miscellaneous

the best office holiday party date story of all time

A couple of years ago, someone shared what I consider to be the best holiday date story of all time, and it must be shared here again. Enjoy: When I was fresh out of college, a dude in my social circle invited me to his fancy work Christmas party. He was a teacher, so I’d […]

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all of my 2021 book recommendations

All year long, I’ve made a weekly book recommendation when kicking off the weekend open thread. These aren’t work-related books; they’re just books I like, mostly fiction. Sometimes they’re books that I’m in the middle of reading, and other times they’re just long-standing favorites. Here’s the complete list of what I’ve recommended this year (maybe […]

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“I will confront you by Wednesday of this week”

Several years ago, a reader shared with us this epic email that was sent by their company’s boss after a holiday party gone terribly awry, and as we enter the holiday season we remember its glory. “This happened about ten years ago, but the email I received from our boss was so epic I preserved […]

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the schedule for updates this year

A heads-up about update season: for the next few weeks I’ll be posting at midnight, 11 am, 12:30 pm, 2 pm, 3:30 pm, and 5 pm (all times are Eastern)* … as a minimum. There will sometimes be additional posts at 10:30 am and random times throughout the afternoon as well! We have a lot […]

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I made a gift guide for every employee on your team

If you’re the boss, finding the right gifts for your employees can be fraught with questions: How much do you spend? Should you spend the same amount of money on each person? And if you don’t know someone well, how do you make sure they like the gift while still keeping it professional? For the […]

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our white manager centers herself in conversations about racism — and other questions with Michelle Silverthorn

Today Michelle Silverthorn, founder and CEO of Inclusion Nation, returns to Ask A Manager! Michelle is the author of the best-selling book Authentic Diversity: How to Change the Workplace for Good (read an excerpt here) and talked with us earlier this year about the work she does to help build more equitable companies. Now she’s back to take […]

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