ask the readers

Looking for crowdsourced wisdom? Here are reader discussions about life at work.

ask the readers: how to unionize your workplace

A lot of workplaces have a lot of reasons to unionize right now, and organizing could be your only option if your employer is behaving badly and refusing to engage in reasonable dialogue with you and your coworkers. This is not my area of expertise, so let’s hear from readers with experiencing with unionizing. What […]

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how can I become more self-aware and not be a jerk at work?

In response to the letter earlier this week from someone who had behaved badly at work and seemed to be avoiding responsibility, a reader asked this: What advice do you have from preventing this kind of personality from developing in the first place? I’m a year out from college (2019 grad) and have been working for […]

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let’s talk about mid-life career changes

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I would love a whole post on mid-life career changes! Especially if people are willing to share their specific fields. I tried to quit accounting and become a TV writer around age 29 and found that I was already too old, given the competitive field […]

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how do I manage my stress and stay (reasonably) positive in the face of impending layoffs?

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: My company recently announced that they’re looking at the possibility of significant layoffs in the reasonably near future (6-8 weeks). My industry has been pretty hard hit by the Covid-19 situation, and it’s not something I didn’t see coming, but it still wasn’t great to […]

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what’s your company doing to support parents right now … or what do you wish they were doing?

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I’m really curious to learn what other companies and organizations are doing to support parents right now. It seems so difficult (as someone who does not have kids, especially young kids) and challenging, and my organization would like to do more. If readers could share […]

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how do I motivate myself to work from home?

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: Since starting to work from home full-time, I’m finding it extremely hard in the mornings to just start working. I struggled with this in the office, but the physicality of being in the office and the presence of other coworkers usually kicked my butt into […]

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how can suddenly remote teams keep functioning well?

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: Like many others, I am now managing a team that is fully work-from-home. I have a team of seven and we are typically dispersed across three cities anyway, but I’m stuck as to how to keep them feeling engaged / connected when they aren’t going […]

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