Ask a Manager

A reader writes: I recently applied for a promotion at work and was passed over in favor of an outside candidate. I won’t go into all the details, but hopefully it suffices to say that I was a very strong candidate, I had a lot of internal support, and everyone I’ve talked to has been […]

Last month’s salary survey received more than 13,000 responses. You can view all the responses in a spreadsheet that you can sort by industry, job, location, and more. However, that’s a lot to sort through so reader and data analytics professional Angelique Dawkins created graphs looking at some of the data.

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker interrupts me with questions she could answer herself My coworker and I used to work in the same extremely toxic workplace. We leaned on each other, commiserated, and when I told her I was done, she pointed me in the direction of a […]

It will come as a surprise to exactly no one that Americans don’t get enough vacation time from their employers. The average American worker in private industry gets only 11 paid vacation days after a year of employment (plus, generally, federal holidays and paid sick leave). That’s awfully stingy compared to how much leave workers […]

A reader writes: I am in my late 20’s and have had what some may consider a “tough” life. I’ve overcome a few obstacles (think addiction, gang violence, prison, broken family, homelessness, etc.). A big part of my personal life involves using public platforms to share my story. Before I turned my life around, I […]

Here are my favorite posts of 2023, in no particular order: 1. My employee doesn’t think we’re doing enough about bears at work Because of bears. 2. Someone or something is deleting our work emails Because of the mystery. 3. My coworker and I attend the same sex club Because I adore this sort of […]

Here are the posts that interested people the most in 2023, via two lists: the most viewed posts and the most commented on posts. Most viewed posts of 2023: 10. I supervise a manager who falsified an employee write-up … but I don’t think she should be fired 9. I resent my employee for being […]

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 […]