what’s the pettiest thing you’ve done at work (or seen done)?

One of the most amusing things about work is how just plain petty it can make people. Here are some excellent stories of pettiness that have been shared here over the years:

“At one of my early jobs one of my coworkers was a, shall we say, interesting character. She was called out about something in a meeting and was fuming at the rest of us. The next morning she came in, went into the rest room, and then went into her boss’ office to quit on the spot. She left without a word to anyone else. Later it was discovered that she had removed every roll of toilet tissue from the rest room.”

“I’m a graphic designer for a company that has a lot of athlete ambassadors, and thus a lot of my coworkers fancy themselves elite athletes as well (they’re not). For a New Year’s post on social media, we had a ‘meet the team’ post where everyone on the team had a picture and a bio of them using their favorite athletic product we manufacture. I have one coworker who particularly thinks he’s god’s gift to the world and has a huge ego about his supposed athletic ability, and it drives me INSANE. So as the graphic designer, I built out all of the posts before posting on the brand’s social media. This coworker put one of his personal records in his bio, so I decided to take his bloated ego down a couple pegs and added a zero to the end of his record time. After it was posted, he noticed immediately and had a total temper tantrum, crying about how people are now going to think he’s super slow! It was so *chef’s kiss* satisfying.”

“When I worked as a cashier in Target, if a customer was especially horrible to me (seriously though, why are some people so mean to cashiers) I would start to scan the items on the conveyor belt slower…and slower…..a n d s l o w e r.. .. .. . .a n d s l o w e r . . . . until I could see them seething at my incredibly frustrating pace. I would take their money and punch in the amount slowly and bag their items at the same pace too. And to make sure they knew I was being a d*ck specifically to THEM, I would then make sure they saw me scan and bag the next customer’s items very fast as they collected their bagged items. I’m lucky I never received a complaint.”

“A coworker, Jane, was very protective of her lunch hour (and the culture of our office was you eat lunch when possible and sometimes that might be late or early to accommodate other meetings, so her attitude was out of sync with the office). We had a grandboss who liked to schedule meetings right at lunchtime, and when Jane asked for them to be moved for her lunch, grandboss said just bring lunch in with you if needed. So Jane brought in a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly jars, and a tray of cheeses and proceeded to make everyone in the meeting a sandwich and cheese plate during the meeting. Neither she nor the grandboss blinked at this, and for a while we all had yummy veggie trays, sandwiches, and once a full salmon (like the entire grilled fish cut into servings conference table side) during lunchtime meetings. It was the craziest showdown ever- and both people were pretty miserable so it was great to watch.”

We need more of these stories. Let’s hear about the pettiest thing you’ve ever done at work, or seen done. Share in the comments!

my coworker answers questions directed to me, social media post trashing a colleague, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My coworker interrupts to answer questions directed to me

I work as a paralegal. There are 10 of us sitting in close proximity cubicles. I’ve been here the longest (13 years) and am the “lead paralegal” and trainer.

About a year ago, I trained a new paralegal, Christy. She is very eager, which I respect. However, lately she has been a little too eager, but I wonder if I am just being overly sensitive. Just about every time someone comes to me with a question (attorneys or other paralegals), she rolls her chair out of her cubicle (about three yards from mine) and answers on my behalf even though I’m right there! She literally forces herself into my and others conversations. I find it very disrespectful. I do tend to take a slight pause before answering anything, but she is high energy and answers quickly. Just today, my coworker came and said, “Jill, I have a question,” then Christy proceeded to roll out, he asked his question, then Christy answered before I had a chance to respond.

Her answers are generally correct, but I just find this rude so I did attempt to address it with her privately. She said, “Well, you can chime in” but I said, I shouldn’t have to chime in to a question addressed to me. She can chime in after I answer. She didn’t seem to understand what the issue is and so it continues. She does it to others also. I see others noticing as they now tend to fidget when coming to me for something. I feel it takes the respect away that I worked so hard to build through the years. Should I just suck it up and let it go on as it seems somewhat petty to her or what should I say/do?

The next time she starts answering a question addressed to you, cut in and say, “Excuse me, since the question was addressed to me, I’d like to answer it.” If she says she’s just chiming in, you should say, “Please let me answer questions directed to me.”

However, I’m guessing that if you felt comfortable handling it this way, you’d already be doing it … and since you haven’t, I suspect it might feel a little aggressive to you. I want to assure you that it’s not — it’s assertive, but it’s not aggressive. (What Christy is doing is aggressive though!) I’d also bet money that the people who have come over specifically to talk to you will appreciate you asserting yourself.

It’s annoying that Christy is forcing you to be more assertive about boundaries than you should have to be, but it’s likely the only way she’ll learn to stop running roughshod over your conversations.

Keep in mind, though, that you’ll probably have to do this several times before she gets the point. But even if she never does, you’ll at least be reclaiming control of the conversation.

Read an update to this letter. 

2. My awful old coworker made a public social media post trashing a colleague

I recently saw a post on a social media site by a former colleague (“Sally”). I still work for the same company where I worked with Sally, but in a different department. After I left, a new position was created. My former boss said the person hired to this role is fantastic.

Sally’s post, which is fully public and on a social media site where she is connected with dozens of colleagues from our company, details how she cannot stand a certain person she works closely with and asks for advice dealing with her. In the comments, she makes it clear who she’s speaking about, as she says the number of months this person has been employed at the company. In that small department, it could only be one person.

Sally was, frankly, toxic. She made me miserable every time I had to work with her on anything, which was frequently. I was mostly happy working in that department, but Sally was one of the main reasons I left.

Should I anonymously report the post to my company’s HR, or mind my own business? I’m glad to be free of Sally, but hate the thought of her torturing some other innocent person.

Since you still work there and it sounds like you’re on good terms with your old boss, why not discreetly alert her to it? You could send her the link with a note that says something like, “Whoa, this is a public post and is pretty clearly about Jane. I thought you’d want to be aware.” That’s not overstepping — and it’s really something Sally’s boss should be dealing with rather than HR anyway.

