I sent an adversarial email, should I tell my coworkers I have hemorrhoids, and more

by Alison Green on December 11, 2024

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. I sent an adversarial email — and replied-all

I’ve seen plenty of articles about how to respond to someone who is unprofessional, but what do I do if I was the one who was unprofessional?

I am a supervisor who often interfaces with management and sometimes takes on a management role. Recently, I was working with leadership to transition an employee into a new role on my team. I offered to work with management to support whatever transition plan they needed but, since the employee will earn more in the new position, asked that she be transitioned to the new pay scale ASAP. We were all set to transition her when our admin person cancelled the action at management’s direction. I responded to everyone on one of the emails, basically going on a rant about how we were doing a disservice to the employee and I didn’t understand why when the pay could be separated from the transition of duties.

The email wasn’t received well, to say the least. I got an email from one manager directing me to conduct any further discussion with him in person, another email from a senior manager to the entire group telling me I was being unprofessional and to start being professional, and an email from my second level manager after my response was forwarded to him by the senior manager telling me to give him a call. He then told me that my response was inflammatory, accusatory, not productive, and an exhibition of poor leadership and that I needed to change my communication methods. He brought up a similar type of response I had with a peer (so this isn’t the first time).

I responded to the senior manager’s email by apologizing for my lack of professionalism and expressing that they deserved — and I would give them — better. I want to work on my email communications with a goal of being objective and concise and making sure I *don’t* use email when I feel impassioned about the subject being discussed … which mostly centers around standing up for my employees when I feel like they’re being short-changed. What should I do to recover from this, if recovery is even possible?

Recovery is indeed possible.

Effective immediately, stop using email for anything that you feel heated or impassioned about. From here on out, you need to see email as being only for relatively dry information exchange. Anything that’s stirring up emotions in you needs to be addressed through another means — ideally in-person, but over the phone can work too, depending on the context. I’d tell you to also banish your reply-all button (because that was a big part of where you went wrong), but that shouldn’t be necessary if you follow the first rule.

Also, it’s great that you want to stand up for your employees. But your job is also to work with management above you to understand their priorities and carry them out as best as you can, while giving them information that will help them make good decisions, and ultimately recognizing they have the final call. That doesn’t mean “blindly do what higher-ups tell you.” It means “if you have information that might change their perspective, share it.” But you also have to recognize that they have priorities that might rightly trump yours at times, and they may know things about the bigger picture that you’re not privy to. If your first instinct is to go on a rant about how they’re getting it wrong rather than to seek more information and to offer input like “my concern about X is Y — would Z be an option instead?” then you’re going to make yourself far less effective (and annoy people around you in the process). Right now you’re coming across as adversarial, when you need to be coming across as collaborative.

You can’t effectively stand up for your employees if everyone thinks you’re a hothead.

– 2019

2. Should I tell my coworkers I have hemorrhoids?

This is a little gross, but something that would be really helpful to have some advice on. I have been in my role as an administrative assistant for about two years now. Around the time I started this job, I developed hemorrhoids (or more precisely, piles, as we all have hemorrhoids).

I called out sick eight or nine times the first year I worked here. It felt like a lot. The first few times I was out, people asked if I was feeling alright and were concerned. I always said I had a stomach bug, because I was obviously not sick with a cough/cold. As the year went on, people stopped asking me if I was feeling better, or smiled when they asked if I was feeling better. I imagine they thought I was playing hooky.

The issue I have cannot be fixed with surgery. I have really worked on my diet and as a result, have a lot less issues with my condition. I have only called out once in the past 4 months as a result of the condition. My question to you is, should I share my condition with coworkers? I have always been on the fence about how much I want to keep this to myself and how much I care about my reputation.

There is one other person in the office who calls out as much as I did the first year, but she has a condition that is less embarrassing/gross, and so we all know why she is out when she is out. I also want my manager to know why I called out so much that first year, in case I do decide to look for a new job in the future. I don’t want them to think I am a bad employee. What do you think about this?

Sharing that you’re dealing with hemorrhoids would be TMI, but I do think you could mention that you have a chronic health condition. The next time you’re out sick, you could say something like, “I have a chronic health condition that’s flaring up” or you could mention it in conversation another way. That’s the piece that people need to know, not the specifics of what the condition is.

In addition to that, if you wanted to, you could say something less off-the-cuff to your boss. For example: “I know I called out more than average in my first year here. I have a chronic health condition that was flaring up a lot that year. It’s now better under control, and I wanted to mention it so that you didn’t wonder why I was out so much previously. Going forward, I’m hoping that it won’t be an issue at all.” I don’t think you have to do this since it sounds like your absences have gone way down, but it’s an option if it would give you some peace of mind.

– 2017

3. Client keeps saying “I love you”

I work for a staffing agency, and I’m used to our employees being effusive and grateful when we’re able to find them work, whether it’s short or long term. I enjoy helping people find employment and knowing that I am making a positive difference in their lives.

That being said, I’ve recently had an employee (male who appears to be in his 50s) saying “I love you” almost every time I speak with him on the phone and it’s making me (female who appears to be late 20s/30s) a little uncomfortable. He’s not saying it in a romantic way or making other inappropriate comments, so I think he is just genuinely grateful that we’re getting him work. (It’s basically like “thank you so much for getting me this job, I love you.”)

Right now, I simply ignore it when he makes those comments and redirect the conversation to something work-related, but I’m wondering if it would be worth it to address the comments and, if so, how you suggest doing so.

For additional context, he’s a labor guy and I think simply out of touch with professional norms. For instance, he was so happy when we got him a long-term assignment that he said he wanted to take our entire staff out to dinner when he got his first paycheck as a thank-you (which we obviously told him was not necessary).

It sounds like he’s just being really effusive and not realizing that that’s not quite a professional way to do it.

The next time he says it, you could try saying something like “No need for any declarations of love! It’s our job to place good people in jobs.” Or, “You’re very kind to be so appreciative, but no professions of love are needed.” If you do that a few times, he might get the hint.

Or you could be more direct about it, but if he’s genuinely just overflowing with gratitude, I hate to slap him down for it unless you’re feeling creeped out, which doesn’t sound like the case. (If you were, though, you could say, “I’m glad you’re happy in the job, but I have to be frank that the I-love-you’s are making me uncomfortable. I know you’re a nice guy and wouldn’t want that.”)

– 2017

4. Is this a good weakness to share in an interview?

If I told an interviewer that my biggest weakness during an interview is that I am very hard on myself and I continue to feel like I can do a better job and continue to strive for better performance of myself in my career, how would that come across during an interview? Would that not be a good weakness to reveal during an interview?

Nope, it’s going to sound disingenuous, whether or not it actually is. It’s too much in the model of “I’m a perfectionist” or “I work too hard” or other attempts to answer with something the applicant hopes the interviewer will actually see as a strength. (Perfectionism can actually be a crippling weakness, so it’s always weird when people don’t realize that.)

– 2015

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{ 163 comments }

{ 163 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. nonee*

    I’d love an update from OP 1, if they’re still reading. They seem to have so much self-awareness and real potential for growth; I hope they’re doing well!

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    1. MK*

      I don’t know, I am still baffled why they consider not paying an employee for the job they aren’t doing yet an outrage? Very few employers would think it reasonable to pay the salary for the higher-paying job before the employee starts performing the duties of the higher-paying job.

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      1. Emmy Noether*

        My interpretation to make sense of it was the following:
        Employee was looking for a new job and applied for internal transfer.
        Internal transfer was accepted, but Old Department asked for an unreasonably long transition time.
        LW is worried that employee will become frustrated and jump ship instead.

        In those circumstances, it could make sense to bump the salary to the new position to placate the employee.

        Although I must say there’s a lot about what management wants and what LW wants in this letter, but not much about what the employee wants or asked for. It’s possible LW is white knighting.

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        1. Jackalope*

          I don’t think white knighting is the right term here, either way. It’s part of management’s job to intervene on behalf of direct reports, and particularly in cases of salary. That’s not something the direct reports generally have the authority to manage on their own, and they’re reliant on bosses to take care of that for them. And while I suppose it’s possible that the employer didn’t want to be paid more, it seems like a safe assumption that having a manager go to bat for you to get paid more is going to be received well. Not saying that the OP went about it the right way, but “My manager fought for me to be paid more,” is something that is appreciated in general.

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          1. Emmy Noether*

            Point taken. I was sensing a pattern of the LW doing this kind of thing, and maybe going to bat for things no one asked for, but in this instance more money is indeed very likely to be appreciated.

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            1. Observer*

              I think that there is a different pattern here. Not so much going to bat for things no one asked for, because who would not want more money?

              But more like going off on the wrong person- I mean the Admin who actually made the change almost certainly did not make the *decision*; going off without necessarily having the whole context; and being in their words “adversarial” and in the perception of others combative and intemperate.

              Alison was right – getting a reputation as a hothead is not going to serve them well.

