Ask a Manager

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

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

Here are three updates from past letter-writers.

1. Can I do anything about a senior-level colleague who doesn’t do any work? (first update)

Today is my final day of employment at the job I wrote in about. I am leaving here for a job at a large university in the major city I live near, with a 40% pay increase and better benefits and PTO. In my last two weeks, they decided to move the role out from under Jane’s supervision to being under Andy’s, which is wild because Andy doesn’t know the first thing about the role nor the system that the role works with (whereas Jane is the one who trained me in that system). They also decided that it will be a senior level role instead of the junior one I’ve had, and give the role a 40-50% pay increase, which is also wild because when I asked for a promotion a couple of months ago, they said it wasn’t in the budget. It was a super nice F-you to me from the org I’ve been supporting for three years.

In my final two weeks here, I have voiced my concerns with respect to Andy to whomever here I thought I could trust. My exit interview, which was supposed to be with the head of our org, was conducted by my grandboss instead because he canceled on me at the last minute. I was scathing in my exit interview, stating that the reasons I was leaving were 1) money and 2) Andy. I spoke to the one and only board member I know, who was very kind and seemed appreciative of what I had to say. I spoke to Andy’s new direct report, who started here last week, and very carefully let her know my concerns so as not to frighten her; she also seemed to appreciate the heads-up. I learned that Andy has had it out for me from the very beginning, probably because I don’t believe any of the BS they throw at us and I have, for months now, questioned Andy at every possible opportunity whenever they spout fluff and I want to know concrete facts. (They have never, to my recollection, responded to my questions with anything concrete, and usually end up very flustered.)

Yesterday, Andy wrote an email to all-staff announcing the change in the role. As my last official action at the org, I replied-all, copied the board, and wrote an email laying out all the issues.

Whether or not the board will do anything remains to be seen, but given that our org head mostly reports to them that everything here is hunky dory, I think they will be surprised at the least, and hopefully will take a long hard look at Andy and why the head of our org has kept Andy employed despite … everything. Several others here are looking for work and I hope they are able to get out and to find satisfying work at places that will appreciate what they put in and compensate them fairly. I am in a strong position given that I know Jane will give me excellent references going forward, so I was not worried about blowback in sending this email. I know not everyone has the security I do, so I do not recommend this approach to everyone, but if you know you can’t be harmed by speaking the truth and standing up for yourself and others who are being mistreated, I encourage you to do so.

2. I’m overhearing my partner’s work conversations and they seem bad

Nearly three years later and my partner (now spouse!) is still at the same company. They’ve been promoted, they’re beloved by all coworkers, and recently got complimented by their boss for “always encouraging us to be better.”

Meanwhile, I am at a different job so now we don’t work from home the same days anymore. It’s been good to get distance from each other in our professional lives, I think essentially being coworkers was not doing our relationship any favors. We did have a conversation about what I perceived as unprofessional behavior and they pointed out that my field is fairly hierarchical and conservative while theirs is younger and less uptight. Thanks for your answer and to the commenters!

3. How can I find a job in another state without moving there first?

It’s small, but the update is that I did indeed find a job in another state! It helped my case that my old city and my new city have suburbs with the same name, and my old job had that suburb as part of its name; I think that’s how I got my foot in the door. I only had two weeks to move and it was a nightmare; I sprouted my first gray hairs not long after that ordeal! I’m a little over a year into the new job and loving it. I will even be up for a promotion of sorts soon, with higher pay and more responsibilities so I’m very happy!

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. Our admins hate all the coffee I buy the office, but they insist I have to keep trying

I chickened out and had my mom mail me a Costco gift card so I could buy four coffee tubs at once, drop them off at the admin’s office, and opt out of the conversation until 2025.

That said, the chaos demon in me won and I started just making my own coffee when I got in first and not saying anything. It happens rarely because the admin who makes the coffee comes in at 7:30, but neither of them have brought it up again.

Boring update, but hopefully the commenters who advocated the bait and switch are vindicated lol.

2. Senior colleague disparaged self-defense training for women (#2 at the link)

I did take your advice and it turned out exactly as you said it would. It was about a week after the incident when I ran into Attorney in the break room before a meeting while we were both making coffee. I acted as if nothing ever happened, and he was extraordinarily friendly — more so than he typically would be — leading me to believe that he was grateful for my overture. Thank you so much for answering my question and for all the very helpful comments from your readers.

