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. My coworker keeps asking what my clothes cost in front of other colleagues

Update on my colleague “Ava” who asked awkward questions about my clothing costs. Shortly after I wrote in I had a chance to become the manager of Ava and a few other direct reports, which is a really great thing for me! I’ve been more easily able to coach Ava and give her the professionalism feedback I think she needs because of this role change, and I have been getting great feedback on being a great manager for the past 6 ish months. I really wanted this change to management and am very happy.

Unfortunately, since becoming Ava’s manager I have realized that she lacks professionalism and office etiquette in a more significant way than just the comments about how much my clothes cost (which have stopped) and I am not sure how this job is going to work out for her. She becomes defensive with feedback and has blown up on the team over minor miscommunication, and her behavior continues to be awkward and off putting in the same way the clothing cost comments were to others on the team and they really dislike her because of it. I was pretty removed from the rest of the team previously due to different responsibilities and was in the dark about just how bad it is with her, but I’ll continue to work with her on things and hope for the best! I really want her to succeed and be a great fit to the team.

2. My boss falls asleep in meetings (#2 at the link)

Well, an update – he fell asleep again. Just after lunch. Unfortunately, I didn’t have control over the meeting agenda, so I couldn’t make the after lunch portion more engaging. There were about 15 people attending (all seated around a conference table), and for the most part of the day the meeting was just presentations – there was a fair amount of “interruptions” to the presentations, where attendees would ask the presenter questions, but there wasn’t really any good way for me to try to engage boss during those times – it would have felt out of place for ‘Suzie’ to be presenting, but for me to say “hey, boss, what do you think about what Suzie is saying?”

It could be a medical thing? I have no idea. In response to other commenters – we are a small staff (less than 10) and there is no one else closer in reporting to him than I am – if anyone were to say something to him, it would be me. On the good side, we really don’t have that many in-person meetings, much less all-day ones that I should have to deal with that often in the future. I do think, however, that if we have another (at least, another small one like this, where his behavior is noticeable) that I should say something in advance…

3. Should I let job candidates know I’m going to be leaving soon after they start? (#5 at the link)

I went forward with posting the job and reviewing resumes; I talked to several great candidates and there was a clear frontrunner in my mind. After the phone screen, I invited them to come in for an interview and also shared that I would be moving, but we have a great transition plan in place, and the rest of the team is stable. They ultimately decided that they did not want to pursue the opportunity further knowing that there would be a new manager in place; they’d been in this position before and did not have a good experience, which I respect. Not only do you run the risk of not liking the new manager, but you then also have to deal with a big transition early on.

It did throw off our hiring schedule though, and by that point it did not make sense for me to continue trying to hire & train someone prior to leaving because there just weren’t enough calendar days left. My replacement joined, I had a three-week transition with them, and they hired someone right as I was leaving. It was for a slightly different, less specialized role than I envisioned but I’m still in touch with the team and it sounds like things are going well!

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.

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

1. My manager attends a notoriously bigoted university (#2 at the link)

I feel okay with writing in with an update now, along with further details, because this supervisor has resigned from my firm.

The people who guessed Liberty University were correct. Unfortunately the advice given wasn’t actionable, because the entity paying for the degree was the U.S. military (my former supervisor is a veteran). Readers, if it angers you that your tax dollars get funneled to places like Liberty via the GI Bill, contact your Senator, I guess?

I am polyamorous. This is a big part of my life that also affects my work life — e.g. when my non-marital partner got Covid, I was his sole source for Paxlovid and emergency supplies, and I had to take off work to tend to those issues. Whether or not poly is considered queer/queer-adjacent, poly people are subject to a lot of discrimination that is perfectly legal. Coming out is extremely fraught.

In my year of working for her, I never got a sense from my former supervisor about her personal views on the people Liberty hates. Regardless, I’ve stayed wholly closeted at work. Call me a coward; you’re not wrong. America hasn’t reached a place where I can expect any reaction other than revulsion, and it scares me to death. Much love to everyone who has the courage to live in their full authenticity, and happy holidays to all.

2. What do I do once I retire?

I wrote in asking about what to do in retirement. The most useful comment was from someone who said, basically, think about what you most value at work. I realized that being a professor was a part of my identity I didn’t want to lose. I didn’t want to work (not the research and teaching – I was ready to stop), but being a professor was still part of me. At a party I heard someone refer to themselves as a retired librarian. And I thought, I can do that! I can be a *retired* professor. Other comments were less helpful (the number of people who suggested quilting, or the people who suggested ways I could keep teaching and research after retirement, well if I wanted to do that I would just keep working).

