open thread – June 6, 2025

by Alison Green on June 6, 2025

It’s the Friday open thread!

The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers.

* If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer.

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  1. Araminta*

    I’ve been with current company for a long time. I have my usual workload, but I just finished up a big project and boss asked me if I wanted to spend a few months training two new employees, fresh out of college. I will pass them along to somone else to finish their training once they’re done with me. I did this a couple times, before Covid, and it was fun and interesting. I enjoyed sharing my knowledge. Normally I’m hybrid, two days in the office, but I’m full time in the office while training. I don’t mind it, as I live close and it’s a change of pace.

    Both new folks started two weeks ago. Milton and Veronica. They have never had a job before. From what they tell me, they are both from pretty prosperous families. Graduation gift for both was a brand new car. They still live with their parents in expensive nearby suburbs. They went to the top state school. The no jobs was due to focusing on sports and other activities in high school and studies and other activities in college. They seem bright and eager to learn, but in some things, just clueless. We’re sticking to an 8-430 schedule. They were told this on their onboarding video calls. The second day one rolled into the office at 9 and the second at 10. My boss and I let them know in very blunt terms that this was totally unacceptable. They later told me that neither their parents nor friends have jobs with strict hours so they thought they could come and go as they pleased. We have to badge in/out, so there’s no hiding their hours. They are doing decently on their work, but they don’t understand they have to put their phones away and can’t keep going on social media or messaging friends. I’ve had to tell them to only check phones at lunch. Boss saw them constantly on phones and had a talk with them about it.

    But it’s the incessant talk about when they can go hybrid that drives me nuts. They were told when hired they would have to do a good bit of training, at least six months, before they could go hybrid. For what we do, they need to learn in person. Doing it remote would make it much slower going. They don’t shut up about hybrid. I must hear about it 10-15 times a day. I have no real authority over these two and I don’t want it. I report to our boss regularly and keep him updated. I can definitely tell them when they’re doing things wrong, but our boss is the one to discipline and such. He’s told them to cool it with asking about hybrid, but that doesn’t stop them talking about it. I’m at a loss here.

    1. Tio*

      Are they asking about it, or just talking like “Oh it’ll be so great when we get to go hybrid” kind of talking about it?

      Either way, I hope you have some strict, measurable KPIs for them for when they do get allowed hybrid, as they don’t seem to understand working norms that well yet (although that may change in six months!)

      1. Funko Pops Day*

        I share this question, but I also think that either way, it’s fine to say “You may not realize how often you talk about being hybrid, but it’s happening close to a dozen times a day and I’m finding it a distraction to our training. I think Boss was clear when you were hired that that won’t be on the table until at least the start of the new year, and regardless, it’s not something I have a say over. I need you to stop bringing it up at this point. Is that something you’re able to do?”

      2. Hyaline*

        Same question! If they’re asking you/bugging you/talking about it with you, I think you can absolutely shut it down firmly. The next time they raise it, screech the conversation to a halt (so it’s not in passing) and say, “Actually, I want to address this. You’ve been asking abut hybrid schedules a lot, and I want to make it absolutely clear that the option will not be on the table until the six month mark. I do not want to hear about it until then. [or alternately–if it’s not really their place to ask about it even then–“I don’t want to hear about it again, and Boss will raise the possibility if and when it’s warranted.”]

        If they’re just commiserating, I’m not sure there’s as clear of an angle to address it. You can, but, I think it’s a choose your battles thing–you can say basically the same as above, adding “this is becoming a distraction to your work, and, funny story, you’re going to have to demonstrate excellent work to be allowed to go hybrid, so it’s really in your best interests to drop it.”

        1. Araminta*

          They’re sighing about how it sucks to have to be in the office all day and have strict hours. Milton told me his sister works for a big bank and has to go into the office every day. They both agree that sucks and they don’t want to work like that. It’s that sort of thing all day long. I just got back from lunch and they were going at it again. I told them to stop. “I’m sick of it and I’m sure everyone else within hearing distance is tired of it. Eventually going hybrid is dependent on your work, can you show up on time, work independently, etc. You were told six months MINIMUM. Now how about contracting on your work?” I also reminded them that a lot of people have strict hours and have to go into the office all the time, and that was how their parents likely started out. They got very, very quiet.

          2. Observer*

            They both agree that sucks and they don’t want to work like that

            And assuming that the field allows for it, their best shot at not being stuck with that is to stop kvetching so much.

            The better your work and reputation, the more capital and flexibility you get. Their current behavior is not going to do their reputations any good, so they need to get a handle on that. This is something that it would be good to tell them in a moment when they are *not* complaining about this.

            Also, there are often good reasons why people starting out have more constraints than people with more experience. This is about “you’re low on the hierarchy, so you need to be treated lower”, but about what makes sense for their role. I would not get into “this is how your parents probably started”, because it comes across a bit like “we had to suffer, now you need to pay your dues as well.” However, you could point out to them that “Your parents got to the point where they have the flexibility they have by working hard, following the rules – even ones they didn’t like, probably without the constant moaning, developing skills, and developing reputations as people who get their stuff done. If you want that for yourself, that’s what you need to do, too.”

            Lots of luck. I think I would be pulling my hair out from them.

            1. Out of office, out of mind*

              This is not about requiring them to come into the office because their parents did or their siblings do.

              It is about requiring them to be in the office because that is what is best for the organization and optimizes how teams interact.

              1. Observer*

                This is not about requiring them to come into the office because their parents did or their siblings do.

                Duh. But that is what they care about. And that is legitimate. Businesses care about the business, people care about themselves. The key is to make those two sets of motivations line up as much as possible.

                So, the way to motivate these newcomers is to help them to understand that the way for them to get what they want is to bring value to employers that can and will give them what they want in exchange for the value. But in order to reach that point, they need to develop the skills to do so and become known as someone who can provide that value.

          3. Indolent Libertine*

            Well done you! Fingers crossed that the lesson has been absorbed.

            I, however, will have an earworm for the rest of the day of Elmer Fudd looking at the viewer and admonishing us to be “vewy vewy quiet… I’m hunting wabbits!”

          5. fhqwhgads*

            If they’ll still have the strict schedule even once they are permitted to go hybrid, someone ought to clear that up ASAP so they can self-select out.

    2. Pam Adams*

      I would just say it- firmly but politely. “You will be in office for at least the next six months. Continuing to discuss this is a distraction. ”

      Also, it may be time to look at your hiring practices.

      1. Richard Hershberger*

        The point about hiring practices is excellent. Looking to hire upper middle class over-achievers may not be the best strategy. Look to the ones who flipped burgers to get through college and they will have a better grasp of workplace realities.

        1. I'm just here for the cats*

          I think that is a stretch. Just because someone flipped burgers or waitressed or whatever doesn’t mean they are going to have a better idea of workplace norms. And just because someone didn’t have a job in high school or college doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have an idea of workplace norms.
          This all comes down to 2 things in my opinion. 1. These two are basing their employment off of what they see their parents/other family do. If their parents have their own company or work something more fluid they would think that coming in whenever is normal because that’s what they’ve grown up with. Their parents haven’t given them an idea of the real work world.
          2. Their school didn’t prepare them. I honestly think there should be a class that every senior has to take. And it would be a business etiquette type course. Tell you how to interview, create a resume, those types of skill, but then what you typically have to know for an office job. Things like how to fill out tax forms, what a 401K is, etc.

          1. not nice, don't care*

            So the part where their actual boss clues them in should cover both points. If they choose to disregard, I guess they’ll get another life lesson.

          2. Richard Hershberger*

            I wrote workplace realities, not norms. The reality is that you have to show up and do your work. This is more fundamental than the specifics of how this plays out in a particular workplace. These two have yet to get themselves to that level.

          3. Zona the Great*

            Not a stretch at all and I think the advice not to hire spoiled upper class kids without any experience is very good. They’ll be just fine getting rejected for jobs they don’t want or need anyway.

            1. Clisby*

              Yeah, just like the waitstaff at a restaurant. If they don’t show up, they’ll be fired in about 3, 2, 1 ….

          5. Xennial student*

            >These two are basing their employment off of what they see their parents/other family do.

            Yes, because they don’t have their own experience to base it on. “I have to show up on time and do what I’m told” are workplace norms kids learn from working. These grads are showing immaturity because they’re just being exposed to these things now instead of as teenagers.