3. I feel guilty about leaving my job

I am currently waiting to hear back on a job that I believe I have a fairly reasonable chance of getting, and while I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high, I’m already feeling some guilt about possibly leaving.

My current manager Jane has only been in our office for about a year. I have three other coworkers: Cathy, who has been here longer than me and is good at her job; Marie, who has been here as long as I have (three years) and is not great at her job; and Dana, who has been here 5 months and is still not even doing half her workload because she still struggles with what she does do. I frequently have to help Dana and Marie.

I’m feeling guilty because I have no issues with Jane and my leaving will put her in a bind, especially since I don’t really have a backup for my position. Cathy has too much on her plate (Dana is supposed to be her backup and help, but no one seems to think she’ll get to that point), and I don’t think Jane will trust Dana or Marie to do my job.

I know this is all premature, but is it normal to feel guilt like this? I have wanted to leave for a while, and I don’t think there will ever be a “good” time.

Incredibly normal. It might be the biggest theme of all the themes in my mail. There is an epidemic of job-quitting guilt.

But look: people leave jobs. It’s inherently part of the normal course of business. More often than not, departures cause some inconvenience and it’s really common to feel that whatever time you’re contemplating leaving isn’t a good time to do it. That’s just how it goes. But it being an inconvenience or a bad time isn’t a reason not to leave, or to feel guilty about leaving. One way or another, your team will figure things out and move forward.

And for what it’s worth, Jane should have been dealing with the Marie issues long before now. It’s not your fault that she hasn’t.

4. Should I take a break from school and teach English in Taiwan?

I’m from the States, but I’m in Taiwan now. I’m nearly finished with my degree back home and came over to visit friends who are teaching EFL.

I feel pretty burned out from school — starting and stopping in Covid, online classes, NO classes, and what not. I received my Associate of the Arts degree already, but I’ve been doing some research on working over here and it seems like I could start teaching with my AA and a TEFL. I just finished and passed a TEFL class recently (yay!). Here’s my question — should I take a break from school and teach English here for a year?

All my friends who are over here already are encouraging me, especially because they can see how much I’m enjoying being out here and that a break would do me good. But I’m worried about finishing my degree. I’ve got two semesters to go. But I really feel like I need a break. How do you see things?

I’d recommend going back and finishing your degree now if it at all possible. Two semesters is not a lot, and if you take a year-long break, it can get much more difficult to go back and finish — both because it can be harder than you expect to get  back in the right frame of mind for school and because life has a tendency to throw unanticipated things at you that could get in the way later.

So if you can, I’d push yourself to finish now and get the degree out of the way. You can always go back and teach in Taiwan afterwards if you want.

5. Is this enough money to leave a job I love?

For the past two years, I have worked at a company I absolutely love. It is a large organization and, despite being fairly junior, I am well-known by many employees, including those in technical roles. I typically stroll into the office at around 9:45, my preferred start time as I love sleeping in, the co-founder knows me by name, and most of my teammates have become close friends. I also have a desirable work/life balance where I can take plenty of PTO, and almost everyone I’ve encountered is kind, hard-working, and empathetic. Above all, I feel like I can be my authentic self at work. My company and team really feel like home.

My only problem is that my manager seems to have no interest in my career growth. Despite my consistently high performance ratings, I feel like he wants to keep me as a coordinator. When I started, he claimed that if I performed well, I would be promoted into a specialist role in about a year. However, when the time came, he hired externally. I was livid because he never provided any negative feedback. When I asked him about this, he gave a very indirect answer that made no sense. I have received level promotions, which are nice, but I really want a title promotion and the salary increase that comes with it.

Recently, a recruiter from another company reached out regarding a role that would pay a whopping 30% more than I’m currently making. I make a reasonable salary, but I am a woman who is about her money, and this type of increase would be amazing and more in line with what I would expect, considering that I have a relevant Master’s Degree. It also sounds like this company has a lot of opportunities for growth. The phone screen and subsequent call with the hiring manager went very well, and I was advanced to an onsite interview. The onsite interview could have been better (my in-person interview skills are a bit rusty), and at this point, your guess is as good as mine on whether I’ll get an offer. However, this whole process has gotten me to wonder, “How much money is enough money to leave a job that you love?” Would it be foolish to leave a team and company I love just because of money? This other company seems great, and all of the perks and benefits are comparable to where I’m currently at, but there really is no way to tell if I would like it just as much without taking the plunge first. I’m just afraid that if I stay in my current role, I’ll never move up and will continue to be anchored at a lower salary.

We work for money, and 30% is a significant increase. It’s not foolish to leave a job you love for one that pays significantly more, as long as you do your due diligence on the place you’d be moving to.

You have the advantage of not needing to make the move, which means you’re in a position of strength here — you can dig around into what this company/manager/job are like (including talking to people who work there or have worked there) and think critically about whether you’re likely to be happy there. You’re not in a position where you need to leap just because you need something.

But if you do that due diligence and things seem good, you should seriously consider it.

All that said … two years is on the early side to be concluding that you’ll never move up! People don’t normally get promoted before then. But if you’re seeing indicators from your boss that your chances of moving up aren’t good (and I’d put “couldn’t explain to you what it would take to get promoted” pretty squarely in that category), it makes sense to seriously consider other jobs.

updates: I secretly moved people’s desks two inches, coworker keeps stealing our snacks, and more

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.

1. I secretly moved people’s desks two inches over and they freaked out

Your feedback was very good to hear for my mental health, and to help me better recognize when I am given an unreasonable task.

I wrote originally that my team was pressuring me to sit with them but didn’t actually provide a desk on the floor, how all my attempts to solve the situation were shut down, and how everybody got very angry at me when I tried to move each desk a tiny amount to create some room.

They sort of did have a seat for me, but that seat was rather… illegal? Highly unreasonable? Horribly uncomfortable? I would have been in the hallway, everybody on the floor would have to squeeze by me to get to their seats (and everybody wanting to go to a conference room), everybody would see my screen all the time, and I am pretty sure it was blocking a fire exit. I didn’t agree to take that seat, especially with much more reasonable options a tiny bit further away.

