book, reusable grocery bag, flashlight, comb, some tools, pens/Sharpies/dry erase pens, Lara bars, basically anything that comes in handy often enough to justify the weight and space. (I keep debating removing the camera, but it comes in handy just often enough because I don’t have a smartphone. It’s a cheap, small waterproof one.)

      * a “wine bottle caddy” reusable bag (the kind you can get at the grocery store to take home 4 or 6 bottles of wine), which I use to carry a combination of Contigo coffee mugs and water bottles to work in, plus anything else I need that fits that shape profile. (I have one that has 4 slots, so usually 2 coffee mugs, a water bottle, and an empty space that might be filled by a snack in a canning jar or something.)

      I live the life of a D&D character whose DM doesn’t calculate encumbrance regularly. I hate not having stuff more than I hate carrying stuff around, I guess. (I’ve been this way since at least high school. I try to pare it down every now and then, but it’s just so convenient to actually have stuff when I’m out places trying to do work.)

    37. Roja*

      This is for part-time work, so I don’t usually bring a full lunch (otherwise there’d be a lunch bag): laptop, teaching notebook, keys/wallet, phone, ipod for commute, sunglasses case, any footwear I need for teaching, water bottle, snack. Sometimes teaching tools or body care tools like tennis balls, theraband. It all fits into my laptop bag 99% of the time.

    38. RobotWithHumanHair*

      My small Fossil backpack (love that thing) which contains a book, my Kindle, assorted medications (Aleve, inhaler, etc.), assorted charging cables and a notepad. Then I also bring my gym bag which has my running shoes and a change of clothes and toiletries for my regular lunchtime run.

    39. a nosy commuter*

      omg, thanks everyone for indulging my snoopiness! It’s fascinating to hear about all the different things everyone takes in that I didn’t even consider :)

    40. Hello, I'd like to report my boss*

      I started working full-time in 2006, and I forgot my phone and keys one day. I made a little chant to remind me what to bring each day:
      Money, Mobile, Music, Keys, Cigs, Pass

      (Pass = work pass)

      In the 14 years since then, the Mobile and Music have merged into an iPhone, I stopped smoking, started making my own lunch, started wearing make up, and now need glasses!

      So each day I always say as I stand by the front door:
      Money, Mobile, Makeup, Munchies, Keys, Glasses, Passes.

      That’s what’s in my bag :) plus an umbrella, and a canvas shopping bag that folds up small for my groceries on the way home.

    41. CB*

      I do a combination of biking to/form work and taking public transit. The haul depends on the day. Most days, I carry:

      1) Backpack, with standard backpack things like supplies, plus my full set of work clothes and toiletries post-7am workout.
      2) A large lunchbox with a strap. I am working hard to gain weight and fill that sucker up to the brim.
      3) A bicycle helmet

      On Mondays, I also have my laptop in my backpack (evening grad school course). On Wednesdays and Fridays, I have an additional pair of workout-specific shoes I have to carry, which results in a grocery tote in the morning but nothing extra in the afternoon.

    42. Cap. Marvel*

      I carry a backpack with two books to read on the metro, a change of clothes, my bike helmet, lunch bag, and shoes. Sometimes I bring my laptop.
      I metro in but I bike back so that’s why I have a bike helmet when I am on the metro.

    43. A Non E. Mouse*

      I have a backpack for my laptop, tablet, and random files/food/cables/pens/sometimes silverware depending on what I’m eating for lunch.

      I also carry a purse.

      But! The luggage you are seeing might be because of health issues – we have several people that work for us with bad backs that need to bring equipment in and out, and they literally use a rolling hard sided suitcase for the purpose. Saves their backs, protects the equipment.

    46. Buffy*

      I travel pretty light really. I have a Dooney & Burke tote size bag that holds my laptop (with mouse and power cord) in a padded sleeve, small wallet with ID and cash, computer glasses, a book to read, a small baggie with Tylenol (regular and sinus pain) and Advil plus eye drops and my work ID badge. If I’m bringing my lunch, it’ll squeeze into that same bag. Occasionally I might have a couple extra things like right now I’m building out a new laptop and it’s giving me problems so I can’t fully convert from old to new. So I’m carrying the extra one in a sleeve.

    47. Elizabeth West*

      I’m the person who takes everything everywhere just in case. I usually have my purse inside a tote bag with other items. Then I keep stuff at my desk too. Basically, if I had to camp out at work, I could.

      I have a go-bag in the trunk of my car, but I’m considering keeping either a small one in the tote or one at my desk, since weather events are getting worse.

      1. Curmudgeon in California*

        I have a small go bag with a change of clothes, water and a 72 hour food bar in my locker at work. I have water and blankets in my car. Need to replace my kit that got swiped when my car was broken into.

    48. Jaid*

      My insulated bag is big enough for one liter of seltzer, wallet, cell phone, newspaper, portable fan, breakfast, lunch and snacks (my shift starts at 6 am, so I eat both at work).

    49. Curmudgeon in California*

      I WFH two days a week. On the other three, I drive myself.
      I carry a medium sized laptop bag, employer provided
      Here’s the load:
      1) Folded up raincoat
      2) Laptop charger
      3) Lunch & soda
      3) Gadgets: plug in USB charger, USB cables with misc ends, USB battery, earbuds
      4) Writing supplies – pen, mechanical pencil, sharpie, white board marker, highlighter, yellow stickies, half size notebook
      5) Food supplies: eating utensils, metal straw, silicone straw, napkins, reusable cup or water bottle
      6) Misc supplies: first aid kit, hand sanitizer, sewing kit, flashlights, metal nail file, tissues, cough drops, feminine supplies, foldable shopping bag(s)
      7) Sometimes the work laptop
      When I have everything loaded in it it can be quite heavy.

    50. Jemima Bond*

      I carry a large handbag (purse) containing:
      Purse (wallet?)
      Work mobile, personal mobile (if you don’t want to catch me on my mobile, don’t call me on my mobile)
      Keys
      Work building pass on lanyard with pedestal key
      Work badge wallet (because am ninja assassin)
      Travel card (stored with great care as possibly single most expensive thing I own including my car)
      Small pouch with things like hand mirror, ibuprofen, tweezers, private lady item, lip balm, plasters etc.
      Headphones (wireless in charging case, get me with the cool tech)
      Charging cord for each phone, usb plug, sometimes one of those power pack thingies
      Hair brush
      Travel size hand cream and alcohol hand gel
      Book to read
      Notebook for Ideas
      All of the biros in the Greater London area plus half the Home Counties.
      Umbrella
      Cotton shopping bag in case I need something from the supermarket on the way home.
      Sometimes a collapsible silicone coffee cup
      A teaspoon.

    51. Jemima Bond*

      FWIW every barrister I’ve ever met carries their court bundles (big thick piles of paper) and other files in one of those wheely suitcases. So they always look like they are about to go away for the weekend. Occurs to me it probs contains their gown and wig as well sometimes.

      1. Bagpuss*

        I was just about to say that I’m a lawyer and if I’m in court I will use a rolling suitcase for the files I need – paper is heavy!

    52. Book Lover*

      Tea in a thermos and a lunch bag. A coat or umbrella a few days a year. And iPad and phone and handbag. But I just have to walk from the car to the entrance and elevator. Not a big deal.

      1. Book Lover*

        I have my own office though so I have my computer, hairbrush, etc etc etc that I don’t need to bring back and forth.

    53. Miss Pantalones en Fuego*

      I have a biggish backpack that always has an assortment of personal items (nail clippers, ibuprofen, feminine supplies, wet wipes, tissues) in a separate small bag. I also usually have a shopping bag, umbrella, emergency phone charger, raincoat, a hat and gloves, lunch, and a coffee mug. If it’s Monday I will have all my work clothes that I washed over the weekend, and if it’s the last day of a project I’ll be coming home with safety boots, hard hat, site coat and other PPE, and a bag of tools.

  27. DataGirl*

    Resume help needed: What do you do when your job title does not match your actual duties? I am not doing any of the tasks associated with what someone with my title would normally do, and it’s making finding a job hard, because people who are looking to fill that type of position see me having none of the skills- but I’m afraid if I put a different job title and they check with my employer they will think I’m lying when the title comes back different. Suggestions?

    FWIW- my description of my tasks is accurate to what I do, but I think at least initially a lot of resume reviewers are just glancing at the titles.

    1. Jimming*

      You could format it like this:
      Descriptive Title (Official Title)

      Alison has a lot of advice about this topic if you look through the archives.

    2. DataGirl*

      Thanks Jimming. Related question: Cover Letters- do they really help? Since I’m IT I’ve always felt like anything an interviewer needs to know is in my resume and that cover letters are stupid. So I don’t apply to jobs that require them, and in tech there are a lot of job listings that don’t. But reading this site, I’m wondering if I am doing myself a disservice by filtering out positions just because I don’t want to write a cover letter.

      1. KayDeeAye*

        I don’t know about your particular job, but in most jobs, cover letters definitely help. (In my case, they help a LOT.) They aren’t supposed to restate everything that’s in your resume. What they are supposed to do is convey ideas that a resume can’t, e.g., why you want this particular job at this particular company and to highlight how your experience might help you in this particular job.

      2. Aerin*

        Yeah, read all the stuff this site has on cover letters and then write one. A cover letter is for all the stuff that isn’t on your resume that creates a broader picture of you as a person: how your personality would mesh with the position, little accomplishments that wouldn’t merit resume space, what appeals to you about this particular company, etc. And it can help provide some context if you’re changing gears or stretching for something.

      3. Mop.*

        Yes. Do a cover letter. They’re usually neutral, sometimes they help; I’ve never seen one that hurt the applicant, but I guess it’s possible.

      4. Fikly*

        You are doing yourself a disservice because you are filtering out positions, full stop, for any reason other than you do not think they would work for you to actually work in.

    3. Half April Ludgate, Half Leslie Knope*

      This has been my challenge for my most recent job AND my current job. When I was job hunting, I relied on my cover letter to tell the story of my experience, and my tasks on my resume. I also sort of amended my title (it was something like Associate “Department” Manager and I changed it to Associate “Department” Manager, My Specialization/Sub-Department name) and used relevant key words in my resume task descriptions, so they popped out.

    4. ellydee*

      It may be worth a conversation with your supervisor about updating your job title. You could say that it would clarify your role to multiple parties (customers, clients, co-workers, networking), especially since it’s presumably included in your email signature. As a supervisor, it would be very helpful to have this clarified for when I need to post the job opening again (not that you want to tip your hand about that).

      1. DataGirl*

        I will think about that. Performance review season is coming up and a job description review is usually part of it. In general I’m reluctant to discuss this with my manager who is a very challenging person, but if we just talk about title it might be safe.

  28. Exhausted Trope*

    How hard is it to be pleasant? In my workplace, very few people acknowledge my presence. My desk is near the elevator so it is impossible not to see me as you pass. Very few people will greet me or even look my way. Most times, we make eye contact and no one says anything. Even later in the day when presumably people are more alert, some will pass me in the hall and not say a word or even look at me. I’ve gone out of my way to be pleasant-always have a smile on- but I’m still ignored. I’ve had people come to my desk, hand me a stack of papers, and not say one word even when I’ve greeted them. I have to stop them and ask, “What are these?” to get any kind of response at all. Is this odd behavior or is it something that I am doing wrong? Do I just work in an office full of people who lack basic professional skills?
    For context, I work in a medical clinic in the HR office upstairs. We get lots of people in and out. At first I thought it was because a lot of people hate HR, but that can’t be it. I work with four other people (all women as am I) and they don’t receive the same treatment.
    Then I thought it was because I used to be a temp but got hired on full time but there are two others with far shorter tenures here who are treated well. I’ve given this a lot of thought and I think it might stem from this and because one of my co-workers, who is very comfortable with bringing her personal life and her family drama into the workplace, has expected me to participate in the daily soap opera she creates along with the constant gossip about peers and managers. It’s ridiculous and exceptionally unprofessional. I can’t say anything as I’m not her supervisor and she’s been here far longer than me. For the record, I leave the area when the gossip begins so maybe she’s upset that I won’t join in.
    Fortunately, I am relocating next month, so I won’t have to deal with this much longer.
    But how do I avoid going bonkers until then?

    1. Sighhh*

      This would be odd and rude in our office. We have an executive assistant desk the first thing off of our elevators, and nearly everyone greets her and asks her how she is as they get off. It’s common courtesy, and she’s also the best so we love seeing her first thing.

    2. KayDeeAye*

      I agree that it’s odd and rude. Not greeting when they pass by might not be such a big deal – particularly if they have to pass you several times a day or if greeting you would interrupt your work (or a work conversation they’re having). But not greeting you when they hand you something? That’s just…bad.

      If it were me, I’d amuse myself by considering the non-greeters “robots” and keeping track of how many there are in this company. Or I’d go out of my way to give them effusive greetings just to freak them out. I might even insist on shaking hands in a salesperson-y sort of way. But I have a weird sense of humor.

    4. Cimmaron*

      My desk is near the elevator so it is impossible not to see me as you pass. Very few people will greet me or even look my way. Most times, we make eye contact and no one says anything. Even later in the day when presumably people are more alert, some will pass me in the hall and not say a word or even look at me.

      This, in my opinion, is fine. It is what I would prefer from these interactions, both as a passer-by (I don’t want to feel obligated to give a cheerful greeting every time I pass by the elevators) and a desk-sitter (giving and receiving cheerful greetings would be distracting for me). It seems like a reserved/brusque office culture that doesn’t value casual chat; if your desk is isolated from others, that likely exacerbates the situation. It may not be to your preference, but it isn’t wrong.

      I’ve had people come to my desk, hand me a stack of papers, and not say one word even when I’ve greeted them. I have to stop them and ask, “What are these?” to get any kind of response at all.

      This, on the other hand, is rude. It is one thing to limit social interactions or put a higher premium on work (my sense of the situation from the first passages I quoted); it’s another to treat you like you should read their minds & hop to doing whatever task they want without communicating. To be clear, it’s the ignoring you that’s the problem, which comes off as treating you less like a coworker and more like a tool – if there were exchanges like the following, I would not consider it a problem even if they were cooler/less pleasant than you would prefer.

      ex.) You: Hi Cersei! How’s it going?
      Cersei: Ah, Trope. I have the teapot documentation for Big Projects #1-3 here. I need [tasks] done by [date].

      2. Exhausted Trope*

        Yes, “hop to doing whatever task they want without communicating” is the exact vibe I get. It is very demeaning and not the way to handle it when they need something. I am not anyone’s assistant yet I’m treated as though they believe that I am.

    5. ellydee*

      I’ve heard of some people who keep a candy dish on their desk for the sole reason of inviting people to partake in some sugar with a side of chit-chat. However, since greener pastures are on your horizon, it’s probably exacerbating every little annoyance of your current circumstance. Best wishes with your relocation!

    6. Doctor Annongong.*

      Please share where you work OP as it appears you have found the dream company for at least 50% of AAM.

    7. Lana Kane*

      Since you’re leaving, when someone dumps papers on your desk, feel free to tell them “Hey, in the future, please let me know why you are giving me things instead of just leaving them.. Thanks!”

      You may not be able to change them, but your remaining time might be less stressful if you feel like you;re standuing up for yourself.

      1. Curmudgeon in California*

        It would be sooooooo tempting for me to just sweep them onto the floor if they were just dumped without a word, but I’m snarky that way. You could just give the pile the fisheye like it was a fungus that suddenly sprouted on your desk…

        1. Exhausted Trope*

          I like how you think, Curmudgeon!
          And thanks to all commentators for your input.
          I think chocolate and meditation are warranted for my situation.

  29. Unladen European Swallow*

    I review several hundreds of resumes annually in my work and this year, I’ve noticed a large uptick in resumes that have a “skills” section where people will use a dot scale system to presumably indicate mastery of a particular skill. As in, out of 5 dots, anywhere from 1-5 are bolded/filled in. I’ve seen this type of scale used on a resume for concrete skills such as coding languages and Microsoft application software, as well as soft skills such as “communication” and “leadership.”

    Are other people seeing this as well? How the hell am I supposed to interpret these types of self-ratings? What exactly does a scale of 1/5 dots vs 3/5 dots vs 5/5 dots mean? Where are people getting this type of advise to include in their resumes? Is it part of a trend to have people create more “infographic” heavy resumes? Thoughts? I personally really dislike them. It takes up a lot of real estate and reveals little to no useful information.

    1. Anongineer*

      I actually saw this recently when my friend sent me her resume! It was to apply to graduate school for design, and she got the template from another friend who was currently in grad school for some type of marketing design (not sure exactly what). It was in California so maybe it’s making the rounds there?

      (We both went to a more technical college and that format definitely did not exist there!)

    2. Jimming*

      Yes, and I hate it. I think there are a few “auto generated” resume services that have this feature and then I have to explain to my clients why they should remove it since it’s meaningless.

      1. Dragoning*

        Oddly, however, I have been asked more than once in job interviews, where I would put myself on a scale of 1-10 in knowing, say, various Office programs.

    3. irene adler*

      I encountered an ATS system that asked me to rate my skills – in a 1 through 5 fashion-when I applied for a position. Maybe folks are seeing this and thinking they need to conform to this sort of rating system?

    4. Rey*

      Yes, this is now included on some Word templates for resumes, which I assume are made by graphic designers, not hiring managers. I’m fine with a bulleted list on the resume, but the self-ratings also seem totally random to me. Our interview questions ask specific questions about the software experience we’re looking for so that we have more information to base our decision on.

    5. Boba Feta*

      Gah!! I saw this on my student’s resume this week! From across the desk and upside-down I didn’t even read any of it before announcing firmly whilst pointing at it: “No.”

      She looked horror-stricken, which I suspect was due in no small part to the fact that she admitted having paid for a resume template. (!) As soon as I asked her to consider this information from the employer side, and ask by what criteria she can write herself to be “Excellent” in any of those categories or skills, I think she saw the light.

      And then I sent her straight to this blog.

      1. irene adler*

        There should be a requirement- a law even- that a big sign must be posted right by the career center in every institution of higher learning. Said sign should read “consult AAM for all your career advice”

    6. Aerin*

      I saw this on a lot of resume templates when I was helping my husband revamp his. They do look visually appealing, but… no. Just no.

    7. Mia 52*

      HATE them. It gives you no indication of what they have actually done. Also it will say “leadership 4/5 dots” and then they have no leadership experience whatsoever listed on their resume. If the content of the resume lined up with the dots, which is usually doesn’t, I think I could get on board. I think its silliness.

    8. Jules the 3rd*

      ***** MP / Holy Grail familiarity. (Go on, ask me my favorite color!)

      At my employer, over the last 4 – 5 years, we have to assess our skills on 1 – 5 scale, and it’s got specific definitions (ie, beginner / user / composer / mentor / architect). Mostly ‘hard’ skills, and they’re better if you have the badges to back them up. I use that to *list* my top skills and assess gaps, but I’ve not seen the recommendation to add the assessment itself to the resume. Yet.

      My guess is yes, this is a direction some orgs are trying to go. I *think* that when I apply to new jobs within my company, the hiring manager would have access to my assessments.

    9. Donkey Hotey*

      I’ve never seen it on a resume and wouldn’t use it myself.
      What I -have- seen is a skills section that includes the logos of the software described as well as its name.

    10. voluptuousfire*

      Agreed. I see this on a log of younger software engineer resumes and that of product designers. It’s really not useful.

      1. T. Boone Pickens*

        Yup, came here to say this. I see it with lots of younger IT and marketing professionals.

    11. designbot*

      I haven’t used a dot scale, but I do keep two categories: proficient in, and some experience with. Basically if it’s been a while or it’s not my core expertise it goes in ‘some experience with’ and if it’s a thing I use daily/weekly it goes in ‘proficient in.’
      I think this is people’s way of trying to tell the most expansive version of their story without feeling like they’re inflating.

      1. Sequoit*

        I’ve used the scale system on my resume for the reason you mentioned of not wanting to inflate. I don’t want to imply mastery of something I’m only proficient in, especially because in my field there’s a lot of different software/platforms involved and I want to paint an accurate picture of my strengths.

        Probably the effectiveness of the scale system depends on the industry, because I’ve gotten good feedback in interviews about it.

    12. Chronic Overthinker*

      Just wanted to comment that I love your username!

      Also, yeah, that is pretty strange. Must be a new “tip from the pros” to get your resume noticed. I mean I suppose it’s nicer than saying “intermediate or proficient” with a certain skill, but I’d much rather have a demonstrable line on how that skill was used in your experience to really accurately gauge the skill level.

    13. Charlotte Collins*

      I just read a bunch of resumes for my job (not usual – non-HR people are tapped for resume screening at my agency) and noticed this, too. I found it distracting and useless. It’s government employment, and we really only care about what’s in the job description and anything more that can support that. Lists of skills are just a waste of words for us.

    14. Arts Akimbo*

      A dot scale. Like a character sheet for job seekers. Wow. Someone/some company probably got paid a lot of money to think that up, too.

    15. EinJungerLudendorff*

      I did that for a while, because I was a recent grad trying to explain my technical proficiency with twelve different toolsets in a quarter of an A4 page.

      It’s not very helpful, but I have no idea how else I could have done it and still be coherent.

  30. There's no good time to quit?*

    Is there any good time to quit? I’m just fantasizing here about getting a job offer and leaving my toxic job, and I believe my boss suspects that I am trying to leave, because…she knows how bad it is. And two people just quit from our team. She’s started scheduling me (and our team) for tons of travel, conferences, etc., and she joked “Well, it would be awful for anyone to quit after we booked all these!” Oh god. I’m so nervous. I do have interviews coming up, and the conferences that are booked start in March and are scattered from there until August. One plane ticket was booked. I know in my contract and HR, there’s no requirement for paying back these bookings, but I am afraid this is going to burn bridges by quitting when she’s booked conferences. I guess the best time would be to quit in August? But if I get a job offer, I don’t think I would want to stay this long. I thought about offering a month notice, but that won’t change the bookings. Any advice?

    1. But There is a Me in Team!*

      Practice your quitting speech in advance, in the mirror if you need to, when the time comes, be kind but firm and don’t over explain (I am terrible at this). Remember as AAM herself and others will often point out here, if they needed to let you go, they would in a hot second. It’s not an arranged marriage, it’s one of many jobs you’ll have and you need to look out for yourself. Good luck!

    2. Rey*

      She’s the boss, right? So if she is afraid of losing employees, she should come up with a plan to retain them, right? Instead, she decided to book you for conferences and make passive-aggressive jokes in the hope of guilt-tripping you into staying longer? If she truly cared about retaining employees then she should honestly examine what would increase retention. If she felt like there was nothing she could do to improve how bad it is then she would understand that its in your best interest to look for another job. When you put in your two weeks notice, you can include canceling or transferring the bookings as part of the tasks you’ll take care of, but that is all that you owe this company. If they cared more about keeping you, it should be part of their long-term strategy, not a (badly implemented) last-ditch effort.

    3. irene adler*

      A job offer comes when it comes. Very little you can do to control this (except not to apply for jobs).

      Don’t make the mistake of turning down a job because it came at a bad time for your employer. That’s not the way to manage your professional life. Instead, when the job offer comes, try to give as much notice as you can, and set things up as best you can for the transition to the person who takes over your job.

      It is your employer’s responsibility to make sure the “sky won’t fall” should any employee leave.

    4. Ama*

      There are better times than others to quit, certainly but there is never a “good” time for most office jobs because you’ll always be giving notice when projects are already in process and/or plans have already been made. It’s also not really your responsibility to put your current employer’s needs over your opportunity for advancement (and that would be true even if you weren’t in a toxic job — but I tend to feel like toxic jobs deserve even less consideration, since they haven’t given you any).

      I like my current job but I’m doing a very casual job search because I’m feeling a little bored (I’ve been here seven years and though I’ve been promoted, I’m still basically working on the same projects I had at the beginning just from a different role). There is literally no time I could leave that would be “good” — 75% of what I do is not done by anyone else in my office, so even if I were to leave at a relatively quiet time (which is virtually never these days) there would be a lot of nerves and concern about it. If it comes to it I’ll probably try to avoid leaving within a month of my most important project, because I like this employer and they’ve treated me well so I don’t want to leave them in the absolute worst case scenario but everything else is pretty much fair game.

    5. Arts Akimbo*

      This is a horribly manipulative tactic your boss is using to pressure you into staying. Recognize it for what it is and leave when you get an offer. Offer standard notice. Someone else can take your place at the conferences.

    6. Fikly*

      So the actual thing for your boss to do to prevent you from quitting that is valid would be to fix the things that are toxic. Instead she is demonstrating just how toxic it is, by engaging in toxic behavior to try and prevent you from quitting.

      Quit.

  31. BT*

    Wow, #2 couldn’t have come at a more perfect time—I’m starting a new job in a week and have been wondering the same thing! Just want to be prepared.

    I probably will try to adjust my routing over the coming week because I admittedly have trouble getting up early etc. I also am feeling anxious about knowing what I’m doing, already suffering from imposter syndrome. Gah!

    1. BT*

      Whoops—meant #3 on this morning’s post. Thought I was commenting on that. I swear I know how to Internet. *facepalm*

  32. Too Relaxed*

    I’ve run into a bit of a conundrum with my job, and I’m hoping y’all can give me some advice.

    I’m currently working a temp-to-hire job for a technical role. It’s a year-long contract, which is the standard way to get hired at this company. As of now, I am supposed to work a strict 40 hours a week. I discovered yesterday that people in permanent positions here are expected to be on 24/7 on-call in case of emergency. Thing is, I can’t do that. I take a muscle relaxant at night that would make me incapable of working for about 6-8 hours after I take it. So I would effectively be out of commission from 10pm-6am every night.

    I am wondering how and when to bring this up to my boss (I’ve only been here two weeks, so I figure I’ll wait until I’ve proved myself). I was thinking that if I offered to cover another duty in place of the on-call, or in addition to on-call except for those hours I’ll be unable to work, it might be okay, but I don’t know what that additional duty might be. I’ll probably come up with one as I’m here longer and see what needs to be done, though.

    But I am wondering – managers, what would your reaction be if your temp-to-hire report came to you with this issue? Is my solution (of taking on an additional duty) something you would find acceptable? Non-managers, have you run into this before and how did you handle it?

    Thanks all.

    1. ThatGirl*

      I feel like it’s waaaay too early to bring that up. I would wait until your actual hiring is being discussed. You never know, things could change in a year.

      1. Too Relaxed*

        Oh, I know it’s way too early to bring up! I’m more wondering what to say when I do have to bring it up. (I like to over-prepare.) I will be on the muscle relaxants for life so that won’t change.

        1. ThatGirl*

          I definitely sympathize with the over-preparation, but even then, I think it’s way too early. Try to put it out of your mind for 6 months and just learn more about how the job and company works, how frequent these emergencies truly are, and other ways you may be able to compensate for not being able to be on call.

        2. Jules the 3rd*

          *After* you have an offer: “I have a medical condition that will make me unavailable from x to y. What do you think would be an appropriate way to handle that?”

          I’d probably offer to be ‘on call’ for times that are adjacent to your normal work day but might be hard to get people for – ie, if the normal shift is 9am to 9am, offer to be on call 6am – 9pm. A lot of tech people do not like early mornings, and for parents they can be hectic.

    2. DataGirl*

      I agree with ThatGirl, I wouldn’t bring it up until a permanent position is being discussed. If there is a rotation schedule, maybe you could offer to take the weekend rotations more frequently to make up for the other people covering the night calls. But if it’s just- we expect everyone to be available all the time- well that’s not an awesome place to be in (been there, done that, lasted 6 months).

      1. Too Relaxed*

        It’s not really a rotation – it’s more like “if this software goes down, we expect you to be there to fix it.” This happens very rarely, according to them – as in once a year. And there are four other people who are as familiar with the software as I am. So that’s why I’m hoping that taking on another commitment might balance out my inability to go on late-night calls.

        I would really like to stick at this company because it pays twice as much as equivalent roles in my city and has great benefits.

    3. Natalie*

      My husband pursued an almost identical accommodation at a previous job and it wasn’t especially different from any other ADA issue. In his case his sleep disorder is significant enough that is “substantially impairs” that major life activity, not sure if you are in the same situation.

      If this is a situation where the ADA applies, you enter an interactive process with your employer to figure out what accommodation you need and how the employer will make that happen. Offering to take on some additional duty during the day is great, assuming there is one. However, from what you describe, this on-call duty is not an “essential job function”, and exempting you from it doesn’t pose an undue burden (as defined by the law), so you are entitled to the accommodation regardless. It’s also irrelevant that you know about this potential need ahead of time, that doesn’t change their obligations to provide reasonable accommodation.

      And if the ADA *does not* apply here, if/when you are offered the permanent job I would just say something like “I take nightly medication that means I can’t drive [or whatever], so how should we handle those occasional emergencies?” It might turn out to not be a big deal at all, you won’t know unless you ask.

      1. Too Relaxed*

        Thank you so much for the detailed reply! The condition is definitely ADA-applicable, so it’s good to know that this will probably not create an undue burden. I will do what all of you suggest and just chill out about it until I get an offer.

        1. Natalie*

          I’ve heard good things about the Job Accommodation Network for resources if you are looking for more about the accommodation process, your rights, etc.

          I know we can sometimes think of disabilities in really black and white terms, like people are either “obviously very disabled” (blind, wheelchair user) or “not at all disabled”, but the ADA is very specifically not written that way. So if you are anything like my husband and have never really thought of yourself as having a disability, you might not have experience in this area and boning up on your rights can be helpful, if/when you need it!

    4. Fikly*

      I would bring this up (much later) as an ADA accommodation, but not knowing more about the position, I cannot say if it is a reasonable accommodation or not for you to have hours when you are not on call.

  33. bug-faced baby-eating o'brien*

    What do you do when you’re burned out and feeling like you suck at your job? Whether or not it’s true, how do you stop dwelling on mistakes, learn how to do better, and keep it from overwhelming you? It sounds so simple (“stop dwelling, do better”) and maybe it is simple but it’s not easy. Thoughts? Tips/tricks? Commiseration?

    1. Jenn*

      When this happened to me in 2018, I had to take a break. I ended up seeing a therapist who coached me through breathing and meditation exercises and focusing on what I did well. I needed two weeks of leave to recharge my batteries.

    2. Nonprofit Nancy*

      I so feel this. I’m completely overwhelmed at work right now and feel so hopeless. I’m really just dreaming of quitting. Even though I know that if I could push through the feeling of being overwhelmed I’d at least be able to take some steps towards progress. Everything just seems impossible.

    5. merp*

      you’re so right, it’s not easy. what I’ve done in the past is narrow down my field of focus at work – I have a to-do list of 5 things, so I do my best those 5 things. I cross them off and try to internalize that I had those things to do and now they are done – that’s progress, some sort of tangible accomplishment. that’s 5 things that weren’t done before! it sort of felt like separating my anxiety/fatigue from the rest of myself and trying to understand where it’s coming from but reward it when I get things done anyway – something that came from my therapist when I was struggling with this.

    6. Potato Girl*

      No advice, only commiseration. I’ve been burned out for five years, even though I switched jobs one year ago. They say switching jobs helps, but it only worked for about six months. I just keep telling myself, “don’t be lazy; stop making excuses; what others can do, you can also do.” My brain is so mush at the end of the day that I can barely engage in hobbies, and weekends are for doing chores and errands and meal prep…. I’m totally fried. The other night while getting ready for bed, my partner had to keep saying, “keep going,” because kept I spacing out staring vacantly into space while doing things like putting the phone on the charger, applying hand cream, etc etc. I’m strongly considering asking my doctor for antidepressants, but my therapist doesn’t think I’m depressed. I have a healthy diet (cooking all but one meal per week at home), do cardio 5-6 days a week, get at least 6.5 hours in bed per night, and my ADHD is being treated with the right medication. I just…. have a smaller gas tank than I need. I’m an easily overwhelmed person. I just get a lower quality of life than many others do.

      1. merp*

        hey, totally understand if you don’t want to hear this from an internet stranger, but just speaking from personal experience — I had the same impulse with the “don’t be lazy/don’t make excuses” messaging but it often made me feel worse and did not do anything motivate me. more felt like kicking myself when I was already down. what helped was trying to be kinder to myself, and trying to understand where I was experiencing limits, and not putting on extra guilt about that. it was really tough. but you deserve to be kinder to yourself as well. and as far as depression goes, it can take many forms, and all things like that are a spectrum. your health is your decision and if you decide you want to try medication, that is your right to ask for.

        1. Jules the 3rd*

          Maybe ‘Can I do that Next Step’ instead of ‘Don’t be lazy’?

          You deserve to be kind to yourself. Good luck to you all.

      2. ReformedControlFreak*

        I began reading this and thought it sounded like ADD/ADHD and then lo and behold there it was at the bottom! I am in a similar situation, coming into it from the other side (was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, only recently to suspect ADHD plays a role). I feel easily overwhelmed too, but oddly I think objectively you could call me a high performer. I truly, truly, relate to your description here. I would say I have more bad days than good ones, but there are some things that markedly help:
        1) kind self-talk. Instead of focusing on what i didn’t do, or where i’m deficient, i try to redirect to what i did do. compare down instead of up, essentially.
        2) mindfulness. there’s a podcast i really like called “practicing human” and i definitely have better days when i listen to that in the morning
        3) ADHD commiseration. there’s another podcast i like by tracy otsuka, something like ADHD for Badass Women (i’m so bad with details!) it’s like a little pep talk to have another woman with ADHD reminding me “hey you don’t suck! you have a non-neurotypical brain and that’s okay!” i especially like the episode describing ADHDers as “hunters” while neurotypical folk are “farmers” and we are living in an agrarian society.

      3. CheeryO*

        I’m sorry; I relate to this so hard. I apologize for the unsolicited advice since I’m sure you’ve thought of this, but your sleep might be a big factor in your lack of energy/brain fog. I’m also a “small gas tank” person who exercises 5-6 days/week, and I can only function on 7.5+ hours of sleep (and preferably more like 8.5).

        1. Potato Girl*

          I’ve definitely thought of that, and tried it as well. My quality of life is equally diminished by having only 30 minutes of non-laboring timeper day.

          1. Potato Girl*

            Well, I guess that’s not quite correct. Things like laying out items for the next day, brush/floss/rinse, wash face, stability exercises prescribed my my physio to counteract the core atrophy from being deskbound all day, brief meditation practice, those things that take at least an hour all together don’t count as labor. Even though half of them I need to do because of work. But eVeRyOnE hAs ThE sAmE tWeNtY-fOuR hOuRs In A dAy!

      4. Arts Akimbo*

        Sorry, your therapist doesn’t think you’re depressed? Because you sound depressed. Time for a new therapist, maybe? Definitely ask your doctor about it.

        1. Arts Akimbo*

          I don’t mean for that to sound flippant– I just have been in the situation where I feel unheard and dismissed by my therapist, and it didn’t get better until I found a different therapist who took my concerns more seriously.

    7. Chronic Overthinker*

      For me I like to create SOP (standard operating procedures) for all of my regular tasks. It’s nice having a “checklist” of sorts to know that if I follow these steps that I should end up completing my task. I do it for everything from the mundane to the complicated. That way if I follow the steps, I know I did it right! And when I make a mistake, I know where in the checklist I get lost and can start over or revamp the instructions so I know I get it right the next time. Works for me, but that’s how I like to do things.

  34. Jenn*

    It is 100% amazing what leaving a toxic work place can do for someone. I’m two weeks in to a new position that is mostly virtual with a strong, supportive manager and one other team member. We roll into a larger team under a Sr. Director. Even though we are virtual, we have skype meetings daily to catch up on work and keep each other informed of what’s going on. I never had that at my brick and mortar company and I had to beg to work from home when I needed to.

    In these past two weeks, I’ve been sleeping better, have been less anxious and a lot happier about work. Why do companies insist on demonizing work from home and keeping micro managers in place when their work force is currently miserable?

    1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

      I’m really glad you’ve found such a healthy and supportive workplace! I hope you thrive there.

    2. Lemon Zinger*

      To answer your question… because they can.

      I left a similar workplace several months ago and a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. It’s wonderful. My new workplace is so awesome (working from home full time!) and I feel supported and respected.

      1. MissDisplaced*

        How to you get full time WFH jobs?

        I’m in an field (marketing & digital marketing) and you’d think this would be more prevalent, but it isn’t! I’ve only found a few 100% remote ones that meet my salary requirements. I’ve also applied for a few jobs that were a little too far away, but doable if remote w/occasional train like 1x per month. I’m always turned down.

    4. Impska*

      From the perspective of someone who is efficient when working from home, it seems obvious that all workplaces should allow work from home if at all reasonable. From the perspective of someone trying to manage a workforce, work from home can be a nightmare.

      First, understand that only about 25% of workers are able to work from home efficiently. For the rest, their productivity plummets to maybe half of their normal in-office productivity. Kids, spouses, television, pets, household chores, and simple accountability all collude to make working from home difficult for most people. Meanwhile, it’s much harder for a manager to offer input, guidance, or supervision to a workforce that is at home.

      If an owner can design a remote company from the ground up with working from home in mind, they can implement the systems and supervision to make it work. They will always be challenged to find the 25% of employees who will actually work efficiently, and find the rare management team that can manage people remotely, but at least they can apply it equally and find employees to fit. Trying to force work from home into a company that is not designed for it, and apply it equally to employees who may or may not be suited for it turns into a mess very quickly. It’s far easier to simply disallow it.

      Workplaces don’t demonize work from home because they can, or because they get off on the power trip. They demonize it because it hasn’t worked out for them in the past. And even if they feel that you, personally, would be a good for it, they can’t make exceptions, because then everyone will want to work from home.

  35. Marguerite*

    I think I’m the target for being made fun of by coworkers. I’ve experienced this before in the workplace where it’s a younger guy and older woman who are friends and they like to be snarky, play mind games, cause trouble with me.

    I wouldn’t care and would just ignore it, except I have to work with the guy and he just wants to create rivalries and drama. He is also the boss’s favorite, so going to the boss is not an option.

    Any advice?

    1. Sighhh*

      How exactly is this manifesting? Are they teasing you to your face, or making sarcastic comments, what kind of mind games? How they’re acting can inform how to play it.

      I have become a big fan of Alison’s suggestions to repeat back what they’re saying and ask for clarification, so they have to explain themselves. Even if you know exactly what they mean, it calls into stark attention how rude they’re being when they have to explain exactly what part of an insulting comment they found funny.

      1. Marguerite*

        It varies… Some of it is goofy like “Go to the third floor” and there is only 1 floor in the building. Other stuff is more like an inside joke/nudge nudge wink wink type of thing that is harder to call out. Other times they say stuff out loud, but I just ignore it.

        1. WellRed*

          Keep ignoring it. God, that’s irritating. They think this is what passes for funny? Perfect your eye roll or come up with a flat, very droll response to this crap. (Sorry, I’m coming up blank for suggestions).

          1. Jules the 3rd*

            I think your ‘Keep ignoring it’ is the right response, not trying to be flat / droll. Focus on your job, watch the drama like it’s television, and don’t give them any handles to pull you into it. Blandly pleasant, nothing more.

          2. Analytical Tree Hugger*

            I agree, keep ignoring them outside of what you need for your job and basic pleasantries (e.g. “Good morning, Butthead” as you walk by). Giving them a reaction will just make them want to do more.

            If they escalate, just give them a confused, neutral look (don’t try to smile or act like you get the joke), then turn back to your work or restate your question. “Right. So, where is the Office Of Necessary Professional Work Stuff?”

    2. LKW*

      When he tells you to go to the third floor – just go find an out of the way place. Disappear on “the third floor” – when they say they couldn’t reach you – just say “well I went to the third floor like you told me, not sure why you thought you could reach me there.” Wink wink.

    3. Marguerite*

      He seems to have a problem working with women in general. He’ll comment on their tone or expression. I’m taking it personally, when I think he would do it to anyone. He treats men differently and wouldn’t talk to them in this way.

  36. The Emperor's New Job*

    Does anyone have any suggestions for dealing with “impostor syndrome?”

    I am about 7 months deep in a job that that was both a career change and internal promotion from my previous administrative background. I’ve relished the opportunity–the fast past environment, constant skill-learning, new challenges, and general development have been fulfilling and exciting. My manager is excellent, and places a lot of importance on my growth and development into the role. Senior leadership is supportive and always remarking that they’re excited and lucky to have me. Our company as a whole has hired many people on our head office team out from the field, and believes that development and investment in your people makes for best practices.

    The trouble is, despite the welcoming, downright friendly atmosphere and great feedback, I can’t help but constantly feel somewhat out of place, like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Without giving too much away, I started in this company “in the field” in a very basic, no-experience-required job that is usually populated by college students and retirees. I have trouble focusing on the positives, which are that my work ethic and ideas have made me hirable and worthy of this position, and instead worry they’re going to realize that the emperor really isn’t wearing any clothes (the clothes, of course, being my great track record and recommendations). I’m at the point in this job where I’m starting to lead in my area rather than follow constant direction from my boss, and I’m terrified that I’ll not have what it takes to succeed and I’ll be unceremoniously thrust back where I started. Has anyone ever dealt with this before?

    1. Iris Eyes*

      Maybe there wasn’t where you really belonged maybe here is. Perhaps your skills and capabilities made you an imposter trying to be less than yourself when you were in that entry level position. Given what has happend that is just as likely.

      We have a C level employee right now who started off in an entry level manual labor position. He has grown and developed a lot over the intervening years but where you start is irrelevant to where you are going.

      When a queen works as a bar maid, it doesn’t make her an imposter at being a queen but rather an imposter when she was a bar maid.

    2. ReformedControlFreak*

      I have a question (mental exercise). What would it ACTUALLY take to be “unceremoniously thrust” whence you came? Like, realistically, a person with credentials and abilities identical to yours, what would they have to do to wind up back at the bottom? Is that even truly possible, considering the skills/experience they have built since they were last there?

      I have experienced hardcore imposter syndrome. I’ve been interviewed – on TV! – as an “expert” in my field and still managed to convince myself I’m a moron. It helps to separate facts from fears here. Make a T chart: one column is facts. Fact: you have been promoted. Fact: You know how to do XYZ. Fact: You are NO LONGER the person you were when you began.

      Your old identity was accurate once, but it’s gone out of style. You need to re-align your self identity with the facts of your situation.

  37. TheAdmin*

    Today in office food drama…

    I’m an executive assistant. There is a small fridge near my workspace that it used for beverages/snacks for visitors. Occasionally my boss or another one of the c-level people will put their lunch/snack in there.

    When I got my position and inherited the fridge, it was kept unlocked, but had the hardware to make it capable of being locked (the lock itself was kept in my desk). When I recently came back from a few days of vacation to discover that almost half of the beverages had disappeared, I decided to put the lock back on the fridge. It’s the kind of lock with a code, not a key, so I emailed all of the executives to inform them of why the lock was going back on there, and gave them the code. They were all understanding about it. (Since I know what they all like to drink, I’m confident that none of them took the beverages, plus it would have been fine if they had, so they would have told me).

    One coworker came to me the day after the lock went on to ask me to open the fridge because “for years” she has always kept a bottle of salad dressing in there. I didn’t know this; I had assumed it belonged to one of the executives. She doesn’t want to put it in one of the large shared fridges in the break room because it might get stolen/used (and it probably will!). However, she isn’t c-level. I explained that the fridge was really for visitors, and obviously if one of the c-level people wanted to keep something in there they could (which I thought was a big enough hint that she didn’t qualify to keep something in there). I also explained how it’s totally impractical that someone would have to open the fridge anytime she wanted the dressing, since I wasn’t going to share the code. Of course she ignored the first part and jumped on the 2nd, saying that she eats lunch with someone who DOES have the fridge code, so they could just get the dressing for her. I explained again that the fridge is really only intended for visitors, but I could also see where this was going…the dressing was going to all of a sudden belong to the friend with the code so that it could be “allowed” to be in there. I told her point blank that if she was going to play it that way, it “wasn’t the hill I want to die on.” So of course the dressing is still in there. I was a pushover because she was going to work around me anyway, so whatever. I (naively) figured it was over.

    Cut to a few days since, and I’ve overheard her telling several people how I “kicked her out” of the fridge (perhaps she’s doing it on purpose so that I hear, but I’m not sure). She even asked her boss (c-level) if their department could get their own mini fridge, and he kind of brushed it off, but it was clear that her argument was that they had to get their own fridge because I was being completely unreasonable, and that’s where I’m getting annoyed.

    I know I said this wasn’t the hill I want to die on, but I also don’t want to be bad-mouthed. Do I tell her I don’t like what I’ve been (over)hearing? Do I just change the lock on the fridge and give no one the code? Do I talk to my own boss? She’s super understanding, but this seems like the stupidest “issue” to bring to her.

    1. londonedit*

      If you’re within striking distance next time you hear her complaining about being ‘kicked out’, could you maybe jump into the conversation and say ‘We’ve had some unfortunate incidences of the drinks we supply for visitors being taken by members of staff, which is why we’re now locking the fridge. It’s for visitors and C-suite only’? Just be matter-of-fact but shut down the gossip. And I’d definitely bring it up to your boss – there’s no harm in saying ‘Look, I realise this isn’t the most pressing issue we all have to deal with, but Jane has really been making a fuss about this whole fridge thing, and she’s been saying I’ve “kicked her out” and generally badmouthing me to other people. I’ve explained why we’re locking the fridge now, but is there any chance you could have a word with her about it?’

      1. DataGirl*

        Ah, fridge /food drama. I’m sorry you are having to deal with it. I like londonedit’s suggestions, a brief convo with your boss, assuming they are the type to be open to that, would be good.

      2. You can't fire me; I don't work in this van*

        I agree with this strategy. Considering what a big deal she’s making about salad dressing, I’m inclined to wonder if she wasn’t helping herself to the drinks.

      3. cmcinnyc*

        You know what? It’s GOOD to have the rep that you will kick someone out of the fridge. If you are an admin at the C level, you don’t need people to like you, you need people to respect you professionally. People will snark that “Amanda is such a b! She kicked me and my salad dressing out of the fridge!” But down the line it will be, “No you can’t stash your lunch in that fridge. Amanda runs it for the c-suite and she is impossible.” Which becomes, “You can ask Amanda for a favor like twice a year. Make it count. Does the salad dressing rise to that level?” This is *not bad.* This will make your job so much easier.

        1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

          I think this is a great perspective to consider (although I think it isn’t the whole story).

    2. blink14*

      I personally would just ignore this and continue to operate with the rule that the fridge is really only for visitor and c-level use. Stick to that, and just keep repeating it. She will either badger her boss into buying a mini fridge or she’ll move it to one of the other fridges available. If it does blow up into a bigger problem that starts to interfere with your day – she’s asking you every day for the dressing, she’s continually talking to you about it, etc – then bring it up to your boss.

    3. Alice*

      I don’t even keep my salad dressing in the fridge at home. It’s just oil and vinegar…. I mean, maybe she likes a creamy salad dressing even those aren’t, say, mayo. Are they?

      1. Dragoning*

        A lot of salad dressings say “keep refrigerated after opening”

        And ranch is basically mayo with extra stuff in it.

    4. Dragoning*

      How I would have initially handled this was to go “Oh, of course!” and retrieved the salad dressing, locked the fridge, and refused to let her put it back in. “Oh, I’m sorry, we can’t do that,” ad infinitum.

        1. valentine*

          go “Oh, of course!” and retrieved the salad dressing, locked the fridge, and refused to let her put it back in. “Oh, I’m sorry, we can’t do that,” ad infinitum.
          This is great!

          I love that you didn’t have to lift a finger to kick her out and her friend stopped helping her and possibly refuses to be an accessory because she knew or realizes she stole the sodas.

          I told her point blank that if she was going to play it that way, it “wasn’t the hill I want to die on.”
          I misread this as you telling her it wasn’t the hill she wanted to die on. One option was to leave them to it and, if she used the code when the friend was out (and sodas were missing), then the friend violated protocol (and you’d know who the thief was). It sounds like the C-suite trusted your judgment, but you ceded ground to this person. You don’t have to do that. Enjoy your newfound power. I might smile when I hear her complain and I’d have to suppress a double snap/finger guns.

      2. TheAdmin*

        The problem is that I wasn’t the one to retrieve it! Like I said, she’s friends with someone who has the code, so she made them get it for her. I caught the friend putting it back in the fridge and played confused, saying “Oh! I didn’t realize she was going to put it back in there! I thought she understood this fridge is only for visitors! Huh! Don’t you think it would be weird for her to be the only person not in the c-suite keeping personal items in there?” Then when the friend brought the dressing back to her, she came to me and complained (and then got her friend to put it back in the fridge).

        1. TheAdmin*

          Update: I stand corrected, the dressing has recently been removed! I guess I must have been more authoritative than I realized. No wonder she’s telling anyone who will listen that I kicked her out, because she did actually remove it!

          I still have the issue of her now complaining about me to people, including to her c-level boss… but I’m going to take the perspective of another commenter, that it’s a GOOD problem to have a tough reputation!

          1. ee lemmings*

            some people like to make their own problems, so they can rail and cry and scream about them. it has nothing to do with reality, it is just an opportunity for them to complain about how unfair they are treated, how difficult they have things and the burden of being them.

          2. Threeve*

            If someone started complaining to me about another coworker who slightly inconvenienced their salad dressing, I would think, “okay, you’re obviously a bit of a thin-skinned dingbat, and you don’t have enough going on in your life. TheAdmin is probably a sane person with a backbone, good for her.”

            1. emmelemm*

              Right? She has another fridge she can keep the dressing in, it’s just not as convenient/secure/whatever as this fridge. Get Over It.

    5. Rey*

      Deliver the dressing to her desk today and lock the fridge. If you see it in there again and you absolutely know it’s hers, continue delivering it to her desk. Everyone else in the entire company has figured out where to put their lunch and how to deal with fridge thefts like an adult, and she can too. That part is not your problem to solve. I wouldn’t worry about changing the lock though, since you’ve already told the c-suite the code and I wouldn’t want to repeatedly send emails about the new fridge code.

      If you hear discussion about this, the aim is for a really bland and bored response, like “Oh, we’re still talking about this?” or “It must be slow if we’re still talking about this” followed by a change in topic.

      I would mention it to your boss, but again go for the most boring version, “Sansa has been obsessing about the fridge since I added the lock, so I wanted to flag it for you in case you hear about it.”

    6. Sondra Uppenhowzer*

      Hey Admin
      FWIW, having worked in multiple offices over many decades, I can tell you that as long as you are dispassionate about the fridge, and keep the clear message, “This fridge is for visitor refreshments and upper management”, the people in your office are not listening to Hiddenvalleyranch and thinking “Admin is being a jerk.” they are more likely thinking “HVR is entitled and pushy” – especially considering there is a communal fridge she has access to, and its the same one everyone she complains to is using.

      I would ignore HVR completely, as the only reputation she is hurting is her own.

      2. cmcinnyc*

        From now on, anyone kvetching excessively about the office fridge becomes Hiddenvalleyranch in my mind. Thank you for the much-needed laugh!

      3. It's business time*

        Totally agree, this looks bad on the salad dresser not on you. If I had someone whining about not being able to keep their salad dressing in the other fridge, I would be like – is that your biggest issue to complain about? If I was their boss, I would not be impressed that they are wasting my time complaining about it.

        This will be a reflection on her not on you. Don’t worry about it and just keep on doing what you are doing.

        I have been the exec assistant which has had to keep people from helping themselves to items by locking them away and I just told my boss what I did and how much $$ I was saving by being more conscientious

  38. CatCat*

    Kind of down this week. I have a relatively new-to-me supervisor who I don’t feel I have a productive relationship with. This person is fairly negative, but was downright cruel to me a couple of months ago. They did apologize for that, but ever since I am constantly anxious and on guard when talking to them. It didn’t help that they laughed when I admitted I was anxious about it happening again. I had a very collaborative relationship with the prior supervisor, but not with this one because I say “the wrong thing,” which means I stifle my ideas I would have shared in the past. I get so mentally wound up before I have to talk to them that I am exhausted (and frustratingly, teary, thank god I can close my office door) afterwards even if the interaction is neutral or positive-ish.

    I’m feeling down because this had previously been a really great job. I have tried neutralizing my thoughts/feelings about interacting with this person without success. This is negatively impacting me an probably my work. It is untenable for the long-term so I will dust off the resume and start low-key job searching. Just has me feeling low and I appreciate having a space to express this.

    1. But There is a Me in Team!*

      Sorry CatCat. I think what makes these situations particularly hard is that you’re holding up your end of the bargain and the rug gets pulled out from under you. It sounds like a job search and resume update will give you some control back. Also, can you limit your interactions to email? I have to do that with my office mean girl. She caught me off guard once and now takes too much pleasure in making me nervous. (I’m terrible at playing it cool, so she’s gotten me flat footed a couple other times.)

      1. CatCat*

        I limit all interactions as much as I possibly can. This person also fairly unresponsive to things I need so, unfortunately, emails tend to be ignored.

    2. Avasarala*

      Late but I feel you, CatCat. I also had a supervisor who wasn’t exactly cruel but was stricter than I was able to mentally handle at the time, and I became always anxious and on guard around them. It snowballed to the point that I avoided talking to them at all costs, even if it impeded my work. It’s not a tenable situation to be in and I really recommend you change jobs. It was a world of difference for me. I also recommend reflection and therapy so that you’re able to bounce back from negative situations more easily, even if the person you’re dealing with is cruel.

  39. Hamster*

    Thanks everyone for the advice in my last thread about how a conversation with HR goes and the one before that about maternity leave!

    My appointment went great! But I am still holding off on talking to HR. Sometimes I get a little anxious with no reason to be.

    Today’s flavor of the week is that “will my pregnancy affect my raise?” I’m at the highest level right now so I can’t get further promoted. Evaluations are done in August, and my edd is 8/6. I know losing my job would be illegal on FMLA but a raise/compensation…i’m not sure. 

    I have a supervisor on my team who will take over the months that I am away. He is great, but I am a little worried he will get overwhelmed.

    Some days can be pretty calm but other days are total sh*shows. I haven’t told him yet but he will be the second person I tell. Any advice on transitioning him? (I am not privy to whether his $$ or title will change).  

    Its funny, I was in his boat this time last year, my boss was going to go on paternity leave and I told him he has to train me on everything so I can make sure things run smoothly while he’s out. But I got promoted to a diff team and he made a lateral move so that never happened. 

  40. Lives in a Shoe*

    Property management questions here – specifically small university or university adjacent housing managers.

    Are you using property management software for move-outs? Any recommendations? What’s your threshold for “normal wear and tear”? Honestly, how much glitter, paint and glue is too much? LOL

    Can anyone recommend resources other than AFLV? If you live onsite, how do you find work life balance and a semblance of normalcy? I love my job but I’m 6 years in and starting to feel the strain and isolation. Any recommendations will be greatly appreciated!

  41. Anax*

    Anyone have experience with companies FIXING long-term technical debt?

    My company (a bank) has let things slide for at least a decade, so a lot of systems and assets are ancient and disorganized.

    (Apparently, one of my team members is using a laptop from 2009 or earlier… and no one was aware of this, despite the fact that using a 32-bit OS in this day and age causes lots of problems. Where is the asset management? Why is tech support incredibly slow and frankly incompetent? Argh!)

    The company has promised to work on the technical debt and make it a priority, but… how hopeful should I be? I’m in an IT-adjacent area, but technically part of HR, so I’m not able to see all the inner workings.

    (We do the systems which control commission and bonuses, so my mini-team is basically SQL developers, but we’re within a larger HR team.)

    1. Antilles*

      Do you have a sense of how bought-in the company actually is?
      If you’re a decade out of date on computer equipment (!), you’re effectively starting from scratch. Some data will prove impossible to transfer, there’s going to be a huge upfront investment to get current equipment, a big learning curve for personnel, some stuff is going to be finicky, and everybody is going to have to be extremely patient.
      If the company management has truly and firmly decided that “yeah, this is not working, we need to get our butt in gear”…then it’s entirely possible.
      But if it’s more of a “sure, this is a good thing to improve”, then I’d be a lot more skeptical. Not that they’ll entirely abandon the upgrade project, but it’ll be half-effort and starts/stops and etc.

      1. Anax*

        From the rhetoric, it’s one of the executives’ top three priorities for the next few years. Everyone knows it’s a huge problem.

        Not everything is a decade out of date, but a lot of things are. It’s a really disorganized mishmash, which I suspect is because some teams prioritize technical debt and some don’t. There’s going to be some investment in the equipment and probably specialist personnel, but likely not enough – company’s trying to save on costs, and that sticker shock is going to hurt.

        Worse, a lot of the IT department itself is poorly trained and incompetent, and the rest are overworked and have insufficient resources. It took four phone calls and 3.5 months to get a basic driver installed directly off Microsoft.com. The four phone calls were because the tech couldn’t figure out how to install a driver, and had to repeatedly get help. The help desk is widely known as the “unhelpful desk” and similar epithets.

        Some things are set up sensibly, but since there’s no overall structure, a lot of things conflict – like, it’s sane for non-IT folks to not have local admin, but when the help desk is incompetent and incredibly slow, AND I can’t do driver installs myself… I literally just rebuilt an Access database in another system, because it was faster than waiting for tech support to do a driver install – it’s been a month, and we’re still waiting on that.

        In theory, in 2020, all servers will be upgraded from SQL Server 2008 to SQL Server 2016, all computers will be upgraded to Windows 10, the point-of-sale-ish systems are going to be upgraded, and some other major projects are going to happen. We’ll see how that all shakes out – I’m not sure it’ll all get done.

        I’m trying to hammer things into this century on my end as much as I can, but… limited power, especially from outside the IT department.

        1. Working with professionals*

          Maybe suggest they bring outside experts to review current tech and network levels and make the upgrades needed. A company like MindShift does this sort of work and there are others as well. (I used to work for the parent company of this group but am no longer affiliated). A professional group from outside can usually manage the entire process more smoothly and provide training to all impacted teams, including the IT dept. when there may be more push back if only internal resources are used. Good luck!

          1. Anax*

            Unfortunately, it’s a big company, and I’m WAY too far down the totem pole to make that suggestion! There’s about five degrees of hierarchy between me and the folks making those decisions.

            Hopefully they do something of the sort, though.

    2. Daughter of Ada and Grace*

      I’ve got no experience with this on an infrastructure side, which is what it sounds like most of your references are to. I’ve got quite a bit of experience from the code standpoint (tl;dr – the devs decided to do it ourselves), and a little bit from a data management standpoint, which sounds more relevant to you.

