Ask a Manager

who should tell employees about raises?

by Alison Green on February 13, 2025

A reader writes:

I’ve been a manager at my company for 13 years. I have a team of five direct reports and meet with them for one-on-ones every one to two weeks. We review projects, develop strategies for hurdles, discuss what’s working and what’s not, and where they would like to see their careers go. Recently we had our annual reviews where I create their annual development plans. These reviews are quite involved and build on conversations we’ve had throughout the year. At the conclusion of the reviews, a formal letter from HR is drafted with the annual salary increase and general “happy to have you here” language. HR always drafts these letters and the direct supervisor signs and hand delivers to each person.

This year, my own manager — who is new — took the letters from HR and signed and delivered them herself, and I found out after it had been done. I was shocked and feel like I’ve been cut out. I’ve been working with each of these folks all year, asking questions, diving for answers, developing plans, having hard conversations when needed. I think that I had the right to deliver the good news. Am I wrong?

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

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

Job candidate wore a see-through shirt on a video interview
Should I reply to candidates’s post-interview thank-you emails?

how to stay professional when you’re full of rage at your job

by Alison Green on February 13, 2025

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes:

A year ago, my boss was promoted into a new role at my company. I took on my boss’ job, in addition to my regular job, with my grandboss implying that I would soon be promoted into my boss’s old job. Well, you can guess how this ends — I ended up doing both jobs for a year without any extra pay or recognition, my attempts to get updates on the job status were ignored, and this week, my grandboss hired one of his old fraternity brothers — with no experience in our industry — for the job.

Obviously, I’m looking for a new job and hope to leave soon! But in the meantime, I was wondering how people function normally at work when something like this happens. I am SO FULL OF RAGE but, obviously, I need to be a functioning, professional adult while I still work there. If anyone has any tips or tricks on how to act pleasantly and politely while inside wanting to scream and/or cry, that would be extremely helpful!

Readers, what’s your take?

interview felt like an exam, HR is sending everyone Valentine’s Day candy “from” other coworkers, and more

by Alison Green on February 13, 2025

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

1. Interview felt like an exam

I had my first job interview in over 20 years yesterday, and it felt like an exam. Five people peppered me with a long list of questions, mostly hypotheticals. None of the questions were about my experience or my training. Only a couple were about what I had to offer the employer. The rest were, “What would you do if [thing that has never happened to me in all my many years working in this field] happened?”

The thing was, I found myself answering all the questions not with what I would do, but with what Ms. Perfect would do, if she had a textbook to refer to while the crisis was unfolding.

In the long ago past, I’ve had interviews that were more like “This is what we need someone to do. Have you done it before? Do you know how?”

It left a bad taste in my mouth and left me wondering if I wanted to work with these people, although they seemed nice on the whole. Am I off-base here? Have interviews become more like this since I was last in the hot seat? Should I be studying lists of hypothetical questions?

I’m not a fan of hypothetical questions in most interviews since they’re often easy for candidates to bluff their way through. Interviewers generally learn a lot more by probing into what people have actually done in situations they have actually experienced — which is why “tell me about a time when…” questions are used so much.

That said, I’m even less a fan of “have you done X before?” or “do you know how to do X?” because anyone can respond to that with “yes” and it tells you nothing about their real-life abilities. Maybe they’ve done X but badly! Maybe they saw someone else do X and are confident they can too, when it takes more practice to do well.

It sounds like these people just aren’t great at interviewing … but that’s pretty common. I’d pay more attention to what you’ve learned about the job, the manager, the culture, and the experiences of people working there. And if you don’t feel like you have a good sense of those things yet, ask plenty of your own questions before you accept an offer.