This is also what I learned about the seating situation:-

– Nominally seats were assigned, but this was not enforced in the slightest.

– Any change in desk positioning or assignment had to go through office admin, sometimes office design (who were working with an architect and interior designer to keep a vision for the space and would protest people wanting to add shelves or cabinets), and IT (some seats were attached to immovable and inflexible cable outlets, and monitors were tightly assigned). Each of these had veto power and would have to be convinced separately.

– The people longest in the office have staked out their favorite spots (corners, windows) and were fiercely defending them. Apparently there have been some issues regarding desk spacing before.

– Newer people (like me) were constantly shuffled around to improve teams seating together, which was very difficult with half the company refusing to move desks.

– My team pretty much bamboozled their way onto the floor. Initially taking only a few seats, with permission, they then moved their other people in one by one and spread out from there, overfilled the place, and then wanted the people already sitting there to give up parts of their original desk space.

Nobody told me about any of this, and the people urging me to find a desk place were content letting me fruitlessly work towards that goal and take the accusations, and didn’t mention in the later fallout that they “encouraged” me to find solutions.

Finding/arranging a seat was totally not my job, and I shouldn’t have taken on that burden to begin with (thanks, Alison!).

I ultimately stayed on another floor (where there was room for like six more people directly next to me) and a month later Covid happened and the situation “resolved” itself anyway.

2. We need to tell our remote employees they can’t take care of young kids while they’re working

We learned that our HR department was working on an organization-wide policy, so we held off on one of our own. What they came up with was very vague and essentially just said that “dependent care should not interfere with performing work duties.” While this was initially a let-down, it’s actually worked out okay. We did some level-setting with existing staff and have made sure new staff understand that being able to have kids at home is not a perk of the job. In practice, unless we can hear kids in the background of calls or meetings or someone is excusing their underperformance with conflicting childcare duties, it’s a non-issue. At this point a seem to have a good understanding at all levels of staff that a school-age child popping into the background before you shoo them away is no big deal, but disappearing for long periods of time to wrangle a toddler or have them on your lap for an entire training is not okay. We also aren’t militant about it; we notice and address patterns instead of one-offs. This feels reasonable to me, and it seems to feel reasonable to the rest of the team too.

3. Coworker we don’t know keeps taking the snacks we bring in (#2 at the link)

I have an update on the coworker who kept stealing our morning tea.

Once people started returning to work post-Covid, our morning teas came back and unsurprisingly, so did the morning tea stealer! Like clockwork he would rock up for a morning tea that he was not invited to.

By that point it was basically a recurring joke in my area that everyone became a little obsessed with, and people would message our work chat, “I saw the food stealer around our kitchen!”

With that in mind, one of my coworkers ended up confronting him in probably not quite the method Alison envisaged. When he came looking for our food, my coworker said cheerfully, “This is our branch’s morning tea!”

And he replied, “lucky you” and walked away.

I’m not sure if it was the optimal way to handle it, but he hasn’t been seen around our food since.

4. My company wants to micromanage internal goodbye emails

I’m the person who wrote in asking about an office policy that departing employees’ farewell messages had to be approved by admin. It was part of a sudden culture shift at a small nonprofit that had been friendly and relaxed prior to new administration coming in.

The week that my answer was posted, I and five other staff were let go in a restructuring. Remaining staff tell me that the administration refused to disclose which positions were cut… in a staff of 40 people. It wasn’t hard for anyone to figure out.

I’m now at a higher-paying job in a different sector.

updates: employee is obsessed with cleaning, I slept through an entire day of work, and more

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 is obsessed with cleaning

Thank you for your advice last year, but I’m afraid my update is a downer!

After multiple staff quit and cited upper management’s constant absence and lack of accountability and needing more autonomy as reasons for leaving, I realized this was the real cause of my problem as well. Upper management is unwilling to provide support or be present in any way, but they also refuse to give up authority or let me enforce anything without asking for permission for every little thing. It’s no wonder I ran into a wall trying to fix the constant cleaning because I have to plead my case to get permission to do my basic job whenever there are issues. When I look back on previous management positions I’ve had, the constant cleaning never would’ve been an issue because I would have been able to address it promptly and with a standard system in place.

Your advice resonated with all the things I wanted to do but couldn’t, and it turns out my actual problem wasn’t the cleaning or not knowing how to deal with it–it was the fact that I couldn’t fix the situation because every normal solution had been shut off from me. I think I was hoping to get some sort of outside the box solution, but with hindsight I can see that if I was in a better work environment I wouldn’t need an outside the box solution in the first place. Other problems have popped up in the company since then, and each time it’s played out where nothing is dealt with in a good, timely manner because upper management has left everyone hanging and disappeared but refuses to allow anyone else to take control of a situation.

I wish I could say I quit and got an amazing new job like I see in many of your updates, but the reality is that this job pays way more than anything else I could hope to find with my skill set. I finally realized that the reason I’m paid so much is to put up with the bad environment and incompetent owners. I had to give up on hopes of being able to fix problems and just remind myself that I’d have to take a serious pay cut to work somewhere less dysfunctional.

And yes, the office is still spotless.

2. I slept through an entire day of work (first update; second update)

I wrote in 5 years ago (!????) and here’s how things went after that:

I stayed at that job for 5 years, or 4 from my last update. It was overall a great experience. I learned a ton and became close with my manager (professionally). I managed projects that seemed impossible at the time but grew professionally by leaps and bounds. Very recently my manager from that job gave me a glowing recommendation to take a HUGE jump forward in my career (that came with a 70% pay rise). I am now in a new, much more demanding position, as leadership in a new organization.

I am still chronically ill. This very moment I am experiencing a flare up but some commenters said the first 3 years of chronic illness are the worst and then you learn the rhythms, and that was spot on for me. I don’t feel the need to discuss my illness at work because I am able to manage it pretty well with our (company wide) flexible working arrangements.