          6. GenX middle manager*

            They’re basing their employment opinions on what they see their parents doing recently. They don’t understand that when their parents were just starting out they probably were in entry level jobs with more supervision, less flexibility, and more tasks that fed into other people’s work and we’re important to complete on a defined schedule. They only remember their parents as kid to late career professionals. Someone (ideally r parents) needs to tell them stories of their started jobs.

          7. BigLawEx*

            The flexibility their parent have may also have been some accommodation due to having children. We have such hodgepodge childcare that fact may be invisible to them.

        2. Hyaline*

          Oh I don’t know. I think this is a reminder to not SOLELY focus on the degrees and extracurriculars, but some of the kids I worked with flipping burgers (ok, making sandwiches, but same deal) didn’t get workplace realities then and some of the kids I played sports with had amazing work ethics and showed up early with bells on.

          It can be really hard to pick out the recent grads who have a work ethic and understand that the standards apply to them, and applied that basic wisdom to dance or lacrosse or band or whatever, and the ones who applied it to an after-school gig.

          I think, honestly, a much, much bigger issue is that we have been relaxing the standards and making excuses for the past couple decades when it comes to passing students through school, culminating in the COVID years when everything flew out the window (local high school is being investigated for students who graduated having attended under 10% of classes, for example…). As I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, as a college prof, I see a lot of pressure to reduce or eliminate penalties for lack of attendance, and also to pass students through coursework so we’re not “barriers” to their “success.” We’re reaping what we sowed now. Students graduate high school and then college having never been held to a strict or even mildly rigorous standard, and are shocked that this mode will not apply in the workplace. Sorry, trainers of new grads everywhere–they can learn, but it will be an uphill slog.

          1. Bike Walk Bake Books*

            The real barrier to success is not being equipped with the skills it takes to succeed.

        3. Out of office, out of mind*

          Hiring overachievers is an excellent strategy. You should never apologize for excellence.

          And don’t tell me that all people who spent high school flipping burgers showed up for every shift.

          1. linger*

            True, there are no safe generalisations in either direction.
            It is safer to conclude that, not having previously been held to any kind of strict schedule, these two hires in particular are underachieving rather than overachieving for their level of privilege.
            Therefore (1), at the very least, a high-privilege background is not a sure indicator that a student is an overachiever (and so shouldn’t be a prominent hiring criterion);
            and (2) an understanding of work schedules is something that needs to be explicitly included in the selection process for future hires, whatever social stratum they come from.

    3. asloan*

      Yeah I think I’d just step way back here and hope they spoil their own positions. As you say, the hours worked will be obvious. Try to think about this less and don’t worry about their backgrounds or whatever; do your own work and just correct them if you see an error. If there’s a trial period to their employment the problem may solve itself. I try not to use the phrase about giving someone enough rope (because it’s morbid) but it applies here.

      1. Samwise*

        Really? They are recent college grads, they don’t know professional standards — that is, they’re young and inexperienced. So just step back and let them flail and fail?

        Araminta agreed to help train these new workers. Stepping back to let them fail = not doing the job.

        Let them know they won’t go hybrid till at least 6 months (or whatever), what benchmarks they need to reach in order to be considered, whether or not hybrid is even guaranteed — and let them know, kindly please, that complaining about being in-office, like frequent griping about any aspect of the job, is not professional in the workplace. Let them know it’s strictly an away from the office topic and that it will hurt their reputation if they keep it up.

        I dunno why so many of the comments on this post are so mean-spirited (or even just Kids These Days). I’m willing to bet just about every person reading this blog did dumb unprofessional stuff when they first started out. Have some compassion, folks.

        I sure remember the cringe worthy stuff I did when I was a new professional and that was a lot of decades ago. Thank goodness I had bosses and trainers and coworkers who were kind and who clued me in. (Thank goodness I have had bosses and coworkers all along, not just when I was young, who have clued me in.)

    4. whimbrel*

      Is your boss willing to have one more serious discussion with each of them about expectations? I feel like 2 weeks is enough time to adjust to the usual workplace norms at a new job, even if it’s their first job, and to understand that the training process means they won’t be able to be hybrid staff until training is completed.

      If that doesn’t take, maybe it’s worth you having a ‘heads up’ discussion with the ‘someone else’ to whom they’d eventually be reporting to see if they have feedback, as I’m sure they would not be thrilled to take on these two after training if they continue to cause headaches.

      2. Hello, it's me*

        Regardless of what their parents did at their jobs, or when they did it, didn’t these kids ever have to, you know, listen to an authority figure? I was younger than them when I started working, and no one had to teach me to pay attention to a coworker, much less my boss!

    5. CubeFarmer*

      The next time that you have a conversation, follow up with an email so that the topics and outcome of the conversation are in writing for everyone to reference.

    6. Indolent Libertine*

      “You need to stop talking about moving to a hybrid schedule. Not ‘do less of this,’ but really stop it altogether, at least until you’ve been here for 6 full months. It’s making you come across as green and unprofessional, and that’s not good for your prospects of success in this job.”

      1. Sue*

        It seems like kids who’ve been told they’re going to Disneyland “in the future” and can’t think of anything else. Immaturity.

      2. Arrietty*

        Or their prospects of actually going hybrid! I’d be extremely cautious of having less oversight of their work in the moment if this is how poorly they’re doing in person (and I’m very pro-remote work in general).

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          Exactly. This kind of performance issue doesn’t say “I’m super trustworthy to set my own schedule at home.”

    7. Insufficiently Festive Unicorn*

      I wonder if you can reach Milton and Veronica by reframing the needs of your company into how they had to behave in college. That, at least, should be very familiar to them.

      Your business (and most businesses) need them to show up between x and y, just like class needed them to show up between x and y; they couldn’t just roll in whenever. Once in class, they couldn’t be on their phone all the time because they weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing.

      Hybrid work, like school vacations, is something that is going to come when it comes and not an hour earlier; there’s no point in asking “Can we go on spring break?” in September. Furthermore, the ability to go hybrid is something they have to earn like they had to earn grades – do x amount of work, show y amount of improvement, turn in z amount of assignments (or however tasking in your company goes).

      Maybe that will get through? Even “but my parents and friends” could be met with “You’re in a different group. Just like the history majors and the pre-med majors had different expectations.”

      1. Frieda*

        College professor here to say: they almost certainly did not attend class all the time (as you would if it were a job) or take pains to be on time, or put their phones away. A small percentage of my students have what I’d call excellent attendance and zero percent of them can put their phone in their bag/backpack for the whole class session without texting on other devices.

        Suggesting that work is like their sports practice where their coach will be frustrated and penalize them if they skip practice or goof off may be slightly more effective.

        1. Hyaline*

          Fellow prof here to say: This. And the fact that we’re increasingly discouraged from penalizing absences or tardiness—well, the direct outcome is Veronica and Milton. They’ve never been held to standards like these before.

    8. GenX Middle Management*

      As the parent of some new grad Zoomers, i’ve actively worked to make sure they’re not those kids — but I know from overhearing stuff that some of their friends *are* those kids.

      I think the answer to “but my parents don’t have to” is not just “You aren’t working your parents job” but also there’s a lesson that seems to have passed some kid their age by: “Your parents did not have that job when they were your age.” It is highly unlikely that their parents had that much flexibility and comfort in their own first jobs out of college. They probably had entry-level jobs, they probably had to learn about workplace culture, and they probably had to work up to being in a position of trust where they were granted more flexibility and privileges. Those are things that don’t just vary by employer or workplace – they vary with seniority and with work history.

      (their parents probably also did not have the car or the nice housing situation, either. I know I grew up hearing about how my parents lived in crappy apartments and had beater cars when they first got married, and I’ve shared stories of my own with my kids, to level-set the idea that adulting doesn’t necessarily pick up right where your parents are at this point in their lives).

      1. Scholarly Publisher*

        This is something I’ve made a point of telling my own kids. I have a hybrid schedule with core hours, plus a boatload of vacation time that I can largely take whenever I want, because of the career I’m in and the amount of time and the luck of my workplace. The jobs they start out in aren’t going to look like that.

        (Also, I was able to afford a one-bedroom apartment on a part-time job and a house on an administrative assistant’s salary; they might be able to swing the one-bedroom without roommates if they go into a field that starts them at more than I currently make.)

