Ask a Manager

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

1. Boss hasn’t paid for his share of our group collection (#2 at the link)

I used your script almost verbatim on Tristan (thanks for that!), including my Venmo AND PayPal this time, to which he said “oh yes, I’ll do that right now!” Then nothing. A few days later in a people leader meeting we were first on the Teams call, and he said he keeps getting distracted and would do it “absolutely today.” I made sure to tell him the format of my screen name as well (no dashes!) and he said he got it and … still nothing.

This went on a few more times, mostly him initiating the conversation, outside of the last instance where I brought it up. That time we were raising money for another ill coworker, and I mentioned casually in a call with him “don’t forget send mine as well!” to which he replied “yes of course.” I gave up after that, as it was almost two months of back and forth with no payment. Somehow he was able to send cash for the other collection within a few days.

My closest coworker would ask me every couple of weeks “did he pay you yet?” and was also flabbergasted over this. Despite my pleas not to, she eventually paid me half of his portion so we could split it because she found it unfair I was out double, and I never brought it up to Tristan again. It’ll be a while before any “fundraising” circles back to me to collect, thank goodness!

2. My coworker blew up at me when I asked about documenting her job before she retired (#2 at the link)

In your answer to my question, you speculated that maybe the executive director had been more transparent with me than with my coworker about her retirement. To be honest, I don’t think that the ED ever talked to me about it directly. It was my boss who told me that at some point my coworker was probably going to retire.

What I really think was going on, upon further reflection with your answer and the comments, was that she was probably having financial problems (this is based on information I had from her) and she probably wanted to retire, but was worried about what would happen if she did retire. Moreover, there were legitimate problems with her performance (e.g., conflict with staff — which she caused — not engaging well with volunteers she wanted to recruit, not obtaining grants that the organization needed). A lot of this were things that I was able to reflect on; for example, one of the people on staff needed her to renew a line of funding that was pretty easy to renew but it was taking months to do it and this person’s job was on the line if it didn’t come through!).

I think that she overreacted because I touched a nerve because of information that I wasn’t aware of or hadn’t made the connection to with her situation yet (e.g., it’s not my fault that I wasn’t aware of her personal financial circumstances when I asked — that came to light when I was almost done the contract). Realistically, it shouldn’t have been a problem; she should have been able to calmly discuss what needed to go into my plans to support a potential transition with my role without being triggered by it, but people are notoriously terrible at regulating their emotions so, okay, fine…

I think if I was dealing with a similar situation again, I would probably be more mindful of the fact that I might not have all the information (maybe the person won’t be aware that their retirement was discussed, maybe they have personal problems I am unaware of, etc.) and I can try to be more tactful/soft about it. I am a pretty direct/blunt person and tend to be the kind of person who will just say “I know you mentioned retiring, what should I add to my plans to make the transition the easiest?” As far as I was concerned, I was just discussing facts and my work; after all, it’s not like I told her I needed to know when she was putting in her notice, and … well, I recently got diagnosed with autism, which I suppose explains my tendency to be like that and not realize that not everyone would be that direct and I tend to look at it as “I’m literally dealing with this thing, why are you making it about these other issues?!” So I would probably want to prepare a script or something on how to bring something like that up in a way that’s softer or whatever.

3. Can I ask for a raise right after returning from furlough?

I’m the letter writer who wrote in asking whether I could ask for a raise at my university job after returning from furlough in June of 2020. I didn’t participate in the comments (because I was a little bit embarrassed), but I read all of them, and completely agreed with the consensus that no, I absolutely should not do that.

It took me a while to realize it, but I was really unhappy in my job. While I worked for a large university, my job was actually healthcare/hospital-based. My program was a specialized program with patients from all over the country and world. I loved the patients I worked with and when our program manager retired, I took over all of her job duties and daily functions, but with a lower title and less pay because I didn’t have a master’s degree (a requirement for a manager title within the university). One of the benefits of working for a university is free tuition, and my boss, knowing my five-year plan was to work my way to the program manager position, enthusiastically encouraged grad school. I started a masters degree (again, my boss was thrilled because she thought this would be really beneficial to the program), and then Covid hit. In our hospital setting, we were still working in person until we were furloughed (during which my boss called me more than once to help her with things) and then immediately were brought back in person. Because our program was so understaffed and with people needing to quarantine when exposed, I was doing my program coordinator job as well as filling in at the clinic as needed; I technically could say no if I was busy, but I knew patients would miss out on their optimal therapy if I didn’t help out. And then my boss told me she “didn’t think we needed a program manager” … while I was doing all of the job duties of our program manager, plus things that were added to my job descriptions as positions changed and our department recalibrated ourselves.