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        2. roann*

          I’ve been in this exact position before, near the beginning of my career, and it was incredibly frustrating and demoralizing. Adding to the salary issue was the fact that I was moving from essentially a temp role to a permanent role, meaning I didn’t have employer-provided health insurance but would as soon as the hiring was complete. My manager at the time was dragging her feet HARD on replacing me, and leadership eventually started me in the new role on paper even though it was another couple of months (!!!) before I got to start my new position.

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          1. The turtle moves*

            I was in the same position exactly six years ago. I got the new internal job at the end of November, but for various reasons related to both my previous and current roles I couldn’t start it until the beginning of February. The person I replaced was leaving at the start of January, so she was doing a bit of handover training with me while I was still officially in the old role.

            My new boss and grandboss were able to get my pay increased to split the difference between the previous and current rates, which was a compromise I was happy with.

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      2. doreen*

        I encountered this once – someone was getting promoted into a different region. It was standard for the transition to take 3 weeks or so from the person being offered the job and at this job, there was no chance the person was going to jump ship ( I’m not sure if that would happen anywhere over 3 weeks) but in this case, the new director (Mary) was insistent that the new salary start ASAP (because it “wasn’t fair” to make her wait – like every one else did, before and after) and she basically bullied people into shortening the transition to a week because she 1) wanted to get the person the salary as soon as possible 2) person couldn’t get the salary without the title 3) once she had the title and the salary she would officially be assigned to Mary’s area and Mary didn’t want the salary coming out of her budget without the person working in her area. The lack of time to transition caused chaos. Mary wasn’t well-liked before this, and it got worse afterward. And she got a certain amount of retaliation in the form of “you were so worried about Audrey getting a raise immediately, so Jeff should be treated the same, even though he’s leaving you and coming to me”

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      3. Katie*

        In my company promotion cycles are once (!!) a year. If the employee just misses that cycle it’s incredibly demoralizing (the cycle itself is problematic).

        When I was promoted it’s a little better (every quarter) but my manager made sure I got my promotion even though I needed to stay in my old department a month. She wasn’t white knighting, she was being a manager.

        She probably handled it better than this guy though…..

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        1. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

          I’m confused by this–if someone moves into a new role, it has to be during the annual promotion period? Or they get moved but their salary doesn’t change until the promotion period? This is really odd. For raises or within-role promotions, I can see it (junior llama wrangler to llama wrangler) (though even then I’d think the year would cue off the employee’s start date not some arbitrary January is the month for promotions approach).

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      4. fhqwhgads*

        I didn’t read it as not paying employee for job they aren’t doing yet. I read it as, employee accepted new position and got a start date. Old dept/role wanted them to still help out with that for a longer-than-usual time. So they’d be either splitting time betwixt the two roles OR possibly, officially in the new one, but still doing some tasks from the old for a long while. So the outrage was both: you’re not letting them fully settle in to the new role right away as they’d like to AND you’re not paying them for the new role right away either. Especially if it’s the latter scenario (doing the new role and a little of the old), it’s especially disheartening to be the employee because you’re doing the new role AND parts of the old role, so more work. Plus the person was leaving the old role for a reason so dragging on the transition absolutely might make them want to look elsewhere.

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    2. Observer*

      hey seem to have so much self-awareness and real potential for growth;

      I agree on the potential for growth. But the real problem, imo, was that they actually did not really have any self-awareness.

      Hopefully both Alison’s response and the comments helped to realize both their immediate error and that they needed to actually start thinking things through.

      Reply ↓
  2. Rincewind*

    I know this isn’t the point but…OP#2 called out “8 or 9 times” over the course of a year and it’s concerning? That’s less than one absence every six weeks! I know not every job offers sick pay, but that still doesn’t seem like an excessive amount of illness to me.

    I feel you on needing to be out for that, though. My…back-end health…has improved dramatically since I changed my diet, but I’ve had to burn some WFH days when it wasn’t possible for me to sit long enough to commute, let alone work from a chair.

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    1. Elsa*

      Yes, I agree that 8 or 9 days out sick a year should not be considered a problem, it seems like a reasonable amount. It’s especially fascinating to contrast this letter, where the writer is feeling terrible about calling out sick for 8 or 9 days, with yesterday’s letter promoting a sick leave policy that would send people home for days or weeks on end any time they came down with anything.

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      1. Emmy Noether*

        Is it 8 or 9 days, or 8 or 9 instances of multiple days? Could easily amount to, say, 15-20 days. A week each time would be 45 days, which starts to be a lot (it’s probably not that).

        Also, most people who don’t have chronic conditions take their sick leave in a few blocks (5 days for the flu here, 3 days for a stomach bug there), so taking just one day or two and then coming back the next without so much as a stuffy nose seems different. Chronic conditions aren’t that rare though, so I’d just assume that a colleague who was out for short bursts frequently had one.

        I’ve looked it up due to prior discussions, and the average sick time in places that don’t limit it seems to be around 11 days per year. So 8-9 days would indeed be quite reasonable.

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        1. Mongrel*

          Even if it’s 8 or 9 single days if the company is using some version of the Bradford Factor it’s going to be chucking up some large numbers.

          I’ve seen some Managers\HR departments treat those as gospel despite reassuring verbiage to the contrary

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      2. Malarkey01*

        8 or 9 different instances of sick leaves your first year is going to raise flags at any company I’ve worked at (without an explanation of something chronic going on).

        This much leave would be burning through sick leave as it accumulates and since most people are accruing it for that time they need it in longer blocks (few day illnesses) I’d be very nervous about a new employee using about a day a month.

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        1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

          I work at a small business (under 30 people) that has one shift and there’s no remote work. I track attendance and if I noticed a pattern of being off this much, I’d find it odd, especially because we’re the type of company that has one bucket of PTO, so this person, if they’re planning on taking any vacation, is going to be running into issues with how much PTO they have left toward the end of the year.

          Which is to say…if the OP has a chronic condition and will be out because of it, they don’t need to tell the company in graphic detail what’s going on, but they should mention that they have a chronic condition and that would allow the OP and the company to have a plan for absences (which they should anyway, but maybe make a more detailed description of work load, who covers what, etc).

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        2. Tradd*

          Where I’ve worked the last two decades, you only get 5 days of sick time a year. That’s it. Doesn’t matter how long you’ve been at the company. 5 days, period. I’ve had coworkers who I worked closely for that had chronic conditions and were out a lot. One guy had some sort of digestive system issues and was in the bathroom a lot. He just described it as a chronic digestive system so we knew what was up. One person took so much sick time that they had to start taking vacation time for sick days. That’s what company policy was. However, if you had something like cancer or major surgery, they did work with you.

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        3. Pescadero*

          …and it wouldn’t raise any flags anywhere I’ve ever worked.

          Of course – at my current jobs everyone gets 15 sick days a year (plus 12-24 vacation days), they get all 15 on the day their employment starts, and it resets to 15 every year on their hiring anniversary.

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    2. GammaGirl1908*

      Coming to say this. One day, every six weeks is something I wouldn’t even notice.

      I also REALLY don’t need the details on your chronic health condition. It’s perfectly fine to say that you have had a flare of a health condition, that you’ll be out for a day or two, and that Mary Jane will be taking over for you. That’s all I need to know. I need to know that you are fully offline, about how long you are expected to be gone, and who to go to in your absence, not the disgusting details of what exactly is keeping you out of the office.

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      1. Coffee Protein Drink*

        That’s all I need as well. I think “chronic health condition” provides enough context without getting into details. If you’re going to miss a meeting, reschedule it or get coverage. If there’s a deadline coming up that might be missed, alert the person who needs it proactively, not when you get back.

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    3. Still*

      I feel like the OP made it way weirder than it needed to be by saying that it was a stomach bug every time. Being out sick 8-9 times a year? Not unreasonable. Having a stomach bug 8-9 times a year? I don’t have enough medical knowledge to judge, but it sounds unlikely; I’m not surprised that OP’s colleagues thought something was up.

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      1. Smithy*

        Yeah – I will say, I do understand people who genuinely want to share why they’re out ill.

        I’m genuinely not saying it should be required, but I do think that for someone people finding a vague middle (like saying a chronic stomach or GI issue) is hard. It feels more like lying, and for many – they’d genuinely be more comfortable talking about their hemorrhoids or chronic UTIs or other health issues that are seen more as TMI for the workplace.

        I had one job where myself, my supervisor and another colleague all had assorted skin cancer/dermatology issues. And it was common for us to talk about those issues, our dermatologists, etc in detail. Certainly not an every day chat, but also something that was nice to be able to discuss directly. Without a doubt, not everyone wants that, but I also get the desire to be able to talk about it directly and not feel stuck trying to find the right euphemism.

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        1. doreen*

          I don’t think something like “chronic GI issue” is really even a euphemism in this case, and it’s better than “stomach bug” which isn’t even true. I can see why a person would want to say something about why they were out but I don’t think coworkers are entitled to any more details other than maybe a “chronic condition”.