        1. not nice, don't care*

          Some of my younger colleagues complain about the olds having more freedom and privileges, but most of us worked at least a decade for that. No one just waltzes in and scores an office and flexible schedule.

          1. I Have RBF*

            This.

            I am 100% remote, with a somewhat flexible schedule, at 63. But I had to earn that.

            My first job was as a lab assistant, washing glassware. It was the laboratory equivalent of busboy. For decades, I had jobs where I had to show up on time, in person, properly attired, etc. Even after I pivoted to IT, I had to show up on time, plus do on-call for unpleasant durations.

            Even now, I have to be on-time for meetings and after hours work. That’s why it’s called “work” and not “hobby”.

      2. goddessoftransitory*

        “Your parents are not working here. You are. YOU have been hired to do this job.”

        1. Overhead A*

          “If your parents could be on time and stay off their phones, I would happily have them work here.”

    9. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Do they have to keep those hours when remote as well? .If so, you/your boss should say that hybrid is only allowed when people have first shown in person that they can work their required hours without complaint or problems.

      Even if remote hours are flexible, it is reasonable for hybrid only to be granted after employees have demonstrated a good work ethic, ability to follow instructions and to follow the rules of their employment

      1. Araminta*

        Hybrid hours would be flexible outside of core hours, but yes, they have to demonstrate they’re able to cope working in the office before they’re allowed hybrid.

      2. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

        Exactly. I’d lean hard on language like “Hybrid work schedules are determined after probation and have very clear performance standards to meet before and after the plan is set. We’ll look at your options in January.”

    10. TGIF*

      I think the main problem is these kids are privileged and have no idea what it’s like to HAVE to work to avoid being hungry or homeless, or to support anyone but themselves. Personally I would just tell them flat out it needs to stop or they’re gone. No pussy footing around, none of this “it’s not ok” bs, just be direct.

      1. Nerf*

        Yeah, I resemble these kids myself, but I had parents who were very clear about the working world. The go-to phrase if I asked for something was “save your money, study hard.” When I complained that Dad only got four weeks of vacation, the response was “I’m extremely lucky in my position to have what I do.” If I commented that something seemed unfair in my parents’ working world, the response was always some variation of “That’s how work works.” It’s unfortunate that these kids don’t seem to have gotten the same message at home.

        I’d recommend being extremely clear with them: “Your parents sound like they’re in fairly senior and privileged positions at this point in their career. Entry level expectations are usually quite different, and those privileges are earned over a period of many years.” (Or similar)

        As TGIF says, clarity is essential: “Continuing to talk about hybrid when you’ve been told it’s not an option is making you look petulant and not setting yourselves up for success at this company or in this field. Please stop talking about it.”

        The rest… it’s up to them to receive the message and change their own behavior.

    11. goddessoftransitory*

      I know I’m Old, but I never got the whole “roll in whenever” thing. It was not okay at my school or during college, nor at any job I’ve ever had. Where is this magical land that provides paying positions that you can show up to whenever and stare at your phone all day?

      1. Theon, Theon, it rhymes with neon*

        Setting your own hours is fairly common in software development. The flip side of all that autonomy is that your overall productivity has to be high, which doesn’t seem to be the case here.

        More broadly, there’s the concept of ROWE: results-only work environment. Per the Wikipedia page, “A results-only work environment provides employees with complete autonomy over the timing, location, and methodology of their work. Instead of being bound to a specific workplace or schedule, personnel are responsible for achieving desired outcomes.”

        It certainly doesn’t fit all jobs, but when both the role and the employee are a good fit for this workstyle, it’s great.

        1. JA*

          A results-only work environment sounds like a more advanced type of a salaried position, but at the same time I’m all for the concept. So much time is spent wasted at work when all work is done and even the nonessential busywork stuff is done, yet one’s chair must still be kept warm for at least eight hours.

        2. David*

          Yup, software development is the magical land :-P and also a good number of research-based or other creative jobs. What all these jobs have in common is that much of the work involves thinking about things and coming up with ideas, or mentally working through the implications of decisions, or other things that happen entirely in your brain and are not mutually exclusive with other, possibly personal, tasks. And some amount of mental downtime is in fact necessary for all those thoughts to sort themselves out.

          So, for example, while I’m sitting here writing this comment on my phone, somewhere in the back of my mind I’m also subconsciously going through my list of assigned tasks for this week, and when I finish writing and submit, I’ll (hopefully) have a clearer sense of what I need to finish up before signing off for the weekend. (and in fact I literally just remembered one I might have forgotten otherwise as I finished typing that last sentence!) Or if I’m working on a difficult problem, sometimes it helps my focus to take a break and go for a walk, or watch a video, or play a game, or whatever. That’s the nature of these creative fields, that a lot of work implicitly happens while doing things which don’t look like work at all. That’s why effective employers in creative industries, or wherever this model is relevant, don’t make a fuss about their employees rolling into the office whenever (if at all) and playing around on their phones, because that doesn’t mean the work isn’t getting done.

          Of course at some point you do have to put down the phone and actually create some kind of tangible product as a result of all that thinking, so there is a point where it becomes clear whether a person is actually doing the job or just goofing off.

        3. Tau*

          Yeah, every software development job I’ve ever had has either had core hours or “please be here for meetings, try to have some overlap with the rest of the team, but apart from that we don’t care when you work as long as you don’t violate legal requirements on working and rest times.”

          That said, I don’t think I’d call my jobs ROWE, because I am still expected to work $contracted_hours per week on average. My experience of software development has always been that there is an effectively infinite pool of work, and if you finish something faster than expected that means that you have time to pick up more (and if all the deliverables for the client/project manager are finished, that means you can do some work on a nice-to-have or finally try hacking away at some tech debt etc etc) – so there is no such thing as “I finished my assigned tasks and can stop now.” It’s just that *when* I work those hours, and whether I want to work extra one week and take an afternoon off another week, is pretty much up to me.

      2. Bast*

        Depends on your industry and individual company. Flex time is not uncommon in my field. If your “start time” was 8:30, theoretically you could come in anywhere between 8 and 9 and be “on time” as they offered a half hour leeway in either direction. I’ve known other businesses that have “core hours” that people were supposed to work around but other than that, you could flex your hours around them. (that was my friend who is an engineer). I’ve worked for other bosses who were EXTREMELY big on butts in seats and if you clocked in at 8:32 when you were supposed to be there at 8:30 it was a big deal.

    12. Snacks*

      It sounds like you and your boss are doing a good job of being clear about expectations!
      I think you should keep doing that.

      “The expectation at this job is that you’ll be fully in-person for at least 6 months. It’s not something I or [boss] have any control over.”
      “We expect you to focus fully on your work during work hours. That means you shouldn’t be looking at your phone, except at lunch.”

      and then you can escalate to Alison’s line: “Knowing that the in-person work requirement is not going to change, do you want to continue in this role?”

    13. Kay*

      I would be really blunt at this point. I would say something like “You need to stop talking about hybrid. You bring it up constantly, its disruptive, and it needs to stop. Not only that, you only get to go hybrid after your training period ends, and then only when you have demonstrated reliable performance, like showing up on time, producing quality, timely work and demonstrating good judgement. I’m also a little concerned that you bring it up so much considering you are only two weeks into the job, will be onsite for at least the next six months, and have already demonstrated a few behaviors that would question whether your actions even warrant being allowed to work hybrid. I understand this is your first job, but these are pretty standard requirements in most jobs.”

      I would also raise this with the higher ups and whoever needs to train them after. This almost sounds like it isn’t going to work out if they don’t turn things around.

    14. Workerbee*

      Let them keep talking about it and sinking their own ships. If they aren’t able to comprehend what “No hybrid until at least 6 months” means, then a lot of key people failed to educate them in their formative years or they have cognitive issues. It’s above your paygrade.

      (But it seems to me that they’re used to getting their way by using tactics like incessantly repeating what they want until someone caves in.)

    15. Observer*

      He’s told them to cool it with asking about hybrid, but that doesn’t stop them talking about it. I’m at a loss here.

      This is actually two problems.

      The first is annoying, but relatively minor. That’s the complaining. You *should* tell them to cut it out, and stop them every time they bring it up with you.