So I retired last summer. And in a pretty satisfying way. I and another professor took a small group of students to Germany for ten days at the end of the term. Then I and my family (kids, husband) met in Finland (where my daughter is getting an MA) for a vacation. That was great! But life happens. Amidst all this my husband was diagnosed with two serious illnesses, one progressive, incurable, and ultimately terminal. So, the silver lining is I am here to go to hospitals and doctors’ appointments with him. He is stable, for now. And I am doing different things: another trip back to Europe last summer, auditing a class, exercising more, going out more with people (while trying not to catch anything). So, my advice would be to give some thought to retirement before you jump in, be aware that any plan can be derailed, and if partnered learn to do everything your partner does because divisions of labor emerge subtly over the years and one day one of you will have to do it all.

3. I’m managing the mom of the ex-friend who catfished me

I would have certainly taken your advice, and I appreciated your words of support.

The day after I wrote in, “Michelle” told me she remembered who I was. I told her I had remembered too, it just took me a second. We expressed how great it was to see each other again after all these years. She’d show me pics of her grandchildren and talk about her kids like any other proud Mom/Grandmother would show their coworkers. There was never any weirdness.

Michelle recently retired and sadly, she suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. I went to her funeral services and obviously saw her daughter (my former friend). We hugged and I told her how sorry I was and how nice it had been to see her Mom again. She said she appreciated that I came to the service. Some of her extended family members remembered me and it was nice to see them, too (although not under happy circumstances).

Someone on my team who was close to Michelle said that she did tell her that I “basically lived at her house,” but she didn’t say that Michelle had said anything about why I had stopped going over. Like many of the comments said, she probably didn’t even know. I think my team member was trying to get some dirt out of me and asked if something had happened to make us stop being friends, and I just said no and kind of blew it off.

Certainly a sad ending to this story, but I did get some closure to an old wound.

4. My friend says we’re not supportive enough of their business idea

My friend and I who are on the same page resolved to take your advice and that from readers of being supportive but not initiating anything. However, I forgot the next time our friend spoke about opening a B&B and asked if they thought about all the things involved that would have to be done and so wasn’t as noncommittal as I should have been. In any case, our friend hasn’t made any further movements in making it a reality, so maybe there’ll be no need for concern going forward.

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.

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

1. My boss wants me to be positive and upbeat all the time … we work in disaster relief

I really appreciated your response and those of the site readers, and especially those who have also worked in emergency response and mental health fields and understood what I was going through.

After I wrote in, Sam backed off asking about my mental health. It appears that the conversation he had with Gillian had the desired effect, so I didn’t need to address it with him further. For those readers who thought it might be related to me being female, it appears that wasn’t the case. Sam did make one more comment about mental health in a team conference call just after I wrote in, but this time about a male colleague. After the usual round of greetings, Sam said something like “And Jim sounds particularly down today,” to which Jim replied, “I’ve got Covid!” Since then there have been no more mentions of mental health.

With regard to my own health, I continued to struggle with fatigue for several weeks and then sought medical advice. It turns out that I had a couple of physical health issues that were contributing to my feelings of exhaustion and my shorter fuse. Those have been taken care of now and I’m feeling much better, but I think it is a good further illustration of why managers shouldn’t diagnose their employees as having mental health issues, as they aren’t qualified and don’t know what else may be going on in peoples’ lives.

An additional possible contributor to my feeling burnt out was that in spite of being seconded to emergency response, I still handled three times the number of files last year as my nearest colleagues (who were not working on emergency response). Sam is aware of this as he is the one who ran the stats. Several weeks ago, he and Gillian asked me to take the lead on an interesting side project. I agreed, but asked that they assist with shifting some of my regular workload so that I could have time to focus on it. They promised that they would do this, but so far it hasn’t happened. Although I’ve enjoyed my job to date, the regular workload and expectations around emergency response have become untenable for me. I’ve been looking for another position, and just this week I interviewed for a job with another organization. I have a former colleague who left to join this organization who told me that it is a good place to work with really good managers, and I’m hopeful that I’ll receive a job offer in the next couple of weeks.

Thank you for your response. It was very helpful and a big relief to have the validation that what I was experiencing from my manager was not right.

2. My remote boss wants to know every time I go to the bathroom

I ended up just kind of forming my own boundaries without a conversation. I think my foot was halfway out the door anyways. It seemed that my boss wanted the utmost communication from me without having to reciprocate that in the slightest. It felt so uneven, especially given his bathroom comments!

I am also dealing with a dying family member. Not having the trust and flexibility in my job was brutal. I sought out new positions and turned some down based on how similar they sounded to what I was doing. I finally found one that a) pays double b) offers flexibility whenever I need it and c) I don’t need to tell anyone when I’m peeing.

I know my previous boss was probably just freaked out about control and stuff. But being on the receiving end was demeaning. Don’t treat your employees like they’re criminals!

