Ask a Manager

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December 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 don’t want to be pied in the face for work

Thank you again for the response to my letter and situation. It was really nice to see that I wasn’t unhinged for thinking it wasn’t acceptable to be pied in the face, and you had some very good advice regarding not needing to be a top performer to be exempt from humiliating work affairs. It’s something I would certainly believe for others, but not for me—so I needed the reality check that I could count myself in the “no one has to be pied in the face if they don’t want to!” category. The commenters were also quite kind and I truly did appreciate the solidarity from most folks.

My update isn’t very exciting beyond good news, which is I have moved on from this workplace before anything came of the pies. This was just the tip of the whipped cream iceberg of a foundational mismatch between me and other managers at the previous place. I am much happier now that interactions like that one are not my daily norm.

I’m not sure if the pies are still happening, but we can only hope that if it is, it’s opt-in, not opt-out. I opted out more permanently. :)

Cheers for the advice and nice aim!

2. My coworker made a creepy pass at me (#2 at the link; first update here)

I am a religious reader of AAM and love update season. I thought you all might enjoy another update on my situation with Mac. I can’t believe it’s been over a year!

Mac never said anything sexualizing or out of line to me again. We never got back to the kind of easy work friendship we had previously, but things were cordial and while not necessarily warm they weren’t chilly either.

Unfortunately something eventually came out that likely cements his comments as less innocent than he portrayed them in his apology: he was having an affair and his wife is divorcing him. He’s moved out of the neighborhood and no longer works here, which I’m grateful for. This new development definitely made it harder to assume he didn’t know exactly what he was doing with his comments.

Thanks again for opening my eyes last year and to all the commenters that helped me find my gumption. I still can’t believe I pulled that line with a straight face, and it still feels amazing that I did. And thanks for all the wisdom and entertainment over the years! Can’t wait to keep reading more.

3. Are these interview red flags? (#3 at the link)

Thank you, Alison and the commenters, for giving me a gut check. Shockingly, the day after I wrote to you, I heard from HR that they were proceeding with putting together an offer for me, and asked for my references. HR told my references that they were giving me an offer, and let me know that all the reviews of me were glowing and the team was really excited about bringing me on.

After you posted my letter, I was thinking about withdrawing my candidacy, but decided that having the information on what compensation they’d offer me for the role was worth having, so I planned to hang in there until that point, when I could decline. Well, the joke was on me. For another six weeks I kept being told that the offer was forthcoming, delayed for various approvals (it was with leadership, with the new CEO, with the parent company). Finally I called HR after two weeks of radio silence and asked for an update. At that point they told me that they might not in fact be giving me an offer after all, because the hiring manager had identified someone else they were now interested in and wanted to interview. I thanked them for their time and the following Monday withdrew from consideration. The entire process took four months, and I never once heard from the hiring manager or the team, everything was run through HR (yet another huge red flag).

The process was eye opening in its own right and a really great reminder that if a company treats you badly and is a complete mess during the hiring process, it can only go downhill from there. Thank you to the AAM community such great perspective!

4. Communicating with a team that doesn’t read email (#2 at the link)

As some of the commenters correctly guessed, management wasn’t a good fit for me. I made a lateral move to a non-management role at the same organization. I’m making the same amount of money (still, uh, not a lot) but I’m MUCH happier in my new role and I have all kinds of ideas for how to improve my little corner of this place!

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

1. Is my preferred name too cringy to get interviews? (#3 at the link)

I did take the advice I saw from others and changed my resume to show my legal name, and then subtly place my preferred name somewhere else, but I still haven’t found a paying job. However, I did get an internship through my school, and I’m now in the work-based learning program! I’m not going by my preferred name there, but I did tell my boss about it, and she said it was “unprofessional,” which I understood and told her the name I would like to go by (middle name), and she seemed happy with that. I haven’t told my coworkers though, and I’m honestly not 100% sure if I should. I doubt they would care, but I feel like it would be better if it were mentioned in passing by a friend coming in while I’m working or something and calling me my preferred name.