I now lead a central department and was told just yesterday by a departing employee that working with me showed him “what good management can look like” – I was grinning ear to ear!

Still so much to learn but my own health/work journey has made me a very empathetic and flexible (and adaptable) leader. I led through a massive leadership crisis last year, and I think in large part I was able to do that by using my own prior experience from challenging times.

I read AAM most days on a break at some point and recommend it to other people. The dysfunctional stories in particular fill me with gratitude to be working in a place where people tell me, multiple times a day, how much they appreciate me. One of our core values is kindness. I just hope other readers know that: there are workplaces that will value you as an imperfect person and an imperfect employee. If you don’t already have it, demand better from your employers. I wish that everybody was as lucky as I am to have personal struggles and still be able to feel supported and successful at work.

P.S. I never finished my doctoral dissertation. That’s one of the things I had to cut, it just wasn’t in the cards. I don’t regret it, it hasn’t held me back, I still learned a ton. So no – I am not flawless or perfect and didn’t manage to make everything work out. But I am 100% comfortable with the sacrifices and tradeoffs and have no regrets.

3. I recommended a friend and it went terribly (#2 at the link)

At this point this friend had blocked me on everything so this is an update from my friends at the firm. My friend or should I say ‘ex-friend’ ended up retaining an employment attorney. It sounds like she was likely told she didn’t have a wrongful termination case so she instead asked for owed wages and for the company to sign off on credit working under a licensed professional in our field. In our field you must pass an exam and then work under a licensed professional for a number of years to become a professional yourself. When they sign this the person approving your time under them must vouch for your ability. You are able to write to what degree they succeeded but most people get signed off with high merit.

The company disputed her owed wages but offered to pay her the amount she asked for with a condition of no liability. (I have no clue how much money this was). Regarding the professional vouching process her supervisor refused to do it but the owner of the company said they would under the condition that they be allowed to say that it was completed at the bare minimum standard. My former friend is fighting this and last I heard they were moving ahead with taking it to court.

Our field is relatively small in our neck of the woods and there’s a lot of gossip about this but as guessed my name has stayed out of it. It sounds like former friend likely will have a hard time finding a new position in this field after everything that’s happened. As for me, I’m going to limit recommending people for jobs unless I’ve worked with them directly. It’s definitely a lessons learned all around. Thanks for the help!

4. How can I make myself look less qualified? (#2 at the link; first update here)

I have an update to a letter you answered for me years ago. I was looking for a part-time admin type job and was wondering if I should leave my master’s degree and big-city experience off my resume, so I wouldn’t appear over-educated for the type of position I was looking for. I laid off the job search for a while after that due to some family-care needs that came up. Last year, I started casually looking again and happened to spot an article in our county paper about my town approving a new part-time position in the town park office—admin, secretary, office manager, receptionist, holder-down-of-the-fort while the rest of the park workers were actually out in the park. I fired off an application before the job posting was even listed, and I got the job! It’s perfect. Low-stress, quiet, just enough human interaction to keep me sane, and I’ve gotten to use my editing and project management skills as we work to get an online facility reservation system up and running. I still have time for my freelance editing, and the addition of a regular (if not large) paycheck has greatly eased our financial situation.

And I do think I wrote a good cover letter. It also helped that my boss’s wife also does freelance editing work, so he knew the types of skills I’d bring to the job.

a consultant complains about our meetings … but doesn’t want to skip them

A reader writes:

I have a team with locations throughout the U.S., both in office and remote, comprised of full-time associates and contractors. Because we need to be very collaborative, we have off-sites everyone is expected to attend and participate in, live, in person. In a typical day of an off-site, there will be meetings all day, some of which are company-required training, and a social event at night, over the course of two full days.

One consultant on our team has Celiac disease and also seems to be easily fatigued. He just joined us two months ago and expressed a number of reservations about travel when I made the offer, asking for an extra day at the hotel to recover, which I granted him, and direct flights only, which I also granted, and he warned me that he tires easily.

So far he has attended two of these team sessions and has left early or missed entire portions both times. He has blamed food cross-contamination and fatigue and has been very conspicuous about this, telling other people on the team all about his gastrointestinal distress and complaining quite a bit about the illness and how long all of our meetings are. (Nearly everyone else is exuberantly positive, so I don’t think this is how the majority feels.) It’s been distracting, and some of my other direct reports (including a manager) have felt like he’s set a bad example by leaving a mandatory training and not attending other parts of the day that her team spent a lot of time planning.

We just confirmed a date for an upcoming session, and he asked that we spend the entire week in the city we’ll be in rather than two days so that there aren’t so many back-to-back meetings, which is just not possible for budgetary reasons. Because of that and his lack of attendance at the last two events, I suggested that he dial in remotely for this next event. This seemed to upset him and he mentioned new precautions with him bringing his own food to prevent this situation from repeating itself.

While I value his contributions in his day to day work, I don’t really think he adds value at the off-sites because of his complaining and lack of attendance, and do not want him to attend in person. I think it would be better if he dialed in and did not bring down the collective morale. My question is whether he has any protections, due to having an illness, that could get me in trouble if I did not allow him this third chance. He is, as I said, a consultant, but would love to also know if your answer would vary if he were a full-time employee, just for my own sake.

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

update: I’m about to inherit a bad employee who’s a jerk to our good employee

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 who was about to inherit a bad employee (Dwight) who was a jerk to their good employee (Lucy)? Here’s the update.

I wanted to thank everyone for the advice and comments. My letter was actually posted while I was taking a vacation just before moving on to the store manager job. I hate that I couldn’t reply to more comments but I had only my phone and was on a train at the time! But I absolutely read every single comment and took so much of the advice to heart.

My old manager wound up retiring a little earlier than she planned, in part due to changes made in my company surrounding our labor budget. In short, corporate made us cut hours for everyone across the board and we lost a lot of good people who needed to move on to jobs that could give them more hours. This left my old store manager needing to be more hands on in the store’s day to day, which she was not interested in doing.

