Ask a Manager

It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager and I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer whose employee was blowing up her phone with memes and videos — even in the middle of the night — and refused to stop? Here’s the update.

I’m happy to share an update. You were certainly right about Lisa.

I directly instructed her to stop sending memes and she became very unhappy at work and began complaining.

Her neediness took on a new form cloaked in more professional excuses, and she requested meeting after meeting where she complained about not feeling supported or loved. She told stories about past bosses who threw house parties, bosses who wanted hourly texts, and slowly explained that maybe I just don’t know how to be a boss, since I worked at a sandwich shop in high school. In my decade of owning a business, this was the first time any employee had just straight up insulted my work experience to my face.

Finally, I couldn’t attend yet another meeting and she quit. She quit via email 12 minutes before a full day of client appointments. She must have snuck into my business in the middle of the night to take home her things. I was relieved because I thought it was over.

Unfortunately, she continues to find excuses to stay in touch even now, months later. First, she didn’t receive her final paycheck in the mail, so I allowed her to stop by in person and she brought her kid and it took an hour to get her out. Then, she emailed saying she’d left an item (think a small item like a Tupperware lid or clipboard) and wanted to stop by to look for it. I responded strongly, telling her in no uncertain terms I did not have her item and that she was not to stop by. Next she had a friend (who was never a customer) leave fake reviews on my business Google and Yelp pages, writing that Lisa was the best employee we’d ever had.

Now she’s emailing again saying a tool I once bought her needs repair—will I send the SKU on the receipt? Problem is, we buy a lot from this supplier and she didn’t even tell me which month it was purchased so I’d have to go through a year of receipts in detail in the hopes of finding this for her. It would take me at least 2-3 hours to deal with this and I feel that her new employer should be buying or repairing her tools, not me.

So far I haven’t responded at all. I am worried now that any response will encourage her to keep engaging. I truly don’t understand why she won’t just go away.

It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager and I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

Remember the letter-writer who felt no ambition whatsoever at work? Here’s the update.

Your comment that I was probably not in the right field wasn’t news to me, but I wasn’t moving at the time because I felt stuck. It’s hard to explain, but it was almost like the follow up to being a first generation college student and having no idea what’s going on is just becoming a first generation professional and having no idea what’s going on. A lot of stories I saw online about people moving in and out of my field talked about using connections to make small lateral changes until they got into something they liked without ever having to make a BIG change all at once. I had no idea how to do that!

So I didn’t. About 9 months after this letter got published I walked into my boss’s office and handed in my two weeks, with no job lined up and no plan. I’m lucky to have been able to do that, and I will forever be grateful to my fiancé who bore the weight of our combined finances for half a year while I figured stuff out. After five years of college and then three years of working and hoping I’d figure it out as I went, I didn’t feel like I was getting any closer just trucking on. I stayed too tired and burnt out all of the time to tackle the problem while working. So I quit, and I picked up a part time job while I played around with different ideas, doing research and talking to friends and family, and ultimately I landed at a library.

You don’t know me, but when my mom told my old high school teachers I was a librarian now they said that was the most [me] thing they could imagine! It’s funny, I love books and information and organization but libraries had never occurred to me. I just kind of remember someone saying to me “loving books isn’t enough to be a librarian” when I was young and that kind of turned me off of it forever. And, well, loving books isn’t the only thing you need to be good at librarianship, but it sure does make it more fun. My job now is a lot more low impact, low stress, and I find myself in a helper and educator position all the time, interacting with people who really need me, and I love it. I still do struggle to put together five year career plans, and don’t feel much need to “advance”! I’m happy to just keep at it. But otherwise I’d say I’m at a complete one-eighty from two years ago. And for the readers who were very concerned about me pursuing grad school due to the cost: with help from my employers and a hefty scholarship from the university, I’m starting an MLIS program in the fall at no cost to me (in my state the degree is required for Professional Librarian certification).

Thanks so much again for answering. Even though I already knew some of what you had to say, your words were encouraging to me and you did tell me how to navigate the issue in the moment, which is advice thats continued to serve me in similar conversations.

It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager and I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back– there’s more to come today!

1. My employee blames others for her mistakes (first update here)

As I said last time, we got new software which would be essential in tracking her productivity and completion of tasks as opposed to relying on Excel spreadsheets that kept mysteriously “disappearing” or becoming corrupted. I was gathering my evidence and around the time I felt I had enough, I was on Indeed searching for a clinician (there’s a country-wide shortage of our clinicians right now, so I check Indeed once a week or so for new resumes) and found her resume posted just the day before. (She’s not a clinician but of course used the key words.) I immediately posted the position and began interviews, and though it took a few months, I found someone who I think is going to be fantastic.

It’s also important to note that her attitude and work quality declined immensely to the point where not only did I have to have a conversation with her (which she denied everything, as per my first email), but my boss had to have a conversation with her after other coworkers complained (where she still denied everything), and multiple patients contacted me about her attitude towards them.