3. Can I leave before my notice period is up if my boss is being a jerk?

Thank you for publishing my letter and for your reply. The comments from the readers were great too and really helped.

Yes, the email examples in my letter were just one thing in a LONG line of bad behaviors, as one commenter mentioned.

And, as is very often the case, you were right … knowing I could walk out made it easier to just ignore the craziness. And it helped knowing that walking out was an option.

My former boss made it easy by just … avoiding me, literally fleeing from the room if it was just us in it, and by Tuesday afternoon she completely stopped speaking to me. That said a lot more about her than it did me and I was able to be amused by the sheer amount of effort it requires to literally (at one point she crossed a fairly busy street against a light so we didn’t wait at the same curb) flee from places when I entered or got near her.

On my last day, she had me turn in my equipment to a coworker because she didn’t even bother to come in to the office. Guess she couldn’t figure out how to do that without speaking to me? LOL

The new job is amazing. My manager is great. I have felt welcomed and supported from day 1 and know how lucky I am that I was able to escape to something better.

4. Our top two execs are secretly mother and daughter

Two months after my letter appeared, I was laid off in their “second round” of lay-offs (they only had 14 employees overall) in October 2023. If you recall, they had just lost their largest client when I wrote the letter and laid off a first round of employees. So, I hadn’t gotten around to following any of the advice given because things had gotten even stranger there as the mother/daughter leadership team figured out what to do to keep the business afloat.

I’d just conducted an intense job search to get the job; 10 months later I was embarking on yet another search, starting over. To say that it was stressful is an understatement. Even in my desperation to find a new position, I now knew what I would NOT tolerate. I knew I wanted a larger organization, not a small business run by a founder/owner. I wanted no familial ties unless it was broadcast far and wide. Mostly, I didn’t want control of my financial fate to be in the hands of two people who would lie about such a basic thing, something that was not even wrong, and who would staff their agency based on the needs of one client who could, and did, decide to walk away. I guess what I’m getting at is this: although some people in the comments said, “This isn’t wrong, it’s no big deal,” I found that it was a big deal in terms of character. For example, I was let go with no severance pay. My health insurance ended at the end of that month (so I had about two weeks). These are not people who demonstrate caring about their employees’ welfare, which can be seen in the way they deliberately obscured their relationship.

In my original letter I talked about the grandmother’s 100th birthday. Before I was laid off, that grandmother died and they continued to pretend that only the CEO (the mother) was impacted. The CIO (the daughter) said nothing about the loss or her time away from work — she just didn’t say anything but didn’t show up. To top it all off, in January of this year, they let the last four or five people go — all 14 of us eventually got the ax. The website still exists, you could still hire them to do work, but it’s really just the two of them.

I started a new job in February and just hit the three-month mark. This new company is so much better. I looked for a company that aligned with my values, one that is large enough to have a board, an HR department, many diverse leaders — none of whom are related — and a strong DEIB policy that emphasizes teamwork, belonging, and honesty.

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 — there’s more to come.

Remember the letter-writer whose coworkers complained she was violating the dress code, but she wasn’t? Here’s the update.

A lot of the readers put their fingers on what I was reluctant to address in my letter — that my physical appearance was part of what was likely prompting the complaints. I do look different than most of my coworkers. While we are all roughly the same age, I have always taken care of my health, my skin, and my hair, and have been a regular gym-goer since my college athlete days. I modeled briefly as well. So I’m kind of used to people reacting to my appearance and certain people automatically disliking me simply based on what I look like. I can’t do anything about that and I try hard to be warm, friendly, and kind to everyone regardless.

After the letter was published, I did go back to my boss for a deeper conversation about the feedback and asked her if she thought there was more to the problem than just my clothing choices. She confided that the person who’d complained was a member of an adjacent team, an older woman who was notorious for unfounded complaints about coworkers, and who for whatever reason had taken issue with me. (I should note that we never had a single direct interaction!) The complaint had been made to our VP, who instructed my boss to let me know, but the VP herself was apparently neutral about whether my clothing was really a problem. After we talked, my manager went back the VP and HR on her own, with detailed examples of common dress code “violations” and asked that management release an update with more specific guidelines.

The dress code update was much stricter than the prior version and continues to be widely ignored. Around this time, the complainer was fired for poor performance and attitude issues, and my boss moved to another state for her spouse’s job. I now report directly to the VP. Due to some changes with my role, I am now leading a lot of training sessions (including videos that will stay in our formal onboarding courses for years) so I now find myself dressing much more formally than most of my peers as a natural result of this responsibility.