      The second, and bigger problem, is that they seem to be missing the fact that they need to do what their boss says, even when it’s not a direct order and not directly related to what they are doing. The boss told them to cool it and they don’t seem to realize that this means that they *need* to cool it. When the boss says something, you do it! That’s something you should tell them. This is where internships might have been useful to them.

    16. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Since they are very privileged, they may never have before experienced a situation where rules aren’t relaxed for them if they ask or if their parents push.
      They may have friends with even more privilege who have been taken on as nepo hires and are indeed not subject to the rules their coworkers must follow.

  2. Anonymous Goose*

    I work for a company with a very “traditional” view on work hours/flexibility. There is a “no working from home” policy (seriously, we were in office all through Covid and 95% of our employees have desktops only and there is no way to remote in). I am pretty upfront about this when I am interviewing candidates for jobs. I don’t want anyone banking on the ability to work from home when they’re sick or have a personal issue only to find out it’s not allowed and they’ll have to take PTO. I’m typically filling entry level positions and getting candidates right out of school so I bring it up myself if it’s a candidate I see potentially hiring since many of them don’t think to ask about these policies.

    Several months ago I hired Kara. At the end of her first day I had a one on one with her to debrief a little and see if she had any questions. She mentioned that she would need to take 1-2 days off every month because she gets really bad cramps, but that she’d work from home those days. I was a little taken aback because I’d been so clear in the interview about WFH not being an option. I told her that if there was a medical concern that she (or we) could bring it to HR for possible accommodation, but that unfortunately it wasn’t something I was able to approve. I feel like I should mention here that I am a woman myself and I am aware of the diverse range of health situations that can lead to a particularly rough time of the month, so without explicitly asking, I was trying to lead her down the medical accommodation route if that was the case. She seemed upset/annoyed with that answer, but there really wasn’t more I could do at that point.

    Kara’s work is solid, but she’s not a rockstar, and unfortunately she’s struggled with attendance and tardiness. Our PTO is a combined bank, so it can be used however employees want, and she used the majority of hers on call outs. She recently submitted a vacation request for a week off in August, which I denied as she literally has no PTO left. When I explained why I was denying the PTO she said that it wasn’t fair because she’d told me on her first day that she needed more time off for her cramps and that she had already paid for part of this trip.

    I was pretty frustrated at this point and maybe a little colder than I should have been. I reminded her that I had been clear in the interview what the WFH policy was, and that she had been told about her PTO allotment as a part of her offer letter. I also reminded her that I had reiterated our WFH/PTO policy when she brought up her cramps on her first day and had suggested she speak with HR about possible medical accommodation. Kara is fresh out of college, but her resume was filled with internships and more work history than I would expect to see from a new grad, so I was expecting some basic understanding of professional norms.

    1. Purple stapler*

      I’ve seen posts about similar issues with WFH expectations over the last year or so. No WFH was made very clear in interview, but even once hired, the employee just didn’t get it. Huge disconnect between reality and expectations.

      1. Busy Middle Manager*

        I blame social media. Everyone posts one-sided stories and gets told they are right. The manager is always wrong. If you’re slightly older you can always tell information was strategically left out to curate certain responses. If you’re 24 and keep being told that companies are lying about in-building/office work requirements, I don’t see why you wouldn’t believe there is some truth to it

        1. Purple stapler*

          Totally agreed! I have a niece who just graduated from college and her field of choice has extremely few remote/hybrid positions available now. It’s one that has almost completely RTO, from what I can tell from articles and such. She still had this expectation that she is entitled to a remote position. She won’t listen to me and other family members that what she’s looking for is currently a unicorn.

    2. londonedit*

      What choice does she have, though? OK fine, she could have just not come to work for your company in the first place, but absolutely NO leeway whatsoever in WFH even if it’s theoretically possible? And this is why I’ll never understand the US idea of having one ‘bucket’ for sick time and holiday. People shouldn’t be denied time off because they’ve been off sick. If you’re not going to let her WFH, what other choice does she have but to take sick days when she needs to?

      1. Purple stapler*

        Again, on the posts I’ve seen over the past year, commenters seem to think WFH/remote should be given to new employees, when current employees don’t have it. Believe it or not, WFH/hybrid is not offered at all by some employers. I don’t know why this is so difficult for some to believe.

        1. londonedit*

          But then she’s also being penalised for taking sick time. How else is she supposed to manage this?

          1. Tio*

            Through FMLA or ADA, which is where OP was trying to steer her.

            But if she can’t get WFH approved through ADA, this is probably just not the job for her. It would be lovely if the US companies gave us more time but they don’t.

            1. megaboo*

              If she’s new, she might not even qualify for FMLA yet, depending on number of hours worked.

          2. Rags*

            She was supposed to evaluate this condition to her employment and take another job if it didn’t work for her.

          3. Required*

            The OP did state that Kara was told about possible accommodations with HR, so she should have talked to HR about it. Unfortunately, this situation happens with many employees in various employers. She was told about the limitation, given the only accommodation, and then refused to use her only accommodation, instead opting for the traditional route. I can sympathize with her issues, but Kara needs to take responsibility and maximize her current situation to help herself. She didn’t do that.

          4. Mockingjay*

            The same way the rest of us who have PTO do. It’s my responsibility to allocate how I use it, which means I mentally set aside a portion for vacation, some for sick days, and a couple extra days for “just-in-case.”

            Young employees like Kara have to learn how to manage their allocation and make those hard life choices – if you use all your PTO for illness, you’re not going to be able to go on vacation. (It’s happened to me.)

            It would be a kindness to explain again how accommodations work; the process can be daunting even for experienced employees.

              1. Sam I Am*

                It can also be on the employee (not just the employer). One person in my office has scheduled out every moment of PTO for the year. When I heard that, I asked “What happens if you’re sick?” and I received a blank stare in response. This person has never taken one sick day in the years of working here, which means they have come to work sick many times, causing the entire office to cringe as we listen to the open mouthed coughing of someone who is ill but denying it.

                But I see your point about employers not allowing enough PTO time for someone to take sick days when needed and still have time for vacations .

          5. RagingADHD*

            She’s not being penalised. She is being given the same, clearly stated amount of PTO that everyone else has, and guided to get a medical accommodation if she needs it. Which she (for some unknown reason) refused to do.

            Even in The Country of Europe, employees can’t unilaterally change the terms of their employment whenever they feel like it. Booking a holiday without making sure your time off is approved is a foolish thing to do.

            1. Anonymoose*

              I’m in Canada and have a job with good leave and that includes 20 days a year for illness. I think that’s reasonable yet I would use all of that on monthly cramps if I needed 1-2 days per month and not have any left over for colds and other random health problems. In other words she’s using a lot of sick leave to where an accommodation is reasonable to expect.

              The new employee either needs to get formal accommodation or, if they haven’t already, talk with their doc about treatment options (taking hormonal birth control was one of the best things I ever did at that age because after a few months my body was much nicer to me. I don’t expect everyone will benefit the same way from different treatments, but also I assumed for quite a few years that I had no option but to suffer and was so thankful when the solution for me was easy).

              1. Observer*

                In other words she’s using a lot of sick leave to where an accommodation is reasonable to expect.

                Yes. And the OP did tell her to talk to HR about an accommodation. Which she has not done. That’s on her.

          6. not nice, don't care*

            The same way millions of Americans have for generations. When you accept a job, you accept those working conditions, aside from illegalities of course.

          7. Beth*

            Realistically, this is normal in the US. We don’t have any legal right to paid sick leave. Plenty of jobs don’t offer any. White-collar employers do usually offer some, but it’s a norm, not a legal requirement–and it’s usually either limited to a small number of days each year, or part of an overall PTO pool as in this case.

            There are some legal protections for people dealing with medical issues, but they’re pretty limited. You can apply for FMLA leave if you need to be out of the office for a medical issue or to caregive for a sick family member, but that’s unpaid leave–it protects your job, that’s it. And people with disabilities have the right to reasonable accommodations, but setting it up is an HR process–your employer gets a say in what’s reasonable, you can’t just declare that you’re doing something as an accommodation and expect that to work.

            This is a bad system. It means most people come in to work with minor illnesses (colds, period cramps, migraines) because they’re saving their sick leave for more serious things. But it’s the system we have, and we have to work with it. That’s why Anonymous Goose tried to nudge Kara towards requesting an accommodation–that would’ve been a way out of this. Now that Kara’s used the time, Anonymous Goose can’t get it back for her.