Please make sure to tell everyone that I appreciate all the helpful comments! I loved the support and ideas to make sure people still knew I did go by a different name

2. Should I ban money collections on our team? (#4 at the link)

It’s been more than a year since I’ve been a manager. I wrote in wanting to streamline birthdays and other occasions at work. I had the first department meeting with my team and included this in an overall talk about my expectations.

Basically, that we were all there to make money and they did not need to feel pressured to give to buy gifts for others. That they did not ever need to buy me anything. I did not want them soliciting co-workers for anything: social causes, birthdays, showers, weddings, etc. I would buy a cake and card if anyone wanted to have their birthday acknowledged. (And set up a clipboard to sign up for this.)

The look of relief on most of my team was encouraging. I told them if they had any concerns they could speak to me privately. The only person with a problem was the secretary who had been handling this. She was upset as “giving gifts was her love language” and no one had complained before. (Gifts with other peoples’ money.)

I told her people who aren’t getting gifts may feel slighted. Others can’t afford to keep contributing but may not feel comfortable saying anything. She was teary. I told her she wasn’t doing anything wrong, but I was in charge now, and going forward this is how we’re proceeding.

She wanted to do a Secret Santa so I wanted to be fair and let people vote anonymously on it — and most people said no. I took them all out for a holiday lunch instead.

3. We’re switching to unlimited PTO and I feel cheated (#4 at the link)

I wrote in that my company decided to switch to open PTO and only gave us three weeks’ notice.

The policy is officially “open PTO” and that means it is no longer separated by sick time, vacation time, personal time, etc. I wrote unlimited interchangeably because I think most people understand what unlimited PTO is versus open PTO. I am sorry for the confusion.

Our fiscal year ended on Sept 30 (which was a Monday) and the staff meeting we had to “discuss” the issue was on Sept 10 (a Tuesday). We got the email about the change late the day before. In the meeting, I specifically asked about compensation since, thanks to AAM, I know it was a FY24 expense. I think it never occurred to anyone to pay out the up-to-40 hours for any and all employees. I left the meeting and immediately looked at my schedule to see how many of my remaining hours I was able to take off. I only lost 8 hours at the end.

The update is not that exciting. We did not push back on the timing. I am not sure if any of my colleagues took more time off in September. My company is setting a minimum of 15 days, 5 of which must be consecutive. Many are worried about the line between taking time and abuse, and it was suggested to just take as many as we would have gotten had we been given a set number. I therefore gave myself a raise in my time off, and several others have as well. As long as the work gets done, no one seems to be concerned about too much time abuse. They did clearly state that this does not get paid out if you leave the company. Some of the commenters mentioned that. There are many sucky things about this situation but I think most of us have just accepted it and moved on. It would have been nice to have more of a heads up about the situation. I know they probably didn’t have things confirmed, but even a simple “Hey, we are considering this change to be effective in October so use your days” in July would have been nice. The only other issue I have is that our company wide winter break is not happening. HR acknowledged that there will probably be a lot of PTO being used that week–and that is okay–but as one of the few customer-facing roles, it was nice that everyone was off at the same time, and not just me because I feel like it.

The silver lining for me is that my spouse’s time off schedule is January to December (which is one reason I rolled over 5 days), so at least with it being open, I don’t have to deal with managing our vacation time on two schedules. And when my water meter had to be changed last week, I just took the day off rather than do data entry from home, because it’s not like I needed to work to save a vacation day for an actual vacation.

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December 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 boss was resentful when she did well? Here’s the update.

My update is a bit of a mixed bag. I did implement both involving him more and also trying to set better boundaries while I also started job searching in greater earnest, but to make a long story short, he continued to escalate his behavior until I was let go without cause (as he couldn’t find legal cause with my performance or conduct — I was and am good at my job).

On the upside, however, I’ve been in interviews for several roles, all of which pay between 40%-60% more than I was being paid. I’m expecting an offer soon, and simultaneously getting ready to launch a consulting business as a side gig so that I won’t ever feel trapped in a bad situation like that again.