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          1. Smithy*

            Right – I think the point I was trying to make – perhaps poorly – is that I do think for some people there is a desire to share.

            For some people, the do want to share details (sometimes truly TMI, sometimes in a more normal way) – but for others, I just think it’s more a case of being seen or living in a way that feels honest. I had a coworker once start a meeting talking about perimenopause and during it went – I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to talk about this like allergies.

            This is to take nothing away from what coworkers are or are not entitled to, but I do think that some of us genuinely feel better when we share more. Sometimes it’s more personality driven, but I do think for others it’s a case where their brain doesn’t easily come up with “chronic stomach condition” and go with stomach bug instead (which is clearly unhelpful in this case). For some it’s preferred to say nothing, but I do know people where being able to say as a straight-forward reason that the reason they’re out of work is due to hemorrhoids. Not because they’re necessarily looking to discuss them, but it’s a direct way of speaking that’s easier.

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            1. TeratomasAreWeird*

              Yeah, when I was diagnosed with an ovarian tumor I felt most comfortable just sharing that information with my friends and coworkers. I know it wasn’t necessary; I could have said “health condition” and “out for surgery on these dates”, but for me hiding information does make it feel a bit… shameful? Like ovaries cannot be mentioned in polite society.

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        2. The Nanny*

          It can also be former workplace experiences. Coming from a background in ECE where everyone from admin to my former coworkers had a very crappy (ha) attitude to any kind of time off, I have found it very hard to tamp down the instinct to ‘prove’ that I’m really sick when calling out.

          When you call admin and say you don’t feel well and they reply with “Oh, but we don’t have any coverage for you, can you take some DayQuil and just sit down in your classroom for the day?” you learn very quickly that the only thing that will secure you time to recover from an illness is mentioning not being able to leave the bathroom. I’ve learned through anecdotes from friends that the same is true for food service, which is horrifying.

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        3. NotAnotherManager!*

          The problem with providing too much information is that it opens the door to value judgments about whether or not your particular illness is “worthy” of the absence, especially if it’s a medical condition that is unfamiliar or has varying degrees of severity like hemorrhoids.

          I also don’t think that some people’s personal desire to share this sort of information is due more consideration than the desire of others not to be subjected to this sort of personal and sometimes kind of gory information at work. I know very few people who want to know the specific status of their coworkers digestive tracts.

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      2. All het up about it*

        Yes – I wondered if the suspicious smiles were more that she said stomach bug EVERY time and that is not an uncommon excuse for a hangover. So maybe it wasn’t the amount she was out that people were suspicious of, but the reason itself. Hopefully the chronic condition rephrasing helped if that LW had more flair-ups sense.

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    4. SickTimeNorms*

      I’ve worked in a lot of places that have good benefits where 8-9 sick days is pushing the boundary of available sick time and may necessitate having conversations about to handle things if you also need sick time to go to medical appointments. I’ve interviewed at a lot of places and I’d say anything over 8 days is above normal (white collar, professional, tech oriented companies) and 10 days is what most of the places with generous time off policies offer (I’ve gotten 12 once, but that was a non-profit that deliberately gave extra time off since they couldn’t pay very well). My one experience with so-called unlimited sick time started giving you the side eye after 7-8 days.

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      1. House On The Rock*

        I’m not saying it’s right, but this has also been my experience in the US in both corporate and academic environments.

        I receive a total of 32 days of PTO a year that can be used for either vacation or sick time, but my department has policies around how much “unexcused” time employees can take in a given month or quarter, so sick time is still effectively limited. Other parts of our organization have distinct sick and vacation time buckets, and those staff get 14 sick days a year, but most managers will question people who come close to using all of those days.

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    5. Artemesia*

      In 45 years in the workforce I never called out close to that many times. Seems like a lot to me. Of course not a lot when you have a chronic issue you are dealing with. But it is the sort of thing that gives you the reputation of being unreliable if people and especially the boss is not aware that it is ‘one thing’ and not 8. I’d never share the particular diagnosis when it is this personal and embarrassing — but I’d certainly want the boss to understand it was one issue I was dealing with.

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    6. Venus*

      There’s a difference between taking 9 separate times and a few times of a few days, unfortunately. Especially in a coverage-based job like an admin, so their absence is more noticed than most. I don’t think it’s a big problem, but it does make OP 2 look better if they say that their chronic health condition has improved, plus it’s nice to share good news even if it’s vague.

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    8. Chirpy*

      Calling out 8-9 times a year would absolutely be seen as unreasonable where I work. Then again, I only get (begrudgingly since the pandemic) 3 days of sick leave, and it’s retail.

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    9. Anonymous Outager*

      I have found that several of single-day absences can raise alarm bells, particularly with people who aren’t familiar with the way that chronic health conditions can affect someone’s ability to function. These people think of sick days as being used for something like the flu, where you might be contagious and out for a few days.

      Related to the letter- I have two chronic conditions, migraines and something gastrointestinal that I won’t describe. There are definitely days when I’ve been grateful that I can blame my head for an outage so that I don’t have to explain about my gut.

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    10. Hroethvitnir*

      I think it’s what you’re used to. I don’t get sick much (less than annually, and I am including all illnesses), but am also in active recovery from the “go to work if physically possible” attitude.

      I have gone years using zero sick leave. The only time I’ve taken total over a week a year is when I’ve needed surgery.

      Reply ↓
  3. Heidi*

    I get not wanting to disclose a weakness that would make an employer not want to hire you (like never being on time to anything). Maybe one approach would be to describe something that doesn’t come naturally and is a struggle for you, but that you’ve worked on. If you’re not good at public speaking, for instance, you could talk about how you’ve developed techniques to do it decently when you have to.

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    1. Emmy Noether*

      Yes, that’s the ideal. A minor but real weakness, and then immediately talk about what you’re doing about it. It should also be relevant, but not central, to the job. So the public speaking thing is good if you expect to have to do it a few times a year. If the job has 0 public speaking, you’ll seem like you can’t tell what’s relevant. If you’ll have to do it every day, they won’t want to hire you.

      Other good examples I’ve heard: “I sometimes mis-estimate the scope of tasks, so I make sure to ask beforehand now”. “I lose track of time when concentrated, so I have a system of calendar alerts”.

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      1. WantonSeedStitch*

        Another good one I’ve heard from junior management role candidates: “I always feel uncomfortable about giving critical feedback, so I’ve started practicing what I want to say to the person beforehand to make it easier, and I’ve taken some workshops on giving effective feedback in general. I try to make sure the person comes out of the conversation clear on what they’ve done wrong, what the impact on the organization is, and what my expectations are of them going forward.”

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    2. KateM*

      My very real weakness is that I hate paperwork, and I don’t see it getting any better. How could one spin it into a positive light, I wonder? Free-form stuff that still needs to sound like official text is worst.

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      1. Alz*

        I am pretty casual in my interview style (combination of the industry I work in and my innate personality) but I often say something like “one of my pet peeves is unnecessary paperwork- I am all in favor of documenting things and keeping records but when I need to sign my name in triplicate and repeat unnecessary information I must confess my eyes start glazing over- to combat this I am very proactive about speaking up if a form could be improved or simplified. And, when there is no room for pushback I tend to create templates which can be copied across and then edited rather than re-typing the same information multiple times”

        Depends on what kind of paperwork you are talking about and what level you are sitting at (works better higher up) but I have had a lot of success with saying something like that

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        1. KateM*

          Yeah, if I had templates, I could fill them. For example I have this one program that I have lead for over a decade and I need to write it every year – I take the last year’s program, tweak the actual content to suit what I plan to do this year, and leave all the BS about why this is oh-so-necessary (which is what I copied together from similar programs a decade ago). Back when I wrote it first, it took me weeks to write that one page of BS to accompany what I consider actual important information.

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      2. bamcheeks*

        How do you make sure that’s YOUR problem, and doesn’t become everyone else’s? You can talk about how you motivate yourself to do it, or how you try and do little and often so it doesn’t become an overwhelming hell task. Or say that this is why you’re applying for a job with very little paperwork because it enables you to focus on your actual strengths!

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      3. Allonge*

        Hm – I would not call it paperwork unless in your field that has a specific meaning – if you mention that, I have no concept of what the issue is. Deadlines? Tone? Writing in general? Written communication as opposed to in-person interaction? Hating bureaucracy?

        When you mention ‘free-form stuff that still needs to sound like official text’ it sounds like what you have an issue with is professional writing, which may or may not be a large issue, but you could put it as ‘I am not that confident in my writing / producing appropriate documentation and prefer to have time for a second review or someone else to look at it’.

        But if you mean ‘I find it difficult to convey the appropriate tone in emails and prefer to have oral discussions’ or ‘I have a strong preference for fieldwork and have needed to be especially careful to set aside time for writing up findings’ that’s ok too, it’s just that paperwork can be a lot of things.

