December 2016

my favorite posts of 2016

Here are my favorite posts of 2016. 10. Do you have to control your emotions to be professional? Because this comes up so often for so many people, and it’s not always intuitive. 9. Here are things I’ve changed my advice on over time Because it was fun to look back and see where I’ve […]

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our boss constantly asks us to do personal favors for her

A reader writes: I work in a small group of five professionals with a director. The five professionals all do medium-level financial/data work; the director also does similar work and is our project and personnel manager. She often asks us (and me in particular) to do personal favors during work time. Examples include taking her […]

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updates: how can I get my staff to sign up to work after-hours events, my mom wants to write to the newspaper about my “tragic story of shattered dreams,” and more

Continuing our annual December “where are they now” series, here are five more updates from people who had their questions answered here this year. 1. How can I get my staff to sign up to work after-hours events? Initially I came away from your blog with the takeaway that I needed to set clearer expectations for […]

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update: my coworker keeps hijacking team meetings

Remember the letter-writer whose coworker kept disrupting her meetings? Here’s the update. I took a few different approaches to reigning in the boorish and disruptive behavior that was plaguing our team meetings. At our next meeting I took your advice and (in a very upbeat way, I think) reviewed meeting expectations for everyone. These meetings […]

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some of the weirdest posts of 2016

Just for fun, in no particular order, here are some of the weirdest posts of 2016. (These do not include letters that were already nominated for Worst Boss of 2016, as they have had their moment in the sun.) 2016 was a weird, weird year. I had to share a bed with a coworker on […]

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your workplace holiday disasters

Some of my favorite highlights from last week’s post asking people to share their real-life office-holiday-related debacles: 1. “This year, my HR department sent a mass email about the company holiday luncheon and ugly holiday sweater day. The clipart chosen to decorate this missive was chosen in haste and not closely examined. At first glance, it was […]

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