So I came into this job in October and since then, it’s been myself and Lucy for the most part. I could go on and on and on about the entire payroll budget situation but that isn’t the focus of your site, I know! Dwight is one of my employees who moved on but I have a few parting tales:

1) Dwight did apply for the assistant manager position and I interviewed him. I feel that I gave him a fair shot but at the end of the day, Lucy was always going to be the better choice both on paper and in what I’ve observed of her at work.

2) After I informed Dwight of this, probably a month later he sent an email asking HR and my Regional Manager whether a decision had been made. Not only does our application system automatically notify applicants when another applicant has been given the job, but I spoke with him when I made my decision and he’d had weeks of observing Lucy having the job! I was perplexed and slightly embarrassed that my RM and HR departments both got that email.

I did want to add that I have not been posting any schedules publicly; they’re available online and I can send or print a screenshot of that, with an employee’s schedule and no one else’s hours, if they request it.

I spoke with Lucy when I got back about Dwight to see if she felt uncomfortable or unsafe and unfortunately she did. She told me a few other stories about Dwight that I hadn’t heard about but my old manager had been told about – that he’d throw merchandise around and do things aggressively when Lucy was the only one in the room with him (like throw products past her onto counters or slam doors). She also told me about a time that he was grabbing a merchandise cart aggressively after a conversation with her and wound up wrenching another employee’s arm. I was very upset when I heard that my old store manager did nothing about this at all. I hadn’t realized that it was bordering on actual physical aggression.

Things have been smooth with Lucy. Dwight moved on about a month after I became the store manager and to be honest, I was very relieved to see him go.

intern wants me to drive him to work, saying no to a weekend party in my honor, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Intern wants me to drive him to and from work

I have a summer intern who came from out of state without a car. Fortunately, our city has a good bus system. But he is refusing to take the bus and said, “You can pick me up when you go to work, since I’m along the way.”

After a few weeks of driving him to work and taking him back at night, I told him he had to get to work on his own. He is not happy. Now, my boss is telling me, “What’s the big deal? Just drive him to work.” Even my husband is telling me that taking the intern to work is not a big deal.

I feel pressured and forced to do something I don’t see as my responsibility. The big deal is that I am losing my autonomy. I can’t go shopping immediately after work because I need to drop him off first. I can’t leave earlier or later now.

The intern, who is in college, drops hints that it would be be nice to see this new city more if only someone would show him around. After serving as his work day chauffeur, I’m in no mood for driving him around on weekends.

All this is making me feel like a terrible person.

You’re not a terrible person for not wanting to be someone’s regular ride to and from work. As you point out, it means that you can’t leave earlier or later, and you also can’t do things on your way home from work without dropping him off first.

And you didn’t even offer — he just announced you’d be doing him this favor twice a day?! That’s … not how favors work.

It’s perfectly reasonable to explain you can no longer do it. Especially since your boss is pressuring you to continue, it’ll probably be easier if you say you’re going to be going to the gym straight from work, or need to start swinging by a family member’s who you’re helping, or starting an art class, or whatever you’re comfortable with. Or you can keep it vague — “I have a lot of commitments right after work, so I’m not able to keep giving you a ride after Thursday.”

If you want to be nice, you could offer to show him how to figure out the bus route. But you really don’t need to be his driver.

And you can definitely just ignore the hints about weekends. (That’s the nice thing about hints! You can just decline to pick up on them.) But if he ever asks outright, the answer is, “Sorry, no — I rarely have any available time on weekends.”

Read an update to this letter

Related:
I’m being pressured to chauffeur interns to and from work
how can I get out of chauffeuring my coworker everywhere?

2. Can I say no to a last-minute weekend party in my honor?

I’m resigning and am on my last two weeks with the current job. Today my boss said that she wants to throw me a going-away party, which is cool, except that it’s on the weekend and I already have plans. She is scheduling it for Saturday or Sunday at lunchtime. On Saturday I have relatives visiting, and so my boss suggested just bringing my relatives to the work luncheon. However, we had planned on making a big brunch together and hanging out by the pool so I don’t want to cancel that and bring them to a lunch with a bunch of people they don’t know. They visit once in a blue moon and I’m really looking forward to seeing them. On Sunday I’m doing a motorcycle ride with a longtime friend from out of town, which I’d have to cancel.

I feel my judgment is a bit impaired by the frustration I’ve had at my boss over the years, so I’m not sure if I’m being crusty and impatient or if it’s actually okay for me to say no to the lunch that’s being thrown for me. It seems like such a gesture of goodwill. My boss is even booking a hotel room for my out-of-town coworkers who live a few hours away. I suggested we have the lunch on a Friday or Monday, but my boss said no because it’s on work time. Can I reasonably say no to a weekend going-away party for me?

Yes, absolutely you can say no! It’s completely normal that you would already have plans for the coming weekend … but even if you didn’t, or even if there was more advance notice, it would still be fine to say no.

Say this: “Sorry, it’s a really bad weekend for me to do anything because of family stuff and I won’t be able to make it.” If she pushes, stick with, “I really can’t, but thanks for the thought!” If she suggests moving it to a different weekend (even after your last day), it’s fine to say, “My weekends are really hectic for the foreseeable future. The only time I could do it would be during the workday before I go, but if that doesn’t work, please don’t worry about arranging anything. I appreciate the thought, though!”

Read an update to this letter

3. How transparent should we be with an employee about why we’re not promoting him?

I have an employee who has applied to an open management position that would be a step up from his current role. I am not the only decision-maker (there’s a search committee) but as his direct supervisor I have a lot of insight on whether or not he’d be a good fit, and therefore a lot of sway in the decision. It is my and the committee’s opinion that he is not only wrong for the job, but he would be disastrous in this role. Luckily for us, he doesn’t have one of the big educational requirements for this job, so it’s easy on paper to turn him down for this reason alone. But another equally compelling reason is that he would be required to directly supervise his aunt, who he lives with, and he would work closely with his brother (who works for another business that liaises with ours frequently). There have been issues with this close family arrangement in the past, which we believe would be exacerbated should this employee become a manager.