          8. Christine*

            I’d say that’s what HR there is for, and LW explicitly stated for Kara to consult HR.

      2. Anonymous Goose*

        I’m not saying that the situation doesn’t suck. I also hate the policy and have pushed with those above me for change. But unfortunately it is out of my control which is why I’m so clear about the policy before there is even an offer on the table.

        That’s why I tried to direct her towards the medical accommodation route. If HR says that she is allowed to work from home once a month, that’s absolutely fine with me, I’m just not allowed to approve it myself.

        1. asloan*

          Were you really clear about what that means? Maybe you can send her some guidance on what it is and how to approach it? I’m always surprised by how little some people (who don’t read this blog apparently!) know about workplace rights/norms etc.

        2. I see you Doris Burke*

          Could you help her initiate the process or give her some more guidance? It might all seem overwhelming, especially for a recent grad

        3. GenX Middle Management*

          I have an employee who has that exact accommodation. They had to go through the formal accommodation process, including medical documentation, and define the number of days/hours per month.

          I’m trying very hard, myself, to not be the kind of manager who says “In my day, we just took five ibuprofen and white-knuckled through,” but honestly, that’s my gut reaction to that particular request as a woman who started her career in the 90s.

          1. asloan*

            I hope you can rethink that position, considering she apparently has medical experts backing her request. The experience ranges so much from one person to another that your personal experience doesn’t matter much. I know I am a bit old school and can occasionally be a bit flippant about some of this stuff myself but if she’s met the required bar you should do everything you can to stop your thought pattern.

            1. GenX Middle Management*

              Oh I 100% check myself on any gut reaction that starts “When I was at your point in my career, I….”
              A huge part of being a manager (IMO) is learning to stop your gut reaction and check it. Sometimes my gut is right on, but you’ve got to build in the “reaction pause.”

              I’m helped in that by remembering the time 15 years ago that I told my own boss I needed to leave a little early for a Halloween parade at my kid’s school and she started to say something like “Sometimes you just have to miss these events if you’re dedicated to the job.” and she visibly stopped, checked herself, and told me and the other parent of a young child in the room “That sounds fun, we’ll check back in on this later.” Boomer herself, trying to model better work-life balance.

          2. Toxic Workplace Survivor*

            I just wanted to say I agree with asloan’s comment but GenX MM I see you. I am elder millennial and struggle so much with stuff that feels like something I have/do just suck up when it happens to me. It’s tough because I’m genuinely working hard to break some toxic patterns in my industry but meanwhile not everything younger employees are looking for is reasonable (such as the WFH convos in the threads above).

            Basically, I just see where you’re coming from and appreciate the pushback from commenters while wanting to say it is hard to see the way through sometimes.

          3. Observer*

            I’m trying very hard, myself, to not be the kind of manager who says “In my day, we just took five ibuprofen and white-knuckled through,” but honestly, that’s my gut reaction to that particular request as a woman who started her career in the 90s.

            Please do NOT do that! It’s both unhelpful and unkind.

            As a kid we had a lot of problems with the building I went to school in and a lot of our teachers were all about telling us how “well, in the old country it was colder and we were hungry too. You guys are just spoiled.” And my father, who was also from “the old country” and remembered what it was like was “Nah, the school was at least as warm as home – especially since in that period, the school was mostly in people’s houses.”

            As you can imagine, the people who were telling us how spoiled we were got absolutely nowhere. My father, on the other hand, got our attention. Because we knew that he *got it*.

            Also, so what? Please don’t be one of those people who are “I went to school barefoot in the snow, so should you” people. Even just in your own head. Instead try to be the person who thinks “I used to have to walk barefoot in the snow. I’m so glad that the kids now have shoes and a bus for the kids who are farther away.” This is a choice you get to make.

          4. WS*

            Yeah, I’m also GenX and I remember white-knuckling through period pain, and fainting on the floor at work and being carted off in an ambulance bleeding from the head. There should be other options and I try my best to make them happen.

        5. MJ*

          Is there a reason you can’t come straight out and *tell* her, instead of “directing” her?
          As we’ve seen frequently in letters and comments on this site, not everyone picks up on hints. Perhaps, being explicit that you can’t approve work from home but that HR may for a medical accommodation, and how she can apply for that, would solve the issue. It doesn’t mean you have to ask for her medical info – just give her the info and point her at HR.

          1. Christine*

            “I reminded her that I had been clear in the interview what the WFH policy was, and that she had been told about her PTO allotment as a part of her offer letter. I also reminded her that I had reiterated our WFH/PTO policy when she brought up her cramps on her first day and had suggested she speak with HR about possible medical accommodation.”
            ————

            Scratching my head here on how much more clarity LW is expected to give. It seems the real problem is Kara thinking policies don’t apply to her. The trials and errors of life will sort it out for her. Good!

        1. Observer*

          Why would the LW do that? She’s not that great. And it’s normal to staff at a level where you expect people to show up when they are supposed to, absent real emergencies.

      4. Admin of Sys*

        How do you know WFH is theoretically possible? There’s nothing in the op’s question that states the policy isn’t due to actual requirements. And if a job has a stated policy going in, then someone needs to assume that if they can’t meet that policy, they shouldn’t try to work there. If the job said they’d have to be able to lift 50lbs and they couldn’t, getting hired and then mentioning that they can only carry heavy things during the first half of the week isn’t an accommodation problem, it’s a lack of understanding of policy.

        1. Anonymous Goose*

          WFH regularly would not be feasible, but an occasional day (at least in my opinion) would be doable. Honestly I’d love a day every couple of months to be able to catch up on my admin without people stopping my my office every 15 minutes

          The problem is our company polices. I have made the argument to those above me for policy changes. I was basically told “We won’t be changing our policy because not everyone has a job that can be done from home and it’s not fair to those who can’t.” Which I didn’t think was a good reason, but it’s not my decision to make.

          1. Charlotte Lucas*

            That’s like saying “Not everyone has a job that can be done at a desk, so we’re taking away all desks.”

            However, as someone who has worked hybrid for a while and remembers what went into making it possible for everyone at my (very large) state agency to be able to WFH while meeting our own security needs and federal laws spring 2020, it might be too difficult for a company to just allow WFH without getting special equipment/IT setup/policies put into place.

            1. Observer*

              it might be too difficult for a company to just allow WFH without getting special equipment/IT setup/policies put into place.

              This is a real issue. WFH is absolutely something that almost always needs a fair amount of set up. The same technology that makes wfh possible also imposes a lot of its own burdens.

              It is, imo, absolutely worth it when it’s doable. But it is not easy, nor simple. And it’s not always obvious which jobs can be done remotely, even in part.

          2. Richard Hershberger*

            The fairness argument is facile at best. Different jobs have different requirements. Is this really that difficult a concept?

            1. Anonymous Goose*

              Oh trust me I made that point. I was talking to my boss about it and said “Cool, so you guys are gonna start paying me OT and I can wear the same dress code as the guys on the factory side then right? And we’re gonna start rotating who has to do the business travel that’s for some reason only my team’s responsibility?”

      5. Bast*

        Her choice probably should have been to realize this isn’t the job for her and declined it when offered. I don’t like our system in the US, but unfortunately you have to work around it. I personally will decline any job that does not allow WFH in cases of illness/emergency, unless the PTO is so VERY generous that it wouldn’t make a difference (and I haven’t found one company where that’s the case, although I acknowledge those unicorns exist).

      6. Zona the Great*

        I’m not sure why it matters if you don’t understand some American companies and their buckets. That’s what it is. Do you think we have power to change it? Wouldn’t we already? OP laid out what can and cannot happen. What is the point of you asking, “Really?!”? She can move on and find a job that works for her.

      7. Observer*

        but absolutely NO leeway whatsoever in WFH even if it’s theoretically possible?

        That makes sense, because that generally still means set up needs to be done. Like, allowing people to remote in needs to be properly set up, including dealing with security. So, to allow Kara to remote in, someone needs to change the set up to her computer, and also allow her to get into the firewall. Then there is phone usage, which also needs to be dealt with if she needs to be reachable by phone, or needs to actually talk to people, vs email and text based messages.

        If you’re not going to let her WFH, what other choice does she have but to take sick days when she needs to?

        Talk to HR about a medical accommodation. And at that point, a decision might be made that part of the accommodation is take on the extra expense and work that will allow her to work remotely 2 days a month or whatever. Or not, but definitely something to think about.