I was completely drained. I had so much PTO banked but felt guilty taking any time off and just was really really unhappy. I didn’t realize how unhappy until my husband told me, “You know, you can quit your job without something else lined up for a while, we will be completely fine.” That really lit a fire under me to start job searching. I had graduated from my master’s program, and one of my professors connected me with a friend who was hiring at a local nonprofit. I now work as a grants manager, and I love my job. It’s a huge change from what I was doing and took some adjusting, but I feel like I really have found my place. I work for an organization that truly values time off and separating from work when you’re out, and they were even incredibly accommodating when I recently had my first baby (I did not hear one word from anyone, except for the congratulations card and a gift card to Jersey Mikes). I’ve also gotten two raises in the time I’ve been here, and am making more money than I ever have!

Thank you for being the kick in the butt that I needed to make some changes to my work life!

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

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

Remember the letter-writer who worked in an office where a lunchtime “thought experiment” had caused a cold war (first update here)? Here’s the update.

I saw it’s update season, so I thought I’d do so one more time. Things have gotten a lot better since that original update I sent in. The major ringleader of the “Carrie is weird/robotic” discourse was let go in September. I didn’t know why at first, but Steve confided in me that he mentioned to one of our bosses in a private chat that that person really had a toxic effect on the workplace (in addition to just not being great at her job). I imagine it was a combination of those things that led to the termination. Her closest friends became much quieter generally almost immediately, perhaps hoping to avoid being perceived the same way. For all I know, our bosses reprimanded them. I do want to say I believe the “robot” nickname started because that little group felt her answer to the Shakespeare question was cold/inhumane. It wasn’t anything to do with her affect. Not that that makes it better, but I saw some commenters feeling worried about their own manner of speaking/interacting with people and how that could target them for that kind of name calling (and those who had actually been targeted). I just wanted to clarify, and say be yourself even if you feel like you sound less than enthused/gregarious at work if it’s safe/otherwise professional for you to do so. Horrible people will be horrible regardless, so there’s no reason to police yourself that way.

Carrie is actually on her honeymoon leave right now. We gave her a work shower right before her wedding, as we would for anyone else here for a wedding or baby (not a big production, just a sheet cake and group gift from her registry). I was a bit nervous about it, to be honest, because I wanted it to be nice for her but I knew that a few people in attendance would be the ones who’d talked about her behind her back earlier in the year and I just thought the hypocrisy would be awkward. It wasn’t, though, really — those folks had already been acting chastised after the other coworker’s termination, so they were once again quiet and mild. Our bosses attended Carrie’s wedding and they said it was lovely.

I will say that in my view there was a LOT of projection in the comments based on identifying with Carrie. I’m not trying to diminish anyone’s personal experiences with feeling ostracized at work or in other social settings for any reason, but respectfully, none of the commenters really know anything about her or any of the rest of us. She is a nice, serious, quiet person and no one ever deserves to be talked about like that behind their back for just being a bit outside office culture (or for any reason I can think of barring actual criminal behavior!). But the idea that some commenters were fantasizing about Carrie being promoted to manager and then immediately firing the rest of us was so bizarre to me as the person who knows her and our workplace. However, I accept that I could not possibly include every piece of context that seemed relevant to me to head off that type of comment, and even if I sent in an entire novel (instead of a novella, haha) and you were willing to publish it, some people would read into it what they wanted to and there’s nothing I can do about that. I lost control of the narrative when I wrote in, which I felt I was prepared for, but maybe not as much as I thought.

Thank you again for your original response. I am still grateful you urged me to consider this wasn’t really about the thought experiment at all. I couldn’t see beyond that one event because it loomed so large in my mind at the time. And truly, thank you to those commenters who engaged with my situation the same way and shared their stories of feeling alienated for any reason, especially if they’re neurodivergent. I didn’t think it was healthy for me to try to respond in real time but I read them all.

