Ask a Manager in the media

by Alison Green on February 22, 2024

Here’s some coverage of Ask a Manager in the media recently:

I talked to Katie Couric Media about Ask a Manager and stressed out middle-managers.

I talked to Self about how to manage anxiety at work.

HR Dive featured AAM in a piece on therapy at work.

The Daily Dot and a bunch of other places covered the letter about men who kept asking out a scheduling bot.

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  1. ZSD*

    Ugh, that Daily Dot article is an example of the lazy near-plagiarism that somehow counts as an “article” on the internet. If they’re not going to add any new analysis or independent examples, and all they’re doing is lifting quotes from the AAM post and its comments, why don’t they just say, “Here, read this,” and link to the AAM post?

  2. Zona the Great*

    Has anyone noticed the lady recapping these letters from AAM on TikTok? It seems she mostly references the paid articles used with the letters from here. She rarely mentions AAM and has never said Alison’s name in any that I’ve watched. I try to give credit so viewers know about Alison.

      2. Zona the Great*

        Yes, I’ll be sure to clock her @ the next time I see her. She never mentions you or your sites. I’ll email you unless I find it soon and reply back here. Unfortunately, it seems these have gone a bit crazy and I’m seeing your letters all over by a lot of users.

    2. Tinkerbell*

      AAM is also a frequent sight in r/BestOfRedditorUpdates – they always omit Alison’s answers but publish the LW and the follow-up letters.

      1. TeaCoziesRUs*

        RSlash is one of my favorite YouTube /podcast/background noise. After he covered the spicy food and the comments section pointed out AAM, he’s read a few of the stories on here. He’s cited Alison at least a couple times… and he reacts after he reads. :)

  3. CommanderBanana*

    They were good at bookkeeping so they became the manager of all the bookkeepers. But those are two completely different skills.

    ^^ THIS. I have worked for so many crappy managers who were good at what they did, so they got promoted out of what they did into managing people and totally bombed, with a lot of collateral damage.

    Ironically the best manager I ever had was my minimum-wage retail job manager back in high school/college.

    1. Ashley*

      I have a co-worker angling for a promotion based on being good at their roll. The next step is managing. The weakest spot is how they interact with co-workers and it has disaster written all over it if they are ever allowed to manage. They are also a big fan of this is how we have always done it and don’t like to consider that things change and just because you have no work life balance doesn’t mean your co-workers have to live in those terms.

      1. What the what*

        Ugh. I work with someone who’s of the “we’ve always done it this way” variety. And that way is…. inefficient busy work. Makes my life a living hell at work All 70 hours a week of them. I’m so burned out from it. Exhausting.

    2. BellyButton*

      I am in people and leadership development. That is so old school and thankfully more and more companies are moving away from it and are investing in leadership training before someone gets promoted into management. I spend about 50% of my time working with people who have been identified as future leaders, developing existing leaders- with coaching and more advanced leadership skills. I love it! My entire job is helping people reach their goals and be successful in everything they do. Greatest job, ever!

  4. Hills to Die on*

    Still not over the ‘so stupidly bad it’s actually funny’ of the guys hitting on a scheduling bot.

    1. I'm just here for the cats!*

      The thing is I can see those men emailing asking what happened to Felicia (or whatever the bot’s name).

      2. nnn*

        I wonder what their response would be if OP told them “Men kept hitting on her, so we had to fire her.”

        That would, of course, be an egregiously unfair thing to do to an employee. And also, has been known to happen in human history. And also, there tends to be a correlation between men who hit on women at work and men who are oblivious to that kind of systemic sexism.

        Would they be outraged on Felicia’s behalf, or would they be too oblivious to recognize that it’s a problem?

    1. dot*

      I’ve kinda been in this position for the last eight months or so and it’s been nice! My manager has been putting me into positions with increasingly higher project and people management responsibility, and has basically been acting as a mentor to talk through situations or to just be backup when dealing with something I’m uncertain about. It’s worked really well and I’ve learned a ton and gained a lot of confidence because he’s let me pretty much take control of some things but I know he’s there for backup. It’s been especially helpful to just kind of shadow him when dealing with something new and see how he handles it, then take what I learned/what I liked or didn’t like about how he handle something, and apply it to the future.

    2. BellyButton*

      One of the things I do with all leadership. We have cohorts- new managers, experienced managers, and executives. In addition to their monthly learning, they get together with their peers to talk about whatever the topic is that month- and how that scenario would look in real life. This prompts them to share their own experiences with it, for those who maybe haven’t encountered it and it gives them a place to talk to their peers about any problems or issues they are facing. In adult learning/development it has been shown in so many studies that peer coaching/development is some of the most effective learning. My teams love it. They were only going to get together for one quarter- when I launched the first one last year- they have all requested it keep going. So we took a break over the holidays and they all just started up again this month. It is proven to be really effective and very helpful all levels of leadership.

  6. anon for this comment*

    “I talked to Katie Couric Media about Ask a Manager and stressed out middle-managers.”
    Am I the only one who briefly wondered how Allison talking to Katie Couric Media was stressing out middle-managers?

    1. Xantar*

      You weren’t the only one. Also, I was a little disappointed that talking to Katie Couric Media doesn’t mean actually talking to Katie Couric.

  7. Tinkerbell*

    I just came here to say I LOVE that Alison is getting to do outreach like this :-D Not only does she absolutely deserve to have more people come find this site, but it’s got to be a nice way to change up your daily routine when you get interviewed by random (legitimate) journalists!

  9. RSTeachout*

    I saw a IG reel from someone who talks about bad bosses (don’t remember the name) and it was basically reading/paraphrasing a letter and response from AAM. I left a comment about how much I enjoy items in Ask a Manager, so that there would be credit somewhere for AAM.

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