      When I started working here, our database could have been a textbook example of 3rd-Normal-Form, except it was much, much bigger than any textbook example. We’ve been slowly refactoring the data structures and then migrating the data (in our case, this also involves changes to the code that reads and writes the data in question). But before we did that, we had to consider a) what data we had, b) what data we needed, c) how we used that data, and d) how that data was stored. Once we knew that, we could start making changes so the way we used the data was a lot closer to how the data was stored. (You do get more duplicated data this way, and you may get more tables, but the goal is for the data structure to match the business requirements, not some abstract concept of ‘no duplicated data, anywhere’.) Making small proof of concept models can help with this as well (to test if your ideas make sense, to show them to other people, and sometimes to show performance improvements (although those are often hard to tell until you’re at a larger scale)).

      1. Anax*

        Yeah, IT’s code is probably problematic, but it’s also not something I have direct access to outside our team.

        (The code and databases on our team are… being upgraded. There’s stuff that was done by contractors ten years ago which is a mess, but it’s about 90% replaced.

        We’re required to use a program which sits on top of SQL Server for compliance/regulatory reasons, which basically guarantees that we can’t edit old data – no editing payroll after the fact – but which has some arbitrary and obnoxious restrictions that make the code fairly messy. It doesn’t have booleans or string concatenation, ffs. Unfortunately, that means everything runs more slowly than it should; we’re trying to make the models sane, but we have limited control over them.

        Otherwise, we’re working on yearly changes to bonuses and commission, building better user-facing reports, pulling data from new IT systems, and decommissioning old ancillary messes like Access databases.)

        There’s definitely a lot of sense in reorganizing data to match how it’s used, and that’s been a priority on my team, though obviously it’s a long-term initiative! Slowly making things better; the nightly data pull and calculations are down under an hour, which isn’t too awful.

        1. Daughter of Ada and Grace*

          Oh, yes, reorganizing data is a very long term thing. It’s easiest when you need entirely new data, because you can build (or have it built) to your current business needs. When you’ve got old data, across multiple sources (be that multiple tables in one database, or multiple databases) or used in multiple places, it gets much, much harder, because you have to make sure that data remains properly accessible everywhere it’s used for the entire time. We’ve got some stuff we’re only just now trying to untangle, and only a very tiny piece of it (data that gets written once, and is read only after that – think a timestamp and a source IP address).

    3. Jules the 3rd*

      No advice, but SQL developers trying to work with a 2009 machine on today’s databases and pipes? My deepest sympathies to that person. DEEPEST.

      1. Anax*

        Thankfully, that person’s not a developer – which is why we didn’t find out until last month. :P

        My team is half analysts / customer service, half developers. It’s kind of a weird mishmash – someone has to answer questions, do data entry (I know, it’s awful), etc., and someone needs to code it up so everyone is paid correctly.

        It’s still causing major problems, of course, since almost no one uses a 32-bit OS anymore, which means this person probably hasn’t been getting application updates for years…

    4. ReformedControlFreak*

      A bank with terrible IT?! How is this accounted for in your business continuity plan? This definitely introduces an enormous amount of risk, which is not only an inconvenience but has measurable impact on the bottom line. Especially as a bank, or anybody in financial services, you’d think that IT infrastructure needs to be a priority.

      1. Anax*

        Believe me, I know. It’s terrible. There’s barely a computer use policy, everyone is using Office macros, and no one seems to be using source control. I’m still figuring out how deep the rabbit hole goes.

        I don’t know, but I imagine the auditors are… very interested in technical upgrades, which may be part of the reason for this initiative. It also may be that some critical areas are better handled, like network security. I do hope so. :\

    5. A Non E. Mouse*

      The company has promised to work on the technical debt and make it a priority, but… how hopeful should I be? I’m in an IT-adjacent area, but technically part of HR, so I’m not able to see all the inner workings

      How much money are they throwing at it, and how many people in IT are assigned to the task?

      The answers should be 1) A LOT and 2) ALL OF THEM.

      If those aren’t the answers, have no hope.

      Tech costs money, and time to implement. Without both being squared away, the project is doomed.

      As an aside, the worst part of technical debt is all the inter-dependencies ancient stuff has with other ancient stuff. So some of this will take a lot of time to untangle; and a decent portion of the front end should be a risk assessment that gives the company a list of “quick hits” they can implement.

      What those might look like to the end user:
      1) New requirements for passwords, and hopefully multi-factor authentication.
      2) Mentions of a new firewall, or new firewall parameters.
      3) Certain browsers being disallowed.
      4) So many Windows updates!
      5) Tightening of access privileges – you could lose access to stuff you didn’t even know you had access to
      6) Lots of “system maintenance” messages being sent about overnight and weekend maintenance windows. These will most likely be server updates, but could also be firewall upgrades.

      If you hear they are spending a lot of money, that there are a bunch of people working on it, and see some or all of those signs, they are at least *trying* to make it better.

      If you don’t see any of that, they are flapping their arms around and won’t actually accomplish anything.

    6. Qwerty*

      Yes. It is difficult, takes a lot of effort, and often involves putting any new development on hold for a while in order to focus on resolving the debt.

      That last point is often why companies let it fester, because they would rather fix bugs or chase new features/opportunities in order to grow revenue. So they way to fix debt without redirecting your current tech department is to bring in outside contractors to help. There are many firms that offer this service (I currently work at one of them and am helping clients get into all of the latest technologies and best practices).

      One of the best ways to help push management to fix the problem is to get a price tag attached to *not* fixing it. So document issues that you are having, like how it takes a month to get a driver installed and what the cost associated with that delay is. Since you are part of HR, this might also include documenting if people are leaving because of the technical difficulties or if you are losing out on good candidates.

      With how out of date everything is, it is also possible that this is a factor in your slow IT department. A huge part of IT or helpdesk work is “Google the problem” and the solution for a problem on a very old piece of hardware may be to replace it. I’ve worked with good IT people who get completely stuck when dealing with really out of date systems. On the flip side, having really out of date systems will not attract top IT candidates and often demotivates the good people on that team. Bad systems encourage people to not care.

      The goals that you described sound like they may be ambitious and would require a lot of pain to go from something that old to the new versions. People often underestimate the amount of time it takes to upgrade the systems, and the amount of fallout that will happen. If they start upgrading, be patient and be prepared for lots of things to break. It is just inevitable in these situations. The older your system, the more hidden issues that will appear once someone pokes the bear. It will probably feel like it is moving at a glacial pace, but with fragile systems with super important data (like finance!) require extra caution.

  42. Amber Rose*

    So, due to the switch in our accounting and inventory managing system not going remotely smoothly, we’ve been doing all our work since early December in a test environment. We finally got into the live yesterday. Which means everything for the last month has to be re-entered, since the test environment was wiped. Also the new system isn’t totally compatible with the old so I have to stop at every other step to get new inventory created or adjustments made or whatever.

    I have four piles on my desk right now of work. I worked through them all day yesterday and barely made a dent. I want to cry.

    Sometimes looking at the big picture just makes you want to change your name and start a new life in another country.

    1. DataGirl*

      That’s awful, I’m so sorry! Why didn’t they transfer the data from test to live? I would be so frustrated.

      1. Amber Rose*

        They couldn’t, because the test environment wasn’t using the inventory numbers from the count we did after Christmas, so the accounts wouldn’t match up. All inventory had random amounts assigned, and nothing was linked to POs. Plus, it being a test environment, a lot of things were done wrong just to see what would happen without the actual consequences.

    3. Dancing Otter*

      Try to convince them to get some temps to work through the backlog. (Transition costs are generally capitalizable, if that makes a difference with the budget.) Six weeks of duplicate entries is an unreasonable burden on regular personnel. Trying to cheap out never saves money in the long run.

      Is your company on a calendar year reporting schedule? How are you managing the annual report and audit, if you were operating in a test environment at year-end which has been erased? How can the company support their year-end inventory balances? This sounds like a textbook example of audit exceptions, either a qualified or an adverse opinion.

  43. curly sue*

    I just need reassurance here. Academic job opening, competition closes Monday the 20th. I put in my application and dossier this morning, and sometime between when I checked the address for the millionth time this morning around 8 am, and when a reference went to look at the posting to work on my reference letter around 11 am today, the posting was deleted off the site. (I had a copy to send to my reference, so no drama there.)

    This is probably just a timer or automated removal on University Affairs’ job listings, right? Not a sign that they actually closed the posting early?

    1. Jellyfish*

      Unfortunately not reassuring, but they might have closed it? The budget for new jobs can fall through at the last minute – spring enrollment is down, another department made a stronger case, internal politics led to the opening being delayed, etc.

      Hopefully just an error or a timer though! Best of luck

      1. curly sue*

        The posting is still up on the actual Uni website, so fingers crossed that it was just a job board deletion. I hate this time of year.

        1. Jellyfish*

          Ah, I read it as the school itself pulled their whole posting down. You’re probably good to go then.

        2. Ama*

          It is entirely possible (I say this as someone who helped admin a bunch of faculty position job postings when I worked at a university) that the job board charges a fee for posting the job for a certain length of time and it expired.

          If you are in the U.S., it could also be possible that because the 20th is a holiday, either someone at the university or someone at the job board canceled the posting today so it wouldn’t be up after the deadline.

        3. blackcat*

          Was it a paid listing site? If so, I’d assume that they paid for the add to run for X days rather than X+30 when the deadline was going to be X+3. Or just an error.
          But also… sometimes academic jobs just vanish. Funding goes poof. New dean decides to cancel a search. It sucks, but it happens.

    2. bassclefchick*

      Well, if you’re in the U.S., Monday is a Federal Holiday. My University is closed on Monday. That may have something to do with it?

  44. Anongineer*

    Just wanted to say a huge thank you to Alison and this community! I’ve posted before about my most recent job that turned out to be nothing like what was promised, and once I got my PE started applying to all the jobs that I thought would be reaches. Using the cover letter and interview help, I’ve gotten hits on all of my applications, and it’s looking likely that I’ll be moving to Japan soon for a new Project Manager job!! It would be a huge step up, and a definite change in responsibilities (and of course all the nerves that come with moving to a new country and taking on a ton of new challenges) but it’s what I’ve been working towards in my career and I’m so excited!

    TL;DR moving to Japan for a new challenging job yay!

    2. MissDisplaced*

      Moving to Japan would scare the crap out of me, and I work for a Japanese company!

      But it does sound exciting for you and congratulations!

  45. Lore*

    A friend is getting a total runaround from an HR rep over a phone interview for a job she really wants (and I think would be great at; I saw her application materials). HR emailed 1/7 asking to set up a phone interview ASAP; friend responded with available times on 1/8-1/10 and noted she was flexible but late afternoon was preferable. (Recruiter is on West Coast so that would keep it out of conflict with current job.) HR didn’t respond till evening of 1/10, then offered a midafternoon slot on 1/14. Super inconvenient, but friend accepted because the back-and-forth was already stressing her out. HR didn’t call or pick up when friend called her 10 minutes past the agreed-on time. HR reached out again Tuesday evening but then flaked again at the next appointment. My friend would really love to be considered for this job, but is there anything she can do? HR is the only point of contact she has.

    1. Dragoning*

      I don’t know that your friend can do anything, but I would encourage her to think about what it would be like to work at a company with HR like this. It might at least soothe the sting a bit.

      1. CupcakeCounter*

        Could be 3rd party HR – I had an interview last summer that used an offsite recruiting team. Although in my case the 3rd party team was amazing compared to the actual company.

  46. DarthVelma*

    I’m not sure if I need advice or just to vent. Anyway, I work in the central office of an agency with multiple regional offices around my state. Specifically, I’m the expert on our data system (both on entering data into it and getting data out of it for reporting purposes). We just had a new person join the central office staff from one of the regional offices and she’s hitting some sore spots for me that I don’t think she intends to. And I explained to her yesterday that it isn’t her. It’s the unintended message she’s bringing me from the field.

    She keeps talking about the way they did things in her office (and the other regional offices she now monitors). And it’s just making me crazy. Apparently there are things that I’ve told them to do for years (and written procedures for that they are supposedly required to follow) and they JUST. AREN’T. DOING. THEM. In some cases, the staff responsible for the data entry didn’t even know the procedure existed. AND IT’S ON OUR WEBSITE. ARGH!!! It’s making me feel a bit like I’ve been talking to a wall for the past decade.

    One of the things I’ve always really enjoyed about my job is the customer service aspect of it. People need to know how to do something or whether they’re doing it right…they come to me. And we talk it through and I give them guidance. Which apparently they don’t follow if they don’t like what I tell them.

    Even through the worst times with the horrible boss we used to have, I didn’t really consider quitting because I could avoid her and spend my time working with the field staff. I’d tell myself I didn’t work for her, I worked for them. And I feel a bit like they’ve pulled that support out from under me.

    I still don’t know that I’m contemplating quitting, I enjoy the data reporting part of my job a lot and being the data nerd is a bit part of my self-concept. But I’m feeling pretty down right now about the other part of my job that I really enjoyed. And I don’t know quite what to do.

    1. JustaTech*

      That sucks, and I’m sorry. I know how it feels when you spend a bunch of time training folks, writing documentation, all that jazz to fix *their* problems and then 6 months later you hear (in a roundabout way) that they’ve completely stopped listening to you and went back to bad old habits.

      For me, since I’m in a regulated environment, I can just keep insisting on training and that things *must* be done this way.
      For you, would it help to reach out to some of your regional offices and ask them *why* they aren’t following your procedures? And maybe also ask where they go for answers when they don’t know something? You might find out that they don’t think there is any information on the website (Bob told Sherry 10 years ago the website was worthless and no one has looked since).
      It’s super frustrating, but since you’ve already proved you’re a problem-solver, would it help for you to think about this in the same way?

    2. Not So NewReader*

      Always be careful around the pronoun “they”. Seek to find out who “they” is, this means naming names or naming particular groups of employees.

      So far what I see here is a new person is saying they aren’t following procedures. This is a new person assessment of things and we still don’t know who “they” is.

      As to the procedures themselves, if there is no fallout for not doing the procedures then people probably won’t do the procedures. Just my opinion but employees today do not do regular work, they just run from fire to fire trying to contain the damage.

      Breathe.
      Collect specific information.
      Go to your boss, review the info and ask what can be done.

    3. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      “she’s hitting some sore spots for me that I don’t think she intends to”: This is an emotional reaction from you but don’t attribute it to her. What it sounds like happened is that she’s reported back to you that the other offices (?) aren’t doing things according to the proper procedures and you have only just found out about this (due to her being new-to-you and so reporting back more frequently I suppose).

      “I explained to her yesterday that it isn’t her. It’s the unintended message she’s bringing me from the field” — so I infer you have actually ‘blown up’ or at least expressed some emotional reaction towards her? Maybe more than once?

      You need to take it up with those people – either directly, or via someone who’s your “liaison” with those offices, or management, or whatever makes sense in your situation.

      Do you have written procedures (I assume yes as it’s on your “website”?) – do you know that the regional office have access to that, or have been told about it? Maybe they feel they are in the dark about how to do this stuff so are just making a best guess and then info gets handed on from person to person?

    4. Ann Perkins*

      Try to turn this into a positive. Did she participate in any trainings or customer service events you’ve done? Ask her how field staff could be reached better. Is there a particular person? Is it turnover? Outdate notes? Is the website easy to navigate and understand?

      The position you are in isn’t fun, but it’s worth exploringz

  47. But There is a Me in Team!*

    What do people thing of the maxim “Spend 20% of the time thinking about the problem and 80% working on the solution” as applied to job hunting? Has anyone ever tried this or something similar? I like the idea in general (has helped me with anxiety) but so much of the job getting process is not under your control. My husband is just starting a job hunt but it’s not going very well. Just looking for ways to be supportive besides “but I think you’re great!”

    1. ReformedControlFreak*

      I’m not really a fan of maxims in general because they don’t encompass the nuances of real life. The way I would be supportive to a partner is by helping to look for opportunities, offering to proof their resume/cover letters, practice interview Qs, and generally just be very interested and engaged in what’s going on. It’s all personal preference, but i like feeling like we’re team members and we both enjoy feeling like we’re attacking the same issues side by side.

    2. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      Who said that?!

      If anything I’d say it’s the opposite i.e. spend 80% thinking about (assuming that is actual analytical thinking and strategy etc, not just ruminating) and 20% applying the solution!

    3. WheezyWeasel*

      I used to look at job hunting as something that was only done when you were completely and utterly fed up with working for your current employer…you’d given them tons of opportunity to fix the problems and have gotten to a point where you are seething with internal rage each time you go into the office. I had to mentally ‘break up’ with the job in my head like it was a relationship. Then I’d throw myself into sending out applications and tell myself it was a numbers game. You have to send out X number of applications to get Y number of interviews to get Z number of offers. And when I got the offer, I had painted myself into a corner: the need to escape my breakup job was overpowering and I didn’t consider whether the new job was going to be a better solution. This was magnified by the amount of time the job search took: after several months, I’d drastically revise my acceptance criteria from ‘a good job’ to ‘anything other than here’. Thus, I’d applied your 20/80 maxim: I spent only 20% of the time looking at the problem and 80% doing what I could control- my own work effort towards fixing the problem. Yet I was often left in the exact same situation in the new job.

      Once I found this website, I changed my strategy by revamping my search criteria, cover letter and resume, and my XZY ratios started to greatly improve. These are the things I *can* control in my job search. I probably get a hit on 1 of every 10 resumes that I sent out, even if it was just an introductory meeting with the recruiter and found out that it wasn’t suitable. Mentally, I was able to relax a bit more. My job search wasn’t going to take as much time and mental effort as it did with the first strategy. I flipped the effort around and started to put in 80% of the time on the front end, and not just revising the credentials. I started asking a lot of Allison’s screening questions during these introductory meetings – are we on the same page related to salary, commute, remote work, startup culture…things that were my deal breakers. It seemed counterintuitive, as I was getting more hits for interviews but being ruthless in rejecting them if the initial signs weren’t positive. But it kept me out of my ‘escape this job’ mentality where I was before.

      I still struggle with a vague feeling of disloyalty to my current job when I am constantly searching, but it’s much better for my mental health. If your husband is in a tolerable job now, it might help him to switch up this thinking, but if he is also in escape mode, it may be difficult to switch.

  48. Tuckerman*

    Working from home today. The dog was quiet as a mouse. The second I made a phone, he started barking up a storm. Of course. Will have to go back to crating him for calls and moving to the other side of the house. Or to the car.

      1. AnotherAlison*

        Also working from home today, and my problem is my bored husband. I’m trying to read a pretty boring document while he is chatting with friends on the phone or watching videos. : |

    2. Bostonian*

      I can relate! I am also working from home today. Before taking a work call in my office, I shut the door with the cats out so that I could talk without interruption. About halfway through the call, my kitten decided she HAD to be in the office with me, started meowing like crazy from outside the door, and then used her newly-learned trick of opening closed doors, and barreled into my lap. Time to start using the door locks!

      They’re lucky they’re so cute, amirite?

    3. The Green Lawintern*

      My partner works from home some days – during one meeting, our dog began to bark in her sleep (her sleepytime barks sound…weird) and he got a couple worried inquiries from his coworkers asking if the dog was ok.

      1. AvonLady Barksdale*

        Mine makes the BEST sleepy noises and sometimes I can hear them from across the apartment. My headset is really good and only picks up my voice (unless there’s, say, an alarm nearby) but sometimes I actually WISH my colleagues and clients could hear my dog’s barky dreams. (Yes, I do record them on video to show to my partner when he gets home.)

    4. Not So NewReader*

      My dog is part husky. He makes all kinds of sounds similar to woo-woooo-wooo. Sometimes the sounds actually make sense, “wi wuv wuuu” (I love you). So I interview for a temp job at one point. I thought he would be okay because the last time we sat on the bed and I rubbed his belly he was fine. I ended up explaining to the interviewer that he was fine the last time we did this. And yes, he probably does love her. Fortunately, she laughed and I got the job.

    5. Lizzo*

      When I sit at my kitchen island for video conference calls, my dog will frequently stand on the armchair behind me, which puts him squarely in the bottom left corner of the video screen. He’ll stay quiet if he gets treats throughout the call. Thankfully my colleagues are all dog lovers and think he’s adorable…and smart for figuring out a way to participate in the call!

  49. Existentialista*

    As it’s Annual Performance Review time, I was talking to my direct boss about what I’ll need to take the next step in my career, which would be from Manager to Director, and I thought I’d ask you as well: What are the biggest differences between a Manager and a Director role, and what are the biggest differences in the skills you need to succeed at the higher level?

    For reference, I work in a big, global manufacturing company in a white collar office job.

    1. Jenn*

      From my perspective:
      A manager manages people/teams and workflow. They’re more tactile day to day people for questions.

      A director manages the manager who has the duties above plus working through new workflow processes, reporting findings to upper management, budget responsibilities etc. A director tends to be more product based while still having oversight of the manager and teams.

      (this is from an insurance perspective. YMMV)

    2. Stornry*

      Kind of out of my wheel-house but my org has a couple of top-team vacancies just now with the retirement of the last old-guard department veteran. My 2-cents to my boss was to think about his long-term vision for the department. As in: emerging leaders need to know where the industry seems headed, what new “stuff” or initiatives might come up, or how the future looks? Being prepared with what the future may hold, how to take the company to the next level or through the next decade, and how to get from here to there. that kind of thing.

    3. Not So NewReader*

      Director does more visionary type work. Plans for next year, next five years, etc.

      I think a director has more contacts outside of their company and various type of professionals, sometimes professionals whose work maybe totally unfamiliar to the director.

      I think there is even more emphasis on diplomacy. People look at the director and see The Company.

    4. Existentialista*

      Thank you three for these thoughtful replies! I’ll set my sails for the future, and hope to work my way into this new role.

    5. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      A bit off topic but is this an American thing to have so many people (relatively speaking) in companies at ‘Director’ level?

      In all the companies I’ve worked at in the UK there are a very small number of Directors at a company (who may or may not be on the Board of Directors and owning shares etc) e.g. Director of Sales, Director of HR etc (one per ‘function’ in the company).

      Can anyone shed any light?

      Here I’ve never seen anyone be “promoted from Manager to Director”, they are 2 completely separate strata of people.

      1. fhqwhgads*

        I don’t know if this is universal, but I am American and this has been my experience:
        In smaller companies ( <100 people) for the branches in an org chart to be something like…Associate Doer, Doer, Senior Doer, Doing Manager, Director of Doing. And that's a department. So the first three report to the Doing Manager and the Doing Manager reports to the Director. There's a CEO, but probably not a C-suite per se (in other words, the CEO is the only C there). Directors are department heads. They're senior staff. That's as high as it goes. If the company has 7 departments, there are 7 directors. That's an example where you'd see "promoted from Manager to Director".
        But in larger companies there are lot more tiers in there, and thus more people at the Not The Highest levels. So maybe it'd be Associate Doer, Doer, Senior Doer, Lead Doer, Primary Doer, Doing Manager, Director of Doing, Vice President of Doing, Senior Vice President of Doing, Chief Doing Officer. There might be a couple of Directors of Doing (where maybe there's some nuance on the split of what each handles, even if they have identical titles). There's probably only one VP of Doing and there may or may not be an SVP of same depending on what Doing really is outside of this fake example.

        But if your question is more "is it possible for all Managers to do excellent work and land themselves at Director level in general", I'd say no, not usually. There wouldn't be unlimited Director spots available. It's still a specific post that exists or not. I do consider it a next logical step for a Manager looking to be promoted. But it's different from, say, a Doer working their ass off to get promoted to Senior Doer, where (other than for budget reasons) there aren't necessarily a finite number of Senior Doer positions available. It's more a reflection of the level you're working at and you could get the "Senior" designation just by being excellent, not by an existing one leaving. Is that the type of distinction you're wondering about?

      2. JR*

        In many companies, Director is the title above manager and below VP. So yes, totally normal career path to be promoted from manager to director, though of course the narrowing hierarchy means not all managers will be. Directors are either the top of middle management or the bottom of senior management – probably more the former.

        Public companies and nonprofits (and some private companies) also have boards of directors, but that’s totally different (and those people are more likely to be referred to individually as “members of the board of directors” than as “directors”).

  50. Spooncake*

    Does anyone have any advice, scripts, experience etc for bringing up a new long-term health issue at work when you already have chronic illnesses that are known about and accommodated?

    Without going into diagnoses (not least because I don’t have one for the latest nonsense yet), things seem to be getting worse before they get better, and while I have no worries about my manager understanding my need for assistance and flexibility, I don’t know how to discuss my potential need for even more of those things without getting upset or embarrassed.

    For context, I’m in the UK, and my existing conditions are covered by the Equality Act.

    1. But There is a Me in Team!*

      Sorry that you’re going through this Spooncake. Do you have to disclose the new condition, or can you request the additional support/ accommodation and let it be assumed that it’s part of your already-known illness? People tend to follow your lead with these things so if you are matter-of-fact and don’t spend a lot of time on it. “I wanted to let you know that due to my health I’m going to be asking for________ Thanks so much.” IDK anything about your Equality Act vs. HIPPA here is hte US but I NEVER give an employer more info about health than they need. Seen too many people get let go for using too much sick time. Good luck!

      2. Spooncake*

        I think I might have to disclose *some* info about it, particularly as it’s likely to change my sick time/days working at home to a more regular pattern. I’ll certainly take your advice to keep things quick and simple though :)

    2. fposte*

      Do you have a request for new accommodation right now? I don’t think I’d bring it up unless I had a request to make; I think the general notifications end up creating implicit expectations that are hard to manage on both sides. If I did have a request, it would be along the lines of “Manager, the Dread Plague isn’t responding like the doctors had hoped and things are in fact slightly worse; we’re hoping that they’ll be better by April, but in the meantime I’d like to request shorter hours/standing desk/whatever. Let me know what you need from me to make that happen.”

      1. Spooncake*

        No requests yet- just trying to figure things out ahead of the likely outcome of current treatment. Right now it looks like I’ll need more accommodation for a while and then (hopefully) back to the level I’m at now, so your suggestion is actually going to be really helpful, thank you!

    3. Jemima Bond*

      Do you have any occupational health services at your company? In my (UK/govt) agency that’s where I’d start.
      If not how about talking to your manager along the lines of, you know I have some reasonable adjustments in place? Unfortunately I have some further issues and need to review those adjustments somewhat [review can include add to, imho]. Is there someone else I need to speak to to get those signed off, or can we meet in private to discuss? Then (given the latter) you could recap that owing to your chronic Wakeen’s Syndrome you require x and y adjustment, but of late you’ve also been have some symptoms that are having z effect so you really need z adjustment as well, how can we sort this out?
      I’m thinking “symptoms that mean I need z adjustment” gets into your personal business less than describing those said symptoms in detail, perhaps?

  51. From the academy*

    Business travel as an invitee. For the first time, I have been invited to travel and it is being paid for by an entity other than my company. This is three weeks away. I have received my airline tickets but no other information besides the meeting schedule.
    It is international US to Europe.
    What should I ask them. Would it be typical for them to provide transportation from the airport? I don’t even know the hotel.

    1. londonedit*

      Just ask them anything you can think of that they haven’t specified, it’s all information that you need for the trip so I’m sure they won’t mind being asked.

      ‘As you know, my trip to X is coming up on [date] and I was wondering whether you have an update on the itinerary so that I can make any necessary plans? Do you have the address of the hotel, and will transportation from the airport be provided or should I make my own arrangements (and if so, are you able to provide recommendations for taxi companies or other travel options?)’

    2. Welling*

      Is there someone at your company that you can ask? Maybe someone who has done a similar trip with this entity in the past? In my experience on business trips, it is standard to have your flight, hotel, airport transportation, and either meal reimbursement or per diem paid for by your employer. Since you’re traveling for a 3rd party, they may cover all of the expenses or maybe only pay for the flight and expect your employer to cover the rests of the costs.

    3. Auntie Social*

      Ask if there is a block of rooms with a discount code for the event. If someone asked me that then I’d say “oh no, your room is paid for, we’re at the Dorchester”. Or that would remind me that I hadn’t given you the hotel information so you could book a room. And it’s so late, the hotel may be sold out.
      What airport are you flying into? Some have shuttles.

    4. Orange You Glad*

      TLDR: Print off your hotel details in case your phone doesn’t work, research any money exchanging in case you need it, & confirm details of how you’re getting places BEFORE you fly there!

      I was invited to speak in Budapest and they paid for it so I purchased the $1500 flight & she immediately reimbursed me.

      I flew out of Seattle, had a 2 hr layover in Paris (I thought I’d have time to browse the airport shops there but it took so long just to get through international security and then from one gate to the other that I barely made it!), and then landed in Budapest.

      I had all the contact details on my phone so I (who had never traveled internationally before) assumed I would simply call them when I landed and then catch a cab from the airport to the hotel or they would pick me up? Nope!

      There isn’t any AT&T phone service in Budapest so my phone didn’t work so I couldn’t call and couldn’t access their contact details. I knew the hotel because it’s famous & I had researched it on Wikipedia but I couldn’t remember the name? And I had no money for a cab so I had to exchange my American dollars in a machine & hope that I got it right! Also, there are “fake cabs” that pick up tourists at the airport but then drop you off somewhere random & rob you?

      I finally found an airport tourist help desk, explained to the exasperated woman the story of the hotel from Wikipedia and she told me the name, showed me how much of the unfamiliar cash to give the cab driver that she said is contracted with the airport so it’s not a “fake cab”. And I arrived at the hotel where the event organizers had been frantically emailing me trying to figure out why I hadn’t called them from the airport as planned!

      It was quite the messy adventure, I learned a lot, they paid for my hotel & meals while at the event, and then put me on the hotel shuttle back to the airport when it was time for me to go home.

      1. public facing librarian*

        Thank you all. This is just the kind of information and language that I was looking for. The invitation and subsequent emails stated plainly that my expenses would be paid. I am going to Italy. The flight has been paid for and I have my tickets and seat assignments. There is a layover in Amsterdam on the way and one in Charles deGaul on the way back. I will craft an email to nail down the details.

  52. Llama Wrangler*

    I think there was a question about this recently, but for people in non-profits or other mission-driven work — how do you find a balance in professional settings between finding meaning in your work and keeping emotional distance from it (it’s just work)? 
    This came up because I was at a meeting recently for my professional organization, and we did a sort of hokey exercise in which we had to share examples of how we found “joy” in our work. I’ll put the source article in a comment. Some of them seem like good strategies (not being a perfectionist) and some seemed over the top (make even mundane tasks fun by approaching them with curiosity).
    I do care about the work I do and don’t want to just feel like I’m going through the motions, but I also feel like it should be acceptable for more people to say “We’re just workers! It’s okay for us to define ourselves by what we do outside of the office, not in it.” Part of my jadedness might be because I’ve been in the field for 10 years, and I also am at a point that I think our field oversells what the long term impact of our work is. Should I just suck it up and accept that this kind of mission cheerleading is part of the work? 

    2. Stornry*

      You could always say: “I find joy in a job-well-done; in knowing I can go home at the end of the day having done my part to keep the organization functioning well and rolling along.”

    3. Not So NewReader*

      I only scanned the article but this seems to me to be the type of thing that is targeting long term employees who may be feeling a bit jaded. Sorry, that is the way it hit me.

      I was at an NPO for 11 years and I was done. I did many of the things listed in the article to try to hang on. I am sorry, but it felt like desperate measures to me. If I have to work this hard to get myself out the door I need to wake up to reality.

      My current job and a prior job were also long term stays. I never had to go through these steps to get myself on track for the workday or workweek. I just went to work. Even now, at my current job, I go out the door to work. And my arena is in the news for having major difficulty right now. I can keep going because I work with awesome people who pull together as a group. I may be uncertain about a number of aspects of my setting but I am very certain I can find someone who will help me out.

      Yeah, the article felt to me like this is what to say when an employee is going no where fast.

      As to your direct question regarding how to define ourselves, from an employer’s perspective they are never, ever going to encourage an employee that what the employee does after work defines their life. No employer anywhere will say that.

  53. Aerin*

    Hoo boy, I’ve got a good one.

    The husband (H) recently moved from a sales position at MegaCorp, where he did a stint on a specialized national team, to software development at a smaller company. A couple of days ago, a manager in a different department came up to him, kind of excited, because they’d just hired a guy who used to be on the same MegaCorp national team to come train their sales team. Manager asked H to sit in on the meeting, thinking it was a fun coincidence that they would know each other.

    H gets into the meeting, and Consultant is a dude he’s never seen before. The presentation gets started, and it’s all soulless MegaCorp stuff about milking your customers for everything they have–which definitely isn’t sitting right with H, because MegaCorp sold to companies and his new company sells to individuals.

    Finally, he raises his hand toward the end. “I’m sorry, this isn’t really sounding like it applies much to our business. I think I might have missed it, what did you say your background was?”

    “Oh, I worked for MegaCorp, which is [largest company in its industry], as a national teapot expert.”

    “See, that’s really weird,” H presses, “because I also worked for MegaCorp on that same team as a national *spout* expert. And there’s only been about 50 of us in the entire history of the company, and I’ve never seen you before.”

    Consultant goes white, stammers some explanation, and quickly wraps up the meeting.

    Manager seeks out H later in the day to let him know they dug further into Consultant’s credentials. Turns out he worked for MegaCorp in a front-line sales position in a different city. He must have thought he was safe to pick this really obscure team and title to elevate his credentials and score this fancy new gig. “Yeah, so he’s been fired,” Manager says.

    Consultant has to be wondering what ancient curse he invoked to end up in the same room, at a different company in a different state, with one of 50 people in the entire world who could immediately catch him in the lie.

    2. fposte*

      Heh. Sounds like Husband played his hand very carefully there, too. I hope that social media response keeps Consultant from trying this again.

    8. Not So NewReader*

      Karma.

      My husband lost a cohort. Cohort turned up at Friend’s Company. Husband informed Friend of what he knew from when he worked with Cohort. [Insert Wild Stories here.] Friend cued in his boss. It wasn’t long and sure enough, things took a turn for the weird. And then things got seriously weird.
      Meanwhile Cohort had no idea that my husband and Friend (current coworker) knew each other and the Cohort’s New Boss knew everything. It ended in dismissal.

      Like you say, what are the odds. Well, it happens more than we know.

  54. HailRobonia*

    I work on a small team (5 people) and at our meeting yesterday our manager had an agenda item: ” Office Etiquette: Stay positive and support each other. What you say and do affect people around you. Your mood becomes the mood of your teammates.” I am sure this was brought on because we have some morale issues because of some less-than ideal working conditions and the fact that we feel our concerns/input are not valued. It came across very much like “just be happy you have a job”.

    The really insulting thing was she introduced this topic by telling an anecdote about getting her small children to change their attitude about something and be happy in the face of a problem. It was so damn patronizing!

    2. Ann Onny Muss*

      Oh, that would irritate me. There’s a lot of uncertainty at my job right now, and it hasn’t always bern easy in the past. Management has tried to do their best to keep morale up, while still acknowledging that things are not ideal. If they had sent out an email like that, they might’ve had a mutiny on their hands. “Be happy because management said so” when working conditions suck is not the way to address the problem.

    3. Frankie*

      I love it when you just get the instruction to “stay positive” when there’s a serious morale issue. These should be conversations happening in 1:1s with management making a good faith effort to investigate the morale issues and address what they can, as well as openly acknowledging what they can’t.

      I had a similar situation recently–we’re in a low morale situation on my team, and I feel like I’ve been doing some thankless, invisible work trying to encourage and support my teammates–then to hear a similar comment from my manager that essentially they’d like if everyone put a slightly more positive foot forward. Like, thanks, we’re trying!

    4. Lemon Zinger*

      There was a lot of that at my last job. It was really insulting. At first I brushed it off, but later I realized that everyone in management acted that way, and that things weren’t going to get better. :(

    5. ReformedControlFreak*

      In my family we summarize with, “The beatings will continue until morale improves”

      Obnoxious! Manager should be addressing problems head on. Perhaps Manager has no ability to do so, but is not communicating this to you and so is asking (poorly) that you “bear with us.” But who can say for sure. Justifiable ire!

    6. Gumby*

      I mean, if manager is bringing up morale as an agenda item, that seems like a great opening to, you know, discuss what is affecting morale.

      “I see you want us to stay positive. Could you please explain what the upsides are to our new desk locations in the steam pipe trunk distribution venue so we can be appropriately happy about it? We just aren’t coming up with reasons to be positive about it on our own.”

  55. AvonLady Barksdale*

    Need a bit of a reality check here– I’m curious if my communications expectations are excessive or reasonable. I’m relatively senior at my company but have been here for less than five years. A lot of people have been here for well over ten, some over twenty. One of my biggest pet peeves flared up today. I’ll email someone or a whole department about something that needs to be done, and I will not get back any acknowledgement that they even saw the email. So I try to be patient (I work hard on that) and wait, and 50% of the time I will get an email a few hours later saying the task is finished, but 50% of the time I will get nothing after at least six hours, so I have to follow up. Sometimes these things are client-oriented and I guess I have been trained to get back to clients as quickly as possible, even with a simple, “Got it, looking into it, I will get back to you soon.” I would prefer the same courtesy from our internal teams, but their style seems to have been ingrained since well before I got here. I remember in my first month I made a request, got nothing, and when I followed up, the response was an annoyed, “Yes, we added that to the list of things we’re already doing.” Which is fine, but… tell me, please? Yesterday I had to bug someone about something that was pretty critical and time-sensitive, and I told him so, but he didn’t bother to answer until nearly the end of the day and only after I followed up with him. I know for sure the guy wasn’t in meetings all day.

    I think it’s tougher for me now because I’m working remotely, so I can’t go to people’s desks. I could IM them or call them, but I absolutely hate (with a blinding passion) people who send an email and then follow up on it less than an hour later. Ironically, there’s one department that will send me an email with a question and will start bugging me about it almost immediately, even when I’m in meetings (and they did that when I was in the office and they could see my door closed), yet heaven forbid I ask them to simply reply to an emailed request with “got it, on it!” (This is why I don’t get bothered by the “thanks” emails that some people hate– to me it’s an acknowledgement of receipt.)

    Making it complicated is that none of these people report directly to me, so I don’t feel like I can institute new policies or ask for new behaviors without overstepping. So I’m trying to adjust my expectations. But are my expectations super unreasonable?

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      I don’t think your expectations are unreasonable. If you’re not already, it might help to start including a question like “Can you confirm for me that you can take this on?” or “Can you confirm you’d be able to do this by Thursday?” or so forth.

      1. AvonLady Barksdale*

        Thanks– you bring up a good point, that I don’t ask for confirmation. I sometimes will do the whole, “Let me know if you need more time,” but I can see how even that leaves out the, “And let me know that you got this, thanks” part.

        1. ReformedControlFreak*

          Or even just phrasing it as a question at the end so it requires a response. “Do we have [item] on the list yet?” “When can we expect a resolution on [thing]?”

          I’m going to be honest – I’m more along the lines of your coworkers than you on the communication front. But if it ends in a question I will often answer it sooner rather than later.

          Also make sure you’re picking your battles. Responses and acknowledgement might not be critical for everything (although I can imagine it’s preferable). Some progress will be better than nothing, and everybody will meet somewhere in the middle hopefully.

    2. PX*

      Hmm. Yeah. At least in most places I’ve worked, expecting a response within a day (and in some places a week) is a bit…much. (Obvious caveat here is that this is very industry/role dependent – 98% of my job is not time critical so things can almost always wait)

      Like Alison suggests, putting in a direct question can certainly help, but for me personally, how quickly I respond to someone depends on various things: time critical vs not, asking for specific information vs something that requires research, things that require me to get info/input from someone else vs not.

      Add in the fact that none of these people report directly to you and I can see why perhaps things slip.

      Other things to consider: is this a pick up the phone company culture more than an email culture? You may need to switch to following up the next day or so via a phone call? Otherwise subtly training people (ala Alisons suggestions, or by mentioning when you follow up in a call that if they can respond via email you would appreciate it) is a thing you could try…

      1. AvonLady Barksdale*

        Industry-dependent, I would say– in mine, if I don’t respond to a client within a day, that’s way too long, and most of the time (I would say about 99.9% of the time) I need answers so I can get back to a client.

    3. Alice*

      If you’re sending an email that needs urgent acknowledgment, and you’ve learned that people don’t send the urgent acknowledgment, why don’t you add a sentence to your email asking for it? Ask for the info you want and the timeframe you want it in instead of hoping they will start behaving differently.

    4. Gumby*

      I can see wanting to know who is handling it if you send it to multiple recipients, but if it is to an individual – is there a reason that you do not trust them to do a task that you have requested? Granted, most of my tasks have deliverables so the askee would see it was done when I send the report or whatever. But, in general, I don’t feel the need to say “got your email, working on it” unless there is a delay or I am extraordinarily busy and I won’t have it done when the person asked for it to be completed. Especially if it is a short task that will take less than a day. But I am a conscientious person and don’t just randomly decide to not do parts of my job so…

      1. AvonLady Barksdale*

        It’s mostly because I’m not the only one who makes these requests. There are a couple of other teams, and I know priorities get juggled a lot, and I know a lot of emails come in. There have been times where something hasn’t been done and I learn after I follow up that it’s because someone else had a more pressing request. Which is fine, but it would be nice to know that proactively.

        I also realize that I project a lot. There are days when I get a lot of emails and requests myself, so I know things can get lost. I’ve also been in their position; when I was first starting out, I worked in a job where I had to fulfill requests from a large team of people and I learned that unless I acknowledged their requests, they would come by and interrupt my workflow. A quick, “Got it! You’ll have this by Tuesday,” was what I did to keep them out of my hair.

        1. Close Bracket*

          “I know a lot of emails come in. ”

          And responding with “on it” to all of them might be a non-trivial addition to their workload. It’s not that you are expecting anything completely unreasonable, but you are expecting something that isn’t done by default at this company. *Asking* rather than *expecting* is a good route, but I recommend prioritizing which things you ask for confirmation of just bc it’s not SOP there. You don’t want to become that Pain In The Neck Who Doesn’t Trust People To Do The Stuff They Are Asked To Do.

      2. Jeffrey Deutsch*

        Good point, Gumby.

        At least in my workplace, when my managers ask us to do something (as opposed to answer a question) they either don’t expect a reply at all, or they include in their request something like “respond when done” (and they specify the deadline if there is one).

  56. Murphy*

    This is a question behalf of my husband. He’s a Llama Groomer. The director of Grooming at his company left, opening up a position. The head of the Llama Grooming department (husband’s boss) and the head of the Alligator Grooming department both applied for the job. My husband also applied. He’s interested in being a manger in general, but his real hope here was that his boss would get the director job and he could be promoted to the head of Llama Grooming. He took his application seriously and during the interview stated, “I know this position is a stretch for me, but here’s what I bring to the table…”

    He didn’t get it, which he completely understands, but he was given the feedback that he shouldn’t have said that it was a stretch. My thinking was that this was realistic. He didn’t meet all of the requirements in the job description in terms of experience and he was trying to acknowledge that. I’m curious as to whether or not this was actually a bad thing to say.

    1. CatCat*

      It may be reality that it was a stretch, but to me, saying that in an interview weakens how he looks as a candidate. Which statement below do you think is stronger?

      A. “I know this position is a stretch for me, but here’s what I bring to the table…”

      B. “Here’s what I bring to the table…”

    2. Not So NewReader*

      Some people get real hung up on stuff like that. Since they are the ones hiring then they have final say. But I am not impressed with their nit-picking. This comes up often enough that he would just be better off to reframe that sentence.

      They want employees to be realistic without saying realistic things. sigh. It’s exhausting.

      I think the big picture here is that they had 3 good candidates and they were at a loss on how to narrow down their choices, so they grasped at straws. And that is what I would tell my family member/friend.

  57. Miss May*

    I have an interview later this month! I’m over the moon about it. Currently, I work in the private sector, but this position is with local government. Is there ANY flexibility on pay? It currently pays $1/hr less than my currently position, but if I could negotiate on the pay, this could be a doable new job for me. Would an advanced degree (MS) help with negotiations?

    1. Jaded Millennial*

      There is probably not ANY flexibility in pay. Budgets are set by the legislature and possibly also by the a union. There is a set salary and steps for all titles in my local government. It’s really really normal that public sector pay is lower than private sector. Will you get more holidays off with the public sector job? Consider the full benefits package when you thinking about moving jobs.

      1. Jeffrey Deutsch*

        Good point, Jaded Millennial.

        Commonly, government jobs include certain protections. It’s tough (not impossible!) to fire a civil servant, especially after you pass your probationary period.

        Also, generous retirement benefits and sometimes health benefits.

        Sometimes also, flexible scheduling — including WFH, flextime and hour-for-hour comp time. (In the US federal government at least, these things are known respectively as flexing, gliding and credit hours.)

        Miss May, if an advanced degree is a required or desirable qualification, or justifies higher pay, the public employer will make that very clear — often in the job announcement itself.

    2. uncivil servant*

      I work for a national government outside of the US, so possibly not relevant at all. One area where I’ve seen my employer be flexible on pay is on the starting step – I’ve seen people making lateral moves from another organization, with significant experience doing the job at an equivalent level, negotiate to start at a higher step. But that only gives you at most four years of higher salary here – you just top out sooner, rather than being able to advance from a higher starting point.

    3. Environmental Compliance*

      FWIW – background in gov’t (state & county), moved to private sector, work in STEM, have MS.

      MS meant nothing. In gov’t, you are hired in at your pay level and that is where you can be hired in. It’s often why you see salaries listed in those positions. What you see is what you get. Very occasionally (read: never) I have heard of someone able to negotiate – and that has been someone already in gov’t who became a technical expert that they wanted to move to a different team and the person was meh on the move. And that was state gov’t, who does have a little more flexibility (though still has to comply with legislature). Local (assuming county or city level) has pretty much no flexibility. It’s set by the city council, board somewhere, etc. It is a take it or leave it. But – usually better benefits.

      Does this gov’t have different position levels – i.e., Analyst I vs Analyst II? I have seen it happen more that the person negotiated to move up a pay band due to expertise. However, I have only seen that at the state level, not county/city.

      1. Stornry*

        this, yes. local gov’t here, and the salaries are set. the upside – no gender gap. the pay is what the pay is.

    4. just a random teacher*

      To echo what others have already said, at least in public education, the only flexibility on pay you might have is in initial placement on whatever chart they use for salary if you have some reason why you should be placed higher than the bottom (experience they should consider for placement purposes or somesuch). This is most commonly going to be if you’re coming from another, similar job and you want to argue that those years should count toward experience. (For example, switching from teaching in one school district to another, or switching from one city to another.)

      In teaching, at least in my state, it’s a table with years of experience down the rows and levels of education attained across the columns, so in that specific situation a Masters would cause a higher salary placement than a Bachelors, but I don’t know that that would be common in a different field. You may be able to find information on their exact salary schedule on their website, which would probably help you see if there’s anything in there that might flex for you. If it’s unionized, also look at the contract if it’s posted to see if there’s specific language in there about salary placement. (They will not be able to make up a new exception outside of policy just for you, so you need to see what kinds of exceptions are codified into policy and be prepared during the offer stage to provide evidence of why you meet the placement exception you think you do.)

      Also definitely look at the whole benefits package – if it’s $1/less per hour, but with much better medical benefits included that aren’t included in your current compensation package and you’ve been taking salary deductions for, it might pencil out the same in the end for you.

  58. Elenna*

    Ironically given this morning’s letter, I’ve realized that my new team is more comfortable with/casual about my working from home than I am :P
    Not that I’m not comfortable with it so much as I’m used to places where WFH either doesn’t exist or is reserved for when you’re feeling sick.

    This morning it was particularly cold out and also I felt like I really could have used another hour of sleep. Considered working from home for a minute and then was like “no, self, suck it up and go to work”. Then my boss messaged me this morning asking if I got his text saying that everyone else was working from home and I should consider it given the temperature. Oh well, too late now… :D

  59. Ann Onny Muss*

    I’m getting a new office and new officemate. Both current officemate and new officemate are smokers. I have asthma and the smell of cigarettes can exacerbate it. It’s not a problem with current officemate because current office is huge. New office will be smaller. Would it be rude to run a desktop air purifier in new office? I genuinely like new officemate and don’t want to offend them. (I’m also not going to lecture an adult on smoking. They know what the risks are and will quit (or not) as they see fit.)

    Also, if an air purifier is okay, any recommendations?

    1. Purt's Peas*

      You get to do what you need to in order to breathe.

      One way to put it is, “I’m getting an air purifier. This isn’t me saying ‘YUCK cigarette smell’ at you, but that the residual smoke makes my asthma act up.”

      No advice on desktop purifiers–I have one that sits on the floor, a Coway, and it’s excellent but fairly large.

      1. Another Millenial*

        I don’t think an explanation is even necessary (I’m a smoker). Just say “asthma.” We know it stinks.

    2. SomebodyElse*

      Get the air purifier and don’t worry about offending them, honestly I’m sure they would appreciate it as much as you do. A small office with 2 people is likely to result in smells; the person who bathed in perfume who stopped by to chat, the afternoon microwave popcorn, your commuter shoes that you’ve got stuffed in your oversized laptop bag, or the dreaded stinky guy from the 3rd floor after his lunch time gym workout.

    3. MarfisaTheLibrarian*

      Get the air purifier and don’t even mention it unless they do. They probably don’t know you haven’t had an air purifier on your desk (even if they’ve been in your current office–they’ll assume they didn’t notice it)

    4. Lana Kane*

      Just put it in, and if they ask, you can say as much as your comfortable with about your asthma. “Oh, this new office is smaller and my asthma/respiratory issues get aggravated.”

    5. Mia 52*

      This is your health! Have you considered asking not to be matched with them? I have the same issues and it simply wouldn’t be possible for me to share an office with a smoker. If it couldn’t be accommodated I would be job hunting.

    6. Fikly*

      You should lecture an adult on smoking. It’s fine to risk your own health. It’s not fine to risk the health of the people around you without their consent.

      1. Jeffrey Deutsch*

        +500.

        (One caveat. Morally, you have my permission to lecture — civilly — as you see fit. But obviously feel free to do/refrain from doing what you need to so as to avoid getting on New Officemate’s enemies list. You probably don’t know how powerful s/he is and who his/her allies are.)

    7. The Other Chelsea*

      Wirecutter has some good recommendations on purifiers! I think it’s not a big deal at all. Just put it at your desk and if someone asks, say it helps your asthma.

  60. drpuma*

    My SO got a new job! He’s spent the past 5+ years as a solo contractor and just joined a company to do the same kind of work for his and their clients. Company HQ is about a 2-hour drive from where we live, so we’re staying put but especially early on he’ll work from HQ one or two days a month. There are a bunch of other folks across the country who also work remote.

    I’m curious if folks have any tips for how I can best support him as he gets up to speed with his new gig? I’d also like to hear others’ experiences of what it’s like to go from a solo proprietor to doing the same work as part of a team, especially when you’re not co-located?

    1. Lizzo*

      Congrats to your SO! Speaking from experience as a fully remote employee where most of the rest of the staff is in a physical office, communication and building relationships with colleagues is key! Virtual “lunches” and frequent video conference calls just to be connected to people and learn about them, their work, and how he can help them with that work/how his work will relate to their work will all help establish a trusting and productive relationships.

      I’d also gather as much information as possible about what tools are available for remote employees to stay connected and how the workplace culture supports remote employees as an integrated part of the team.

      Above all, he should be prepared for the potential that this will be a rough adjustment and/or it will take a while to find what works for him, and to be patient and offer himself some grace during the process.

  61. Lost Architect*

    I just found out my architecture office is going to hot desking when we move next month.
    I am not thrilled…. I like having my desk set up my way, and having my stuff around (samples, reference materials). We will have lockers and a bin/drawer to move between locker and desk.

    Any tips to work this way? Best practices? Suggestions?

    1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

      Some jobs are well suited to hot desking. I cannot see how architecture could possibly be one of them, so you have my sympathies.

    2. PX*

      Figure out if this is real hot desking or ‘hot desking lite’ where in reality, people have ‘their’ spots where they can properly settle in and there are just a few free desks floating for when remote workers come in etc.

      If its the former…yeah sorry. Sounds awful.

    4. Lemon Zinger*

      That sounds absurd for the kind of work done in an architecture office. Hotdesking would be a dealbreaker for me– I would start looking for a new job to be honest.

    5. ReformedControlFreak*

      Is remote work an option? Can you get yourself “set up” at home and then be in the office for other types of work? That seems super annoying when your work is contingent on a lot of physical materials.

    6. Llellayena*

      Wait, architecture?! NO, very very no (looks around at her desk piled with several drawing sets, material samples and industry reference books) NO. I can’t even imagine moving desks every couple years as we tend to do here. But every DAY! NO! And given how many different computer programs are used around here, how can you guarantee every computer will have the current version of every program? Not everyone here uses Photoshop or Sketchup so not every computer has it (or has the latest version). I can’t even imagine the frustration at sitting down at a computer to work on my project in Revit 2020 and having a 2 in 5 chance (or whatever of NOT HAVING IT INSTALLED!

      Seriously, get a bunch of you together and push back super hard on this. Us architects are very much not suited for hot desking!

      1. Lost Architect*

        Well, all desks will have laptop docks, so I’ll still have my computer where ever I go.
        But other than that, yeah, I don’t see packing up all my sets, redlines, submittals, control samples, drafting dots, scales, etc lasting more than a month.

        1. Llellayena*

          Ugh, marginally better, but still. Anyone who says we’re becoming a paperless society needs to look at an architect’s desk!

    7. Orange You Glad*

      My friend successfully pushed back against a proposed hot desking announcement by counting how many physical items she would need to move on/off the desk each day & then timing how long it took. Then got 2 of her coworkers to do the same thing.

      Ultimately it wasn’t even the time but the proposed ridiculousness of “To effectively do my job, I will need to set up 17 items on my desk each day and then remove those 17 items each night which takes 12 minutes each time.”

      They switched to adding more open “free desks” but everyone else had permanent spots.

      Sometimes you have to use numbers to push back against ridiculousness in concrete measured terms.

  62. Reference Questioner*

    Job searching question about references:
    What do you do when the people who would provide your optimal references seem too risky to ask in terms of keeping a job search quiet? I have been in my current role for 5 years in a non-profit with work that is very community centered, so the people who can speak best to my work are either colleagues or closely tied to my work. I’m in a small city, and everyone knows everyone, so even in my volunteer work outside of my job, people see me as a representative of my organization and it’d be likely for word to spread.

    Obviously I’d like to keep my candidacy quiet. Do I just need to find references from farther back in my work history? The application asks for my cover letter, resume, and three references. Do I just say “references available upon request” and cross this bridge if it comes?

    1. Not So NewReader*

      How have things gone in the past? Have you seen other people run into trouble with this or have you yourself had a problem?

      I live in a small (read gossipy) area. Unless the person is absolutely horrible I do not hear a lot of stories of people having too much difficulty.
      Maybe ask in your cover letter if they could use some discretion about checking references because of the small size of the arena.

  63. Okumura Haru*

    Time for another “is this normal” question!

    I’m a high school librarian. The District where I work requires that FTE employees work here for at least 5 years before they can take the money accrued in their retirement account with them.

    I get why they do this – our district in particular has a very high turnover rate.

    So, is this normal?

    1. ThatGirl*

      Well, I’m not sure how yours is laid out, but some version of this is normal — most companies I’ve worked for have a “fully vested” timeline – it goes up by 20% each year to 100% at 5 years. This applies to matching funds the company puts in and not employee contributions. So I’ve been at my current job 2 1/2 years; if I leave at the 3 year mark I’d get 60% of what the company contributed.

    2. Clawfoot*

      I’m in Canada, so I don’t know if it’s normal for where you are, but no. I was with a company for one year and two months, and I was able to take my retirement account with me (it was a group RRSP; I could commit up to 2.5% of my paycheque to it and the company would match what I put in). I was allowed to take it all with me, and either keep it with the company they used and make contributions to it on my own, or transfer it to another bank/institution.

      1. Okumura Haru*

        I’m south of the border in the United States, so there’s probably different rules at play.

        But that’s still good to know. Thank you.

      2. Elenna*

        For what it’s worth, I’m working at a large company in Canada and IIRC I get to keep all the money if I leave, but the company increases the matching amount over the first five years. (I think it’s something like they match 50% of what I put it for the first five years and 100% after that).

    3. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Mm, normal is that you have a certain time-frame before you can take money that the *organization* put in the account on your behalf, such as a percentage match, and hitting that time frame is called “vesting”. I think it’s three years at my org. But I don’t believe they can prevent you from taking any money that *you* elected to put into the retirement account as payroll deductions?

      1. JustaTech*

        That’s how it was when I worked at BigStateU. You had to work there for five years in order to be “bought in” to the pension plan or the other retirement plan. If you left before then you could take all the money *you* had put in the retirement account, but not the money they had put into the retirement account.

        It was pretty annoying to have to leave at 4.5 years and not get that money, but them’s the breaks.

    4. Half April Ludgate, Half Leslie Knope*

      Are they saying the money YOU contribute isn’t vested? That’s weird. If it’s the money the district is putting in (like, if they do a match based on your contributions), that’s pretty normal.

        1. Welling*

          Its pretty normal to not get all of the money that the employer contributed if you leave before the vesting period ends, but the money that you contributed fully belongs to you so make sure you get to take that money with you.

    5. fposte*

      It depends what you mean both by “money” and “retirement account.” If “money” you mean employer contributions, that sounds like a standard vesting arrangement. If by “retirement account” you mean a pension, you often can’t take that with you at all–you’re still entitled to a payout of the money at retirement, but you can’t move it to a new employer in the mean time. If you mean a 403b, employers vary, and it’ll also depend on whether your new employer would allow you to roll it into their plan. A 457b is thornier and depends on if you’re governmental or non-governmental (usually a public school would be governmental).

    6. Aerin*

      I know at my company it’s 5 years before you’re fully vested in the pension, although I never did find out if it was prorated or a full timegate. Not sure about the 401K side, I would think that’s yours but you might not get the full matching funds if you leave early.

    7. GigglyPuff*

      Okay if it’s just vested, meaning the money the company/employer puts in, that’s pretty normal. The state I work for has a five year vestment. If you leave before that, you should be able to get the money you’ve put in and roll it over into another account. When I left one state government, I rolled over the 18 months of worth of contributions I put into the account into an optional 401k the new state offered (on top of the mandatory retirement option). You should always be able to get your money back.
      After you’re vested, it means you get the money your employer also contributed.

    8. Claire*

      This is normal in general, but I have a question about the timeline. Is the money accrued in your retirement account a company match to a 401k program, like, if you deduct 3% of your salary into the account, your company will also put 3% in? If so, your vesting schedule is probably gradual. There are two types of vesting: cliff vesting, where you get all the money if you stay for a given amount of time and none at all if you leave before that time, and gradual vesting, where you get, for example, 20% of the money if you leave after 1 year, 40% if you leave after 2 years, and so forth until you’re fully vested. If the benefits you’re getting are dependent on your contributions, I think the longest they can set for cliff vesting is 3 years, but if the benefits you’re getting are a set amount, they can do 5 years for cliff vesting.