2. HR is sending everyone Valentine’s Day candy grams … from other coworkers

I work in a niche section of the healthcare industry at a medium-sized company. For a variety of reasons, I am currently looking for a different job. One of the things upsetting me is that our HR department (which is all of two people, one of whom is the daughter of the VP in charge of HR, which is a whole other issue) is trying and failing to improve company morale with more and more “events” instead of substantive changes like paper towels in the bathrooms or pay increases. Last week, there was a rock-paper-scissors tournament during the workday, and in a late afternoon email the day before we were told it was an “opt out” event — if you didn’t opt out, you were pulled away from your job up to three or four times in a couple hours to play rock-paper-scissors against someone else in the company, even if you were remote, in a bracketed tournament until someone finally won a previously-undisclosed prize of a basket of cleaning supplies. This week is the annual chili cook-off, which may or may not have a prize (it has one out of three times, and it has not been announced if there is one this year).

We just received an email stating that the company is sending candy grams to everyone for Valentine’s Day, and to “support” that, everyone has been randomly assigned a coworker to write a Valentine’s message for and it will be signed from us, not the company. I don’t even exchange valentines with my partner of a decade, much less with a coworker I have never met in person! I know this is trying to be nice, and I feel like pushing back is being a party pooper, but I feel really weird about it. I remember in school when some kids would get candy grams and get a bunch of nice personal messages, and others would get none or only one from the teacher, and that was always sad and awkward. I don’t want to make my coworker feel sad or awkward with a generic message, but I don’t know them outside of auditing their work!

I don’t know how to approach this at all, either to participate or to try and argue against doing it. In the past, my boss has been very resistant to passing on feedback to other departments, especially HR, and she strongly encourages our department to participate in all company events, up to and including guilting us about missing them or opting out. I don’t care if the company wants to give everyone candy — just sign it from the company, not me!

Yes, this is weird. But there’s no reason your message with the card can’t just be “Happy Valentine’s Day!” This is different from the school dynamic where it’s seen as a popularity contest, and I don’t think anyone will be sad not to get a more personal message from a random colleague … and I suspect a lot of people, maybe all, will be writing something similarly bland.

That said, if it’s possible to opt out (it’s not clear if it is) and you want to do that, you should feel free to! You can do that with feedback attached (“I’m uncomfortable sending Valentine’s greetings to coworkers so please don’t include me in sending or receiving”) or without it. If you think your boss will care, you could simply say to her, “I try to participate in company events, but I prefer to opt out of this one.”

3. Assistant always prioritizes my peer’s projects over mine

I work in a small office where support staff are in teams, and I have a dedicated secretary and a dedicated assistant (“Abby”). The issue I’m dealing with is Abby supports me and two others. Abby openly favors “Lucas,” who is my equivalent but much less experienced (think 25 years versus three years in the field). Abby will focus on and complete tasks and projects for Lucas first, and my projects will go on the back burner. When I press for updates or ask our supervisor for assistance, I’m told that Abby is very busy and to see if the other assistants can help. Because I’m not always privy to exact details, and I don’t want to create an adversarial office environment, I’ve started to just give Abby hard deadlines, whereas before I was more flexible to give her autonomy to avoid micromanaging her workflow. (I just started doing that, so I don’t know yet if it will work. But she has not responded to my new emails with the hard deadlines which might be a sign of resistance.)

Our supervisor favors Abby and has openly defended her and made excuses for her, so he is not going to step in. What should I be doing? I’m frustrated and demoralized.

I wish it was a couple of weeks from now so that we’d know if giving the deadlines was going to solve this, because it’s possible that it will. But meanwhile, one tweak I’d make to that plan: can you talk to Abby in person when giving her work so that you can say, “I need this back by (deadline). Is that doable?” so that you’re getting an answer from her on the spot?

If that doesn’t work, can you ask to be assigned a different assistant? If it’s true that Abby is very busy, as your manager says, and can’t compete your work on time, it’s entirely reasonable to ask for an assistant who can. And if you can’t get a different assistant, then it’s reasonable to meet with Abby and Lucas together and ask to figure out some protocols for prioritizing work so that you’re not the one who always gets short shrift.