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        1. Behavioral Scientist*

          It seems like a stretch to conflate paperwork with professional writing. In my field, when you collect data from people you have to go through an approval process where you answer questions like “describe how participants’ identities will be protected” “describe data protection and retention policies for identifying information” etc and there are only so many ways to say “the survey is anonymous”. Or, when I was a professor, the university purchasing process (e.g., having to describe “the impact of the purchase on the funded activity” when you are buying pens so that people can sign forms and complete questionnaires…) Totally different than what “professional writing” in my field involves (publishing research articles, writing grants, writing things for general audiences)

          KateM, if this is the kind of stuff you’re talking about, if you have a template of responses you can use and adapt (like I do for these forms), you could talk about that as how you’ve recognized the need to improve you efficiency on these forms?

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          1. Allonge*

            That was actually my point – KateM mentions ‘paperwork’ and ‘free-form stuff that still needs to sound like official text’. The latter could be professional writing – probably not academic articles, but e.g. formal decisions of a company conveyed in writing.

            The issue however is that it’s not possible to tell just from ‘paperwork’. Paperwork could be reimbursement forms or filling in timesheets.

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            1. KateM*

              Ooh. Formal decisions, reimbursement forms and filling in timesheets – I hate them all in varying degrees! Thankfully the last time that I had to write a “please reimburse me”, the bookkeeper dictated what I need to write.

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        2. KateM*

          “Hating bureaucracy” would come nearest. Writing BS / writing platitudes that don’t really mean anything. Hah, makes perfect sense that I don’t know how to say “I hate writing BS” nicely, right?

          Say, I have this after-school teaching project I have run for years now. When I apply each year, I copy the project from last year, look over the targets and lesson plan and tweak it to suit, and heave a sigh of relief that I don’t have to do more than that because the first time writing it took ages and was a torture. Then I copy the table of lesson themes into an Excel file (or actually it was probably the other way around), and I look through it every so often (more than once a week) and rearrange into best order, color-code by larger themes, add dates when I did what, and whatnot. That part is great! Of course giving actual lessons is great as well! Then I have to fill in the official bookkeeping thingy. That I tend to procrastinate on. I feel like “I know what and when I did and who was in my lesson, I can do the data entry whenever”. But my supervisor doesn’t like it. Neither do parents, because they want to know that their child was in my lesson. I have gotten better at that now that I found out I am allowed to add positive and negative comments. And then at the end of school year I have to write a summary of what I have done and what achived and that’s again the part that I sweat blood about. Does it help?

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          1. Behavioral Scientist*

            “I love planning and teaching, but I struggle with feeling motivated to document things promptly afterwards. I feel like ‘I know what and when I did and who was in my lesson, I can do the data entry whenever’, but I’ve realized that is a real issue to parents, who want prompt information, and for my supervisor to stay in the loop. I’ve found that using that documentation as a chance to offer feedback makes it feel more valuable and helps me stay on top of it. I’m still working on how to make end of year assessments have the same sense of purpose for me.”

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            1. KateM*

              Thanks!

              But the end of year report needs a much more refined language than what I write in school diary where I can be very curt and indeed sometimes even put down just “Problem No. 3 from page 33″…

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              1. Behavioral Scientist*

                Who’s the audience for the end of year report? Would it be helpful to imagine it as (A) written for a future teacher if next year, you suddenly won the lottery and moved to Tahiti and this was the only opportunity for them to benefit from your knowledge/experience/mistakes (B) giving your boss information to respond to a hostile funder/school board/etc. who thinks that there’s not REALLY a need for this class/for a full time person in this role/etc., where you need to defend what you spent time on and what the benefits were?

                I think one of the frustrations with “bureaucratic” writing can be that there’s no audience for it, and making one up can be helpful

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      4. hbc*

        Not: “I really hate paperwork. I don’t see the point, and wish it didn’t exist, and I avoid it for as long as possible.”

        Instead: “I’m not great at paperwork, specifically the kinds of business interchanges that need to be personalized but also sound official. I’ve created a few templates for common situations, and I spend extra time reviewing those types of documents if they have to be created from scratch. I’ve developed a good process so it’s never been an issue, but I’m not able to whip them out on the fly, at least not yet.”

        That last sentence might get you removed from consideration in a super paperwork-heavy role, but you wouldn’t want that job, so that would be a good thing.

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        1. MigraineMonth*

          I think this is an important point. Admitting a weakness in a particular area might get you eliminated from contention from certain jobs, but that’s often a good thing. If you are weak at X, and the job requires lots of X, do you really want that job?

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      5. Fluffy Fish*

        “No one loves every part of their job, and for me that’s tasks that are administrative in nature. In the past I’ve sometimes put those tasks off, resulting in a backlog. To combat that, I block dedicated time on my calendar to devote to those tasks. This ensures there are done in a timely manner without piling up and compounding the issue.”

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        1. Reluctant Mezzo*

          I love that one! My desk is never cleaner than the day before I go on vacation. Along with the drawers. I mention those because we had a young gentleman who departed early from his job (drugs) and we found some *amazing* things in his desk that he never got around to doing. True, he certainly wasn’t expecting to depart so early, but the MPs were not sympathetic.

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    3. Tau*

      If you’re not desperate, something I like to do is explain a weakness that would be prohibitive in certain jobs but not others, where I genuinely wouldn’t want to take a job where it’d ben an issue. Example: I’m someone who doesn’t deal well working in total isolation and likes to talk through what I’m working on with a coworker on occasion, share approaches we use and things we know, etc. In most jobs this isn’t an issue – collaboration, review and knowledge-sharing is generally considered an important part of the job – but at some places there’s only a single person in my role, and others might have a more individualistic approach where the team doesn’t really talk that much. I wouldn’t want to work for a place like that anyway because it’d make me miserable and I’d annoy them, so it’s fine with me if an interviewer listens to my weakness and goes “whoa, I don’t think that would go over here well at all, better hire someone else”.

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      1. Cadillac*

        Yes this is what I usually do. My weakness is if a job has me doing the same rote tasks every day I will quit. I say it more nicely :) And phrase it appropriately tot he question. But it can be an opportunity to name something you genuinely see as a bad fit quality for some jobs.

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        1. KateM*

          “Saying it more nicely” is EXACTLY the thing I can’t do! Like we were writing to get money for a project with a buddy and I wrote “this is good for brains of old people”, and she with her project manager experience turned it into SUCH beautiful sentences that I would have never known to write.

          And yeah, that’s what I have found out, too, that there are worse things than being without a job – like being in a job where I end every workday in tears.

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      2. Smithy*

        Yes – I actually think this approach is far better in that it shows awareness about yourself and can also help screen out jobs that aren’t going to be a good fit.

        If you’re someone who likes having long chunks of time to focus – talking about managing your calendar to try and have x amount of time a day or week that’s not broken up with meetings. If that’s true about how you work anyways, having a job where you couldn’t arrange for a no/minimal meetings Friday or at least two hours a day with no meetings likely wouldn’t be the best fit anyways.

        I’m like that person above who works better on a team/interacting with colleagues, etc. So talking about how in my current job where I’m remote from the rest of my team – still going into the office to make sure I’m around other colleagues or trying to arrange my calendar so I have no days with zero meetings.

        Admittedly the approach is to take the concept of weakness and treat it more like your preferred working style. But if I worked at a place with a very strong perspective that “this meeting could be an email” – I would genuinely struggle. The way I’ve overcome this is to avoid jobs and employers where this is more of a thing. But I think considering your weaknesses that you avoid based on the jobs you select is as valid as weaknesses you’ve strengthened.

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      3. Hroethvitnir*

        Yes! I can be personable and use positive spin, but I really need to feel like I’m being honest no matter what.

        I’m pretty sure everyone has neutral characteristics that make you unsuited for some types of work (you’re hopefully not applying for), so that approach has worked for me to be able to answer without feeling dishonest.

        I don’t actually think lying in a non-substantial way is inherently unethical – that’s what you get when you demand a performance utterly divorced from the reality of a job – I just would really, really struggle if I had to, personally.

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    4. N C Kiddle*

      It’s a long time since I’ve had to answer that question, but I think my answer would be that I take a long time to be confident making decisions for myself in a new role, I will regularly ask colleagues if I’ve got it right and I dread being asked to use my own judgment.

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      2. Irish Teacher.*

        My answer is specific to teaching and is that I tend to give kids too much leeway when there is a possibility that the issue wasn’t their fault (the example I used to use was if a kid doesn’t have a textbook, I’m reluctant to push him or her as there are families that genuinely struggle to buy textbooks – won’t be able to use this one any more if I have to interview again as Ireland has introduced free textbooks) and it sometimes gives kids the opportunity to take advantage which I have to guard against.

        It probably is a mistake I make a lot, but it’s one of those things where you are never going to be completely right on. Letting it go does mean that in the case above, there will be some kids who will actually have the textbook but will pretend they don’t – “oh, I couldn’t do my homework because I don’t have a textbook” – but not accepting that as an excuse causes problems for kids who do have genuine issues. There is no perfect solution.