To be completely honest, being taken seriously has been something I have sometimes struggled with in a male-dominated industry over the years. As much as I would like the world to be different, the reality is that appearance is a big part of how anyone is perceived, and we all have to deal with that in whatever way it affects us. This was a valuable lesson for me. I appreciate all of the feedback, it definitely helped me overcome my denial that what I look like affects my relationships at work. If upgrading to a more formal style is all it takes to be seen as competent and shut down this kind of petty competitiveness, I’m okay with it. Luckily my area has a lot of great thrift and re-sale shops and I have been able to upgrade without spending too much money.

I appreciate everyone’s advice, this community is a fantastic resource. Thank you all very much!

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 wondered if he was rejected because he told his interviewer he never makes mistakes? Here’s the update.

Thank you for answering my question.

I read some of the comments, but don’t think people really understood my point of view. I’m very methodical and analytic, which is why I said I don’t make mistakes. It’s just not normal to me for people to think making mistakes is okay.

I did follow your advice to not mail the grandboss on LinkedIn, until I discovered she seems to have gotten me blackballed in our field. Despite numerous resume submissions and excellent phone screens, I have been unable to secure employment. I know my resume and cover letter are great (I’ve followed your advice) and during the phone screens, the interviewer always really likes me, so it’s obvious she’s told all her friends about me and I’m being blackballed.

I did email her on LinkedIn after I realized what she’d done, and while she was polite in her response, she refused to admit she’s told everyone my name. She suggested that it’s just a “tough job market” and there are a lot of really qualified developers looking for jobs (she mentioned that layoffs at places like Twitter and Facebook), but it just seems too much of a coincidence that as soon as she refused to hire me, no one else wanted to hire me either.

I also messaged the hiring manager on LinkedIn to ask her to tell her boss to stop talking about me, but I didn’t receive a response.

I’m considering mailing some of her connections on LinkedIn to find out what she’s saying about me, but I don’t know if it would do any good.

I’m very frustrated by this whole thing — I understand that she didn’t like me, but I don’t think it’s fair to get me blackballed everywhere.

I’ve been talking to my wife about going back to school for my masters instead of working, but she’s worried it will be a waste of money and won’t make me any more employable. I’ve explained that having a masters is desirable in technology and will make me a more attractive candidate, but she’s not convinced. If you have any advice on how to explain to her why it’s a good idea, I would be grateful.

I can’t advise on that — it really depends on the career path you want — but I can tell you that under no circumstances should you contact the interviewer’s connections on LinkedIn to ask what she’s saying about you.

First and foremost, it would reflect terribly on you. You’d come across as someone with no boundaries and who can’t take no for an answer — to the point that you’d seem scary, as in a potential safety concern for the interviewer. It would almost certainly get you immediately eliminated from any hiring process those connections are involved with in the future. People do not interview people who respond to rejection this way; to the contrary, they do everything they can to avoid contact with them.

Second, you’ve latched onto this theory that the interviewer has gotten you blacklisted because you’re not getting job offers. But were you getting offers before that interview? Perhaps you were and didn’t mention it, but otherwise this is just a continuation of what was happening, not a change. And even if it is a change, the interviewer’s response to you makes plenty of sense on its own; it is a tough job market and there are a lot of really qualified developers looking for jobs.

Additionally, even if the interviewer did tell some of her connections about her experience with you, she’s allowed to do that. Trying to go after her for it won’t make the situation any better; it will make it worse.

Ironically, the thing you’re accusing the interviewer of doing to you (blackballing you in your field) is something you’d be doing to yourself if you pursue this.

Last, you do indeed make mistakes. I know that because literally every human on the planet makes mistakes (do you truly believe you are the one human ever to have lived who doesn’t make mistakes?), but also because you’ve made so many of them in this situation and can’t see them — so there are undoubtedly others you can’t see too. It’s worth spending some time thinking about that rather than reflexively denying that it could be true.

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

Remember the letter-writer whose boss wanted to hire them out for their “unique talents and skills” that had nothing to do with their jobs? Here’s the update.

I found using the suggested phrasing “I freelance in that field and it would be a conflict of interest” to be a helpful way to express my concerns politely. I think it helped my boss feel less like I was shutting them down personally and more making it about general business norms.