As I also mentioned previously, we work in different locations, and while I tried to work with her at least once a week, I’ve had someone on leave and was training a new person so I haven’t been there in a while except when she called out sick (6 times in the past 3 months, and usually on a Monday…). When I walked in, it was clear she knew that something was up – and she handled it about as well as I expected: pretty much a total temper tantrum.

My character, my boss’s character, my business practices, and more were maligned. She yelled about a whole lot of nonsense, and told me I’d be hearing from her lawyer no fewer than eight times: cheating her out of wages on this final paycheck (you literally have the paystub in front of you!), putting her unused PTO in the same paycheck (she didn’t want taxes taken out of it even though I told her that taxes are taken out from PTO just like regular wages), cheating her out of PTO (even though I enclosed an accounting of every accrual and use from the day she started, because I had a feeling), ageism, that she can’t afford COBRA (I don’t control health insurance prices!), because I was penalizing her for an unexcused absence earlier this week (this was already in the works but that certainly didn’t help), because she decided the termination was retaliation for blaming someone else for another of her mistakes just an hour beforehand, and for breaching a contract (we are an at-will state and have no contract specifying a length of time for the job) – just as I expected and wrote five months ago.

We’ll see whether I hear from her lawyer, but I’m glad I was able to gather evidence I needed before letting her go. If she does find the funds for a lawyer, I’m pretty confident that we’ll come out unscathed. I’m watching our socials/review sites, but hopefully this whole thing is over with.

Thanks for your help!

2. Should I wear my wedding ring to an interview?

I used your advice and did not wear my engagement ring to the interview. I chose a plain band instead.

I’m excited to share that I got the job and start in a few weeks! In previous interviews with this employer, I had shared my desired salary band of $X to $XX. When making the job offer, the HR person offered me $XX right away – and seeing that it is 25% more than I make now – I happily accepted. In hindsight, I don’t think the ring would have affected the salary negotiations, but I do think it would have been a distraction and pulled attention away from the substance of the interview.

Many of the commenters were focused on the issue of me showing up to work with a wedding ring after not wearing one to the interview. The job is mostly remote so it won’t be an issue much of the time. When I do interact with my new colleagues in person, I doubt anyone will remember which ring I wore previously.

This was my first in-person interview as a married person, and the first time I’ve had to consider the fact that some folks may have an unconscious bias that because I’m a married woman, children must be in my immediate future. Who knows if that thought factored into anyone’s opinion – but I’m taking this as a win. Thank you for your great advice and the support of the commenters. I’ll continue to be a dedicated AAM reader!

3. My male colleagues wait for me to set up all our meetings (even meetings I’m not in)

By the time this letter was published, I had proposed a few times and the meeting had been scheduled. (One of the males brought a female associate in to do his scheduling, which reinforced the problem.)

A few complications that might help clarify:
– The meeting I wrote about was a meeting I needed to attend too, not one I was just handing off to the two men. So I was implicated in the scheduling, and I did care (though maybe less than they did) about being included in the final scheduled meeting.
– We are at different organizations, so there was no easy Outlook option.
– Once I dropped out of the conversation, I think the whole thing died. Which does reinforce how much women are relied upon to schedule things!

I’d also just add that a number of people in the comments were very pro-Calendly, but I’d remind people to think of the power dynamics. Whomever fills out the Calendly link is taking more time than the other person to schedule the meeting. And very often, as the comments revealed, women are more often asked to do that scheduling, even when the meeting was requested by a man!

4. When I ask for a raise, my company asks what more I’m willing to take on to justify it (#2 at the link; first update here)

I’m still handling my old duties (at my new salary). My hours are still way too many. My workload continues to bloat as new and old responsibilities collide on an already overcrowded plate. And all the things I didn’t have time for before (and tried multiple times to develop a strategy to deal with it) start shouldering their way to the front of the priority list with no real plan in place to deal with it.

I’ve had some follow-up conversations with my boss about my promotion but so far nothing has happened. I’ve heard little bits and pieces about what I will be taking over and finally got a glimmer of what will be coming off my desk. When? Who knows. There’s supposed to be an official announcement and discussion of job duties “soon.”

What is new is… I’m in therapy! After an extremely rough patch at work that left me feeling gaslit and frustrated, I found a therapist! So I have been spending this time trying to learn how to establish healthy boundaries, be okay with leaving at 5 (why is that so hard?!), and deal with the perfectionism I apparently have.

I’m focusing on what I can control right now: me. I am fighting for a healthy work/life balance, trying to convince myself that’s okay and that I deserve it, and making myself a priority. Because as a very wise manager advice columnist once advised, “Don’t invest in their success at the expense of your own.”

So I am trying to invest in myself right now and gain as many new skills and experiences as I can to set myself up for success…wherever that might lead!

