Ask a Manager

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

1. I don’t see the point of taking PTO

I work a customer-service-heavy role, and my manager has been wonderful about encouraging us to take PTO if we’re feeling burnt out. Except … I don’t see the point. Yes, I’m burnt out from work, but taking time off work doesn’t magically make all my issues go away: I still have to cope with a special needs dog, I can’t “do anything” because my partner works nights and I either have to pick up the pieces for everything he can’t do or don’t want to disturb him while he’s sleeping, I don’t have enough money to take a vacation, solo or not (and even if I did, who will get groceries and take the dog to the vet while I’m gone?), and I’ll come back to everything being worse because my out-of-office messages aren’t read and customers/team members are wondering why no one has replied to them (yes, this has happened before). PTO doesn’t magically make anything else in my life go away and, if anything, it winds up making worse when I get back. I’ll take a day for doctor’s appointments or similar when there’s a chance I won’t actually get work done, but I just don’t see the point in taking more days than I “need” to. Why should I bother taking it in the first place if I’m not actually going to end up relaxed and recharged?

(For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s an inherent problem with my life/job; it just doesn’t actually make sense for me to take time off.)

For starters, all those days of PTO that you don’t use are days you’re working for free for your company. Your salary is calculated on the assumption that you’ll work X weeks a year and have Y weeks off. Are you willing to work multiple weeks for free each year? Right now you are.

Of the reasons you listed not taking time off (the dog, the sleeping partner, the lack of money for a vacation, etc.), all of them are true of the weekends too, except for the time off making your workload worse when you return. But you still presumably take and enjoy your weekends, right? Or at least aren’t voluntarily spending them working when no one expects you to? That means the biggest issue — and the one you can potentially change the easiest — is the workload problem. So you should raise that with your boss! You said she encourages you to take PTO so she’d probably be receptive to hearing, “I find myself not taking time off because I always come back to a mess, like (examples). Can you help me figure out how to take PTO without customers and team members getting upset that no one has helped them while I’m gone?” Your boss should be able to find solutions to this — maybe it’s having your email forwarded to someone rather than using an out-of-office message, maybe it’s her reassuring you that you don’t need to care if people complain, maybe it’s hiring a temp, who knows. But talk to her because this is a work problem that should have a work solution.

The rest of it is a mental framing problem, in that you need to see days off as valuable even when you’re not doing anything big with them. There’s value in having time to lounge around and read, or binge bad movies, or build a tree house for your dog, or whatever it is you like to do to recharge. You don’t need to take a capital V Vacation to make time off valuable. If a one- or two-week stretch of that sounds like too much (although I take all of December off every year and I don’t do a damn thing and it’s glorious), start by trying some three-day and four-day weekends, and practice relaxing and doing nothing.

Do not work for free for your company.

2. How do I explain my black eye on Zoom calls?

A couple of days ago, I was walking my normally well-behaved large dogs when another dog charged them, unprovoked, and they tripped me, and I ended up hitting the sidewalk hard. Thankfully the other owner ran to get my partner (I was a block away from home) and my partner took me to the ER. I have a concussion, a small fracture in my rib, and various other bruises and bumps. But what is most noticeable is my black eye. I hit my head just above my eyebrow and my eye looks like someone drew on me with a purple sharpie, and since I’m very pale, it’s not going away soon.

I took a few days off from work and screens but since I primarily work from home and have a bunch of Zoom meetings backed up, I’m back at it on a limited basis. My team was shocked when they saw my face, but they have all been supportive and said it’s fine and they’ll get used to it. My problem is outsiders! Most of my meetings are on camera, and I feel weird saying I want to be off camera because of a face injury (sounds worse than it is) but then if I’m on camera it is very distracting and I can feel people staring.

An added complication is that some of the organizations I meet with support people who have experienced domestic violence, and I look like a poster child for getting punched in the face. (In my case the assailant was the sidewalk, but from the way I look you wouldn’t know that.) So my look is very triggering. In a couple of days, I could probably use some makeup on it, but it’s too tender for that right now. I just need an easy way to explain away this massive black eye that doesn’t sound dismissive.

Oh no, I’m sorry!

The easiest way to handle this is to just stay off-camera. Don’t make a big deal of it. Just say something like, “I’m recovering from being sick so my camera’s off today” or “long story, but I’m going to leave my camera off today.” Be matter-of-fact about it, as if it’s not a big deal because it’s not, and it’ll be fine.