3. Should I tell my coworker she’ll never get the promotion she deserves?

I told her. I sent her a message on Facebook so it wasn’t on any work related accounts or devices. It actually worked out well as she kind of already knew and was already looking for something else. She not only landed a better position with better pay, but her leaving actually forced a somewhat painful restructuring that pushed a few under performers out the door. Including the one that was promoted over her. I don’t mind the restructuring and I found it ultimately improved everything once the first few months were completed.

4. Manager came to work with Covid and infected high-risk people

I don’t have a fantastic update, unfortunately. Partner was resistant to bringing up any issues with HR because they’d recently been bought over by new management and he didn’t want to rock the boat, so no real consequences. The good news is that there were fake consequences! The manager who exposed everyone without disclosing did get fired not long after, just for completely different reasons. No structural changes, so while employees are required to report covid exposure it’s possible the same issue could happen again without consequences. So far her replacement hasn’t done anything as blatant as knowingly exposing high risk employees to covid or failing to disclose exposing employees to Covid so I’m taking the win.

Bonus update in case anyone was concerned about health consequences for the at-risk people who got exposed: coworker and partner are both okay, I have some mild consequences but luckily immediate danger is all ruled out.

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 new coworker kept staring at her breasts? Here’s the update.

Thank you again for publishing my letter and for your advice. It was especially great to see just how exhausted you and the commentariat were with having to even consider any of that crap, again, for the thousandth time. Feeling that collective exasperated sigh behind my back made it much easier to act.

I did at first try to ask the staring coworker rather pointedly, was there something wrong with my badge? He gave me a surprised, uncomprehending look in response and said no, no, nothing was wrong. That encounter seemed to help briefly, but in a couple of days the effect disappeared.

I next tried pointedly crossing arms across my chest and, separately, asking what it was he kept looking at. Both attempts elicited the same exact reaction as the badge try.

A day or two after my last attempt to save him the face, I finally had enough. I said, “Name, you can’t keep staring at me like this. This area (and I showed the area with my hands) is completely off limits when you talk to women.” I was tired and not feeling well that day, so it came out in a pretty harsh tone. The guy was very taken aback, he just sat there staring at me (at my face this time hah), frozen and speechless. After a minute or so of him not saying anything at all, I left the room.

He approached me later that day, in a couple hours after my outburst, very cautiously. He said he hoped I understood he never meant to stare “like that,” that it was just how his eyes were, whether he looked at men or women. He said it was considered impolite in his country of origin to look people in the eyes for long stretches, which is why he made it a habit to rest his eyes elsewhere.

Now some of that I felt was true, as I said in my original post, I had a feeling all the way through that he didn’t REALLY mean to stare at the chest. However, the part about looking at men the same way was not true at all, with them he would look at their ears, the wall behind them, that sort of things, instead of their chests (yes I had studied this aspect carefully before acting, sigh). Still, I told him that I believed him and even soothed his ego a bit by saying how much I valued his contribution to the lab. But stressed that he still had to change his eye habits, however innocently meant, around women.

The guy was very, very careful where he looked the rest of the time I worked with him, which was about 3-4 more months, so the lesson did stick. Unfortunately our relationship never recovered – he started avoiding talking with me in general, and when he did have to talk to me, his attitude reminded me of a snake charmer approaching a particularly dangerous reptile. If I stayed at that lab, this would be a very difficult thing to work through. Fortunately, for reasons completely unrelated to the staring guy, I am now happily at a great new job across the globe.

Thank you again Alison, and thank you all who commented, it is so great to have this amazing place to talk through even the hairiest of issues.

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 resort manager asking how their staff should respond to complaints about a non-binary guest in the bathrooms? Here’s the update.

Based on your and your readers’ advice, we reframed our thinking regarding possible future complaints. We made a conscious effort to train our staff who may possibly be receiving or investigating any complaints to ask the right questions and enable them to distinguish complaints about what someone was doing from any that may be about who they were. By doing this, the potential problem and our staff’s concerns about handling it became a much smaller deal than we originally thought. It sounds simple when you put it like that and, truthfully, it was.

We included a statement in our check-in literature which read “Everyone welcome! Teapot Resorts does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, ability, veteran status, or citizenship. We welcome guests to use the restroom that is consistent with their gender identity. Taking pictures, filming, or otherwise putting other guests’ privacy at risk in the restrooms and/or private areas is strictly prohibited.” This was included with other information on resort policy as if it were as non-controversial a statement as the office hours or pet leash rules.

Of the five resorts I manage, including the one where our non-binary guest is staying, I had next to no pushback from any of our staff. One person questioned the necessity of publishing the statement wondering if it were “poking the bear,” and one other older gentleman reportedly told his coworker that he didn’t personally agree with it, but in the course of his official duties has followed it to the letter.