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    5. roann*

      This is great advice. They already know you have weaknesses because everyone does. What GOOD interviewers are looking for when they ask this question is whether you have the self-awareness to recognize your weaknesses and the wherewithal to find solutions or ways to manage them so that you can still work effectively.

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    6. Artemesia*

      And the ‘hard on myself’ weakness also shouts immaturity and neurosis. I’m never being honest on a question like that. I like the public speaking example as in ‘I love to speak now but it has been a struggle; I really had to work on that.’

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    7. Annie2*

      I found the answer to this one interesting – I actually have given a version of “I’m hard on myself” as a weakness in interviews… because it’s true. In my experience it’s landed well, but I think that’s down to it being true (so I think less chance of it coming across as puffery) and partly that I’ve given it as a ‘something I’m working on, and here’s how I’ve addressed it…’ answer. The audience is also relevant – I’m a woman lawyer and my last few interviews have been with women lawyers. There’s often a mutual language of A-type perfectionism tied together with impostor syndrome stuff, so I think there’s been some underlying understanding.

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      1. MigraineMonth*

        I think it’s pretty obvious when someone talks about perfectionism/being hard on themselves as a bit of puffery vs. an actual struggle with negative work consequences.

        The first sounds like, “Oh, I do high quality work and always triple-check because it’s so important to me that it’s perfect! I’m such a perfectionist! Tee-hee!”

        The latter sounds like, “I missed deadlines in my early career because I could never accept that a piece of work was ‘good enough’ and always did more revisions, or I would be paralyzed by the thought that I couldn’t do it well and not even start the task. After a lot of work, in the last five years I’ve been able to consistently meet deadlines, though I do still need pretty explicit quality guidelines on whether, for example, typos are acceptable at particular stages of the process.”

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  4. nnn*

    My brain wrote a story where the two points in the headline were the same letter, in which someone who sent an adversarial email is trying to salvage the situation by using hemorrhoids as an excuse.

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  5. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

    OP1 (adversarial email) – Two instances of something is a pattern, and (as OP identified) the senior manager also recognises them as part of a pattern.

    I think this is going to be very hard to recover from at this company, as it’s not just a couple of badly worded emails but shows an inability to regulate their emotions in the workplace (which I can sympathise with, I’ve had similar problems in the past). It’s particularly a concern for someone in a manager/supervisor role more than an IC, due to the impact and the amount of exposure to situations that are “unideal” and can produce an emotional response…

    I think the only thing you can do is resolve to never do this again and see if time works it out, but also be open to the chance that your reputation is damaged at this company, or at least with this management.

    I’m also not sure why the emotional response to begin with – because management made a decision that her raise wouldn’t be ahead of the promotion/new duties? That is standard in every promotion or new role, I’ve never heard of the raise coming first.

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    1. Agree*

      I would love an update on this one. It is not clear to me if OP is adversarial because of this specific employer/ management or if they have a general believe that conflict can only be addressed with aggressive strength.

      I, as an employee, would prefer if my boss picks their battles and is effective. But OP seems to believe they have to fight every fight in order to be supportive of their employees.

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      1. Hyaline*

        I’m curious, in addition, if it is a belief that solving problems means conflict, whether OP brought this to the job or whether this workplace taught them that. It’s not totally clear from the letter how big of a jerk move the manager pulled with the delay in pay change and whether this is a frequent thing, but some workplaces absolutely teach you that you have to fight for anything you need or that your employees deserve.

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    2. JMC*

      I know this won’t be a popular opinion but frankly something like that NEEDS to happen. Just saying corporate speak and stuff like “it’s not ok” isn’t going to get anyone anywhere. People need to get mad to to get things accomplished sometimes. And what they said is true, and management needs to hear it and get over their egos.

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      1. Workerbee*

        You know what, you’re right. A little too often the employee is figuratively crushed under what constitutes “professional” when it really just means “Don’t rock the boat.”

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      2. metadata minion*

        I think it depends — sometimes you need to cut through the corporate-speak, but being as aggressive as the LW was tends to work either really well or really badly. (At least, I’m assuming the LW was fairly aggressive, given the description of “rant”).

        It also may not have helped that the LW already had a reputation for being undiplomatic. I’ve occasionally used my pathologically easygoing temperament (no, seriously, it’s something I’m working on in therapy) to my advantage because when I finally do get visibly angry, people listen. And I don’t even mean yelling — when I go from “um, I have a few concerns with this” to bluntly stating why something is a problem, nobody can brush it off as “oh, it’s just X complaining again”.

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  6. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

    4. I don’t use that weakness question myself but when asked it I point out that I find it very hard to deal with a lack of structure. I work best in environments where there are clearly defined roles and responsibilities and absolutely shine in beaurocracy.

    The ‘we’re all free minded and do whatever it takes and have no hierarchy’ environments are great for others but terrible for me. I can work there but it’ll be a struggle.

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    1. Strive to Excel*

      I hear you so hard! I do well with short-term chaos; I imagine if I were in IT I would be a good first- or second- tier helpdesk person, good at solving immediate problems and/or redirecting people to the appropriate level of seniority or skill. I also do well on big projects…when someone else is managing them. I do not enjoy or do well on large projects that I have management requirements but not management authority.

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    2. Another Hiring Manager*

      If you were applying to a start-up, I can see leadership there identifying that as a weakness. Personally, I think your answer shows a high level of self-awareness, which is really what that question is all about.

      I don’t ask it because you can put it into Google and get some answers to rehearse. I can usually tell when someone’s done that.

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  7. StarTrek Nutcase*

    #1, I too learned writing and sending an email when worked up about an issue wasn’t a good idea. I never used reply all, but always made sure to my reply went to all prior parties to original email. And despite administration’s preference to not use email, I was a CYA believer in using it to document problems or even possible ones.

    I only got reprimanded once and that was for an email “response* I sent to an onsite clinic supervisor, cc’ing my supervisor and her boss “Stella”. Stella didn’t address the topic: ongoing Medicaid fraud I had uncovered (we were a state Medicaid residential facility) when I was assigned accounting duties for the clinic. She was upset I responded to staff one pay grade above mine. This was final confirmation of what Stella valued – petty details not felony fraud that could jeopardize our clinic & facility licenses & millions in Medicaid payments. While I would have reported the fraud to Medicaid anyway, I admit I got an extra kick knowing Stella was going to have lots of explaining to do to authorities.

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    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      I still struggle with this, but I’ve at least gotten better at writing and waiting to send until I cool down a bit.

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      1. Kes*

        I was surprised that wasn’t the advice. Moving to in-person or over the phone might prevent there being a record but ranting at higher-ups is still not going to go over well even in a different medium. Writing and then not sending until you’ve cooled off and can rewrite to a more professional message is a much better strategy IMO

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  8. General von Klinkerhoffen*

    Re Letter 1, I don’t think anyone who uses email for work has *never* sent something misjudged, but it’s certainly true that some people send more than others.

    My spouse has had similar (less catastrophic) feedback about aggressive emailing not only multiple times but from multiple unrelated employers, and I’ve observed that his worst outbursts come during a perfect storm of health or social challenges lining up with work stress. He reacts to his whole life, whereas his recipients only see a wild overreaction to the work part.

    A few things have helped:

    1. When you hit reply (or reply-all), immediately add an unresolvable string to the To line. I use “notyet” but “donotsend” works too. If you hit Send you’ll get an error asking you to resolve the email address. This is your cue to stop, reread, etc.

    2. When you’re angry, your email will be too long, and all the angriest bits will be in the excess. Cutting down your reply by half will likely remove the parts that would get you fired. Leave in facts and take out reactions and feelings.

    3. Where possible, get someone else to edit it down for you. They’ll hear tone you don’t intend, and can reduce the intensity and/or volume of tone you do intend.

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  9. Nebula*

    On perfectionism: yes it is a bad thing! I have had to work on my perfectionism for a long time, and the way it has always manifested for me – and commonly does – is procrastinating for an extremely long time and then doing whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing at the last minute. That way, in my brain, there’s an ‘excuse’ for why the thing isn’t as good as it could be: I didn’t have the time. There are definitely ways you could spin that to be relevant for an interview, but the reality of it “I used to have long periods at work where I would do as little as possible instead of working on a project, then get it all done in a week” does not sound great!

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    1. flora_poste*

      This is exactly me too and I have never, ever found a solution for it – if you have any tips please share (otherwise we can commiserate together). The worst part is when the procrastination period isn’t even spent doing anything fun or restful or otherwise productive, but rather just staring at a blank screen wondering why I can’t just do – the – thing…

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      1. Lokifan*

        in my case, that exact problem turned out to be one symptom of ADHD. What helped was somewhat the meds, and also some application of Pomodoro and breaking down the task into smaller parts.

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        1. MigraineMonth*

          Yeah, my new job kind of… doesn’t do deadlines. Which is just way too much to trust me with.

          I have found that breaking a project into small chunks works for me most of the time. I currently have a todo list (nothing fancy, just a .txt document) with today’s goal written at the top. If I get that done, it’s a successful day.