    3. asloan*

      I feel you … but if you’d let other employees go “in the red” to take leave, I think you should do the same for Kara, not expect her to cancel a vacation just to “teach her a lesson.” That’s not great management and most employees would be looking if their PTO requests are denied willy nilly. If nobody else ever gets to go in the red, okay, but that’s pretty stingy IMO (you can warn her she won’t accrue any more until she pays it back or has to go unpaid or whatever).

      1. SansaStark*

        It might make a difference depending on how new Kara is. My company might let a longtime employee go into the red, but I’m not sure they’d allow it for someone within their first year or so with the company.

      2. Anonymous Goose*

        No one is allowed to go into the red without prior approval from HR/management and that’s typically only in extreme circumstances. Either way it’s not in my purview to grant. People absolutely have gone into the red on sick time/in emergency situations without prior approval, but I can’t ok a week vacation if she’s already maxed out.

        I’m not trying to “teach her a lesson” I have been clear on the policy from the beginning. I also remind my employees when they’re getting low on PTO and I have a tracker available for them to check their remaining balance. We don’t accrue PTO, we get our PTO at the beginning of the year/immediately on hire if you start after the first.

        1. asloan*

          Yeah, it sounds like this workplace isn’t likely to work out for Kara, but I guess try to be more direct about her needing to get HR approval for medical stuff. Hopefully she’ll realize on her own that this isn’t a good fit for her.

        1. Taketombo*

          It depends on the state. In MA, which has paid family medical leave (PFML, submit the same FMLA form to the state portal) you are not obligated to use your PTO to cover leave. There are three options you can register with the state:

          1) fully paid with PTO and/or insurance
          2) paid by state, use PTO and/or insurance to “top off” to your normal salary
          3) paid by the state

          I use 3 to preserve my PTO for unexpected illnes, planned vacations, etc.

          1. Double A*

            Every job I’ve worked required you to use PTO with FMLA; it’s just that if you run out of PTO, you can still take unpaid leave and protect your job. Without FMLA your job wouldn’t be protected.

            It’s really fun to have a baby, burn through all paid leave and also unpaid time, then come back with exactly 0 days of PTO (what possible need could you have for any PTO shortly after having a baby, right?), but that’s usually how it works.

          2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

            Ok, in the majority of states FMLA won’t stop her from burning through her PTO. As Double A says above, I have never worked anywhere that didn’t require you to use PTO to cover FMLA hours until you ran out of PTO. That’s quite standard. FMLA is not there to protect your PTO, it’s there to protect your job.

      2. Nightengale*

        it doesn’t sound like she has been there a year yet – a requirement for FMLA

    5. MsM*

      It sounds like Kara’s attendance (and possibly other) issues extend beyond that couple of days a month, so this may simply not have been a good fit from the start. But if that weren’t the case, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t explicitly advocate for medical accommodation as the best option. She wouldn’t need to tell you exactly what her condition was, so why put the focus on “I can’t approve it” instead of “if you need it, here’s the process”?

      1. Required*

        “I told her that if there was a medical concern that she (or we) could bring it to HR for possible accommodation, but that unfortunately it wasn’t something I was able to approve. I feel like I should mention here that I am a woman myself and I am aware of the diverse range of health situations that can lead to a particularly rough time of the month, so without explicitly asking, I was trying to lead her down the medical accommodation route if that was the case. She seemed upset/annoyed with that answer, but there really wasn’t more I could do at that point. ”

        It seems like OP did advocate for that, but it’s still up to Kara to pursue it.

    6. MCL*

      I wonder if she didn’t pick up on your hint. Look, I think it was pretty obvious, but I have been working for years. If she’s fresh out of college and doesn’t have a lot of work experience, then she may not have understood the actual ramifications of not pursuing a medical accommodation on her overall PTO allowance. Maybe at this point you have another conversation with her to say, “Hey, you have regular PTO requests and have cited a medical issue as the reason for those, you should really consider going to HR to discuss the process for getting an accommodation so you don’t end up in this situation of not having enough PTO again.”

      1. Funko Pops Day*

        I might go even stronger: The only way I am allowed to approve WFH would be if you have a formal accommodation in place with HR for a medical issue. If HR says that you are allowed to work from home once a month, that’s absolutely fine with me, but I am not allowed to approve it myself. This is the intranet link to HR’s page about how to apply for medical accommodations; I’m happy to try to answer any questions that I can.

        1. Roland*

          Yup. I don’t think OP was clear when someone doesn’t already know what they’re talking about. It’s not OP’s fault but they have the power to help her access medical accomodations so they should use it.

      2. Anonymous Goose*

        That’s not far off from my original suggestion to be honest. I said something along the lines of “Unfortunately like we talked about in your interview we don’t allow WFH. Your PTO is your PTO to use however you want or need to. If you need a medical accommodation we can have a talk with HR. I can help you with that, or if it’s something you would be more comfortable talking out with HR alone that’s totally fine too, just let me know how you want to proceed.”

        1. Pepperminty*

          You’re assuming she knows what a medical accommodation is. I don’t think you’re being as clear as you think you are.

          1. Charlotte Lucas*

            That really depends on what the onboarding process is like. Some places give you all that information on the first day/week of work.

            Could the OP have been more explicit? Most likely. But it’s equally likely Kara has all the information she needed and just made assumptions instead of real plans.

          2. Zona the Great*

            Good golly. Then employee would then ask what a medical accommodation is. We can’t treat this person like they were hatched from an egg just this morning.

            2. Science KK*

              Yeah if she couldn’t be bothered to take out her phone to Google medical accommodation after that……I’m sorry but she’s an adult with access to the Internet, not my five month old niece who can’t sit up yet. Get it together.

          3. Bike Walk Bake Books*

            Kara got information that something called “medical accommodation” might help her deal with this. If she didn’t understand that term she could ask in the moment or she could look it up later. There’s Dr. Google right there, ready with the answer, even before she goes to HR which was identified as the office that could help her.

            To me this response removes all agency from Kara. It’s her body, she needs to learn how she can take care of it within the bounds of employment, this is an opportunity to do that. She also might want to rethink paying in advance for vacation when she hasn’t gotten it approved yet.

          4. Observer*

            You’re assuming she knows what a medical accommodation is

            No. It’s assuming that Kara is a competent adult who can actually ask the OP, ask HR, or look up what a “medical accommodation” is, if she doesn’t know already. And it’s extremely unlikely that someone who has graduated college does not know what that is.

            The only thing I wonder about is whether she’s been told by doctors / school / her parents / whoever else that her cramps are not a “real” problem, and it’s not “medical” etc. There is a real and significant issue that this kind of cramping is just dismissed as not being a “real” issue but just women “over-reacting” etc. So it could be that she thinks that she won’t get an accommodation even if she asks for this.

            OP, if your company is good about this stuff, that’s the one thing you might want to address explicitly. Say something like “I don’t want to get into your business here, but our HR is pretty good about stuff like this. So if you didn’t go to HR because you thought they would not take you seriously, I think it’s worth having that conversation.”

          5. Saturday*

            Good grief, if she doesn’t know, she can ask, but the words “medical” and “accommodation” are pretty common, so most people will pick up on the general idea, even if they don’t know all the associated rules. For details, she can go to HR, like the OP said.

          6. fhqwhgads*

            I think “you need to take it up with HR. I can’t approve that.” is pretty clear to go talk to HR, even if the details were a blur.

        2. asloan*

          That should have been direct enough, but since she’s new maybe you can be even more direct next time this comes up. “It sounds like you need a medical accommodation. You will need to make an appointment with HR about this. Otherwise, there’s nothing I can do.”

        3. Houndmom*

          The obligation is to advise her of the option to ask for accommodations. You have fulfilled that requirement. Sometimes new hires don’t realize the boundary exists until they try to pass it. You are not punishing her or teaching her a lesson. You are administering the policy consistently to all employees.

      3. Analytical Tree Hugger*

        Hint? What hint?

        “Talk to HR about a medical accommodation.”

        How is that a hint rather than a clear instruction?

    7. Kimmy Schmidt*

      “As I’ve explained, this decision is out of my hands. You need to talk to HR to request a medical accommodation. Here’s how to do that.”

    8. Parenthesis Guy*

      I know you said that employees can’t go into the red, but is leave without pay allowed?