3. My friend posts screeds on social media complaining about being rejected for jobs

I have a friend who is neurospicy and extremely brilliant, and is having trouble finding work. Which is a thing for a lot of us right now, for sure.

The trouble is, my friend takes every post-interview rejection so personally, that they will screed on social media about how they were “lied to” and “deceived” and grumble about “blasting them on Glassdoor” to “get even.”

I’ve used all of the reasonable points I’ve seen you make — maybe the firm promoted from within, maybe the position was put on hold — but my friend just can’t hear any of it, due to the panic they feel over not having a stable income at the moment. My concern is, they are posting this on their socials under their own name, and I’m worried it will harm their job prospects. Any advice?

Rather than try to make them see reason about the rejections themselves (you’ve tried, it’s not working), shift your focus to the fact that they’re shooting themselves in the foot: “You know, employers google candidates, and an employer who sees you talking about other employers this way will be reluctant to interview you. You’re hurting your job search by posting this stuff.”

But also … say it once and then wash your hands of it. It’s a kindness to talk to a friend when you see them self-sabotaging, but after that, assume your friend is an adult who’s going to do whatever they’re going to do. It’s a favor to flag it once, but then drop it. It’s not your job to fix this, and it won’t be good for you or for the friendship if you get too invested in trying to make them see it the way you do.

4. My boss didn’t want me answering urgent calls in meetings

Years ago, I worked for a healthcare third party that was integral but adjacent to the functioning of hospitals. Every few months we received an urgent call from one of our hospital customers (emergencies important to hospital functioning but not to patient safety). Since our days were filled with (Zoom) meetings with our other clients, from time to time the two would intersect. If this happened, my strategy was to apologize and excuse myself from my ongoing meeting, triage the message/set up a meeting with the client during my next opening, and the return to my current call. In total, this took me out of an hour-long meeting for 2-3 minutes. At the time, I felt this was a justified response. The meetings they interrupted were open Q&A sessions that often didn’t go the full hour and were not uncommon to reschedule due to small conflicts on the client or my side.

My boss, however, disagreed and said that when we were in a meeting, we owed the people in that meeting our undivided attention (outside of an immediate emergency like a fire or a family/friend/loved-one crisis) and phone calls should go to voicemail. He told me that any calling client would not be left to worry; if the initial call did not go through, it would be routed to a backup and then, if not answered, the backup’s backup, and so forth. There would always be someone to eventually pick up the phone.

Did my boss have the better method to handle urgent requests during meetings? Is total, undivided, uninterrupted attention reasonable for every meeting? I did watch him a bit during meetings we were both in, and he was pretty consistent in following his own rules, even during the totally optional and silly divisional game night.

I should also note that the rerouting of calls wasn’t always smooth. Often backups would prioritize their own client work doing no/only an abbreviated triage. Sometimes the person handling rerouting wouldn’t contact the backups but just me again via a different method (this happened once when I couldn’t answer … because I was on a separate emergency call). I learned my triage method from shadowing other, experienced coworkers during training. When should a company reiterate, retrain, or rewrite their policy if it conflicts with what’s practiced?

This is the kind of thing that’s really your boss’s call. You can try it the way that makes sense to you, but once your boss tells you “no, I want you to do it this other way,” you’ve got to do it his way. I can’t say from the outside whether he was right or not; it depends on all sorts of things I don’t know — but ultimately it doesn’t really matter because it’s his prerogative to decide.

However if you were seeing problems doing it his way, you absolutely should make sure he has the same information you do. So for example, you could have said, “My concern with letting calls go to the backups is that the backups don’t always answer. Twice last month customers with emergencies got shuffled from backup to backup and never reached anyone. If I shouldn’t excuse myself from meetings to take calls, can we do something to ensure the backups are picking up more reliably?”

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

1. My coworker constantly changes her schedule

I am member of a small team with four core staff, including my manager and me. One of my core colleagues is part-time, three days a week. My manager gives her flexibility on this, so she changes her hours to suit her needs every week, to the point where I feel it is negatively affecting all of our work.

Last week, we needed all hands on deck for a major event Wednesday/Thursday/Friday, but she decided to come in on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, leaving us extremely short staffed for Thursday/Friday (which were communicated to her as core days three weeks before). This week, we had to cancel a staff photoshoot the day before, as she had previously told us she would be in and available for it in our weekly team meeting. She changed her hours the afternoon before the shoot and we had to cancel the photographer.