    9. Jules the 3rd*

      My employer transitioned from a pension to a 401K plan about the time I was hired.
      – The pension vested at 5 years, you did not get it if you left before then.
      – The 401K ‘vests’ immediately.

      If the retirement package is something the employer puts in, I think the 5 year vesting is pretty normal, especially in the US. But also check whether you can contribute beyond their donation (ie, if they have a 403b program). Your contributions to a 403b should be tax-free and yours whenever you leave (often ‘rolled over’ into an IRA if you go someplace without a 403b).

    10. Stornry*

      it’s normal. here, if you leave before you’re vested, you only get the portion you paid in, not the County’s. once you’re vested, you’d get the option to “defer” retirement and leave it on deposit or roll it over into another account.
      Another thought, if you change jobs … another district or gov’t org might have a reciprocity agreement with your current District/plan. What that essentially means is that your retirement account / pension with both entities work together or combine as one in a way beneficial to you to increase your eventual pension payout. My County does that – but you have a limited amount of time to set it up after you’re hired so keep it in mind.

    11. Not So NewReader*

      Outside the academic environment I have seen gradual vesting over a period of 7 years and another over a period of 10 years.
      It sounds normal to me. And yeah, high turn over has no bearing on anything in their minds. They probably hope that by having a 5 year period people will stay a little longer.

  64. AppleStan*

    When I was promoted 1.5 years ago, I ended up supervising my colleagues that I had worked with for years (some for over 10 years). I was pretty friendly with most, and very close to some.

    For the most part, everything is great in terms of boundaries, but I find when I am extremely stressed, I let my guard down and share more than I should. Because we work in very tight quarters and we are short-staffed, it is very easy for my team to know and see when I end up dealing with additional work duties or responsibilities that actually lie with other teams or my boss (which happens frequently, but my attempts to address this have been half-hearted at best…I just don’t have the energy). Think of it as I deal with teapot manufacturing, but am often having to deal with teapot design or teapot sales. Or, I have to provide information about teapot manufacturing, teapot design, and teapot sales to my grandboss because my boss doesn’t know how to access said information.

    So I walked into our team meeting the other day, and to my surprise, I overheard my ENTIRE team, even the quiet ones, vehemently expressing their…displeasure for their grandboss, and his blatant dumping of his workload onto me, when we were already understaffed and overworked. I never knew how frustrated they were on my behalf and it’s apparently been simmering for awhile. I only made things worse (or rather, I definitely didn’t help) by saying something along the lines of I’m basically his servant…except I didn’t use the word servant, and I SAID THIS OUT LOUD! Ugh!!!!! I truly didn’t mean to speak it, only think it, but …well, it was out there at that point.

    So I started the meeting to get off of THAT topic, and just didn’t bring it up again.

    I know my lips wouldn’t have been as loose if I wasn’t uber-stressed AND if I hadn’t had the relationship with this team that I had. I am usually very good at keeping boundaries (I think, anyway), and a good portion of that is I have a great team who also works hard at making sure that no one has to “make” me be their boss. They all listen openly and receptively to feedback from me, work hard to meet goals I set, and rarely offer pushback when I’ve made decisions (although if they do, it’s been for a good reason (and they’re usually right!)), and I think because the relationships are so EASY, I’m just too relaxed.

    I know my comment was unprofessional overall, and I really don’t want to seem like I think it’s OK for me, as a manager, to make commentary like that to my direct reports!

    I think in terms of the immediate situation, I need to just let it go, but I’m wondering if it’s just a matter of me being more mindful in the future, or if I should be altering my work persona … but I’m unsure how to do that without disrupting the culture of our team in a negative way?

    Would appreciate any thoughts.

    1. fposte*

      Oh, I can see how you’d get into that position, but it also sounds like there might be more than a one-off stuff there. I might address this in my next staff meeting and also be much more mindful of my responses to my boss. The address would be along the lines of “I’ve been thinking about the discussion we had about task assignment last week, and I wanted to set the record straight a little: my job is to offer a lot of coverage, and I’ve made clear and reasonable decisions about what that includes for me. I made an unconsidered response in the moment that I now regret: this isn’t a tyranny and there are no villains, so I’d like us all to get away from talking about our colleagues in a way that suggests there are.”

      1. AppleStan*

        This is good…really good.

        I think if our staff meetings were more frequent, I’d probably do that…but we won’t have another one for another month…and I feel like it will be too old at that point. Having said that, *should* the situation present itself again, this is a great response.

        What I didn’t realize was apparently they’ve been feeling this way for quite some time, but just hadn’t said anything to me about it. I doubt that they would have just started having that convo if they had known I was right around the corner. I don’t want bad feelings to fester – my relationship with my boss is my own, and I don’t want them being “touched” by that.

        I really appreciate the feedback, especially from a fellow government worker!

          1. AppleStan*

            I honestly expect to be doing regular work with a therapist VERY soon.

            A separate benefit of that is that I think in my head, knowing that I’ll be talking to a therapist will keep me from making inappropriate comments at work, or “sharing/brainstorming” with friends that I really shouldn’t share with because they are my direct reports.

            Keeping fingers crossed for that, anyway.

    2. Not So NewReader*

      There’s a lot of pieces here.

      I love (NOT) how the employer is a hot mess and it’s the employee who seeks therapy. Uh, the employer should be sitting in the therapist’s office. “So tell me, Employer, why do you enjoy breaking people so much?”

      So a couple things jump at me.

      You are in a small space. Ya know, that is The Number One thing that I have seen amplify stress. Put people in close quarters and make them work that way day after day. They will kill each other given enough time just because of proximity.
      Come up with some reasonable ideas for your team and you to have more space. Maybe the best you can do is put the massive printer/copier out in the hallway. Then get there, do that. Grab whatever relief valves you can find for the pressure of too tight a space. This is not a choice, the misery will continue until the space expands.

      Grandboss can’t access reports. If Grandboss can’t/won’t learn will she be willing to delegate this task to someone who is NOT you nor one of your crew? It’s time to move this task off your plate.

      You are not too relaxed, you are too wound up. You are familiar with these folks since you were once their peers. So you probably already use the language people do when they are familiar with each other. NO MATTER what you do, they will see you as The Good Boss and see grandboss as The Bad Boss. And honestly, from what you have written here, I understand why they feel that way. Please don’t expect this to change and if you try to make them change you will look silly.

      What I would do if it were me is to apologize for losing my cool. I’d apologize profusely for using that particular word, too. And I would say, “I realize that I have to speak more persuasively with my own boss to advocate for myself and I will do that. However that is now a private matter and we won’t discuss it anymore.” And then stick to all these things, never use that word again and find ways to persuade your boss to be more helpful to you.

      Understand something. The culture of your team has already been damaged in a negative way. They love you and see the grandboss as a ninny. There is no tarp made in this world that is going to be big enough to cover up how much of a ninny your grandboss is. Accept that fact that you cannot fix this. Redirect the focus to doing a good job with what they can and focusing on being a good employees by following overall company requirements. And it’s okay if you tell them how much you appreciate them.

    3. Lizzo*

      Lots of great advice in the other comments. I would add that it would probably be beneficial to you to find either a therapist *or* someone else who is not in your chain of command (or possibly even in your company) who you can lean on a bit when things get stressful: someone who can provide a good ear to listen, and some level-headed perspective on the problem at hand. That way you can say the feelings out loud instead of bottling them up until they explode, but you don’t say them to your employees. I’m all for seeking out a therapist for general life support, but I realize that’s not for everybody. :-D

  65. Clawfoot*

    I plan to ask for a raise soon, but do you think it’s ever appropriate to ask for a bonus as well? To be honest, I don’t even know if our company DOES one-time bonuses at all.

    Our team of teapot designers has been without any sort of leadership for a long time. Our manager left and was never replaced last year, and we’ve also been operating without a director for almost as long. We currently report directly to one of the EVPs who doesn’t have a lot of time for us and doesn’t even really understand what it is we do.

    In the absence of any kind of leadership, we’ve been trying to chart our own course. We’ve been working together to create budget projections and estimates, a creative calendar for new teapot designs we’d like to do, marketing ideas for how to sell the teapots we’ve already made, basically manager- and director-level stuff without a manager or director level’s compensation (or authority!). It’s been a serious challenge, as sometimes other managers or directors will ask us to take on projects for them and we don’t really know if we have the power to say no, nor how to prioritize our own projects vs. projects that come to us from other departments.

    The company is looking for replacements, but it’s been months and we’re not hopeful it’ll happen any time soon, and performance reviews and annual salary bumps are coming up. I plan to lay all this out and ask for a raise, but I’m also wondering if I should suggest they give our team bonuses as well — we can’t really ask to be paid as much as a director, but we ARE doing that work on a temporary basis and a one-time bonus would be a way for them to acknowledge that without raising all our salaries to a manager- or director-level.

    What do you think? Ask about bonuses? Or leave it at asking for a (larger than usual) raise?

    1. Not So NewReader*

      Ask for their regularly expected raise AND ask for bonuses for carrying the load this year. They did their work and additionally did the work of two other people.

  66. Curlybill*

    I applied for a job recently where I have been at the company in a professional capacity- think auditor but not quite- and didn’t send an email to anyone there because I felt really awkward about it because I only minorly interacted with the department I’m applying for and there’s a retirement I know about but can’t remember the timeline of. I did mention my experience there prominently in the cover letter, but is there a point where I should send a follow-up email to someone? Its been about two weeks since I applied and I’m just concerned I did this wrong. I was also repeatedly tardy during my time working onsite between my then- unknown ADHD and road construction so I’m also very nervous anyway but anyway, is reaching out post application going to be useful at all?

    1. Llama Wrangler*

      Do you have a good relationship with anyone who is still working there? I don’t think post-application is too late to reach out, but if you’d be reaching out to a stranger, or to someone who is more likely to remember your tardiness than the good work you did there, I don’t think it would help.

  67. Boba Feta*

    I’m interested in hearing from folks who require some form of secondary audible input in order to better focus or pay attention to primary sound: for example listening to music at a low volume so that you can better pay attention to the content of a class lecture or work presentation. Classes are back in session, and I overheard a colleague complaining about students who ignore or refuse to comply with the request that they remove earbuds during class lecture. The explanation given by the student was that listening to music helps them concentrate better.

    My colleagues’ response to this situation was to declare definitively that it was not possible, and I was alarmed at how certain they were at the impossibility of listening to music and getting enough out of class to do well, but from All my lurking and reading through this blog I now know that there is such thing as the ability or even need to perceive conflicting audio in order for the important content to register or makes sense.

    While alarmed at what I now recognize as a terribly ableist attitude on the part of my colleague, perhaps in no small part combined with the cynicism that inevitably takes hold after years of teaching students who continually find new ways to legitimately BS us , I really didn’t know how to accurately or effectively provide context or such a perspective to my colleague.

    Could anyone for whom this reality is true please share how you have communicated this to your professors or bosses? If there are any bosses or professors in the readership who have successfully navigated this, I’m interested in your perspective, as well.

    1. blink14*

      I’ve done something along these lines for many years, but never in a classroom, and never at work (its not appropriate for my work environment). I used to do homework with the TV or radio on, and found that quiet study areas like the library were too quiet for me. I could do my homework or read in a loud room. This is still true today – I concentrate better with some level of background noise. If I’m working from home, i always have the TV on.

      However, for me this does not apply to situations where I’m actively listening to someone speaking or demonstrating something, and I find background noise like keyboard typing in those situations to be incredibly irritating.

      I’ve never met anyone who requires background noise to focus better on someone speaking. If I were presenting or teaching a class and a student or audience member had headphones on, I would find it very rude and would fully think they weren’t paying attention.

      1. Boba Feta*

        Interesting, thanks. I guess I was focused on the attitude of it being impossible to split attention away from the background music to the task at hand (which I think is overly harsh and limiting) but I didn’t properly contextualize the situation of it being an active listening lecture. I agree it comes off as rude, but wasn’t sure how much to account for any real need.

        1. blink14*

          For me at least, the background noise sort of fills in my brain’s need to being occupied by multiple things, if that makes sense? So if I’m reading, typing, doing spreadsheets, etc, my mind will often wander to think about other things on my mind, because I naturally multi-task a lot mentally. The noise takes place of that spot in my brain for something else to think of, and I can concentrate better with the task at hand.

          I will say that in terms of background noise options, I cannot listen to things like audiobooks or podcasts, or have a TV program on that I’m really interested in, because that will draw too much attention. I often just throw on the news, a cooking show or some kind of lifestyle program that doesn’t really peak my interest.

          In terms of accommodating situations like this student – I do believe that college is the time where you learn how to learn in environments you may not be used to. I have no idea of what the student’s situation is, but I find it very difficult to believe they can concentrate enough on someone speaking with other noise going on through headphones, which would be different than say someone talking quietly on the other side of the room. This is the time to request that the student not use headphones, and kind of force them to learn and participate in a way that is of the norm in the working world – I cannot imagine anyone putting headphones on during a meeting or a presentation to listen to background noise. Having a laptop out is one thing, which I find super annoying at work because people are generally not really paying attention during a meeting while on a laptop, but to put headphones on in a similar scenario? Way different.

          1. tangerineRose*

            I used to doodle in college to help me keep focused on the class. I don’t know if that would help those students.

            1. Boba Feta*

              I’ve noticed an increase in the number of doodlers over the last few terms, and I take no issue at all with that- it’s not disruptive to others! But one student recently surprised me: always came in late, often sat with no pen or paper but j

              1. Boba Feta*

                Gah! Durn phone typing…

                Sat with head in hands as if asleep. Had a one-on-one to see what was up. Lateness was explained by long commute and advisor placing him in 8am section despite clear request to avoid early classes (!) and his comprehension was great- he was one who processes aurally so he was capturing all the important although from the outside it looked suspect.

                It was a great reality check for me, honestly.

    2. Alice*

      To be honest I’m with your colleague on this, and I’ll point out a wrinkle you don’t mention.

      When I was teaching, I got to the point where I didn’t really care if a student was using tech (phone, headphones, whatever) during a lecture or demonstration that I was doing (although I used it to identify boring parts that I needed to work on). But if during discussions, when a student was presenting, or if a partner activity was supposed to be happening, and one student was ignoring the others, then I took it really seriously. It’s not ok to communicate to your peers that they are unworthy of your attention. And that’s the message that using earbuds conveys.

      1. Boba Feta*

        This same colleague last semester had a persistent issue with students carrying on not so quiet private conversations while other students were presenting, and it was a significant source of annoyance and drama. After he separated those students and reprimanded them, he had to endure some rather petty passive aggressiveness from at least one of them sitting in the far back of the room and pouting about it for the remaining few weeks of term. (Shrug)

    3. Jules the 3rd*

      I don’t do it with sound, but I was able to concentrate much better if I had something to do with my hands (doodling, crossword) in addition to taking notes. A couple of professors asked me about it, and my response was ‘here’s my notes! I am taking them and paying attention, but I need to keep my hands occupied in order to pay attention to you. If I do badly on the quizzes / tests / assignments, I’ll be happy to work with you on a different plan.’ I did not do badly.

      When talking to your peers, emphasize the students’ output, maybe? Recommend the professor check the volume / quality of the notes before banning the headphones?

      Can you encourage students to get formal accommodation docs?

      1. Boba Feta*

        Yes, this was my take. For my own part, to limit the amount of personal frustration I feel over minor classroom behaviors, I’ve shifted to focusing on output and overall classroom climate. I gave up on policing the innocuous-to-others use of devices a long time ago and found that my stress levels go down and those students grades aren’t great anyway, but the rest of the class benefits from my more relaxed and engaged attention to them.

        I always emphasized the availability of accommodations or work-arounds when needed, but it is ultimate up to the student to follow through with the process of documentation etc.

        1. Not So NewReader*

          I have noticed with people who need to blast loud noise while reading/listening that once they have covered the material they are nervous, worried, forgetful and exhausted.
          When I first went to college I did this, I had some background noise-tv/music. I got mostly B’s and C’s. I returned to school years later, studied/read without background noise and went up to a solid A. I was able to finish the work in a timely manner and get more rest, also. Added bonus I had clearer retention of things I had forgotten to review when I took my tests.

          This pretty much puts me in the middle of the road on this question. I can see why people want something to drown out the extraneous thoughts. But I can also see how people might think this is working for them when it may not actually be working for them. For anyone who questions if their method is working or not, I’d suggest try changing and see where that puts you.

          I am glad I got away from it because it would not have been a helpful habit in many workplaces.

    4. Threeve*

      Setting aside the issue of your colleague’s attitude, and whether or not this is a real thing that some people need (not something I’ve heard before–there’s a difference between something that makes focusing easier and something that is necessary to focus at all) I don’t think the students’ behavior is okay.

      Many different things help people concentrate, but they aren’t all appropriate for class. Some of them are inappropriate because they’re disruptive to others, some because they seem disrespectful, and wearing earphones certainly comes across as disrespectful.

      If you need an obvious accommodation on the extreme/uncommon side, you discuss your options with the teacher outside of class. You don’t just refuse to comply with a seemingly reasonable request and expect no consequences.

      1. Boba Feta*

        Thanks this summary and the others are super helpful. I think I got so worked up about the dismissive tone and all or nothing thinking that I was hearing, but I lost sight of the particular situation and details. I agree that keeping in earbuds sends a terrible signal of inattentiveness, regardless of any legitimate need, which would be better addressed through accommodations or some other negotiated solution.

        1. Threeve*

          Quite possibly your colleague would have the same dismissive that’s-obviously-not-a-real-thing-I’m-not-even-going-to-Google-it attitude if a student politely approached him about it before class; you’re not wrong to find that disappointing.

        2. Close Bracket*

          “sends a terrible signal of inattentiveness,”

          So your colleague didn’t write in, but if you have a student in class with either one or both ear buds in, remember that the signal you receive is entirely up to you. You have choices in how you interpret things. You can interpret ear buds as inattentive. You can interpret ear buds as a possible accommodation for an over active brain. You can interpret ear buds as who effing cares as long as the student is quiet and no one can hear what is coming out of the ear buds (I actually recommend this one as it requires the least mental space on your part).

    5. Book Badger, Attorney-at-Claw*

      There are studies that I can’t look up just now that basically confirm that CERTAIN KINDS of music – specifically instrumentals with no lyrics – help concentration by “arousing” the brain (giving it more input). Basically, too little arousal = bored and disengaged, too much arousal = unfocused and distracted. Music with lyrics makes it hard to process words because the word-processing part of your brain is working on figuring out the lyrics (imagine trying to have two phone conversations at the same time), but music without lyrics hits that sweet spot.

      Incidentally, you know how everyone says listening to Mozart makes you smarter? What that study actually proved is that listening to instrumental music makes it easier to concentrate than either pop music with lyrics or some guy whispering calming affirmations at you, because both of those things require the word-processing bit of your brain and Mozart doesn’t. Instrumental metal would have worked just as well. This is also why video games have soundtracks.

      Some caveats:
      * Sometimes music CAN push your brain into “distracted” levels of arousal, especially if you’re trying to concentrate on something extremely unfamiliar and complicated, because you’re ALREADY giving your brain a ton of input.
      * I don’t know how feasible “you can listen to instrumental but not lyrical music” would be in a classroom setting.
      * There are ways of arousing the brain other than listening to music. That’s what fidget spinners (and the other behaviors they’re meant to reduce, like tapping, clicking, or leg bouncing) do.

      1. Boba Feta*

        Indeed, I have always needed some form of background music to work productively, from undergrad through grad school and now when grading or doing course prep. Always film soundtracks with a classical style (wrote the dissertation to LOTR extended editions on repeat), so I firmly believe in the neurological basis for it. It’s the bit about doing it in class or during a meeting that feels off, and I agree with blink14 that this could be good learning opportunities for students to realize the difference between contexts and what is appropriate where.

    6. Another Millenial*

      First, if this is a course that the student is paying for, then the colleague shouldn’t care — IF the student’s learning is impaired by this, that’s there prerogative as it is their money.

      I’ve used the reasoning in the past that it’s ambient/white noise, and it’s at a low volume.

    7. RagingADHD*

      I think it’s pretty common for people to concentrate better on one kind of input or task when they have a complimentary input from a different sense.

      So: listening to music while reading or writing, doing something tactile while listening, etc.

      I have never heard of anyone focusing better with 2 different inputs on the *same* sensory channel. It may exist. But I think it would be extremely unusual.

    8. Sydney Bristow*

      In any university environment I’ve been in, usually a student who needs accommodations can get them from the Student Disability Services office, so generally *I* would not allow it without some sort of note of this student needing accommodation. This means that issues of disability are actually dealt with by someone who knows the students and their medical history and can be dealt with reasonably fairly in a situation such as a lecture where you want to make sure that you’re not giving or perceived to be giving special treatment. If a student of mine told me that this was something they needed, I would refer them to the Student Disability Services office so that they can get the accommodations they need.

      [Note: I’ve only been a TA, never professor].

  68. windsofwinter*

    I had my year end review yesterday. It went very well. I didn’t get the promotion I was hoping for, but I do get a few things that I wanted, including off-site training for a few days to learn some in-depth strategy type things. My boss highlighted my problem solving skills and initiative, which I appreciate so much. This will probably stave off my job hunt for at least a few months depending on how things go.

  69. LQ*

    A reorg is taking a painfully long time. Not actually that long considering the interviews just closed end of last week, but it feels like a forever and a half. Part of the reason is my boss is actually doing a Really Good Thing for me and my pay, but until that’s done we all have to keep holding out and I feel bad for the others who are also all waiting for this to get done so we can get back to work. I want to go and apologize to everyone else who is going to benefit from this reorg.

    How do you say “just keep holding on” when you can’t say why and you don’t know how long?

    1. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      Is it possible that any others will be worse off from the re-org? Laid off, pay cuts, etc? Presumably at least there will be others who might have received the “really good thing for them and their pay” but aren’t? (but have to live through a time of uncertainty).

      I think you should play it close to the chest and don’t say anything to others (positive, negative or neutral).

      “Just keep holding on” or similar sentiments is a pretty disingenuous thing to say, given that you know you have a known good position to move to but don’t know anything about their futures. It seems kind of patronizing. I wouldn’t say anything if I were you. Just acknowledge that the transition period is difficult for all of us, if you’re drawn on it.

  70. Can't Sit Still*

    It finally happened: people complained that we have too many holidays. We have 11 paid holidays and apparently, that’s too many. President’s Day is the holiday too far, even though our company has always had it as a holiday. Why are people so weird about stuff like this? “I hate my choices for the company car” is worse, although “They take half my bonus for taxes” is right up there.

    1. ThatGirl*

      I can’t imagine complaining about paid holidays. Sheesh. I *kind of* understand petty things like “I hate my company car” or “ugh taxes” but a paid day off??

      1. Ann Onny Muss*

        I’ve heard people complain about too much PTO. “I don’t use it, why do they insist on giving it to me?” *eye-roll* My company actually instituted a PTO buy-back so people can sell the PTO they refuse to take. (I, OTOH, use all my PTO and wish I had a few more weeks.)

        1. anon24*

          I never understood this either. If you are going to pay me to not come to work, I’m not coming to work. My dad gets 6 weeks at his job and is always trying to find ways to use it all. I’ll go visit my parents and my mom will be talking about how he’s trying to schedule all this PTO before such and such a date because he has 3 weeks to use and just doesn’t know what to do. Ugh, wish I had that problem. I’m in healthcare, so I get no paid holidays because I work every holiday (and if I’m lucky enough to get it off I don’t get paid for it) and my sick/vacation time is one bank. I get a very generous (for my branch of healthcare) 4 1/2 weeks and I definitely could use 2 or 3 more.

        2. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

          From what I know of the US market I can see that it’s deeply frustrating to be given a certain amount (which doesn’t seem like much to us in Europe) and either don’t want to use it, feel they can’t use it due to (project constraints / organisational pressure / whatever) and each time the PTO gets assigned to them in the system it seems like another kick in the teeth.

      2. irene adler*

        At my prior job, we all came to loathe the paid holidays. And there were many of them.

        Reason: after every single holiday, we were all required to work additional half days of overtime. You’d get the Monday off, but then it was 12-hour days for Tues, Wed and Thursday for many of us. Friday too, if there weren’t enough ‘volunteers’.

        This was a lab where plasma samples had to be tested within a specific time-frame. Holidays had no affect on this time-frame. Christmas season was it’s own kind of Hell.

    5. Rebecca*

      Seriously? We have 6 paid holidays, down from 11, and I don’t like it. I have to burn vacation time to take a working day off between January 1 and Memorial Day in late May. We used to have President’s Day and Good Friday as paid days, and it was nice to break up the monotony, use a vacation day to make a 4 day weekend to unwind, no longer.

    6. Construction Safety*

      I had a client PM tell one time that if you gave everyone a hundred dollar bill, some would complain that it wasn’t 5 x twenties.

    7. WellRed*

      We went from 10 to 8 when bought last year (President’s day was one we lost) and I”m still pissed off at it. Who wants to work straight through from New Year’s to Memorial Day without a single long holiday weekend?

      2. Adlib*

        Nobody, but it’s what a lot of us do if we don’t want to use PTO to break it up! (I do; I have to go SOMEwhere in spring, doesn’t matter where.)

    8. Maya Elena*

      My one quibble is I’d love something around Easter to break up the monotony of NO HOLIDAYS between February and May, but I totally agree with you. People also like to complain that something, some perk, isn’t 100% rational or convenient to them or they find a reason why the backstory to the for holiday is tainted. They’d rather nobody have it than have to accommodate themselves to the irrational or evil dominant culture or tradition. The result will be less holiday for everyone, not more…
      I can totally get the bonus tax complaints lol. If I thought I was getting $1500 and am only getting $800 (made up numbers), that sucks!! But not so much I don’t want the bonus :p but I feel like if I don’t like high taxes in general, at least I’m consistent!

      1. Natalie*

        One company I worked at closed on any day the NYSE was closed (we weren’t brokers or anything, they just used NYSE’s holiday schedule for convenience I guess). That meant we got Good Friday off every year, which provided a nice spring long weekend.

      2. Can't Sit Still*

        Cesar Chavez Day is perfect then, since it’s on March 31. (I do realize suggesting this could be career suicide in certain areas or industries.)

    9. Librarian1*

      who complains about too many holidays? That’s ridiculous! I think we should have *more* paid holidays, honestly.

    10. Seifer*

      I just realized that we technically only have six. I’ve only ever worked jobs that have given me the six, plus the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.

      My roommate complains that he has too many days off. I told him that I get the ten days and then the six holidays; I am not the right audience for his complaints. He gets all the holidays that the kids get off and Fridays off in the summers (he’s IT at a school district and the district office is closed on Fridays) on top of four weeks’ vacation and unlimited sick time. Sometimes I want to hit him with something.

  71. Notorious J.E.N*

    Question for those who live just beyond a 1-commute to a job in your chosen career and don’t want to reduce work hours or choose a lesser role to accommodate the travel issue…

    I don’t live in a remote part of the city, but we’re just far out enough that driving to one of three possible main cities would be at least a 2-hour round trip commute. It’s challenging my ability to find a high-quality role in my career of two decades. I left a position 4-mos ago which had a 2-hour commute (on really bad days; 1.5 hours on a good day). I want to continue to progress but the commute and family needs keep me from being able to work full time in the office.

    I want to interview for jobs, but I know to introduce the possibility of working from home may not be well received. Is there a good way to introduce this in subsequent interviews when you know you might be a contender? Seems like they’d be more likely to choose someone else so they don’t have to deal with the work from home concept especially if it’s not part of their work policy/culture.

    We moved here after my husband lost his job elsewhere and was hired here. Of course, we were looking at homes close to his work which then put me far out from where most of my opportunities would likely be located. We hope to move this year and where he would like to work is smack downtown in a major city so that means we don’t have to live too far out next time.

    1. Dancing Otter*

      You said a two hour round trip. That means one hour each way, right? That’s pretty much normal in Chicago.
      Of course, it’s nice if you find something close, but an hour is not excessive in a lot of metropolitan areas.

    2. MissDisplaced*

      My typical commute from suburb to suburb is about 1 hour in the mornings and 1 hour to 1-1/2 hour some evenings if I can’t leave until 5pm. It’s only about 23 miles. It sucks, but it’s pretty normal around here.

      If you’re faced with this you can ask for more flexible hours like 7-3:30, or maybe even WFH just 1 or 2 days.

    3. Jeffrey Deutsch*

      Obviously, I can’t tell you how desirable a given commute length is.

      I’m in the Washington, DC metro area. My rush hour commute (driving) is close to an hour each way.

      Using public transportation, I’ve done up to two hours door to door…each way. Not fun, but sometimes that’s the way it is.

      1. Kat in VA*

        Also in the DC metro area. My commute is normally around 1.25 hours in the morning and anywhere from 1.5 to 2 hours in the afternoons. Some of that is mitigated by getting in early (around 0730) and trying to get out the door before 1600 but it doesn’t always work that way.

        Fortunately, I truly enjoy driving my car and with a heavy workload *and* four kids and a husband, that time in the car is just about the only head space I get to myself.

        However, I’ve had to remind my execs who live near the office that every five minutes I stay at the office past 1600 adds another 5-7 minutes on the back end to my commute.

        I have a great house and actual land, so moving closer in would negate those qualities. My husband has a further distance of commute but thanks to the EZ-pass, only spends about 45m each way…to the tune of roughly $30 a day, that is…

    4. NACSACJACK*

      Where my parents live, typically is a 1-hour commute each way to one of two major cities. It’s one of the consequences of living in the country or a bedroom community. You mention family needs. Would it be possible to work 3/4 time per day to accomodate family needs?

  72. Temp Office Manager*

    Little late to the party, but hopefully some folks have advice.

    I’m a traveling office manager. Basically I do troubleshooting, or cover locations that have management turnover, or open new offices. This particular assignment, I’m covering management turnover. There’s a complicated HR situation that’s been brewing since before I got here (only been here a month), and yesterday my manager told me to fix it or it could affect my career. There is an open HR investigation, so retaliation against staff is legally squeaky, and again, this isn’t my permanent staff. On one hand, I’m tempted to call HR myself and let them know that my job’s been threatened over this, on the other, I’m tempted to just start job searching and leave.

    I’m kind of at a loss here.

    1. WellRed*

      Is the HR situation impacting what you were actually sent to do or does your manager think you should be fixing the HR situation itself? Does your manager understand fully what’s going on at this location? Do you have any oversight of the HR person and therefore are in a position to do…something?

      1. Temp Office Manager*

        I have no oversight of HR, and my manager thinks I should be handling it on my own, but again, there’s an open HR investigation.

        It’s drama that’s steadily escalated, and I wouldn’t have permitted it to get to this point if it were my full time office, but I’m only here until we make a hire. Manager wants the situation fixed, brute force or not, by the time the new hire takes over. I suppose I should at least loop HR in in case there are retaliation claims by the employee, or in case I get terminated for not solving the previous office manager’s mess.

    2. Jules the 3rd*

      Call HR yourself. Try to support their investigation while also pushing for a timeline for the resolution. If your boss is not satisfied with the timeline, refer him to your HR contact.

      You do not have enough context to know for sure what’s going on, including whether your boss is implicated. Hopefully HR does.

  73. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

    Mid-year change to the tuition reimbursement program has me stuck in a loophole that meant the automated system denied my reimbursement request. :P Basically what happened is, up until October, the way the TR program was operated was, your yearly allotment (which has been approximately equal to one semester’s tuition in my situation) was based on the year of the paycheck in which it was issued. My fall terms have always ended in December, so the submission and payout has always been the following January. Fall 2017 classes paid out in January 2018 and assigned to the 2018 allotment, Fall 2018 paid in Jan 2019 and assigned to 2019 allotment. Under that setup, Fall 2019 would have paid out in Jan 2020 and assigned to 2020 allotment.

    But then in October they changed it so that the allotment is based on when the classes were taken, “effective immediately.” So the system still says my 2019 allotment is maxed out, because under the old rules it was, and is now denying my request for reimbursement for Fall 2019 classes as a result, even though I haven’t actually been reimbursed for any 2019 classes. I’ve submitted an appeal letter (cc’ed my manager and director, who were the ones that authorized me to participate in this particular TR program), but so far it’s been three weeks and I haven’t heard anything. Ugh.

  74. FormerFirstTimer*

    I need help convincing my CEO that I should not be classified as an admin assistant as far as pay goes. The problem is, not only does he not know what the heck I do on a daily basis (?!?), he’s not even aware of how one of the programs we have works! Which I literally just found out this week. My direct supervisor (who definitely doesn’t consider me an admin at all) and I had to spend an hour explaining to him how a program he’s been “in charge” of for the past three and a half years actually works. In addition to basically running the programs day-to-day operations, I also do many things that I (and others) feel his executive assistant should be responsible for, like meeting notes/minutes, traveling to board meetings, making dinner/transportation arrangements during board meetings. My biggest problem is that I was never given a job description when I was hired, so I can’t show him that compared to what I’m actually doing. Any suggestions.

    1. fposte*

      There’s a mix here, in that some of this is about recognized for the work you’re doing, and some of this is about changing what you do. What I’d do is let go of the “I’m not this” and focus instead on what you *are*. What title do you want? What job descriptions can you find that match that and what you do? What salary would go with that, and what are you basing it on? Make that case.

      I wouldn’t, for the moment, assume that’s a lever to get rid of the admin tasks that you think somebody else should be doing, though. For whatever reason, they’ve fallen to you, whether you think they should or not. Wait until your value as project manager or whatever is more clear and you can say “Hey, I’m still spending a lot of time on admin; is there a possibility of moving those tasks to somebody else?”

      1. valentine*

        Why doesn’t your manager say they hired you to do XYZ and why have they been giving you stuff the exec admin should do?

  75. Justin*

    Fingers crossed, as mentioned my second interview for a big job is next Friday.

    I have learned enough from reading this site to keep my damn mouth shut about the fact that my wife is having a baby until after receiving an offer. It shouldn’t be as much of an issue as if I were pregnant myself (and timing wise, I would probably still be working here at the time of the birth even if I got the job), but I know it’s a complication (that they can’t revoke an offer over, though). But of course it makes me nervous, because I really want this job.

      1. Justin*

        Thank you.

        This would be the second job I have received since I started reading AAM in summer of 16, so I’ll be sure to update if there is news.

        I haven’t tried to learn anything about babies from here, but I’ll update about that on a weekend thread, haha.

  76. Burned out to a crisp*

    Thanks to everyone who read and replied to my question last week about whether or not it was okay to take a vacation day when it hadn’t officially been approved yet. Reframing it as “I’m taking a much-needed mental health day” helped me feel less guilty and like I needed to be at work getting things done.

    I ended up calling my boss early Monday morning (they arrive before I do) and they said it was okay to take the day off. Promptly went back to sleep and then spent the rest of the day relaxing and taking care of myself. Also very happy to report that some personal issues I was dealing with are almost completely resolved. I was losing sleep over it, and the lack of sleep combined with the constant stress meant that I couldn’t focus on the job and my work was suffering.

    So glad things are all-around better now.

  77. Anonymous llams wrangler*

    Thanks to everyone who commented last week. Your responses were really useful, WellRed and Parenthically, as I really needed the wake up call. The New Wanderer, thanks, I agree that it’s a bad environment but I work in a field with a lot of bad practices and I am not sure I can do better in the field (although I realise I don’t have to stay in the field). You will find a lot of people from my line of work on this forum.

    CM, your comment about slack was particularly useful and your advice was great! Especially the bit about cutting some slack because yes, it has all festered a long time. I followed your advice as much as possible in discussion with the staff member although having met with my colleagues they want to continue with the training rather than address behaviour more directly which I didn’t love since all the advice I had was that as a manager you need to address the behaviour directly. I made the offer of seeing occupational health to make adjustments for stress but the staff member wavered and ended up saying no. I said if she didn’t want any adjustments then she has to attend training and not storm off. She said that would mean bottling everything up but I could say that I had provided the offer to discuss the underlying issues but that it wasn’t taken up. I don’t know how it will pan out and the staff member was very emotional and felt singled out but I tried to point out that she singled herself out by storming out of the event.

  78. Gradapplicant*

    I just had my big interview for graduate school, but am kicking myself because I didn’t think to write down the names of my interviewers! I don’t know what to do because there were three people I interviewed with, but I can only find two of them on the faculty website. Many of the faculty don’t have pictures and so I can’t remember or figure out who that third person was and I have no idea what the best thing to do would be. Is it a big deal if I don’t send a thank you? I think it would be inappropriate to thank two and not the third person . I would be mortified if I guessed at the third and sent a thank you to the wrong person. I’m really worried now about what to do.

    1. KoiFeeder*

      You can contact one of the two you do know and say that you wanted to send a thank you note and could only find information for Interviewer 1 and Interviewer 2, and could they direct you to the information for Interviewer 3?

    2. Frankie*

      It’s so field dependent, but in my own experience it’s about the work you submitted above all else. Faculty get so many hundreds of emails each day that thank you notes might not really register. But I’d be interested if anyone’s had a different experience…

    3. NJBi*

      I like KoiFeeder’s plan! As another option, the graduate program coordinator may have info on who’s sitting in on each interview, if you want to ask that person. If it’s a relatively small faculty and you found out at least a little about their work, you may also be able to Google the 3-4 candidates for Mystery Interviewer #3 and see if you can match them that way (they may have other photos online from presentations etc.).

    4. Half April Ludgate, Half Leslie Knope*

      Is there anyone that’s been guiding the process along (like an HR person would)? I usually email them and ask if they can confirm email addresses/name spellings so I can make sure my thank yous get to the right place.

      1. Gradapplicant*

        That’s a great idea! My major concern was making myself look bad by not knowing who the 3rd person was, but framing it as asking for confirmation solves that. I do have a strong guess but didn’t feel comfortable sending out a thanks w/o confirming so I think this can solve my dilemma. Thank you so much!

  79. Stealth Mode*

    I work for a small firm with pretty left political leanings – we don’t work in politics per se, but because we have clients that are politically exposed, we can’t really ignore politics completely in our day to day. (I’m not a lawyer, but think of if we were a law firm that did work for individual government officials).

    I share an office with a colleague that’s somewhat new here and hasn’t really meshed with the culture in a lot of ways. He tends to lean towards the right in many of his views (though he doesn’t support the current administration or the Republican party in general given their problematic stance on a lot of things). I actually referred him for the position – I didn’t know his political slant, but I’d worked with him in the past and he had a specific skill set we desperately needed and does some aspects of the job extremely well, but is a little slow at picking up other aspects.

    He’s…not good at playing the office politics game, and I worry that it might reflect badly on me. I also hate talking politics in general but given that we are in a somewhat political space, I can’t exactly just say “no politics talk”. He does things like the following:
    – Our CEO always plays CNN – this employee will routinely turn it off and the CEO will turn it back on.
    – He spent today talking to our CEO about how today was Lee-Jackson day and why we should get the day off.
    Not advocating for what they did, but he kept bringing it up to everyone he saw.
    – He hates “political correctness” and will constantly talk about how Americans are way too sensitive about things (he’s not American).
    – Not related to politics, but he wears his emotions on his sleeve – it can get very office-dementor when he has a fight with his wife or has a lot of work to do (lots of sighing and grumbling)
    – He often sings audibly, and chuckles loudly at whatever he’s listening to, and the whole office can hear him.

    I know him well enough that I can tell him to be quiet and he’ll respect that immediately, but I find myself getting frustrated to talk to him and afraid he’s going to ruin his reputation here, especially given the political atmosphere. I find myself getting annoyed more often, and I’m afraid of snapping – is there anything I can do aside from lean into my noise-cancelling headphones? More wanted to vent than advice, but I’ll take any advice that will help my sanity.

    1. KoiFeeder*

      >He spent today talking to our CEO about how today was Lee-Jackson day and why we should get the day off.
      Not advocating for what they did, but he kept bringing it up to everyone he saw.

      Are you in Virginia? That is the only state that has a Lee-Jackson day. If you’re not in Virginia, that’s not just absurd, but somewhat worrying.

      1. Ginger Baker*

        I also definitely had some “if he isn’t American, why does he even care about this “holiday” (I put in extreme quotes) to begin with???” thoughts. It’s…well, it would worry me, personally.

        3. tangerineRose*

          I didn’t know this was a holiday. I googled it and found “Lee-Jackson Day, a state holiday honoring Confederate Generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee”

          I’m cringing so hard right now.

    2. Jules the 3rd*

      Lee-Jackson = really problematic behavior, covered there, but … he turns off the CEO’s mainstream news source? That’s beyond not good office politics.

      Since you recommended him and presumably know him well, could you have one conversation about ‘respect for others, and how that is demonstrated in the US’? Ie, ‘Do Not Mess with the CEO’s Media Choice’ and ‘Americans have ongoing trauma around bigotry, so not pushing in area that are common sources of bigotry is a way we respect that experience’. Frame it as ‘it’s a weird thing that we do, but if you don’t work within the limits of that weird thing, you may face some challenges in the workplace.’

    3. WellRed*

      My only advice is to break the TV or at least unplug it to solve that piece of it, at least temporarily.

    4. Orange You Glad*

      What is your relationship like with your boss?

      Is it good enough that referring a problematic person to work at your office isn’t going to matter much…or do you need to take preventative measures to preserve your reputation?

      Can you find a way to mention/clarify with your boss that you’re glad that Colleague got hired for his X skills but you didn’t realize he disliked CNN so much when you referred him?

      If the writing on the wall looks like he’s not going to work out, it might be time for a candid conversation with your boss about “I referred him for his X skills but now he’s created Y problems and I’m concerned you think I agree with him/brought him here knowing about Y in advance and I wanted to let you know that I absolutely didn’t know he was going to Z!”

  80. Dog Bite Victim*

    Hi all, I wrote in last March after I’d been bitten by a dog and was freaking out about people asking me about it at work. I ended up being more injured than I’d realized at the time and needed a major surgery, and took several months FMLA to recover. When I returned, I found out that my boss had not assigned anyone to cover any of my work, and basically nothing had gotten done for months. Then, my second week back, my boss berated me in a 1:1 meeting for being a low performer and not meeting my goals for the end of the calendar year.

    On Tuesday, I’m supposed to meet with boss about how I plan to make up for the lost revenue I was supposed to bring in. I have no idea what to say, because I don’t know how to make up for several months of work just not getting done when it was supposed to. Boss has been barely civil to me since that meeting and doesn’t even really make eye contact with me (prior to my FMLA, we had a decently good relationship). I’m not sure how to handle this. I know I can go to HR (it definitely feels like FMLA retaliation), but in my company and particularly with my boss, that is a nuclear option. Thoughts?

    I have an interview next week for a position that seems like a great step up at an organization where a few colleagues have moved to and been happy with, but I know I need to stay focused on this job until I have an offer, and figure out how to be okay here in case I don’t. Any suggestions or advice is greatly appreciated.

    1. Dog Bite Victim*

      P.S. I LOVED reading everyones comments of hilarious stories I could tell when Alison answered my question. That really brightened my day! Thanks to everyone who commented :)

    2. cmcinnyc*

      From your description, nuclear option is the only option your boss is giving you. If that’s all you’ve got, take it.

        1. valentine*

          Go nuclear. They’re continually punishing you for your leave, starting by not reassigning your work, and, unless you’re willing to walk out of the Tuesday meeting (you might ask HR to join it), you’re signing up for another dressing down.

      2. NACSACJACK*

        Nuke. FMLA is designed to prevent this sort of retaliation. Your boss is blaming you for him not doing his job.

    3. irene adler*

      IS it possible to at least post-pone the Tuesday meeting with boss?
      That might buy a little time until this position you write about becomes a reality.
      Then go nuclear and get out!

    5. tangerineRose*

      Your boss is a terrible person. Is it possible that your boss thinks that you were exaggerating the injury or something?

  81. Bob*

    Health Care worker here. A support staff on another floor posts lots of fb articles against vaccination and a few conspiracy theory racist ones. (The most racist one was a link to a YouTube video which has since been taken down). Her profile indicates that she works for the hospital. Do I report her? I have no idea if she talks about these things at work.

    1. Half April Ludgate, Half Leslie Knope*

      Check your employee handbook or first reach out to someone in HR to find out if they consider personal posts to be within the scope of corrective action. My hospital system doesn’t mention it in their policy book, but in this day and age, most HR teams have probably at least discussed the issue.

      2. Parenthetically*

        Oh my gosh I want to meet someone who’s half April and half Leslie. This is WONDERFUL.

  82. moql*

    How much do you pay a day laborer? I need someone for a few hours to move some heavy things, but I have no idea what to offer/how to pick them up/ how to pay. I speak enough Spanish to get by, I just don’t want to accidentally be an asshole. Can anyone give me some pointers?

    2. Jules the 3rd*

      US South, city >500k people, $20/hr for heavy or semi-skilled labor. $10 – $15 for unskilled and light (yard raking).

    4. Triple Threat Diversity Hire*

      Um. I agree with others’ comments here, but assuming that any day laborer you find will speak Spanish… well… you just finished saying you didn’t accidentally want to be a certain way.

      1. moql*

        My city is heavily Hispanic and virtually none of the contractors (both skilled and unskilled labor) I work with at my job speak English. Yes, assumptions, but based in what I see every day. I should have clarified.

      2. Jeffrey Deutsch*

        I would say it’s less a-holish to prepare to accommodate immigrants and people with limited local language proficiency.

    5. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

      I’d probably look on craigslist and/or ask on local email lists, Facebook groups, or Nextdoor (if your local iteration tends toward “I’m looking for a new dentist” rather than borderline-racist complaints about neighbors).

      Or ask your friends: one of them might be interested, or have a teenage or young adult offspring who would be interested.

  83. Mediocre*

    Full disclosure, I may just be angsting unnecessarily, but I want commiseration, to be honest. And maybe advice.

    I am not a stellar employee. I wish I could be, but chronic illness makes me miss the mark. (I’ve got accommodations but you can’t really accommodate brain fog, for example.) Thus far, this hasn’t affected me professionally, but I’m still really early in my career, and I know it’s going to have an impact on future promotions/raises, if only because someone who maxes out sick and vacation time, has to call in last minute, and is late often is not going to be first in line for good things. I am trying to come to terms with the fact that I am simply not going to be capable of much advancement (I’m just trying to be realistic) but I’m having a hard time. Has anyone else dealt with this? How do you handle it?

    1. Aerin*

      For me, I know I’ve gone about as high as I can go without switching from an off-shift back to core hours. (Which may be happening sometime this year, we’ll see.) So it’s more about enjoying stable employment, and putting the bulk of my energy into things outside the day job. Our culture (especially in the US) has a really weird mentality that expects your job to be your primary/sole source of fulfillment, and also pushes an infinite growth model that just isn’t sustainable. It’s perfectly fine to reach a level that you can maintain and just stay there.

      Of course, that might make it harder to move on down the line, when you butt up against people who expect that infinite growth. So in your case you might have to really work on cultivating a network of people who know that you’re a solid contributor at your level and who would be pleased to work with you again.

    2. CheeryO*

      I don’t think that’s unnecessary angst! I’ve thought about this a lot myself. On paper, I’m the logical choice to succeed my boss at some point, and I’ve gotten good feedback on my work, but I have a lot of brain-foggy days due to some autoimmune issues, and I’m not confident that I’d be able to handle having more pressure, more meetings, a faster work pace, several direct reports, etc.

      I think you just have to be realistic. Would you even want a promotion if it meant feeling guilty about your sick leave, or if you constantly felt like you were under-performing? Could you be content staying where you are? There’s no reason why you can’t continue to find ways to work around your limitations and become a solid performer in your current role, especially if you’re just starting your career. And I totally agree with Aerin that work doesn’t have to be your entire life. I get a lot of my self-esteem and satisfaction from things outside of work – my family and friends, hobbies, and taking good care of my body and mind. I make enough money to do the stuff that I want to do. I get to leave work at the door, which is pretty awesome.

      Also, if you end up feeling like you reach a ceiling in your current field and you aren’t happy where you are, you could always think about doing something else. I work in government, and there’s definitely no pressure to keep advancing. There are plenty of people who stay in the same role for 20+ years, and they’re some of the most valued employees since they have a ton of institutional knowledge.

    3. Gumby*

      Reassure yourself that lots of people just get a job that they are adequate at and ride it out comfortably until they retire. It just seems like everyone is a go-getter in their professional life because people put a positive spin on stuff like that (or don’t talk about it at all). It is the whole Facebook distortion field thing.

      Now if you *want* to be a go-getter professionally speaking, that is great. There exist jobs where late is not a concept (I sometimes show up after 11 a.m. to start my work day) and chronic illness is handled well. You might have to put effort into finding them, but they exist. But if you would rather put your effort and passion into a hobby or family or basically anything else, that is also great! Your value as a person does not come from climbing the corporate ladder!

      I am not in the same situation, but did attend a selective college and some of my classmates are millionaires, household names, famous actors, etc. And that in between all of the everyday doctors, lawyers, and other high-status job-holders. I went to my 15-year college reunion while unemployed. That was… fun. But my friends were my friends and I talked about other things I was doing (shows I had ushered for, books I had read, crazy things my siblings had done) instead of work.

    4. RagingADHD*

      I have found a field where I can freelance as an individual contributor. It took a few years, but I am making several times more per hour than I was back when I was in a fulltime salaried role. Since I can’t work fulltime hours, it makes up the difference plus a margin for when I need a break between projects.

      I don’t really have a personal stake in “advancement” per se. I have projects and accomplushments I’m proud of, but when I think about doing worthwhile things in the world, I see paid work as just one of many avenues.

  84. coffee cup*

    I work in a small business and we’ve recently got slightly smaller. One of my colleagues I’ve never worked directly with before has joined the team I work on. I’m not a manager but I am a senior team member, above her. She’s not done much of the work in our team before but she’s obviously just learning, and I don’t see any reason so far to worry that she’ll be not doing it right. I’ve not received the first piece of work that she’s done for me yet, so can’t accurately tell, but she’s asked me sensible questions so far and, well, she’s fine, really!

    The issue is that she constantly apologises and tells me she’s rubbish or that she’s taking too long. She *is* taking longer… because she’s new to the task. That’s totally expected. We all did it! I’ve told her all this, of course, but she persists. Every time she asks me a question it’s prefaced with a comment about how bad she is or how slow she is or how she’s probably going to get lots of feedback… again, she is, but that’s because she can’t know things she doesn’t know! It’s starting to wear me down and this is just the first thing she’s done. I myself have been known to talk myself down, but I try very hard not to at work, especially when I’m in a senior position and have to at least act like I know what I’m doing. I feel if you tell people you’re rubbish, they’ll start to believe you. I don’t believe her, but I don’t want it to affect her work or how she comes across to others. My manager is aware of it, so she may be planning to handle it, but day to day I still have to speak to her about projects and just can’t reassure her every time. Any ideas?

    1. Jules the 3rd*

      A conversation about the big picture: ‘Have you ever noticed how much you apologize / negative talk? We’ve talked about how it’s too soon to evaluate, or even to expect you to be as fast as an experienced person, and that’s all still true. I know this is a weird request, but can we just stop having that part of the conversation? Please trust me to let you know if there’s a problem!’

      And then follow that up with deeply honest review of her work, good and bad.

  85. JustaTech*

    We’ve had some impressive snow in my area over the past week, which lead me to a question (not about me):
    If you work for a ski location that doesn’t offer overnight accommodations, and the only road out is closed due to weather, and therefore some employees are trapped at work, is their employer obligated to pay them for the time that they are stuck at work? Or are they only obligated to pay for the time the employees spend doing their normal work duties (running the lifts, working the kitchens, etc)?
    (I mention the “no overnight accommodations” because it’s not like they’re getting a hotel room, it’s maybe some bunk beds or likely an office floor.)

    And tangentially, if the employees are trapped at work, is it reasonable to expect for them to be fed by their employer, since they can’t have brought food from home?

    1. CheeryO*

      I live in the snow belt and have heard of people getting trapped at work during bad blizzards. I wouldn’t expect to be paid for the time if I wasn’t working, and I probably wouldn’t expect to be fed unless there was something like an on-site cafeteria that was open. It’s a really, really sucky situation, but if the alternative is being stranded in your car, at least you’re warm and safe.

      1. valentine*

        it’s only humane to feed people.
        And they should have this built into their business plan and give the employees hotel rooms. (Or transport them out so they don’t get stranded.)

    3. pancakes*

      Whether or not they’re entitled to pay is a legal question. Feeding them seems like it depends on the circumstances – if there is food on the premises and the employees cannot leave, I’d hope most employers would think it would be cruel and cheap to not feed them. If there is no food on the premises and no way for anyone to safely bring it in, that’s quite different, of course.

  86. Two Dog Night*

    Today’s question about working from home got me curious: I’ve been working remotely for almost 12 years, and I do have to fill out a timesheet because I work for a consulting company, but even if I didn’t, if I wasn’t working, it would be patently obvious because I wouldn’t be meeting deadlines and getting people the deliverables they need.

    So I’m wondering, what kind of jobs are there where one can get away with a bunch of slacking without it being obvious? Are there jobs where deliverables are so infrequent that no one would notice if they weren’t worked on? I’m sure these jobs exist–I’m just really curious what they are, because I’ve never had one.

    1. Millennial Lizard Person*

      Any job where your primary purpose is to monitor something and respond if there are anomalies. If nothing’s going wrong, you can do whatever you want with your time.

    2. Claire*

      I had a job in the customer support department of a tech company, and I really only had to work when customers wrote in with problems, which ended up taking up maybe three hours of the day. I was supposed to spend the rest of my day assisting other departments, but that was always understood to be the lowest on my list of priorities, so no one was really monitoring how much I was doing that as long as I did it occasionally. My customers were also weird compared to most of our other accounts, so no one really understood what I was doing for them anyway–they did honestly give me tasks that no one else in my department had to deal with. I could conceivably have done nothing for half a day, or possibly even more, and just said I was working on something particular that one of my more demanding customers wanted.

    3. Bob*

      Hah. Yes.
      – Jobs where you can dictate your own deadlines (so you can pad your estimates).
      – Jobs where you need to rely on others before you can work
      – Jobs that are research heavy (you can spend a lot of time doing ‘research’)

    5. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

      Also, any job that you’re just a lot better at than most people are, if you don’t want recognition of that fact. I am very, very good at alphabetizing and filing things efficiently – it’s just how my brain works. If I didn’t want the reputation-boost that came from being “the temp that got our 3 day project done in a day” I could have easily spent a lot of time goofing off in various file rooms earlier in my career since my end-of-day output would still have been about where they expected it to be. (I definitely wanted to get the reputation of “really good at filing” because I knew I’d also get the reputation of “do not put this person on the phone” no matter how hard I tried, and those are the main kinds of office jobs people get non-specialist temps for…)

    6. Chronic Overthinker*

      Many reception jobs are basically paying you to be a butt in a seat just to answer phones/provide scheduling/check in and greet guests. Depending on how busy the company/office is, there can be plenty of down time.

    7. Raj*

      Jobs where you are the only person who knows what you’re supposed to be doing.

      I.e. if you are the only HR person in your company, your boss may not know what HR is supposed to do or how long it should take. So you can get away with taking on little work or slow-rolling responsibilities. Especially if you have a boss who is herself really busy or is not invested in managing, there’s very little oversight and you’re setting your own goals/deliverables.

    8. CM*

      My experience is that it has more to do with the workplace than the job — if you’re working somewhere really disorganized, it’s hard for anyone to hold you accountable because there’s so much noise in the system that no one knows what’s going on. People will still notice if the deliverables aren’t appearing, but, if you say it’s because of the chaos, that sounds plausible and it’s hard to disprove.

  87. Doing grad school relationships?*

    Suggestions for getting along with or taking advice from people you don’t bond with? I’m in a really small doctoral program in the social sciences (2 people/cohort). What this means is that wisdom about how to do grad school (how to select courses, how to study for our comprehensive exams, how to prepare for the prospectus) is often passed down from grad student to grad student, via personal chats or connections.

    My problem is that of the doc students in the year above me, I have a weird and somewhat tense relationship with one (we’re the same gender, FWIW). Many times (though not every time) in the past when we’ve talked about our experiences in the program, or when I’ve asked advice, this person makes me feel small, as though I’ve said something dumb, or that I need to be hand-held like a little child, or if I don’t do things in the prescribed way, I’m doing the things wrong. The feeling is strong enough that I have walked back how much I tell them or ask their advice. To be clear, I’m absolutely certain that they’re not doing this purposefully, nor do I think they realize they has this effect on me.

    Unfortunately, there are times when it’s inescapable that I need to go to this person for advice, or put myself in a spot where I need to listen to their advice. One of these is coming up this month, when we meet as a group to talk about comprehensive exams. The more I think about it, the more I think I need to go to this meeting. But I am just dreading the experience, given my relationship with this person; I don’t fancy sitting for 2ish hours among a group of people who are essentially work friends, no more, and feeling made little. Any suggestions for how I can motivate myself into going or make it a better experience?

    1. Analytical Tree Hugger*

      Semi-serious: Given you’re in the social sciences, can you frame your interactions in your head as a case study of some sort, about people with poor social skills? Use the notes in a paper sometime after you graduate.

      More serious suggestion: See if the colleague in your cohort has the information first. Also, if you’re feeling generous, start a document that can be passed on. Also, is there no advisor or program coordinator to help with continuity of the program?

  88. Human Form of the 100 Emoji*

    Any tips on dealing with an insufferable boss when you’ve decided to stay for the foreseeable future because the perks of the job are pretty good? I feel like this is mostly going to be an exercise in compartmentalizing, but I’d love to hear from people who have experienced something like this.

    1. Claire*

      If your boss is insufferable to everyone, not just you, you can try to remember that it’s nothing personal, that’s just who they are. It won’t fix everything, but might hopefully give you a bit more patience.

    2. Toads, Beetles, Bats*

      My partner went through this. Had an insufferable boss (who, naturally, caused lots of suffering), but decided to stick it out because the compensation and benefits were so good. He stuck it out two more years and was a wreck by the end. So my first piece of advice is to reflect long and hard on whether it’s worth it. My second piece of advice is to actively work on a new skill or even a degree/certificate that will help you in your imagined next job. That way when you have a bad day at NowJob, your new skill/degree/whatever is proof that you’re not powerless and that in fact you’re gonna be in great shape when you head to FutureJob.

    3. Roy G. Biv*

      Yes, compartmentalize as best you can. I have a great manager now, but it has not always been the case. I like to employ two methods for those moments when colleagues make me want to scream.