4. Nose-picking boss

Over the years, I’ve had two different managers who openly pick their noses. It’s disgusting and I’m wondering if there’s an appropriate way to let them know how noticeable and off-putting the behavior is? I’m not talking about a discreet “scratch.” This is full-on digging, examining, flicking, and repeating going on. Years ago I experienced it in person and at one point offered my boss a box of Kleenex from my desk, which he declined and continued picking. Currently it’s happening on Zoom meetings (different company and manager). Both managers have very public-facing roles and general awareness of social decorum … they just both seem to be unaware of this behavior.

WTF?

When you’re in person, offering someone a tissue is a polite way of handling it and should alert them to the issue. If that doesn’t work, you could just hand them a tissue while saying, “Here, let me give you this.”

But over Zoom and when it’s your boss, there’s not much you can do. Video conferencing software really needs to start offering non-hosts a “remove this person from view” option for other participants on the call.

5. Can an employer make you use FMLA for weekly medical appointments?

Our HR team at work is typically stellar, but I’m confused about a recent announcement they made. They said if someone has a weekly medical appointment (i.e., physical or mental health therapy), they will deduct an hour from the person’s sick leave balance and an hour from the person’s FMLA balance. Is it correct that you can have time deducted from two places for one appointment?

Yes. FMLA isn’t a form of paid leave; it’s job protection. It allows you to have up to 12 weeks off per year (for qualifying reasons) without putting your job at risk, but it’s not a separate bank of leave and employers can require it to be used concurrently with your PTO.

the questionable drop-off, the kazoo lover, and other tales of carpooling for work

by Alison Green on February 12, 2025

Last week, we talked about carpooling for work, and here are eight of my favorite stories you shared — some heartwarming, some not.

1. The kazoo music

I fondly think of the coworker who, when I offered her the aux cable to play music off her device, looked hesitant and then said, “Look, I need to warn you, there’s going to be a lot more kazoo music then you’d expect.”

2. The trick

I carpooled once with a coworker who lived in my neighborhood. I didn’t even realize he lived near me until he approached me one day and asked if I would like to carpool. Gas was hideously expensive, so I thought why not. The next day, before he dropped me off at home, he swung past his ex-wife’s house. He pulled over to chat with her for a minute and heavily implied that he and I were an item. When he actually took me home after that I told him I would be driving myself in the future.

3. The dog

I carpooled only once. The coworker did not tell me that she would drop her Great Dane at the dog daycare. I could not sit in the passenger seat because apparently that is her husband’s seat (?), and only he can. I should have just said I changed my mind then and there, but no, apparently young me was a glutton for punishment.

I had to sit in the back of the car with the enormous dog, which kept trying to push his muzzle in my face, full force. I asked my coworker to help me, as I was covered in drool, and she told me — seriously, and I’m quoting here — “My husband lets him put his tongue in his mouth; that calms him down.”

I took a taxi to go back home after work.

4. The drop-off

A long time ago, I had a job in an office building in the middle of an industrial park one town over. I had to bus-train-bus every day. One day a coworker offered to drive me to my train station because she passes that way on her way home. That sounded wonderful until we got to the road that the train station was named after and she said cheerily, “Here we are!” Except the train station was nowhere in sight. I asked her where the station was, or even which direction it was and got another cheery, “No idea! But I have to turn here so you better hop out!” (Note she hadn’t even pulled over, she was just at an intersection waiting to turn right.)

Basically I was in the middle of nowhere, no clue where I was, on a busy road with no sidewalks. Luckily I guessed the right direction and after a LOT of walking got to the train station. I never accepted a ride from her again.