Her job is working one-on-one with clients, and oftentimes they will come in looking for her/calling for her, and she will not be in when she told them she would be. My manager does not relay her weekly schedule to us, so I am left scrambling to help her urgent clients or telling them to come back another day she is in (which I never know! because her schedule is so irregular!). She refuses to set an autoreply stating when she is in office and when she is out (even for vacation), leaving clients to complain to us that she is ignoring their emails. None of these are one-off events — these happen regularly.

My manager is very insulated from the problems. Oftentimes he is off-site at meetings, and is overall passive and laissez-faire. However, he had did address this issue a year ago and she committed to fixed shifts for a few months, but since then she has reverted to changing her schedule throughout the week.

I am not her manager but some work projects she has negatively affected (such as the major event she missed/thephotoshoot) are ones that I am in charge of. How can I bring up my concerns to my manager, without it coming off catty?

It’s not catty to point out a work problem that’s interfering with your own work and causing chaos with clients. That’s a very normal thing to do — always, but especially if your manager isn’t around to see the issues himself. I suspect you’re worried about it being catty because you’re so frustrated with your coworker that your aggravation is at a level that feels catty in your head, but this really is normal to raise.

So talk to your manager! He may be assuming his conversation with her last year mostly solved the issues and doesn’t realize the problems have returned in full force. When you talk to him, stick to the facts and the impact on work. For example: “When Jane changes her schedule at the last minute or doesn’t let us know in advance when she’ll be working, it causes a lot of problems, like XYZ. We also often get clients looking for her because she’s not in when she told them she would be, and clients complain to us that she’s ignoring their emails. Could you ask her to stick to fixed, scheduled shifts?”

2. Is it a red flag if your interviewer refuses to let you meet the person who would be managing you?

My son recently was offered a job after interviewing with a group of HR people, but without talking to the person who would be his boss or any of his coworkers. After he was offered the job, he asked if he could set up a Zoom with his would-be supervisor so that he could at least meet him. HR said no, they did not want him to meet with the person who would be supervising him.

This seemed weird and a big red flag to both of us, and with my encouragement, he turned the job down (the job was also nothing special and located in a not-terribly-desirable place to live). It seems strange enough for the department head to play no role in hiring someone who will report to him, but then prohibiting them from meeting even on Zoom for a few minutes just seemed odd. It makes me wonder if they’re trying to hide something. Were we right in thinking this is weird and a red flag, and that it’s better to wait until something else comes along? Or is this more normal than I realize and I gave my son bad advice? I might add that my son just graduated from college last spring and this was his first job offer, and it was with a small public college.

Did they literally say they didn’t want him to meet with the manager? Or could that have been a misunderstanding — like could they have meant the manager was on vacation and the hiring needed to be finalized before he was back, or something along those lines? If so, that’s not ideal but would make more sense. In that case, your son could have asked to speak with someone else on the team instead.

But if they literally said they didn’t want him to meet with the manager, that’s extremely weird and a huge red flag.

There’s also an option in between those — something more like, “Cecil’s schedule is packed and he’s not involved in the hiring for this role.” That’s still a red flag, because asking to meet the person will be managing you is such a reasonable request that generally employers find a way to make that happen, even if it wasn’t originally planned. (Assuming, of course, that there’s not some reason for it, like that the manager is hospitalized or otherwise truly unavailable.)

3. I scream when I’m startled at work

I get easily startled at my desk, and I want to know how to stop. It only happens at my computer when I’m laser-focused on my work and don’t hear someone coming up behind me. A coworker will walk up behind me for something, and I scream. Yes, scream. Not Psycho-shower-scene screeching, but the type of sudden shriek that startles everyone around me, and then we all have a good laugh about it afterwards.

Two people (in this job and my last job) have told me that me being startled has startled them in turn. I don’t want my coworkers to walk on eggshells around me. They’ve kind of already accepted this as a “quirk” I have and do their best not to scare me (which has helped, and I let them know that I appreciate it), but I want to know what I can do to alleviate this. The good news is that my cubicle is set up on a machine shop floor instead of a quiet office area, so my occasional screams go out into a void of equipment noise instead of disrupting a quiet office. Nonetheless, I don’t want to jumpscare any nearby coworkers!

I already have a little mirror at my desk that shows the opening behind me (although I wish I could install one of those fisheye shoplifter mirrors you find at pharmacies). If I want to listen to something while I work, I only put one earbud in. My friends outside of work suggested that I should ask for a desk that doesn’t have my back towards an opening, which I think would help a lot. However, I’m a junior employee who doesn’t feel like I’m in a position to ask for much, and I know that the reason the cubicles are set up the way they are so that everyone can see your computer screen.