It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager and I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are three updates from past letter-writers.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

1. My company asked for documentation of my dietary restrictions (#2 at the link)

I followed up with both my organization’s parent organization and my supervisor. From the parent organization I received only the following vague text: “interpretation of policy” and a link to the policy.

My supervisor emailed citing the parent organization’s policy that food costs are not covered when they are included with a conference registration and noting that funds for professional development are to defray travel costs and may not cover the entirety of expenses. In a meeting with my supervisor following this email, I noted that the travel was a meeting that’s core to my position responsibilities and not a conference. Thus there was no registration fee and this wasn’t professional development. I also noted that technically I wasn’t provided a meal. I noted too that while I have medical documentation for gluten intolerance, I do not have medical documentation for not eating pork and beef, and that my colleague’s meal was covered. I also noted that getting medical documentation required time from the employee and doctor’s office and depending on the doctor’s office could require a copay. I reiterated that this experience did not foster a culture of inclusivity.

From my supervisor I learned that the organization’s business office has been dealing with many, many instances of employees going to conferences with meals provided and choosing to eat elsewhere due to *preferences* (not allergies, intolerances, or dietary restrictions) and so the business office is getting a lot of pushback from the parent organization for *any* exceptions to the policy from the parent organization.

It was clear that if I don’t want to pay for this meal, I need to provide medical documentation or follow-up with the parent organization. Given that I’m tired of dealing with this modest meal cost, I’ve sent a screen capture from my doctor’s health portal.

I completely understand that the organization should not be paying for meals twice (e.g. conference registration + restaurant meal) because of an employee’s preferences and I am also disappointed with the blanket hardline approach and that the nuances to my situation (not a conference, no registration, not professional development) are being dismissed by the parent organization.

Update to the update:

The screen capture of my health portal with the gluten intolerance note circled in red was sufficient and my organization paid for the meal.

2. I’m afraid people at work will think I’m being abused (#2 at the link; first update here)

I’m the one who first wrote you laughing about how I’m so clumsy that people thought something terrible had happened to me but eventually got a game-changing diagnosis after your readers urged me to check in with a doctor. My last update was just under a year ago, and a lot has happened since then!

My manager at the new job from my last update continued to be an incredible support, even when six weeks of physical therapy turned into five months. However, problems started to arise last summer that ended up being indicative of a pretty toxic corporate culture. At one point, our billion-dollar parent company decided furniture movers were too expensive, so on-site admin staff were suddenly required to do a lot of heavy lifting. I had to get an exemption under ADA, because even though my collarbone was doing great, the amount of physical labor that was expected was way more than I’ll ever be able to do again.

Weirdly, that ended up being the spark for some major drama of dubious legality in a series of semi-related incidents over the course of several months. During a few of the dramatic incidents, I found myself drafting emails to you that I never bothered sending because I knew what you’d say: the situation wasn’t normal, safe, or ethical and the chances of me single-handedly fixing such a messed up and hostile workplace were slim to none. Once again I heard your commenters in the back of my mind, this time telling me to run for the hills.

The good news: I just accepted an offer for a new position! It’s a 55% increase in pay with way more PTO, mostly WFH, and the person who recommended I apply says it’s the healthiest, most functional workplace she’s ever had. I’ll get to travel more, help underserved communities, and feel good about my professional life.

More good news: while I continue to be something of a medical novelty (my collarbone x-rays were at one point being used as a teaching tool), I’ve seen a significant and sustained decrease in accidents. I’m definitely not graceful by any means, but I’m getting there.

Thank you (and the commenters!) again for the support, even if it was sometimes just in my mind.

3. How honest can I be with recruiters that money is the only reason I want to leave my current job?

Well, I ended up using an offer I received from one of those recruiters to get a counter offer from my current employer. I was totally prepared for them to lowball me, but true to their word, they matched my offer. The amount ended up being 5x the raise they traditionally give! On top of this, I’ll still be eligible for our yearly increase in a few months. So really, I’ll be making even more than the other company offered me in about 90 days. I also used this time to negotiate a few other perks and benefits I had been wanting – always negotiate! The worst they can say is no.

I know you usually recommend against taking a counter offer from your current employer, but I do still love the job and now they’re paying me exactly what I asked for (and soon, more!). I believed my boss when they told me they were bound by the company’s raise structure, and I appreciate that they shared with me a way to get around it. We’ve always had a good relationship and I honestly would have hated to leave their team if I hadn’t gotten the match I wanted. A good boss is truly invaluable.

In a total coincidence, I’ve also been assigned some new projects that I’m so excited to be working on, things I’ve literally been waiting years for. I have no doubt I made the right choice and am so happy my company came through for me!

Thank you to everyone who gave advice in the comments. More than anything else you all convinced me to just go ahead and see what I could do to change my current situation — and I did!