Since being let go, I’ve lost 12 pounds, my resting heart rate has dropped over 10 bpm, I sleep through the night and I don’t have panic attacks anymore. Him firing me was the best thing to happen to me in years. The funny thing is between job searching, launching my business and a couple personal projects, I’m working a lot more than I was, but I’m so much happier and healthier now, both physically and mentally. Not having to walk on eggshells 8 hours a day is like dropping 200 pounds off of my shoulders.

I’ve learned several lessons from this experience. The single biggest one has been the importance of knowing my value and my worth. I didn’t deserve to be his scapegoat for everything wrong in the business, and my market value is obviously a lot higher than what I’d allowed myself to be browbeaten into believing since I’m routinely getting interviews for roles that pay so much more. I’ve been told by more than one recruiter that I shouldn’t accept less than 1.5 times what I was being paid before, as that’s what my skillset is worth.

The second and third lessons I’m taking from this are the importance of spreading my wings to get new experiences instead of staying too much in my comfort zone and the necessity of taking charge of my own development and career — having a second income stream, seeking out roles and courses that let me grow and develop, and finally, not forcing myself to stay in little boxes that I’ve long since outgrown. I am more capable than I give myself credit for, and I need to let myself be a bit more decisive.

Overall, I view this situation as a turning point in my life and career — one where I learned how to treat myself better and respect myself more, and therefore started being treated better by those who remained in my life. I would like to say I won’t ever make the same mistake again, but given that this is the third time in my life where I only realized how abusive a situation was until I got out, I imagine I probably will, but I’ll be better able to handle it next time. I learn slowly sometimes, but I do learn!

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December 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 asking how to tell her boss that his second-in-commands were making it impossible for her to do her job (#5 at the link)? The first update was here, and here’s the latest.

I thought this saga was over, but I have yet another, now definitely final, update to this mess.

YOU WERE ALL RIGHT AND I WAS WRONG BUT NOT FOR THE REASONS YOU MIGHT THINK.

Long story short — I’m no longer working at that company. I was white-anted and thrown under the bus, but not by either of the Goons, in fact, Goon 2 reached out to me after I resigned to send his well-wishes.

The Judas among us was my admin. Who I had hired, trained, and covered for countless times whilst wondering how on earth she was so “overwhelmed” with her workload whilst I was trying desperately to take things off her plate to lighten her load whilst drowning under my own workload. Well, it was because she was spending all her time actively subverting me to my peers and my director.

I could never understand why it was that despite my work being of a high quality, a proven record of saving the company tens of thousands of dollars in my first few months there, and external counterparts singing my praises, I still persistently was being undermined, not listened to, and generally bullied by a few of my colleagues. I then started being “performance managed” by the director, despite my work quality staying the same and still garnering praise from other colleagues. The director could never explain exactly why he was performance managing me, and I was never placed on a PIP, he just made it exceptionally difficult for me to do my job effectively.

It was because my admin had been spreading abhorrent lies about me in an effort to find herself in my chair, without understanding exactly how uncomfortable and soul-sucking that chair was.

I had been asked to find a confirmation email in the inbox that I shared with my admin, but when I searched for it, another email popped up from my admin to my director which was filled with accusations about me which were either greatly exaggerated or outright lies. An example of an exaggeration was her assertion that “MyName demanded I tell her whether I’m planning to have another baby and when, which made me feel intimidated and is illegal to ask.” What had actually occurred was that she told me one day that she was thinking of having another baby, and I had made a joke that she should let me know when so I could get pregnant at the same time and we could have maternity leave together and have a break from work. She laughed, I laughed, I thought that was the end of it. An example of an outright lie was that she said that at an industry awards night, I had gotten so drunk that I attempted to proposition her husband. In reality, I had two glasses of wine that night, and I’ve never met her husband.