I was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and Level 1 autism two years ago. I also have childhood trauma from an abusive parent. I have never told anyone in my professional life or sought any sort of accommodations for these because I otherwise can perform my duties just fine. I see my conditions as my responsibility to cope with, and I just want to excel in my job without others feeling like they have to give me special privileges. If nobody knows about my conditions, then they can only address my behavior and performance. I also just wouldn’t know how to navigate that conversation because aside from maybe the desk positioning, I wouldn’t really know what to ask *for.*

I’ll actually be moving to a different location next month to work in a project I’ve been asking to be involved in, so I want to see what I can do differently.

Talk to your manager and ask if you can change the way your desk is positioned. You’re not saying “I want to move my desk so no one can see what’s on my screen.” You’ll be saying, “With the way my desk is positioned, I’ve been getting startled when people come up behind me — and I have such a strong startle reflex that it’s been making me involuntarily scream. I’m embarrassed when it happens, and it’s disruptive to people around me. I’ve tried putting up a mirror but it hasn’t solved it. I’d like to angle my desk differently so this stops happening. Is that okay?”

Maybe they’ll say no, all the desks need to stay exactly where they are. But it’s reasonable to ask. If the answer is no, at that point you can decide if you want to go the formal accommodation route — but a conversation might take care of it.

Also, in advance of your move next month, say a version of this to whoever’s in charge of where you’ll be sitting before the move, and ask for your desk to face outward. Again, this is reasonable.

4. My boss showed up at my house and banged on the door

I work for a golf course, which is supposed to be relaxing job. Although I have never been late to work, I was supposed to meet my boss at the bank one day out of work and overslept. He has had been dead against me since then.

Then, early one morning, I was about 20 minutes late for work (I had just done a closing shift the night before and was sick and had a fever) when my husband hears banging on the door so loud that it wakes him up out of a dead sleep on the second story of our home. (You normally can’t even hear the front door from upstairs.) I come running downstairs to see the owner of the golf course standing there with his arms folded. When I opened the door, I told him, “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry, I’ll be right into work.” When I got into work, he proceeded to try to call someone else to have my shift covered even though he had already banged on my house door. My question is, is it against the law for managers to show up at your private residence and bang on your door, demanding you come into work, and then once you get into work have somebody come in to replace you?

It is legal for your boss to show up at your house and bang on the door (because it’s legal for anyone to show up at your house and bang on your door, at least unless circumstances occur that would make it trespassing or harassment, like if they refuse to leave when told to). It’s also legal for him to get someone else to cover your shift, even after demanding you show up. Some states do have laws requiring employers to pay you a minimum number of hours simply for showing up. But in states without those laws, you’d only need to be paid for whatever amount of time you were there after clocking in.

Separately from the law, there’s also the question of whether your boss is a jerk, and the answer to that is yes.

5. Listing a target position on LinkedIn that you don’t actually have

I am job hunting after being laid off. I recently took a LinkedIn workshop and the instructor told us to put in a placeholder position if we weren’t actively employed, on the grounds that we won’t come up in searches by recruiters without an active job title. This placeholder would basically be full of SEO. Roughly, the idea would be:

• job title: number one preferred job title
• company field: target industries
• description field: “seeking” other relevant job titles and whatever other search terms that might apply

This obviously wouldn’t look like an actual position to any human reading it, so it’s not quite the same as lying about one’s job history. It still seems dodgy to me, and like the sort of thing a recruiter might reject immediately. Am I just behind the times? Is this an accepted practice now?

No, this is crap advice. Ignore it.

Humans will look at your LinkedIn profile and this will be a weird thing to have there.

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

1. Interviewing with a manager who wanted to lay me off

My manager at my last company had me on his layoff list. Another manager showed me the list looking for the name of someone who got laid off not realizing I was on it, and I saw myself listed with the three who had gotten laid off. Seeing that was a huge blow. Up until then, I’d considered myself valuable, with years of knowledge and experience. To be laid off over people with less experience, education, and dedication filled me with doubt. It was a large factor in me quitting that job with nothing lined up to take time off to reevaluate my career.