5. The morning person

In my first job out of college, I started carpooling with two colleagues, a man about my age and a slightly older woman. It was fine at first, but soon enough the guy drove me bonkers! I, dear reader, am not a morning person, in any sense. But this guy. He never. Stopped. Talking. Usually about fascinating topics, and I often love a good thought-provoking debate, but like – not at 6 am before the first cup of coffee’s kicked in, ya know? He even once printed out a several page article about one of our “lively” morning discussion topics and left it in my mailbox for me later in the day. Thanks, but dude – sun’s not even up yet, and I barely remember my own name. I was at least grateful for the other woman in our carpool who could absorb some of the mental demand of thoughtful interaction at screw-this o’clock in the morning.

Eventually, he and I got opportunities to talk at later times in the day when I was a fully functioning human, and I found out that I actually enjoyed his conversation and company (when I was awake enough to participate.) We got on famously everywhere EXCEPT the early-morning carpool.

20 years later, we no longer work at the same place. However, he’s still a hopeless morning person, and I still have to remind him regularly that, really, I cannot absorb an in-depth analysis on the state of foreign politics before my first cup of coffee. He’s an excellent cook and the kids are adorable, though.

6. The neighbor

I was at the train station one day waiting for my commuter train. It didn’t come when it was due, and after several minutes went by there was finally an announcement that it wasn’t coming at all due to technical difficulties. I was about to call an Uber when a kind-looking woman on the platform told me she was going to drive into the city and offered me a ride.

It was risky because she was a stranger, but I said yes. She began leading me back to her house, and she said, “I just live there on the corner. My dogs have probably barked at you.” And then I realized with dread that she was the Barky Dog Mom. Her dogs have charged and barked at me on numerous occasions, and I’m afraid of them because them seem vicious and an invisible fence is the only thing between them and me (and I don’t completely trust those things). One day I recorded her dogs barking at me. I had no plans of posting it anywhere, and it was honestly because I thought there was a real possibility of them attacking me and I wanted evidence if that happened. She came out of her house and confronted me, telling me that I didn’t need to record it. I’m not proud of my behavior, but I yelled back at her how her dogs were a menace to then neighborhood, and we got into a shouting match.

Fast forwarding to that day at the train station, we didn’t recognize each other because we had been 40 or 50 feet away from each other when that altercation took place. I didn’t know what to do, so I just got in her car and let her drive me. It’s about a 30- or 40-minute drive, so we had plenty of time to talk. She was so nice!! We talked about our jobs, our families, our childhoods … just about everything. Toward the end I finally fessed up, identifying myself as the neighbor who had recorded her dogs and screamed at her, and said that I’d understand if she wanted to kick me out of her car. But she was so cool about it, she said she understood me being frightened of her dogs and didn’t hold grudges. And I said I understood how me taking a video of her dogs would antagonize her and reassured her I had never shared it with anyone. I also promised to delete it, which I later did.

My neighbor and I are on great terms now. She invited me to come over and meet her dogs, and I’m not afraid of them anymore! The next day I sent her some thank-you flowers for giving me a ride to work that day. And for not kicking me out of her car!

7. The problem with time

I carpooled for years with an otherwise lovely colleague who simply could not be on time. No matter what time I asked her to be ready, she would be at least five minutes late. The excuses varied from “I slept in” to “my kids are sick” to “I had to redo my hair.” There was always a reason, an apology, and a promise to do better the next day that would inevitably be broken. This really stressed me out because we worked for a micromanager who hated when employees were late.

She lived about a five-minute drive from my home, so I started texting her “I’m outside” when I was getting ready to leave. She never ever caught on because I was still there before she emerged, with an excuse and an apology and a promise to do better the next day. We carpooled for years.

(No regrets – she paid me in free Starbucks and it was worth it!)

8. The friend

I have a good story! 20 years ago, I had a coworker who lived nearby. Once she asked if I could drive her to work, car issues, no biggie. She wanted to pay me something for gas but since it was truly on the way I said, “Nah, maybe save me a couple cookies next time you make some” (she did).