We have an anti-nepotism policy, but it doesn’t include nieces/nephews or aunts/uncles in its definition of close family, and there is nothing about not being related to our community partner. However, I know from supervising him that he would absolutely bend rules for family. Furthermore, we don’t think it’s wise for him to supervise his aunt, ever, for lots of reasons I won’t go into here. This is not likely to change, even if he were to meet the educational requirements and suddenly start improving at work. As this is the second time he’s applied for this type of role, we feel we need to say something about the nepotism so he knows the full reasons why we are saying no … but how do we bring it up when supervising his aunt isn’t strictly forbidden in policy? Technically we could go about amending the policy to include nieces/nephews and aunts/uncles but that will be a long process and it can’t be done before we need to tell him we aren’t proceeding with his application. Any advice for informing him why he won’t be getting the position, or should we just stick to “you’re not qualified, sorry”?

If he’s a reasonable person who you think could benefit from hearing the full slate of reasons reasons, you could go ahead and share them. But if he’s not reasonable or if there’s any risk he’s going to try to rules-lawyer you on the wording of the nepotism policy, then just stick to the fact that he doesn’t meet the educational requirement (and maybe any other clear and easy-to-explain work reasons if you think it’s useful to share those — like if he would need to be skilled in X and you’ve had multiple conversations about his struggles with X).

One note: if you’re going to cite the educational requirement as your reason, be sure that you don’t bend it for other candidates.

But separately from this, you should definitely amend the nepotism policy to cover all family members. No one should be supervising a family member, period (assuming you’re not running a family business where it’s unavoidable).

Read an update to this letter

4. Should I wait until the next day to answer after-hours emails when I’d prefer to respond right away?

I am working my second job out of grad school and still learning the ropes of corporate etiquette. When anyone above me in the org hierarchy emails me outside of work hours, they often include a disclaimer that they do not expect me to respond until the following work day. To be clear, I really appreciate this! But sometimes, it just makes more sense to respond in the moment (e.g., they sent me a simple question with a simple answer and I don’t want an extra task on my desk the next day).

If I respond right away, the recipient will often reiterate that they did not expect an immediate response. I am starting to wonder if my fast responses, though convenient both for myself and the recipient, are actually a net negative. Are there bad optics or other issues around responding right away after being told it’s unnecessary? Or is it fine to keep doing what I’m doing, as long as I am not ignoring direct requests to wait until the following work day (e.g., “Please do not respond until tomorrow morning”)?

By responding outside of work hours, you’re making them worry that you felt obligated to, even though they told you that you shouldn’t. It’s fine to do that occasionally, but if you do it a lot, I’d suggest at least acknowledging it in some way — like, “I happened to be checking messages for something else and this just took a second.” Even then, if you do it a lot, some people will feel guilty about it. Do you have the ability to schedule the message to go out the following morning to sidestep this altogether?

To be clear, you don’t have to manage other people’s guilt in that way — if they’re that concerned about it, they could schedule their own messages for the next day — but if you’re willing to take the few extra seconds for it, it can make the relationship slightly smoother.

(Caveat: this assumes a reasonably healthy workplace. There are also workplaces where, despite their disclaimer about waiting until morning, you’ll be seen more positively for constant after-hours availability. If you’re in one of those, ignore all the above.)

5. Cutting full-time hours instead of doing layoffs

I have friends who work for a small tech company that does custom work for clients. They were recently advised that they’re being forced to take 15 days mandatory unpaid time off for the next two months and maybe longer. So they’re only getting 10 paid days of work per month. Obviously, this is a major blow to them and they’re going to start looking elsewhere.

Is a company allowed to do this to avoid laying off employees and putting them in a position to apply for unemployment? Apparently, the owner is keeping their insurance intact at least, but the whole thing seems very sketchy.

Yes, the employer can legally do it — but the employees can apply apply for unemployment due to the cut in work and pay. (Not full unemployment, but in most states they’d be eligible for partial benefits.)

updates: fantasy football offensiveness, the extra work with no promotion, and more

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.

1. Offensiveness in the fantasy football league

I wish I had a better update for you. I’m pretty low in the HR hierarchy with my company, so all I could really do is tell my boss that we need to keep an eye on this manager because his response was incredibly concerning. This concern was well placed as someone else reported him to HR shortly after I wrote you for his public conversations on LinkedIn- more abrasive and politically controversial stuff the company does not want to be associated with. My boss had to speak with him again, and this time he sent her a wild 2 page diatribe on feeling persecuted at work. I wish I could send it to you because I’ve never read anything like it before, especially in a professional context. My boss, again, simply took note and moved on. She has since retired and her replacement thankfully takes these things way more seriously than she did. We now, months later, have someone transferring out of this manager’s department solely because of personality conflicts due to the manager’s abrasive demeanor.

The manager is excellent at a very difficult job and his boss loves him, but in my opinion he should not be managing people at all. He has since completely cleaned out his LinkedIn profile. He seems to have finally decided to keep his beliefs to himself, and my new boss is keeping a close eye on him to ensure he stays in line. I think that the changeover in HR was more necessary than anyone realized, as my former boss was more willing to accept some of these behaviors than my current one. People are more engaged in the culture and we’ve had more referrals than ever before. I wrote to you because I was questioning my reaction in comparison to my former boss, and you gave me the reality check that I wasn’t overreacting but rather she was underreacting. I am much more confident in my position now and know that if something like this happens again I won’t let it get pushed under the rug.

2. My boss says I’m not ready for a promotion, but is giving me work above my pay grade

In my original letter, I wrote about how my boss has been giving me work above my pay grade but said I was not ready to get promoted. I am happy to report that I started a new job shortly before the letter was published, which came with a 25% salary increase and a more flexible work-life balance! I had the best interviews of my career.