      The first is the activity moment: I go into an empty meeting room or bathroom, and vigorously practice ninja moves for 60 seconds, or disco dance moves. A bathroom is my preferred option, because seeing myself in the mirror, going through the moves, usually makes me laugh. Just make sure no one is around that you might accidentally clobber.

      My second option is to run a “commentary track of the ridiculous” in my mind. I pretend I am filming a documentary in the office, and I’m narrating the action. “The beta is now attempting to challenge the alpha, but he has no way of knowing the herd will annihilate him by deleting all his files on the server.”

      For some reason, insufferable people never realize they’re… insufferable.

      Good luck, Human Form.

  89. Birch*

    Tl,dr Any advice on tone or language for a first meeting with a new team, or ways to prevent bad habits from hurting you in a new job?

    I’m in the process of leaving Toxic Job where I’ve been for 2 years now. The main issues have been my abusive and incompetent boss, who decided I would be a great scapegoat after I stood up for a student she was abusing. In retaliation, my boss has been removing projects from me, trashing my work and telling me I’m incompetent, lying to people about me, refusing to give me credit for work I’ve done, and giving students credit for my work. She’s also shared my intellectual property as her own and allowed others to copy it behind my back. Needless to say, I’ve developed a lot of bad professional and cognitive habits–paranoia, defensiveness, avoidance, procrastination (because of constantly shifting goalposts), lack of independence, utterly zero confidence, etc.

    In March I’m starting a new job which is in the same place I used to work at, so my immediate boss will be someone I know and have not worked directly with, but who has been a mentor for me. The others on the team are all new to me, and it’s a different kind of project than I’ve done before.

    Is there any way to have a one on one with my new boss when I start and ask clearly for the kind of supervision I now know I need, or is that horribly unprofessional? I’m just wondering how to say things like “I need you to discuss with me when you want to make large changes to projects I’m working on” and “I need you to tell me as soon as possible if there is a problem with my work” …. and is there any way to professionally share some examples of things that have happened to me that clearly illustrate why I’m worried about these things (that can sound kind of vague, I think)? I’m just not sure how to be clear and transparent about this stuff without being gossipy.

    1. Jules the 3rd*

      If you can, give yourself at least six months before you have this conversation; you’re too close to toxic role to discuss it professionally. Also, the examples you give are how a normal manager should work, and it would be very weird to tell your boss ‘I want you to be a normal professional boss’ before you have a good understanding of their style.

      If you do have the conversation, just bring it up in a normal 1-1 and phrase it as ‘I work best when’ rather than ‘I need’. (ie, “I work best when small issues are addressed early, so that I can make changes before the problems get baked in”)

    2. Dr. Anonymous*

      Turn it into questions: how would you like to communicate project changes? How often should we meet for me to get feedback on how I’m doing? Should it be more frequent for the first x weeks while I’m on boarding? And then have a back and forth conversation about what they want to do and what will help you be successful. Your past doesn’t have to be brought up at all, probably.

      1. Bootstrap Paradox*

        I agree – I agree with questions, as it is a relationship building approach which invites conversation and an exchange of thoughts and ideas rather than being a series of ‘I need’ statements.

  90. Professional Organizers?*

    Looking for a shot in the dark: Anyone out there a professional organizer? I’m one of those “cleans her friends houses for fun” people and might be interested in making some money doing it, but I’m super curious about the back end. How long are sessions? How do you determine that a potential client isn’t a creep? Are any certifications actually worth it (Konmari, etc.)?

    Or, are there any other jobs out there where I could happily sit and a room and organize/purge things?

    1. PX*

      Not one but find this an interesting topic! I came across The Home Edit on instagram today (website is also the same name), who basically do home organising for celebrities. I would perhaps follow some tags on social media (if thats your thing) to get a feel for how people approach/tackle it.

      So I cant help on any of the actual logistics of it, but best of luck! I theoretically would love someone to do this for me except that I would hate the idea of someone touching my stuff :’D

      1. Professional Organizers?*

        That’s a good idea, thanks!!

        If you’re looking to do it yourself, I’m personally a big fan of Marie Kondo! She has a tv version of her method on Netflix that is super helpful.

        1. PX*

          Binging Marie Kondo (and talking to a friend of a friend who, like you, loves to organise) is what got me to really look at some of my spaces and habits and try to figure out how to be better!

          Pro: I’ve identified the problems
          Con: Too lazy to change my habits
          Pro: Trying to work with my habits means I’ve bought a bit more storage/identified what storage I should get
          Con: Goodbye money!

    2. Llellayena*

      I’m not a professional organizer, but I did hire one. Sessions were 4 or 6 hours (I was getting a bit punchy toward the end of 6, so 4 is probably better). I found her through a national professional organizer group that I have since forgotten the name of (sorry, it was a fairly obvious name though). What helped me chose her was the description of what type of organizing each person specialized in: small space, downsizing seniors, kids/families, etc. So if you can focus down on what specific things you want to organize, that might help get you started. Good luck!

    3. Not So NewReader*

      If you dig a bit on the internet you will probably find references to how to deal with hoarders. Apparently this is a topic because it comes up often enough for professional organizers. From the little I have read, the bottom line is “Don’t!”

      I thought about doing this briefly and I came the to the conclusion, I had to have a way of deciding who I could help and who I could not help.

      I recently read a critique of Konmari and other similar ideas that basically said, the homes are sterile and devoid of any personality because everyone is doing the same thing.

      These two concerns has me thinking that if I started anything like this, I would have to have a clear definition of HOW I provide service to the customers.

      1. Parenthetically*

        “the homes are sterile and devoid of any personality”

        Oof, I think Marie Kondo would be horrified by this! If you’re keeping everything that sparks joy, surely your house is laser-focused on your personality!

    4. Anono-me*

      Have you considered starting a firm helping people downsize?
      I know a lady who does this. She goes through the house with the homeowners. She helps them decide what items will go into the new home. She then facilitates transfer of the other items to loved ones or resale or charity.
      She finds most of her clients through referral by senior living facilities. She also oversees the auctioneer, the movers, and the final housekeeping of the old property.

  91. Claire*

    I applied for a job back in October, never heard anything, and then just got an email yesterday inviting me for a phone interview. The problem is that I’ve been applying to a lot of jobs and I honestly don’t remember the details of this one that well, and the listing has been taken down. Would it be weird to ask for a copy of the listing before the interview?

    1. MissGirl*

      Go ahead and ask. For future listings, always copy the job description into a document along with the date you applied and job title. Then add any notes if the application progresses. It’ll save you a lot of headache.

  92. Database Developer Dude*

    So I’m a contractor in a government office (US/DoD). I’ve been notified yesterday that they’re collecting $10 from everyone for a ‘paper fund’, which covers utensils and paper plates and other products like that. I don’t use them. I bring my lunch most days or go out.

    I’ve already pushed back, as I’m the only one in my division who hasn’t contributed. I haven’t seen any blowback yet, but how would you, if you were me, phrase the script for pushing back if I get blowback? The office budget should be paying for that, or not providing it at all.

    1. Claire*

      I always bring my own, real utensils from home to eat lunch, despite my office providing disposable utensils, because I’m weird about using plastic forks and VERY weird about using plastic spoons. I’m not sure if you’re bringing your own utensils when you bring your lunch, but if you do, you could maybe say something like, “I’m actually pretty particular about my utensils, it’s a thing for me, so I prefer to use my own.” Which wouldn’t solve the problem of collecting from everyone, if that’s the issue, but would give you an out. (Government offices are often weird about providing things like that for workers, and there are laws about what tax money is and isn’t allowed to fund in government workplaces, so that might be why they don’t pay for it out of the office’s budget.)

      1. Iron Chef Boyardee*

        “Government offices are often weird about providing things like that for workers, and there are laws about what tax money is and isn’t allowed to fund in government workplaces, so that might be why they don’t pay for it out of the office’s budget.”

        Yes.

        Four years ago, as part of her response to a reader’s question, Alison commented:

        . . . . . I certainly think that as a society we go way overboard in restricting how government employers can operate, like the recent GAO decision that federal agencies can’t supply disposable cups, plates, and cutlery for employee use because they’re “for personal benefit and not a specific government purpose.” Nickeling and diming federal employees over stuff that’s a generally accepted way of creating a pleasant workplace, which in turn is a generally accepted way of attracting and retaining good employees — while simultaneously making it really hard for government managers to fire low performers, something that would actually have major benefits for taxpayers — is ridiculous.

        (Source: “did my office’s holiday lunch cross a line?”, Ask A Manager, 1/5/15)

    2. Rain*

      I would say exactly what you just did.
      “I don’t use them. I bring my lunch most days or go out.”
      If they persist, just be a broken record and repeat what you said, and if you feel it necessary, add “The office budget should be paying for that, or not providing it at all.”

      Broken record is very effective. If there’s nowhere to go, the person pestering you will eventually have to give up. :-)

    3. Mia 52*

      This is so insanely wasteful. I would say “I don’t use these products now and I promise I will not take even one in the future, so I will not be contributing.”

    4. Policy wonk*

      In my office these types of products wouldn’t be used for lunch. They’re used for the cake when Fergus retires, Suzie’s baby shower, or to wipe up spilled coffee, etc. If you wouldn’t participate in such things feel free to push back, but expect to get a side eye from colleagues. This is pretty typical of life in the government.

      1. Parenthetically*

        Yep, this is my take. It sucks, but I don’t know that it’s worth pushing back over $10.

      2. Uncivil servant*

        Yup. You have to be really clear you’re not using or benefiting from ANY of them before you make a fuss. Do you host meetings and expect coffee supplies? Do any of the supplies purchased end up in the washrooms?

        My workplace covers this stuff through employees’ association fundraisers, but my partner has a similar setup to you. He’s reported that the people who complain the most about not drinking coffee forget about the times they grab the communal milk for cereal, or claim that since they only watch the cable tv with others they shouldn’t have to pay.

  93. Retail not Retail*

    We had a “diversity and inclusion” mandatory training that was actually vague on diversity except that we’re not majority white (of course which departments are mostly white was unaddressed) but about work respect.

    I asked the HR manager some pointed questions and was told that “two wrongs don’t make a right” so be respectful when addressing hate speech. The presenter said a bystander to bullying is obligated to stand up but at the end of it all said you’re responsible for how you feel and you can’t change people.

    The next day I said screw it and laid out all the bullying, hate speech, and harassment to my manager respectfully. Bc how do you respectfully respond to someone using slurs?

    Also someone trotted out the well this is blue collar work and you have more degrees than him and it’s like name calling is bad!

    1. WellRed*

      “two wrongs don’t make a right”

      “there are some very fine people that are also rascists” to paraphrase a certain president

  94. Coworker Questions*

    What are some good questions to ask when interviewing someone who would be a colleague?

    My small department has an opening. The open position is senior to me, though I would not report to them (we would both report to the department head). Keeping in mind the focus of my meetings with candidates is less to evaluate their ability to perform well in the role and more to see how I’d like to work with them as a colleague/if they seem like a good culture fit. 

    Thanks!

    1. irene adler*

      Might ask how they approach things when assigned to group projects.
      Ask them to describe their ideal work environment.
      Ask how a coworker at a prior position might describe their work habits.

    2. Environmental Compliance*

      Bookmarking so I can find it after I figure out why this data logger isn’t saving to a USB…

  96. revueller*

    When new people join the company, they’re expected to ask a senior team member to coffee to get to know them and learn more about the company, their role, and whatever.

    1. This is a startup, so since I’ve been here for 16 months, I’m now a senior team member. Gulp.
    2. These coffee chats used to be in groups which dispersed the burden of conversation. Now it’s a one-on-one. Double gulp.
    3. Everything after “coffee” in that sentence up top is a guess. I have no idea what this coffee chat is supposed to be about or what these new people expect from me. Triple gulp.

    So my question is: if you’re a fresh grad on their first (or second) job and you got the chance to have a one-on-one conversation with an experienced coworker within your first week, what would you ask? What would you hope your coworker would talk about?

    Any answers before 1:59pm EST would be appreciated!!! :D

    1. PX*

      I’ve done these. Mostly I asked a lot about career path, how they got to where they were, things they liked/didnt like about previous roles or current roles, advice on how to succeed *in that particular office*, advice on how to succeed in general for that particular industry, what kind of skills/training courses/development opportunities are available or what should I be considering – that kind of thing.

      Basically a lot of the kind of questions you would get on a good informational interview or mentor interview :D

    2. Joie*

      I’d also take the time to ask about company quirks and behaviours that are specific to the company

      Do they like to have out of work events, do you need to be somewhere at a specific time to be part of a group thing, or my job – we have a Good News Friday email thread that we are encouraged (read: required) to participate in that I wouldn’t have known if someone didn’t tell me

  97. Mary Richards*

    An update to the office-crasher: first, the “I’m going to get water” worked very well! But second, I think I got some insight into why she was hanging out with me: she is just a highly social person who prefers being around people to being alone in an office. Totally understandable, and now I know to carve out some time to work “with” her (which is fine around here) every so often. Plus, she is kind of fun to have around! Thank you all.

  98. Bex*

    I started a new contract job about 2 months ago, after coming out of 2+ years at an incredibly toxic work environment (screaming boss, a firearm was brought in and brandished more than a few times, etc). New contract is AMAZING and my coworkers are a delight.

    I love to bake, and it’s also how I show appreciation for others. I’d love to make some cupcakes and bring them in for my fantastic new coworkers. I’ve seen them all bring in treats for the team before (storebought but still!).

    Here’s the issue. I’m the only woman in an otherwise all male office (IT in a mining operation). My coworkers have made it clear they see me as an equal and don’t expect any more or less than they do of one another – everyone helps clean up the break room, there’s a rotating schedule for taking notes at meetings. They’re also good about listening to my input, not interrupting, etc.

    Am I gonna somehow screw this up if I bring in homemade cupcakes for the team? Will this put me in a matronly/caretaker role? What if they were storebought? I love to bake but can do storebought if it’s a bad idea.

    Any advice would be good. Thanks all.

    1. Half April Ludgate, Half Leslie Knope*

      I can only somewhat relate, as my office is relatively gender balanced, but I decided early on in my career to lean in to the baking thing – it’s a hobby of mine, I like doing it, I bring stuff in because I enjoy giving others what I made.

      As long as you’re not doing it CONSTANTLY, it should just come across as a nice gesture. The fact that others bring in treats (even if they’re storebought!) sounds like that sort of “treating my colleagues to be nice” is just part of the culture. If they’re otherwise good people who seem like they see women as equals, they should see the treats and your love of baking as just another part of your personality.

      If you start bringing stuff in all the time, then yeah, you might develop a reputation as the “team mom who always makes sure we’re well fed” but every once and awhile, you should be okay!

      But again, I’m not in a field that’s as imbalanced, so if someone else has a better idea of that factor, please override me!

    2. Construction Safety*

      I’d bring in a batch of fire-breathing chili first. After that you’ll be good to go.

    3. Anongineer*

      I would err on the side of caution.

      I did this at my old job (where it was 95% men in my group) and while most appreciated it and left it there, my department manager started making comments about how I should quit and open a bakery with his wife, who was a SAHM but wanted to get back into the workforce. Originally I just laughed it off, but he kept pushing and would tell me how she had looked at stores and loved meeting me at the yearly party. Honestly, he was only 70% of the comments I got (others included more benign “Oh when are you going to bake again, we need more treats asap”).

      Not to scare you off! I think once every couple of months is fine, but more than that could lead to expectations and comments you wouldn’t want. (Yes mine is a more extreme example)

      1. Bex*

        Hm, I think you’re right. That’s exactly the thing I’m worried about – where they will stop seeing me as an IT person and instead I’ll become just a good baker in their minds. Once every couple of months is probably a good schedule to use.

        1. Analytical Tree Hugger*

          Honestly, I think even every couple of months is too much, especially if it’s a regular event. If you can, stick with store-bought goods for events the same way everyone else does. Sharing your baking with others in your personal life instead.

          My opinion is that the situation isn’t worth the risk of being seen as “the baker” instead of “IT professional.” They’re good colleagues and the best appreciation is to continue to be a good colleague in return.

      2. Bagpuss*

        I think if you do it about as often as others do you should be fine. So if your coworkers each bring in (shop bought) treats once a month, you bringing homemade treats once a month isn’t likely to be an issue- whereas if you brought them in once a week it might not be such a good idea.
        The only other thing is *which* coworkers bring treats? Is it everyone or is it mostly a senior person treating their team? Because I think that could also change how your baking would come across

    4. JustaTech*

      Would you consider something other than cupcakes? Cookies, brownies, a pie, bread?
      I love to bake too, and I like bringing things in to share, but there is something about cupcakes specifically that feels a little school/mom.

      (If you do bring bread don’t forget a knife and something to put on the bread like butter or jam. It’s just a bit weird to eat a plain slice of bread, even if it is awesome bread.)

      1. Bex*

        I love making cupcakes, but you’re right, they do feel kind of off. I could easily switch to cookies or bread tho. Thanks for the advice!

    5. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

      Not my actual work situation, so take this with a grain of salt, but I’d pick something without much “presentation” to it to bring in, like drop cookies, rather than something with a fussy appearance like cupcakes with nicely piped frosting. (Particularly if they usually are bringing in grocery store cookies rather than fancy bakery things.) I can’t clearly articulate why, but it just seems like it would be less likely to pidgeonhole you as the “office mom” that way.

      1. Bex*

        Yeah, I think you’re right re the appearance. I’m leaning more and more towards cookies or brownies.

        I just get super excited about cupcakes cause of all my recipe books, lol!

        1. Schmitt*

          I’m a bit late to the party, but also a woman in IT, currently one of two in my team of eight. We do sprints, and every sprint start someone brings in cake. We have a rotating sign up schedule. Everyone loves it and it’s effing awesome to have cake every two weeks. If your team is bringing stuff anyway, they might be on board with something like this.

  99. Detective Right-All-The-Time*

    What are the little things about your workplace that make your life just that much better?

    For me – our bathroom stalls don’t have cracks between the doors. There’s just nothing more comforting than knowing you’re not going to make accidental eye contact with your coworkers while doing your business, or while they’re doing theirs.

    1. Mary*

      LOL, yes!!! At a previous workplace, someone must have complained about those cracks, because they were filled in. Love it.

      Now, if people just wouldn’t take their phones in and have conversations (even meetings!!!) while the sounds of … um, nature … are all around them. I admit it, I flush multiple times just to try to emphasize to whomever they’re talking to, that the person you’re talking to/who’s running your meeting IS IN THE BATHROOM!

    2. LimeRoos*

      Everything in our bathrooms is automated – automated flush, soap, towels, water, plus little tissue dispensers and a tiny garbage by the door so people can grab one, open the door and toss it right away. It makes me want to make my home bathroom automated XD

    3. Retail not Retail*

      I realized this week I love how often we get to just yeet stuff – heavy bags into the truck/dumpster/pile of bags, flinging a stick really far, and once i flung the shears point down into the mud to see em stand up.

      Throwing stuff is fun.

    5. T. Boone Pickens*

      The building I rent office space in recently upgraded its toilet paper from the awful sandpapery stuff that I believe comes out of the ULine or Granger catalog to something several levels better. They also installed these new fancy Dyson hand dryer things which are pretty slick. There is also talk of installing a reverse osmosis machine which would be terrific as it would mean I wouldn’t have to bring in 5 gallon water jugs anymore.

    6. Mia 52*

      single stall bathroom, so similar to yours. like it just makes life better. If you aren’t feeling well you can take a moment in the restroom.

    7. Bex*

      I can listen to my music and comedy albums (earbuds in) when I’m working on machines. It’s small, but just being comfortable enough to listen to stuff (instead of having to always be on guard for sudden yells or stuff) is amazing to me.

  100. Searching Question*

    I interviewed for a role in a very large company (Fortune 200). After taking to the hiring manager, this role is not a good fit. However, I would still want to work for the organization in a different role. Will I hurt my chances to work for them in the future is I send an email and say thanks for the interview this is not the right opportunity or just wait for them to tell me thanks but no thanks.

  101. Mary*

    How do I put together a business justification for reporting to a different manager? My current manager is very insecure, and that manifests in extreme control-freak behavior and territorialism. She’ll fight tooth and nail against me reporting to someone else, so I need solid business justification. What kinds of facts would upper management/HR/whomever look for?

    1. Stornry*

      Your options may be limited: you could try outlining a “business” case for reasons why your role should be with manager x instead of y. X has primary responsibility for the area/tasks/product you work on while Y only does it tangentially or it just makes more sense business-wise to shift it. But this may only serve to get tasks shifted rather than you. If your current boss is adamant about keeping these tasks under her purview, though, this won’t work at all.

      your only other option is to look for reassignment/transfer opportunities for shifting to a different role/manager/position entirely. Good luck!

  102. Science of working*

    Could your workplace benefit from more kindness? This week, I launched a six week Kindness Experiment at my blog Science of Working. The idea is for people to spend five minutes a day to do some simple actions that will bring more kindness to work. The focus this week was on common courtesy. It is free and easy, but I would value feedback on whether or not people find it valuable. Check it out if interested. Thanks!

    http://www.scienceofworking.com/your-kindness-experiment-week-1-common-courtesy/

  103. Lyn By the River*

    The question yesterday about the person who was struggling to know how to talk about her boss leaving the company made me realize that I have a different take of a similar situation:
    I was recently “laid off” (contract not extended) from my role as a project lead with the official reason being “lack of funds.” The real reason could easily be described as “sabotage from one of the decision makers,” and “abdication of duty” from almost all of the other decision makers (with one lone female decision maker actually working to continue the project and address concerns). The sabotage from all the [male] decision makers included misleading their staff, not being forthright about their lack of commitment to the project (saying they were committed in front of their staff at a strategic planning sessions, and then within a couple of weeks, after a behind-closed-doors discussion, refusing to continue their support), and spreading false interpretations and misinformation about the project and those involved.
    I know when I mention this to possible future employers that I should just stick with the “lack of funds” reason, but what do I say to those that I’ve been working with for years and who were blind-sided by this news, having been told just a month ago that the project would continue?
    To be honest, I’ve been fairly blunt about what really happened with those I work with directly because I feel like the secrecy about what this decision maker has been doing (for months) to undermine the project is what allowed this person to successfully sabotage the work. It feels like the expectations of “professionalism” actually exacerbated the problem because people the lack of transparency allowed this person to keep recycling their misguided perspective. I had kept quiet because I thought we were working to find solutions, thinking the problem had been or would be addressed, only to find out later that those efforts were also sabotaged or were not acted upon in good faith.
    My former colleagues have been talking among themselves so the truth of the matter is out there, but I don’t know what I should say to people as I transition out, particularly those who I have worked with for years and have a more personal relationship. I am finding it really hard to stomach the idea of only stating the official story to people who know me well enough to know that what I share would not just be bad-mouthing. It feels like acquiescing to the injustice of the situation and it feels like participating in the falsehood that “lack of funding” was the main problem, which is misleading at best.

    I know I probably shouldn’t go deep into detail with the vast majority of people, but if it comes up, would it be at all appropriate to say, “The official reason for the expiration of my contract was lack of funds, but the actual reason is a bit more complicated.” And if pushed to say, “There was a decision maker who did not act in good faith and sabotaged the work. I’ll have to just leave it at that.”
    Thoughts?

    1. LadyByTheLake*

      Nooooooo. “Lack of funds” only. With your bestest of best friends you can talk about the other stuff, but no one else.

    2. Silver Radicand*

      What LadyByTheLake said. Lack of funds is a non-problematic reason for your contract to not be extended. Don’t muddy your answer with something that the hiring employer won’t be able to verify and will make them question the story.

    3. Analytical Tree Hugger*

      Nope, just stick with “lack of funds.” Folks in the company will probably know, no need for you to spread rumors. That only serves to hurt your credibility and reputation.

  104. LimeRoos*

    Super excited today! Working from home because of the impending snow storm (Minneapolis) . I started this job in June, and they’ve been amazingly flexible about WFH. So different from old job and I’m just thrilled and needed to share :-)

    Anyone else prepping for the storm? The radar shows it’s basically going through the whole midwest…

    1. Art3mis*

      I’m not able to work from home. Despite touting it as a perk available after 6 months in the interview, they won’t approve anyone for it here, even “just” for overtime or weather events. So I’m here today and hoping that they close the office early before the ice starts this afternoon. Luckily someone who is allowed to work from home and has a garage parking spot let me use it for the day, so I got that going for me.

      1. LimeRoos*

        Oh that is a major bummer :-( At least you won’t have to clean off your car…but yeah, I’d be super annoyed.

    2. Aerin*

      Had to cancel a doctor’s appointment for this morning, and might have to cancel our game night tonight. We’re not expecting snow, just freezing rain, which is honestly worse. Why does this stuff keep hitting on Fridays?!? So tired of having to cancel standing plans because I don’t want to deal with the roads.

    3. Environmental Compliance*

      Northern Indiana here.

      Waiting impatiently. We have a team from Corporate coming in to “audit” (aka find the most benign, stupid crap to write in a report to say they did something) us next week….from Texas. I find this hilarious mostly because Head Honcho Corporate has an attitude and from previous experience he does not like cold. Why he keeps scheduling this in January, who knows. I suggested May for this year’s. Nope, January is *The Time* to travel north and do a full walkdown of a completely outdoor facility, with no windbreaks around it so we often hit 45+mph winds.

      But suuuuuuuure, buddy boo, you do you and come visit me in January. It’ll be fun, promise.

      His favorite thing to do is to respond to anything I send him *if he responds at all* telling me that XYZ is not the right way I need to do ABC, when in fact I told him I was going to do ABC and made no mention whatsoever of XYZ. His way is Right Way (TM) No Matter What. He’s hard to work with and doesn’t seem to understand the facility very well at all. So all the “hey, you’re going to bring like a Carhart or some nice warm coat right? because it’s going to be Negative Degrees out.” has been completely ignored again. And therefore, I am going to cackle when he freezes solid during this “audit” and no, no, we can’t cut audit walkthrough short, we haven’t seen half the plant!!

      Mature? Absolutely not. But it’s how I’m going to get through a whole week of this guy when it’s too crappy out to go trail riding.

  105. DriveableTeapots*

    I’ve been driving an hour each way to work for the past 9 years, and a lot of new companies in my field are starting up around the corner from my house, so I’d really like to find something closer to home. It seems like a perfect opportunity! But I’m worried that I’ve stagnated at my current company because I’ve gotten turned down every time I’ve requested training or development, and stopped getting promoted when I got a new boss about four years ago.
    Our systems are antiquated and I’m worried that I won’t be able to get a job at one of the new companies because I’ve waited too long to apply, and because I haven’t done any development or training on my own (and don’t have much money or bandwidth to spend on that stuff outside of work). And if I were to do the same job at a different company, I worry that I would be completely lost because the way my current company does things is soooo behind the times (although I think the principles are the same, just no current software).
    I’ve checked job postings at some of the new places opening and found a couple that I could apply for, but I’m so nervous that I won’t be able to answer anything they ask me that I’ve talked myself out of taking the leap.
    Is my situation hopeless?
    Am I hopeless?
    I’m feeling so discouraged :(

    1. cmcinnyc*

      Well, you have one good talking point for the interview–“I like my job but I’m afraid our systems are antiquated and I’m really looking to work someplace that is interested in keeping up with the industry.” You don’t say “I’ve stagnated” and you don’t apologize for not having the bandwidth to get training outside of work. But you get the problem upfront in a positive way–that you’re really looking to learn and grow. Everyone says that but you actually have concrete things you could talk about in an interview.

      1. DriveableTeapots*

        Thank you so much for the script. I think you’re right that putting the issue out there but keeping it positive is the way to go. And I think I could use that to lead into how I’ve taught myself all of our systems at my current company to the point where I am the go-to person for questions, even though I’ve not had formal training.
        I think a lot of it is just nerves. I’ve been at this one company for so long that I’m terrified about changing jobs.

    2. MissGirl*

      It’s cliche, but you never know until you try. Sounds like the situation could only get worse as time goes by. The longer you wait, the more your skills will become outdated. Apply and you’ll know where you are and what gaps, if any, you have.

  106. He Said, She Said*

    Help? I have a he said-she said situation on my team. Essentially, she says he physically intimidated her and said “I don’t want to get physical” in a threatening tone. He says she tried to force a door closed while he was in the act of opening it, and said “I don’t want to get physical” in response to her action. I wasn’t there. I believe both of them truly think their account is accurate. But if he really did threaten her, I need to address that. Complicating matters include that 1. he complains about E.VE.RY.THING, 2. he particularly doesn’t like her, 3. there is a racial component (he’s Black, she’s white, could she be subconsciously feeling intimidated because he’s Black and wouldn’t feel the same way if a white man had acted the exact same why?), 4. she’s a good employee and he is, well, not. Any advice?

    1. Aerin*

      “I don’t want to get physical” is such a weird response to that action, when he could have said something like, “Hey, stop pushing, I’m trying to get through.” Honestly, if it came from someone larger than me of any race, it would be hard not to take “I don’t want to get physical” as a veiled threat. (Because the implication is “I could get physical if I really wanted to.”) So you’d probably be safe approaching it from an angle of: it isn’t about your intentions, it’s about the way it was received, keep your focus on the situation at hand rather than getting abstract because that’s where miscommunication happens. Especially since he’s not disputing what he said, you can emphasize that the choice of words escalated the situation and work on alternatives.

      1. Ginger Baker*

        I…don’t disagree with your statement exactly, but I will say that if it’s true she was holding the door closed, she ALREADY made things physical. This strikes me as…similar to the discussions around whether, in response to a boy snapping a girl’s bra strap in school, she is “overreacting” [escalating] if she hits him…after he already touched her. I very much would want to know, why was this woman holding the door closed?

        1. Ginger Baker*

          To add on to my comment slightly, I do want to say that I don’t think being a good employee precludes having some racist perspectives and/or actions (unfortunately). You can be a fantastic llama groomer and be absolutely terrible to minority llama owners.

          1. He Said, She Said*

            Oh definitely! I didn’t mean to imply that there was a relationship between those two complicating factors.

        2. He Said, She Said*

          She: closed door to shared office space because she was cold.
          He: opened door to give her a message and propped the door open. (Note: this is not his workspace, but he does keep files there.)
          She: told him that she was cold, and was going to close the door.
          This is where their stories diverge. In her telling:
          +She: closed the door. He was not in the office at this point.
          +He: opened the door again and propped it open. Said he needed the door open so he could get files.
          +She: asked why he can’t open the door when he comes in to get a file, and told him she’s cold.
          +She: reached to close the door
          +He: physically blocked her and said “I don’t want to get physical”
          In his telling:
          *She: began to close the door
          *He: said he wanted the door open so he could get files, and began to reopen the door
          *She: asserted that it was “her office” and grabbed the door to force it closed
          *He: said “I don’t want to get physical”, told her that it’s a shared office space, and it wasn’t cold

          1. blackcat*

            Hmm. He sounds kinda like a jerk in both tellings. Why can’t he just open and close it every time he needs a file? It sounds like he already got his file, she told him she wanted the door closed, and he tried to force it open again?
            Whether or not a room is cold isn’t objective, and it’s jerk move to say “no it’s not cold” when someone says they’re cold.
            Do you have any objection to the door being closed?
            If not, I’d sidestep the issue of the interaction all together, and tell him that she has every right to want the door closed, and that he can go in to get files as needed, but he should close the door again when he leaves.

            1. He Said, She Said*

              I have zero objection to the door being closed. My main concern here is addressing the threat, if it was one. The words themselves could be read either way. In fact, they seem less like a threat on paper than they do with tone of voice added.

              1. blackcat*

                Yeah, I mean I don’t think I can really tell if there’s a threat, and unfortunately that’s likely the position you’re in, too. BUT I can say pretty certainly that he was being a jerk. So you should tell him to knock off being a jerk without making it all about that phrase.
                You mentioned he’s not the best employee–is he generally a jerk?

                1. WellRed*

                  The possible threat isn’t the issue here, especially if it keeps you from acting. The issue is, he’s a jerk.

          2. so many resumes, so little time*

            Is it possible to ignore the two different versions of the story and deal with the door problem? Because I don’t think you’re going to be able to reconcile their accounts and I’m actually not sure that it’s important to know who is “right”.

            It’s a known problem that women in offices usually feel colder and more uncomfortable than men because of HVAC settings. It’s likely that she is cold, and that closing the door is one way to keep her space warm(ish). This is regularly an issue at my workplace; I had to keep my office door closed almost all the time in the summer to keep from freezing and women who worked in shared office space were wearing sweaters and wrapping themselves in blankets.

            So she needs to keep the door closed. He’s obviously not in the office all the time; he comes and goes when he needs files. It might be several times a day and it’s annoying to him to have to open and close the door. But it’s her office and her right to close the door. Unless the files can be moved to another space, he’s going to have to modify his behavior.

          3. BelleMorte*

            who the heck props open the door of someone else’s office?

            Was he carrying files in and out at that immediate moment?

            I don’t want to get physical.. is a threat.

            1. Not So NewReader*

              “who the heck props open the door of someone else’s office?”

              Someone who doesn’t want to be alone in a room with someone else. And it looks like he was right.

              2. He Said, She Said*

                He actually propped it open when he LEFT the room, not when he went in. (Just a small clarification, because yes, I agree that if someone is uncomfortable being alone in a room with someone, propping the door open may be an appropriate reaction. Though then that’s a different situation entirely, and I’d hope that 1. the employee would come to me, and 2. I’d respond appropriately.)

          4. Not So NewReader*

            Why not just ask him what he meant by that?

            In looking at this conversation, I don’t see anyone trying to listen to the other person.

            It looks to me like she blocked him from getting his files.
            In both stories they both say she reached to close the door, so they agree on that part.

            From his perspective he could be thinking that SHE is already getting physical because she tried to close the door and basically denied him access to the files.

            Do something to separate these two. Put the shared files in a common area. They both can go get the files when they need them.

            There is something about her repeated sentence, “I am cold”, that grates on me. I think it shows lack of listening on her part. But there is something else……

            I think that I would tell them that they cannot be holding the door open or closed against each other. They need to use their words instead.

            1. Arts Akimbo*

              If she’s repeatedly telling him she’s cold, sounds to me that she’s the one not being listened to.

    2. LadyByTheLake*

      I am trying to come up with any interpretation of “I don’t want to get physical” that isn’t a threat and I can’t come up with one.

      1. Not So NewReader*

        I took it as she grabbed the door away from him and he was indicating he was not going to touch the door and would prefer she did not touch the door also.

        As things landed, he was right in not wanting to be in closed room with her.

        Unless a person is right there to see it, it’s very hard to figure out what happened and why.
        Does he have a history of other incidents with people?

    3. MissGirl*

      In both stories, “I don’t want to get physical” sounds like a veiled threat. I wouldn’t ignore that. He behaved oddly aggressively over a shut door to someone else’s office.

      1. Triple Threat Diversity Hire*

        Yeah… “I don’t want to get physical” carries with it an unspoken “but I will if I have to”; it’s almost by definition a threat. It would still be just as much of a threat spoken between people of the same gender. Aside from that, his own account indicates he started trying to open the door after she was already touching it to close it, and did so because he knew she was trying to close the door – so already inappropriate.

    4. RagingADHD*

      It’s not his office.
      It’s not his door.
      She was in no way preventing him from accessing his files – the door was closed, not locked.

      What does he say he meant by “I don’t want to get physical?” What does he think “get physical” means?

      Because if he was contemplating any type of physical conflict, even just wrestling with the door, that is physical intimidation (unless he is so much physically smaller than she is that it would be ludicrous).

      I can’t think of any context other than some kind of mutual in-joke, where talking about “getting physical” with another coworker would be appropriate. Regardless of gender. Regardless of race.

      His version of the story certainly doesn’t make him sound any less threatening. It just changes who pushed the door first.

      1. Arts Akimbo*

        Yeah, FWIW before the OP came in with clarification I was envisioning this interaction between two people of the same race, and the threat was still there.

      2. Ginger Baker*

        Also thought about this. Additionally, I can think of any number of reasons I would find it frustrating to have to open a door while my arms are – possibly – full of files. I personally would ASAP focus on solving two issues: 1) if she is cold, what can be done to fix that? Surely a heater can be acquired if nothing else? Can Facilities address the temperature in her office? 2) why are files he needs stored in her office? Are they HER files? If they aren’t, is there ANY other location they could be stored that is not someone’s private office? I for one am pretty hesitant to just walk into someone’s closed-door office without formally knocking each and every time and it would feel super invasive to have to go in there all the time for my own work. If – as a thought argument – he is already feeling like she is acting in racist ways towards him, I can only imagine that feeling like he has to knock and gain permission before entering her private office in order to continue his work will…not help in that feeling at all, however right or wr0ng that impression might be.

        1. He Said, She Said*

          A quick clarification; I don’t know if it will change how you see the situation. First, and you would have no way to know this from what I wrote, when he gets files from that area, it’s basically a maximum of 5 folders. So there’s no “arms full of files.” (Which would, I agree, support keeping the door propped open at least while he is in the act of getting the files.) Second, it’s a shared office/workroom. There are four workspaces there. I don’t *think* (though of course I could be wrong) she’s ever made any indication that he should knock, or that he isn’t welcome in the space. If it were her private office, then yeah I can see where a closed door would be off-putting. (Of course, every other of my employees who does have a private office keep their doors closed without anyone complaining. But that’s neither here nor there.)

  107. !*

    So my current boss is moving to head up a newly created team (in the same department) so their position over my team is open. I have been asked if I want to take the manager position of my team and I replied with a resounding no because I have been a front row witness to the managers having their hands tied with regard to useless employees. I have one on my team, he’s out again on short term disability for a bs reason. When he is here, he’s actually less than useless, and this time around, right before he sprung this STD on us, he started volunteering for projects, and even attended a training to support a new application. He’s been kissing up to our Director as well. I knew it was too good to last! I spoke with one of the managers who said even when they put an employee on a PIP, it’s really hard to terminate them unless they do something blatantly against policy (and it can be proven). They just can’t get rid of this guy, because he’s pretty smart, he calculates very carefully when he can be out for a significant amount of time from the last time. I know one thing, they are definitely not going to off-load him on to me to manage. I just hope they hire someone who can manage his ass out of here.

    1. Triple Threat Diversity Hire*

      Whoa whoa whoa whoa. Whether this person’s short term disability is BS or not isn’t yours to determine, and you are putting yourself in a really bad position if anyone hears you saying that. He might be an awful employee, and having your hands tied with regards to terminating employees is certainly something you’d want to consider when you’re deciding whether to accept a management position, but it’s a really bad look to go around talking about someone’s disability leave.

      1. Not So NewReader*

        Alison would say focus on the quality of his work when he is there. OP, it sounds like no one is doing that because it’s difficult? But if you guys don’t start focusing on quality of work then you will be doomed to put up with inferior work when he is there.

        1. UtOh!*

          We’ve been putting up with his inferior work for 5 years, and there has been no change. At this point, I don’t care if people know I am disgusted with him. I get saddled with more responsibility because he can’t take ownership of anything.

    2. Anon for this one*

      Do you think the additional money for the new role (I assume!) could make up for the additional frustration with situations like that?
      I assume you already have to deal with those type of situations as a colleague of people who are really hard to terminate even if put on a PIP.

  108. LunaLovegood*

    My friend recently got certified as an instructor with a major fitness brand. After she attended the national training, the studio required her to teach several free community classes in order to complete her certification. She ended up teaching about 30 classes over the course of a few months and attending regular training sessions with the studio owner, and she was not paid for any of this time. The classes were free to attend, so the studio was not making money off them, but the owner set the schedule and marketed them as a free perk to existing students. I understand that this is pretty common within the fitness industry, but is it legal for a for-profit company to require this much unpaid labor from potential employees?

    1. JustaTech*

      30 classes! Did she have to teach all 30 to complete the certification, or were some of those requested by the owner and your friend taught them in hopes of getting a paying gig at this gym?
      I’m not a lawyer, but requiring more than maybe 3 classes to complete a training is bananas. It also feels a lot like an MLM thing.

      1. LunaLovegood*

        Thanks for your input! I just explained the situation in a comment below. She had to send in a video of her teaching to complete the certification, but it seems unlikely to me that the first 29 classes weren’t sufficient. I don’t think it’s quite MLM because she’s not being asked to recruit anyone else and she now is a regularly paid instructor at the studio, but it definitely seems like taking advantage to me.

        1. valentine*

          it definitely seems like taking advantage to me.
          It absolutely is, and it’s weird, especially if they really did film all 30 classes.

          Your friend, though, could have gotten the agreement in writing, including what she had to do for a video to be chosen for submission and what would happen if she were great, but something went wrong with the video. If she signed a release, she gave away whatever money they’re going to make off of her. Are they going to sell those or otherwise use them for marketing?

    2. That Girl from Quinn's House*

      I worked in fitness, and this sounds…bizarre. We were a 501c3 nonprofit and could legally have volunteers teaching classes. You auditioned, and you were either hired as an employee or a volunteer. Employees got paid, volunteers had a lot more leeway over their schedule and class content because they weren’t employees.

      The only certification I’ve seen that requires teaching hours towards a credential is yoga instructor (they require 250-500 hours as part of the certification process,) and even then, it’s questionable legally, since for profit studios are making money off free labor. Yoga studios are known to have weird “volunteer” or “work for store credit” schemes that aren’t quite legal, but the people participating in them by and large are affluent and don’t really need the pay in wages and thus don’t complain to the IRS about it.

      1. LunaLovegood*

        Thanks for your input! The 30 classes were essentially a very long audition in this case. In order to complete my friend’s certification, the owner had to send in a video of her teaching a class and have it approved by the organization. They filmed all 30 of the classes, and the owner finally decided to submit one of the ones toward the end. When it was accepted, she was certified and became a paid employee at that studio. I guess it’s possible that my friend needed a lot of work to meet their standards, but months of training and 30 free classes seemed bananas to me.

        I did the volunteer in exchange for free yoga classes thing at a few studios when I was younger, and I had no idea it was illegal at the time. Like you suggested, I was just happy to get free yoga classes. All I had to do was spend a few minutes before and after class cleaning the studio. Teaching free classes seems like a whole other level to me.

  109. Krabby*

    The business I work for is having some problems with our remote offices. Our head office (~500 ppl) is in North America, and we have multiple satellite offices with 5 or less people, and then one large satellite office in Europe (~50 ppl).

    This EU office is fairly new and is half staffed with locals, half staffed with employees from our NA office who went there to get the new office off the ground. We gave these NA employees a lot of initial perks to incentivize them to go (housing and transit subsidy, fully covered benefits) and it’s become a bit of a problem as there is now lots of entitlement, no one wants to come home but everyone wants to keep the perks. The NA employees were only supposed to be there for 2 years but it has now been 4.

    The real problem is that for 3 of the teams with employees in the EU office, their managers are here in NA, but we only have one hour of time where both EU and NA are at work. We are trying to hire locals to take on an intermediary role, but it has been slow going.

    In the meantime, managers in NA will give their EU staff priorities for the day via email. The expectation is that they will wake up and that work will be complete, but instead they find the EU employee has helped the person sitting next to them in the EU office with something else. While these other priorities are usually helpful and do need to be done eventually, they are rarely the best use of their time and it often puts more important projects in jeopardy of failing.

    To complicate this, it often feels unfair to discipline the employee because in many cases the person who asked for the other work would be quite senior to them (think EU Director of Sales asking an HR Assistant for in-depth hiring metrics for the last year when their manager in NA had asked them to focus on market research about our benefits package).

    Do people have any suggestions for how to deal with this type of issue? We’ve tried empowering these employees to leverage their managers to say no, but it’s hard when the manager can’t back them up until the next day.

    1. WellRed*

      It sounds like it’s unclear what the lines of reporting are? Or maybe there needs to be a manager in the EU office who is in charge of distributing the tasks from NA? (though I am always loathe to add redundant layers of management). I also wonder if there’s just a difference in work cultures? Like, is NA more “all business” while EU is more casual?
      Also, with regard to the NA employees who don’t want to go home, well, what’s stopping the company from stopping the perks? It’s frankly kind of weird they didn’t have a timeline on it from the get go, like housing, etc. will be provided for the first 24 months. If you choose to stay on after that, it’s your responsibility.

      1. Krabby*

        The real problem is that they were supposed to leave after two years (the same expiry date as the visas we set up for them) so no one thought to say anything about an end date to the subsidies. However, half of our leadership team just signed off on visa renewals without talking to anyone else about it (it’s way more convenient for them to keep the NA employees there, because they aren’t thinking about cost) so we didn’t have an opportunity to step in to do anything until we were messaging these employees about setting up their return home and got emails back saying, “Oh, John already helped me get my visa renewed. I’m approved to be here for another two years.” Now our CEO is seeing the bill for keeping that person there for another two years and John is blaming my team… Learned our lesson on that one.

        Anyway, I think the culture thing is definitely part of it, though the opposite way to what you said. The EU employees are all very down to business so everything sounds urgent and like it needs to come before the stuff NA has prioritized. I’ve also helped our NA managers clarify the reporting structure, so that’s not the issue. It’s hard to ask people to prioritize an email over the coworkers they see every day.

  110. ReformedControlFreak*

    TL;DR – I am open to feedback about myself, the situation, or just co-commiseration. Thanks!

    VENT/ADVICE RE: “BOSSY” COWORKERS – I have 2 or 3 coworkers who are adjacent to or slightly below me, I do not report to them, although we do collaborate on projects. All 3 are highly judgmental and passive-aggressive in general, and 2 of the 3 are micromanage-y/nitpicky/bossy. Essentially, their MO is that they want people to do things precisely however they themselves would do it, or that there is a right/wrong way to do things for which the company has no definitive guidelines/rules/culture.
    Frequent phrases for example:
    “So-and-so SHOULD communicate like [this], (even if they prefer e-mail/person/phone)”;
    “It wouldn’t *be* a problem if everybody just did [thing] this way instead”;
    “I am going to prevent people from doing [thing] by forcing them to use [thing]”
    I personally take a results-oriented approach to work and really don’t care how people do things as long as they get it done (and aren’t hurting anybody in the process). I run a monthly meeting where all these people at my level & one below are meant to do an informal audit and identify & rectify operational issues across projects/departments. In this context, there’s a fine line (I think) between trouble-shooting and being overly prescriptive and I am having a hard time finding that balance when some of the vocal people want to enforce things being done the “right” way. I have tried to explain that some of this comes down to work style and personal preference, and while (for example) I might prefer to share a document over email and you prefer to send it in Slack, both are equally valid approaches, neither is wrong and the company doesn’t have rules about it. On a personal level, I rankle pretty quickly when I feel “forced” by peers into anything, or judged, or have my preferences invalidated. I don’t feel this way with my boss, just my peers. So I also am not sure if I am just being overly sensitive because *my* preference is so much more live-and-let-live.

    1. RagingADHD*

      Everybody has preferences, and some people are incapable of distinguishing between their preference and something that is objectively “right,” because they see it as far superior. I think you are doing tjis just as much as the nitpuckers are.

      But if you don’t report to them and their preferences don’t affect you, why does it matter if they are nitpicky?

      I’d advise you to apply your laid-back attitude to their way of working. They are optimizers who are deeply invested in creating an efficient and consistent process, because that has value to them.

      Your values are different. Live and let live.

  111. Anonymouse*

    I work at a job where we procure, enhance, and sell products. We originally had a single product line but created a new line a few years back. It was, for all employees, a workload increase. There was no salary adjustment as far as I am aware.

    We are now expanding the number of products we create in these lines. This is another significant increase in workload. If the company was producing a total of 50 products last year, we’re aiming to produce 75 this year. That usually means working on 85 projects over the year, to account for any unforeseen problems and ensure we get to 75 by year-end. We’re now stretching the limits of our capacity (but we’re fairly confident that we can do it).

    My question: when your workload increases significantly, but you’re still doing the same work, how do you calculate a fair salary increase? I’m not sure what percentage I should be aiming for. My last title change/promotion came with a 10% increase, but the responsibilities did not increase to the same degree that they are with this change.

    1. Anonymouse*

      Oh, and I’ve read AAM’s guide to asking for raises! I also know what the market rate is for my work–I’m currently in the middle of the range. I just don’t know how to relate the amount of work I’m going to be doing this year with a dollar amount when I’m squeezing a lot more work into the same number of hours.

  112. Mary*

    I like everything about my job except my manager, who is awful. As the saying goes, people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. I don’t want to leave all the other good things, so any advice on how to psychologically reduce the importance of my manager and focus on the good? Books to read, advice from yourselves, etc.?

    (And yeah, I’ve talked to my manager multiple times, talked to her manager, talked to HR … I keep hoping she’ll get pushed out or leave, but it hasn’t happened yet.)

  113. AceLibrarian*

    I had a really difficult patron interaction this week. The library where I work is in a fairly affluent part of town, so we don’t get too many transient people, but I had a man come in who desperately needed help. He wanted to know if we could point him where to find work, but he also 1) had no money 2) had no phone 3) doesn’t speak English 4) was severely depressed from his life circumstances. I spent over an hour and a half with a Spanish-speaking assistant trying to find a shelter he could get to, but shelters for men are hard to find and far away from my branch. He would have to walk three/four hours to get to the closest one with no guarantee of being able to stay there. Branch staff ended up buying him a bus pass with our own money, some phone numbers of organizations that can help him, and sending him to the food bank up the road.

    How do you handle these situations? I was so upset at not being able to help him any better and there’s only so many resources in my area for people, but on the other hand, I’m a librarian, not a social worker, and intellectually I know there’s only so much I can do. Emotionally it’s much harder to handle.

    1. merp*

      it sounds like you and your team were really helpful though! I’m sure he appreciated not just the resources but the chance to have someone really listen and want to help. I’m not sure what else could have been done, and I feel you on having a tough time putting it out of your mind, but truly, you did a good thing.

    2. Librarian of many hats*

      I’ve never had a situation quite like this one so I don’t have advice on how to handle it, but I think you and your colleagues did a good job.

      Like merp said, I’m sure this man genuinely appreciated what you were trying to do. I’ve found that when we can’t answer a patron’s question or provide them with what they need, most of them really are grateful to us for trying, or pointing them to somewhere they can get help.

    3. The Librarian (not the type from TNT)*

      It sounds like you handled it absolutely perfectly! It’s really, really hard and demoralizing to face situations like this, but I don’t think there’s more you could have done.

    4. Anono-me*

      3 things I’d like to suggest.

      1. You made the difference that you could. With the bus pass, this man has a way to get to the Food Shelf, in a way to get to the shelter, neither of which he could reach or even find before you. Both the food shelf and the shelter should have additional resources for this man. Also if the shelter is full tonight, the man still can take a bus to another shelter or even ride the bus all night with the bus pass. ( I’m not saying being a Night Rider is a good thing, but it’s better than being outside.)

      2. I’ve been alone with hard times. Not this type of hard times, but hard times. The kindness, generosity and warm spirits of strangers were incredible gifts that helped me just as much as the physical support. I was and still am grateful for both . I suspect the man that you helped feels the same way.

      3. You say that it is very unlikely that you will be faced with this same request for help. You are probably right. But you might feel more comfortable if you spent a little time finding out what resources are available so that you have a plan and if this ever does occur again. Maybe you could have information sheets in several languages with information on food shelves, shelters, and other resources. (Include simple pictures, many people come from far away from indigenous cultures , and the official language of their home country is their second or third language and may not be one they read well in. Also try and include paper maps. Many people in dire straits, either don’t have cell phones or they don’t have the money to spend on data plans for Maps.) Maybe you could find someone who could help you access emergency funds for bus passes and some winter clothes etc.

  114. Mario Party*

    I have a new-ish coworker who is a nice enought person, but does NOT TAKE SOCIAL CUES. Our cubicles are next to each other, and she constantly is coming over to talk to me about personal stuff (which I don’t mind to a certain degree, but I’m talking once every 30-ish minutes). I have used many of Alison’s tips – slowly turning my chair away from her, looking up surprised after she has rambled for a while, telling her “oh, I was actually in the middle of something”, etc. However, nothing works! Even when I’m furiously typing away, she will come over and immediately start talking – she never waits for me to make eye contact. I’ve point blank told her, “sorry, I’m busy right now!” and she will just stand there and say “oh, it’s fine!” waiting for me to finish up, as if every task I’m doing at work is only going to take a few seconds before I can give her my attention. I’m at a loss. I don’t want to upset her by being more direct (if I even can be more direct than I’ve already been?!) Any tips?

    1. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

      It sounds like you need to have a big-picture conversation with her. Instead of reacting in each moment, sit her down like “hey, here is this pattern, and I don’t mind chatting sometimes but you’ve really got to cut back. Also, if I say I can’t talk right now, that means please go back to your seat and stop standing there watching me.” If she struggles with social things, maybe suggest an interval where starting casual/personal conversations is okay — ie 3x a day or once every other hour or whatever works for you.

    2. irene adler*

      Except you haven’t been completely direct. Yes, what you’ve done so far is overkill for those who recognize social cues. But clearly she can’t or won’t. She’s happy to wait because she will eventually get your attention. Mission accomplished – as far as she’s concerned.

      Time for a new tactic.

      Why not a sit down where you might discuss this with her? Might start with something along the lines of “I’m getting the impression that you need to talk with me -about your personal stuff- multiple times per day. Is that an accurate impression?”

      See what response you get.

      Then go into something like “Please understand, my job tasks really prevent me from accommodating this-for you or anyone. So why don’t we ‘touch base’ for 5 min first thing in the morning and then you and I go about our day without the additional interruptions to discuss personal stuff. Okay?”

      IF there’s a “why?”, use the “Because frequent interruptions keep me from properly performing my job tasks. I’m sure you can understand how that goes. thank you.”

      1. irene adler*

        And for what it’s worth, your co-worker’s actions would drive me absolutely batty. I don’t know if I could possess the restraint you have shown.

        1. valentine*

          your co-worker’s actions would drive me absolutely batty. I don’t know if I could possess the restraint you have shown.
          You don’t have to let it get that far. Give them two or three strikes, then tell them what you want them to do.

          If she’s taking things literally, you can be exact in your wording. It’s vital you hold up your end, though. No spontaneous chats about the weather or anything else and, if you’re chatting with someone and she interrupts and you chat with her, however reluctantly or happily, because she will not see these as one-offs but as the start of your new routine.

    3. PX*

      Be more direct. As you’ve indicated a bit of chat is fine, direct her to a specific time for chat, and then whenever she comes back, redirecting to that time. ie

      Coworker comes over and starts talking
      “Sorry, I’m really busy right now. Lets chat and get a coffee/tea/water in X hours when I take a break”
      *Coworker comes back and starts talking*
      “As I said before, I’m busy right now. But lets get that coffee in X-30min hours”

      Repeat as often as required. If that fails, go the big picture route as suggested above and/or just stop letting her talk to you about non-work related things. In which case you simply ammend the script above to “Sorry, really busy right now and dont have time to chat at all today”.

    4. RagingADHD*

      “Listen, Newbie, I enjoy chatting with you in downtime, but I don’t actually have that much downtime. If you swing by my desk and you see I’m working, it means it’s not a good time to chat. Please don’t wait around, because some things I’m working on are very time-consuming.

      Let me know when you’re heading out to lunch, we can talk then.”

  115. ainnnymouse*

    How do I describe to perspective employers that I haven’t had a job in a year (fall of 2018)? I’ve been looking for work, but nobody has been hiring me. Does this gap look suspicious?

    1. Gumby*

      Have something else that you can talk about that you did with the time. “I’ve been looking for a job but nothing quite right has come up. In the meantime, I worked on updating my [relevant software] skills and finished [bucket list item].”

      If you took community college or online courses – say so! If you took a long trip – spin it as a sabbatical that allowed you to meet a life goal. If you took care of family members – this is a totally understandable thing! It might be harder to get an interview, maybe, but the way you discuss the break in work makes a huge difference in how it will be viewed.

  116. 3MonthsofPumpingLeft*

    Is it a faux pas to pump during a phone interview? I’m WFH today and have a few calls scheduled as I’m actively job searching, and I pump for my infant. FWIW I have a Spectra which is fairly quiet but I’m not sure if the noise could be heard over the phone, or would be even identifiable if it was. Since I have back to back calls scheduled moving the pump session seems impractical.

    Related: Earlier this week I had an in-person interview which was 3 hours long. I was not told the interview would be so long and in my experience interviews in my field are more like 60-90 minutes. With travel time to and from this became an issue re: pumping. I would like to ask about it if I get future interviews but also don’t want to signal I have a young baby because of unconscious (or conscious) discrimination. Thoughts on how to handle this?

    1. LunaLovegood*

      I think whatever you feel most comfortable with is fine for the phone interview. The Spectra is pretty quiet and I doubt the interviewers would be able to hear it, especially if you’re not using speakerphone. If you’re self-conscious about it, you can just mention something vague about a machine nearby that might make a little noise. Most people won’t ask for more details. My only concern would be that trying to pump would be distracting for me, but if you can fully concentrate while pumping, I say go for it! Especially if worrying about not pumping will be even more distracting for you.

      I was pumping when I interviewed for my current job a year ago. I chose to disclose that I was pumping and asked ahead of time if it would be possible to build pumping time into the schedule, which they were happy to do. If I hadn’t known it would be an all-day interview, I would have asked about the expected timing and asked about pumping if they said it would be on the longer side. I wanted to see how they handled the request because I didn’t want to work for a place that would make pumping at work miserable or impossible, but I realize that you might not want to take the risk if you work in a more conservative industry.

      Good luck!

    2. The Rain In Spain*

      Can you have white noise or something else in the background to sort of help mask the sound?

      Can you schedule around pumping sessions? I think they may even make adapters so you can plug your pump in while you’re driving (which I feel wouldn’t be ideal).

      I did splurge and purchased a cord-free pump (it’s one of the wearable ones) and it has been amazing- I pump a few times at work during the day but it’s pretty unnoticeable and I can walk around if I need to. I have also used it while in the car/out during weekend excursions. Might be worth considering!

    3. blackcat*

      As someone who had to disclose for interviews while pumping (academic job interviews are LONG affairs. Like 2 full days long), I ended up deciding that a place that was going to make it A. Thing. wasn’t a place I wanted to work. I was matter of fact in stating, “I will need a break once every 3-4 hours in my schedule to pump breastmilk. I need a private room for a least 25 minutes. Access to a fridge would be helpful but is not necessary.”

      YMMV, but particularly since I was looking at long term jobs and having a second kid was on the table, I sorta preferred to know from the get go how they would handle things.

      I would also pump during a different call, just because an interview is higher stress and I didn’t do well pumping while trying to do anything stressful (I did work, but on like… the random grunt work I had to do).