Some time later there was a road construction project that made a good part of the commute a real PITA. My wife got tired of hearing me gripe about it and said why don’t you and Tammy (real name) carpool? So we started carpooling for the next year or two until I moved. And we LOVED it. We switched off every day or two, saved money on gas, and would gab about all kinds of things … fav foods and cooking usually. Having someone to talk to made the lousy parts of the commute go by much easier. Tammy, if you’re out there, I hope you’re doing well!

my employee loves his job — but is bad at it

by Alison Green on February 12, 2025

A reader asks:

I manage a team and have run into a problem with “Bob,” one of my employees. Bob loves this job. Tells me almost every day how much he loves being at this company. But as much as he loves his job, he’s not very good at it. He’s gotten us incorrect information and turns in incomplete notes. He tries to tackle more and more projects, but it’s leading to him misinterpreting information, making erroneous conclusions, and generally dropping the ball. His colleagues are frustrated because they cannot rely on his research — it often results in more work for them as they fact-check his information.

He also peppers me with suggestions to improve the team — I’ve gotten up to 10 emails in a day: we should use Slack, we should get t-shirts and hats made, we should send autographed cards to people who write to us. Not bad ideas, per se — just not ideas that are particularly effective or actionable. He also wastes my time by giving me the blow-by-blow of his projects, and asking for my approval before taking next steps on them. I’ve let him know before if I don’t have time for lengthy conversations on these updates, but he just comes back later with more.

Bob has started asking if he can attend production meetings, which is absolutely not a part of his job, and I fear his overly-helpful nature will lead to him disrupting the meetings.

I guess what I’m asking is: how do I crush this man’s spirit in a productive way? He wants so badly to help and do more — but he’s messing up on basics of his job as it is. I need him to slow down, take more time with his actual work, and rein in all the extras, but I don’t want him to lose the drive that makes him a dedicated worker. And he is a dedicated worker — punctual, energetic, willing to help out in a pinch, always thinking about how to make things better. Do I break it gently and couch it in praise for his good attributes? Or do I take the no-nonsense approach and give him just the cold hard facts?

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

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

1. Is “hey” rude?

I have a former boss who asked all staff at a tiny nonprofit not to use the greeting “hey” to her. I think this is imperious and out of touch, at best. What do you think?

It’s a bit much, but there’s a fairly outdated belief that “hey” is rude — remember those teachers and other elders from your youth who would respond to “hey” with “hay is for horses”? Was she a “hay is for horses” person clinging to old rules around the word, or was she more of a “don’t speak casually to me, peons” person? The former is a little eye-rolly, but whatever; the second is much more obnoxious.

2. Did our coworker fake-retire?

I worked at a hospital where a long-time employee in my department retired— she was over 65 and had worked there for 30+ years. The department held a retirement party with the boss’s own funds since the hospital didn’t provide discretionary funds for this kind of stuff. It was a nice send-off and everyone wished her well.

Then about a month or so later, word gets around that actually she wasn’t retired and had just gotten a new job at the VA, which is where many of the folks in this department try to get to because the pay is so much better there. No one in leadership mentioned anything about it but you could sense that people were really annoyed and felt like they’d been duped. I know many people get jobs again after they’ve retired, but this was so immediate that it was obviously lined up beforehand. What are your thoughts on the optics of this?

Any chance the departing employee was using “retiring” in the sense of “I am retiring from this job where I have worked for 30+ years” and not in the more traditional sense of “I am retiring from the workforce”?

There was an interesting discussion in the comment section on Monday about whether “retired” can simply mean “leaving this job,” not “leaving the workforce.” It typically does not — but when someone is around retirement age and leaving a job they’ve been at for a very long time, it does sometimes get used that way. (You generally need both those factors to be present though; no one is saying a 35-year-old is retiring when she leaves a job she’s been at for eight years. The age and length of tenure both seem to be prerequisites for the usage to work.)