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

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

Remember the letter-writer whose coworker misinterpreted all of their facial expressions? Here’s the update.

I took your advice and the advice of others, and basically looked at the issue from a different perspective. When I wrote to you, I was feeling a little burned out and, frankly, a little depressed because this wasn’t a coworker; I’m the manager and this is one of my team members. (I didn’t want to admit that when I wrote to you — I’ve been a manager for years and this one person was unlike anyone I had worked with previously.) But I had only been with the organization about a year at that point and was struggling with this one person. With a small team, it was getting difficult to bring the whole team together and feel like I wasn’t always on the outs with this one person (who shares her negativity about many things with the people around her).

I needed the advice because I just got too far into my own head on this and couldn’t get past thinking I could somehow fix things if I could fix myself. When I read your response, I got some much-needed perspective! I realized that it wasn’t really about what I was doing because it’s really about this person and how she perceives things. She had previously told me that she had past trauma from family situations, so I believe this impacts how she moves through the world (and this was suggested by one of the commenters). Things did come to a head at one point and I went to my boss and said I wanted a meeting with him, the staff member, myself, and our HR rep. The staff member then didn’t want that — they said they “weren’t ready,” but I pushed on it because I wanted to get to the bottom of things. That conversation actually really helped because it not only brought some of this out into the open, but with HR sitting there, it was easy to see that this one staff member was making a lot of perceptions and assumptions that didn’t match reality. In fact, at one point, the HR rep told the staff member flat out that her perception didn’t seem to match the reality of any of the situations she brought up. And I was able to state that “my face is just my face,” in front of other people to back me up.

Has this staff member gotten better? Yes, for a while and it seemed like we were on a pretty positive trajectory. However, she is very passive-aggressive and seems to have a general negativity about a lot of stuff (not me specifically — work in general). I anticipate that at some point, things may come to a head again with her. But, I have a running list of documentation so if there needs to be another meeting with HR, it will likely go the same way the previous one did. It’s not up to me to completely change myself. I know I’m a good manager and I can do my best to work with her, but her own happiness is up to her.

The one thing that really changed my perspective on a lot of things was that I was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months ago. I’ve been getting treatment (caught it early and small, so surgery and radiation — which I’ll be finished with soon). But actually, that completely changed my way of thinking about life in general. I have let go of self-examining myself so much, have stopped letting this person take up so much time/space in my head, and have gotten much better about work-life balance. I have mentioned to a family member that cancer was the big “smack upside the head” to get me to realize how good my life is — and this has made it easy to let go of a lot of things that used to bother me. Including this staff member. I can’t change her, but I can change how I react to her and how much I let her bother me. As a good friend at work told me, “Sometimes, you need to just tie whatever it is to a balloon and let it go.” Yes, there are times when “Let it Go” from Frozen goes through my head … I do that a lot now and I’m happier for it.

Again, I really appreciate your advice and the advice from other readers. I had gotten way too far into my head on this and couldn’t get any perspective. Looking back, I was being really hard on myself and thinking I was the problem and if I just tried hard enough, I’d win this person over. But the reality is: I’m fine as I am and other people I work with think I’m just fine, and that made it easier to let a lot of this go with the one person who seemed determined to be unhappy.

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

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

Remember the letter-writer who was being required to participate in laser tag for team-building? Here’s the update.

Thank you for answering my letter about the laser tag.

I appreciated your comment about not enjoying movies with a lot of shooting; I have never enjoyed violence in my leisure activities and what with all the horrible things going on in the world right now (and, honestly, ever), I really couldn’t see myself partaking in laser tag. It was reassuring to know that I’m not the only one who feels this way about laser tag; it’s always comforting to have someone else agree with you.

I did forward your post to a few colleagues at my level and encouraged them to push back with their managers about how they also don’t want to play laser tag and several of them did. I didn’t end up having time to speak to my own manager about it again but I did decide that on the day of the event I would very firmly say that I felt uncomfortable participating and would wait in the adjacent arcade/snack bar area for everyone else to finish. (Although since arcades trigger my old video game addiction and the flashing lights give me headaches, this wasn’t ideal either.) By the time Laser Tag Day rolled around, I believe there were at least six people who said they couldn’t or wouldn’t participate.