      Someone fresh out of college should be able to understand that they have a certain amount of time off, but it’s not outlandish to me that they wouldn’t.

      1. Anonymous Goose*

        Not really… and almost for sure not for someone who has been here less than a year, with frequent callouts/tardiness, who didn’t discuss it upfront. Like I know we’ve had some employees do that for their weddings/honeymoons or if they needed to travel internationally to visit relatives, but that’s typically something that’s discussed way in advance (like 6+ months)

        If she’d been here a couple of years with no issues it’s something I would have suggested to her at the time. “Hey, I’m ok with this time off but you’re out of PTO. I can ask for approval for you to take this time off unpaid, but I just want you to know upfront that that’s the only way you can take this time.”

        Unfortunately she has had attendance and tardiness issues, and while I’m sure that some of the issues are related to the period situation, mathematically I don’t think all of them are. She’s also never explicitly said what’s wrong when calling out and I haven’t asked beyond saying “are you feeling better” the next day.

        The tardiness has been mostly related to traffic. We’ve had to have a couple of talks about how I understand if there’s an accident on the highway or bad weather, but if you’re 20 minutes late everyday that’s not traffic, that’s just part of your commute and you needing to leave 20 minutes earlier.

    9. Pay no attention...*

      I think the WFH is a red herring when dealing with recent grads — even those you have job and internship experience. This is normal transition away from school, where everyone IME bends over backwards to help students succeed, gives them a lot of flexibility and patience, and there are built-in vacations as a given, not an allotment they have to time-budget.

    10. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      “Kara’s work is solid, but she’s not a rockstar, and unfortunately she’s struggled with attendance and tardiness”

      This is an example of why you should always try to be 100% on the easiest tasks, such as turning up on time if everyone else manages to, taking feedback on board. This builds up capital, so that your manager is keen to go the extra mile for you, rather than wondering whether you are worth the trouble to keep.

    11. Higher ed Jessica*

      i agree with everyone who has suggested a much clearer, more explicit, 101-level conversation about accommodations.

      also, one place a recent graduate might be coming from is that in school, everything is about how things are justified, but at work, you’re ultimately judged on the quality of your work, not the quality of your excuses. in us k-12 at least, you have a RIGHT to go to school and it’s on the school system to meet any needs you have. and in school, you are the point. at work, work is the point.

      if kara worked for me she’d be getting a very blunt reminder, in response to her “but i told you i would need…”. that the workplace (unlike school) doesn’t exist to meet employee needs, and that the only reason she has the ADA, sick leave, PTO, minimum wage, weekends, or any other rights is that labor fought capital for them.

      1. Anonymous Goose*

        This is a fair point. I guess when I was new to the workforce I just kind of figured it out for myself. Not in a “me against the world and no one will help me” way. In a “I’m a naturally curious person and I will google anything I don’t know” way. It’s what led me to this blog in the first place. So if my boss had said “we can work with HR if you need a medical accommodation” and I wasn’t familiar with what that looked like, I would have googled “medical accommodation” and figured it out.

        I will die on the hill that if I, a millennial who learned to use the computer while my brain was still squishy, was forced to take a college course on basic computer skills in order to graduate, that all students should be required to take some kind of “hey these are all the things you need to know about working” class

        1. Wellie*

          I will die on the hill that if I, a millennial who learned to use the computer while my brain was still squishy, was forced to take a college course on basic computer skills in order to graduate, that all students should be required to take some kind of “hey these are all the things you need to know about working” class

          Get off the hill. I am not even sure what point you’re making here with your computer class. It’s part of the manager’s job to ensure that new employees are learning how to be employees, whether that be having explicit conversations, such as spelling out what a medical accommodation is yourself, or by assigning them a mentor who can have these explicit conversations. It might not be your favorite part of the job, but it is still part of the job.

          1. Anonymous Goose*

            My point was that I was forced to take a useless class in order to graduate because it was deemed necessary by my school for function in “the real world” when they were skills we all obviously possessed or we would not have been able to get in to college at that point in time.

            I feel like it would be far more beneficial to have a class dedicated to learning things like What is FMLA? or What’s the classification for being salaried exempt? or What are my rights as an employee? One hour a week senior year of college could have saved me so much time and ultimately embarrassment when I was fumbling through my first few years of employment.

            To be perfectly honest I don’t see teaching my employees everything about being a functional working adult as part of my job as their manager. My role is to guide and support them, and I’m always available for any questions that they may have relating to these topics. I also give my new employees a lot of grace and will pull them to let them know if they’ve made a misstep. But at the end of the day I’m not their mother and I can’t take care of making sure that everything is spelled out for them explicitly at all times with no ambiguity whatsoever.

    12. Anonymous Goose*

      So just to answer all the people asking about why I haven’t been more explicit with her or been more direct about the topic of a medical accommodation…

      A lot of it is due to the nature of the medical issue. I know that particularly bad period symptoms are things that are frequently difficult for women to get medical support with. I have some friends and family members who have struggled for years and had to fight for medical care/a diagnoses. I don’t feel it’s my place to recommend or ask that she seek medical attention if she’s not already. I know our HR team is going to require some type of documentation for a medical accommodation but I don’t know what that would be in this case, so the best I’ve been able to do is make the potential route available to her.

      It’s also a topic that can be very personal/private for a woman, and I haven’t wanted to make it seem like I’m prying or trying to cross professional boundaries. It doesn’t bother me at all that she brought it up, but I don’t want to ask for details that she doesn’t volunteer herself.

      A commenter above mentioned being an elder millennial and being raised to white knuckle their way through it, and while I’m a junior millennial I was raised with the same mentality. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to help or that I don’t have sympathy. I’m also very aware that there is a scale on this and my white knuckle could be her walk in the park. Unfortunately with the way the US is and the way my company is, there’s not a quick and easy path for me to get Kara the resolution she wants on this topic.

      1. sb51*

        You should be able to talk to your HR department about this and ask on her behalf as to what she would need. If you think asking them how to advise her (you don’t even need to name her) would cause problems for her or for you, you have bigger problems than Kara.

        Ask them hypothetically what documentation would be needed for intermittent wfh or fmla for a chronic condition, and what kind of accommodation is usually provided. Then tell her what she’d need and how to file it and what she’d potentially be eligible for. If she can’t get a doctor to certify a diagnosis because we’re crappy about women’s issues as a society, then there’s another conversation to be had; maybe you can offer unpaid leave so she can have a vacation once in a while.

        She doesn’t have to be a rock star to deserve a reasonable HR experience, and if she can get rest when she needs it she’ll probably be a better employee! Plus potentially a loyal one.

        1. EO*

          I’ve tried exactly this at my workplace was just told ‘this is all case by case, the employee has to talk to us.’

        2. Saturday*

          Ick, no, I would hate it if my boss went to HR on my behalf and said all this, even if they didn’t use my name. I don’t get why people are acting like it’s such a burden for the employee to go to HR and find these things out.

          People are correctly pointing out that she might need someone to guide her through the process, but that’s HR’s job, not her manager’s.

          1. sb51*

            I was more responding to the fact that Anonymous Goose said she didn’t know what HR would need — as a manager, that’s probably something she should know, just in general, because what if Kara had asked “okay, how do I do that?” She should know this stuff in the abstract, and asking in that same vein, even if it kind of implies there might be someone with a very similar story headed their way, makes sense.

            I am definitely influenced by the fact that I come from a too-subtle part of the country and would worry that a boss saying a vague-ish “you could go to HR for a medical accommodation” was a threat — that it really meant “do not do this, you’ll risk your job”, whereas with details it would actually sound like a recommendation. But I do realize I come from a too-passive-aggressive, too old-school viewpoint there.

            1. Anonymous Goose*

              Sorry, I do know in the abstract. I meant I didn’t know specifically because HR treats everything on a case by case basis.

              I know they’ll need some kind of official medical documentation, but I don’t know what that will be. For example I know with one employee there were forms the doctor needed to fill out but with another a note was accepted. I think a lot of it has to do with the level of accommodation and whether or not the accommodation is temporary.