Anyway, it really depends on whether your coworker went out of her way to deceive people. If she was talking about how much she was going to enjoy not having to go to work every day and her plans to spend her time gardening and taking Elderhostel trips, all while knowing she was just moving to another full-time job, then yeah, that’s obviously pretty crappy! It would also be unusual for someone to do that just in order to get a retirement party. (Any chance there was another reason she might have wanted to keep it quiet, like worrying about a manager at your hospital torpedoing her chances at the new job?) But if it was just an announcement that she was leaving, and others were the ones who framed it as “retirement” out of an assumption based on her age … well, she might have figured she was retiring from this organization after 30 years so didn’t see any need to correct anything.

Either way, you’re all better off just looking at it as a goodbye party for someone who had worked there for three decades.

3. Frustrations with business voicemail and a claims process

I have been dealing with my insurance company for a claim I filed. I received an email (from a do-not-reply account) that my case was assigned to “Mary Smith” and I would be receiving a call from her on such and such a date between 9:30 am and 11:30 am from a specific phone number. On the bottom of my account page with this company, her name is listed as my claim manager.

As I had a dentist appointment that day at 8 am, I called her number and left a message to please call closer to 11:30 as I had an appointment that morning. My concern is her voicemail was a very generic “the person you are trying to reach is not available, please leave a message after the tone.” No mention of her name or the company’s name.

She called me later in the morning that day, never mentioned anything about my message that I had left for her, and we conducted the interview. She needed some clarification on some dates and asked me to call back when I had that information. I called back a day later with the info and the same thing, went to voicemail with the generic greeting. I didn’t hear anything from her confirming she received the information. Four days later, I called and left another message asking if she got the info and to please call me back to confirm. Nothing.

A few days later, my account was updated to “claim review in process” and I received an email saying a decision should be made with in five business days, and day days later the claim was approved.

How do you deal with a situation like this? I still have no idea if my messages were being received by the case manager or even if it was her voicemail I was leaving the message in. Or am I being “needy” by expecting at least some response following any contact to her?

Maybe a little needy, yeah, if you’re still dwelling on it now. It sounds like their process worked as it should: you left a message asking her to call you in the later part of your assigned window and she did that. You followed up with info she requested, and she used it to process your claim, which was approved in the timeframe you were told to expect. It sounds like it caused you some extra anxiety not to get any acknowledgement of either of your messages, whereas on her side the “acknowledgment” was likely that she used the info you provided to move things forward.

If things weren’t moving and your messages were going unacknowledged, that would be a lot more frustrating — but since things did move as expected, there was nothing to “deal with.” You would have preferred more communication, but it sounds like the case manager knew, likely from experience, that things could move smoothly without it. (In fact, it’s even possible that things moved so smoothly because she doesn’t stop to return every message people leave if she doesn’t need to.)

To be clear, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that you expected more communication while this was ongoing — but once you saw that everything went smoothly and your claim was approved, why not just think, “Okay, that worked fine”?

4. Coworker keeps coming into my office and distracting me

One of my coworkers who works for a different company comes into my office multiple times per day and distracts me from my work. I hung a “please do not disturb” sign but that didn’t stop him, so eventually I switched to a sign that says “do not disturb — please send an email and I’ll respond when I can” but this doesn’t stop him either, even though my door is shut and locked. He knows the PIN to enter my door because my boss gave it away a couple years ago to someone who wanted to decorate my office. I can’t change the PIN and my boss knows this is happening. I have not directly asked him to stop because he will drag it on and on for days and it makes me uncomfortable . Every time he’s done something that’s made me uncomfortable and I’ve said so, that’s what happens.

How do I get my coworker to leave me the F alone? He is stressing me out so badly that it’s impacting my personal life outside of work. I can’t complete as many things in a day as I would like, because he won’t stop bothering me.

You can’t get him to leave you the F alone without directly telling him to. Communicating by sign clearly isn’t working, so you’ve got to speak up: “Please stop entering my office without being invited. It’s breaking my focus and disrupting my work.” And then if he keeps doing it, address it in the moment: “I’m on deadline and can’t talk right now” and “I’m really busy so can’t have you in here.” If he reacts badly to that, then talk to your boss, cite the disruption to your work, and ask to have the PIN changed.