There are some things I wanted to touch on in my original letter. A key element that I did not include in my original letter is that my boss said that our department would be hiring for a newly created position, a Senior Z, which would have required several more years of experience and I knew I wasn’t qualified for it.

In addition to “not being ready,” my boss said that creating this new position would not leave enough room in the budget to promote me. I did not include this information because I thought it would out me if my boss reads AAM. It is possible a lower budget was a legitimate reason for being able to promote me, but there was never any conversation about other jobs that would fit me at our university. (“We can’t promote you to Senior X in our department, but this other department is hiring for a Senior Y which has a very similar role”).

I work in higher education, and I was surprised to see that so many of the commenters went through similar experiences. Contrary to what some commenters guessed, I do not work in Res Life or in any student-facing role. I do not envy anyone in those positions – y’all are seriously doing the Lord’s work!

I honestly did not want to leave the university or the people I worked for. I tried very hard to stay within the company – I applied to 5 different jobs in my field and while I came close a few times to a job offer, nothing really stuck. But at the end of the day, you have to look out for yourself and that’s what I did. I chose my career – and more importantly, me – over my employer, and I don’t regret it one bit. I like my new job, but I will keep the same mindset.

Thanks again to all of the commenters and of course to Alison for giving me helpful advice that I’ll take with me throughout my career!

3. My boss interrupts me while I’m presenting (#2 at the link)

My 20-minute presentation was sandwiched between two other 20-minute presentations that hour, so nobody had extra time. The boss didn’t have time for comments or impulsive encouragement to add to my talk, but I did write down some of those phrases to remember, because that’s really what I needed; a polite and pointed way to remind her to let me give my talk in the order of my slides. And trust that I know more about the topic than she does (which I do).

My talk went well enough that I have been asked to do a more in-depth training for the leadership in our company on the topic. This might be where those interruptions happen, but now I will be prepared.

Thank you and your readers for the advice!

4. Can I contact a CEO who offered me a job previously to ask about job openings now? (#4 at the link)

tl;dr: I didn’t reach out to the CEO but I did get a new job!

I work in tech, and obviously there have been lots of layoffs and hiring freezes lately. Shortly after I wrote in, the CEO’s startup took all their job postings down, so I figured it wasn’t a good time to reach out. I also hadn’t heard back from any of the companies I had been applying to, so I was feeling discouraged.

But! It was a blessing in disguise! I spent some time getting extremely clear on what I want in my work life: what I liked about my job, what adjustments I would have to make to find it tolerable, what an ideal job somewhere else would look like. When I eventually did start getting interviews, that clarity became super helpful! I was able to pretty quickly rule out roles that would not have been better than the job I was in and to find a few that were all green flags. I started at my new job a few weeks ago and so far, it is wonderful.

updates: the gnat-infested office, the all-staff emails about mistakes, and more

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 throughout the day.

1. My coworkers’ plants have infested the office with gnats (#3 at the link)

I have kind of a bizarre update? So, I finally banded my coworkers together to help pin down which plant (or plants) were causing the issue. Good news: it was only 1 that had the problem. Bad news: it was belonged coworker who has been absent for personal reasons.

One of the more plant savvy people offered to take the plant and try to remedy the situation and asked our manager to notify the coworker so they weren’t blindsided by its disappearance. Which, my manager did.

My manager and I are fairly close and she shared (possibly shouldn’t have, I’m not sure, it’s too weird of a situation) that the coworker admitted to knowing it was infested and didn’t want it in their home while they were on leave so they brought it in to the office.

There is already some weird tension in the office with this coworker and things are weirder now. Not sure how it will play out upon their return.

2. My coworker sends an all-staff email any time someone makes a mistake (#3 at the link)

I think Jane was just really unhappy! She was certainly underpaid and underappreciated by the higher-ups, and though we got along outside of our occasional brushes against each other regarding purchases, I understand now that she was just all-around frustrated. She wound up finding a remote position, and in our brief communications since she left, she seems much more engaged and excited about her new job.

The big update is that after I wrote to you and while working at home during the first year and a half of the pandemic, I began taking courses to allow me to switch careers. My boss was supportive, and though I am still in the midst of my degree, when Jane left, I put my name forward to fill her position. So now I do Jane’s job! I know even more intimately now the ins and outs of how difficult our purchasing can be, and I’m still learning every day. I’m much happier doing this work than my previous role, I’ve implemented new systems, and I’ve received feedback that my coworkers appreciate my approach as well. After serving in an interim position for six months, I was just hired permanently and given a promotion.

Thanks for answering my initial question. I think about it often when I come up against a problem, and I use my past frustration to guide the way I treat others.

3. Can I negotiate more time before I start my new job so I can help my old job replace me? (#3 at the link)

I only worked the two week notice period, and it was an absolute misery. For two straight weeks, I was browbeaten for leaving, told I would get fired at New Job, told how I would fail – they even offered to let me stay for exactly zero dollars in an increase in salary. The abuse was ridiculous, and I’m convinced I have PTSD from it since it was everyone there browbeating me to stay.

I’m glad to say that I’ve been at my new job four months, and I’m enjoying it. It’s so different from where I was that it’s like night and day. It’s nice to not be the “it” person for every little thing that comes along. My boss is kind and hasn’t given me any indication that he’s not like that all the time. Everyone else in the office gets along, and it’s just very refreshing from where I left.

Thank you for your advice! I’ll always remember it in the future!

4. Am I the only one excited to return to the office?

About two years ago, I wrote you asking if I was the only one excited to go back to the office. I saw the call for updates on your page and while I didn’t submit a terribly interesting question, I thought I’d give you one. Going back to the office remained more or less optional, and while I tried to go pretty regularly, I was definitely an outlier among my colleagues. I ended up getting laid off from that job this past fall, and found a new one that’s 100% remote for non-COVID reasons. I like my new job much better, it’s the same kind of work but in a different industry. Sometimes I still feel nostalgic passing by a suburban office building. Maybe someday I’ll find my way back to one.