We had an extremely busy summer, with a higher than average number of guests and received exactly zero complaints about anyone in the bathrooms, and I truly believe the statement acted preventatively. We literally had a single negative response, a guest who didn’t say anything during his stay, but sent a long, angry rambling email after the fact complaining about the policy on behalf of his wife and all other “real” women. Interestingly, he never referred to her by name, only as his Wife, as if that were her identity, and we did not hear from her at all. By contrast, we had a handful of guests who positively commented on the policy, both those who were directly impacted by the policy and those who were not but generally approved of it. By far the most common reaction was no reaction at all, which was a very pleasant surprise.

It is easy to see that having a non-discrimination policy, ensuring all of our staff knew how to talk about the issue, and making our guests aware of it neutralized not only our staff’s concerns over dealing with complaints but also made the majority of our guests (regardless of their own gender identity) feel more comfortable and safe in our facilities. Overall this experience definitely resulted in a net positive for our company in a lot of ways, including public perception and staff retention.

My sincere thanks to you and all of your amazing readers who took the time to comment and share their own experiences and things that worked for them. Through the advice received we were able to turn this potential mountain into a molehill.

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. Our uniform policy is ludicrous and pisses me off constantly

After I went to Bob and explained that the stipend is insufficient, there are very few options for women and even fewer for large women, I went through the options on the uniform website myself and sent the admin links to several shirts that were available but not offered at our company. She added them to our offerings. I tried to order them and they were out of stock, not in my size…all kinds of issues. So I finally just decided that I won’t be following the uniform policy, or enforcing it with my direct reports, until the issues are truly corrected. Other female managers, for their own reasons, have done the same. Bob isn’t the best at follow-through, so no one is saying anything at the moment. Just yesterday, though, someone told me that our new director is keen to force us into not only uniforms, but shirts that are all the same color, every day. This depresses me more than I can say. But it seems like it is a ways off, so I plan to fight that battle when it gets here.

When my original post was published, I got several comments saying I was being classist or a snob. I’m truly sorry I came across that way. I sat down to write my letter just after another failed attempt to fix the problem, and I was angry. Being told what to wear is extremely triggering for me for personal reasons, but I also felt like no one was listening to the very real concerns about the unfairness and weirdness of the policy. I admit it was a rant, and I wish I would have handled myself better. I really appreciate the many supportive comments and Alison’s advice! They empowered me to know this is worth pushing back on, and I’m going to keep doing that.

2. Should I tell my boss about a personal situation that might affect my work?

I’m happy to say my situation turned out really well! I did talk to my boss, and he was as supportive and sympathetic as I could have hoped. We agreed on no new projects for awhile while I was dealing with the home situation, and to keep him in the loop if things escalated in a scary way or I felt like I needed more resources from the company. He’d check in periodically, although never in an overbearing way, but otherwise treated me normally.

I’m glad I was honest with my boss and HR, in part because, as it happened, the *solution* to the personal drama (I know some folks were wondering, so: it was a set of really, REALLY toxic roommates; going into detail would be wildly off-topic, but it was baaaaaaaad) was also its own source of stress for a few months even once they were on their way out the door (literally)—I bought the house I’d been renting for several years! It’s a happy outcome, but anybody who’s been through that process anytime recently probably has an idea how stressful and time-consuming it is, even without the house-hunting aspect. Anyway, it’s all over now, my mental health has DRAMATICALLY improved, and while, per my boss and co-workers, they didn’t see a dip in my performance, knowing that they were aware I had big things happened in my personal life made me feel like I’d have grace there if I needed it. My company is a great place to work, and I’m grateful for it. This past year would have been so much harder if I was working somewhere with a less supportive culture.

(I’m also glad I shared with my boss, because the first time we happened to talk after closing, he asked me how I was enjoying being a land baron now.)

3. Could my acne be keeping me from getting a job? (first update here; second update here; third update here)

I no longer work in either education or the completely different field I was shifting to with my update in 2018. Interestingly enough, I ended up working for a dermatologist for two years, and the treatment I got while working there knocked out the root cause of my acne. Now it’s just maintenance care to keep it from returning, and my face is no longer in physical pain from breakouts. Covid kicked me around career-wise for a while, but I think the dust has finally settled and I’ve found myself a good place to be.

You took my question seriously all those years ago, acknowledging that the acne could be making me look younger but also giving me other ways to make sure I read as my age, and I’ve always appreciated it. So many people in my life minimized how awful it made me feel by saying it was just a cosmetic thing, but the AAM community all had nothing but kind things to say to a young 25 year old who was ashamed of her face. I’ll never forget the commenter who actually reached out to me to send me money for medication that I couldn’t afford back then. (I’m keeping them anonymous in case they wished for it to be, but I’ve never forgotten their name.) So many of you wanted to help out too – I was blown away by the generosity and I still am, five years later! I’ve always loved the AAM community, and I will forever treasure how kind everyone was to me during what was a pretty rough period of my career. Thank you, all of you!