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      2. ASD always*

        My approach has been to always have multiple things to work on, so when one gets too overwhelming I procrastinate on it by doing another thing. Then when I hit a roadblock there, the first thing may not look so terrible. So by endlessly procrastinating on the hardest thing there’s still incremental progress.

        Sometimes treating things as a “first draft” also helps. My work is IT-system-based, so there’s usually a choice of solutions and I get stuck looking for The Perfect Solution that will fix everything, when really some aspects are much higher priority than others. So the first draft is basically the minimum-viable-solution that captures the highest priorities, and can be tinkered with from there. This could also be described as reframing the problem to narrow the focus, but I prefer to think of it as a first draft so that I don’t neglect to take easy opportunities that would make The Perfect Solution more possible.

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        1. MigraineMonth*

          It’s taken six months, but I finally got The Powers That Be to assign me two projects at once so that I had something to do when the first project was held up/out for review/waiting on testing. It’s very exciting, and allows me to do the exact kind of procrastiswitching you mentioned.

          Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re planning to continue that next year. They’ve assigned me to a project that’s on hold, waiting for requirements from an agency we haven’t heard from in the last 2 years.

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      3. Ashley*

        I fit into this and had a manager that loved that about me and used it. For the record he was a terrible manager. Any mistake was treated with a stern rebuke from his office. It didn’t matter if it was a minor typo (and this wasn’t in some going to the masses brochure level typo) or an actual I definitely shouldn’t have done that and that is truly a big deal. It took upper management involvement to get him to back off a little but the big thing I had to explain is it can be fast or ‘perfect’ but not both. It is definitely a balance.

        Something that I do is when I have a rush product I do what I can and have someone else read it or do a quick scan for major whoopsies. Typically this works in my roles but won’t all the time.

        The biggest thing I learned years ago was write something, start somewhere. You can build off a garage pile and sort through it for the good but you have to start somewhere.

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      4. Emmy Noether*

        I am also a procrastinator (procrastinating right now, in fact). The only thing that helps sometimes, is breaking down the start of whatever big task into tiny tasks.

        I could show you PostIts with To Do lists that literally say 1) find document folder 2) open document 3) increment version number. It’s truly ridiculous, but I can look at it an go ” well, I can do that“. And since starting is the hardest bit, that often gets me rolling.
        Don’t aim to finish, aim to start.

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      5. cloudy*

        Oh hey, I did this exact thing in college. I would do all my papers the morning they were due because then I could accept getting not-perfect-grades on assignments by telling myself “I didn’t really have time to make it perfect, actually.” I could emotionally handle 2-hour in-class exams perfectly fine (even enjoyed them) but I could not deal with a take-home research paper at all.

        For me, this went away entirely when I finished school and got a job that didn’t have these kinds of long, subjective, graded projects that allowed for me to procrastinate. My job was primarily “handle situations as they come in, the minute they come in”-type task handling. It was also very objective work – so it’s either done or it’s not done – with no time for “comparison” to how someone else might do it.

        I basically gave myself a break from long-term, planning-heavy tasks because I knew that that environment wasn’t good for me. In doing so, I think I got into the habit of being given a task and just doing the task right away without thinking. My job forced me to unlearn the bad coping methods because they were no longer relevant or useful.

        Now that I’m many years out of school, I can handle those kinds of tasks again with my new skills, but to be honest I don’t really feel the need to put myself through that all the time. Some people I think get stressed out by environments where everything is immediate, but I do very well in this kind of setting – and I’ve found that that can be a real asset in some careers, so why not play into my strengths?

        So, my possibly not-so-helpful suggestion is… perhaps it might be worth a little bit of career exploration to find out if maybe you’ll find you thrive in a totally different environment, like one with shorter tasks or more urgency. It probably doesn’t help with the procrastination, but it certainly helped me with my general quality of life.

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        1. Emmy Noether*

          So I particularly dislike writing, partly because there is no objective perfection in language, and I have trouble dealing with that. I studied physics and loved it. Just listening to lectures and doing problems with defined solutions. Perfect.

          Then I did a PhD (NOT recommended for procrastinators, ask me how I know) and drifted into a career that does involve writing and long term planning… sigh. I really do think a job with more immediacy would make me happier as a person, but I can’t think of one that uses my qualifications and skills.

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          1. Fanny Price*

            I am a patent attorney with a technical Ph.D. You can start in the career without going to law school first – law firms often hire staff scientists for patent work, and strictly speaking, you can have a full career without going to law school at all, although you’ll be paid less. I’m not sure about now, but when I was starting out patent attorneys almost always got the job first and then went to a law school night program (usually partially or fully paid for by their firm). Patent work is very heavily deadline-driven, much more than many other law jobs. I may need to work extra hours some weeks, but I usually know at least a month in advance that I have a busy period coming up. Something to think about, anyway.

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            1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

              I’m a patent paralegal in the UK, and co-sign.

              The USPTO is always looking for new trainee examiners too, and will (or certainly used to) train and qualify you on the job, so you can retire from examining into a lucrative private practice position. Also you have a lot of control over your workload and will be 90%+ remote, both of which can be very helpful for ND brains.

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          2. Lurker*

            I have an MA in musicology and a very similar problem to yours with writing on a deadline. I work in financial operations and IT.

            Your degree in particular indicates quantitative skill and advanced math. With that you could very easily slip into either of my fields. A lot of jobs like financial back office require on-the-job training.

            IT in particular still has an ethos among the old guard that your degree doesn’t matter at all. Check out SANS if cyber security interests you at all.

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      6. Nebula*

        People have already shared some practical tips that I also use – like breaking down the task into tiny chunks, or having multiple things to work on so you have a balance – but honestly the thing that really broke me out of it was therapy which addressed the underlying issues. I didn’t go to therapy for that reason, but it was one of the things that came up in the course of treatment, and the psychological factors at the root of the perfectionism are also part of the other ways my brain isn’t always very kind to me. So yeah, not an easy answer, and not something accessible to everyone, I realise, but that’s the truth of it.

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      7. Melody Powers*

        I’ve used some of the other techniques in this thread but the most helpful thing I did for my perfectionism was to confront my fear directly. I’d sit myself down and ask “what would actually happen if I did a terrible job on this?” and once I thought the different scenarios through they usually ended up not being that bad. Then I could stop being vaguely afraid of something undefined and start working on contingency plans for what I would do if that actually happened. That would make me feel better enough that I could get started with some of the other techniques like breaking things down into tiny tasks.

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    2. bamcheeks*

      I have taught lots of interview preparation classes for people at all levels, and literally dozens of times, someone has asked, “How should you answer, “what’s your biggest weakness”?” and someone else has said, “I’ve always heard that you should say you’re a perfectionist, so basically you’re saying that you’ll work TOO hard and it’s really a strength.” I have always asked the rest of the class if anyone is actually a perfectionist and whether it’s a strength, and there is nearly always someone who says exactly what you’ve said: no, it’s a genuine weakness, it has caused difficulties in work and study, it’s something they have had to learn to manage effectively so it doesn’t cause a problem for other people!

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    3. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

      Yeah, it’s not a strength at all. I get extremely stressed at things I cannot control (which is why I drive a manual) and it’s taken a very great deal of work for me to be able to let something go that isn’t perfect.

      What helped? I took up embroidery. When faced with a three hour unpicking session it becomes a lot easier to just work around a botched stitch and the mental skill does transfer well to work.

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    4. Emmy Noether*

      Yes! It can also manifest as being unable to delegate, redoing other people’s work, or as never being able to finish anything. Spending a lot of time on irrelevant details and side quests (also a form of procrastination I guess). Scope creep gone mad. Doing eleventy thousand reviews and edits. Scrapping a perfectly adequate result and starting over again. Being stressed out all the time and having impostor syndrome.

      The thing people imagine – working relentlessly to hand in perfect work on time (and maybe being a bit stressed) – is pretty much never what it is.

      It’s a bad answer for two reasons: because it sounds fake, and because it’s a fairly major problem if it’s not.

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    5. Arthenonyma*

      I have actually responded to that question with “I’m a perfectionist”, and then gone on to explain: because I know that about myself and I know that if I listen to it I will never get anything done, I’ve developed a lot of skills for making realistic assessments of what is possible/as good as I can manage with the resources I have and making myself stick to that despite the desire for perfection. This was very relevant to the job I was interviewing for, which involved resource allocation in a situation where there were never enough resources and all recipients were equally in need; I went on to talk about how I could see that succeeding in this position would mean finding the balance between doing the best you can and recognising that you can’t do it perfectly. Apparently they agreed, since I got the job!

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      1. Arthenonyma*

        Just to add: I didn’t bring it up to “turn it into a strength” or anything – I felt it was obvious from my work history (and general personality tbh) that I was someone who would work hard to get every detail exact, and I wanted to get out ahead of any concerns about how I would handle a job where that wasn’t possible.