    4. 3MonthsofPumpingLeft*

      Thanks all! One of my sessions overlapped by about 15 minutes with an interview today but I don’t think it was an issue :-) And I see the point about whether it’s really a place I want to work if it’s an issue during the interview. I’m transitioning from driving to a job in the suburbs to looking in a major city so I can’t pump in the car on the way (taking public transit), and for this reason I have definitely thought about a wearable pump for future kids!!

    5. Anon for this one*

      Can you really not put off pumping for an hour or so? What would happen if you were driving home from your current job and delayed by a couple of hours due to an accident or whatever?

      1. blackcat*

        Likely, no, she can’t.

        Until my kid was around 10 months and eating a fair bit of solid food, delaying pumping or nursing an hour would cause a bad clog, not to mention significant pain and leaking. More than an hour had a 50/50 chance of mastitis until I figured out the power of sunflower lecithin.

        Mastitis is TERRIBLE. For me, it meant going from pain and feeling a bit unwell to spiking a 105 fever within 2 hours. That happened to me 3 times, despite my best efforts at preventing it after the first time. I’m particularly prone to it, but ending up in significant pain by delaying pumping by an hour would be pretty normal for moms of infants under 6 months. And the lecithin prevented clogging/infection, but did nothing to prevent pain when I didn’t nurse/pump. Stopping pumping, then later fully weaning were SUPER slow processes that involved a lot of pain.

        If I got delayed for whatever reason without my pump, I had to hand express the milk or use a manual pump (I generally always had a manual pump with me, after the first time of hand expressing in a public restroom, because, yuck). I used that thing *everywhere,* including next to a stranger when stuck on the tarmac while on a plane (I also had a cover, but still).

        So, please, don’t just suggest to a pumping mom that she wait “an hour or so.” Maybe it’s fine–it was for me when my kid was older! And it is for some right from the get-go. But maybe it puts pressure on her to do something that is harmful to her body, either by risking clogs or risking a drop in supply.

      2. 3MonthsofPumpingLeft*

        Thank you blackcat for covering the answer here :-) In this case in particular, I had two hours’ worth of calls scheduled end to end, and I normally pump every 3 hours. So it would be less moving a pump session than skipping one, which is a bad option for any nursing mom.

  117. TheNewbie*

    Tales from New Job Land
    Did some actual work this week but not a ton. I little miffed as every morning my new boss comes over and says I want you work on X with coworker when she gets in. Great – sounds like a plan.
    Three hours later via IM…
    Boss: How’s the project going?
    Me: Its not – haven’t seen coworker. Do you know when they are coming in?
    Boss: Hmmm…I though they would have been here by now. I’ll ping them
    Coworker: I should be in shortly, just working through some time sensitive stuff on project Y before I came in to train Newbie.
    Boss: Great – she is waiting for you to show her X.
    Coworker: Perfect – I would like to get that off my plate.

    Another hour later…
    Coworker arrives in person, spends 10 seconds showing me file path to the project then leaves for a 2 hour meeting
    Me: reading through the file coworker showed me
    Coworker (via IM from meeting): Hey, can you get out of file X, I need to update a few things for this meeting.
    Me: Sure – should I join the meeting so I know what is going on? I can Skype in on mute
    Coworker: No need, I’ll walk you through it later

    After meeting:
    Coworker sits at desk and tells me to wait a couple minutes while she deals with project Y from this morning
    3 interruptions and 2 conversations later, I get 5 minutes of her time before it is time to go and all that was accomplished was how to log into the system needed to run data for project X.

    Next morning:
    Boss: Great work on project X yesterday!
    Me: Huh? I didn’t do anything, coworker did some updates in the meeting and showed me the system for reports then had to leave.
    Boss: Oh…they sent me the completed file last night.
    Me: What should I work on today?
    Boss: Well when coworker get in…

    Yup – that was my week. Show up and wait to see if or when coworker would show up to train me. Even better was I overheard one of the conversations they had with another employee talking about how busy she was and how adding “all the hours training Newbie this week” just put them farther behind.
    One hour max.
    No one else who can train me since I am taking over the role from coworker and they’ve had it for 10+ years.

    1. Van Wilder*

      That sounds truly annoying. I have to admit, I have been your Coworker several times. From my point of view, I would say keep in mind that it sounds like she is truly swamped and while getting you work is clearly top priority for you, it might be lower on her list compared with the other work she has to do. I would also say enjoy the quiet while it lasts because once you get up and running, you’ll never have a break again (of course, that’s the case in my job, I don’t know about yours).

      That said, this post and also the various ones about interns that have nothing to do serve as good reminders to me to prioritize getting new people onboarded.

      1. valentine*

        Tell your boss and this coworker that this is untenable and that you need a real plan with benchmarks in order to take over the work on x date. (Please tell me there’s an x date.) This ad hoc waiting around for her scraps and her cutting you out of your own work is a waste of your time, s well as BS and sabotage. Also, email him actual times and things learned.

  118. Alana Smithee*

    Short version: how candid should I be with my new manager about my previous manager and the kind of awful status quo?

    I had been struggling with my manager (Patricia) for well over a year (though honestly longer)—she’s inconsistent, frequently out of the office with little to no notice, doesn’t show up for scheduled meetings and frequently ignored my attempts to communicate via email or cancelled our one-one-ones. I tried repeatedly to get her to schedule a mid year review, only to be told that she had “marked down in the system that I was on track” and “if there’s an issue with your goals we’ll change them in December” so in her opinion no meeting was really necessary. It got worse in September when she was offsite doing trainings at other facilities, and I literally did not see her until after Thanksgiving. She called me into her office to let me know that she was going part time and remote effective in the new year as she transitioned to retirement and that the section of her job that relates to mine would be handed to a colleague 1500 miles away, Linda. I would also report to Linda. She said they hadn’t worked out all the details about the transition but they would let me know. She also apologized for being distant over the past few months as she “figured out her next steps.” She was then out of the office for the next two weeks working elsewhere, then it was the holidays and I didn’t hear from her.

    We’re well into the new year now, and Patricia is officially part time and remote (in another major city), but there has been hardly any mention of the transition. I asked the head of the department and her boss, Carl, who was covering an issue and his response was “I don’t know yet.” He’s currently listed as my manager in our HRIS. I’ve received a few sporadic responses from Patricia in response to questions as no one has indicated how those areas are being transitioned. I’m flying down next week to have a face to face with Linda. While I’ve worked with her before in matters related to my primary job function she has no experience with this function, and I don’t know if I should tell her that “hey, Patricia phoned it in for the past year so I’ve effectively been without a manager which has been immensely frustrating. I actually disagree with a lot of her decisions regarding this particular function and there is a lot of room for change and improvement, including the project she pushed through despite negative feedback from everyone and then flakes out of implementation so now I’m dealing with the fallout of it while she’s swanned off. I can’t continue like this.” Basically, how do I let Linda know that things aren’t great as we figure out how to move forward? How detailed should I be?

    1. Van Wilder*

      I think you could be fairly open but just phrase it professionally. Not “Patricia phoned it in” but maybe something about how you appreciate a more hands-on management style. I think you could show her that things could be done better by giving her some helpful background info on projects that did not go well.

    2. NW Mossy*

      It’ll probably do you some good to have a couple of lists going into that meetings. The first is a list of the major things you’re working on and their current status; the second is a shorter list of 2-3 item that you’d most like her help/input on so that they can move forward.

      I wouldn’t worry too much about telling Linda about Patricia’s poor performance as your leader, because it’s going to become glaringly apparent to her before very long if it’s even half as bad as you’ve laid out here. Remember that bosses have eyes and ears too, and we’re often as (or more!) aware of our peers’ failings as their directs are.

  119. Third or Nothing!*

    So I’ve been cataloging my issues with a Mean Girls style clique at my office here in these threads. To summarize, I can’t eat dairy because it makes me sick. I won’t die, but I will still have a pretty bad time. The clique controls the monthly lunch order to celebrate birthdays and whatnot. The clique does not think I should get a special dairy free lunch so they don’t order me one even though I ask every time. They are super rude about it and roll their eyes and make snarky remarks when they tell me no. It’s pure chance whether I’ll be able to partake from month to month. The only time they will intentionally get me a dairy free meal is when the new VP tells them to, but of course he has to know before the order is placed, and the clique orders the lunches whenever they darn well please. So here we have bullying and insubordination, but nothing has been done because naturally they are all related to one bigwig or another. Ok, y’all are all caught up.

    Yesterday it was a dreary day. We have a little tradition to order in lunch (on the company’s dime) every once in a while when the weather is particularly gross. So the clique, completely on their own, decides to order 3 large pizzas for our office for lunch, again, on the company’s dime. I asked if they could add chicken nuggets, an option which this particular place provides, to the order. There was a lot of exaggerated eye rolling as the woman placing the order told me “no one else is getting a choice, Third.” I will admit this annoyed me more than usual but I did my best to remain professional. I felt better after working out my frustration through a lunchtime run. Better enough to write a calm message to the new VP (who joined our office a few months ago and sits literally right behind our little cubicle farm) asking what his plan is for addressing the overall toxic culture because it has started to affect me. I did not mention the lunch at all, just wrote in general overarching language and made clear that I’m starting to be affected by the environment.

    Y’all I think that was the magic phrase. New VP has been talking with me off and on about his concerns with the effect this clique has on our overall culture. He’s tried a few things but there are still issues, likely due to the family ties I suspect. Today I think was the straw that broke his back. He said he was very disappointed about the way lunch was handled yesterday since he was not consulted or informed whatsoever. I can tell he’s upset that company money was spent without authorization. He asked for my help documenting any bullying or harassment I observe and said he is considering corrective action.

    I may have laughed maniacally a little too much when telling my husband all this last night.

      1. Third or Nothing!*

        It’s been quite the frustrating saga, let me tell you. Probably why I’m way too excited about my conversation with New VP.

        Keeping it professional, though. Still speaking politely and kindly to the members of the clique even though I’m still annoyed with them. We are about to be off for MLK Day so I will soon have plenty of time and separation to get a better internal attitude toward them.

        1. valentine*

          He asked for my help documenting any bullying or harassment I observe and said he is considering corrective action.
          I hope you’re right that this is a big W for you, but you’re already doing and it keeps the burden firmly on you. Any reason you don’t contact him when lunch is happening? The food problem is super simple to solve and, even if he eschews confrontation, he could (1) remove their spending privileges (2) have you text him when there’s a lunch so he can order you nuggets (because making them do it isn’t good for you; it keeps you as the bad guy) or a meal that’s your equivalent of pizza from anywhere else. I mean, what’s he waiting for? And he sits right there! (Do they always wait until he leaves before they pull this?)

          1. Third or Nothing!*

            He is not always there, and he is often too focused to pay attention to all the chatter going on out in our cube farm (and there is sooooo much). And a big part of the problem is that they just order whatever whenever without really consulting anyone and THEN send out a mass email saying “we’re having such-and-such tomorrow.” Since there’s so much chatter I also often tune it out so I also sometimes miss when things are going down until it’s too late.

            Asking to order a separate lunch is a good suggestion. He did it for my birthday (tasty Thai food instead of Olive Garden HECK YES) so I know he’s open to it. I just hate the idea of adding extra delivery fees when the real solution is so much simpler – assign lunch duties to someone else! Heck I’ll even take it over. I love organizing stuff. He has suggested it as an option to address the issue so I’m not 100% sure why they still have control. From previous conversations I think he’s waiting until we move to the new office space and there will be more natural separation and it will be more of one big change instead of a ton of smaller ones.

    2. General von Klinkerhoffen*

      Gosh, their actions are so malicious. Like, even if they think your dairy-free diet isn’t legitimate (!!) they’re having to go out of their way to exclude you. Who does that?!

      Very best of luck with the new VP! Let’s hope he can bring about real change and won’t hit the same roadblocks.

      1. Third or Nothing!*

        As we say in the South: “you get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit.” Normally this attitude is directed toward whiny toddlers but here we are.

    3. Laura H.*

      Seriously wishing that you could eat dairy and make the clique suffer your symptoms just once.

      Alas, the moment that ability is discovered, I give it 2 seconds before utter chaos.

      1. Third or Nothing!*

        What galls me is that one time one of the members asked me what happens when I eat dairy. I went into excruciating detail. It is not pretty. She still is of the opinion that these lunches are a privilege we should all be grateful for and I have no right to ask for more than the company is already doing.

        They should all read AAM. At least here we all know benefits are something companies do to attract and retain good employees, not something they do out of the kindness of their hearts.

        1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

          “more than the company is already doing.”

          A lunch you can eat is THE SAME AS the company is already doing, of course.

          1. Third or Nothing!*

            You and I agree wholeheartedly on that point, but the fact that a dairy free meal adds expense to the order means, in their minds, that I am being a whiny toddler asking for more more more.

            1. WellRed*

              Well, they could reduce the amount of some of the other food to offset yours if they want to think of it that way.

            2. General von Klinkerhoffen*

              I want to come and feed them some week-old chicken in a sandwich so they can get a clue about whining. It must be so frustrating for you.

              1. Third or Nothing!*

                A dry tasteless sandwich!

                And yes it is very frustrating. I mean I’m used to not getting to eat food at social gatherings but company sponsored meals are supposed to be a higher standard of inclusiveness.

    4. WellRed*

      Is this the same vp who back you up on the lunch thing before? If so, I am glad he’s listening to you, but until he actually does something, rather than talking to you about the need to do something, I’m reserving my excitement.
      Also, I hate your coworkers.

      1. Third or Nothing!*

        Yes, same VP. Like I said, he’s made some efforts to make the office more friendly, but they haven’t been super successful. He said in his reply that he’s been working on more flexible work arrangements and getting some physical separation in our new office space, which we are moving into in the fall. I gather from his reply that he originally thought this would solve the problem since it would break up the clique somewhat.

        I think maybe he just wasn’t aware how toxic the situation really is. Our conversation was much more serious this time than it has been in the past. The fact that he wants me to formally document stuff is encouraging.

    5. Just Another Manic Millie*

      “they are all related to one bigwig or another.”

      I was expecting this. In fact, there have been so many posts about clueless inept co-workers and managers, and no one, including Alison, seems to know why they are still employed, and I just say to myself, “They must be related to the owner. Or friends with the owner. Or a relative of a friend or a friend of a relative.”

      1. Third or Nothing!*

        MMMMMMM-hmm.

        Call me crazy but I have hope things will change. We were bought out last year by a venture capital firm after one of the two co-owners decided to retire and therefore sell his…share…for lack of a better word for a privately owned company. That’s when this new VP came on board. There have been a ton of new (not related to each other!!) hires and more oversight added like a board of directors and new reporting requirements. We’re in a period of big change so now is the time to get these concerns documented and addressed.

        A Certain School of Magic and Magic is changing. I just hope it’s for the better. So far signs point to yes but we shall see. I am not exaggerating when I say that if this clique is dissolved I would never even consider leaving. Our benefits and pay are far beyond what anyone else offers in our area. Honestly it’s the only reason I’ve stuck out this nonsense for 8 years.

  120. Deputy Now*

    After years as a hands on IT-guy with plenty of side-consulting the business owners, I’m currently the deputy of our Team Lead in a team of 10. We (the Lead) are responsible for the requirement engineering of our software, collaborating with our software developers and contributing to ( a heck load of) projects at our customers implementing our software. As a deputy I’m responsible for the support tasks.

    My team lead is going to retire in several month, and it seems that I’d be “an obvious choice” for changing my role to team lead. Thats what my lead said, and the unspoken feedback I recieve from other collegues or other teams. Big boss won’t say anything before the job advert ist published. However the team lead roles require a lot of domain knowledge (think teapot design, production and implementation suitable for Japanese tea ceremony of any type in shinto shrines across varios climate zones for the organization. My team is doing the design, implementaion and support of tea caddiess. ) And therefore chances for “outside” candidates are very limited.

    Right now I’m still doing a lot of stuff/projects that other team members do as well, contribute to “team lead” type tasks more than a deputy would and manage the support. I’m feeling there is always too little time and that I’m doing too little too late in too poor quality.

    Being an IT Guy by education and I don’t consider myself neither being a “manager” nor a “great communicator.”

    I need a few good/answerable questions by the commenters to ask myself, and a few good advices for the future team lead.

    Thanks in advance,
    Deputy

    haven’t written anything in english in ages…

    1. LQ*

      I’ve had this chat a few times recently so here are some questions I’ve asked folks.
      If you argue for a point and you make a case and you think you’re right and your boss doesn’t accept it and you still don’t think it’s right, are you going to be able to go back to your team and present the direction without undermining your boss and your company?
      Is being friends with everyone on your team incredibly important to you?
      If someone on your team fails at something you’ll be held responsible for that, can you handle being responsible (and even blamed) for things that you didn’t personally do? (And can you live with feeling guilty for not doing enough for that person when they fail?)
      If you try it and don’t like it, will your company let you go back or will you have to leave?

  121. Joie*

    At what point is it fair to say your new hire isn’t going to work? When I get frustrated I tend to get blinders on and I don’t know if I am being too hard on him or if these are real issues

    He’s been here 3 weeks. He’s aware his job has a lot of time sensitive items or we start incurring charges.

    1) the work is very repetitive and not that complicated. We send the same 3 items for every single thing we process. He asks what to send on every single item. It’s always the same 3 items with the occasional extra item thrown in

    2) we have written documents and step by step procedures that he refuses to use and either tries to do it by memory or asking me every single step. He flat out refuses to use the documentation (and incurs compliance charges because it’s wrong and still refuses to use the documentation for those specific sections as suggested)

    3) when stuck, he will sit there quietly for HOURS trying to figure it out until I look over and realize he’s just poking around and step in to help him – even on things we told him are on a deadline and extremely important

    4) there is no sense of urgency around where things with deadlines but he motors through things without deadlines. For context we have about 1 hour of straight focused work that need to be done in the first 5 hours on Tuesday.
    Factor in new person learning time 5 hours should be easy for him to hit the deadline but usually 7-8 hours later he’s not done and I have to step in but the same process without a deadline he can do it in 3 hours easy.

    5) he yo-yos like crazy. There is a lot of routine in this job and one day he’s killing it – going strong and then the next day it’s like he’s never seen this stuff before

    6) and the most frustrating of all – he puts off talking to people or calling people until I tell him firmly to do it now. He will wait for weeks if left to to his own devices (and has, I just found out this morning that the thing I’ve asked him to start on with a boss last Monday still hasn’t even been brought up to boss so now we have to eat $500 in fines as its now too late) until I do it for him or tell him to do it now and stare at him until he does it

    So am I being to hard on him at 3 weeks or are these as big of flags as I think?

    1. PX*

      I got to #2 and was like..nope, fire them. Refusing to use provided documentation that actually causes compliance issues is fireable straight away in my books (and I’m always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt/more time to work on things).

      I would have one (1) last super blunt conversation with them where you literally lay out all the things you have listed here with NO sugarcoating and say that these are all things that need to be addressed immediately.

      But I would also be going back through the resume pile and looking for the next best candidate who applied!

      1. irene adler*

        Yes-exactly.
        You have documents (#2) to guide you -use them! No excuse not to (unless he cannot read or is allergic to paper -or computers- thus rendering him unable to access them).

      2. LQ*

        Yeah #2 is really rough. The rest are bad too, but #2 is willfully bad vs just incompetent or could be trained.

    3. Threeve*

      Three weeks, he’s not doing most of his job most of the time, and he’s cost you $500? Don’t be unkind about it, but cut your losses and let him go.

    4. Amtelope*

      #2 is the killer. You could try one last conversation where you say very bluntly “If you’re going to continue in this job, you must refer to a written list to remember which 3 items to send, use the documentation and follow all documented procedures, and meet all deadlines. If you can’t do that, we will need to terminate your employment.” But that’s being generous. Telling you that he refuses to use the documentation is fireable.

    5. !*

      You have put together a comprehensive list of why this guy is *not* working out, what additional evidence do you need? Take off the blinders and manage!

    6. Silver Radicand*

      So I agree with others, that you should have one last very blunt conversation and then, if still needed terminate. Also, I would follow up with him on the tasks assigned him, particularly those with deadlines, at regular intervals, possibly after two hours for the 5 hour task, to check and see how it is going. It may help salvage him as an employee, but only if he is actually using the documentation.

    7. Zephy*

      How direct have you been in telling him that he needs to consult the documentation, he needs to get this done by X:00, he needs to do this or that or the other? It’s almost an AAM trope at this point, the manager that thinks they’ve been direct with feedback but it turns out they haven’t. If you’re this guy’s boss, you have standing to say, in those words, “Wakeen, you need to do XYZ.”

      1. Joie*

        I didn’t have time to reply on Friday but it is impossible to be any clearer with this guy. I’ve even gone as far to pull out the binder and point to the page the information he needs is on while saying “as we talked about, most of this is in this document which you need to be checking before coming to me” or when he asks I’ll say “have you checked the documents?” which he stares at me or pokes around for hours until I intervene and help him

  122. Deb Morgan*

    People who have worked with a nonprofit completely run by unpaid volunteers: how long do you typically wait for an email reply? A few days? A few weeks? I’m trying to recalibrate my expectations, but I’m getting tired of sending emails into the void.

    1. fposte*

      Are you one of the volunteers, or are you somebody else in the situation?

      All-volunteer organizations are, as you’ve already assessed, not the most spit-and-shine places. Generally I’d expect a couple of days; if it’s longer than that, there’s something going on either with that email (a lot of times nobody’s checking the email once the original person has moved on) or in the organization.

      1. Deb Morgan*

        I’m a volunteer. I was told by the volunteer coordinator to email a team distribution list, so multiple people could see it. But then it becomes the responsibility of everyone and no one to reply, even just to confirm that someone received and read the email. None of this stuff is life or death, but it’s making simple tasks drag on and on because I have no idea if or when anyone will respond.

        1. Colette*

          The problem is the distribution list, not the volunteer status, I suspect. Distribution lists either result in many answers or none at all.

          So I would email the distribution list and then, if I didn’t get an answer after, say, 2 days, I’d email someone specifically and ask them to get me an answer.

    2. LQ*

      I aim for about 2 weekends worth of time. Often they are doing stuff on weekends and so essentially you’re giving them a couple business days if you give them 2 weekends.
      If I sent it the 13th I’d wait until the 27th to follow up, and if I sent it the 17th I’d wait til the 27th to follow up.

    3. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

      Also, depending on the org, they may have fast and slow times of year. If this is a month that most people have “off” because whatever things the org does are mostly scheduled in other parts of the year, emails may take a long time to get answered because no one sees anything org-related as urgent in January. (For example, if it’s an org that mostly does stuff in the summer, I would expect the parts of the org that do long-range planning to be paying attention right now, but the people who do more day-to-day “operations” stuff during the summer season may not even check their email until March or so.)

  123. Seven If You Count Bad John*

    My team is being moved, AGAIN, to another section of this complex. We’ve been in this facility since October 2017 and this is now move #7. They just moved us to this spot right before Christmas and I never even bothered to unpack my box.

    We don’t know why they can’t just find a spot for us and leave us there. It’s ridiculous and demoralizing.

    I just needed to grump out loud about it. Thanks.

    2. AnotherAlison*

      Pretty common at my company. I had been working out of state in 2018, came back in January 2019 and sat in 6 spots in 2019 (7 if you count being out of state in Jan). The final spot was at our new office complex in Dec., and now that we have more space and all groups/major projects settled, I should be able to stay put for a while. The problem for us is our work is project based, so project teams have to move all the time. Sometimes the non-project based groups are collateral damage in those moves.

    3. AnotherAlison*

      Forgot to add I do agree it’s aggravating and demoralizing, esp. if you’re the small group just getting moved around to accommodate others.

      1. Seven If You Count Bad John*

        Also, this current move, we were informed YESTERDAY that we’re moving TODAY. We never get any warning. At least one of these moves was supposed to be so a larger (seasonal) team could consolidate in one area, and they told us about it basically the day of, and then it stayed empty for weeks afterward anyway. The whole thing stinks.

        1. AnotherAlison*

          Sounds about right. I have seen that when there is a multi-group move. A was going to B’s spot, so B vacates, then they decide to swap A and C instead. And sometimes we get the flip side. . .they tell us we’re moving and then nothing happens for weeks. People get antsy and weird when there is a move coming, and that prolongs it.

    5. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      (Assuming other teams don’t move around as much) I would suggest you think about (and I may be wrong!) whether the physical being moved around is symptomatic of something more unstated like they’re not sure where your team really belongs. I wouldn’t start job searching but I would be on the alert for anything that seems to indicate that your team’s future in the company may be in flux.

  124. AccountantAnon*

    My raise is stalled and I don’t know what to do!

    In September I asked my Manager for a raise – a really big one, 20% or so. He was enthusiastically supportive of this but told me 1) he doesn’t make the decisions on compensation and 2) I wouldn’t hear anything about my request until January when we do annual raises (which I knew going in, this was a request made very early for January).

    My manager quite, his last day was 1/16. My department has re-organized and I am now reporting to my grandboss (now manager). I have reported to her before I was re-org, so this is fine – she’s excellent, but she’s been very removed from me and my work for the past year / year and half. I know my manager put my raise request in front of her: I know nothing about how she feels about my request, whether she did or did not advocate for my request, and I have no idea when I’m going to hear back about my request. Management has been SILENT on raises, and we have no performance review process that provides any kind of deadlines. We get raises essentially when our CEO feels like it, and his opinion is that raises happen in January.

    Now, January isn’t over, but I’m getting anxious. I feel like I owe my new (old) manager the chance to make her case either for me, or to explain to me why my request wasn’t met. On the other hand, the salary I asked for is one I can get fairly easily if I get a new job, and right now, I desperately need money. As in, our income just abruptly fell by $12K per year and while we can certainly trim some expenses, I can’t magically cut $12,000 off my budget even we scrape back to rice and beans and paying only those bills which are immediately due. We have some short terms savings that can tide us over – but if I don’t get a $10K raise by the end of about February/March, we’re going to be in trouble. Obviously I’m not going to bring ANY of this up to my boss, my raise is about the value I bring to the company….but how long do I wait before I jump ship to a job that’s got a starting salary of what I want? I’ve already been talking to recruiters, none of them have batted an eye at my salary request so I know the jobs are out there.

    1. Silver Radicand*

      Given that your old boss quit, you should talk with you new boss ASAP. Tell them about the request you made and treat it as though it might slip through the cracks, because it very well might or might have already. If she already remembers/knows, then great! But in the (very possible) case that she’s has forgotten, you may be saving yourself needing to make that move.

    2. Just Another Manic Millie*

      “I know my manager put my raise request in front of her”

      How do you know that? It doesn’t appear that you’ve discussed it with her, or even that she has acknowledged it.

      There was a similar problem with one of my former companies. You had to ask for a raise, because if you didn’t, the company assumed that you were happy with your salary, so why bother giving you more money? You had to ask your supervisor for a raise. If he thought that you deserved one, he would tell the office manager. If she thought you deserved one, she would tell the controller. If he thought you deserved one, he would tell the treasurer. If he thought you deserved one, he would tell a vice president. Then it would pass through all the vice presidents until it got to the senior vice president. If he thought you deserved a raise, he would tell the president. If the president thought that you deserved a raise, he would tell the chairman of the board. If he thought that you deserved a raise, you got it.

      There was a huge problem when Sansa, the office manager, quit, and a lot of raise requests disappeared into a big black hole. Even though people were certain that their raise requests had been passed on to Sansa, Sansa’s replacement didn’t know a thing about them, and all the higher-ups didn’t know about them, too. And when someone’s supervisor quit after allegedly having approved a raise, Sansa or Sansa’s reploacement would have no record of it, and would say that you had to get your new supervisor to request a raise for you. Invariably the new supervisor would say, “I just started here! I have no idea what kind of work you do. I can’t recommend you for a raise.” And TPTB wondered why people left in droves.

      1. AccountantAnon*

        ““I know my manager put my raise request in front of her” How do you know that?”

        My old manager told me he did, and I have to believe he was honest. Raises at my company happen in January. Budgeting happens in July / August / September since our fiscal year begins on 10/1. Since we have no performance review process, I set up a meeting with my manager in September so I could tell him that I wanted a raise and I had a specific amount, so it could be part of budget planning discussions.

        I am already looking for a job, but I’d much rather stay at my current job (at the higher salary), so I’m more frustrated by the complete radio silence than I am anything else. Lack of any kind of official communication process around performance and compensation is also frustrating – does the silence mean I didn’t get a raise, or just that decisions haven’t been made yet…? Who knows, it’s a mystery!

        1. Just Another Manic Millie*

          Okay, so your old manager told you he did, and you believe him. But at my previous company, it seemed that a lot of supervisors told Sansa, the office manager, that their reports deserved a raise, but after Sansa left the company, her replacement couldn’t find any record of those approvals. And the controller and all of the other higher-ups claimed that they didn’t know about any of those raise requests. So either Sansa didn’t think that any of those people deserved a raise, or there was a conspiracy, and the higher-ups all pretended that they didn’t know about any raise requests, and they persuaded Sansa’s replacement to keep quiet so that she could keep her job.

          Does silence mean that you didn’t get a raise? Well, it certainly doesn’t mean that you did get a raise. One problem with my former company’s method of giving out raises is that none of knew who of the higher-ups objected if we wound up not getting a raise. So we didn’t have the opportunity of going to him and asking, “Did you know that I was responsible for this, that, and the other thing?” And then the higher-up would say, “No, I did not. How would I know? I’m not in your department.” And then the raise-seeker could say, “Now that you know, could you please reconsider my raise request?”

          It just so happened that every single time I requested a raise, I got one. (Until the company changed the way they decided how to give out raises, that is.) So I don’t know how long people kept looking at their paychecks without seeing any increase and finally felt forced to conclude that they weren’t getting a raise.

      1. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

        I didn’t make it explicit but my gut feel is that your ex-manager didn’t bring up any of this to your (now) grandboss, knowing he would be leaving and so wouldn’t have to deal with it. It’s easy to promise the earth if you won’t get called on it! If you are really at “rice and beans” level you need to look out for yourself ahead of promises by the company, though.

  125. NervousConAnon*

    I’m going to be staffing a booth at a convention for the first time (think TeapotCon and we are a membership org for a category of teapot makers). I’d love any and all advice about how to do this well! If it matters, we are mainly trying to recruit new members to our org, not focused on selling products. I’ve been given advice that I should make connections with people, not try to have a slick pitch, but small talk with strangers is not something that comes naturally to me.

    1. Laura H.*

      I work well with strangers but even so,
      I have scripts of sorts that I use/ used at a seasonal depending on what role I’m doing. (It’s not season and I’m not sure what tense to use) I usually wind up explaining what I like about the job. I get to meet new people, I get to be around pretty shiny jewelry, I get to help people find gifts that mean something to them.

      All of these things are true and balance the line between genuine and “ugh feels so scripted” decently enough. As you do more of these types of things, it does get easier.

      And you might be able to ask others in your org for tips on how to find that balance.

    2. SomebodyElse*

      Basics: Comfortable shoes, bring a sweater, make sure you have the essentials close at hand (mints, lip stuff, band aids etc).
      Have mints or other giveaways to lure people to your booth.
      When you are setting up, find the facilities person and ask them for a small garbage can… terribly useful and weirdly will help draw people to your booth if you can set it up where they can see it.

      Small Talk: Have or cultivate a few scripty intros to help you with making that initial contact but then drop it for conversational tone.

      “Hi! I see you noticed our spiffy pens here… please take one.” As they are reaching for one “There’s a lot of people here, I haven’t gotten a chance to wander around yet, have you seen anything interesting?”
      “Hi! Can I answer any questions about ACME Teapot Makers Org?”
      “Hi! Please take a pen, I’ve got a bet going with the booth over there that we’ll have more visitors”

      Yes scripty, but effective in that initial contact. Then you can drop that and just talk to them, ask them questions.

      “Have you been here before? It’s huge… I didn’t expect so many people, I’m thinking my org shouldn’t have sent their shyest person to staff this booth, I’m so overwhelmed”
      “I’m guessing your job involves teapots, what is your role”
      “I see you work for Spacely Space Sprockets, what’s your role there?” *This works if they will be wearing name tags

      While they are answering the questions, then you can try to think how your organization could benefit them. You can ask some leading questions about other organizations that are in your industry, would they like to bring back some information about your org, you can ask them if they need/want/are interested in some of the things that your org offers like training or newsletters.

      Mostly, have fun and remember that there will be a lot of shy people too that you will be talking with. Be open and friendly and excited about your organization.

    3. Gidget*

      No real advice. Working booths can be challenging. I would have a basic script in mind, but mostly just try to chat with people. My one piece of real advice– bring cough drops/hard candy and water. Spending all day talking to people in a loud setting can really take a toll on your voice/throat. You might not need them, but on the off chance you do you will be happy with your foresight.

    4. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

      Try to make casual eye-contact with passers-by and smile a little bit. Try to use welcoming body language (don’t curl yourself up into a ball even though you may want to). Try not to be on your phone/trying to get other work done even if things seem “slow” – people won’t want to interrupt you and you’ll miss the chance to connect with them. Look like you want to be there in that booth finding people to have conversations with, even if in reality you’d much rather be at home with a good book.

      A lot of this is about being seen as approachable and someone it would be nice to talk to. This can be difficult to do if it isn’t something that comes naturally to you! If all else fails, try to see what the people at other booths near you are doing and see who seems welcoming. Try to figure out why they seem that way and if any of it is something you can mimic.

      Being approachable at booths is one of those things I’m good at, but I’m not sure I can really articulate why. It’s definitely a deliberate persona I put on to be approachable and upbeat the whole time, and I feel like I’m going to fall over and never talk to anyone again by the end of it.

      Since you’re trying to get new members for your org, try to think about a few advantages to membership, and if you have any stories about fun things your org does those might also be good things to share. You don’t have to try to get through every talking point with every contact, but if you have a few different nice things to say about your org it’ll help fill the small talk.

  126. Mimmy*

    TL;DR – I am extremely sensitive to my environment, so ignoring chaos around me at work, even if it doesn’t directly impact my job, is very difficult. I don’t know if it’s realistic to expect to find a work setting that is calm and busy at the same time (for lack of a better way to say it).

    Full details:

    Some frustrating things that happened at work this week made me begin to question what types of work environments, if any, are better suited for me. My current job has one director and three supervisors plus one administrative assistant who helps to keep things running. There are other supervisors and advisors who are also part of management. Then you have the instructors, of which I’m one.

    So as you can imagine, there are a lot of players, which I find leads to miscommunication and sloppy scheduling. The scheduling issues are one thing, but the lapses in communication is what annoys me the most. It also feels like there is chaos. Not so much people rushing around, but there always seems to be something going on, either with a student or a technical issue. My direct supervisor in particular often seems to be running in 20 different directions with so many people competing for her attention.

    I was starting to think that maybe this is common in workplaces and that maybe work just isn’t for me because I can’t really handle the environment.

    Then I had an internship at a large university this past fall. While the supervisor I was shadowing was extremely busy, sometimes dealing with student crises, the environment felt so much calmer. The office was comprised of other staff in student services and registrar-related roles, but–again–I hardly knew anyone was there.

    I’d love to know if there is a way to screen for these things when interviewing. I’ve read the suggestions on here and other sources, but I tend to be hyper focused on the interview and don’t always think to pay attention to my surroundings. I don’t think you always see everything because you’re either in the waiting area or with the interviewer(s) in an office or conference room.

    Just to add some complexity to all of this, I have some disabilities that might be magnifying my sensitivities.

    1. Nervous Nellie*

      Oh, Mimmy! I feel your pain! I am in my 50s, and have struggled with this question for my entire working life. I am sorry to say that in my experience, you can’t really screen for this in interviews. Few interviewers will admit that the workplace is chaotic/dysfunctional/loud – either because they don’t know it from the perspective of the role on offer, or because they will never fill the role if they admit it.

      Keep in mind too that how you handle noise/chaos is entirely personal – they can’t assess your tolerance. Some people are somehow unaffected by the messiness. I have been out of my mind stressed in roles while my colleagues breeze right through it. I am mystified by them.

      But you are right – this is the burning question! I will be very interested to see what others here can suggest. I was just laid off from a very stressful environment, and would love to hear how people gently probe for some details on the realities of the day to day as I look for my next role. Like you, I need a calm role.

      We will get through this! Be sure to post an update to let us know how you are doing.

      1. Mimmy*

        Some people are somehow unaffected by the messiness. I have been out of my mind stressed in roles while my colleagues breeze right through it. I am mystified by them.

        I’m mystified by them too!

        I appreciate your support and commiseration :)

    2. RagingADHD*

      In my experience, there are a few factors that tend to make a work environment more or less chaotic, beyond the style of a specific manager or company culture.

      1) How much interaction there is with clients or the public. The more “back-office” a role is, the calmer it will usually be. Smaller organizations tend to have less separation between front and back office, while larger firms may have them on separate floors or even separate buildings.

      2) Deadlines. Work that happens on a long cycle tends to be less frantic than work with shorter deadlines, or work that happens in response to ad-hoc requests.

      3) Processes and structure. Work that is highly structured and follows more regular, predictable processes tends to have a more steady pace and less flurries of activity.

      So if you are in a career that involves student services, I’d say to ask about procedures, structure, and workflow. If everyone is expected to pitch in on everything, that implies more fluidity and extemporaneous collaboration, which can get chaotic.

      If everyone’s roles are well-defined, and there are strong procedures in place, it’s going to be a more settled environment.

      And those are terms you can use, too. Flexible, collaborative, pinch-hitter, generalist – people in a fluid environment will claim those things happily because they are seen as virtues. But that’s not the environment you like.

      1. Mimmy*

        Oh wow this is really helpful!!

        The descriptors in your last paragraph describe my work place almost perfectly. We are always thanked for being “so flexible” but sometimes, I think expecting that much flexibility from staff gives license to be sloppy. Also, I recognize that things can change unexpectedly in any job, but the last-minutes changes at my job can get confusing. Our day runs on six class periods; even just one person calling out can throw the whole thing out of whack. I’m the only instructor in my discipline, so the idea of calling out makes me extremely anxious.

        #1 in your list of criteria is where I’m getting myself into a pickle – what I am interested in (disability services and accessibility in a university setting) isn’t meshing well with the fact that I probably function better in a back-office environment.

        The other thing is, while I do really well with the students I work with (it’s not a university–it’s a state-run Voc Rehab training program), I’ve long thought that I’d do better with work that is more project-oriented. I assume that’s what you meant by “work that happens on a long cycle”?

        So I need to figure out how to stay with what I’m interested in but in a role that’s a little less frantic.

  127. Buttons*

    I have been waiting all week for this! I need your collective creativity. I have a new grad program in which in their first 2 days we do a fairly intensive workshop that focuses on things a new college grad entering the workforce needs to know. I am now adding a second 2-day workshop to invite them back to after they have been at the company for 18 months. In this one, we will focus on their development, career pathing, goal setting, action planning, etc. What do I call them? They are no longer new grads, I don’t want to call them young professionals (we have a young professionals employee group that uses that).

    I know you are thinking “why do you have to call them anything but employees?” Ha. But I do, it is part of our corporate culture.
    Ideas?

    1. Jennifer Strange*

      What about Early Career Professionals? That indicates that they’re still early in their careers and still learning?

      1. Lizzo*

        ^^This! It covers everyone, including non-traditional students who may be “new grads” but are not necessarily young with respect to their age.

      1. Zephy*

        Well, it’s not an externship, they’re employees. And “fellows” outside of an academic context is still a gendered term. (Though, tbf, academia certainly has its share of old boys’ clubs, so “fellow” is still implicitly gendered to some degree there, too.)

  128. Impending Snowmageddon Today*

    Should a manager, with the option to work from home, use that privilege for weather related reasons, when all of said manager’s reports do NOT have that option and are required to come into the office or take PTO, no matter the weather?

    1. fposte*

      I’ve done it. There are other factors at play that affect my decision, and I don’t always do it, but I wouldn’t say it was impermissible.

      1. valentine*

        Yes. Take your perk. Everybody suffering for no good reason doesn’t make sense.

        (I used to love being the only person in the office.)

    2. Van Wilder*

      Is the manager the one making the rule that the staff can’t work from home due to weather? If so, then that would be a pretty d1ck move.
      If it’s corporate policy outside the manager’s control, I would say the manager can work from home due to truly horrendous weather but should not be too liberal with it (like not every time it flurries).

      1. Impending Snowmageddon Today*

        It’s an exempt/non-exempt divide, not a manager/report divide, although all managers here are exempt. Most exempt employees have been issued a company laptop, principally so they can work remotely under business interruption situations. Non exempt employees have desktops that require butt in chair access. I work in a national operations center, so closing for bad weather is Just Not Done.

    3. Buttons*

      Are you the manager or the employee? My company does bad weather closings or late starts. Is that not possible? why do they have to take a PTO day if it is dangerous for them to get to work? That is just bad employee relations. If they have to go in, the manager should go in to. I wouldn’t want to, there is privileges you get that aren’t afforded to everyone, but not going in could cause a divide between leaders and employees. You have to be part of the team.

      Be safe!

    4. Art3mis*

      Every company I’ve ever worked at I’ve had managers that do it. Right now we have to be here and have to do mandatory overtime, but my manager is in Mexico taking her 20th PTO day since starting with the company at the end of June. So, yeah.

    5. Jennifer Strange*

      I’ll second Van Wilder’s comment that if the manager in question has made the policy that only benefits them then it’s not a good picture. If, however, that’s just corporate policy and the manager has no control then I see no reason why they can’t do it. It may not be fair, but sometimes managers get perks that others don’t. That said, I would encourage the manager not to overuse the privilege and, if possible, try to push for it to be more available to other employees.

      1. Antilles*

        Agreed, especially with the last part. The manager should really try to consider options to help the staff in the future. Can we decide that the office doesn’t really need to be open? Are reduced hours possible to help dodge the worst of the storm/ensure they’re driving in the day? If the storm is really bad, could you just chalk it up to ‘manager’s judgment’ and bend the rules? Is there any way to figure out WFH options for employees in the future? Etc…
        The answer to all these might be negative, but it’s worth at least thinking through if there’s a way you can give your employees the same option when the weather is really awful.

    6. Anon for this one*

      Well, it’s not a good look.
      When I was in this position I walked 6 miles to work in snow to allow my direct reports to work from home and use the VPN which had a limited number of connections.
      Yes it took about 3 hours. Yes I was still at work on time!

  129. Boudica*

    So…how do you deal with some one who is not your boss micromanaging you? This person is related to the owner, and views me as being on their team. Their team is an internal customer, but they aren’t in our reporting chain. My supervisor has indicated that I should push back, but the individual keeps doing it. Including editing my forms (not an approver for our department, and no real reason to do so), dictating how I name files (no established naming convention, not her department’s files), and harping on the administrative details of my job to the point I can’t do my actual job. And she assigns my job to someone else…I’m frustrated and upset by it. I feel undermined and like I’ve lost agency. My job is quality assurance-the manufacturing team doesn’t get to tell me how to qa. I have 10 years of experience and that manager treats me like I’m new. What do I do?

    1. Buttons*

      Your manager should be intervening, your manager is not doing their job. You need to flat out tell her no. “Thank you, but this is how I prefer to name the files for our department. ” “Jane, I am confused, you aren’t on the approver list for this, so I am not sure why you felt it was appropriate to edit this?” “Jane why did you give this to Sue, this should have gone to me?” “Jane, these minor administrative details are preventing me from getting X done.”

      And for your manager, go in with a list of concrete examples of what she is doing is preventing you from doing your job, examples of her wrongly assigning work to someone, etc. You need to tell your manager your plan, and ask for their support. Ask for reassurance that if this effort doesn’t correct the problem they will step in.
      Good luck! I hope you will let us know how it goes!

      1. Boudica*

        I’ve had a joint meeting with the micromanager and my supervisor & it went well. There was a plan of how things were going to work. Then, a few weeks later (2? 3?), it reverts back. Due to the individual’s rank, when I push back, they push back harder on me
        Me: Hey, as this is our department’s function, we’re going to do it this way. We’ll follow up on anything that requires follow up.
        Micromanager: On what timeline? Hey, this log hasn’t been updated. Hey, this file is updated. Hey, this hasn’t been scanned.
        Me: That isn’t the way our procedure has this process, the paper files are the items that are to be managed…those are done. Also, I haven’t followed up yet, why do you think those are done? I was working on project a.
        Micromanager: Well, it’s a priority for our department.
        Me: You department doesn’t use these files…They don’t have access to them, and the paper files are in order in the instance they do require it. Which they can access by asking me.
        Micromanager: well, what about x, y, z.
        Me: I have to do a, b, c or I miss my deadlines to Supervisor
        Micromanager: Our deadline is (tight deadline) for x, y, z.
        Me: ???????????? new to me…

        Supervisor (who works part time): try to get it both done, you’re doing the right thing, if you can’t finish all the projects, please prioritize the ones with a direct, quantifiable impact on business flow. Let me know what things you’re pushing back against that you can’t do and meet your deadlines.

        So basically, my supervisor is having weekly meetings about what I can’t do, what my priorities are, and the micromanager still persists in trying to manage me. This would be a bit much in my own supervisor, but would be understandable that they would have Opinions on how the department is run & I could adapt. This is particularly frustrating because they are get in the way of accomplishing my own job and the micromanager doesn’t do my performance reviews! But…their (very close) family member does sign my paychecks…arghhh. I don’t know if I’m explaining this correctly or well.

        The easiest compromise: act like I report to micromanager & let them make these minor/irritating calls. But the principle of the thing is deeply wrong, and I feel like it means I don’t have responsible charge or independence, which are 2 very important things for me

        1. Buttons*

          Good lord, that sounds awful! Can you just ignore her? As in, don’t give the detail you typed above and just say “Ok, thanks for letting me know.” and just carry on?
          Can you direct her to your manager every time- “what about x, y, z?”
          you- “you’ll have to ask supervisor about that!”
          Maybe if you direct her to your manager every single time they will get so tired of it they go above her to get it dealt with. One can hope at least :)
          It sounds like a friggin nightmare for you and your boss. Good luck!

          1. Boudica*

            Micromanager does these things specifically when Supervisor isn’t in the office to direct to. Which is why I think Micro does it…their team gets both weekly 1-on-1s and daily check ins, and since she’s not there for my 1-on-1s, she thinks I don’t get them? or that I need daily? idk

            I’m going to try you suggestion anyway on anything that won’t have a direct business impact…after, as an internal client, I don’t want to leave her hanging. I just need her to stop dictating the how/whens/whats of my job that doesn’t interact with her department.

            1. Buttons*

              I would ignore her as much as possible and don’t give her any detail she does not need. People think that when you give that kind of detail they that then deserve to know that level of detail and then they have a right to give their opinion about those details.
              The only way to stop a micromanager, who isn’t even your manager!, is to not let them manage anything that they don’t need to.
              I feel ya, those people are insufferable. I’ve got on in my office, but I am well above her in seniority so I just look at her like she is an idiot and say “hmm, I am not sure why you think that falls to you to decide.” HAHA

    2. NoInterrupties*

      It sounds like your boss is supportive, which is great. Can your boss talk to the micromanager? Can you and your boss both meet with the micromanager so your manager can demonstrate his/her support of you?

      You could also start cc’ing your manager on all communications between you and the micromanager. Good luck! Micromanagers drive me bananas. :-(

      1. Boudica*

        Thanks, NoInterrupties. I think getting my supervisor fully looped in on every conversation may (?) help. May be it isn’t clear how much is being told to me?

  130. I love fridays*

    I have been working as a administrative assistant at this job for 4 years. I’m good at what I do and sometimes my boss says they would never let me go… So how do I tell them that I actually want to leave. I want to live in a bigger city in another state and I am scared my boss would try to sabotage my efforts to get another job.

    1. fposte*

      That’s a pretty common hyperbolic way of saying they’re happy with your work; I wouldn’t assume it meant that your leaving would be a tragedy unless there are other signs from your boss. It’s also not likely they can do much to sabotage your efforts beyond not giving a good reference, and you can exercise some control over that. Start thinking about other people from this job who could supply a reference for you if need be; start identifying people from prior jobs who could serve as a reference as well.

      Don’t tell them you want to leave; just tell them when you’ve got to give notice and it’s an actionable piece of information. “I’ve loved working for you, but I’ve always wanted to live in Katmandu, and I found a great job there, so I’ll be leaving you all on March 15. I’ll prepare transition documents before I go.”

      1. Antilles*

        100% agree with the last paragraph. You have no obligation to let them know ahead of time that you’re looking, just when you actually have accepted an offer and are providing your two weeks or so of notice.
        I wouldn’t assume it meant that your leaving would be a tragedy unless there are other signs from your boss.
        Also, just as a point of clarification for ilovefridays: Even if you *do* see signs that it would be a tragedy for the boss, that does not obligate you to stay against your own best interests. You need to do what’s best for you and if the company falls apart because you leave, the company was probably teetering on the edge anyways; unless you’re the CEO and Sole Proprietor, a company really shouldn’t collapse upon losing a single employee.

        1. fposte*

          Yup, good point. You get to leave when you want to leave, because that’s the law of the land and human interaction. You’re not ordained by anybody to keep this one employer afloat for life.

        2. I love fridays*

          Haha no the company will certainly not collapse when I leave, I’m Simply having a hard time having the conversation of leaving in any company that I work for. And you are right Antilles, I have no obligation to stay. Thank you for your comment. Hopefully I will be hired at a new place soon!

      2. I love fridays*

        It wouldn’t be a tragedy that I leave at all, it is more about living in a small town where good workers are hard to find and we are having a hard time finding people for any job really. It is actually another employee that I am close with that’s been working there for a long time that’s planted the idea in my head that the boss might try to keep me here. Might not necessarily be true.
        I was also wondering when is the right time to tell them that I want to leave and you’re answer is very clear.
        Thank you for your comment :)

  131. Maria*

    Hi – update from last week.

    My new admin is still not helping as much as I would like. I realise what a good admin my previous one was – she came in a couple of years ago and took control of all admin things which made my life so much easier.

    I have met with the new admin but she really doesn’t care. Went to the grand boss about it. He knows there has always been a problem with the new admin in that she doesn’t really have any initiative and is trying to come up with a solution.

    My old admin is thriving just working for him (she really is a good administrator) so I am happy about that because she is worth her weight in gold.

    I’m just waiting to hear what the grand boss’s solution is. This is a company where no-one has to go through competency issues.

    1. WellRed*

      So you have a boss problem. The “solution” is to allow you to hire someone else. I’m glad your old admin is doing better in her new position, but I think you all should get out of that company.

      1. Auntie Social*

        Do you still have the resumes from a few weeks ago? Maybe someone landed in a job they’re not happy with, maybe someone is still interviewing. Explain that you need a self-starter.

  132. Jenn*

    Gotta brag about my organization. I work for a non-profit that is in the process of undergoing MAJOR changes. The employees have known about the changes for more than a year, the higher-ups have been very proactive in helping employees prepare (more training, implementing changes gradually with lots of warning, keeping us updated on the process, etc.) Yesterday we were told every employee would be receiving a bonus and to pick up your letter from HR to find out what your bonus would be. Most of us were thinking a few hundred, maybe a $1000 for longer-term employees. I picked up my bonus letter – it was an almost 5 figure bonus!! For so many employees (myself included), this bonus is life-changing. I am so proud to be part of this organization!

    1. Buttons*

      WOW! Congratulations. It is nice to hear that a non-profit is doing change management correctly and recognizing the value of good employees. Good for you!

  133. Target for bullshit*

    I need to have an uncomfortable meeting with a company we partner with quite often. One of their project managers has gone rogue and organised workshops and meetings with our joint working group without informing me or my colleague. The project manager has also blamed us (mostly me) for tasks that have not been done, even though it was her tasks to do.

    She has also gone behind our backs and talked very badly about us personally and our company, to their CEO and to other collaborators in our field. We are not entirely sure of the extent of the damage, but it seems rather bad, at least for me and my colleague’s reputations.

    I am meeting with her boss on Monday but would need a script so that I keep calm and professional and don’t get emotional.

    Any tips? What do I say?

    Thanks!!!

    1. fposte*

      Ouch. What’s the goal of the conversation? How will you know when you’ve met it?

      Right now I can’t tell if this is “Jane, if you don’t knock it off you’re throwing our partnership away, and we’re considering looking for alternatives” or if it’s “Jane, we’re getting some puzzling reports about your unhappiness with our partnership, and I’d like to help solve them.” Definitely know where you are on that spectrum and what behind-the-scenes leverage you may have before you go in.

      1. Target for bullshit*

        Very good question.
        I dont really know myself. I think I want her boss to make her apologize and also somehow fix what she has said to the other collaborators . But that means she needs to admit to lying and that won’t happen.

        An achievable goal is for her to stop holding secret meetings and start involving us, cc’ing us on emails etc. But I am not sure I think that is enough…

    2. Analytical Tree Hugger*

      Stick with the facts.

      “We’re concerned about the fact that Rogue PM organized XYZ workshops and meetings on our joint workshop group without informing my colleague or me. We also heard from our collaborators that Rogue PM said ___, ___, and ___. Of course, reputation is important in our field and we would be happy to address any issues if they had been brought to our attention.

      This isn’t how our partnership has worked in the past. Could you help us understand what’s going on?”

  134. Cog in the Machine*

    I’m in the middle of applying for basically the same job I have now, but in a much more desirable location, and I’m freaking out because the location will have a bunch of applicants.
    Here’s hoping, because this job is also my way out of the rental that is figuratively full of bees and literally full of wasps.

  135. Anon for this*

    My company has rolled out a policy not to give references for people, citing as a reason that “most companies also don’t allow this for liability reasons.”

    If this is true, how is a person supposed to get a job? I know Alison has stressed the importance of getting references during hiring, and of the etiquette and norms surrounding asking for them as a job-seeker. If it’s so important, how can companies justify refusing to let their employees give them? It’s the height of hypocrisy, sure, but I’m also genuinely at a loss as to how this would actually work in the real world. We’re all out here getting jobs at companies that ask for references, so what gives? Do people just break the rules and give them anyway? What is an ethical person to do, if they work for a company that has such a policy? Should we all expect to just wait till our boss/colleague/preferred reference ALSO leaves the company before we ask them to be a reference?

    1. Colette*

      The last time I worked for a company who “didn’t give references”, multiple managers offered to be a reference for me when I left. So basically, they make the policy and people ignore it when they want to.

      But also, a lot of places don’t check references.

    2. SomebodyElse*

      Here’s how it works in the real world. Managers still agree to be ‘personal’ references. But we’re much more selective when even doing that.

      It’s honestly been years since I’ve looked at the policy where I work, but we did have one that stated we weren’t allowed to give references. In fact they went as far as to hook up with a company that did the basic verification such as; dates of employment and salary. Even current employees who needed things verified (for loans or other reasons) needed to use this company.

      I have agreed to be a ‘personal’ reference for a few past employees. But only ones that I think are solid and not likely to blow up in face in any manner.

      The other way around it is to keep in touch with other employees who have already left the company. So that boss from a couple years ago or the coworker who has a new job. I’ve been at my company forever and could still come up with at least 1 former boss, 1 former peer, and 1 high level executive that I could count on as a reference.

    3. General von Klinkerhoffen*

      Often this means in practice, “if you get a reference request, forward it to HR who will confirm dates and titles only.”

      If it’s genuinely standard in the industry, the prospective employers won’t read anything into it. I think it’s fairly typical in the UK nowadays for formal references to be very slender indeed.

      Alternatively, there might be an option to give a personal reference rather than an employer’s reference, maybe explicitly stating it’s your personal opinion and not necessarily the position of the employer (reading like a Twitter bio!).

    4. Buttons*

      In my experience, most companies do not allow their employees to give references. At my company reference checks are all directed to one person in HR who will verify someone’s dates of employment and title. That’s it.
      I had a hard time about 8 years ago, because of my last 4 managers- 3 were retired, and 1 was dead. That was fun times trying to put together a reference list! LOL.

      My references are former managers, former employees, and former colleagues. I make sure to keep connected on LinkedIn, and if I had a good relationship with someone, I will ask them if they can be a reference. An employee who hasn’t worked for me in 3 years just sent me a text a few days ago to ask if I would be a reference for her. Make a list of former managers, employees, and colleagues and see if there is anyone on there who you would want to ask.

      I do not think most places expect your current manager to be a reference.

      1. Anon for this*

        I’m also thinking about it from the hiring side–I spoke with the colleagues of one of my hires, including a boss, and it was helpful to hear their thoughts on her work. I also have been more than happy to speak to the skills of employees I’ve had who ended up leaving because of a move. They didn’t leave for dramatic reasons or out of unhappiness with the job, but I was technically still their manager, and I know in one case the positive review I gave (in the form of a survey, which was annoying) was very important to my report getting the offer. It just seems foolish to ask us not to give POSITIVE references where we are comfortable to. Sure, I’m happy to say “our policy is to not give references” in the event I’d have bad things to say, but it feels needlessly punitive to employees who leave to put a gag order on their colleagues.

        1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

          I guess they don’t want their name on a positive reference for someone who doesn’t work out at the new job. I mean, you’d think they couldn’t be liable, but who knows?

    5. mreasy*

      I’m sure this is common, but I have never worked for a company that didn’t allow references in 20+ working years.

    6. Bagpuss*

      Is it no references of any kind, or is it that the company will only give a ‘factual reference’ (confirming that the employee was/is an employee, their job title and dates of employment)?

      If it’s an absolute, could you suggest that they agree to at least providing confirmation of those details on request

  136. NoInterrupties*

    One of my pet peeves is being interrupted, and I hate interrupting, too. I was raised not to, and although it’s very common nowadays, I still just don’t like it. My department meetings are just constant interruptions, everyone interrupts everyone else, and our manager is the worst offender. Why this matters is that she often proceeds on erroneous information. She also talks incessantly, so sometimes, we HAVE to interrupt in order to correct the wrong information, as she also takes action on wrong information. She then retaliates.

    How do I, as someone who hates being interrupted AND interrupting others, deal with this very stressful meeting each week (as well as others where this happens)? Interrupting seems to be the only way to get an edge in wordwise ;-), but it’s taxing for me.

    1. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

      Woof. First off, I’m with you — I hate interruptions and I hate being expected to interrupt people if I want to say anything. Intellectually, I understand it’s all cultural and whatnot, but I cannot escape the feeling of disrespect all around.

      That said, I think you have two slightly separate issues here. Number one being the interrupting culture, and number two being your boss going off on incorrect information. One is a peeve, the other is an operational problem. You’re probably going to have to let general interrupting lapse for now in favor of tackling — as best as you can — the action part. I think Alison has posted a few times on the art of managing up, and you can probably find other resources on that as well.

    2. Boudica*

      Ooooooo that’s tough!!! I feel ya on the interrupting side. I hate being interrupted, and try to respect everyone else as well, so I don’t know how well I’d do with this…

      I’m definitely more concerned about the inaccurate numbers-if it’s the same numbers, could you try sending a preemptive review?

