July 2018

open thread – July 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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is it bad to lay people off instead of firing them?

A reader writes: What do you think of the policy of letting problematic employees go by eliminating their position? I work at an organization that does this instead of firing people. Among long-time employees there’s a joke that it’s impossible to get fired here — they can think of one guy, nine years back, who […]

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my client wants me to be constantly available

A reader writes: I work as a consultant for a few small nonprofits. Recently, the manager of one of the organizations I work for retired. She and I worked together for several years and our communications styles matched in that we both generally preferred using email over the phone for most things (except for calls we’d […]

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ask the readers: moving back to mainstream jobs after sex work

I’m throwing this question out to readers because frankly I don’t have good answers for this one, and I’m hoping in particular that readers with experience in sex work will weigh in. Here’s the letter: I have a bit of a strange question. I want to get into sex work, specifically as a professional dominatrix. It’s […]

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I’m the boss’s daughter

Getting direction from one manager can be difficult enough – but what if you’re getting direction from two different people, and they’re not always telling you the same thing? And then to further complicate it, what if one of those people is your dad? That’s the letter I tackled on this week’s episode of the Ask […]

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