Also, as a side note, this blog was quite helpful when I was job hunting at the end of last year after being laid off. Thank you!

my boss won’t do anything about my slacker coworker

A reader writes:

My colleague “Andrew” and I work in a specialized department for a mid-sized company (about 150 employees), each of us covering one half of the company with no overlap. We both work remotely while the teams we support are on-site in offices across our region, so we rely heavily on Microsoft Teams and email. Our boss, “Sam,” is very laid-back — he’s supportive without micromanaging us and rarely pries as long as we’re getting our work done.

Andrew is great in his role… when he’s actually doing it. Over the past few months, though, he has been incredibly difficult to reach. He’s not responding to emails, is always “away” on Teams, and only answers messages hours or sometimes days later, if at all. We have a weekly in-person meeting with another colleague, and while it’s informal, he regularly blows it off without letting us know he’s not coming. I’m aware he had issues with tardiness/attendance before we worked together, but I’m unsure of the extent.

Recently, I covered for Andrew while he was on a lengthy vacation, and it was evident he had been neglecting important, time-sensitive tasks leading up to his trip. He clearly had not been responding to many of his clients, letting things pile up. I worked very hard juggling his half of the company along with my own while he was out, fielding calls and messages from angry clients and frustrated coworkers (though people were very complimentary of my work). The doubled workload meant quite a bit of overtime for me.

The last day of Andrew’s vacation, I sent him a list of important updates and ongoing projects and let him know I’d be happy to chat if he had questions. No response, and it’s been almost two weeks. After he got back, I sent him a message asking how his trip was. Crickets. Since his return, he’s missed meetings and emails, and I’ve had multiple colleagues ask if Andrew was still on vacation or if I knew where he was. It’s hard to see messages coming in for him going ignored, but they aren’t my clients and the combined workloads are too much for me to manage alone.

I no longer know how to defend Andrew to his (understandably frustrated) colleagues, and I’m feeling pretty put out that he hasn’t acknowledged my covering for him in any way.

In my last one-on-one with Sam, I let him know what was going on because I’m concerned for the other staff and clients, and while Andrew’s poor performance shouldn’t reflect on me, I suspect this will bring consequences for our department as a whole. Sam wasn’t surprised. It sounds like other people had also brought this up with him before I did, and he agrees it’s an issue. However, Sam had not had direct reports in a long time until our department was created a year ago, so he’s getting used to being in a managerial role again and I know he tends to soften the message when giving feedback.

What else can I do? Should I talk to Andrew directly? We aren’t terribly close, and he can be somewhat volatile — sometimes he’s standoffish and other times he’s warm and engaging, and I never know which he’ll be. I’m also at a loss as to what to say when colleagues come to me wondering where he is. So far, I’ve been sticking to a brief, “I’m not sure about Andrew’s schedule today” but it sounds so oblivious. I don’t want to lie, but I don’t want to throw him under the bus, either. How should I handle this?

There’s nothing you can do to manage this problem beyond what you’ve already tried.

That’s bad news because you’re clearly frustrated and worried that Andrew’s unresponsiveness could blow back on your team. And it’s legitimately aggravating to watch a co-worker flagrantly ignore the standards you’re both supposed to be held to — and even more aggravating to watch your manager act as if there’s nothing he can do about it.

But if you shift your perspective a little, it can be liberating to acknowledge that you’ve done everything you could reasonably be expected to do, and now the problem is out of your hands. Andrew will either do his work or not. Sam will either manage him effectively or not. You’ve alerted Sam to what you’ve seen, and from here it’s up to him. You don’t manage either of them, so there’s nothing more you can or should do.

It’s definitely not your job to try to get Andrew to manage his work differently. If he seemed like someone who would appreciate a heads-up (“People keep complaining that they can’t reach you and are sounding increasingly concerned about it,” say), that could be worth offering. But since you say Andrew has been volatile in the past, that’s not something you’re obligated to take on. It’s Sam’s job to deal with that, not yours.

You’re also not obligated to cover for Andrew when co-workers ask where he is. The response you’ve been using — “I’m not sure about his schedule today” — is fine. You’re worried it makes you look oblivious, but I’m betting your colleagues will read between the lines and understand you aren’t the issue. If you want, though, you can start sending people to Sam when they ask! Tell them, “I’m not sure about Andrew’s schedule, but you could check with Sam.” It’s possible that if Sam starts receiving an influx of queries about Andrew’s whereabouts, it could spur him to take more action than he has so far. But again, either way, it’s not your problem to solve.

One thing here you can address, though (or, more accurately, that you have standing to push Sam to address), is the impact this is having on your own work. While it sounds like Andrew’s unresponsiveness doesn’t directly affect your workload most of the time, it sure did when he was on vacation and you had to do his job as well as your own. Being expected to cover a job that had been neglected for months is very much your business, and you’d be on solid ground declining to spend extra hours cleaning up after him in the future. So if you’re asked to be Andrew’s vacation cover in the future, it would be reasonable to remind Sam what happened previously and ask for a plan to ensure you’re only covering the work that comes in while Andrew is away, not cleaning up everything he might have shirked in the weeks or months before he left.

One caveat to all of this: It’s possible there’s more going on with Andrew than you know and which might change your assessment, or at least your frustration level, if you did. For example, it’s possible that he has a health situation or family crisis that he’s arranged to take extra time off for. He could even have formal medical accommodations in place that allow him to miss more work than he normally could. If that’s the case, both Andrew and Sam are still managing things badly — there should be more communication about Andrew’s availability and Sam should be stepping in to ensure requests to Andrew aren’t just being ignored — but the existence of that type of accommodation isn’t always visible to co-workers. My hunch is that this probably isn’t the explanation (it sounds more like Sam is just a weak manager), but it’s useful to keep in mind that you might not be privy to everything that’s happening behind the scenes.

Ultimately, though, there can be real relief in deciding it’s not your job to solve this. You’re certainly not being paid to solve this, and you can leave any agonizing about it to the person who is.

Originally published at New York Magazine.