Also, you said he works for a different company. Unless he’s his own boss, can you have a word with his boss over there? Continually using someone’s PIN to enter their office against their will multiple times a day is something any reasonable manager would be glad to put a stop to if asked.

5. Asking about a job that hasn’t been advertised yet

An employee of a company has mentioned that a job may be coming up that might be a good fit for me. I have researched the job on their website but the job has not been posted and I have questions regarding whether I have all the skills for this job.

Would it be showing initiative to inquire to the manager about this possibility and request visiting the site to learn more about the position?

Asking to visit the site to learn more about a job that you haven’t been invited to interview for yet — and which hasn’t even been advertised yet — would be way too much. If they want to spend time talking with you about the position, they will express that by inviting you to interview after you apply and they’ve reviewed your materials and determined you’re a strong enough candidate to move forward. But none of that has happened yet.

If you felt more certain that you would be a strong fit for the job, you could maybe email the hiring manager with your resume and say you heard that job might be opening up and you’d love to be considered when it is … but with a job where you’re not even sure you’re qualified and which hasn’t been posted yet, and you really just want to learn more about it, that’s going to feel like overkill, not initiative (or at least not appropriate initiative, which is an important modifier on that word). If you know the employee who originally mentioned the job, you could ask them if they know when it’s likely to open up, but otherwise just keep watching for it.

my employee regularly forgets important details and entire conversations

by Alison Green on February 11, 2025

A reader writes:

About four months ago I hired a new employee, Arnold. He interviewed very well, and the other interviewers on the panel agreed he was the best candidate. However now I am starting to see some serious gaps in ability. The biggest issue is that Arnold totally forgets entire conversations we’ve had. Some examples:

• I told him in June that he needed to plan the agenda for the team meeting in late July. A few weeks into July, I asked how the agenda was coming, and he said that was the first time he heard about it. I pointed him to our shared notes document from our 1:1 conversation in June where we discussed it.

• I assigned him a report to analyze sales trends over the course of the year. We spent 30 minutes talking about how the company decided to pivot from teapot sales to toaster sales, and this report should provide an update on the outcomes of that strategic sales shift. He turned in his report, which concluded that teapot sales declined and we should investigate why that happened. When I told him we talked about why that happened (a strategic decision by leadership), he said he doesn’t recall hearing that context.

• I assigned Arnold a project to implement a new project management technology that my peer (Dane) had experience working with. I connected Arnold with Dane for him to learn best practices. A few weeks later, I hear from Dane that he is frustrated with Arnold. He says Arnold doesn’t follow his instructions, yet repeatedly asks the same questions, even when Dane has already provided the answer. I have seen screenshots of Slack messages of the same question answered multiple times by Dane in writing.

Am I being gaslit by Arnold, or do you think something else is going on? I’ve even enlisted my manager to set up 1:1s to reinforce important topics with Arnold in case there’s something about my communication style that is not effective. But my manager has had the same experience with him forgetting key topics of conversation. I have other direct reports who are amazing and seem to be thriving, so I’m baffled and frustrated by how much time I am needing to invest in Arnold for mediocre results.

I suspect we are on our way to a performance improvement plan for Arnold, but what exactly can he improve? His memory? How do I coach this kind of behavior?

I doubt he’s gaslighting you and Dane — at least not in the original sense of the word, which means intentionally trying to make you think you’re losing your mind. (It comes from the 1944 movie Gaslight, in which a man tries to make his wife think her grip on reality is slipping away.) I suppose it’s possible that that Arnold is deliberately not bothering to retain anything in the hopes of sowing chaos, but it’s far, far, far more likely that he (a) has a terrible memory, (b) isn’t conscientious enough to take the normal steps people take to retain things, like paying attention in conversations and writing things down, and/or (c) is trying to cover up mistakes by pretending he doesn’t have any memory of previous instructions.