  137. Art3mis*

    I applied for an internal position in October. Right before Thanksgiving I had a phone screen with HR. That’s not normal for internal applicants and the HR person even said so, but he said that the hiring manager wanted to get a better idea of the applicants skill sets. He tells me I should hear about an in person within a couple of weeks. It’s a holiday, I get it. Well I hear nothing. A month after that call I email the HR person asking about an update. He says that the team talked to someone last week but hasn’t made a decision yet. OK so they talked to someone, I assume that means that the interviewed them. Which to me sounds like I’m not going to get one. But why can’t they just say thanks but no thanks? It’s annoying as an external applicant but to me as an internal I would think they’d offer a bit more courtesy. Am I wrong?

    1. Ginger*

      That is super annoying. Have you asked your current manager for insights? Can they shoot over a recommendation?

    2. Ginger*

      One more thought, do you have to only communicate with HR? Why not reach out to the hiring manager directly?

    3. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      Sounds like they are blowing you off with conflict-avoidant stuff because you didn’t get the job. Sorry! It sucks.

  138. Lily G.*

    Question about counteroffers!

    I know we all know Alison’s thoughts on counteroffers, but curious as to what the hive thinks about them if you weren’t job searching? A friend/former colleague of mine has recently indicated that his new company is hiring and if I give the word, I’m on the short list. Nothing is a sure thing, yadda yadda, I know, but if I end up with an offer that is higher than my current salary (and if I get an offer, it will be higher), is it worth it/a bad idea to bring it to my boss and see if she will match?

    1. Colette*

      I feel like that’s a good way to lose a friend. And I really don’t see a good outcome for asking your employer to match it, even if they agree to raise your salary.

    2. Giant Squid*

      Have you worked at a startup/small company before? A lot of times it can be a challenge and risky, I wouldn’t recommend it.

      If you would like to leverage that offer though, you could be searching. I’ve had success negotiating when I’ve had multiple offers–you can get pushed to the higher band, or a signing bonus, etc.

    3. Lily in NYC*

      It’s a bad idea – even if you get a counteroffer, managers are annoyed by them and it can backfire when it comes time for raises and promotions. They will look at you as a flight risk and will not invest in your career development. My boss called a coworker’s bluff a few years ago when he came to her with an offer and tried to get a raise. She told him to take the offer. He tried to backtrack and she told him that he was no longer wanted as an employee (he thought he was a rock star but was actually pretty average). Don’t ask for one unless you are truly ready to leave if they don’t offer you money to stay. You can’t bring the offer and then say “never mind, I was only bluffing!” if they refuse you. The only people who can get away with it are the very top performers.

    4. Xana*

      So your friend is putting their capital on the line for you, and you want to use it to manipulate the situation. Have you asked your friend if they are ok with this plan?

      I think that would be a spectacularly crappy thing to do.

      If you feel you are underpaid, ask for a raise and back it up with evidence as to why you deserve it.

  139. What's with Today, today?*

    What is the most important work-related honor, award or just random recognition you’ve ever received?

    Here is mine:

    I’m in media and, years ago now, did a 10-week investigation into our corrupt police chief that led to his firing. His officers hated him. After he was let go, the Criminal Investigation Division took down his parking sign (Parking Reserved for Chief XXX) and brought it to me. It hangs on a wall above our pool table. It was technically city property, so they low key gave it to me behind the scenes. I treasure that dang parking sign.

    1. Jennifer Strange*

      I work in events management for a non-profit, which includes pulling invitation lists for special events and tracking the RSVPs. I’ve gotten some very nice notes from people thanking me for inviting them (which I find amusing since I only pull the lists, I don’t decide on the criteria). But the best was when the administrative assistant for an invitee who couldn’t attend asked if he and his wife could attend in his boss’ place. We had the room, so I said sure. They ended up buying me a nice bottle of champagne as a thank you!

    2. Gidget*

      I worked in a vocational school and the culinary arts assistant made me into a decorative cookie because I was so helpful. I considered it an honor. I mean how many people are cookies?

    3. Lily in NYC*

      Something I did led to a child who had been kidnapped by a stranger to be found! I worked at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and was in charge of photo distribution – I had sent flyers of the child to a local Walmart in the area they were taken from and an eagle-eyed employee saved the day (long story). It was my second job out of college and I’ve never had anything even come close to that. I didn’t win an award but I got to meet the child and her family and the hero Walmart employee, which was more than enough for me. It could be a very sad and depressing place to work but that was a really good day.

    4. Llellayena*

      I’m rather proud of today. Tagged into a random email from a client was “Keep up the good work. It’s not going unnoticed.” I’m still smiling…

    5. Lore*

      There aren’t really awards in publishing, but I do get thanked in the acknowledgments sometimes, and some of those are pretty great: Stephen Hawking’ co-author thanked me for saving them from an embarrassing math error, and I once got thanked for my CIA-level sleuthing skills.

    6. Kathenus*

      When I left a job a few years back, one of the employees I worked with and mentored wrote me an incredibly wonderful thank you note, detailing how I had positively affected her with examples going back years. I ran across it in a box of papers last week and it is as powerful now as it was the day she first gave it to me.

    7. Arts Akimbo*

      One of my all time favorite artists ever specifically took the time to come over and speak to me at a recent convention in order to tell me how proud he was of me and how happy he was that my art had progressed and developed so much in the time we had known each other. This is someone whose art I used to save my pocket money to buy on bookplates and greeting cards as a child. I still tear up thinking about it.

  140. Grace*

    I’ve been working in the nonprofit world for the past five years and am ready to move into a new industry. I’m in a particularly dysfunctional environment right now and am ready to get out of here ASAP.

    My career progression has gone like this: Administrative Coordinator –> Administrative Manager –> Executive Assistant

    Over the past four months, I have submitted probably close to a hundred applications for EA positions in various industries (tech, finance, oil and gas, education, healthcare, you name it). Out of all these applications, I have only received one request for an interview that didn’t pan out.

    I know it’s only been four months, but I’m getting a little frustrated that I’m generating very little interest. I have revamped my cover letter and always tailor it to specific jobs. During the one interview I had, the CEO made a point to tell me he was really impressed with my resume and liked the way it looked. I am also a pretty strong writer and submit a cover letter whenever possible.

    Most of my applications don’t receive any response, but the ones that I do hear back send me a generic form letter that basically says “there were many applicants, we chose someone who more closely aligned what we are looking for, etc.” I have never had this problem before when applying to nonprofit positions (maybe I have been lucky?). I suspect I’m not getting any interest because all of my experience is related to nonprofits. How do I get experience in a new industry if I can’t even get my foot in the door? Should I start applying to lower level admin positions?

    1. Ginger*

      Any chance you know someone in your network who works in a position you’re trying for? Perhaps they can give you some insight into what specific “must haves” you can highlight that you did in non-profits that align within your goal industries?

      Can you engage your network to help introductions?

      1. Grace*

        I have thought about this but unfortunately not really! :( My husband and I relocated to a new city last fall and don’t have many connections here.

        Part of my current job involves working with our nonprofit Board of Directors, and many of them hold senior positions at companies that I am interested in. However, I don’t think I can use those relationships to try to move to a different company.

      2. Lily in NYC*

        I am a high-level EA and have gotten most of my positions through agencies – have you looked into that?

    2. voluptuousfire*

      I watched a video about this on recruitmentinyogapants dot com this morning. It’s an AMA about resumes going into black holes. Check that out and that may offer some insight.

      2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        I totally read that as “recruit men in tiny yoga pants”. 30 minutes left of the workday.

  141. Rose*

    They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery but how do you ensure you are given due credit for your ideas?

    I have a coworker who copies, word for word, small items of mine – lines in our company bio, lines for demo presentations (where every team member has to present a product in their own words, ahem. Note, the demos are recorded and mine was done first. She viewed it and then copied exact lines), performance goals are popping up as identical. She even stated an idea I presented in a small group to a larger one. Thankfully I was there to politely call it out with “oh, i’m so glad you liked my idea that I shared yesterday”.

    I worry that she will continue to do this on bigger and bigger things and I won’t be able to get my due credit or it will look like I am copying her. I know this sounds petty but we have extremely limited face to face time with senior leadership and the little stuff adds up.

    Maybe I’m overreacting? Help oh wise ones.

    1. mike without ike*

      Restating ideas that had been yours is very not cool and I totally agree that something would need to be done there. But regarding product descriptions or performance goals, maybe this colleague is coming from a place where consistent messaging was very important. I know in my workplace we have to use the exact cleared phrasing for public-facing communications at times, and no one sees it as copying.

    2. PX*

      Can you…ask her point blank about it? I would bring it up as a thing I’ve noticed and ask if there was any particular reason she was doing it or did she need help coming up with her own wording for presentations?

  142. SherryBerry*

    So, I need some advice regarding my position. I started at my current company roughly two years ago in an entry-level role. In the last year my role has changed significantly. I am now responsible for the duties that come with the entry-level position, but I am also tasked with duties that would normally be wildly outside of my official title. Think office admin to accounting. My boss has talked with me about transitioning out of the entry-level role and into the new role, with a title and compensation change, but she has no timeline for this to happen.

    I know she sees this as my “training” period, however I have no idea how long my “training” is supposed to last. My performance has consistently been praised and I am doing quite well within my new role. I have reached the point where I am comfortable with my new duties (I have been doing them for over eight months now) and I feel like I should be passed the training stage. When I spoke with her about what she wants me to accomplish to move into this new role, she said “I don’t know, we’ll know when we get there.” Which is not really helpful! Am I off-base in thinking that my title and compensation should be changed while I’m “training”? I am getting frustrated when I make significantly less then the rest of my department, while performing the same tasks!

    1. The Man, Becky Lynch*

      This sounds like some classic nonsense where someone is stringing you along.

      How long as it been since you talked about it last? In my experience, you need to keep bringing it up and pushing for firm dates. You hit the 2 year mark, it’s reasonable to transition sooner rather than later from an entry level. I wonder if what’s keeping her from jumping on moving you up is that then there’s a vacancy to fill…

      1. SherryBerry*

        It has been 3-4 months since our last discussion. I have no idea what would be causing the delay, as my pay could be changed to reflect my new responsibilities even without hiring a replacement for my entry-level role.

    2. fposte*

      I think there’s a reasonable chance that she’ll never decide that you’ve gotten there, because stasis is easier than change and it’s sure a lot cheaper. Think about what you want to do if that’s the case. For instance, do you think you could get hired as a New Role Skill Person at another employer now? Do you know what other possibilities are out there?

      If so, I would consider revisiting the topic in four months when it’s been a full year and saying “I’ve been covering the Skill Person work for a year now, my job duties are in line with standard job descriptions for that title, and I’m requesting that I get that title and a salary of $xxxxx, which is market level for an early level Skill Person. Please let me know if we’ll be able to make that happen.”

      Any reasonably perceptive employer will hear what’s underneath that, which is that you know what jobs are out there and what they pay and will probably leave for one of them if you’re not fairly compensated. If the answer to that is “We totally will but you’re not ready yet but for sure will eventually be,” I’d go back to “Again, my job duties are in line with the Skill Person position. I like the job and am happy to work here as a Skill Person if I’m compensated as such. I’m really hoping we can come to some agreement to make that happen based on the past year’s performance, which we’ve agreed was excellent [or whatever].”

      And if she’s still vague, it’s time for you to go, because this isn’t happening in any reasonable timeframe.

    3. Veronica Mars*

      My husband just went through this exact thing. He ended up coming up with his own plan and bringing it to his manager. Because its easier for managers to approve plans than it is for them to spend their time coming up with their own and his boss is lazzzyyy.

      There were lots more steps but it basically boiled down to:
      October: Begin training, title change, partial compensation change
      November: Complete training, full compensation change

      And here’s the important part. My husband stated that if changes weren’t in place by October 31, he would no longer be doing the work that was above his paygrade (admittedly, he could actually get away with this because he’s union, but maybe there’s an equivalent threat). October 31 came, and he stuck to his guns and really did stop doing the work. Which made the manager panic, and by November 5 he finally had his title and pay bump.

      But the bottom line was that it wasn’t beneficial for him to be working above his paygrade. It wasn’t helping his career progressing, since his boss didn’t actually want to progress him. He was just doing more work for less money, which worked out great for the company! So he had to find a way to make the company feel the incentive. Our backup plan, if they didn’t come through, was for him to job hunt for a position doing the next level up thing. He would, after all, be a great entry level candidate to that job because he already had experience.

    4. LQ*

      I think the important thing to do is look around and see what happens to others. Do others get promoted at some point after they’ve been building new skills in a role? If it happens, especially if your boss (or the boss who will be responsible for that) has done it in the past, then yeah, I think a little patience is warranted.

      The other is does your boss have the actual power to make this change happen? If your boss is the managers of the office admins but not the accounting manager then they likely don’t have that power and I don’t think I’d trust what they are saying.

      1. SherryBerry*

        It has happened before in my company, but it hasn’t taken this long. My boss is the one over both positions and is one of most senior people in the company, she would be the only one with the authority to make it happen.

        1. LQ*

          In that case I think push much harder on this. Part of it is are you willing to leave if you don’t get the promotion/pay change. Either way, update your resume and be more direct about asking for it. The other thing I’d do is talk to the other people this HAS happened for and ask them about the process. It may have actually been longer than you think, they may have done a leverage move they recommend, there may have been more of a gap that made her act quickly. But they may have some information for you there if at all possible I’d definitely have a conversation with those who have gone before.

  143. Veronica Mars*

    My coworker pointed out that my job is a metaphor for dating a bad boy. And it is so, so accurate.
    My job is to fix problems, but all the problems are caused by upper management driving a certain culture. They only keep me around so that when people complain about problems, they can say they have someone working on fixing it. So my job is unwinnable.

    Me: Thats it, I quit this relationship, you’re never going to change.
    Job aka bad boy boyfriend: Wait, wait, you’re quitting?? Oh shoot. Let me change one tiny littler thing to give you false hope.
    Me: Ooooh this is so tempting. You know I love a challenge, and you, my dear, are the biggest. challenge. EVER.

    Job: I don’t plan to change, ever.
    Me: ok, then I don’t want to waste your time doing this project that’s entirely aimed at changing you.
    Job: no, thats not an option. I need a project plan for how you will change everyone else without changing me.
    Me: ok, that project will take approximately until you retire.
    Job: ok ok, you caught me, I already promised senior management you’d do it by June. So, um, can you make me a project plan that fits that?

  144. Teresa B*

    I’m at a crossroads. I finished my college courses a couple of years ago and the only thing I was missing was my senior thesis, which kept getting delayed because of life getting in the way. Meanwhile I have been working in different places with the idea that once I finally graduate my professional life will begin.
    I was sort of set on going into education as it’s something I already did and loved it. However education isn’t exactly well paid and any teacher can tell you it can be emotionally exhausting. Because I’m bilingual and the jobs I’ve held I could also go for a more administrative/assitant job. This would certainly have more job benefits, stability, and probably a better pay. But the year spent doing office work was exhausting, I felt a little empty inside with the work and I mostly enjoyed it because I worked with great people.

    I guess my question is:
    Should I try to go into something that is hard and won’t pay as much or should I work in an office with more stability and peace of mind?

    1. Buttons*

      What did you study in school? If you are interested in education/teaching, have you thought about corporate training? Bilingual corporate trainers are sought after.
      I started my career as a corporate trainer and now I am head of talent management for a large technology company. I love teaching/training/development, but I didn’t want to teach kids, and I also wanted to make more than what school teachers make. If you want to see if this is something you might be interested in, jobs you could look for would be training coordinator- this would be a good foot in the door. And a lot of training coordinators end up getting promoted into a training position. That is going to still be office work, but if you transition into training, you are usually teaching most days :)
      I loved it! Good luck.

      1. Teresa B*

        I studied history with a focus in art that ended up with a senior thesis about how the internet affects the way we experience art.
        That seems very interesting and a good way to mix both things, I will look into it.
        Thank you so much!

      2. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

        Oh, lord yes. I wish our corporate trainers at this job had an actual education background — there was definitely some classroom management needed!

        1. Buttons*

          I prefer trainers who aren’t ex-school teachers. But all my trainers, and I have a staff of 12 full time facilitators, are all certified through our professional organizations and have completed the very basic train the trainer. If I promote someone from a coordinator to a trainer position they have to attend train the trainer in their first 30 days.

    2. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

      There’s no one good answer; it depends on how you work best. Me, personally? I’d absolutely go for the stability and peace of mind. But I’m also someone who has a high tolerance for repetitiveness and doesn’t particularly need to feel emotionally fulfilled by work. Gimme a job whose metrics I can hit, pay me enough to do things that make me happy outside of work, and I’ll mess with spreadsheets or reconcile cash inflow/outflow discrepancies all day long.

      Knowing what you really need to get out of work emotionally is a tough thing that wants a lot of self-reflection, and a certain amount of sheer experience with yourself. I will say, though, that being a bilingual office worker can have a fair bit of payoff. Back when I did the call center gig, I had more than a few clients very grateful and relieved that they could speak with someone in their own language, and it offered its own sort of emotional fulfillment to be able to provide that for them.

  145. Lyudie*

    People who work full time remotely, what are resources you use to find jobs? I know there is FlexJobs but surely there are other places to find non-scam/legit/decent paying remote jobs.

    1. fhqwhgads*

      Do research for “distributed companies” in your field. These are employers whose staff are all (or almost all) remote. Then see which of those companies are hiring.

  146. Might try for kids but what about work?*

    Reaching a lull period at work. Also, boss had a standing meeting at 4 that, well, I was stood up for. Then he texted my phone at 6 pm saying maybe we could reschedule. I know folks say not to take things personally, but dude, my time *is* valuable and I had to leave at 4:30. I know I do good work, but jeez, I want face time and I want people to respect my time. I actually had a handful of things to discuss. One being a project that is slow-starting because the head honcho (who is the head of his division topic) is procrastinating, and the other being a certification I might have FY20 money approved for. I hope he doesn’t try to stall on the certification or say it doesn’t matter, because being female, I’ve seen a lot of men at the previous male dominated job coast through certs and get masters on the workplace’s dime, but whenever I ask, they always say funding’s not available. Or if there’s a business trip, it’s next December.

    I guess I’m saying the above since I have a slight sense of urgency. All of the promised things–I hope they happen before hubs and I decide to try for kids Oct/Nov/Dec end of this year, because I *REALLY* don’t want to start cool projects/studying for a PMP equivalent while also dealing with morning sickness. That said, I’m not pregnant (yet). But I still don’t know how to light a fire under various @$$es….X/////

  147. Book Pony*

    Quick question: I found an article that has tips on how to help autistic employees succeed. Should I send it to my boss?

    They know I’m autistic, but we keep having communication problems. I say they’re being unclear, boss says I should ask more questions.

    Example:

    Boss says make a sandwich. I make them a sandwich. Boss asks why it’s not a specific type, and I ask them why didn’t they specify.

    Note that I do ask follow up questions, where my boss just…repeats themself, despite me asking them to rephrase. OTL

    AFAIK, I’m their first autistic employee. My last boss had an autistic son, which is prob why she understood me better.

    1. Veronica Mars*

      I think its all in the framing.
      Instead of “you need to read this because you’re bad at it.”
      Can you phrase it as “Hey, I’m working on improving my working relationships, which is challenging to me because I have autism. Would you mind giving this a read so that you can understand some of the new communication approaches I’m going to try and can help me with feedback?”

    2. KoiFeeder*

      I don’t think this is a good tactic for dealing with your boss or for the workplace at all, but what I’ve done with particularly unclear teachers who repeat “Make me a sandwich” when I ask questions is that I’ll make a checklist of all the sandwich variables that I know of, and go through and ask about each one. So it’s “Should your sandwich have bacon on it? Should your sandwich have carrot on it? Should your sandwich be on wheat bread?”

      The problem with doing this is that it has a tendency to drive people absolutely up the wall, and it does not help that I have a poor memory and usually bring the physical checklist with me.

    3. General von Klinkerhoffen*

      Is the article about the new research that was published today? It seems interesting but is very qualitative and needs a lot of further work. Hope it does help to change the landscape.

    4. Nicki Name*

      I’m not sure that’s an autism-specific issue. If the boss wants a tuna sandwich, they should say they want a tuna sandwich. Unless there’s something really specific to your industry or country/state/city where all sandwiches are assumed to be tuna sandwiches until people say otherwise.

      1. Tinker*

        I think that’s an important point — while this is the sort of thing that autistic people have to navigate in the workplace and I don’t want to discount that, it’s also entirely possible for an autistic person to be affected by a thing that would be an obstacle to effective work for anyone.

        Right after I got my formal diagnosis, I did a lot of framing workplace issues around “hey, I need structure and clarity and things like that because I am autistic”. This wasn’t entirely inaccurate — the way I order and structure things are certainly related to my neurotype, and it’s also probably more of a struggle for me to press people for information because of things that are related to that — but also it somewhat led everyone (including myself) down the garden path by framing the problem much more as “Tinker has a problem because of unique deficits on his part” and much less as “if something needs to be tested, it’s probably a good idea to tell the QA engineer” than was probably appropriate for the situation. A year and some on we’ve done a lot to improve our processes in general, and as a result it turns out that people do what they are supposed to do more often when they know what it is. Who knew!

        Neurotypical people have different tendencies strengths-and-deficits-wise than autistic folks, but they’re not magical.

    5. Veronica Mars*

      Sorry, I somehow missed the sandwich example at first. I agree that’s more a not-being-a-mind-reader problem than an autism problem, and it is incredibly common.

      One thing that is super helpful with this is a “Back Brief” you can read all about it from google, but basically it comes down to telling the person what you think they said, and elaborating just one level further with some details of how you’ll get started. You can do it in the moment, or send an email after the meeting. Sometimes with chronic bad communicators I do both.

      Boss: Make me a sandwich.
      You: What I heard you say is, you’d like me to make you a sandwich by lunchtime. I plan to make you a turkey sandwich and my first step is to locate some bread, is that acceptable?
      Boss: WHAT? A TURKEY SANDWICH!?!? No no, I wanted tuna!
      You: Ok, got it, I will make you a tuna sandwich by lunchtime, and start by locating some bread.

      You’d be incredibly amazed how often what is said and what is heard are not the same thing, and the back brief helps to catch that.

      1. Book Pony*

        @general von: no, it’s article I found on Google about tips on working with autistic employees. (Autism.org)

        @koi: I’ve been doing that, but noticed it was bothering people, so I stopped.

        @veronica: ommmgg I love the back brief idea! I’m gonna start using that.

        @nicki: true, but boss keeps saying to just ask. Then I do, then they repeat themself. Or say they don’t know what I’m asking. OTL

        It’s just been rough at work because between the autism issues, team boundary problems, and general ableism, there’s been a lot to sort through.

    6. LGC*

      For your direct question: it depends – how friendly are you with your boss? It doesn’t sound like you’re that friendly with them, so that could come off as a bit passive-aggressive. Plus, while I find it useful in the aggregate, it’s not useful for dealing with specific people (and in fact, I’ve become a bit wary about using the “a” word to describe myself because people make assumptions).

      But your broader problem sounds like…a boss problem, actually. It sounds like your boss is expecting you to ask implicit follow-up questions, but not spelling it out. To use your sandwich example – they could be asking for a PB&J, a croque madame, or a party sub for all I know. (Sandwiches, like life, are a rich tapestry.) To add on to that, they’re expecting you to figure out that you should be asking what kind of sandwich, which is frustrating as all get-out. Your boss should be much clearer with you – not because you’re autistic and need things spelled out for you, but because that’s just good bossing.

      On your end – I think the issue is that you’re expecting directions to be self-contained. Sometimes, they are – like, “open the door” when there’s one door in the office. A lot of the time, though – they’re not. So you need to ask questions based off the request – if your boss is asking you to make a sandwich and doesn’t specify what sandwich they want, you should ask what kind they want. If you remember the five W’s (and the H) from school – who, what, when, where, why, and how – that’s a good guideline on what you should be asking. (To some extent.) Who is the sandwich for? (Your boss.) What kind of sandwich does your boss want? When do they want it? Where should it be brought? Why does your boss want the sandwich? (Because they’re hungry.) How do they want it made? (When the specific kind of sandwich is specified – let’s say a roast beef sub – you need to specify what toppings are on it.)

      If your boss just repeats themselves with their vague initial instruction, one trick I’ve used is to just state what I plan on doing and seeing if they’re okay with it. Often times, they’re not and then provide clarification – like, I might say, “Okay, Fergus, I’m making a roast beef sub,” and then Fergus says that he really wants a Popeye’s chicken sandwich.

      But yeah, I really don’t think this is primarily a you problem. I mean, you might be missing the implicit social cue here, but also your boss is being a bit of a jerk and expecting you to almost read their mind. Also, I want a sandwich now.

      1. Book Pony*

        I really do feel so much better knowing several people have said this isn’t a me problem, per se. This job is…a lot, and I took it because it’s the next logical stop for the skills I have, but if I had known it was this bonkers when I had the interview, I would’ve stayed at my old job. (I had only left that one because the pay was too low and being promoted would require the skills I didn’t have at the time.)

        I’m definitely going to go with stating what my plan is and see what my boss says. You are correct in that I’m not super friendly with my boss, for various reasons (one of them being that they’re pretty much phobic in all the bad ways). But mostly my entire team seems to be the same time of person multiplied out, because I have this problem with several members on our team.

        But now that I’m typing this out, I do realize that I don’t have this problem with people outside my team, and tend to have productive conversations with them, where I’m understood and they understand what I’m saying.

        So we’ll see how things shake out. Hopefully at our next meeting, we can finally fix the problem.

        1. LGC*

          Woof. So, you’ve solved that minor problem, but you have quite a few more problems. It seems like that team isn’t a great fit for you in general, just based off of what you said.

          Good luck with the meeting! It sounds like…this is kind of the way they are, and the best you can hope for is to make it manageable. And it also sounds like…you might be the odd man out in this situation – your boss doesn’t give a lot of detail initially because they’re expecting their reports to follow up. So this is a bit of an adjustment for you and your boss.

          (I should also note for the record: I’m also autistic. I have done the exact same thing as your boss, and quickly learned that I have to be extremely clear with certain employees. I’ve also dealt with people like your boss, where they just send out a vague request and then I have to ferret out what they want. I have complained about them on other open threads.)

  148. Ann Perkins*

    Am I being overly sensitive about this?

    Boss and four people of same level as me are all on a ski trip together. While they do tend to be socially closer, it still stinks being excluded. I’m the only one of this crew with young children and I’m guessing it wasn’t even thought to include me, or they assumed I wouldn’t go – and that’s true that I wouldn’t, but it still stings to feel like people on the same level are given greater access to our boss than I am.

    There’s a pattern of this also – it happens frequently that I’m not invited to dinners or after-hour events when the other second-level people are.

    Am I wrong to feel slighted by this? How do I communicate how this looks to me as an employee? Any D&I pros? Ironically, one of the people on the trip leads our D&I initiative but I don’t think they realize how young moms fit into inclusivity measures.

    1. merp*

      There’s been letters like this, I think! I wouldn’t say you’re being overly sensitive. It’s really on the boss to know that they shouldn’t be socializing at this level with their reports, and especially not all but one of their reports, so I’m afraid I don’t really have advice, but the previous similar letters might?

      1. valentine*

        If you want to be invited on ski trips, it’ll help you to be willing to go. With the other stuff, you can suggest alterations that would help you, but skiing, like golf, is something where they’re not going to bother inviting you if you keep saying no (a decent person would think they were being rude to keep asking).

    2. Buttons*

      You are not being overly sensitive. In my Unconscious Bias training I use a very similar scenario, all the men going to the restroom together during the meeting break, and the one woman in the meeting, didn’t hear the discussion they had to and from and in the bathroom- the men come back and have made a decision. My participants love that, because we are in a very male dominated industry/ company.
      Anyway, to your point.
      What they are doing is deteremintal to your career. They are showing clearly there is maternal bias. They ASSUME you can’t go to dinner or drinks or on a trip because you have children. What happens when there is a meeting or conference out of state, are they going to exlude you from that because they ASSUME you can’t travel. What happens if there is a promotion available for a job that will require you to work until 8pm 2 nights a week, are they going to ASSUME you can’t take it because of kids, so they just don’t offer it to you?? This is maternal bias, and it is wrong. You should be pissed off about it, I am getting all riled up just typing this.

      How to address it: To address it you are going to have to have a direct conversation with your manager, and only you know if you can have such a difficult conversation with them. How will they respond? You have to say that by assuming you can’t take trips or do things after hours means that you are being excluded and do not have the opportunity to build necessary relationships and trust with people to effectively function as a team. The message you are receiving is that there are assumptions being made about your commitment and you are worried it is going to negetively impact your career and performance.

      I hope this helped some, good luck, and I hope you will post an update.

      PS- this would probably be a great question for Alison.

      1. Buttons*

        Just wanted to add, if you search for Maternal Bias there are a ton of articles and videos. A TON. You could print some of the articles and leave them around the office, or send an email with a link to a video and say you found it interesting. It is a little more of a passive way to get the message out there. :)

      2. Ann Perkins*

        This is very helpful, thank you! I hadn’t heard the term “maternal bias” before but that’s exactly what I’m thinking of. I do think my boss (who is head boss, essentially owner/manager) would be receptive to the conversation. We are a very white bro dominated industry and he knows he has some biases.

        Oddly enough – I do travel for work and it hasn’t been much of an issue, even with pumping. But I have nowhere to go in this organization because it’s small and I’m already capped out with promotions. It’s an industry, though, where learning and professional development is a big deal, and I very much feel as though boss is not as invested in me in that respect as he would be if I were male and/or childless.

        Last time I had a hard conversation with him, it was completely unsolicited and not even in my area but he assured me that he always wants my feedback. This one will be more personal and I’m been mulling all day over how to even start. I think I’ll just start with something like, “OK, I have a hard topic to discuss. I want to ask you a question for reflection and for you to be honest with yourself and with me, and I’ll let you know what I think too. When you all were planning the ski trip, why was it that you didn’t think to include me?” I imagine he’ll respond with, well with the kids I didn’t think you’d be interested and it really became more a friend thing than a work thing. And maybe I can coach him through the appearances of that, and also treating me differently than others on my level in general because of having kids. I’m definitely open to how anyone here would approach that conversation though.

        1. Buttons*

          Search maternal bias and maternal wall bias, read all that you can and watch some videos. The first hits that come up under maternal bias will help you prep for the conversation. Good luck and please report back!

        2. Buttons*

          If he is super open to identifying and correcting unconscious bias you can also direct him to the Harvard Business School implicit project. There are a ton of different tests a person can do to identify their unconscious bias. I make all my participants take it before coming to my unconscious bias class. They don’t have to share their results, but it makes it clear that they have biases, and they can’t argue with me that they don’t. Ha.

  149. JustaTech*

    Someone has left a whole bunch of ripe bananas on top of the microwave in my floor’s (unwalled) kitchenette and I cannot even.

    Why? Why would your bring in strongly-smelling food and just leave it out without even a note saying “eat me”?
    (The smell of ripe bananas drives me crazy. All my immediate coworkers are kind enough to dispose of their banana peels down in the kitchenette compost bin.)

    1. Auntie Social*

      If they’re overly ripe, can you pop them in the freezer, and put a note on the fridge?? One person’s yucky ripe bananas are another’s headstart on banana bread. . . .

    2. remizidae*

      I think you’re being oversensitive. Bananas aren’t really “strongly-smelling”–I wouldn’t even notice a banana smell unless I deliberately held them to my face.

      1. Elenna*

        I think “oversensitive” is a very strong word. Some people just notice certain smells more easily than other people, that doesn’t mean they’re oversensitive, it just means their bodies work differently and therefore they’re bothered by things that might not bother you or me at all. It’s hardly kind or helpful to say they should just stop being oversensitive.

        (Side story: my sister and I went to the theater a few weeks ago, and we had last-minute cheap tickets so we were a few rows apart. A couple minutes before it started she came over and asked me to switch to her (better) seat, as the cigarette smell from the people beside her was giving her a headache. I went over there and discovered that, if I paid very close attention, I could just barely tell that they had been smoking.)

        That being said, I will say that the person who left the bananas there was probably someone who would never think that bananas smelled strongly, and probably had no idea other people would even notice. Not that that’s really helpful to you at the moment. Maybe put them in the fridge and put a note where they were?

        1. JustaTech*

          The ones that are still here will be put in the freezer when I leave. (Other people wanted to compost them at 10am but I felt like we had to give people time to grab one.)

          I have a pretty good sense of smell, but I thought that bananas (really, really ripe bananas) were generally acknowledged to have a strong scent? That’s how they get so many fruit flies.

      2. Jedi Squirrel*

        I have known a few people in my many years who are extremely sensitive to the smell of bananas. Most just didn’t like the smell, but the smell made one person physically sick.

        Just because it doesn’t affect you doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect other people. Have some empathy. I’m sure there are smells or other things that you would be sensitive to. The last thing you would want in that situation is to be told that you’re being oversensitive.

      3. Arts Akimbo*

        I on the other hand cannot fathom anyone not being able to smell them! I get physically sick at the smell of ripe bananas in a room. A whole bunch and I’d be working from home.

  150. DaniCalifornia*

    I just got a job offer!!! After taking the leap of faith and resigning from my awful toxic job last month, I had a great interview Wednesday and just got the call that the job is mine!!!! It’s such a blessing after stressing at the awful job. And it’s not in accounting/taxes!!!

    1. nep*

      Oh, this makes my day. Congratulations, DaniCalifornia! Bravo, you. Persistence pays off. Thanks for the inspiration and all the best to you.

      1. DaniCalifornia*

        Thank you so much! Would not have had the courage to even quit without the support of this page and it’s readers.

    4. Jan Levinson*

      Congrats!!

      I moved about 4 1/2 years ago from corporate tax to an unrelated field. Best decision I ever made!

  151. Banana Naan*

    I’m interested to hear from grant writers and fund development specialists who transferred into the for profit world. I’m not interested in switching careers for the time being, but I was curious to know if anyone had done it and where they went.

  152. Merci Dee*

    Yes!

    1099s are officially done for 2019. I’m leaving work an hour early to put the federal and several state filings in the mail, and then I get to head home to get an early start on the three-day weekend.

    I’m so glad this is done for another year!

    1. De Minimis*

      I think we’ll be late where I work. New manager in the department although she has asked about 1099s since she’s started. Only one of our current staff was involved with 1099s last year [and it wasn’t me!]

      I’m hoping to not be involved with 1099s this year, I’ve always found the process miserable.

      1. Merci Dee*

        I’m pretty much it when it comes to preparing the 1099s for our workplace.

        Our accounting system doesn’t have the capability to process and print 1099s, though our IT folks were great about working with me to come up with some work-arounds to help aggregate the information that I need. We only have between 30 and 40 payees who need the 1099-MISC form every year, so I buy the TFP software and a package of 1099 forms from Office Depot every December. The biggest headache about the whole process was figuring out a way to get the forms printed when I’m attached to a shared printer. So I make a whole bunch of trips back and forth between my desk and the printer/copier. But it’s only one day for a couple of hours, and it’s a great way to get my steps up for the day! :)

    2. VlookupsAreMyLife*

      It’s my first time doing 1099s & I got all of 5 minutes of training last week. Fingers crossed I don’t muck it up. They have to be postmarked by 1/31, right?

  153. nep*

    I’d appreciate any thoughts on this–I saw an ad for an editing job I think is quite a good fit. I meet the essential qualifications.
    As part of the application, we are to copy edit a document in Google Docs and send back the link to our edited document. There is a link and the instructions say, ‘make a copy this Google Docs document.’ When I got to the file, perhaps after a couple distractions in the house, I mistakenly clicked on the ‘view only’ drop-down and requested permission to edit, rather than copying it into a new document. The owner sent me a polite email, saying to copy the text rather than request access.
    I’m thinking that just the fact that I fudged that very instruction would make anyone rule me out. Should I even proceed with the application, or is it futile now?
    Thanks for any insights, input.

    2. WellRed*

      Proceed. I am an editor and honestly, while attention to detail is important, this is the kind of mistake I (and my editor boss) would make ; )

    3. Lyudie*

      Keep going with it! Maybe use it as an opportunity to show how you can deal gracefully with a mistake?

      Good luck!!

  154. Business vs IT - The Showdown*

    I am the business liason to IT for an operation within a large government body. We have a few hundred staff and a really big technical footprint. We are going to get some vendors and new people in soon on the IT side of things for some big (VERY overdue work).

    Here’s the thing. Every time we get a new vendor or staff person they take a while to realize that we aren’t insane and changing our mind every other day and pushing absurd deadlines and generally making everything hellish for IT. Around week 3-4 folks come into my office and plop down deflated and say they understand now, and then we can do work.

    What can I do to not make this process take about 3 weeks to a month? What can I show in the first week that will help people understand that it’s not me, it’s them sooner? What could I do or prepare to help people understand or do they really all just have to suffer through that themselves? I feel like this is torture the new people have to endure and I want to make this less painful, we’ve lost good people in that first month and I don’t want that.

    (I know it seems entirely unbelievable so let’s just live in a magic land where the business partner wants to spend money to get tech debt fixed and the IT vendor refuses to even put together a one-page project plan to request the funds to do it, does zero monitoring of a multibillion-dollar application, and have zero documentation around the system architecture.)

    1. Buttons*

      I can’t really make sense of what you wrote, I don’t know why they aren’t trusting what you are telling them or why it is all chaotic. Is it chaos? Why does it seem chaotic if it is not?
      I would start by asking someone who did what you described- ask them “What did you wish you had known in your first month?” “what should we provide to people/vendors in their first month?”
      Also, what are you doing for onboarding? Do you have an orientation, do you have documentation, do you have a process/decision flow chart?
      If this always happens there is a problem, and you need to figure out where that problem is. I’d start with your onboarding process, and if you don’t have one- you have to make one.

      1. Business vs IT - The Showdown*

        The problem is that these people all technically work for the IT shop so technically, I’m not allowed to do onboarding things. (I’ve tried and been admonished because our IT shop manages things “organically” and “with agile” (noooope).)

        I’ve asked people and everyone has said, no, nothing you can do, you just have to experience it to understand it.

        The assumption is that IT is rational, logical, and organized and business is wild and crazy and chaotic. They don’t trust when I say, it’s not me, it’s them. Which I get, it’s hard to believe when someone says, “I’m not the crazy one, they are the crazy one.” Especially if most of your career the person saying it has actually been the crazy one.

        1. Buttons*

          I would say F’em and onboard however you want. Can they really stop you from providing people with the information you need them to have to do the job you need them to do? That is madness! It sounds awful and I would hate to be in their new people’s position or yours!

          1. Business vs IT - The Showdown*

            Hm…they could throw a fit, but that’ll look GREAT to the head of the agency who is currently watching them as a really poorly performing operational unit. So either they let me do it and I get some onboarding for folks to help them, or they don’t and they get themselves in trouble with the top-level folks.

            My hope is that they can be mostly sheltered from the IT leadership and get a lot done (and some cool work in there) without a lot of bs. It is utter madness, I just don’t want people to have to suffer when they just want to get work done.

            1. Buttons*

              Could you create an onboarding plan and then go to your leader to ask them to partner with IT to get things done? Who knows! It might work. Good luck!

              1. Business vs IT - The Showdown*

                I am the leader (I mean not the head of the agency, but I am the right person) and I have tried in the past to work with them. Though I may have a better foothold to do it with the new agency head so I’ll try again before I just say f-it and onboard and train their people.

  155. Jan Levinson*

    Just wanted to share an article from a company in my area, and how bizarre/horrible their take is about working from home. I’d love to hear others’ thoughts!

    Don’t you hate that feeling when you email someone needing something and a few seconds after you hit send on your email you receive an auto responder “out of office” message?

    Yes, there are “out of office” messages that are written well, but there are also some that deserve a little scrutiny. For example, if someone sets up their “out of office” message while they are on vacation because they will not have internet access for the next two weeks. First of all, I can’t imagine too many places that have no internet access. Secondly, now the person who sent the original email might feel bad that they sent you an email while on vacation even though they didn’t remember you were on vacation.

    At Company X, we are an internet company, and we know the internet never sleeps. That doesn’t mean you have to be waiting anxiously by your phone all the time, but it means that we have customers from all over the country in different times zones with different needs that shouldn’t be burdened because someone here is on vacation or unavailable. We simply like to apply that same approach to our internal operations.

    Think about this. You go on vacation and set your “out of office” message to say you will get back with everyone in two weeks when you return. So if that is the case, you would be fine if the person who runs payroll at your business did the same, right? You email the Payroll Specialist to say you didn’t get paid and get an “out of office” email saying they will get you paid in two weeks when they return. It’s basically the same thing, but that never happens, right? So why is it ok the other way?

    Here, we know that your phone is with you 24/7. To pretend like a vacation would be ruined if you have to answer an email or two during your downtime is pretty far fetched. We don’t expect you to do a big project proposal on vacation, but we believe it’s reasonable to respond to an email inquiry without an “out of office” email to keep that personal touch. Just let that person know you might be slightly delayed, but you’ll do your best to help them.

    Please don’t take this the wrong way after reading the paragraph above. We encourage our employees to take vacations and time off with our Unlimited PTO plan along with our flex-time program. We just work to make this place extra special, so if someone does need you on vacation or after hours that it never feels like a burden, in fact, it feels kind of good knowing you get the chance to help someone. That’s all we are saying with this. If you build it right, it won’t feel like work or a burden to help someone when you are doing something else.

    We know a lot of people and companies use the “out of office” method for communication, and we are fine with it. At Company X, it just doesn’t make as much sense or fit into the way we do business.

    1. CatCat*

      “At Company X, we are chronically understaffed and we don’t know how to ensure vacation coverage. These are basic management skills that we refuse to comprehend. In fact, not comprehending them is a core of who we are. At Company X, we make our managerial incompetence the employees’ problem.”

      That’s my takeaway at least.

      1. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

        “We’re sure it won’t feel like a burden when your colleague calls you at 11pm! Just think of how special you’ll feel when the dingdong in AP wants to know where a TPS report is while you’re trying to go to sleep!”

    2. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

      WOW that’s hilariously terrible. Like, actual hilarity. Just whom did they think they would appeal to with this article? They’re saying you to the person who’s theoretically on vacation or trying to sleep, but I’m not buying it…

      1. Jan Levinson*

        Haha, it honestly is. There are so many bizarre points that the author attempts to make. Like this part-

        You email the Payroll Specialist to say you didn’t get paid and get an “out of office” email saying they will get you paid in two weeks when they return. It’s basically the same thing, but that never happens, right? So why is it ok the other way?

        …As if people’s out of office messages don’t indicate who to contact in their absence. I guess payroll specialists can’t take vacation since apparently no one gets paid if they do!

        1. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

          Right! Even if you’re running a tiny outfit where there’s not a whole team of Payroll Specialists to consult with, there’s gotta be someone wearing that hat, even if it’s the damn owner.

    4. LQ*

      Unlimited PTO=Zero PTO
      I’m not seeing anything about working from home here though, this is just all work all the time. They literally never let you say that you are on vacation and it sounds like you’re supposed to be on 24/7. “We know your phone is with you 24/7.” Is such a …gross thing here. Yeah, an email or two during downtime, but 24/7, like how many times do I have to wake up in the middle of the night if you’re referencing that the internet never sleeps and multiple timezones. Oooof!

      1. Jan Levinson*

        Exactly! It is such a gross thing to say. I also agree that unlimited PTO=zero PTO. The funny thing is that this company prides itself on being one of those “we’re sooooo cool, we have all kinds of amazing perks” companies. I guess the beer on tap at the office and in-house pool are supposed to make up for the $20,000 salary (yes, I once so a job posting for this company online for an office admininstrator and the salary was $20,000) and the expectation to be available At All Times while on vacation.

        1. WellRed*

          When they offer up “yoga in the break room” and “free snacks” as perks in the job ads, I know to run in the other direction. THanks for sharing this.

        2. Business vs IT - The Showdown*

          $20,000 is not enough for 100% of my time. No amount of beer on tap will make up for that.

        3. LQ*

          A coworker and I were talking about a Very Big Consulting company that pays a tremendous amount of money and expects every single minute of your life, but they are very upfront about it. This company expects all of your life and pays pennies for it. If I’m going to give up my life I want to be paid well and I want the company to be upfront about it.

    5. Jan Levinson*

      Ah, sorry. I just now noticed that I said “working from home” instead of “working while on vacation.” My apologies!

    6. Gidget*

      This is truly bizarre. Also, some jobs actually don’t allow you to telework or work off-site without special permissions. That’s certainly the case in my current position. So when I say I don’t have access to email I really don’t (you need an access card to login to everything, even when offsite, unless you get special permission to use a password in emergencies).

      This company sounds like it would be a terrible place to work.

    7. CRM*

      This is an onion article, right?? I can’t believe a company would be this out of touch. I feel so bad for their employees.

    8. Princess Scrivener*

      Wow. I don’t read it as being related to WFH, but wow–they’re basically shaming employees for not answering phones and emails while on vacation. What the –?

      1. Jan Levinson*

        Sorry, I sent a follow up comment about how I meant to say I said “working while on vacation” in my first sentence instead of “working from home.” My apologies! But yes, it’s absolutely absurd!

    10. Blue Eagle*

      I just received an out-of-office message from a place of business I emailed today. The message included info about who to contact (both phone # and e-mail) if I needed something to be handled before the date of the recipient’s return. This seems to me to be the proper way to handle an out-of-office message.

    11. RagingADHD*

      I really appreciate stuff like this, in the same way I appreciate people walking around downtown with beer hats on and their torsos painted in team colors.

      The higher they fly that red flag, the easier they are to avoid.

    12. Bootstrap Paradox*

      Wow. That’s…stunning.

      Dear Everyone – just wanted to let you know that we fail at staffing, basic management, and don’t believe in work/life balance of any sort…or sleeping. Also, we never let our employees go out of the country or anywhere there is no coverage. But doesn’t the false promise of unlimited PTO sound great?

  156. NonProfit Worker Bee*

    I have my annual review at the nonprofit where I work next month! It will be my one year mark. I love working here and my boss likes my work. However, I took a pay cut to work here (fleeing a terrible, toxic company) and I live in an expensive city. After sitting down with my financial adviser I can see that I really need to be making more (mostly so I can save for retirement). The internet tells me different things about asking for a raise or promotion at one year.
    My question is this:
    1. Should I ask for a raise? 
    2. OR should I ask for a title change? (to manager, so then one day I can move to a different company with that title and make more) 
    The nonprofit does not have a culture of raises or promotions, so I think anything I ask for may be met with raised eyebrows. They are paying below market rate, even though I negotiated the pay up quite a bit from what they offered me. 

    1. WellRed*

      Is there a position to be promoted into? Where I work, there isn’t unless someone above me leaves, so it would look strange to ask, whereas a raise would not.

  157. Keymaster of Gozer*

    How to respond to a recruiter who I *think* was unnecessarily rude?

    She rang me up about a job that initially sounded perfect but then said it often required working into evenings – 7 or 8pm.

    I said I couldn’t work evenings, it’s a hard no for me, but thank you for considering me,

    She demanded to know *why* and I said it’s due to medications I have to take for my disabilities that make me less able to function past about 6pm. She got angry and said I’d have to “choose between a career or your precious drugs”. , added a few insults for good measure about how she’d never put a ‘druggie’ forward for a job anyway and hung up.

    Granted, I said too much information. I shouldn’t have said why. Given all this though; how should I word a complaint to the firm of recruiters she represents?

    1. designbot*

      omg. I would tell them that their recruiter not only wouldn’t listen to a candidate’s reasonable time constraints, they were unnecessarily judgmental about accommodations required for disabilities, and you’re sure the firms they represent wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of the law there.

      1. Keymaster of Gozer*

        That’s a very good point. I honestly didn’t consider the disability discrimination angle, surprising given how many times I’ve had to fight employers to get accommodations for them!

        Should I weight the complaint more toward ‘this could be illegal just so you know’ or ‘your recruiter is one overly judgemental person and was rude to me’?

        1. designbot*

          I was thinking something of a middle ground, like, this was super inappropriate and a liability to you.

          1. Keymaster of Gozer*

            Again, you’re right. Thank you :)

            Sincerely. Also to all the others who replied! It’s really helped me to take a step back from the anger (and self-pity) I had after that call and be able to look at the next steps objectively.

    2. Jan Levinson*

      WTF. This is awful. It’s none of her business why you can’t work evenings. I don’t know what I would tell her if I were you, but I’m so sorry that she treated you this way. Total overstep.

    3. WellRed*

      I would tell them, matter of factly, exactly what she said to you. And yes, it doesn’t matter why you can’t work evenings. You simply can’t.

      1. Keymaster of Gozer*

        Time for a long editing process! (So my email is factually correct but doesn’t come off sounding like I’m whining and making up things. Language is hard, I’m better at SQL…)

        Thank you. It really has helped to know that I’m not overreacting.

    4. Buttons*

      WTH. Yeah, you don’t have to ever tell anyone WHY, but I would call or send an email not only to the agency but the company they were recruiting for, if you know that is. That is BS.

      1. Keymaster of Gozer*

        She never mentioned the firm, which to me was a little odd but not unheard of. I wonder now if she had any intention of giving away more information or just wanted to ring someone up to rant at for a while (the call was at 7pm yesterday so maybe she had a rough day? Obviously doesn’t excuse rudeness)

    5. blackcat*

      I would send a note saying that,
      “On X date at Y time, I received call from [Recruiter]. The job she described initially sounded perfect but then said it often required working into evenings – 7 or 8pm. I said I couldn’t work evenings, it’s a hard no for me, but thank you for considering me.
      She then asked why I could not. That question, and the tone in which it was asked, was disrespectful. In retrospect, I should have ended the call at that point. However, I ended up explaining that I have a disability that means I cannot work in the evenings. She then raised her voice/[other way she indicated she was angry] and said “choose between a career or your precious drugs.”
      I am concerned actions like this could cause your agency to run afoul of the ADA, and so I wanted to alert you to these comments.
      [if true, perhaps include something like I have worked with your agency before and never had an experience like this/Your agency has a good reputation/etc]
      Thank you for your time [and if applicable, offer to answer questions]

      Regards,
      Keymaster

  158. Cool Job Girl*

    I have a question about Job Interviewing!

    I adore my job and my coworkers – our leadership is EH on a good day. We’re a tiny nonprofit that does a lot good works in a very specific industry (I’m going to broadly say Agriculture, but that isn’t what I do, exactly). I started interviewing for a new position a short time ago because, sadly, our paychecks have started to come in late. When your monthly paycheck is a week late for the third time due to “banking errors”, even my optimism sees the writing on the wall.

    My problem is this: my job is really cool. I obviously love it in interviews. Half the time, I get interviews because companies (especially tech companies, which is where I am focused right now) are SO CURIOUS about what I am doing and what in the world is this nonprofit that I work for? The name and mission always get a lot of interest from people.

    I’m always asked why do I want to leave my nonprofit and why do I want to leave my industry? The blunt answer is my company is going under because my industry is having a massive downturn, especially in the US. But how do I say that when the job interviews I am getting are interested in me due to my connections within the industry and international govt contacts?

    I’ve tried mostly that I’m looking for my next big promotional step, which is true that I will not be promoted further at my current job (there isn’t a further development ladder) but it doesn’t seem to be working. I’ve gotten feedback after an interview that I was great, but they picked someone else since I seemed to love my job and they thought weird I was leaving. This feedback also came from a young tech startup. So, I just mentally shrugged and told the true that I’m leaving because they aren’t paying us on time. My tech interviewer said that sucks, which is very true, tech bro. He then awkwardly ended our chat but asked me to contact him if I wanted to try for a position coming up again in a few months.

    How do I say “I would like to be paid on time, and I don’t think I can get that done in my industry any longer” professionally??? Or something else? HELP, no one believes I want to leave my cool job!

    1. Buttons*

      I cannot imagine getting a paycheck late. That can really mess people up!

      Here is what I say “I have spent x years in this job, which I have a lot of passion for. I am wanting to take my passion and knowledge to help bridge the gap between x and the industry. I am able to do that because of all this experience and passion I have has given me a huge network, and what I would be able to do in this role is…..”

      Take it away from the actual job/organization and about your passion and knowledge. What can you do for them, and why do you want to do it.

      Good luck!!!

      1. Anon for this one*

        But I don’t think you want to paint a picture to an employer like “I live life so short-term that even a few days delay to a paycheck would cause me problems”. If (generic you) can’t even make provision for a short term problem in their own life which affects them personally then would they be a good custodian of the company’s funds?

        I would say anything other than “late paychecks” really.

    2. CAA*

      “They aren’t paying us on time” is an exception to the “don’t badmouth your current employer” rule of interviews. You need to be honest and explain that’s the main reason you’re leaving. However, you also need to be enthusiastic about the new job you’re applying for. After you explain about the payroll problems, turn the conversation to how excited you are about the new opportunity and don’t dwell on how great your current job is.

      1. Buttons*

        I would directly say they aren’t paying me on time. I would say “there are some organizational changes happening and there is a lot of uncertainty and instability around those changes.” Not negative, but paints the picture clearly.

    3. Gumby*

      Can you phrase it as you foreseeing a downturn in the industry as a whole and that while you love the job you need to look out for your long-term prospects and (this is key) new-industry-you’re-interviewing-in also sounds exciting to you because [reasons].

    4. designbot*

      I think I’d say something like, there are some signs of financial instability that are beyond anyone at my current office’s ability to fix. It’s been a great time there but I’m eager to (insert positive development expected in new job here).

  159. Anonosaurus*

    How many times would you do a coworker a favor before you would feel like they needed to do one back? I have a coworker I’ve done a few favors for over the last couple months – nothing huge – and I asked her for help with something last month. She said she’d do it but didnt. I didn’t follow up with her because I was swamped. Today she asked me a question about a customer which I could answer, but I’d need to look back through the file, and I find that I don’t really feel like doing that. I am irritated. Am I just being a big ol meanie here?

    1. LQ*

      Is it a “this is actually your job but I’m asking you as a favor so we can build a rapport” favor or a real favor where if you are bumping something else, or spending extra time on it, or doing something that’s not really your job?
      Do you need this relationship/rapport in the future?
      I do a lot of real favors in order to be a little sloppier in my interpersonal relationships. (More likely to forgive someone for having a bad day if they do you favors occasionally.)
      But for folks I don’t want a good rapport or strong relationship with, I will often (very indirectly I’ll admit) just take a long time to respond. Part of this is just being busy and answering is itself a favor in a lot of these cases. But then eventually just saying, “I’m just swamped right now and don’t have time to dig into that.” is ok if you’re not getting a lot and you’re frustrated about it. The biggest thing I’ll do is “I’m happy to look at it but you have to put requests for Favor through Big Boss.” Which turns it from a favor into my Actual Job. (And I have a really strong idea of what Big Boss will and won’t approve as real work.)

    2. NicoleK*

      Does your coworker ask for favors or do you just offer? If your coworker is routinely asking for help/favors but doesn’t give back, then stop helping her.

  160. Sighhhh*

    Does anyone else have a “creative casual” workplace attire dress code? What do you and your coworkers wear?

    I’ve noticed that dress standards very much are determined by your team–certain departments dress very casually with jeans, t-shirts, and hoodies, and others will wear very fashionable outfits or dresses (think Anthropologie or Free People vibes) that don’t look “business” to me but are still really attractive. I find myself torn between these two extremes, but as a member of the team of the latter dressers, I never know how much is “too much” personal flair.

    1. WellRed*

      I personally think when the clothing is more noticeable then the whole person, it’s probably a bit too much, but then, this is also likely to be extremely subjective. But, to take a stab, when Lady Gaga wears a meat dress it’s too much, but if she wears a ball gown with gloves and funky jewelry, it’s fine.

  161. Ejane*

    I posted last week about the employee, Lester, who no-showed twice last week.
    He’s done it 3 more times this week, and blamed it on our unseasonably bad snow and ice. Working from home is fine, but he’s killing me with the lack of communication.
    He’s ostensibly still employed.
    ??!?!?!!????
    I’m not management, technically, though the issue with the imbalance of responsibility to authority in my position has been a talking point for a while. So, I have no idea what conversations are being
    Granted, we’ve had terrible weather and he lives in a rural area, but the no communication thing… ugh.
    So, I left work on Monday frustrated for Lester-related reasons, or tried to. I was on my way out the door and checked in with our operations manager, as per usual. He noticed, asked me if everything was okay, and I SHOULD HAVE JUST LEFT.
    I should have left. I’m job searching, I don’t need to get more involved, and as Becky Lynch pointed out last week, trying to save this mess would be an exercise in futility.
    I’m going to blame it on exhaustion, stress, and frustration, but I didn’t leave. I sighed, and told him about the latest Lester-related problem (missed half of the items on his to-do list for a groomer appointment), and then said “I can’t rely on him. Why is he still here?”
    The ensuing, unfortunately long conversation included me voicing concerns and, when OM didn’t follow, explaining why they were issues (i.e. Exceptions to disciplinary policy should only be made in extenuating circumstances; management shouldn’t go into a situation looking for a reason to excuse the employee. It doesn’t matter to the client WHY something was missed, just that it was missed. Llamas don’t get groomed with apologies) and then circling back to the issue at hand (Why am I responsible for x y z and left in a position of responsibility for our groomers, when I have NO authority? and, of course: Why is Lester still here? I can’t rely on him).
    This should have been a 40-min conversation, max.
    But I was fighting a panic attack through most of it, because that’s what my body DOES when I get stressed, yaaaaaayyy, which made it exceedingly difficult to track my own train of thought.
    Okay. whining over.

    In the end, my stance is: put my head down, get through this, and find a way to retain enough mental and emotional stamina that I can keep applying for other jobs. At this point, I’m taking Alison’s advice and watching this like you watch a car crash in slow motion. It’s tough, because I knew the OM through a close friend before I took this job, and we run in the same social circles (Important: he’s barely older than me, and he and I had an explicit conversation about separating work and social life when I started). I don’t want something he’s put blood, sweat and tears into to fall apart.
    But, I can’t save it. I’ve got my hands full with figuring out how to save myself.

    1. Ejane*

      (**what conversations are being had.
      Apparently the rest of that sentence opted to no-show as well.)

    3. Alice*

      Are you saying that you spent _longer_ than 40 minutes telling the operations manager about this when you were on your way out?

      1. Ejane*

        Yes. I’m really not proud of it. However, telling him about Lester and my frustration, and getting a solid and validating response, took maybe ten minutes. The conversation continued because he asked me a few questions that turned into an actual conversation about what I’m actually responsible for, what management expects me to do/be able to accomplish when this happens, what to do when upper management isn’t in the building and a groomer has dropped the ball, and generally clearing up confusion and getting a really clear picture of what I’m expected to do or be able to fix when groomers don’t show and the schedule explodes.