Ultimately, I decided to stick with it since I’m almost 50. I’ve been at my new company for two years now. My previous manager started here a year ago and, since he started, has twice asked me to apply for roles on his team. Both times I’ve asked, surprised, if I would be considered. He replied that of course I would be considered, seeming surprised and confused. After he hired someone for his most recent opening, he asked why I hadn’t applied after he suggested I should. Again, I asked if he would have considered me, and again he replied that of course he would since he asked me to apply. He said he’d let me know when he had another opening and asked why I keep asking if I would be considered. I gave some vague reason.

I can tell my continued questioning is confusing to him. I’d love to work with him again. He’s the best manager I ever had, but I can’t stop this nagging doubt that he doesn’t value me enough to keep me on his team. I guess people get laid off for different reasons, but the other three people on the layoff list with me, well, everyone expected they would go. It was very disheartening to see myself listed with people who worked another job while at work, watched sports for hours on their work computers, repeatedly violated safe protocols, and lost customer parts and lied about it. I can’t help but feel there is some massive mistake I made or some major flaw or failure that I’m unaware of. If there is, I want to know what it is and fix it.

Should I just come right out and tell him I know I was on his layoff list, explain what a blow it was, and ask him why? Or, if I were to interview with him, would it be strange if I asked what he sees me contributing to his team or what experience/knowledge gaps he thinks I have? The fact that he keeps asking me to apply makes me think he sees more value in me than I thought after I saw my name on that list, so maybe the risk is low if I were to get hired on his team. I don’t want to work for him again with this nagging doubt. I distrust my security with him and that would lead to me second-guessing everything I did.

I think you’ve interpreted this wrong. People get laid off for all kinds of reasons that don’t necessarily have to do with their work, like that their position is the one the team can most afford to lose, or a program they’re working on is slated to be cut as an additional cost-saving measure, and tons of other things. Yes, if you’re doing layoffs, it generally makes sense to include the lowest performers, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be role-based cuts too. (Also, note that you weren’t actually laid off while the other three people on the list were, which likely means something.)

In any case, your manager has asked you repeatedly to come work for him again. He wouldn’t be this insistent and asking this often if he were offering out of pity; he means it. If you can’t feel comfortable working for him again, so be it — but it doesn’t make sense to keep doubting him. (And I hope you’ll reconsider your reluctance, too, because “the best manager you ever had” is not something to turn down lightly.)

I do want to point this out: you quit a job with nothing else lined up rather than be laid off (thereby forfeiting the chance for severance if you did eventually get laid off, which you might not have) and now you’re refusing multiple invitations to work for someone you really liked because you doubt they really like you, despite all signs to the contrary. You’ve been leaping to the worst possible conclusions and then acting on those conclusions in ways that are counter to your own interests — ways that harm you (perhaps so that you can do it before anyone else can?). Any chance that’s been a pattern before?

2. Responding to customers who make religious comments

I work in a customer-facing position in a very religious part of the country. I am an atheist. Generally this isn’t an issue, but lately I’ve had several interactions where I’ll be checking out a customer and making small talk and the customer will make a comment about how some people “need Jesus” or their relative needs to “read the Bible.” Whenever this happens, I’m at a loss for how to respond. I don’t want to agree or disagree with their statement but it always seems to turn awkward, even when I try to stay friendly but neutral. I don’t struggle with all references to religion; if they say something like “god bless,” I just responded with “thank you.” But in these other situations, it feels like they want me to affirm their judgment about the necessity and value of the Bible and Jesus, and I don’t want to offend them but I also don’t want to pretend to agree with them. Any suggestions for a script that will end the interaction less awkwardly?

I don’t know that there is a way to keep it from being awkward! They’re making the interaction awkward by assuming their religious beliefs are universal, which is rude (though also very common in some regions).

I’d stick with friendly but neutral, even if it does make for a slightly awkward moment. Exactly what that looks like will vary by interaction, but don’t underestimate the usefulness of a random subject change: “did you want to take one of our sales flyers?” / “I love your necklace” / “can you believe how hot it is out there?” I also wonder if in some of these interactions it’s possible to mentally reframe comments like “he needs Jesus” or “she needs to read the Bible” to “I’m worried about him” / “I don’t understand her” and respond the way you would if they’d said that instead? Don’t do that in cases where it’ll make you feel like you’re agreeing with something you don’t agree with, but there might be times where it’ll work.

3. My coworker made me wait a long time while I was standing in her office

I work at an agency in a senior management role. I have a colleague, a peer, with whom I don’t work together often, but sometimes I need her expertise on projects for my client. She is an added value asset I can sell to clients, essentially.