She also accused me of taking credit for her work, which had absolutely never happened, in fact, I frequently, in a misguided attempt to help boost her confidence, gave her credit for my work.

The email was about 3 pages long, concluding with, “I don’t even know what she does, but you’re paying her a lot of money to do nothing all day.”

As I finished reading it, everything made sense. I decided then that if she wanted my job so badly, she could have it, and typed out my letter of resignation with immediate effect.

The reason she didn’t know what I did all day was because it was way out of her scope of understanding. I didn’t tell her what I was doing because she was not capable of assisting me with it. Whilst she was dressing up as an office mascot and writing the office newsletter, I was desperately trying to fill all the compliance gaps that if discovered would have the company shut down.

So I left. I told a few of the office big mouths what had happened, and I’ve since heard that the story has gotten out, they have indeed lost an important accreditation (that I initially secured for them), and that their financial situation is not great. Meanwhile, I’m now working in consulting, and am slowly but surely recovering from the horrific burnout and depression that that company left me with.

I never realized just how toxic that workplace was, but your readers did. I should have listened then, and I would’ve saved myself much heartache and ill-health. But things are looking up now, and I hope that if I ever find myself in an environment like that again, I’ll spot it sooner and GTFO.

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December 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 professor asking whether to correct students who address her as Mrs. (#3 at the link)? Here’s the update.

I am the college professor who wrote to you about my students addressing me using the honorific Mrs., rather than Ms. or Dr.

The comments and suggestions I received in response to my letter gave me the confidence to view the beginning of the fall semester as an important teachable moment. When I introduced myself at the start of class, I clearly explained not only how students should address me (“Dr. Green”) but also how they should NOT address me. In addition, I included with the course materials a blog post explaining how to address women in the workplace.

On the downside, it took less than a week for me to receive my first “Dear Mrs. Green” email. On the upside, now at 11 weeks into the semester, the use of “Dr. Green” has increased significantly, Ms. is used rarely, and Mrs. has almost disappeared.

In addition to my decision to be more clear and direct about my preferences (and provide the blog post), there are two other factors that may have caused the switch from Mrs. Green to Dr. Green. First, my very large class happens to have a great group of students this semester (every class is different and I lucked out this time). Second, I became department chair during the summer, so I may now seem more important.

It will be a few months until I know if my use of the teachable moment will be mentioned in my teaching evaluations. But in any case, I have experienced less annoyance from reading or hearing “Mrs.” this semester and I will definitely continue my crusade with future classes. Also, I believe that I have probably helped some of my students avoid annoying their post-college colleagues, so I feel good about that.

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December 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 asking if it was OK to vacation with a friend from work (#3 at the link)? Here’s the update.

Thanks so much for your advice on going on vacation with my work friend (as well as all the comments!). I’ve got a quick update for everyone.

I did decide to go on vacation with my coworker Brad, and nothing untoward happened while on the trip. No lines were crossed, we finished the trip cordial but slightly less chatty. I assumed that was because we ran out of things to talk about after a few days by the pool, but it’s clear that wasn’t the case.

It’s been 3 months or so since the trip, and things have been a bit frosty between us. Occasionally I’d texted Brad to grab dinner or something after work, but I always got turned down. All conversations and messages were clipped/rude, including conversations about work topics.

After being in my new department for 6 months now, I’ve picked up some red flags about Brad that I missed before (or chose to ignore due to our friendship). He is consistently rude/uncooperative/unhelpful with the whole department, to the point of people being nervous to talk to him.

I’ve stopped messaging/talking to Brad unless I have a work request, and even then I’m wary of approaching him. Occasionally I’ll get a late night text asking to meet him at the neighborhood bar after he’s had a few drinks, but then he’ll go back to avoiding me the next day.

All things considered, I’m still glad I went on the trip with Brad, it was a nice vacation and it opened my eyes to how he is. I don’t think this strained our work relationship, from what I can tell he now treats me like he treats everyone else on the team (minus the drunk texts!).

Thanks again for all the feedback from everyone in the comment section (and Alison of course!)