April 2018

we have a plague of overly aggressive networkers

There are people who get legitimately excited about the prospect of broadening their professional circle—and then there are the rest of us, who shudder and blanche when we contemplate “networking.” Part of the reason for this visceral unease is the scourge of overly aggressive networkers: those people who, once encountered, loom large in our memories […]

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my boss discourages us from using our health insurance

A reader writes: I work for a small tech startup in a large city. We have about 80 employees in the United States who are all fairly young and healthy. Recently, our CEO has started using our weekly company-wide meetings to direct people how and how not to use our company’s health insurance policy. His […]

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weekend free-for-all – April 28-29, 2018

This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand. (This one is truly no work and no school.) Book recommendation of the week: Then She Was Gone, by Lisa Jewell. A woman whose daughter disappeared 10 years ago ends up in a relationship with a man […]

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open thread – April 27-28, 2018

It’s the Friday open thread! The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on anything work-related that you want to talk about. If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to talk to other readers. * If you submitted […]

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how to deal with a client who’s always late or no-shows

A reader writes: I’m a consultant in a professional service field. I work from home and all of my clients are elsewhere, so our meetings are always over the phone or Skype. For the most part, I love my clients, but one of them has a chronic problem with being late or simply blowing off […]

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how quickly should I respond to interview invitations?

A reader writes: I’m a month away from graduating college and am job searching for my first full-time professional job. I’ve sent out a lot of applications the past few months, with several replying and subsequently setting up an interview, although no offer has come through yet. I check my email once or twice a […]

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