Fortunately, no matter which of these options it is (or even if it’s some other explanation), the solution is the same: Sit down with Arnold, explain there is a pattern of him not retaining information and instructions, and say that he needs to figure out better systems for capturing info so it doesn’t keep happening. Explain that the issue is serious and it’s essential to get it fixed immediately.

Ultimately Arnold needs to figure out what system will work for him, but you should feel free to suggest specific systems that you think would work in his context. The most obvious one is, of course, taking notes, but you might also suggest that he write up summaries of his takeaways after each discussion and email them to you and that he refer back to them every time he works on that project. You also might supplement that on your end by asking him to repeat back his takeaways at the end of each discussion with you. (That can be a pretty useful strategy even for someone who isn’t having trouble remembering details, because often it will bring to the surface some miscommunication that you didn’t realize had happened.)

From there, treat “retaining and applying information” the same way you would any other key performance requirement — meaning that if it keeps happening, you should continue to flag the pattern and move fairly quickly to “since this is crucial to being able to do the job, let’s figure out if we can help you get where you need to be or not” (which in most workplaces will mean a formal improvement plan, but can also just be a couple of serious conversations as long as you’re extremely clear about the potential consequences if the problem continues and the timeline he has for fixing it). In other words, treat it the same way you would if he kept missing deadlines or turning in work with serious mistakes or anything else that goes to the heart of “not doing the job we need done.”

Also, since someone is certain to mention it in the comments: it’s entirely possible that Arnold’s memory is a medical issue. We have no way of knowing whether that’s the case, but you’d proceed the same way regardless (flag the pattern, explain it’s a problem, and ask him to address it). Certainly if he mentions some sort of medical context (like “I’m on a new medication that is affecting my memory’) you’d give him more grace while he actively works on solutions with his doctor … but at the end of the day, no matter what the explanation is, he does need to implement systems to track important details for his job, and you can and should hold him to that regardless of what’s at the root of it.

coworker swears angrily during the day

by Alison Green on February 11, 2025

A reader writes:

My office is next to a person who swears a lot during the work day. I assume it’s frustration with his computer, but a least a couple times an hour I’ll hear an onslaught of expletives coming from his desk. It’s pretty disconcerting to hear and it’s also really distracting. Otherwise, he’s a great person to work with but I’m not sure how to approach this. What should I do?

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

Should I offer a paid job trial before hiring people?
Who does HR serve?

my company announced a “biggest loser” weight loss contest

by Alison Green on February 11, 2025

A reader writes:

My company announced a “biggest loser” weight loss challenge today and immediately my stomach sank. This was sent by the owner/founder of my small civil engineering company (about 40 employees). This is still so fresh for me I don’t even really have the words to express how many ways this is a horrible idea and would love your thoughts.

I have the words.

And those words begin with: how is this still happening in the year of our lord 2025?

It’s incredible that so many workplaces are still oblivious to how very problematic weight loss competitions can be for many people — people with eating disorders, first and foremost, but also anyone who’s trying to have a healthier relationship with food or avoid diet culture, people who need maintain their weight or gain weight (the assumption that everyone should lose weight is really weird), anyone who’s concerned about crash dieting, anyone who does want to lose weight but doesn’t want to engage with their coworkers about how it’s going, or anyone who simply doesn’t consider their diet or their weight to be any of their employer’s business.

That’s a lot of people, all told.

If your employer wants to encourage employees to make healthy choices, they’re welcome to provide healthy snacks, subsidize gym memberships, and offer excellent health insurance. Creating a contest around crash dieting isn’t the way to do it.

Are you up for pushing back about it? Ideally you’d talk to someone with some influence over it (HR might be the right place to start) and point out that experts advise against these competitions because they’re bad for such a wide range of people.

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