September 2022

should you put stay-at-home parenting on your resume, I don’t want to train my new manager, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Should you put stay-at-home parenting on your resume? I was scrolling through LinkedIn today for work and saw this listed in someone’s experience: Stay-at-Home Mom Feb 2005 – May 2015 Volunteer position requiring training in child development and behavior. Job required strong skills in time […]

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should I quit my high school job?

A reader writes: I’m 15, a girl, and work at one of Canada’s top grocery/retail employers. Late August, I decided to get a part-time job because I felt like a lot of my classmates had one. I applied, got trained without an interview, and started shifts, which wasn’t a problem when I didn’t have school […]

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my employee wastes too much time on bad ideas

A reader writes: I am a manager for a small but extremely busy office. I have one employee who is part-time and comes in only a few afternoons a week. She wastes a huge amount of time pontificating about every little detail about her job, always making suggestions of how things could be done better, […]

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my performance evaluation is based on activities outside of work

A reader writes: I started my new job about six months ago, and I knew from the beginning that things like professional development, networking, and community involvement were highly encouraged at this company. What I didn’t expect was for these things to be mandatory to the extent that my performance review is based on them. […]

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the locusts, the un-appreciation kits, and even more stories of corporate gifts that didn’t quite work out

On last week’s post about corporate year-end gifts, some readers shared even more stories of company gifts that went terribly wrong. Here are 10 more that made me laugh. 1. The locusts “My prior company gave everyone a small tree and encouraged people to plant it. Now these were small seedlings maybe 2 inches inside […]

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weekend open thread – September 24-25, 2022

This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand. Here are the rules for the weekend posts. Book recommendation of the week: Girls They Write Songs About, by Carlene Bauer. The story of two friends over decades. Beautifully written and perfectly captures the intensity of 20something friendship, as […]

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