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      2. WantonSeedStitch*

        That’s a good way of giving that answer. If it really IS your weakness, acknowledge that it’s a weakness and talk about how you’re trying to shore things up in that area. Personally, I’d love hearing that from a candidate in my field: a lot of people tend to spend too long trying to get every detail when it would be better to find the important points and deal with them efficiently.

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    7. Artemesia*

      This is really common. No one likes to think their paper or whatever is ‘the best they can do’ especially if they realize it is not fabulous. So last minute work gives you that excuse to yourself. Oh if I only had the time, it would be the great American novel, or an award winning paper or I’d get the grant for sure. It is also something I struggled with with writing; procrastination and then a mad dash almost comatose where the thing magically gets done.
      And yes, not the ‘flaw’ you want to be admitting to in an interview.

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      1. RussianInTexas*

        Not really, no. I am not a perfectionist at all, and I am fine with my work being good enough. My work is not something that can be fabulous anyway, it’s just work.
        And I don’t have any artistic hobbies, so really, I don’t strive for excellence in anything. Not art, not writing, not cooking, not house cleaning, nothing. Good enough is just find for my entire life.
        Last time I strove for excellence was 25 years ago in college, to prove to my high school teachers I could get top grades and I was just lazy, not stupid.

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    8. NotAnotherManager!*

      Totally agree – perfectionists can also be difficult to work with (because they expect everyone else to hold themselves to the same standards) and also not be able to balance other factors like time and cost with their work quality. I get just as many complaints about people overworking certain projects (and running up project costs for minute gains) as I do work quality complaints. It’s a balancing act.

      I don’t ask the weakness question in interviews, but the last time I had someone profess to be a perfectionist, I gave them a real-life work scenario in which we had to accomplish something on a budget-restricted project. Their response was, “Oh, no, I would have to tell the customer they had to increase the budget and extend the deadline because I simply could not turn over work product I felt I did not have the time to do perfectly.” That’s not an option, and they didn’t get the job.

      (In the interest of full disclosure, I am a recovering perfectionist.)

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  10. Irish Teacher.*

    I think the problem with number 4 is that the way you are phrasing it, it comes across like a flaw for you but a positive for your employer and what they want to know is what you will do badly workwise, which of your flaws will be a net negative for them. “I work so hard that I will disadvantage myself to benefit your company” may well be true but it both isn’t what they are looking for and sounds like something people would make up to try and turn the question around to talk about how great an employee they’d be.

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  11. Madame Arcati*

    Re #4 I’d hope employers are starting to realise that the weakness question is daft. It doesn’t serve anyone – nobody is going to be truly honest lest they look bad so you’re either going to get some toadying nonsense as the interviewee attempts to turn it round to a positive, or a humorous deflection that doesn’t help “I have a great weekend for home made cake; I hope there are no enthusiastic bakers in the office!”
    The only thing the weakness question gives is an opportunity in comment threads like this to come up with hilarious fantasy answers. I’ll start:

    “My bladder”

    “My greatest weakness is my total lack of patience with stupid interview questions; it brings out my violent side”

    “The real weakness in my work is my ability to concentra- oooh look a squirrel!”

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      2. A Significant Tree*

        There’s an internet comic I love where the exchange going something like this:
        Interviewer: “Could you tell me a little about your past job experience?”
        Candidate: “Well, I’d say my biggest weakness is listening”

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    2. bamcheeks*

      I think it’s an unhelpful question if you’re interviewing people who are less experienced in professional environments, because they are likely to see it as a “gotcha” question that you have to give a false/clever answer to. But if you’re applying for a mid-level professional or senior level role, it should be a something you can answer authetically and relevantly. It’s basically demonstrating that you are aware of your own strengths and weaknesses and able to manage them: I would not want to hire someone for a mid- or senior-level role who wasn’t able to talk about that.

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      1. Emmy Noether*

        I also think it can be useful, but only if the candidate has a prepared answer. That kind of carefully worded self-awareness does not come off the cuff for many people.

        My boss likes to ask this question and we once had a candidate say he didn’t have any weaknesses. That did NOT go over well, and neither will something glib or toadying.

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        1. bamcheeks*

          I think that’s true of most interview questions! Generally I think a good interview will be about 70-80% stuff you have prepared and are ready to talk about, and 20-30% thinking-through-as-you-go. But it’s definitely the biggest weakness (ha) of the process.

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          1. Emmy Noether*

            Well that’s true. Behavioral questions will also generally yield nothing useful if unprepared. Technical questions can often be worked through on the fly by a quick thinker. And asking for more details about the CV generally goes ok.

            There are also ways to coach an inexperienced applicant through the interview. Like instead of asking about a general weakness, asking what task they most struggle with in their current job.

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      2. Guacamole Bob*

        I think “what are your weaknesses” is still a bad question. I’d rather ask “what kinds of roles/working environment/management styles would be a poor fit for you?” or similar – so many characteristics can be a dealbreaker in some circumstances and a strength in others. I want broader self-awareness and someone thinking about fit, not just “I’m not great at X.”

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        1. bamcheeks*

          Yeah, I agree with that. I prefer something like, “Talk me through some of your weaker areas and how you manage them”, which is actually what I want to know.

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    3. Dinwar*

      I can see some value in it. Is the employee self-aware enough to know their weaknesses? Are they proactively trying to correct them? Or is this someone I’m going to have to carefully manage? Even knowing that they can spin things to sound good isn’t a bad thing to know; it’s a useful skill to have.

      That said, the average interviewer is horrible at interviewing. I’ve been on a few panels and I know I sucked at it–no training, no real guidance going in, so I had no idea what I was doing. It wasn’t until after three or four that anyone actually discussed the process with me. And that seems like a common pattern among the folks I talk with. Turns out management is an actual skillset that people need training and experience to perform well; who’d’ve thought?

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    4. Pizza Rat*

      I did answer “chocolate” at one interview. It got a laugh, but then they wanted the question answered anyway.

      It is indeed daft.

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  12. Apex Mountain*

    I realize that letter was from 2015, but I hope people aren’t still asking the “weakness” question in interviews. Does it actually reveal anything useful?

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    1. Allonge*

      I think it’s like with just about every other ‘cool’ interview question: you can put it in a thoughtful way to assess e.g. which part of a complex job an applicant would need more help with so you know how much you would need to customise the onboarding. You would not phrase it in a simplistic way of course.

      But it became a thing to ask and so people asked it without really thinking it through, like the ‘how many golf balls fit into a car’ type of questions. And then it became known and there was a ‘good answer’. And then the ‘good answers’ became known and we did the i-know-you-know-that-I-know dance. And so on.

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    2. Not your typical admin*

      I agree. I’ve always felt it’s a horrible question. People are naturally going to try and make themselves look as good as they can; and are very rarely going to revel true issues. It’s also been around so long as a question that most people have a scripted answer. I think a better question to judge someone’s self awareness is “tell me about a time you made a mistake in a work environment and how you fixed it”.

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    3. Nebula*

      I understand why people ask it, but I think what interviewers are trying to get at with that question can be better revealed by something like “Tell us about a time when something didn’t go well at work, and how you handled it/what you learned from it.” I think there is some value in gauging how someone handles mistakes, and whether they have a decent amount of self-reflection (basically you don’t want the ‘I never make mistakes’ guy who wrote in a while ago), but “What’s your biggest weakness?” is both too vague and too personal.

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      1. Emmy Noether*

        See, I prefer the abstract question, because I struggle finding the One Perfect Example that demonstrates exactly who I am.

        With your question, I’d think you were aiming at how I handle mistakes or how I handle conflict, and you’d get an answer that’s about the one time I didn’t double check something (which I usually do and is one of my strengths!) and it went wrong, and how I handled that. My “weakness” answer is about something very different. Mistakes are not weaknesses.

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    4. Lisa B*

      We spin ours this way: “Everyone at times gets feedback on something they can do better in the future. What’s something your supervisors have asked you to work on in the past?” This gets us to 1) how does this person accept critical feedback – if they balk or sputter that they’ve never received any improvement suggestions, not a great sign. 2) how are they at incorporating said feedback – if their manager suggested they work on X, we want to hear that they took it seriously and did something to work on it. We’re actually less concerned about what the area of critical feedback itself was.

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    5. I Have RBF*

      I remember an early career interview, decades ago, where I got asked that. Yes, my answer was that I was a perfectionist, because I was. I often could not even start a task until I had worked out how to do it exactly right. If I got it started, I would revise it repeatedly until I felt it was perfect. Great for some things, not for others. I had to learn, the hard way, “Fast, cheap, or right; pick two.” The more time I had to work on a thing, the better the output was.

      I’ve made it to the point of being able to assign “quality” metrics to a task:
      1. Gotta be perfect, take the time to polish it and test it
      2. Needs to be good, but no one is going to peek at the implementation
      3. Close enough is good enough, it needs to be done more than it needs to be perfect
      4. Anything that moves it forward is a win, put out the fire

      All of these have a place, and experience is knowing which belongs where.

