miscellaneous

am I just a sympathy hire with no real skills?

A reader writes: I am in my late 20’s and have had what some may consider a “tough” life. I’ve overcome a few obstacles (think addiction, gang violence, prison, broken family, homelessness, etc.). A big part of my personal life involves using public platforms to share my story. Before I turned my life around, I […]

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my favorite posts of 2023

Here are my favorite posts of 2023, in no particular order: 1. My employee doesn’t think we’re doing enough about bears at work Because of bears. 2. Someone or something is deleting our work emails Because of the mystery. 3. My coworker and I attend the same sex club Because I adore this sort of […]

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most popular posts of 2023

Here are the posts that interested people the most in 2023, via two lists: the most viewed posts and the most commented on posts. Most viewed posts of 2023: 10. I supervise a manager who falsified an employee write-up … but I don’t think she should be fired 9. I resent my employee for being […]

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the best office holiday party date story of all time

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day. A couple of years ago, someone shared what I consider to be the best holiday date story of all time, and it must be shared here again. Enjoy: When I was fresh out of college, a dude in my […]

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all of my 2023 book recommendations

All year long, I’ve made a weekly book recommendation when kicking off the weekend open thread. These aren’t work-related books; they’re just books I like, mostly fiction. Sometimes they’re books that I’m in the middle of reading, and other times they’re just long-standing favorites. Here’s the complete list of what I’ve recommended this year (maybe […]

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“I will confront you by Wednesday of this week”

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day. Several years ago, a reader shared with us this epic email that was sent by their company’s boss after a holiday party gone terribly awry, and as we enter the holiday season we remember its glory. “This happened about […]

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the schedule for updates this year

Welcome to “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager! Between now and the end of the year, I’ll be running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. A heads-up about update season: for the next few weeks I’ll be posting at midnight, 11 am, 12:30 pm, 2 pm, […]

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this is how you can protect your local library

After I printed a letter from a librarian being harassed by patrons, a lot of you wrote in to ask what you can do to help protect your local libraries from threats and book bans. Peter Bromberg, the associate director of EveryLibrary, an organization that defends and supports local libraries, was kind enough to write […]

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work doesn’t interest me anymore

A reader writes: Later this week, I’ll be going on a second round of interviews for a position I’m interested in. From what I can tell, it’s a great team and the work directly aligns with how I see my career going. I’m also lucky to know a couple of people who work there now, […]

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