Laser Tag Day was scheduled for the second afternoon of our three days of meetings. On the first day, we did an afternoon “team building exercise” at an arcade and everyone but one employee participated. Day two started out with a short all-staff meeting and then we broke into teams for the rest of the morning. Our team was discussing some really important subjects when another team asked the boss if instead of laser tag we could continue their team meeting and he asked our team if we wanted to do the same. Since many of us had already felt even before the meetings that we definitely could use more time discussing actual work instead of playing games, this ended up being ideal. Many of us are still confused as to why we needed two full afternoons of non-work when we see each other in person so infrequently anyway. Big Boss had said that no one pays attention in the afternoons at these staff meetings so he figured our time would be better used doing something fun. I’m not sure why he didn’t see this as a cue to revamp our all-staff meetings so that they are more relevant to everyone instead of having the same group discussion we have every time we get together, which is only eye-opening for the couple of new staff members we have each time and a big reason why no one pays attention anymore. It’s pretty frustrating that he decided to find a different way to waste our time instead of replacing the usual, work-related time waster with something that is actually productive.

Anyway, as you can see, laser tag was only the tip of the iceberg as to why many of us were frustrated at this chosen activity but the fact that it was laser tag specifically was especially frustrating to me as someone who does not want to participate in any kind of gun-related activity. Thanks again for your advice, I will definitely be more firm in my approach if this comes up again.

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

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

Remember the letter-writer whose boss said she doesn’t think mothers can fully commit to their jobs? Here’s the update.

I first ended up talking with my coworker who is a father to see if there was any difference between our experiences – I disguised it as me asking if he knew of any good childcare facilities. He said he didn’t have any recommendations as his wife is a stay at home mom – so his child being in the house with his wife is okay but my husband isn’t proper childcare? Now I was mad.

My manager and I had another 1:1 (our company requires these monthly). She asked me again about my childcare situation and I replied that I wasn’t comfortable sharing this with her. She said she wanted to remind me that it’s against company policy to have my child in the home if I’m working from home and I need to provide proof of childcare once we return to the office (this isn’t true and just an asinine lie to make up?). My response to this was she needed to give me this direction in an email – which of course she didn’t as she knew what she was saying was false.

Anyway, as you can imagine things were awkward and intense for a little bit. I ended up going to her director and explaining the situation and how I no longer felt comfortable under this manager. The director was horrified. Thankfully, I was moved to a new team. My old manager is still with the company, though I’ve heard some rumors of her making rude comments to one of her employees who has recently announced she’s pregnant so maybe that won’t be the case for long.

I’ve learned a lot throughout this experience that I’d like to share with any other working moms or future moms out there because I genuinely wish someone had told me these things before.

1. Other moms may not be understanding – I saw a lot of speculation in the comments about if my manager had children. She does have adult children and she was a single mom, which I believe is why I felt comfortable talking about my childcare with her. I figured she would have been understanding. I was wrong.

2. Ask around before agreeing to a transfer -this one seems obvious but I was naive and had never had an issue like this so I failed to do this. After speaking with former employees of this manager, she apparently has a reputation for not being very empathetic to mothers. Had I known this I wouldn’t have agreed to transfer.

3. The difference between how moms and dads are viewed in the workplace – I feel like this is a known fact but it’s hard to understand unless you experience it. My husband’s experience with his boss has been completely different. From now on I plan to keep the information I share about my child to an absolute minimum. Never again will I share my childcare situation with a coworker or boss because no matter what the answer is, people will make judgements. Again, this is just my experience but there is a lot of data out there about how moms and dads are viewed in the workplace if you are curious.

4. Get it in writing – I knew this before but this experience reinforced this. I’ll never have another 1:1 with a manager without sending a follow-up email summarizing what was said afterwards.

I apologize if these points seem obvious – looking back on the experience, I am kicking myself for not being more cautious about what I shared with my former manager.

And yes – I am looking for another job because this manager still being employed by the company has made me question everything. And to the comments advising that I should quit and stay home – this isn’t realistic in this economy, at least not where I live.