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    6. Another Hiring Manager*

      I mentioned this above in another thread. If someone hasn’t Googled answers to rehearse, an honest answer can show that the candidate has some self-awareness. That’s an underrated quality, IMO

      Reply ↓
  13. Policy Wonk*

    For #3, I would approach this as a teachable moment, telling the client that “I love you” is not appropriate in the workplace, it makes people uncomfortable, and he really needs to find a different way to express appreciation. If he is saying this to you he may be saying it to others, and it needs to stop.

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    1. Czhorat*

      I love you for giving us this positive take.

      Joking aside, part of me thinks you’re absolutely right and another part bridles at the idea that it’s OP’s job to teach ostensibly grown adults how to interact professionally with other humans.

      Reply ↓
  14. Lucifer*

    The client in letter 3 isn’t saying “I love you” because he’s “a labor guy” OMG. Blue collar workers know professional norms for goodness sake.

    Reply ↓
    1. Peanut Hamper*

      Thank you. This is not a blue collar vs white collar kind of thing, at all.

      He does seem a bit out of touch with professional norms. You don’t buy dinner for the employees of a staffing agency just because they did their jobs (which benefits them as well). But this has nothing to do with being blue collar, or this would be a completely different letter (“All our blue collar workers are out of touch with professional norms and keep saying they love us.”)

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      1. Lucifer*

        Yeah you could honestly spend the bulk of your career in “professional” jobs and yet still do something like this or otherwise be out of step with various professional norms.

        And to piggyback off what others have mentioned elsewhere, yes it can be likely to come across blue collar workers using terms of endearment like “honey” or whatever, but you honestly can also come across that with white collar workers too.

        I’m not saying the LW can’t be weirded out by it or shouldn’t maybe say something to the client. But I don’t think that bringing up the client’s career background is relevant at all, honestly, even as a gut check.

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    2. anon recruiter*

      I work in a staffing agency that staffs a lot of manufacturing roles and many of the people I work with are very professional, but I do still get people very similar to those in this story. Men who call me sweetie or honey or sugar. Not in a disrespectful way, but just because that’s what’s normal to them. Some of that could be how norms differ between fields. LW brought it up to check if it was relevant.

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    3. Apex Mountain*

      I believe in just a few weeks time we could take that blue collar worker and pass him off as a duke at the Embassy ball. Just some diction lessons and a change of clothes

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    4. NotRealAnonForThis*

      They definitely say it, there’s typically an adjective or two in the statement though, and I’ve never heard it directed at any of the office staff, either!

      Reply ↓
  15. PerfectionistsAnonymous*

    I’m with Alison. Overcoming perfectionism is the single biggest struggle I’ve had in my career. I’m mostly on top of it after 30+ years, but it does still crop up in annoying ways at times and it remains my default instinct.

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  16. Someone Online*

    Re: #4, I just had an employee tell me that because she couldn’t do something up to her usual standard, she just wasn’t going to do it. That’s … not an option. Thing has to be done. In her case it is a very real weakness that she’s going to have to develop some strategies to work through.

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  17. H.Regalis*

    Should I tell my coworkers I have hemorrhoids?

    Me, audibly, out loud: NOOOO

    I sincerely hope your hemorrhoids are better now, but as your coworker I do not want to hear anything about your butthole. “Chronic health condition” works just fine.

    Seriously though, I hope this LW is having an easier time with this now. That sounds awful.

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    1. Czhorat*

      Giving details of a medical condition is usually not appropriate, but about things like this it’s doubly so.

      There are things about me that I’ve not disclosed to people around me because it’s none of their business, doesn’t help, and would make things awkward all around. And there are some that I *will* share with close and trusted colleagues because we’re fellow humans on this journey together.

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    2. I Have RBF*

      Yeah, if I said anything it would be “I have a chronic GI tract issue.” Then they can let their imagination fill it in if they like, but not need to messy details. If it’s someone I am more casual with I might add “It’s such a pain in the ass.” with the grin of a chronic punster.

      I have IBS-D, which is different but still a chronic GI tract issue. The same response applies.

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  18. DE*

    For the first one, I think it really matters if OP was correct on the merits. It sounds like the employee was being asked to more or different work but wasn’t going to be compensated appropriately. In my workplace that would result in a grievance being filed and a lawsuit if management didn’t immediately start following the contract. Though, I suspect there is no union involved here otherwise management probably would never have tried to pull this nonsense.

    Sometimes the relationship between management and workers IS adversarial. I don’t think anything is accomplished by pretending otherwise and treating the emotions of managers over the actual well being of workers.

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    1. Apex Mountain*

      Yes, it was hard to tell if the LW was really out of line, or is the company getting defensive because they pulled or delayed the promotion/raise?

      Reply ↓
      1. Observer*

        No. Firstly, by the LW’s own description it sounds pretty clear that they wanted the salary increase to happen even though the promotion was delayed, because the two things are not coupled anyway.

        Probably more important is *how* they handled it. They went off on the wrong person and they did so in a really poor way. And it looks like it’s part of a pattern.

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    2. Malarkey01*

      Nah you can’t blast your senior leadership in an email. That just isn’t how you conduct yourself, and no matter what the merits of your case, you have to be able to control yourself and behave appropriately at work.

      Reply ↓
  19. Apex Mountain*

    MLB Hall of Famer and KC Royals 3B George Brett was probably history’s most famous hemorrhoid sufferer. It didn’t seem to affect him too much in the workplace, but keep in mind being a professional baseball player is likely different than LW’s office environment

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  20. 2e asteroid*

    2: Whatever you do, do not write any emails to your co-workers that involve the phrase “absolute casserole”.

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  21. emails*

    I like the “only for dry information” idea but see a hurdle. My organization has IT support through a contractor which opens tickets. It can take 1-2 days to get a response. Sometimes the problem disappears in that time, but is intermittent such that it’s likely to recur. Recently the technician closed my ticket without helping me, meaning next time I need to wait a few days for “help”? How would you tackle that?

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    1. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

      Can you respond to the ticket by re-opening it? This may hold more urgency because it’s attached to an older complaint.

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    2. Margaret Cavendish*

      I think that counts as “dry information!” You need to tell the support person in IT that you can’t produce the TPS report because the database isn’t working correctly, and they closed the ticket but the problem hasn’t been solved. Those are just facts – you don’t need to wait any time before sending that kind of email.

      What Alison and OP1 are trying to avoid is sending a long ranty message to everyone in IT, from the CTO to the database admins, from cyber security to everyone on the support desk, telling them that they’re a bunch of useless fools who wouldn’t know a TPS report if they tripped over it and they should all be fired immediately so the organization can bring in someone who actually knows how to do their job. *That* is the kind of email that requires a couple of days of cooling-off time before you send it.

      If you’re just letting them know that you still need help, go ahead and send the email!

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    3. Cordelia*

      That is “dry information”. You just explain the problem as you have above. You are just stating the facts and what you want to happen, you’ve taken all the emotion out of it. You’re not expressing outrage or ranting, or copying every man and his dog into the email. You’re fine!

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  22. Tom L*

    LW1. This is why I get colleagues to proofread emails when I’m angry about something. Sometimes they will agree with my tone, sometimes they will tell me to soften the tone. It also adds an extra layer of time for me to calm down a bit. This was more a problem at a previous job where I had a lot of really pushy clients

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    1. Pizza Rat*

      There are days when I write everything I’m feeling into Notepad, then edit it down to professional before putting it into an actual email.

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  23. Margaret Cavendish*

    OP4, you can say it, but you have to be specific about what makes it a weakness. How has “being hard on yourself” negatively affected your work? If you’re just using it to say “I always do a great job on everything!!1!”, most interviewers will see through it and think you don’t have a good grasp of your own skills – or they’ll see through it and think you’re full of sh!t. Either way, it’s probably not the impression you want to give.

    For example…

    ~Does being hard on yourself mean you don’t recognize when something is “good enough?” Have you missed deadlines because you kept tinkering around with otherwise finished products that didn’t need tinkering?

    ~Are you being hard on yourself about the wrong things? Do you waste time trying to copy edit a first draft, when the goal is just to get the ideas on paper?

    ~Are you being hard on yourself with the wrong people? Does it impact your ability to work with the CEO, if they’re saying something you disagree with? Or on the other hand, does it impact your ability to delegate or work on a team, if you’re worried the results won’t be exactly what you would have come up with on your own?

    ~Has being hard on yourself caused you a lot of stress in the past? How has it affected your work-life balance, or your relationships with your family and friends?

    And then your answer should always include what you’re doing to compensate or correct it. The question isn’t usually just about the weakness itself – it’s about recognizing that you have weaknesses in the first place, and what you do to address them.

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  24. TMarin*

    re: email. Both of these have served me well.
    1) Remove everyone from the send field. Write a scathing reply email. Save it to your draft folder and let it sit for several days. Then delete, and write a reasonable one.
    2) Write the scathing email in a Word document, save it in a personal folder. Re-read after several days, shake your head at yourself, delete, and write a reasonable email.

    Reply ↓

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