December 2011

most popular posts of 2011…and my own favorites

Ask a Manager’s traffic tripled this year, with 1.4 million unique visitors and more than 3.7 million page views. Thanks for helping to make that happen! Here are the posts that interested people the most this year, based on the number of comments they generated … plus a list of a few more than I […]

Read the full article →

the worst boss of 2011 is…

We have a winner!  558 votes are in, and the worst boss of the year is the manager who ran a contest for employees where they could win $10 by guessing which of their coworkers would be fired next … with 21% of the vote. The runners-up: * The boss who constantly made jokes about anorexia, told our reader […]

Read the full article →

vote for the worst boss of 2011

We’ve had plenty of bad boss stories this year, and here are eight of the worst. On Saturday, we’ll crown the worst boss of the year, based on your votes … so please vote in the sidebar to the right. (Voting ends Friday at midnight.) Here are the contenders: 1. The boss who kept stealing […]

Read the full article →

the average salary increase is pretty low

The average salary increase for 2011 was 2.8%. So if you earn $40,000 (the average income in the U.S.), that’s a raise of $1,120. But you’re not average, of course, so what do you get? Top performers had a barely different median increase: 3.1%. I mention this here largely because I think most people have […]

Read the full article →

how to be awesome at work

Continuing with our special year-end programming … A reader recently wrote this to me: “I’d like to see a year-end post with links to your favorite past posts that teach good work habits. Not job-seeking habits, but things to do at work daily that are helpful to others and improve one’s own work.” Ask and you shall receive. […]

Read the full article →

tiny answer Tuesday: 6 short answers to 6 short questions

It’s tiny answer Tuesday — six short answers to six short questions. Here we go. 1. Is this hiring practice normal? My question is about online job hunting. When I apply to a posted job online through Indeed or Monster or wherever, I sometimes get back a response that ends with “The next step in […]

Read the full article →

habits that can get you fired

You might figure that if you do good work, you don’t need to worry about being fired. Think again – there are some habits that can jeopardize even the best employee’s job. Here are 10 of the riskiest. 1. Playing online during the workday. If you’re logged into Gmail chat all day, doing your holiday […]

Read the full article →