        Also finally got permission to take 10-minute breaks without needing to find someone to cover my position, since that’s nigh impossible.

        1. Alice*

          Well, if the operations manager is the person who actually supervises Mr. No Show, maybe it was time well spent. It sounds like you discussed some issues that are actually important.

          1. Ejane*

            He’s one tier above Mr. NS’s manager, and my direct manager… and I hope it was. A lot of it was stuff that has come up before, unfortunately, but maybe a little more will stick this time.

  162. Nicki Name*

    CNN had a story this week that was like someone trying to win AAM Bad Idea Bingo. It’s about using AI to give personality tests in interviews… and what college career centers think of all this. Link in first reply.

    2. WellRed*

      using AI to gauge personality? There’s gotta be some irony working overtime here. Can’t wait to read the article.

  163. Temp-er*

    At what point do you spend your capital on a temp? Our temp receptionist has often been several minutes late (as receptionist this is more important than regular staff) to the point where at least once a long term client had to knock on an alternate entrance for a meeting with C-suite. Temp’s spouse has also stopped by to hang out several times – sometimes for half an hour or more. Temp also will play music or watch tv shows at a louder volume that I can hear clearly from my desk down the hall and around the corner. Should I say something to Big Boss or not since this is a temp?

    1. WellRed*

      The whole point of a temp is that you don’t need to be invested n them if they aren’t working out. Although in this case, I think instead, you could focus on the pieces that impact you, like the loud music or tv distracting you

    2. Nervous Nellie*

      You made me recall a rant from a previous job! As an unpleasant but not entirely wrong former colleague would have said, “Big Boss is paying big bucks for that temp, and 10 minutes late each day is a full week of WAGE THEFT per year!” Ok, a bit dramatic, but…..if the person in your office to whom the temp is accountable checked in with the temp’s agency rep and gave the report that you just did, the temp agency would pull the temp immediately and replace them with another for you. Depending on your own standing in the company, it might be worth it, but do think carefully about any impact it might have on you for doing so.

    3. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

      After that bit with the client? Absolutely say something. That’s a massive negative impact on the business — as soon as you start seriously mucking up client relationships, discipline needs to kick in. And a long-term client having to go look for an alternate entrance? That’s a big deal.

  164. Effing Personality Assessments*

    I need some advice. I’m trying to help my 20-year-old find a minimum wage job, and many of them require online personality tests. After taking a test, she either receives an immediate email which says “Thanks but you’re not a good fit for our company” or nothing at all. Her friends and I have sat with her and looked at the questions and her answers, and we can’t figure out why she fails these tests. (If she is actually failing them–who knows? She receives no feedback.)

    Some of the tests are very strange. In one she was shown a picture and a word together, and then asked to indicate whether it was one of her personality traits. In one example, the word was “curious”, but the picture was of a woman peeking out through the window blinds to spy on her neighbors. There were other combinations of a positive/neutral word and a negative picture, and vice versa.

    How do you pass these tests? What are the employers looking for? Is she inadvertently sending out red flags with her responses?

    1. littlelizard*

      I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten a positive response from a job application that had one of those tests, and I’ve tried filling them out in all kinds of ways. I have no idea what they’re looking for.

    2. Buttons*

      What kind of jobs is she applying for? Customer Service? Call center? Usually, if there is going to be an aptitude test they will tell you the name of it. I would search the name and look at some samples of it and what that test is testing for. If you don’t know what they are looking for – honesty, transparency, self-awareness, empathy, etc- and just taking them confused and annoyed, then they could be coming back skewed. I would be curious as to what tests she is being given.
      If you search for job applicant aptitude tests you will find some practice tests online and some articles about them, to help discover why they are used and how they are used.
      Also, take a look at her resume, and take a look at what else she is doing- is she filling out an application form online? It may be a combination of things.
      If you can post what the rest names I can maybe answer a few more questions about them.

      1. Effing Personality Assessments*

        She is applying for customer service jobs. So far they haven’t given the names of the test. She fills out an online application, submits it, and then receives an email with a link to the online assessment. The assessment has the company name on it and usually something like, “We want to find out more about you!” And that’s it. I’ve taken a Myers-Briggs before and these were somewhat along the same lines, but much shorter.

        You are right, I think she does feel confused, annoyed and wary when she takes these tests–it would be good for her to get into a positive frame of mind before taking them. I’ll suggest to her that she look up those practice tests.

    3. WellRed*

      Well what was her answer? Was it negative? I’ve taken those tests once or twice, though they are more work focused, and I feel like you can usually suss out the answer they want (positive, team playerish, etc).

      1. Effing Personality Assessments*

        Her answer was “no”, and she got the dreaded email after she completed the test. I don’t know if that was the answer they were looking for.

    4. Tidewater 4-1009*

      Back when I was doing these it was fairly easy to tell what they were looking for. Pretend you’re the perfect employee and give those answers. It’s stupid, but corporate management is notoriously stupid.
      However, I haven’t seen the picture/word combination you describe. That’s a trick question. I think they’re trying to determine if the employee is nosy or would interfere with others. So I would answer “no”.
      Remember, they expect answers from a perfect employee. Give them that. It has no relation to reality and what’s going to be important to your daughter is whether she has a good boss.

      1. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

        Eh, I’d read it the opposite way. The people writing these assessments don’t care about things like nosiness. My guess would be a question like that is prying for a positive/negative attitude — in other words, do you let the negative image override the positive word, or does the positive word override the negative image? Because they want all their employees to be beacons of bubbly happiness at $7.25 an hour.

      2. irene adler*

        I wonder if there’s any relationship with HOW the question is responded to.

        Maybe selecting all the visual responses results in someone being classified as not good verbally. Or, taking the time to ponder “curious” vs. picture means the applicant is too slow to make a decision. Do test takers even know if they are being timed for each response or if their curser activity is tracked or they are monitored as to how much time they spend on some questions over other questions? Wouldn’t surprise me if this is what is going on.

        One time I took an online assessment of my skills in Word and Excel (been using these programs for over 20 years). I don’t have all of the commands memorized but I know where to drill down to get what I need. If it’s something I don’t use often, then I hover, get the word to indicate the function and select it. But this test wouldn’t let me access this aspect of the programs. So I flailed around a bit trying to access things that were blocked off. The result: I failed both. Miserably. It said that I needed extensive training in these programs. Yet I use them daily, get things done and there’s never been a complaint. Okay…….

        1. Tidewater 4-1009*

          I ran across those once or twice at temp agencies back in the 90’s. So stupid! If they want to know how you perform in real life, give you a real-life environment!
          Duh…
          And as I write, I remember when authority acts stupid, it’s because they don’t want to admit what they’re really doing. In this case setting people up to fail.

            1. Tidewater 4-1009*

              I wonder if they understood they were paying for failure?
              It was probably sold as “we’ll sort out the most advanced candidates!” but it went way, way too far.

        2. Zephy*

          I’ve taken a similar assessment for Word and Excel. I had a second computer open next to me and looked up the answers for things I didn’t immediately know how to do without looking around for the function. Because the job wasn’t for “MS Office Oracle,” so if my hypothetical future boss ever did need me to do a mail merge, or whatever, she wouldn’t stand there and watch me do it or expect me to verbally explain how to do it from memory.

    5. The Man, Becky Lynch*

      These are the stupidest things ever, we use them just as a gatekeeper [I hate it and it’s on my list of things to destroy but sadly one manager wants them just as that stupid gatekeeper “if they want a job, they’ll do this…I don’t care about the results…”] I filled out one just for shits and giggles and failed it miserably. They’re that worthless.

      She’s not doing anything wrong. The game sucks and is impossible to win. I’m sorry that this is happening to her.

      1. Buttons*

        They are worthless, especially when you can search the name of the test and find countless sites that will tell you what the “correct” answer is. Also a lot of people can manipulate them by knowing what the “right” answers are, so you end up getting the people who know how to manipulate and good at taking tests. Yeah, because those skills are important! ha.

        1. The Man, Becky Lynch*

          All the ones I’ve seen are timed so you won’t have time to google answers. And they’re set so you can’t pause and go back.

    6. AnotherAlison*

      Maybe she is not a good fit, and maybe that’s a good thing long term.

      The way you describe the tests and the positions she’s looking for, I’m pretty certain as someone who tests “INTJ” on the MB, I wouldn’t pass, either! However, 20 years into my career, I hold a position that has client-facing responsibilities, and my jobs pay a lot more than working in customer service.

      Is there something she could do for money that would be a better fit, and possibly even pay more money? Possibly she’s looking specifically for something with benefits, but if not, cleaning houses is what I would do if I was in that position now. If you can get your own clients, you work alone, the pay is > minimum wage, and your performance is measurable based on if the house is clean and you’re generally polite. No need to smile and tell people it was your pleasure to put up with their sh** today.

  165. WellRed*

    I like to share here when I’ve read in the news something job related (except took a break after someone nitpicked my wording when I posted the last time). I was reading about some high end luggage company, Away(?) that treats employees like crap, OSHA violations up the wazoo and had terrible customer service to boot, but then would send employees iPods or whatever to make up for it. What had me scratching my head was, many of these employees were part time retail sales selling luggage. They knew enough to complain to OSHA in some cases, but why not take another sales job elsewhere? (The retail locations sounded to be in metropolitan areas). Not blaming the employees by any means, but it made me wonder. I also wonder, as always, why do companies think they can get away with this stuff? It eventually, we hope, comes back on them.

    1. irene adler*

      Companies think they can get away with such abuses because of the power imbalance. Employees need their jobs.

      There’s a lot of risk involved to complain (potential job loss!), and a lot of energy and risk involved to job hunt (better the devil you know than the devil you don’t). So they bank on employees taking the line of least resistance- putting up with abuses. Sure, it’s a gamble, and there are times when an employee quits or OSHA fines them, but that’s small potatoes to them.
      I’m in no way defending business. Businesses should treat employees properly and fairly-because it is the right thing to do.

    2. LQ*

      There is a sort of common refrain on this site to just find a new job like it’ll take 10 minutes of work and there are thousands that are better just knocking on your door all the time. For most people that’s not true, and even in a market where some jobs are like that, not all jobs are. It’s still hard to find a job. Actually hard, but also emotionally hard on folks who may be going through other things in life. And often the jobs where this happens are the most likely to sort of…filter through people and end up with mostly people who are struggling. If you have options and can just jump off the train, you do. So all the people left still on the train are people who don’t have the time, energy, money, confidence, or skills to jump off. So in return the company knows it can continue to be worse.

      But more than that, lets say you have a good person who gets to be a boss in that place with the best intentions and the best work and all that. That person is now confronted with a team of people who are …too tired, not good enough, too worn down, lacking the skills, or rotten. And your rotten person will eat your tired person for breakfast every morning, and your worn down person gets more worn down by the lacking skills person. And now instead of being able to address all of it. Because despite everything, just saying, “Everyone do better” doesn’t fix anything. That’s not how the real world works, sometimes employees are shitty, and shitty employers are much more likely to let shitty employees stick around. So you have a viscious cycle. Now that manager is struggling trying to not let the shitty employees destroy the last of the good but tired and otherwise stressed to their last edge employees. And meanwhile their boss’s don’t give a rats rear and are just pushing more more more. And that manager can’t even say, “My whole team is giving everything they have, you’re unreasonable.” Because the team isn’t, in fact no one on the team is. And manager starts to try to crack down on shitty behavior. But the shitty behavior that’s the easiest to crack down on is the tired employee’s shitty behavior. Rotten employees are more slippery. And manager is new still and they want to show that they can do this. They need to demonstrate that being shitty isn’t ok.

      So they end up firing the tired employee first. And let’s say they get lucky and bring in a new good person. Now instead of having to shield that person from a tired employee, they have to sheild the new person from a rotten employee. Which eats more time and that manager is struggling even more to try to pin down this rotten employee and that’s taking a huge amount of time. Meanwhile the boss’s will not let manager just fire folks, they have to follow the proper channels for this (for the only time they ever care about proper channels). So manager keeps working this but they fail the good new person who becomes bitter and either leaves or stays and becomes the bitter employee.

      It’s more complex than it seems to fix and people are hard. But it’s easy to get there and it’s surprisingly easy to slide into there. I think it’s interesting to look at ourselves and ask what is the thing that I’ll do that will end up with me sliding into something like that.

      2. Tidewater 4-1009*

        “the boss’s will not let manager just fire folks, they have to follow the proper channels for this (for the only time they ever care about proper channels).”

        They care about proper channels re this because they’re afraid of lawsuits. It has nothing to do with being good to people. It’s their fear of missing some paperwork and having a lawsuit filed, and then the people who did the firing will be in trouble…

    3. Arts Akimbo*

      I think this is the company I just read an article about! It was shocking how much awful treatment the employees put up with and the management dished out. But I think what the key factor in all this is that the company founder has a very strong personality and established a cult-like environment from the start. The employees were primed and in a way conditioned to fight for scraps of approval from her. It’s like Lululemon all over again. Cults of personality with a strong mission statement attract people who believe in them or the cause, who are invested in advancing the cause and wanting the owners’ approval. This type of environment is ripe for abuse.

  166. Tidewater 4-1009*

    Should I apply to a company that’s being acquired by another company?
    I saved an Indeed post on Wed. from a company I hadn’t heard of before. Yesterday by coincidence I saw a headline that it’s being acquired by another company.
    What do you all think?
    I’m unemployed if that makes a difference.

    1. WellRed*

      If you’re unemployed, you have nothing to lose, but I would be wary. It could be ages before they move ahead with the hiring, or you could get hired and restructured out once the merger dust settles.

    2. Buttons*

      You can apply, but they may go on a hiring freeze. We just acquired a new company and we made no changes or anything to them. We wanted them because they have an area in the industry we don’t have a hand in. They are still 100% functioning as if we do not own them. Over the next 2 years, we will integrate some of our processes and systems, mostly at legal, HR, and finance levels. But they are free to hire, fire, and carry on business as usual.
      But it could go either way!
      Good luck!

      1. Buttons*

        BTW, if you get an interview ask the recruiter or hiring manager how the acquisition is going to impact the structure of the company/department. If they are uncertain or won’t answer, it is a red flag.

    3. The Man, Becky Lynch*

      I would touch it with a ten foot pole personally. There’s too much unknown involved.

      But if you’re unemployed and just casting lines at this rate, you can always go in with this knowledge already in hand. Which at least gives you that shield of protection, it’s a good thing that you’re aware of this so you can ask them about it if you do get called for an interview.

    4. irene adler*

      Depending upon the level of the job, can you negotiate some kind of severance should this job be eliminated due to the merger?

        1. RVA Cat*

          Usually there is a minimum severance amount for the newest people. Plus if you do get laid off, it’s likely a “last hired, first fired” situation totally unrelated to your performance. (Check your state laws about how long until you’re eligible for unemployment, though.)

    5. MissDisplaced*

      Having gone through this, I’d say only do so if you desperately need the job.
      Things will often change dramatically after the acquisition: from layoffs to office moves.

  167. Seeking Second Childhood*

    I was supposed to get my new PC in early November. They are supposed to give me a week’s notice when it’s ready. Once it hit 2 months late I sort of forgot about it…and yesterday I got a 36 hour warning.
    So of course I accidentally merged 2 folders moving too many things to the archives at one time.
    Is it Friday yet? Yes! Yes it is!

  168. Environmental Compliance*

    Having a bleh motivation week.

    I would like anyone whatsoever to get back to me on Yes/No on the jobs I’ve applied to. I’m back to wondering what I am even doing with my career, since I basically fell into this one and now feel vaguely trapped in it.

    In a dream world a greenhouse or a fiber mill would open up near me and need an EHS person. *sigh*

    On a side note, the knitting magazine that published a pattern of mine back in April *still* has not sent back my damn sample and is now ignoring my emails. *frustrated Finland jpeg*

    1. Environmental Compliance*

      Of course at 3:45PM on a Friday I walk past a wastewater manhole that’s….oddly belchy…., call in Safety Guy, lovely, it’s carbon monoxide. Of course.

  169. Notfunny.*

    My job is terrible for a whole variety of reasons and I doubt it will change. I’m burnt out and frustrated at how the situation has evolved and how long I’ve stayed here already. I’m actively searching and hope to be out by April or May but we’ll see how long the search takes. In the meantime, I am so irritated by everything. How do I regain a filter and stop complaining all the time? Any suggestions?

    1. Ocean*

      One day at a time. When things are rough I sometimes set up times with friends specifically to rant and complain. No ranting and complaining outside of those periods.

  170. Coffee Before Breakfast*

    Happy Friday! My question to the hive is this: When first connecting with folks after a conference, would you send an email, or a LinkedIn message with a brief note? Secondly, do you keep business cards after you’ve connected with folks on LinkedIn? Thanks in advance.

    1. CAA*

      Either an email or a LinkedIn message is fine. You might get better responses to an email since a lot of people filter LinkedIn. I don’t keep business cards, but that’s a personal preference.

    2. Jellyfish*

      I do LinkedIn, but the business cards remind me of a silly story. In a previous job, everyone would create an Outlook contact for a new business connection and then toss the card.
      One of the employees bought this fancy binder to store business cards in – probably very useful and very sleek in 1982. This happened in 2015 though. Everyone ribbed him about it, but he was quite proud of his business card binder and kept every single card he got.

      One day, there was an IT failure and we temporarily lost all access to our network. No Outlook contacts, no internet, no company phone lines. People could use data on their phones I suppose, but we needed to contact some important clients and had no way to look up their direct numbers.
      With great ceremony, this employee brought out his business card binder and saved the day!

      So… I usually recycle business cards once I have the information, but it might be worthwhile to keep some of the important ones.

      2. Tidewater 4-1009*

        That’s why I still use paper calendars and have phone numbers written down. The crash is always at the worst time…

  171. Jessica Fletcher*

    Our annual reviews are coming up, and we just got an email about our self evals and providing feedback to coworkers! My only coworker should never have made it past 90 days, and after 6 months here, she’s finally decided to do a tiny bit of work. She has not spoken to me in almost 3 months. I’ve talked to my manager multiple times, and he agrees with me but won’t fire her because he’s a bad manager.

    So I’m looking forward to giving some honest, detailed feedback on how impossible it is to work with her. Maybe someone with a spine will read it and do something before they lose me. I’ll be factual, not personal, but also totally honest about how bad it’s been.

    1. Buttons*

      I really can’t stand managers who don’t manage. Hopefully, you have an HR department and the review/calibrate with managers. If she is getting a bad review, HR and HIS manager hold accountable for her, which is what should happen.

      1. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

        Hahaha! “Jessica” and their co-w0rker seem to report to the same boss (“talked to my manager […] he agrees with me but won’t fire her”) so if the boss hasn’t held the co-worker accountable by now I don’t think it will be prompted by a negative review.

        In my experience these ‘peer’ reviews did make it to HR, but they didn’t really process them cerebrally and with action, but just acted as administrators (as I fear it will happen here).

        As you are saying “before they lose me”, Jessica, I would start looking if I were you. It doesn’t sound like things will change.

  172. Job Searching*

    I just had an interview where I was not offered a position, but the person who interviewed told me that I made a strong impression and “if you’d like to me to forward your resume on to any of our other partners that work in the [llama wrangling] field, please let me know.” My question is, are they offering to send it to people they know? Are they expecting me to reply that I’m looking for a specific connection? Is this something they’d do right away or do I reach out later? I’ve never been the recipient of a “let me pass along your resume”, so I’m delighted but clueless.

    1. fposte*

      It’s a broad and now thing. I’d go for “Thanks! Please do pass it along to anybody who think might be interested; I appreciate the consideration.” It doesn’t commit you to anything and you may never hear a peep out of it (keep expectations rock bottom there), but sometimes there really are useful close ties.

    2. AnotherAlison*

      I had that happen a couple times, and I figured it didn’t hurt. Mine were more specific. I had applied in dept. X and Y and got passed on to A and B. I didn’t pursue the X to A job because the interview for X was so offputting that I was over it. (Like when you are upfront that you don’t have certain experience, and then they keep harping on it.) I did interview for the Y to B job and wished I hadn’t. For comparison, Y was the analyst for the strategy EVP and B was an analyst deep in the bowels of the marketing team and a step back from what I was doing already. So, all that to say, do, but agree the expectations should be low.

    3. CAA*

      Usually when people say this they are offering to send your resume to other hiring managers who work in their company, but it sounds like in this case they’re offering to send it to some other companies they partner with. If you’re open to this, you should reply pretty quickly with something like “Thanks, I’d be grateful if you’d pass my resume along to anyone who might have an opening that would be a good fit for me.”

      You want to do this while your resume is on the top of their inbox, not a few weeks from now. You don’t ask who they’re sending it to or for specific contacts. Just let them take it from there.

  173. From The High Tower on Capitol Hill*

    I don’t know if anyone has any suggestions on this, but here we go. The office building I work in has an underground parking garage for all of the offices in the building. It is incredibly musty/potentially moldy and more often than not people are downstairs smoking in the lowest level. I have asthma and it isn’t exactly great for me to not be able to breathe everyday walking to the elevators or walking to my car. The smokers won’t stop despite my and my coworkers complaints to them personally, the property manager, their boss, and their corporate headquarters (not all about smoking, also serious harassment issues of other tenants). Is there anything I can do? I mean it isn’t reasonable to ask my work to move office buildings obviously.

    2. LQ*

      Could you be moved to park on a different level?
      The property management company should really deal with this, but that’s where I’d start for you personally?

      1. From The High Tower on Capitol Hill*

        We unfortunately don’t have assigned parking spots. The people that get the first level of parking are usually there by 7 a.m., whereas my workday starts at 9 a.m.

        The harassment includes looking up girls dresses while they walk up the stairs, audibly talking about how we should take that as a compliment, etc. They are truly a horrible company. As far as I know, nobody in the building has called the police.

        1. WellRed*

          “The harassment includes looking up girls dresses while they walk up the stairs, audibly talking about how we should take that as a compliment, etc.”

          Buried the lede, there. This is what gives you leverage to have this issue addressed, not the smoking. Where is YOUR company management in this? They need to bring this up to their company AND building management, who surely don’t want to deal with other tenants creating a hostile and unsafe working environment for other tenants.

          1. BRR*

            Yup. “People are being sexually harassed going up the stairs. What is going to be done about it?” Follow that up with an email with subject “official complaint of sexual harassment.”

            1. valentine*

              They need to bring this up to their company AND building management, who surely don’t want to deal with other tenants creating a hostile and unsafe working environment for other tenants.
              Yes. It’s your manager and whoever liaises with the property manager to tackle this for you because it affects your work. You should feel safe entering your workplace.

        2. irene adler*

          Time to change that and talk to the police about this.
          No way to spill something sugary and sticky on them as they look up the ladies’ dresses?

    3. MatKnifeNinja*

      Is your campus totally non smoking, and does the business own the actual garage?

      If so, if the campus is non smoking, and the garage is part of the campus. Nobody should be smoking there.

      IF the garage is privately owned, and you company has a contract with the garage, that can be harder. Who is smoking? Fellow coworkers and/or the garage people? You might have a shot moving the smoker’s out of the garage and on to the sidewalk (maybe). Many companies have you “must be off property to fire up your smokey treats.”

      A well aimed Frappuccino dropped from above should stop the look up people.

      If your HR won’t stop the middle school shenanigans, you can always send a certified letter to the garage owner about the harassment. If the nonsense doesn’t stop, you’ll be filing a police report.

      Depending on where this is, the police might to a *meh*, but no owner wants any thing on record about his business behaving badly.

      1. RVA Cat*

        Is it illegal to pour scalding hot coffee on the creeps looking up skirts? Asking for a friend…

  174. Warm Weighty Wrists*

    Hey y’all, I could use some advice about how to approach my annual review meeting this year.
    Last year at my review I got a promotion and raise at my annual review, which was so nice financially and making me feel like my hard work was noticed and appreciated. Usually at my company one gets cost of living or slightly above that increases for a few years after a big promotion/pay increase, but I think I have earned more than that. I’m struggling to figure out how to say that without coming across as entitled, or throwing another person under the bus.
    I did amazing this year, and my numbers reflect that, so I have a good case that I’m doing my job well overall. Also, and here’s where it gets a bit sticky, I’ve been doing part of another person’s job intermittently. This person is supposed to have cross-project responsibility, including some supervisory duties over my projects. Person has been going through a tough time (and is about to retire) and has been out or feeling low recently, so I have become the go-to person to help people with their projects as well as mine. It became particularly apparent this week when I spent the whole week working on their project while they took personal time, when it had been presented to me that my particular skill set was the reason I was asked to do this. I’m suuuper busy but I fit it in, and I feel a bit taken advantage of. At the same time, though, Person should take personal time when they need it! That’s important! I just wish it had been acknowledged.
    So yeah, I’m doing a great job but I’m also kind of resentful, and I want the conversation at my annual review to be about the performance, not the resentment. What I want to say is I clearly have more responsibility than our duties originally called for, and I should be compensated accordingly, but I’m not sure how to say that without saying that I’m doing part of Person’s job because Person… isn’t. Any advice or perspective would be appreciated.

    1. Buttons*

      Go in with facts, no need to really mention much about Person. Just say “as you know I have taken on the added duties of X and have done really well at it, while at the same time performing at above (whatever metric you use) at my usual duties. When I received this promotion the expectations were for XYZ- and I have outperformed those expectations here, here and here. I think that all this shows my high level of performance and commitment to this job. I would like to be considered for x% raise to reflect that I am performing at an Exceeds (or whatever level is above your successfully meets category).”

  175. Aggretsuko*

    Yesterday during lunch I was told I was being kicked out of my private office and moved into a group office. Like MOVE OUT IMMEDIATELY TOMORROW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOWWWWWWWWWWWWW level of this. I am so mad. I am so sick of this office dropping surprise bombs on everyone. They also dropped a bomb on one of my coworkers saying she’s being transferred to another area after today, same meeting. No warning there either.

    Oh yeah, and they claim they need me to move out of my office ASAP because they are moving a new supervisor in there. No, they’re not, the job listing isn’t even approved by HR yet. Bullshit.

    I’m just so sick of this place but there is nowhere else to go, I qualify for nothing, and I have no hope of ever getting out.

    1. valentine*

      What happens if you don’t move?

      I qualify for nothing, and I have no hope of ever getting out.
      What can you do to change this?

  176. Roja*

    Good news! I posted a bunch in these threads during December about being fired from Former Toxic Job. I knew it wasn’t actually about me or my performance but it’s hard not to worry, you know? Maybe everyone really does hate me, maybe I’m really awful… even though I know that’s not true.

    Anyways, I went to work yesterday at Amazing Job (it’s super common in my field to work multiple jobs at once), and ran into my grandboss. He says he and my boss are very happy with my work, they get great feedback about me from customers, and he says they want to meet with me soon to discuss giving me more responsibilities. Squee!!

    Also, I officially start Replacement Job for Toxic Job tomorrow, and I’m hopeful it’ll be a good situation long-term. I’ve been super impressed with the training, everyone I’ve met so far, and the work culture. So things are looking up!

  177. Construction Safety*

    Just a vent.
    We use widgets of various capacities. We purchase these widgets primarily from widget manufactures. It’s federal law that the widgets have a manufacturer’s tag with capacity, use info, serial number etc. Sometimes in the course of our use of these widgets, the tags are knocked off and lost. In the past, we got extra tags from a vendor and replaced the tags. This, at the time, was in an extremely grey area. With a recent change in the federal standard, it is now clearly illegal. I sent out a company wide notice about this former practice & advised everyone that this is now illegal. We have one PM who is still actively trying to get tags for his widgets, but the corner office occupier will not shut him down. If we have an ‘event’ with a retagged widget, it will probably result in a willful OSHA violation and, depending on how severe the event is, criminal prosecution.

      1. Construction Safety*

        Nope. I’ma guessing he has the tacit approval of the HMFIC (corner office dweller)

    3. Environmental Compliance*

      Ugh. It’s an absolute PITA when Corner Office Person refuses to manage. Mine does the same.

      Internet commiseration from the E side of EHS.

  178. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

    For folks who have some sort of recurring appointment that falls within business hours — how do you handle it with your work schedule? Are you able to flex your schedule enough to get the needed hours off, or do you wind up having to trickle out your PTO for a couple hours here or there?

    1. Catsaber*

      When I was pregnant, I typically would flex my hours so I wouldn’t have to dig into my PTO (I was saving all that for leave!). Sometimes it was inevitable, like if an appointment ran long, or I just couldn’t get it scheduled in a way that was convenient to flexing my hours. I tried to schedule all my appointments in the late afternoon so I could just come in early or skip lunch.

    2. Buttons*

      I work from home most days, no one even knows when I am gone. LOL! But no, my company is super flexible, people just leave and come back. Most of us work more than 40 hours per week, and we know that people will make it up.
      I ask my lower-level employees just to shoot me an email and let me know when they will be out, but I don’t make them take PTO for it.

      1. Buttons*

        Wanted to add, I don’t ask that they take PTO unless they are going to be gone for 4+ hours. Then it makes sense.

    3. Goldfinch*

      We can’t use PTO in smaller than half-day increments. I try to make my appointments at the end of the day, and if I work through lunch, my boss lets me leave a bit early. I work 6:30-3:30, so as long as I use service providers that are relatively close to my job, I can usually slide in with a 4:00 or a 4:30 appointment.

      This did not work even a little bit when I was seeing an orthodontist. Routine adjustments were only done on T/W/Th between 8:00 and 11:00, and I was only going for myself–not driving to pick up a student first. I’m convinced that profession is determined to make patients’ lives as difficult as possible.

    4. Daughter of Ada and Grace*

      I flex my hours through the rest of the week – short lunches, work an extra half hour at the beginning or end of the day a couple of days, things like that. (I’m an exempt employee.)

      However, I will sometimes schedule non-recurring appointments or appointments with a long gap (say, dental visits) on the same day as a recurring appointment. Then I will take 4 hours of PTO and take the whole afternoon off.

    5. Lyudie*

      I try to do it late in the day, I can usually get a 5 pm appointment so I will leave the office at 4:30. I make up the time on another day of the week and that’s been fine with my last three managers.

    6. Ali G*

      I have a weekly appointment that gets me in to work about 90 min later than normal. I flex my time during the week (shortened lunches, stay a little later, etc.). It helps that we do have true Flex Time at work so folks are used to people coming and going at non-standard times (and it’s on my calendar).

    7. Asenath*

      Flex my schedule – and I also generally tried to have the appointments scheduled when there would be minimal impact on work, eg first thing in the morning so I didn’t have to travel to work, travel to the appointment and then travel back to work. But I had a very flexible employer, and my job didn’t require me to provide coverage during specific hours.

  179. Anonymous for this*

    This is a question about contacting staff after a restructuring:

    We are a small nonprofit that just underwent a restructure. Two out of three of my staff members were let go as part of this restructuring this week. I enjoyed working with both of them and I had no input into the decision to let them go. I want to contact them to tell them I’m sorry and I enjoyed working with them, and to provide a little bit of…I don’t know…empathy about the whole thing? I’m also feeling pretty burned by my company in general so my mindset is really negative right now and so I’m concerned that reaching out to them would put me at risk of saying something I shouldn’t. One of my team members was at the company for 10 years and I worked with them for 5 so it feels very strange to not say anything at all to her!

    What have you done when your staff has been let go during reorg/layoffs?

    1. WellRed*

      I reached out, after a couple of weeks, via FB messenger (we were FB friends already). I’m glad I did, I think she appreciated hearing from me and she’s someone I’d want to keep in touch with any way.

    2. Ali G*

      Just make sure you don’t write anything related to the actual layoff. Anything you put in writing to them could be used against the company (even if it seems innocuous, like “I was so sorry to lose you on the Team,” or “It wasn’t personal” etc.).
      Keep it strictly: I enjoyed working with you, wish you all the best, happy to be a reference, let’s keep in touch. Send it from your personal email address.

  180. Maureen*

    Does anyone have any experience with or thoughts on secondments into a different dept with their employer? There may be a possibility of one and I was thinking about expressing my interest. What were the positives and negatives? Any advice you would give? What would you do differently?

  181. SelfEvals*

    There’s a question on my self evaluation that reads: “What factors, environmental or otherwise, impacted your job or your ability to perform your job during the last review period?”

    I always have trouble with this question, because I’m not sure how to word things without sounding like 1) I’m blaming everyone else for things that didn’t get done or 2) self-flagellation. If you’ve had a question like this before on your self eval, what do you typically put?

    *I tend to lean towards self-flagellation….my self evals read like I’m deeply apologetic for my even just existing. I’m determined not to do that this year and be more confident in my skills and abilities.

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      I would have been able to polish 40% more teapots if I had access to an electric teapot polisher instead of an old cloth. (That’s an impact. Maybe it’s an impact that will get someone pricing electric polishers!)

      I would have had a lower volume of delayed teapots if the clinical staff in area X were more receptive to our department’s requests for the information we needed to complete the teapots. (This one kinda feels like throwing them under the bus, but damnit, if they don’t do their jobs, I can’t do mine, and I am not willing to pretend that’s my fault.)

    2. nep*

      ‘my self evals read like I’m deeply apologetic for my even just existing.’
      Wow, can I relate to that.

      1. valentine*

        Write from the perspective of someone who thinks highly of you, or pretend someone you admire is in your role and it’s their work you’re describing. If anything, you want to build yourself up one or two levels, so you still land well when they known you down.

  182. Purlsie*

    I’m not sure if AAM is the right place for this question, but I’m looking for advice on keeping up with a work schedule while keeping work separate from my personal phone. My work calendar lives on outlook and my employer provides a cell phone. I don’t want to carry my work phone around with me when I’m not working (nor does my employer expect me to).

    I’m in a position where my schedule is ostensibly 8-5, but that can vary widely from week to week depending on travel and meetings in locations a few hours’ drive away. For example, sometimes I have 12-hour long days, and other times my work day will be from 12-9.

    I’m having difficulties about knowing when I’m going to be available to schedule personal things when I’m not working and don’t have my work phone on me. Ideally, I’d export/sync a read-0nly version of my work calendar to be visible in my personal calendar, but it’s pretty locked down and I haven’t figured out a way to do that. And I can’t log on to the web-based calendar from my personal phone because logging in requires 2FA code–which get sent to my work phone.

    Do any of you have similar situations? How do you handle this?

    2. Boudica*

      I export my Outlook calendar to Excel, then take that and put it in my personal google calendar :)

      1. AppleStan*

        OK, I had no idea this was even POSSIBLE. Given the nature of our work, I won’t be able to do that because there’s too much client information and I don’t want that on my personal phone, but this is truly neat!

        1. Boudica*

          The advantage is that you can filter and delete things that include client data. Or, better yet, do a quick clean up of the resulting csv file. Delete columns, take out attendees, change subjects to “work commitment” and only keep start times/end times & dates…

    3. Bananatiel*

      I’ve had friends in this situation that ultimately do carry the work phone with them at all times but have it off during non-working-hours until they need to open it for something like what you’re describing. Otherwise I like the idea of exporting the calendar. Perhaps even printing a copy of the next week or month while you’re at work, whatever you’ll need to schedule the personal things you have coming up.

      1. Ginger Baker*

        Print+carry would be my suggestion. It keeps things separate/compartmentalized still but allows you to reference as needed.

    4. A Non E. Mouse*

      Can you share your work calendar with your personal calendar?

      I do the opposite (personal calendar is shared with work calendar) so when I’m at work, I can see both overlayed and make decisions based on that.

      If you can share the work calendar with your personal one, you would then see both things on your personal calendar.

    5. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      I have a separate calendar in iCal that’s for work stuff. I don’t get real detailed on it, like I wouldn’t put a 1-2pm webinar, but I’m primarily remote so I do note onsite obligations. Similarly, I don’t put details of personal stuff on my work calendar, but if I have an appointment that I’m not willing to reschedule, I put a “personal” filler in that time slot on my work calendar so it doesn’t get hijacked.

  183. Anabel*

    A week ago a family member of one of my employees emailed my personal email with a link to an arrest record. Apparently one of my direct reports was arrested for domestic violence recently and has a serious problem with alcohol. I’ve never witnessed any violent behavior from him or seen him come to work drunk, but he’s at a remote site so I miss a lot of his day to day behavior. He’s a very inconsistent employee, stellar one day and completely useless the next which makes a ton of sense if he’s got a serious issue with alcohol and anger management problems.

    As a manager what do I do now? The obvious thing is go to HR. But once I go to HR this takes on a life of its own. And if he gets fired or he finds out who told me about his arrest his family could be in very serious danger. I’ve had issues with physical violence in relationships before and so I’m very aware of how scared his family must be and how unpredictably people with these issues can act. How do I protect my company, myself, my other employees, and this person’s family?

    1. Veronica Mars*

      Is there any way you can arrive at this data on your own? Maybe rerun criminal background checks for everyone so that his spikes with the new arrest? I personally wouldn’t trust HR to do a good enough job of covering up the source of the information, but its public record so it is conceivable that you could come across it on your own.

      The chances are that this finding will result in him being fired… and thats a good thing! Especially if he’s putting other employees at this remote site at risk (or I’d imagine, at the very least making life miserable for them). Make sure you have security ready when he is fired and escort him out of the building. Its also a good time to review your building security and active shooter plans. Maybe you can warn the family member the day he gets fired? Or maybe that’s too much of a breach of privacy?

      1. Anabel*

        I work for a Fortune 100 company so our security and active shooter plans are up to date. Man I really hate the fact that I know that and that it is necessary.

        I’ve put in Google alerts on all my team’s names to catch stuff like this in the future. I tried to come up with a plausible “I found this on my own” story but the dude’s name is super common, think Adam Brown or Michael Smith, so that just isn’t believable. And he’s managed to have just enough stellar days that I can’t put him on a PIP.

        I’m kind of hoping the dude opens up to me a bit so I can point him at things like EAP resources etc. Maybe I’ll proactively send a reminder to the team about the stuff that exists under the guise of “this is our super busy season, remember this is available to you if you need it.”

        1. valentine*

          Unless you forwarded the email to work, you can simply refuse to name your source. Someone told you about the arrest. (No point pretending otherwise now because you’ve already taking the Google alerts action, introducing that a timestamp into these events.)

          Consider that the person knew the risk and sent it, anyway. Going to HR seems like proper protocol to me. Whatever avoids a chain where no one does anything to nip him in the bud. You could talk to the police who interacted with him and ask for their assessment on how dangerous he is.

          1. Anabel*

            I think this is the route I’m going. I don’t feel comfortable knowing that someone assaulted their partner in public (there are witnesses) and not doing anything. But I also know I don’t have to tell HR who on my team or how I know.

    2. Natalie*

      He’s a very inconsistent employee, stellar one day and completely useless the next which makes a ton of sense if he’s got a serious issue with alcohol and anger management problems.

      Is there some reason you can’t focus on this aspect and manage him out? Admittedly I have a very dismal outlook on PIPs so I’m assuming addressing this performance issue would end with him being terminated. And would be win-win-win, addressing the actual performance issue, insulating his relatives from blowback and keeping the company on clear footing if you happen to be in a state that prohibits making employment decisions based on arrests.

    3. designbot*

      I’m not sure that going to HR is the obvious thing—if you do that, you’re cosigning the implication that these extracurricular issues are a reason for him to lose his job. Instead I’d take it as a wake up call to be more involved with his performance—call in or drop by his site more than usual. Follow up when he doesn’t come through on things. Manage that tendency towards inconsistency, and if that continues to be a problem, that’s what I’d take to HR. You don’t fire someone for having an alcohol problem, you fire them for the impact that problem has on their work. If it doesn’t have an impact, then that’s their issue not yours.

    4. Seeking Second Childhood*

      Ouch that’s a tricky one to be in. I haven’t any solution, but I do have two things for you to consider. First, an arrest is not a conviction. Second, your company is big enough that it probably has a policy for things like this. You may even be able to find it on the HR site without involving a human without touching on his name that might give you a place to start.

  184. nutella fitzgerald*

    What AAM posts have been really helpful for you, even if you didn’t write the original letter?

    Mine: all of Alison’s “what to do if you get put on a PIP”/“what to do if you think you’re about to be fired” – at a previous job, I was put on a 30-day PIP on a Friday, went home and freaked out, then spent the weekend combing through the AAM archives for relevant information. When the 30 days were up, my boss actually said he couldn’t remember why I had been put on the PIP, and I spent five more years at that job. I still think I would have been thrown out after day 30 without AAM!!

    1. WellRed*

      Nothing specific, just the general advice on how to focus on your job, not worry about anyone else’s job, and when you do need to raise an issue, focus on the impact on you. Also, speak up for yourself, don’t expect others to guess what you need. And, don’t food police anyone, no matter how well meaning you think.

    2. Jellyfish*

      I definitely tried some gumption tactics before I knew any better. That’s what I had been taught to do, and no hiring manager was going to tell me otherwise. Those tactics never worked for me, and I cringe pretty hard at those memories now.
      Between here and Captain Awkward, I’ve learned a lot in general about effective communication in various fraught scenarios.

    3. Ali G*

      There was one a while back about procrastination and loss of motivation. I had just come off leaving an abusive boss and then protracted job search and I was having ISSUES with getting work done. That column, and all the comments, are what spurred me to realized I didn’t have apathy just at work, but in my regular life too. I started seeing a therapist shortly after and I am definitely not perfect, but it’s really helped me better realize when I am drifting and how to get back on track.

    4. merp*

      Oh, a lot of the strategies for wording things that might feel awkward – things like not freaking out/over-apologizing if you make a mistake and instead detailing the steps you’ve taken so that it won’t happen again, or weird issues with a coworker.

    5. public facing librarian*

      That’s interesting because the most helpful was how to be a manager in a PIP situation. To document. To be direct. To focus on what part of the job description the negative behaviors affect- timeliness, accuracy, dependability etc. Not to take the employee’s actions or inactions personally.

  185. roger that*

    Does anyone have advice for re-gaining motivation at a job? I have plenty of things on my to-do list and my projects are all still reasonably interesting (there has been some change, but they’re still ok), but I am really struggling with motivation at work. Would love to know what has helped you! (For context, have been in the same role 5+ years. Was hoping to make it several more here.)

    1. can't remember*

      I don’t have any suggestions, but I need the answer to this question!! Have been here 9 years, it’s fine, I’m getting good reviews, but no motivation from my boss and am looking within and not finding any there either!

    2. Analytical Tree Hugger*

      I think the first step is to take a vacation, at least a week, preferably two. No phone, no computer. Possibly go away somewhere that you consider nice and restorative (which isn’t necessarily the same as relaxing). It sounds like you might be edging into burn out.

      Second, set tiny incremental goals for yourself on the projects. See if you can build up momentum and reach a flow state, which will likely re-spark motivation/inspiration.

      Third suggestion, (re)start a side hobby outside of work, that’s productive (e.g. join a theater group, do improv, start a fitness routine). Something that gets your creative and motivational juices flowing, which will likely inspire you on the job as well.

  186. Stef*

    Hi, everyone!
    As someone who has worked retail for a long time and going to college for accounting, what tips would you give someone who wants to make the switch from retail to accounting? My college does interning for accounting, and I plan to do some intern work so I can get “real life” experience. I know that I’ve never worked in an office before, so even the people who interview me for intern work, may reject me because I’m in retail. I understand that completely. For everyone who has worked retail for some small income and attended college for accounting, what advice would you give me so I can eventually get a job in my degree? I know there are many types of jobs within the accounting field, so I’m just talking about in general.
    Thank you.

    1. remizidae*

      It’s normal for interns to not have worked in an office before. Since you’re in school, I think those who hire interns are going to be more focused on your academic record than on the unrelated job you’re also working (and you can help them focus on that by putting the academic accomplishments up-front in your application materials).

    2. TotesMaGoats*

      If your college has a Beta Alpha Psi group, get involved. They are the honor society for accounting (and other things). Also, don’t discount your retail work or try to brush it aside. It’s your work history. It makes you, ostensibly, a better intern than someone who has never held any job ever.

    3. NGA*

      There may be office jobs available as work-study or student jobs at your school. That may be something worth looking into if your schedule permits. Even though the work was totally unrelated to what I ended up doing, the experience of working in an office on campus in both undergrad and grad school was very helpful in understanding expectations and the rhythm of offices.

    4. Argh!*

      Join a student organization and volunteer to run a fund-raiser, then parlay that into being treasurer of the group your second year.

      Or, if you have time for a part-time job, try being a bank teller. It’s not accounting, but it will look better on your resume than retail.

  187. Cap. Marvel*

    Natasha announced to us that our Grandboss (Nick Fury) is hiring a consultant that will help her with her management style. I wrote in an earlier thread that she tends to micromanage and that has thrown our team off because everything needs her approval.
    “Why is Nick doing this?” Iron Man asked her.
    “He thinks I don’t delegate.”
    ALAS my vindication only lasted two seconds because she then told us that this consultant is going to be interviewing each of us to talk about her management style!
    AAM Readers, I am dreading it. I don’t trust them to be anonymous. And I know that Natasha is too curious not to ask and too persistent not to give up asking. I also know that she will hold a grudge if something unsatisfactory comes back to her.
    So yeah. I don’t need advice. I just am not looking forward to it.

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Ask the consultant how confidential your feedback will be. Ask specifically what will happen if Natasha asks. I’ve done this kind of consulting, and know how key it is to present the feedback in aggregate so no one is identified (and to make sure the manager understands why it would be counterproductive to go on a witch hunt anyway), and everyone I’ve worked with who does this type of work is the same. That doesn’t mean there aren’t crappy ones out there — there are — but there’s a good chance they’ll get you need to be protected. And even just asking the question sends a signal to them.

      1. Cap. Marvel*

        Well I did not see this until now.
        I asked more questions and they (HR) corrected me and said she is a management coach, not a consultant. I’m not sure if there’s a difference, but even if she was the most professional being on the planet I would not put it past Natasha to get my feedback out of her. Or if she can’t, she’ll ask each of us in our weekly meeting. I don’t trust my team to keep that information to themselves if she asks point-blank.
        It’s not that I am worried about what I am going to say. I’ve told Natasha what issues have arisen from not being able to get things faster, but I am pretty sure Nick wants to use whatever feedback the coach has to force her to get a middle manager. I’d love that and Natasha has been fiercely fighting against it. I think we’ll be caught in the middle no matter what happens.

    2. Tabby Baltimore*

      I realize you’re not looking for advice, but I don’t think there’s any harm in talking to the consultant. You can de-emotionalize your talk with him/her by focusing on the business case (see “the bigger picture” section below) for why Natasha needs to change her micromanaging ways. The consultant—in his/her capacity as a coach/change agent—could legitimately bring these up in conversation with Natasha’s boss, thereby leaving you out of the picture completely.

      The AAM thread I am referring to was a letter from a poster who managed a micromanager she called “Fergusia” (thread title is I manage a horrible micromanager). I was so impressed with both Alison’s answer and the perceptive, diverse, and extensive reader comments that I collected them, edited them, and put them in an email to myself. (I will put the blog post URL in a reply to myself (b/c it will go into moderation).) Not everything will be applicable in your case, of course, but I will summarize what I thought were the most important points:

      If a procedure isn’t reducing errors, then it’s creating inefficiencies. Mistakes are [defined as] minor slip-ups that humans make. Errors [by definition] are repeated, systematic, or fundamental, and need to be corrected.

      Requiring approvals from a single person creates bottlenecks. Always have an alternate approver around.

      Metrics that reveal problem areas can also be used to track improvements.

      Micromanaging behaviors can result from:
      – a manager’s frustrated belief that s/he has “responsibility without authority” 
      – a desire to quell the anxiety from feeling insecure in a new role for which one is unprepared or undertrained
      – a need to have everything done in their specific style as a way to get their direct reports to perform at what the manager considers an “excellent level” (i.e., the level the manager remembers performing at when the manager held that same job)
      – worry that team deadlines will not be met, prompting an unnecessary level of questioning and involvement in the team’s workflow

      On trying to reduce a MicroManager’s (MM’s) defensive reaction to feedback:
      – Don’t think you, as the MM’s manager, can craft your wording in such a way that you will be able to calibrate the MM’s reaction to it. You will not. Do not try to manage the employee’s emotions for him/her, just manage his/her work product. 
      – The MM will be unable to learn and improve if s/he is unwilling to believe s/he could be wrong.
      – For a temperamental MM, present modifications as a “change” rather than a “correction” by saying that the process change you are asking for is one followed by, or similar to, a managerial peer the MM respects. 

      The bigger picture:
      – By not making the effort to change an MM’s behavior, you are in effect guaranteeing that the people s/he manages will change their jobs. Measure success by stopping the damage from spreading. (Honestly, I think this is the most important point to make to the consultant.)
      – Allowing the MM to create and enforce humiliating penalties for employees who make occasional mistakes will keep these employees from taking risks, leading to no process improvement, no innovation, and no creating problem-solving.

      2. Cap. Marvel*

        I really did not expect anyone to reply to me but this was actually super helpful! Thank you for sharing it with me.
        To be clear, I don’t mind talking to the management coach. I think it’s a great idea, but I don’t know how I’m going to say what I want to. My team and I have been talking about how much we’re dreading it. But I think I’ll share this list with them and hopefully it all goes well.

  188. Pumpa Rumpa*

    The department I work in is made up of a director, 2 managers, and 7 analysts. There used to be a third manager to whom all of the analysts reported, but she resigned. Yesterday, the director announced that each of the managers will have 2 direct reports and one of the analysts, Jake, is being promoted to manager and will have the remaining direct reports. I am one of the analysts who will be reporting to Jake.

    My issue is this: the analysts are all very close. We have all worked together for many years. We eat lunch together every day, go to happy hour together, vacation together, etc. Now when we do those things, I’ll be doing them with my manager. Since half the team will be reporting to someone else, it won’t be an issue for them. I don’t think the other analyst who will be reporting to Jake will care because he is very oblivious. We’ll be hiring a new analyst to take over Jake’s old duties and I worry about this person being uncomfortable with the dynamic.

    I don’t want to exclude Jake from future get togethers. I dealt with a difficult personal issue a year ago and now Jake is going through the same, so I know how much he values our work-friend group. I also don’t want to have to exclude myself from any events.

    I guess the TLDR question I’m getting at is how do you deal when your friend becomes your manager?

    1. Forgetful*

      Since you have a good relationship with Jake, I’d ask him how he wants to handle this moving forward. Having been in this situation, it’s a bit more complicated on the manager side of things, so he may need to define how he’s comfortable with your relationship working now that he’s your manager.

    2. AppleStan*

      I agree with Forgetful’s suggestion.

      I think the biggest thing, because I have been in your shoes, is to make sure you never make Jake *have* to be your boss. And if there are times where he *has* to be your boss, don’t fight that (I’m not saying be a doormat or a scapegoat, I’m just saying if you know you’re in the wrong, don’t look for favoritism).

  189. Forgetful*

    My manager forgets things often, but bullies other people who forget things, saying things like “Remember? Remember?” in an haranguing tone. How to politely point out, um, kindly stop throwing stones from your glass house?

    1. The Man, Becky Lynch*

      I would respond with “Didn’t you just forget X? Seems like we’re both forgetful some days.” but I’m a shitheel so that may not be the best choice. But I throw stones back when people throw them from their glass houses to remind them that their windows are breakable too.

  190. Hawkeye the Younger*

    Hello, all! Hoping for some advice here. I’m currently a temp admin assistant with a data management office – it’s not a job I’ll be staying with long term, but pays the bills while I search for positions within my field (shout out to the library school grads out there!). I’ve got rotator cuff tendonitis that’s beginning to flare up again and as a result, I’m realizing a pattern: It began when I was doing heavy-duty data entry my first job out of college, and pops up again whenever I’m behind a desk typing and clicking for long periods of time – usually data entry. Which is the bulk of my job here.

    I realize part of the problem is likely poor ergonomics (I’m a small person, and most desk + chair setups are uncomfortable – either I’m reaching up to type or my feet dangle and swing like a little kid!). Having the computer mouse way out to the side of the keyboard ain’t helping, either. Still – gotta get the job done. And as a temp, I feel like I don’t have much leverage or wiggle room when asking for solutions. I just worry my shoulder won’t ever heal fully, you know?

    Any advice? Would love to hear from anyone who’s dealt with tendonitis on the job!

    1. Gimicky*

      Could you bring your own cushion to work? It won’t solve most of your issues, but it might help. Purple makes a… 2? inch cushion for chairs. When I bought it five years ago, it cost a pretty damn penny, but it’s totally held up, and makes a huge difference. I bought it–this is embarrassing but hey!–because sitting on a conventionally hard like the regular chairs all day was making my bum break out. But I really love it, and as I’m getting older and having days where my hips or spine are just not cooperative, it’s very helpful.

      1. valentine*

        You gotta ask for help. Decent people will be upset they didn’t notice and let you be uncomfortable. Tell them what you need and, if they don’t have it, provide links/costs. Exhaust their resources before you use yours.

    2. Tabby Baltimore*

      If you can’t afford to go to an office supply store and purchase a gel-filled keyboard wrist rest, and a mouse pad with a gel-filled built-in wrist support pad, then use a largish hand towel (maybe 12″ by 6″?), and roll it up longways for use in front of the keyboard (substitutes for the keyboard wrist rest) and maybe a couple of smaller washcloths laid back-to-back and then rolled up to support your wrist when using the mouse. I also use a thick hand towel folded up and placed in front of the mouse pad, which supports my elbow. Good luck.

    3. Argh!*

      If they don’t have a stool or step for you to put your feet on, can you afford to buy one? Unless you plan to grow taller, you could probably use it in future jobs, too.

      Google “ergonomic foot rest” for some ideas.

    4. Analytical Tree Hugger*

      I don’t have tendonitis and I’m weirdly tall/long-limbed, so sorry if this off-base: Would putting the keyboard in your lap help? Then you could position the mouse closer to the center, so you don’t have to reach as far.

      I realize it’s not the best setup, but it might be better than the current setup. Also, I agree that the organization probably won’t buy you a set, but why not ask if there happens to be an ergonomic set that you could use while you’re there?

  191. How to help a student who is struggling early on in a course*

    TLDR; what to say to get past a uni student’s mental blocks

    I teach a skills-based course at a uni and have a student that I have no idea how to help. The course expects some basic skills beforehand and then builds on that every week (think something like language or math). So, early success/mastery is important.

    This student has poor skills coming into the course and a host of outside issues, among them anxiety and possible ADHD/learning disability. The student is seeking treatment/solutions but nothing has gone into effect yet.

    In the meantime, the lack of treatment is causing a problem. When I ask the student to do a skill, they say they can’t and then bring up the anxiety issue. Ok, I get that it’s hard to do things with an extra disability (I have taught students with a variety of disabilities); however, I can’t modify these things any more. This would be like a student saying they can’t remember how to conjugate verbs in a Spanish language course because of their disability. Well, one can’t learn to speak Spanish unless one figures out a way to remember verb conjugations – either by a formula, or by rote, or figure out another method. I tried to give the student some study methods in a one-to-one, but their concentration is so poor that they can’t remember what I said a minute later. And, they didn’t bring paper and pen to write things down.

    It seems like this student needs a bit of a serious wake up call. The course would still be doable if the student would acknowledge that they need to do a lot of extra coping mechanisms that people with anxiety or ADHD regularly do. Or, maybe the subject matter isn’t for them at this moment in their life, and they can return to it after their outside issues are resolved/under control.

    Are there any readers with anxiety or ADHD who could tell me what to say that might help this student? Was there a moment where someone had a frank conversation with you that helped you turn things around? What was said?

    1. EJane*

      NOVEL INCOMING
      I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE
      plz collapse thread if you don’t want to deal with a wall of text.

      (okay let’s do this)

      1. EJane*

        Oooh. You ask about mental health coping mechanisms, I come calling and deliver WAYYYY too much information.
        Thiiiiis reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend about executive dysfunction and ADHD. She was collaborating with her long-distance partner on a project. She is very type-A; her partner has ADHD and didn’t start treatment for it until about 6 months prior to the conversation. She was pressing them for status updates, and they were dodging the question or ghosting entirely, which was very out of character.

        Regarding the wakeup call… oof. Is there a learning center you can tap into for resources? They’ll have more 1:1 time with the student, which is likely needed, and have mental health resources. The problem with anxiety is that it is really good at sliding off the edge of thinking about a stressful situation, like magnets with the same poles slide across each other.
        One thing I can recommend is to keep it super simple. This isn’t about the student’s anxiety or ADHD, at the end of the day. The problem is their inability (which is genuinely not their fault; brain chemistry is a JERK) to see a path through the challenge right in front of them.

        The problem with a “wake up call” is that it is intended as a bit of a firm shake, but to someone with anxiety and ADHD or any other disorder that involves a really active inner world, that firm shake can be a 9.0 earthquake.
        If you say “You need to figure out a way to remember these things”, anxiety turns it into “You are a failure for not being able to remember these things or figuring out how to, yet.” If you say “You have to develop these skills to move forward in the world”, the student hears “You aren’t good enough to be a functional adult”.

        (MASSIVE MASSIVE CAVEAT: THIS IS BASED ON MY EXPERIENCE WITH ANXIETY BASED IN APPROVAL AND RELATIONSHIPS. THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO PEOPLE WHOSE ANXIETY TENDS TO FIXATE ON OUTWARD, UNCONTROLLABLE EVENTS like natural disasters.
        This is my experience and, based on conversations, my friends’ experiences with anxiety. To anyone reading, and to the student: your experiences could be very different, and are still valid. This is not the only way anxiety manifests, but it’s the one I’m most familiar with–and whatever worst-case scenario might be hiding at the root of the anxiety, the core of the best way for neurotypical people to respond rarely changes.
        MASSIVE MASSIVE CAVEAT 2.0
        If it’s not really clear to you that this student worries about being seen as capable, or failing in front of others, or is either very desperate or averse to being friends with others, or is unwilling to give you a straight answer if the answer is something you might not like, or anything else indicating they’re insecure in how other people view/feel about/approve of them, this DOES NOT APPLY. I have no experience with anxiety that is not based in approval, and have no idea how to approach it. My suggestions could have the opposite effect; please implement with care, respect for the student, and, if you can, after consulting with a student advisor or someone who knows this student very well.)
        Okay.

        The trick is to keep it very simple.

        When you talk to your student:
        Avoid making judgment calls on the student. Use a gentle, calm tone. The goal of this conversation isn’t to change the student’s life, it’s to figure out how or if the student can and will proceed in your class. How they live their life is outside your control, and therefore not worth spending time trying to fix.