This colleague and I were working on a project, and I needed her input on a response to my client. I messaged her on Slack twice with no response so went to her desk. When I asked if I could have quick word with her, she asked me to wait while she finished an email. She then put her headphones back on and made me wait 3-4 minutes while she finished typing. I felt really uncomfortable standing there in the middle of the office — we are open plan — but knew if I asked her to find me when she finished, it would never happen and I needed this info.

Is this rude and disrespectful or am I being overly sensitive? I have asked people to wait myself when I’ve been in the middle of something but the length of time and the fact she put her headphones back on just seems really off to me. I also wonder if she would behave the same way with other colleagues she has a longer relationship with.

Well, ideally she would have told you she needed several minutes in case you didn’t want to wait, or simply said she was in the middle of something, but I think you’re being overly sensitive (and you did show up without warning, after all, and after already getting some cues she might be busy when she didn’t respond to your messages). She might have been in the middle of a back and forth with someone, or been downloading info from a conversation she’d just had and didn’t want to lose the details, or just needed to finish a thought. Who knows. I wouldn’t worry about it at all!

4. My promoted manager won’t accept help with his old job

My manager was promoted to a vice president position from his prior director role. This promotion is an interim appointment since our C-level executive would like to do a formal recruitment for the VP position, but needs someone to fill it now for at least the next year. My manager is now doing two jobs, his new interim VP role, plus his director role. He told everyone on his team he has to operate in this dual-role fashion for the next year. I meet with him biweekly for our one-on-ones, and I see and hear the toll this is taking on him. He is visibly more tired and he shared with me that he feels inundated with the increased workload.

I am a manager on his team and in the past I’ve shared with him that I have a desire to expand my responsibilities as a people and organization manager. He has been supportive of this and has given me chances to manage additional projects. We have a good working relationship and I want to see him succeed, especially in his new VP role.

I sent him an email offering to serve in an interim capacity in his director role as he gets acclimated to his new position. I provided a proposal for how I could achieve this alongside my existing responsibilities. I also outlined how this works toward achieving my career aspirations and alleviating some of the load to allow him to focus on his new responsibilities.

I didn’t receive a response to this offer. During our next one-on-one, I brought it up. He didn’t address it and just said he’s keeping everything as-is for the next year. In my mind, there are a two possibilities for why he’s doing this: 1) there are things going on at his level that he’s not at liberty to share or 2) he is having a difficult time transitioning away from his prior role. While scenario 1 is certainly possible, based on his past behaviors it is more likely scenario 2 is in play — delegation has been a struggle for him. Many times in his director role, he got a bit too far into the weeds on projects where it would have served the team more efficiently to delegate to his team leads. Should I continue to offer this assistance to him or just let this go and let him do whatever he feels he has to do?

Let it go. You made the offer twice — once in writing and once in person, and he told you clearly that he’s keeping everything as-is for the next year. That’s a no! It’s possible that the explanation is one of the two you came up with, or it could be something else (including that he might not think you’re a shoo-in for the interim promotion). Regardless, you asked, and he declined. You should leave it there.

5. Did I make a mistake by leaving my passion field?

About a year ago, I left my notoriously abusive, high-stress passion role for a more stable field-adjacent position. Think if I was previously a math teacher for several years and now I’m an accountant for the school district. My stress level is way down, I have more energy for my personal life and the role has a surprising amount of flexibility.

The problem is, I don’t … like it? I knew it would be less public-facing and more administrative than my previous job. I did not consider how much of my day would be “take two PDFs and make them one PDF” or “let’s have three meetings to decide which icebreaker to do at the next training.”

I made this change in hopes that work would be less of a rollercoaster — while I had a lot of fulfilling moments in my last role, there were a lot of hardships and people in my role aren’t always treated well by the public or by their colleagues. But now it’s like I traded that for all the boring parts of a job and none of the dopamine. And the thought of logging into the email factory every day for the next 20 years kind of makes me nauseous. I’ve talked to my therapist but, as you’ve pointed out, therapists are not always the best at giving career advice. I would love to just follow my heart and dive back into my old job, but I need to be realistic about how much that level of emotional involvement affected my personal life and health. How do I find the line between engaged and healthily detached to ride out to retirement?

The choice isn’t just between this one soul-deadening job and the exhausting role you were in previously. It might be that your current job isn’t right for you, but that doesn’t mean you have to go back to where you were. You could see the current job as data that’s helping you refine what you do and don’t want, and go out and look for a job that’s closer to what you do want. The choice doesn’t have to be binary.