One of your suggestions, “I do that for fun and I’m not interested in doing it professionally,” helped me to see how crazy of an ask this was. I could see how someone might naively ask about making cupcakes for an event, or taking photos. None of the three of us asked about adding our skills to this business were asked to make our hobbies part of our job. Two of us were asked about adding our services that are related to our master’s degrees and one to a field of work that they left over a decade ago. Fields that have professional certifications and titles that are unrelated to the company.

The company was and is very successful. It provides a much needed service in my community. But as it grew with more employees and in servicing more clients, it started to become very disorganized. A few months after the infamous meeting, I was asked to start coming to in-person events. My boss knew my availability and that I was only working this job because I could work from home. These events took place during regular working hours for my full-time freelance jobs and my boss hoped I could take a day off my full-time job occasionally and come in. I was asked two days before Thanksgiving if I could work from home for a couple hours on Thanksgiving Day (I was hosting my family on Thanksgiving). We had some in-person trainings that were rescheduled multiple times with little notice because of family emergencies from other staff. One of those reschedules happened while I was on a family vacation, so my boss used my emergency contact to get ahold of me to see if the new training time would work. Another time, my boss asked to meet with me quickly on a weekend to drop off something, and then was two hours late.

I said no to all of these last-minute asks and reschedules that conflicted with my full-time job and I didn’t wait around when my boss was late. I couldn’t event attend some of the rescheduled meetings or trainings because I couldn’t find a sitter with two days notice. But this type of thing started happening several times a month and I started to resent it.

While I do feel my boss has their heart in the right place, the last-minute requests started to really add up. By late winter, I couldn’t discount it as being “new” to running a company anymore. They were showing me who they were and how disorganized they are. I kept hoping they’d get it together. That’s on me! So I put in my notice a few months ago. Even though I worked such few hours, I feel like I’ve gained so much time back.

In the original letter you made up a name for my boss, “Craig.” My boss is actually non-binary and fairly young. While I know this wasn’t the intent of your advice, I felt differently about the situation when I started to think about my boss being an older man named Craig making these same requests. (I am a cis queer woman in my forties.) I liked my boss personally, and it was clouding my professional judgement of them. I excused a lot of behavior I wouldn’t if my boss had been a different person. This has given me a lot of reflect on personally.

I’ve briefly spoken to my previous boss a few times since I left, and we seem to be on good terms. I wish them success in their company and growth in their professionalism. I’ll always root for them and their business goals. But I’m much happier not being behind the scenes anymore.

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 — there’s still more to come.

Remember the letter-writer who was told by HR that they had a moral obligation to tell everyone they’re autistic? Here’s the update.

Firstly, thank you so much for your response to my letter, and to all the commenters. It was incredibly reassuring and did give me the strength to raise the issue with the interim CEO. One of the commenters, also autistic, said that they felt autistics could be especially vulnerable to emotional manipulation and the feeling that we are always in the wrong — I think that’s partly why I was so twisted up about it and unsure what to do.

I think a lot of people wanted some serious consequences for Jane, which didn’t happen as I didn’t really want that. I could see that she was doing good in some other ways (I’ll explain further down!). I spoke to the interim CEO, who suggested a mediated conversation with an autistic counselor. They were able to express the issues in a much better way than I could have, and Jane apologized. I think she also got a warning from the CEO. She’s since been on a training course with an autistic charity, and we’ve had some really good conversations about autism and how it affects me.

As I said in the letter, the company had a lot of issues relating to discrimination against neurodivergent and black employees especially, and a lot of it stemmed from two members of senior management. Even while the above was going on, Jane was starting to work on that. Those two individuals have now both left the company — one was fired, and one saw the writing on the wall and resigned. It was a stressful period (the one who was fired raised several retaliatory grievances, including against Jane and the interim CEO) but now thankfully is over.

With them gone, we’ve started a DEI audit which will hopefully lead to new policies and training for all staff. I have started to be a little more open about being autistic, but haven’t yet made any company-wide announcements!

Part of Jane’s frustration came from hearing real distress from some of our employees, and feeling that I was part of the senior management and not doing anything about it. I know she was definitely in the wrong to let this lead her to tell someone I was autistic and then telling me that I had a responsibility to share this (and she now agrees and has apologized!) but I do also want to try and be stronger in future in challenging discrimination if I’m in a similar position again (hopefully not).

Thank you so much again for your reply. I was feeling really low but speaking to the interim CEO and Jane, while stressful at the time, ended up with everything in a much better place – and I’m not sure I would have done that without you and all the comments!