        No one with anxiety who is that early in their recovery can handle big-picture talks. Anxiety focuses on the tiny things, so to turn that into a conversation about Big Things is catastrophically overwhelming. If you are so focused on each individual brush stroke that you can’t see how it relates to the brush stroke next to it, you can’t step back far enough to see the painting as a whole. You simply haven’t figured it out yet. It doesn’t matter how easily the people around you do it, or how carefully they model it; they can’t move your body for you. You have to take that agency back.

        And, stepping out of the general second person, you as a teacher help people develop that agency. But you’re working with students who already know how to step backwards, and you’re helping them step back with the other foot, or turn as they do so, or some other metaphorical development. And that’s wonderful–but like you said, it requires a basic skill set, and if the student is unable to lift their foot, you have nothing to work with, and you can’t show them how.

        But as a teacher, I’d imagine that giving up is antithetical to everything you value. There is an option, which has about a 30% chance of working (that is a completely arbitrary percentage).

        So this is an option you can try:

        Say to the student “This course might not be a good fit right now. If you want to continue, I want to help you accomplish this {don’t say ‘succeed’; it’ll imply they’re currently failing}, and {not ‘but’} have to decide what you are able to do right now. It’s okay to decide to try again next term. {affirmation is important here, to let them know that what they decide doesn’t affect your opinion of them as a person.} You don’t need to decide right now. If you want to email me or stop by my office later, that works. Just let me know by {pick a date}. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll take it as you think it would be best to postpone this course until later, and I’ll help you do that.”

        That last bit is important for a couple of reasons: 1. It gives them time to decide 2. It gives them an easy out. If they don’t have an option that isn’t triggering (reaching out and giving a solid answer can be SO terrifying), they might be paralyzed by anxiety and unable to respond, even if they want to try. Knowing that if they don’t say anything, it still counts as an answer, is a failsafe.

        If they decide they want to try:
        Figure out what is necessary to succeed (remembering things. Conjugating Spanish.) and then break that down (Writing something down. Reading the conjugated verbs out of the book {god I am struggling to spell conjugated and its conjugations {eyyyyyyyy}}). Start there. If they don’t bring pen and paper to a 1:1 with you, provide it. Prompt them to decide the next step once you set that foundation; if you have them read the conjugated verbs and then tell them to repeat these and memorize them, it’ll slide through like magnets with the same poles facing, and won’t stick.
        (Maybe. This is how I was when I had some serious executive dysfunction issues.) Ask them how they remember things. If they say “I dunno” or “I can’t”, ask them how they remembered you had a meeting, or they remember their dorm number (say this gently, try to stay away from an incredulous tone). If they say “I don’t know”, wait.
        People with anxiety will either talk to fill a silence, or freeze. If the former, it’s often the best way to stumble on an option. If the latter, being quiet and calm will help them unfreeze over time. Gradually, they will either provide an answer, or decide they can’t do this.

        It’s really important to, if you want to help and they decide to continue, to make sure that you don’t burn out on this. Give yourself a set amount of time (three weeks, a month) and set a goal to have transitioned this student to a different resource by that time, if one is available. If one isn’t, set a very firm amount of time that you can spend on this student, and stick to it from the get-go. If you move your schedule for the student in the beginning, and then don’t as time goes on, it can read to anxiety as getting frustrated or caring less.

        The trick with anxiety, I’ve found, is to make it not about the anxious person. It’s not about their life or their choices; it’s about how it’s affecting the class. It’s not about their future prospects; it’s about figuring out what next quarter will look like. Affirm them, but focus on how this affects you (man it’ll be awkward if that shows the code and the word isn’t italicized. I tried.)
        One of the worst things you can do with someone who is anxious about approval is not tell them how you feel. If you say “no, no, this is about you” or “I’m fine” or “don’t worry about me”, that can translate as you not wanting to tell them something bad, or hurt them, or not having anything positive to say. I, personally, fixate on getting clues, finding small crumbs of affirmation in those conversations, and being candid and authentic is terrifying because I have no idea if the person I’m talking to is emotionally safe.
        If the student apologizes, especially repeatedly, for something that it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to be apologizing for, rote responses won’t help. “It’s fine” falls under the “I’m fine” condition above.
        What does work is tactful honesty:
        “I don’t think you have anything to apologize for. I’m not upset.” “Thank you for the apology. I’m not worried about this; we can make good use of our time.” (this is presuming they’re late, or something.)

        Acknowledge/understand that excessive apologizing is almost never because they think the actual act or mistake is terrible. It’s often intended to apologize for something rooted deeper, like apologizing for taking up space, or apologizing in anticipation of a disproportionate response, trying to mitigate it.
        Dismissing their apology dismisses the gravity of the event in their mind; engaging with them validates where they are without lending credence to the idea that they’ve done something wrong.

        Once you get past the framework of interacting with your student in a supportive way that doesn’t cross boundaries or have an effect opposite what you intended, you get into teaching territory. And that’s where my expertise stops.
        I have found that I rely so, so heavily on post-it notes. Using colored pens and/or rewriting something multiple times can make memorization easier. Putting foreign words into a sentence, or answering an unexpected question and being praised–all of these things are helpful for the way my specific brain works. But I don’t have ADHD. I have terrific anxiety and medication-induced short term memory loss, along with a pretty impressive panic disorder, so my challenges with attention and memory have an entirely different root. I don’t know if what works for me will work for someone with ADHD.
        If the student is willing to move forward with you, to try and figure out how to take that step, the process they go through to activate those muscle fibers (good god this metaphor is overextended) is one they have to figure out. That’s where resources like a learning center, or a tutor, or consulting with someone at the counseling center, come into play.

        And above all, the absolutely most important, fundamental, CRITICAL thing that you absolutely have to do:

        Support yourself. Guard your own mind and heart. Don’t do more than you can do without resentment. Make sure that you are not overextending yourself for this student, rearranging your life to accommodate your meetings, losing sleep over them… You have to take care of yourself first, because in your life, you are more important, what with it being your life and all.

        Remember, too, to practice what I’ve come to call loving detachment, though “affectionate” is probably better in this context (I use it with my absolutely bonkers extended family). The core principle of affectionate detachment is this:
        I care about this person. I want them to succeed. I cannot make any of their choices for them. I am here if they ask for me, and will hope for the best for them from afar if they don’t.
        (I use this with the best friend that’s butt-deep in a pyramid scheme, or the friend who is making really poor health choices, or the parent who is…. a terrible parent. I love them, and I cannot do anything about the challenges they’re facing.)

        Good luck.

        1. Doctora Aguila*

          As a college instructor (and former student with serious anxiety), I thank you for this. You’ve put into words a lot that I couldn’t articulate when I was a student and are helping me see things from my students’ perspective.

          1. EJane*

            I’m glad it was helpful! I was kind of terrified to post it because it’s…. a lot. but I’m really glad it could be of some use.

  192. CDN*

    Hello! I’m hoping someone may have some good resources (or tips!) for doing a workflow analysis with a staff member who is likely “going the long-way round” on many duties. Thank you kindly in advance!

    1. Anon for RA*

      You could ask them to walk you through each process step-by-step on a whiteboard (perhaps with a sketch of a diagram showing each step in the workflow) and then you could point out where they can add efficiencies. Also, look up “hierarchical task analysis” on usability dot gov.

      These are good questions to ask during your workflow analysis:
      What do we do?
      How do we do it? (break this task down into subtasks)
      Why do we do it?

  193. Not failed, pre-successful*

    I just want to vent. I’m a woman in a very male dominated industry and I’m so so sick of men in my office touching me (arm or shoulder) or getting in my personal space or winking at me when they talk to me. It’s so unnecessary and creepy. I know I could technically say something, but I’m new and don’t want to cause any problems. It’s already hard enough to get others to share information with me. I move away when it happens and signal that I’m uncomfortable, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. This is actually the least sexist workplace I’ve we worked in (so far), but it’s still very annoying.

    2. pally*

      Too bad smoking isn’t in fashion any longer. You could whip around a lighted cigarette so that they’ll have to back off or risk getting burned.

    3. Marie*

      Yeah, I’m a woman in a male dominated industry and that sucks. I’m lucky that my current workplace has “don’t touch people without their consent” as part of orientation. It isn’t that hard to knock/tap on someone’s desk or step into their line of sight if you need their attention and they’re wearing headphones.

      If you can manage to fake a startled reaction in addition to stepping away that might help, maybe? For some reason “that’s a super weird thing you just did” is taken more seriously than “I’m uncomfortable.”

      1. Not failed, pre-successful*

        They’re not even doing it to get my attention, it’s typically mid-conversation as they tell me the back story to an account.

        1. Close Bracket*

          Oooh, touchers. I hate those people, whatever gender they are. The only option is to stop signaling and start using your words. Make it A Thing about you, that you hate being touched or having your personal space invaded, and not A Thing about them, that they are weird boundary violators. I know you will feel like you have to win this by making them feel like they are in the wrong, but let go of that feeling and focus on outcomes: The outcome needs to be that they get out of your space and stop touching you.

          Strategies:

          When someone touches you, jump and make a noise, like “Oh!” Then laugh a little and say, “I know you don’t mean anything by it, but I hate casual touching. Please don’t.” Practice a number of variations on this theme so they are ready at hand when you need them.

          For getting in your space, call it out. Again, make it light hearted. Say, “I need a lot of personal space, so I’m just going to back up here. No, no, you stay where you are.” Again, practice variations on these theme.

    4. Auntie Social*

      When they wink at you can you make a nanosecond-long face that’s really subtle, but it’s as if you just smelled something really bad?

  194. Brightfire*

    Hi,

    I am having an issue with a coworker and am unsure what to do. My job is to prep shipment documents for the teapots and her job is to get the different teapots in their boxes for shipment. I then pick the baton back up and meet with drivers to make sure all the blue teapots go out. Someone else checks to make sure all the green teapots or red teapots go out.
    We recently started having issues with shipments not going out. The other day, I thought all the blue teapots had been picked up, only to find out that half of them had been hidden behind a shipment of green teapots. It was only visible after the green shipment had been picked up.

    I have tried explaining to her that I need her to communicate with me if she puts the blue teapots in unusual spots. (The facility is too large for me to hunt down where all the teapots are). However, she quickly gets defensive, blames me or others and then brings up others mistakes. This also happens with other mistakes she makes or issues. There seems to be a lack of accountability and a lot of defensiveness. No one else on our team has issues with admitting our mistakes. We are all pretty focused on growing.

    I think we are all at the point of removing her from this position. Is there anything else that can be done? Is it reasonable to remove someone who doesn’t take accountability for their mistakes?

    1. SomebodyElse*

      She doesn’t sound like a good fit and a pain to work with. And to answer your question, yes it’s reasonable to remove someone like this.

      One thing though, I don’t know if the problem you describe is happening a lot or if it’s just one person that can’t figure it out. But it does seem that your system could use a little beefing up. Do you have a reconciliation at any point that says… I’ve prepared documents for 10 shipments and we’ve only shipped 8, where are the last 2? I’m assuming from your description that the last two could be hiding on the dock floor somewhere or that she hasn’t packed them yet.

      It really doesn’t have to be anything complicated, and I don’t know what kind of volume you’re dealing with, but you may want to think about some time of kanban board or electronic equivalent for tracking.

      This might be helpful regardless if Defensive Donna goes or stays.

      1. Brightfire*

        I think you are totally right that our system needs some TLC.
        We are sending out hundreds/thousands of loose boxes (not pallets) because that’s how our customers want their deliveries. It is a pain and we have navigated it by just having designated blue teapot area, designated green teapot area etc…. but there’s probably a better way to do this that we haven’t found yet. I’ll bring it up with the team to see what we can do.

        Thanks for your input! I super appreciate you responding to my post. And also validating that Defensive Donna is just not a good fit.

        1. valentine*

          Is it reasonable to remove someone who doesn’t take accountability for their mistakes?
          It’s perfectly reasonable. You might try, “We’re talking about your error right now. Let’s focus. How are you going to keep the blue teapots together next time?” Put it back on her. Doesn’t matter why she did the thing. How is she going to avoid it?

    2. The Man, Becky Lynch*

      Absolutely remove her from this position, she’s not doing her job. This kind of setup requires good communication, not passing the blame. There’s no reason she cannot say “Hey Brightfire, blue pots are all ready to go! BTW there’s a chunk behind the green ones because I ran out of room in the usual spot!” That’s basic communication when handing things off to the next person.

      As someone who’s done too much shipping/logistics in my life at this rate, I’m ready to scream at her just reading this post of yours and I don’t even go there! Yuck.

      I would fire her completely because she’s so inept but that’s not always doable in warehouse work since it’s hard to find people to fill those spots. So if you can remove the duty and shift her somewhere she can’t mess it up so royally, that’s the best choice.

      I don’t accept passing the blame from anyone, she can get defensive all she wants. End of the day, she is in charge of doing that, she’s in charge of communicating with you. Even if Ronald McDonald is sneaking in and moving packages after she put them somewhere, she should be aware of the shipment until it leaves the shop. That’s her responsibility to make sure they get to you and out that day.

        1. Brightfire*

          I find the hamburgerler to be more of a workplace hazard. ;)

          Thanks for your input folks. I’ve been stressing about this all week.

    3. LGC*

      Oh man, you have one of those! I have a guy that gets our llamas from the shampooing station. Sometimes, he says, “LGC, I couldn’t find llama #11.” At least 50% of the time, it’s because the llama was already shampooed, but just wasn’t moved to the holding corral where we put llamas for final grooming.

      It sounds like you’re coworkers, so…I’m just curious, is there any way you can know ahead of time how many blue teapots you should be shipping? In my case, we have documentation and I’ve developed a report that tells me how many llamas should be groomed for each herd (we might have 5 llamas in one herd and 19 in another). If you run into a situation where you have 500 teapots when you’re expecting 1000, that’s on her.

      The defensiveness is for her boss to work on, not you. I’d just…honestly ignore it. She can feel however she wants, but Fergus making a mistake or Cersei dropping a pallet of teapots doesn’t negate her mistake.

  195. Kitty Pimms*

    My husband works in sales for a small company. It’s horribly run but husband likes the work. When hubs started the sales team worked on commission. Last year, after some people left the owner wanted to switch to a bonus system for everyone if the monthly goal was met; sales, production, everyone. Everyone had to agree and since hubs was going to be making a little more than he did with his commission he did too. The monthly bonus checks made up about 25% of his income. Last week the owner announced that he’s not doing bonus checks anymore because the business isn’t doing that great despite the monthly goals still being met. Last months wasn’t going to be paid even though he said it was going to be late and paid this month. When my husband started years ago it was in his contract that he would get commission but it wasn’t updated when they moved to the bonus program. Is there anything he can do, other that quit? He hates job hunting so much he’d rather stay and take the pay cut. As someone who is highly invested in his income I need to know. He’s, by far, the highest earner for the company, averaging 1/3 of the sales out of 11 sales reps if it helps. Thanks.

    1. The Man, Becky Lynch*

      This is why bonus programs are bad for employees. There’s no way to recoup that bonus unless it’s in writing. Otherwise it’s always going to be viewed as discretionary, whereas the commission setup would have had better protections for the sales folks.

    2. Anono-me*

      If they didn’t change your husband’s contract to include the bonus, they probably didn’t change the contract to take out the sales commission.

    3. Product Person*

      What I would say, understanding the risk involved (which, if your husband is bringing in 1/3 of the sales, I’d classify as pretty small) is this:

      “If we move away from bonuses without returning to commissions, how does the company plan to maintain and grow its sales figures? Because there will be zero incentive for the top producers to continue to close a large number of deals, when they will be earning exactly the same salary as if they slack off.”

  196. Kimmy Schmidt*

    I just need to vent.

    Hiring sucks. I feel sick with stress. There’s so many rules, so many forms, so much pressure from higher ups, so many hours of sifting through paperwork, so many steps that no one bothered to tell me. And I won’t be this person’s manager so I feel like I could so easily misrepresent how this person will be evaluated. I just want this to be over.

  197. Leela*

    Any advice on this issue I’ve run into at pretty much every business I’ve ever worked at?

    There’s a job duty you have. It might take 0 hours today, it might take all 8 hours today and still not be done, and that’s unpredictable because it’s based on clients, students, some kind of outside person that you can’t manage in the way you’d manage a direct report. It might take up all of your time for weeks in a row, it might not come up at all.

    And yet…some manager, HR person or accountant is insistent that you give an average number so they can tick a box, and they are going to use that information to make very poorly informed decisions that have really bad implications for the team. If you try to explain that, you are viewed as either not competent to break down your work (even if every other breakdown they ask for has been completed without issue) or at like you just need to give them a number so they can move on.

    I’ve seen this result in things like them asking me how much I did X last month, then suddenly I’m only allowed that much time to do X even though this week the needs are wildly different. But everything was rebudgeted/restructured without properly including the stakeholders, it causes loads of knock-on problems, sometimes you get blamed for not giving numbers and sometimes they realize full well why it happened but why don’t companies seem to understand ebbs and flows like this? Has anyone had good luck getting through to higher management on issues like these?

    1. Gimicky*

      Ugh. That sounds so incredibly aggravating.
      The petty brat in me would tell them that I need to collect an average sample over a longer period of time to get an accurate value, and submit obnoxiously detailed reports every day or week (whichever applies).

      Less ridiculously, the only thing I can really recommend is sitting down with your supervisor in regards to this given duty, and (if necessary) the HR person or accountant and laying out the last solid chunk of data. Six months, if it’s on a monthly cycle, three months if weekly. Show them the way the data changes, explain what influences it, and then say (and this is the actually useful bit) “I agree that we need to find a way to measure this set of tasks, but asking me to provide (hours billed/income generated/number of phone calls) doesn’t present an accurate measure. Can we find a different metric?”

      For example, for my writing projects early on, I would visualize them in a kind of metaphor with a Tetris plane. The project at the very bottom was the thing I was working on at the time of creation, and the size of the ‘Tetris piece’ was dependent on how big that workload is. So if the piece was big, it took all my attention; if it was a moderate size, I could fit another task (piece) on my plate. This also meant that I had everything else on my to-do list stacked on top, so my manager could see what I was planning on working on next and how long it would take me to get to a given item.
      Each bar corresponded to a 40-hour week; I used them as a predictive tool to communicate with my manager, who had a really hard time managing someone whose productivity was measured in long-term deliverables.

      I am also an enormous dork, so this could have easily been represented with a list of document names and hours allotted, but this was way more fun.
      It also meant that accounting could see the amount of work I was doing for internal projects versus billable items for clients. I don’t know how they turned it into a quantifiable value, but they did stop asking me questions I couldn’t answer after that.

  198. Fake Old Converse Shoes (not in the US)*

    This week I found out one of our former team members, which I really liked, is a manipulative person who acts nice and friendly but trashes everyone at their backs. For example, she said I was “annoying” and “childish”, the IT people were “not real men, just overgrown boys”, our grandboss was “jealous of her beauty”, and a lesbian coworker a “feminazi”. Even worse, she appeared at a ladies night she wasn’t invited so drunk and out of control she was sent home in a Uber and then deleted from every group chat she was part of. Imagine my face when those who were there and I’m close with told me what happened. I feel shocked and disappointed that someone who I liked so much turned out to be such a crappy person.

    1. irene adler*

      Yeah, one of life’s lessons. People aren’t always as they seem.

      I ended up with someone (whom I thought was a good friend from school) living in my home for almost 3 months because I didn’t realize she was ‘trouble’. She needed a place to stay for 2 weeks until the first of the month when she could move into her own place. I way happy to help. I let her move into my home -rent free- for the two weeks. All of her stuff took up the entire living room.

      When the first of the month came, I had my truck all ready, took the day off to help her move, and nope, she’s not going anywhere. She’s broke. Can’t afford to move anywhere. She lied about even having a place lined up to rent. Took 3 months to get her out (legally). The kicker: this is a regular thing she does to people- teachers, acquaintances, co-workers (when she was employed). I’m just one sucker in a long line of suckers.

    2. AnonToday*

      Yikes, that sucks! … Although one thing I have found out the hard way is that sometimes the person you can’t trust is the person telling you these horrible things… making up rumors, exaggerating, etc. That also sucked.

      Of course, it sounds like there were multiple witnesses here who have corroborated this.

      1. Fake Old Converse Shoes (not in the US)*

        Yeah, could be, but I’m trying very hard not to overthink this and go on with my life, because there’s nothing I can do about it but wishing the best for everyone.

  199. Lostlady*

    My boss keeps absorbing my stories, work, and experiences into his own. He is a 60+ guy, been the owner of the business since day one and loves telling stories and tails. He loves an audience and making people laugh. I have been here for 3 years and over the past few months he has been taking things that I have specifically done or past experiences of mine and told them to our staff, with me in the group, but as if those events happened to him. I don’t know if he realizes he is doing it, so at first I would kind of chime in and say things like “oh ya that was me, i did that” or “ya that was my work, I emailed it to you” but that tactic didn’t work and he would just kind of glaze over it and keep going. This week, he took 2 funny stories that specifically happened to just me and told them to my coworkers, again with me sitting there, as if they happened to him. I know it is probably an age thing and he isn’t doing it from a place of harshness but my struggle is how to get over- emotionally. I am not a quiet person and a leader at work, so it is very odd to continuously watch my boss absorb my work and stories and digest them back to me like they were his. Any tips on how to get over this emotionally? For example, I met a celebrity last year at a work event, my boss was not in the room when I met her and we chatted for a while, I then told the story to my coworkers and boss. Today, at a staff lunch, my boss told the story to our staff about how he met this celebrity and how cool they were. I am not interested in calling him out in front of all our staff and being like “that was me i did that not you” but emotionally it is a crazy feeling to hear your stories told back to you like you didn’t live them. Same with work I did, it feels very petty at this age to say “no I did that not you” but it grinds at my emotions when he takes my work and makes it his

    1. Ejane*

      It makes sense for you to be upset; by telling your stories as if they’re his, he’s pretty much invalidating your role in your own life. It’s not malicious, but it is a power play, and it’s quite rude.
      There’s nothing you can do to change that, but I would reframe it as an exercise in absurdity, and look at it this way:
      1. If your coworkers heard you tell the story the first time, they know your boss is self-aggrandizing. A couple of them are probably refraining from rolling their eyes. No one will think that you lied the first time, or that your experience was less valid. They’ll think he’s ridiculous.
      2. Look for where he’s embellishing. Was the celebrity excited to speak with him? struck by his candor and composure? Was he the hero of the moment? Turning listening to these stories from “jfc it’s like you’re stealing my life, WHY?” to “Hmm, what’s he going to change this time?” might make them more tolerable.
      And, when you can, tell the story he colonized to friends outside of work. Reclaiming it, in a way, will help.

      As for the work, though… oooff.
      That’s more complicated, and can have detrimental effects if it spreads too far. What kind of work does he absorb?

      1. Lostlady**

        Thank you Ejane, this is helpful for sure.

        For the work, it is mostly all the lead up work to a completed project or correspondence to clients that I completed that he says he completed. I have all the labor on record through emails or hours logged. I think I could keep saying in moments when he absorbs my work small comments like “oh ya I worked on that for a few months, glad you liked it” or “oh ya I know about that client sale because I completed it before emailing you about it, remember”- a tactic I tried in the past but maybe I should keep trying. I don’t think there is any way others would actually believe he did the work that he says he did because he can’t complete the tech needed to do it…a fact most know…so I could just switch my thinking to – I am doing such good work that he seamlessly seeing it as his. I always keep records of everything I do for future jobs, again it is mainly the fact that it is so disheartening to work on something so long and see it get faded away by someone who couldn’t even begin to complete it.

    2. Anonymousy*

      There’s something very wrong with that, and it’s in no way personal. It’s pathological. Try to pity him, and resolve not to tell stories to him in the future (unless a tampon is involved, in which case it would be interesting to watch to see what happens).

    3. MissDisplaced*

      I think this is really weird!

      The work stories… ok maybe a little of this would be ok as he’s the owner, but otherwise he’s basically taking credit for your work and invalidating you completely.
      But stealing your own personal stories? That’s just odd. And bizarre! And creepy! It would tempt me to tell s few people in private before you tell him, and then others will know he’s lying.

    4. RagingADHD*

      I have accidentally done this once or twice, not regularly though.

      I just have….a really vivid imagination, and it has happened that I identified so strongly with an anecdote that it just seemed real. Fortunately, I got called out on it many years ago and switched my default anecdote intro from “that reminds me of a time that I…” to the much safer version, “That reminds me of a thing I heard…”

      It is mortifying and very disconcerting to not be 100 percent sure whether something happened inside or outside your head. But it’s not malicious or pathological. Just wierd. (I have similar trouble remembering whether I actually *did* the thing on my to-do list, or just thought about it.)

      If he’s not mortified and doesn’t have an intention to do anything about it, that’s where I see the problem. I’m not sure what you can do, other than calling it out. That’s what made the difference for me.

    5. Product Person*

      For the non-work related stuff:

      (Said in a positive, amused tone)
      Boss, you’re such a great storyteller! The way you just told the story of what happened to me last month, running into Celebrity at conference XYZ, is so much more entertaining! I must remember to present it you like you did when I go out for dinner with my parents next week!

      For the work-related stuff:

      (Pretending he was talking about your work all along, as opposed to presenting it as his own work)
      Yes! I’m so proud of how this project turned out. Yesterday I even received an email from Client thanking me for my hard work and mentioning how happy their CEO is with my idea to use blue painting on the teapots! Looking forward the next project Client said they’ll send our way!

      Or

      Thank you, boss! Indeed, it looks like my idea to publish new case studies is yielding good results. The sales team told me they are thrilled with the additional number of prospects reaching out to schedule a call. I’m so glad my hunch was right, the case studies in our website were stale, and creating new ones would create renewed interest for our products!

  200. Me--Blargh!*

    Of course the job I mentioned last week, that I wanted, did not hire me. Not only that, the HR person called to tell me, which made me think I had it. Next time, just send an email. I’m starting to enter things like DIAF in my job tracking spreadsheet.

    I have an interview on Monday for a contract proofreading job; I can’t rent on that so I’ll have to drive back and forth, and it’s absolutely not remote because “we have proprietary systems/content.” I’ve also started applying elsewhere again because I’m beginning to suspect this place is just a larger version of SmallCity. This entire state just blows. Salaries here are below the national average almost everywhere and no, it is not cheaper to live here. Maybe compared to say, L.A., but proportionately, it’s not much better.

    It doesn’t matter, however, because no one will hire me. I’d say “just shoot me,” but this city is very shooty, so you probably won’t have to! :P

    1. The Man, Becky Lynch*

      Argh, they called you to give you a rejection. I just cannot wrap my head around the fact there are places and people who think that’s a great practice.

      We’re strangers, you don’t owe me a phone call to say “sorry but it’s a no”.

      1. Me--Blargh!*

        I think she thought it would be more personal (and she seemed like a very nice person), but it was just awkward. I thought she was calling me for the opposite reason, that I either got the job or was being moved up in the process. I realized about five seconds before she said it what it really was, and then I could not get off the phone fast enough.

        She had called me before about a previous application and suggested a different job (the first one was also entry level), but it wasn’t a good fit for me. When I was asked to interview for this one, I was excited because I thought they might want to hire me. My last job hired me after my second interview there. There was also a company in my old city that kept calling me in but never hired me. I guess this one is more like the second than the first. :(

        Maybe the person they picked won’t show up or will be terrible. I know that’s mean, but I didn’t mind that this was entry level; it was a new field and a nice office, with good benefits, and I wanted the job and wanted to work. I’m tired of being rejected or having to settle for crap.

    3. Jeffrey Deutsch*

      One hiring manager — who had told me during the interview (for a full-time position with decent wages, commissions and benefits) that she likely would be able to offer me the job — subsequently left me a voicemail asking me to call back because she had a job offer for me.

      Which she did…a part-time, low-wage, no-commission and no-benefits position.

      (The job I’d actually applied and interviewed for? She couldn’t offer that one to me because of my “tenure in previous employment.”)

    4. Millie*

      I’m in the same boat. I interviewed for a position as a therapy care coordinator, and that went well. Two wks later HR/recruiter called me to request an interview for a position as a medical assistant which I didn’t apply for. She complimented my first interview, but a candidate wasn’t selected yet. I really had my hopes up, but I received the rejection email earlier this week. A selection for first position should be chosen later this month, but who knows. Good luck to both of us.

  201. Blindsided by blind introduction*

    WOw, not even my own aunt can practice etiquette when it comes to double-blind introductions. No head’s up, just an email saying, “Hey Jane, meet Sue. I think you two will get along.” I have no reason, motivation, or context for why I should connect with this person.

    2. Clodagh*

      I was once introduced to someone “because you both have short hair”. Our awkward conversation went about as well as you’d expect.

      1. Just Another Manic Millie*

        A friend (?) once offered to fix me up with her co-worker. “The two of you have a lot in common!” she exclaimed. “He’s a real cheapskate!”

        I asked her if she thought that I was a cheapskate. She was taken aback and said no, that the cheapskate thing was not something that we had in common. It was just something that she knew about the guy and had nothing to with what we had in common. What we did have in common, she said, was that we were both short and had blue eyes. I passed.

    3. Jeffrey Deutsch*

      Someone was once introduced to me by a mutual acquaintance. The connection? I provided a certain service the other person might want to use.

      Pity I was the one who had to explain that I had a business providing that service. For actual money.

  202. nnn*

    I wonder how the “you may also like” function decides which posts to link to for the open threads. (I have the idea that it’s an algorithm – or is Alison hand-picking an interesting variety pack for us?)

    1. Ejane*

      What articles is it showing you? I have a hunch it’s autogenerated for each entry and then stays the same

      1. nnn*

        – how much is it my responsibility to remind coworkers of deadlines?
        – our employee is taking nude photos in our office and posting them to Facebook
        – if you’re not getting interviews, here’s how to fix your resume and cover letter

        None of which seem terribly relevant to this thread

    2. Ask a Manager* Post author

      It’s auto-generated based on keywords in the headline and post, but I have the ability to override it and manually select them, which I always do for the open thread since otherwise it would pick the same three posts for every open thread.

  203. LGC*

    Minor rant: so our company’s president took a tour group around our office and stopped in my room. He described my project as “one of the smaller projects.”

    …which is fine (my team is 1/3 the size of our large team), except we bring in about as much revenue as our large team. I probably wouldn’t be as annoyed if this wasn’t reflective of how we’re treated in general.

    1. Anonymousy*

      I feel the same way when a new hire is showed around and introduced to other people but not to me.

    2. Bobina*

      Not sure if you have any control or can work the internal PR machine, but if the big picture of feeling undervalued bothers you, try finding ways to highlight what you to do those that matter.

      So as you mention, putting in how much revenue you bring. Putting it in terms of revenue/team member (so it perhaps highlights that you are more efficient than others). Internal newsletters/posters of what you do/email announcements of big wins. Obviously this is company dependant, but I’ve seen those work well in the past.

      In the moment, if it allows, you could also find nice ways to interject (“Yes, we’re a small but valuable/profitable project!” said with a big smile and extremely pleasant demeanour)

      1. Product Person*

        I’d be more specific, as it increases credibility:

        “Yes, we’re the smallest team but proud to be the 2nd highest revenue generation project in the company! Nice to meet you.”

        1. LGC*

          It’s a bit awkward to say that when you’re junior management and the person saying this is several levels above you and giving possible funders a tour! That’s a large reason why I kept my mouth shut in this case – aside from the fact that I’m already often the “Well, actually…” guy.

          (You’re actually…close to right. I think my project is second in gross revenue in our division. To be fair, Big Project is what pulls in grants – we’re a social enterprise, so although we produce more in gross revenue, they’re the ones that pull in funding because they hire many more people through DVR and such.)

  204. AnonToday*

    Any good tips on getting over a smoldering work crush when you can’t avoid the crushee, and it’s making it hard to get work done?

    Nothing will ever come of it. We’re both married; I don’t think it’s mutual; I wouldn’t date a colleague in any case; and I certainly wouldn’t date a colleague who’s currently my project manager. Normally, I’d just keep it strictly professional, enjoy the extra sparkle in my workday, and not tell anyone even remotely connected to my job. I’m trying, but … since this is my PM, I often need to ask questions about my role/tasks that lead to fairly detailed, somewhat personal conversations, and it’s not uncommon for us to have to work late together in what might look like compromising circumstances. It’s taking a lot of effort right now to make sure everything I say and do is for the right reasons, and frankly, it’s distracting as hell at a time when I have a lot of professional goals I’d rather be focusing on. Thoughts?

    1. Analytical Tree Hugger*

      It sounds like a case of, “Don’t think about pink elephants.” The more you try to suppress it, the more you’re thinking about it.

      Also, do you absolutely have to work late together? Can you start scheduling date nights with your spouse, so you have an excuse to leave *and* to shift your crush back to your spouse?

      1. AnonToday*

        You nailed it with the pink elephants analogy. Unfortunately, since my job is travel-based, I can’t just go home to my spouse during the week; I’m typically going back to a hotel with the pink elephant and the rest of our team. I’m trying to decline purely social after-hours events, and can push back on some of the working late together (especially if it’s just the 2 of us), but can’t avoid it entirely.

  205. The Man, Becky Lynch*

    With this last year being the first where due to the Wayfield act, everyone is collecting sales tax for other states they don’t even reside in, my head hurts. I’m too much of a little fish way out of my element and so much back and forth with my IT team to get our system to pull all the details for the assorted new returns that are due. Thankfully it was easy enough to start collection but lahahahahahahah the return process is going to destroy what’s left of my soul.

  206. Retail not Retail*

    Work question that is NOT a rant about my current job – a local attraction is having a seasonal hiring event where you’ll fill out an application and then go to an open interview for the position you’re interested in.

    What are the sartorial expectations? I’m thinking my nice pants with fleece leggings underneath and a nice sweater underneath my down coat because we’re gonna get a burst of winter weather just in time for this but I’m not sure!

    1. The Man, Becky Lynch*

      In my experience you just want to look like you’ve put effort into your clothing choices because you’ll stand out more than anything. Most folks showing up for a cattle call seasonal setup are going to put very minimal effort into it, your chances are you’ll make a good impression by showing up in nice pants and a nice sweater. Most are just going to go in their casual wear.

  207. Great Beyond*

    I work in a small office where they gossip and talk a lot. I said that I felt bad because one of the intern’s went home sick and they think I like him now. (Um, no….)
    I know people will talk and you can’t stop it, but I’ve experienced this in previous positions and still don’t know what to do. Should I just not say anything?

    1. nep*

      I would just leave it be. Protesting any kind of rumours or gossip seems to just breathe life into it. We can never, ever control what people are going to think or gossip about.

  208. Ashley the Nonprofit Exec*

    Advice, please! How do you get people to give keys back when they quit? We are a small-ish community nonprofit, someone who just quit via text without notice has keys to quite a few doors in multiple locations. She isn’t mad, I don’t think, just made an impulsive decision to move. She was a good employee and had good relationships with others. We provide a service concerned with safety issues, so we may have to re-key. It’s super expensive (for us) because of the number of doors and the number of key copies. How do you motivate people to give your keys back when you don’t have an opportunity to get them on the person’s last day?

    1. My Brain Is Exploding*

      Charge them for it? Maybe put that in their employment contact? Or maybe instead once they turn in their keys they can collect a couple hundred bucks… Enough to make it worth their while but way less than re-keying.

    2. OtterB*

      Make it as easy as possible for them? Send them postage-paid mailer so they just have to put the keys in it and drop it back in the mail.

    3. MatKnifeNinja*

      Send someone over to collect the keys. Especially if you have asked and nothing has showed up.

      Have her put them in a box on the porch/taped to the door. This way she doesn’t have to meet you.

      My brother’s job holds the last paycheck and any other monies if you quit and the keys don’t show up in 2 hours. Reason being, people have come back and stolen equipment, with the originals or had dupes cut.

      Put it in your hiring contract for next time.

      1. Ashley the Nonprofit Exec*

        It does seem like it would be effective to hold the last paycheck, but I’m not sure it’s legal.

        1. Jeffrey Deutsch*

          What Ashley the Nonprofit Exec said.

          It’s one thing to charge a reasonable fee (for re-keying and the like) against the last paycheck. Quite another to withhold the entire last paycheck itself.

          And I understand about the break-in potential…but I’d still allow a wee bit longer than two hours after departure. Among other things, as Blue Eagle points out if a key can be duplicated — the holder could have done that long before too.

          1. Ashley the Nonprofit Exec*

            I’m not sure that is legal either – I don’t think there are many circumstances where you can withhold part of a paycheck that someone already earned. I mean, you’d probably get away with it in a lot of cases, but I’m pretty sure it’s not legal.

            I like the idea of paying a bonus for the return of the keys. I think that’s smart. It’s also something that I think would be hard to justify in a charity budget.

            1. Jeffrey Deutsch*

              Good point. I don’t know the exact relevant law even in the US; you may need to have the employee sign, when you give them the keys/equipment, consent to charge $X if they aren’t returned in good condition (and presumably within Y number of days of request or leaving the job).

      2. Just Another Manic Millie*

        At one of my previous companies, a number of people quit by calling in and saying that they weren’t coming back, or they left a message with the answering service saying that they weren’t coming back, or they sent a fax saying that they weren’t coming back, or they left at lunchtime and never came back and never called. They had already received their last paychecks.

        I agree that paying a bonus when the keys are returned is the answer. At another previous job, the owner changed the locks every time someone left the company.

    4. Blue Eagle*

      Thought about this awhile and here are a couple of thoughts.
      1) Even if she returns the keys, how do you know she hasn’t already made copies of them (if security is what you are worried about). Same thing for all your other employees and volunteers.
      2) At one of my volunteer gigs, I kept a key for over a year (well, didn’t really “keep” it, just didn’t turn it in) before I was back at one of their events and returned the key.
      3) If you really need them back, get a self-address prepaid shipping sticker (maybe UPS or Fedex) and mail it to the volunteer to use to return the keys -along with telephoning them and letting them know that you need the keys back and will send them the prepaid sticker so it won’t cost them anything.

      1. Ashley the Nonprofit Exec*

        1. You’re right – I never know if someone has made copies. They are “do not duplicate” keys, and when we make copies it’s a bit of a process, so I don’t think it’s super-easy or super hard. You are making me think that maybe all the locks need to be replaced with keypads for which the codes are easily and regularly changed.

        2. Yep – we are not 100% sure where all the keys have gone since the locks were last changed. It’s just that there is something weird about an employee who quits with no notice (and then blocks all co-workers on Facebook) that makes me more nervous than if one of our volunteers let us know they were moving away and we forgot to ask for the key back.

        3. Here’s the rub – apparently she’s moving out of state immediately. So we don’t have an address.

    5. Nimrods daughter*

      How does any company ensure employees return equipment? The protocol for key return should be the same as for company laptop etc, if the employee doesn’t return the items, she will be billed for them (cost of replacement, rekeying locks) and note any unpaid bills will Be turned over for collection.

      1. Ashley the Nonprofit Exec*

        Thank you. That’s helpful. As a small nonprofit, we don’t have those kinds of protocols in place. Do you sign out equipment when you’re hired on forms that have the value listed? Anything else about that process that might be helpful for me to know?

        1. Another JD*

          Check with a local employment attorney. In my area, you must have written consent to withhold any portion of an employee’s paycheck, and the deduction cannot put them below minimum wage.

  209. Green T*

    I’m curious if anyone here creates Safety Data Sheets for work? I’d like to take some classes on creating them. I actually do this at work with 3E Generate but no formal training. Would like some training so I feel more confident in this particular task. Anyone know of any training?

    3. Just Another Manic Millie*

      Me: “So why has this position opened up now?”

      Him: “Well after my dad gave me the job I decided to get rid of all former staff”

      I totally believe this! At one of my previous jobs, I worked at the headquarters of a company that had a lot of branch offices across the USA. My supervisor told me that one of the branch offices had the owner’s son as branch manager. The son had just graduated from high school and had never held another job. The son had the feeling that some of the employees didn’t care for him in that position, or had wanted the job for themselves, so he fire each and every single employee there.

      Several sons of the owner worked at the headquarters, and a co-worker once complained to me that he was tired of one of the sons constantly telling him, “You had better be nice to me, because one of these days, YOU’LL be working for ME!”

      1. Buttons*

        This happened at my current job about 1 year after I was hired. My previous boss, who should have retired 10 years earlier, said to a prospective HR employee, during an interview “We are really into this whole new diversity & inclusion thing. We are going to hire one of each of them.” By “one of each of them” he meant the people who were underrepresented in my company; Hispanics, veterans, and disabled people.
        I nearly died on the spot. After the interview, I had to explain to him that what he said was not only NOT what we were doing, but illegal and we needed to go talk to Head Council in case that person being interviewed contacted the EEOC.
        Luckily, the SRVP and the Head Council saw how problematic this was and made sure he no longer interviewed people and was offered a voluntary retirement package soon after, and I was offered his job. :)
        BTW this was about 5 years ago, diversity & inclusion wasn’t a “whole new thing”

  211. Amethyst*

    I started working at a small pizza place earlier this month to help me make ends meet. I let the owner know earlier this week that this isn’t the right fit for me because reasons & offered to help him with coverage until he finds someone else as his regular girl is starting back up at college in a couple weeks, leaving him in a tight spot. I’m working for him today (already done & dusted) & tomorrow, & he’s asked me to help out next Friday & Saturday as well, & mentioned he’s got another girl starting next week. I don’t want to have this drag on after next week, so help?

    For background, this guy is Italian. He’s got the accent, the mannerisms, & the Windex. He’s expressed his disappointment & sorrow over my decision to leave & keeps asking for other reasons why other than what I’ve given him. (I’m actually leaving because I can’t stand the passive-aggressive thing he’s doing, & I just told him that it’s not the right fit because I need a quieter environment to work in due to my severe hearing loss. This is my first time in a restaurant environment & I’m just not built for this kinda crap.)

    1. Documentor*

      Only because of the passive-aggressive behavior, draw your line in the sand, whether for tomorrow or next week. Be ‘busy’ next weekend if that’s what it takes. This mindset time and again will push you otherwise. Dimes to dollars if you agree to next weekend then something else will pop up. Gentle, firm, and get your money when you walk out the door.

      1. valentine*

        How is his being Italian relevant to this and how is Windex relevant to that?

        The “girl” thing would grate on me.

        Tell him you’re no longer available and block him.

  212. nep*

    Forgive me if this has come up and been answered…
    I’m filling out an application via a form on the company’s website (includes questions, a test, and areas to upload some items). There is a section to upload a resume, then a section to upload a writing sample (optional). No place for a cover letter. Is it acceptable/OK to make the resume document two pages, the first page being my cover letter?

  213. Januaryin2020*

    Hope someone in HR can help with this situation!

    How does HR for a company handle a termination that has been converted to a resignation?

    A friend of mine had filed a complaint with the EEOC against her employer and during mediation they were able to agree on a settlement. Part of the settlement was that the employer agreed to convert her termination to a resignation.

    Fast forward about six months and my friend starts applying for jobs. One of the companies that she had interviewed with checked her references and the company that she had the settlement with had stated that she had been terminated. Apparently, the company called her and asked her about it and that’s how she found out that her former employer was still saying she was terminated.

    Is their anything she can do? When she filed her EEOC complaint she did not have an attorney with her and went at it alone.

    1. Fikly*

      Is there anything in the settlement outlining consequences if company does not abide by the terms of the settlement?

      1. Januaryin2020*

        I asked my friend and she said no consequences are outlined in the settlement. It just lists the details of the settlement.

        1. blackcat*

          I would call the EEOC and ask what to do. If they don’t get an answer, hire a lawyer to write a Cease and Desist.

          1. Jeffrey Deutsch*

            I wonder how many lawyers will write a letter: “Dear So and So: Please lie to prospective employers, like you promised my client you would.

            “And no, if someone else hires my client, finds out the truth and then sues you, we won’t reimburse you.”

            Any lawyers here to tell us whether a court (US or elsewhere) will even enforce that kind of agreement?

            1. Another JD*

              Obviously you aren’t a lawyer. I am. These kinds of provisions in settlement agreements are incredibly common.

              1. Jeffrey Deutsch*

                You’re right, I’m not a lawyer — that’s why I asked if there were any lawyers here to answer that.

                If that’s a common and enforced provision, so be it. Thanks for the knowledge.

    2. Jeffrey Deutsch*

      Ouch. And your friend was very lucky the prospective employer actually reported that back to her.

      I’ve had a former manager agree, upon my request, to say that I’d resigned instead of having been fired. Of course without benefit of formal procedure or even witnesses. And the manager then reneged.

      I understand the appeal of asking your former employer to — not to put too fine a point on it — lie to prospective employers. Thing is, when you ask someone to be dishonest…they may decide to be dishonest after all, but just not to the exact same person you asked them to be dishonest to. “No honor among thieves!”

      1. Januaryin2020*

        I was shocked when she told me that the prospective employer called her to ask her about it. I’m surprised they did not just move on.

  214. Morgan*

    ((Looking for Advice))

    I am a EA with 30 years experience and considering switching to cyber security. Currently, I have a AS degree in business administration and was going back to get a bachelors degree. I am thinking about getting one of the following:

    Business degree with concentration in Information Technology
    Cyber Systems and Cyber Security

    My boss said he’d help me get to the next thing and is quite supportive. Can having the degree in Information Technology still allow me to go into cyber security? If anyone here does this type of work, how would you suggest I go about this career/job change?

    Thank you

    I feel like if I do #1, I can also get the certifications (Security +, CISSP, etc.)

  215. meep meep*

    Every year we have an event for which we hire 7-10 people. Often we’ll hire back people we hired in previous years. But there’s somebody we don’t want to hire again, they just weren’t good at the job. And of course they’ve already contacted us to insist they get ‘their’ job again this summer.

    What does one tell such a person?

    2. WellRed*

      “Oh, Thank you but we are all set.” “Thank you but we are going on a different direction this year.”

    3. My Brain Is Exploding*

      I would be rather blunt and say, “Sorry, we are not interested in re-hiring you.” And if you want to soften it, then say “If we change our minds, WE’LL call YOU.” And then they’ll probably ask But whyyyyy? So be prepared to answer that however you want (not at liberty to discuss, please don’t call again; we have other candidates we prefer to rehire, please don’t call again; etc.). Good luck!

      1. MissDisplaced*

        This one’s the best unless there is some otherwise compelling reason to tell them why.

        If this was a student worker or intern, perhaps the feedback would be helpful if they hadn’t conducted themselves properly. But otherwise its thanks but no thanks.

        1. meep meep*

          Definitely not an intern or a student! They won’t be at all interested in any feedback.

          Thanks everybody who replied.

  216. Argye*

    So, after 5 years of Visiting Assistant Professorships (i.e., year-to-year contracts), I have been offered a permanent position! It’s half teaching and half University administration, but that’s what I’m looking for at this point in my life. It’s a brand-new program, with significant backing from the University and the State. The salary is OK, given the cost of living – it’s 1.5x what I make now in a much cheaper area. There’s serious growth potential – the Dean wants to grow this position into an Associate Deanship. I’m very excited!

    The problem? I told the Dean that I’d let them know by this coming monday. I’d interviewed for two Dept. Chair positions, but haven’t heard anything back, so I’m ready to grab the bird in the hand. (N.B. I might well have taken this job even if offered one of those positions. I just wanted to know. I’m not willing to wait on them any longer.)

    I meant to call today, but with work and running errands, I didn’t manage to do so before 5PM their time. And now I realized that Monday is MLK day, so the Dean is unlikely to be in her office. Is it OK to accept an offer via email? The only thing I want to be sure about is a moving allowance, as moving from the midwest to the east coast is expensive.

    Thoughts? Should I email and express my enthusiasm and request moving expenses in an email? Try to call on Monday, and potentially leave a voicemail with the same info? Wait until Tuesday?

    It’s been a long, hard slog to get an offer I’m excited about – I’ve turned down 2! I don’t want to screw this up at the last moment!

    2. WellRed*

      I know nothing about academia but would say go ahead and email, but tell her you have a question you’d like to discuss. Don’t call Monday. She’s unlikely to be in and you don’t want to look unaware of that.

    3. In the academy*

      Don’t sweat it one way or the other. You can email and say that you were very excited about the offer and there are some details that you would like to discuss on Tuesday, when would be a good time? They are not going to pull the offer. Go on line. If this is a public institution the moving expense policy should be on-line. If not see if you can find typical amounts from peer institutions. I got a months salary for moving expenses.

    4. blackcat*

      Not all universities take MLK day off! I’d shoot an email and offer times you’re free to talk on the phone on Tuesday/Wednesday.

    5. AnotherSarah*

      I think email is fine–but also: did you tell the other two jobs you got an offer? That can speed up their process. I’d wait to accept if you possibly can until you know for sure whether you have a competing offer. If you look at the AcademicWiki “places to avoid” (or maybe it’s “universities to avoid”), you might see if they’ve ever pulled an offer.

  217. Zephy*

    I got a call 15 minutes before close of business yesterday, from the director of another department, asking who in my department would be working today (we take Saturday shifts in turns). It’s me. The director then informed me that today is an Open House day and would I mind presenting the information for my department?

    Good thing the gist of my part of the presentation is “Hi, I’m Zephy with the Rice Sculpting department. My office is over there and I’ll be here til 5. See you after your tour!” And honestly I’m glad for the opportunity to get a change of scenery for a minute. Just, I would have appreciated knowing about it sooner.

    1. Buttons*

      That’s always fun. If it isn’t too late you might in “Our goals is to partner with the design department to take their designs and make them a reality!” I always like to tell people a bit about what actually happens.

  218. The Other Dawn*

    I had dinner with a friend last night and she was venting about a work situation. She led with talking about how overloaded she is, as she’s been doing a new task for about a month or so. It’s a fairly high volume task, so she complained how she barely leaves her desk because she’s so busy. She then said in order to catch up, she’s been “working for free.” She’s been going in 30-45 minutes early almost everyday (normally starts at 8:30 am) and not clocking in (she’s hourly), being careful to not do anything obvious that would give it away to her boss that she’s there at 7:30 am (she has to have approval for coming in earlier than 8:30 am and has been asking to come in at 8). Even though she wasn’t asking for advice, I told her it’s illegal to do that, it could get the company in trouble, and she should be telling her manager the workload is overwhelming, as it’s giving her manager a false impression of the workload. (I’m a manager and I would want to know if this was happening!) She said she’s told her manager about the workload and the manager agrees, but nothing has happened.

    Her actual request for advice is about her coworkers. She sits in the middle of several Spanish-speaking people, her manager included (they have the short cubicle walls where everyone can see each other). She said several times a day they’ll all be talking across the cubes in Spanish and she hears her name multiple times. She’s getting quite annoyed. Not only is it disruptive while she’s trying to focus (ear buds are not allowed), but it makes her wonder if they’re talking negatively about her (if it were me, I’d be wondering the same thing). She’s wondering what she should say, to whom, and how. I suggested saying something directly to her manager, since her manager is one of the ones doing this. Something along the lines of, “When you’re talking with Sally and Joe, I often hear my name come up. Since I can’t understand what you’re saying, it makes me wonder if you’re talking negatively about me. Do you have concerns with my work?” Any advice? If I were her manager I’d want to know this is going on, but I’m not sure how she should handle it.

    Yes, she’s looking for another job, but she absolutely can’t afford to just up and leave. She’s just getting by financially as it is, so she needs another job lined up before giving notice.

    2. Close Bracket*

      That’s pretty aggressive! She’s basically accusing them of sh!ttalking her. How about,

      “When you’re talking with Sally and Joe, I often hear my name come up. I just want to make sure everyone feels comfortable looping me in if there are requests in the moment.”

      And maybe add an extra,

      “Should I go ahead and talk to Sally and Joe directly to let them know they can always come to me right away when something about my work comes up?”

      And as WellRed says, she can address it in the moment with a cheerful and helpful, “Oh, I heard my name! Is there anything you need from me right now?”

  219. fhqwhgads*

    I need help preparing for a self-review and my annual review!
    Here’s the sitch: I just started a new job. They do annual reviews for everyone at the same time every year and I’ll have been in the role about a month when this happens. I realize it’s totally normal that the “goals from last year” part doesn’t really apply to me, but I’m feeling awkward about the rest of it also. I haven’t been there long enough to have good answers to the rest of the stuff. So far my boss seems SUPER REASONABLE so it’s probably ridiculous I’m even concerned, still it is my official review so it’s not like it doesn’t matter what it says.

    I am looking for some language suggestions but also possibly commiseration. I can’t go in there and say my goals for this year are “finish training; actually know what I’m doing; not need to consult notes all the time” …although that third one might be redundant to the second. I’m sure there’s a professional version of the snarky types of stuff I’m thinking of, but I’m a little too in the thick of it to be able to think of the proper translation.

    1. Hazelthyme*

      Just went through this with my own direct report (sort of — we’re a matrix organization)!

      Can you frame “complete training/know WTF I’m doing” as “master the duties and expectations of the Teapot Engineer role”? Or if it’s work that takes more than a year to master, “become proficient in”? Maybe think of 1 or 2 tasks you haven’t worked on before, and say you want to complete coursework/serve as backup on a project on spout construction?

      1. fhqwhgads*

        I sort of could… it’s a little tricky. In your example, it’s quite possible I’ll have “mastered” the duties maybe 6 weeks after this review. The stuff I need to learn is mostly specific to How This Employer Does Things and What This Employer Needs, not the actual skills required for my role. I’m hesitating trying to come up with specific objectives because, while I have ideas, I don’t know enough yet about what they’ve already got going in my area to know whether the stuff is more like this is a brand new thing that’d improve X for us and I’ll implement itvs this is already in the works and it’s going to be handed off to me and I’ll complete it vs they have it but want me to optimize and/or revamp it (rinse, repeat for all applicable stuff). I will have that context pretty soon once they finish going over stuff with me. I feel like I’m not articulating any of this very well…hence the worrying about it.

    2. Buttons*

      This is really common. Your goals aren’t the mastering of those things, your goals are the expectations of the job. The mastering and learning are the milestones (objectives) within the broader goal. So for example- if your job is Teapot Programs Manager- the goal would read something like;
      Goal: , design, and implementation of Teapot programs XYZ.
      Objectives (or milestones, every company calls it something different)
      Program X design and delivery to begin on date, to be completed within budget and scope.
      If you have a specific task that you do such as creating and generating a report, your goal would like:
      Goal: Create, generate, distribute ABC report
      Objective;: Master processes, program, and distribution requirements by date
      Objective: Meet the needs of the stakeholders by completing the report accurately and on time.

      Hope this helps!

  220. Millie*

    If “help to maintain a clean and organized work environment” is in job description, does this include break room? Some people leave dirty dishes in sink for WEEKS at a time, no exaggeration. The assistant manager is particularly sloppy. Her used coffee mug with spoon was on reception desk while she was out for vacation. I think everyone should be responsible for their own stuff.

  221. Ashley the Nonprofit Exec*

    I’m not sure that is legal either – I don’t think there are many circumstances where you can withhold part of a paycheck that someone already earned. I mean, you’d probably get away with it in a lot of cases, but I’m pretty sure it’s not legal.

    I like the idea of paying a bonus for the return of the keys. I think that’s smart. It’s also something that I think would be hard to justify in a charity budget.

  222. Sam*

    I’ve started a new job as a manager for a small upscale retail store owned by a couple. My first day the only other remaining employee quit and subsequently my two next hires quit and two others declined the offered jobs. It’s because they have very strict high standards but are incredibly stingy with their employees. I make the literal legal minimum to be exempt and they expect me to schedule myself for regular 45+ hour weeks with no time in lieu (not my experience elsewhere). Lunch is the legal minimum of 30 minutes unpaid (everywhere else I’ve worked it was 45 minutes or 1 hr plus a paid 15) with no other breaks allowed. This is in addition to the store closing 1-2 hours later in the evening than most – I get home at 9 to 10 pm. I am expected to work all weekends, no exceptions, when all other managerial jobs I’ve worked give managers a Sunday-Monday weekend. Plus there is no health insurance or other benefits. (I get 10 days vacation but the other full time employees get none)

    I actually love the job aside from these things, and the owners are lovely people, but their lack of considering their employees needs in this way makes me unhappy with the position, and makes it impossible to hire or retain good employees. Anyone qualified for these luxury sales positions can make more money for cushier working conditions elsewhere. How do I communicate this to them and help them understand how it’s impacting their employees and business? They only see their bottom line. They even got upset at the idea of paying people for a fifteen minute paid afternoon break during a ten hour shift when I floated it! I can’t be a good manager when I have nothing to offer my employees. I want to try to make things better before just leaving. I would be so grateful for any advice on dealing with this, communicating to them, or wether this is something I can or should even push back on.

    1. WellRed*

      The owners are not lovely people. They are stingy, inconsiderate and self centered. You can work probably anywhere else and be better paid and not treated like an indentured servant.

    2. MissDisplaced*

      Well, I’m sure owning one of these “boutiques” and being a small business is pretty fraught with economic risk and uncertainty. I know a few small businesses owners that barely break even with this kind of thing. Often, they’re basically just buying themselves a $50k/year job!

      But that being said, yes, they are expecting much too much from someone who is not the owner (and therefore has no skin in the game). Do they also work at the store? Who covers your vacation or when you’re out sick?

      You can certainly try pushing back on setting more reasonable hours and work week, say 45 hours. As for the 1 hour/30 min, most states consider 30 minutes adequate for a 7 or 8 hour shift, plus two 10 minute paid breaks. An hour seems kinda long to me (but granted I don’t take lunch for my office job). But if you’re working more than an 8 hour shift, you’d get another break. I’d double check state laws on what’s required.

      But be prepared. Often owners can’t or won’t budge.

      1. Sam*

        Thank you for the tough advice. I know they both put in extremely long hours and maybe don’t understand why the rest of the staff shouldn’t, even though that may be obvious. I’m sure it’s also financially scary for them to run the business. I hope I can get them to understand that treating employees better is actually in their own financial best interest…. Shifts are 9-10 hours due to the extended opening hours I mentioned. A thirty minute lunch with no other breaks at all makes the day really punishingly difficult. That is unreasonable right?

        I’m job hunting but I hope I can at least make a positive change here while I’m stuck here :(

        Thank you both for the perspective, I feel a little less crazy hearing an outside perspective.

        1. WellRed*

          ON the chance you come back to read this, time for some number crunching: How much in sales does the company do in those extended hours vs how much it costs to stay open, especially if there’s little to no overflow traffic from the closed stores? How much does it cost to keep hiring and training new employees? And those are hard costs. Never mind the intangibles like happy employees vs unhappy ones who may badmouth the company for being unfair to employees.

          Alison has fielded a couple of letters from business owners who, as MissD points out, have skin in the game whereas employees simply don’t, and they can’t understand why.

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