              If Kara had asked about how to do that I would have said: Well the first step is setting up a meeting with Annie (Annie is our entire HR team, we’re a small company). I can do that if you want me involved, or if this is something you’d prefer to keep private between you and Annie then you can stop down and talk to her whenever you have a minute. Annie will talk you through how this works, but she’s probably going to need some info from your doctor. After that you’ll be involved in the process of determining what you need for an accommodation with Annie. I might get asked if it will represent a hardship for our team, but otherwise if you don’t want me to be involved I won’t be. Annie won’t tell me anything that doesn’t specifically relate to the accommodation itself and I won’t ask for any information beyond that. On the other hand if you want me to be more involved/in the loop I’m happy to do that for you too.

        3. Observer*

          You should be able to talk to your HR department about this and ask on her behalf as to what she would need.

          Nope. For a lot of reasons. One of which is that they don’t have the information they need. This stuff tends to be very fact specific. And Kara is an adult who gets to decide who she is going to discuss this with.

      2. Hyaline*

        I think this is tricky because, yes, you can’t overtly tell her “go to the doctor.” Telling her how to manage a medical condition is definitely an overreach. At the same time she IS bringing her condition to you and sharing that it’s a work concern. The part where medical condition and work concern intersect is what you can comment on and guide her on. I agree with sb that you could gather the information for her on basic policy from HR (or company handbook or whatever), and pass it along to her. Maybe you could offer to make introductions with someone in HR to help her. I think there’s only so much you can do when the answer is “get a medical accommodation” but I would try to do everything you CAN do within that range for her (but end of day, if she doesn’t like the only real solution to her problem…that’s not something you can control).

      3. Head Sheep Counter*

        I am glad you stated it this way. I was going to reply to other commenters that I suspected that this was the case but… its… presumptive.

        Honestly, I feel you have a leading horse to water situation. You’ve pointed out what is available and what she might need to do in terms of approaching HR. Beyond that really… she needs to be accountable for her own self.

        Treating folk like they are lacking in intelligence/agency does no favors.

      4. Wellie*

        You seem really stuck on this being period pain as a reason why you haven’t spoken to her in depth. The nature of the pain is a red herring, and your obsession with not talking about it is interfering with your ability to be a good manager. Clearly she is not the type to Google phrases she doesn’t understand, so you need to spell it out for her, and you don’t need to say “period” in order to do so. If it helps, pretend she is a werewolf and the pain comes from shifting every full moon.

        “Angua, I want to go over your options for taking time off and managing your work hours when you are having pain. As I stated, you have X many hours of PTO left. You will not be able to take any more hours than that off for the remainder of the year, whether for vacation time or for sick time to manage your pain or any other sickness.
        You have other options that allow you not to come in when you are having pain, which is the medical accommodation I brought up earlier. The medical accommodation would be working from home as an accommodation for a medical condition, such as extreme recurring pain. I apologize for not being more explicit on this before.
        When I said that I can’t approve it, I meant that you have to go through the process with HR, and HR would be the people to approve it. I am not fully familiar with the process, but I do know it involves some documentation on why you need the accommodations. I believe that it does need some input from your doctor. You will have to go to HR to get the details. Do you want me to help you initiate the process with HR?”

        1. Sage*

          This sounds as though the WFH accommodation is guaranteed, and it very likely is not.

        2. Saturday*

          OP gave her plenty of helpful information before. She can’t push her employee into this.

    13. Hyaline*

      A lot of the debate about “but really can’t she WFH?” and “this kind of bucket PTO is unfair” is frustrating here because you, the OP, cannot control the policy here. You’ve done exactly the right thing in letting her know that medical accommodation is probably her only option here, and you have repeatedly brought it up to her. I think the only thing you can do is continue to clearly articulate that line, offer any assistance you can in helping her bring a case to HR for accommodation, and bear in mind (possibly even telling her, if occasion arises) “this is the reality in this organization, and if it’s not a good fit for you, I understand, and though I’d be sad to see you transition out, I’ll support that choice if you need to look elsewhere.”

      She’s young, and she may have naively thought that a) workplace norms translate directly and so leniency she experienced in one place on PTO or WFH may have imprinted on her and she’s needed to un-learn or b) believed she was really the exception here. She’s not. She can either explore her options within your company’s policies or she can go somewhere else.

      1. jez chickena*

        Has anyone considered she understood perfectly well what medical accommodation means, and that the extra time she needs is an exaggeration of her “condition” so she gets extra time off?

    14. JSPA*

      Some people hear “you should look into” as, “this is your tip-off to take that route.” Others hear, “I’m brushing you off by implying that your problem isn’t as valid than you’re making it sound.”

      How someone hears this has a lot to do with family history and personal history with the medical system! Also, in school, you talk to your professor for the accommodation.

      I think you absolutely can say, “I know that cramps can be bad enough to merit a medical accommodation. I’m pointing out that a formal medical accommodation is the only way to step outside our 100% in-office system. I’m directing you to the standard workplace process for requesting an accommodation. Any request for accommodation has to come directly from you, to HR. I can’t make, approve or deny requests–that’s handled by HR, not by your reporting chain.”

  3. Pepperminty*

    What fun things do you have in your home office space?

    I’ve just started a new job (I work fully remote in tech in the UK) and I’ve decided to make my workspace more fun and welcoming.

    Some things I have include:
    A giant Jellycat pencil
    Happy Botanicals Lego plants
    A figurine of the ‘this is fine’ dog meme

    What other cute and fun things might I want?!

    2. Ella Minnow Pea*

      Since it’s your home office, anything that brings you joy and boosts your comfort is fair game! In mine, I have:

      – A handmade pottery mug from my old college town, filled with colored pencils for sketching when I need a break
      – A sketchpad (see above)
      – A cork board covered in fun buttons, postcards, stickers, bookmarks and mementos
      – Two lamps (I hate overhead light)
      – A mini desktop fan since I live in a hot climate
      – Framed photos of my family and dog
      – My favorite pens and pretty sticky notes

      1. Pepperminty*

        Oh totally, I just want to hear what that means for other people so I can steal all the good ideas!

    3. Pam Adams*

      I keep a few pretty polished stones on my desk. They’re nice to fidget with during Zoom calls.

        1. Percy Weasley*

          When the cats stopped using the cat bed on my desk, I put it in a box (unattractive cardboard) on the desk and now it gets used almost daily!

    4. SansaStark*

      I have a giant poster in front of my desk of a window looking out onto a Venetian canal. It’s the closest thing to a window I’m going to get in the basement and I love it!

    5. whimbrel*

      I have a gacha capsule leopard gecko that sits on a rock on my desk at work and at home I have a Borg cube bobble head type thing.

      I’m jealous of ‘your this is fine’ dog figure though! I have him as a sticker on my water bottle but a figurine would be awesome.

      1. Pepperminty*

        My figurine has light-up flames! And there’s also a bigger version with a dumpster that’s on fire.

    6. The Bobs*

      I recently bought a colorful keyboard and mouse as well as a deskmat with a cool design on it. If you’re looking for other peripheral types of things, you could get a cute design on washi tape and put that around the edges of your monitor, I also have a cork board with some cool art prints on it, and there’s always nicely designed notebooks/stationary for use while working.

    7. Admin of Sys*

      I swapped my mouse wrist pad with a stuffed jaguar. (beanie baby size) And I put my set of binoculars next to me, because I’m next to a window so I can watch the birds interact in my yard. But work was pretty open minded, so the magnetic climbing people, plants, quartz crystal ball, and multitude of fidget toys all used to be in the cube with me.

    8. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      In my home office:
      I have on my desk a little music box that plays the Jurassic Park theme song, a plushy wampa from Star Wars (complete with a little ice cave and a leg o’ tauntaun), a rubber duck dressed as Abraham Lincoln, and a pen shaped like Chewbacca. Around my office, I also have a frazillion and twelve Funko Pop figurines for various themes and fandoms, a display of Star Wars droids, a fishbowl with animated skeleton fish, and pillows and chew toys for my dogs, who frequently hang out in there with me.

      In my onsite cube:
      A rubber duck dressed as the t-rex from Jurassic Park, an AT-AT full of individually-wrapped candy, a plushy slice of pizza, a magnetic Hei Hei, several Stitch figurines, and an assortment of other small knick-knacks. I also brought in for my team a set of small Botanical Legos, so everyone picked one out and built those, and mine is the purple shamrocks one. I also have a pen shaped like a femur in my Stitch pen cup.

    9. Tea Monk*

      I have a lot of stuffed animals ( like an axolotyl etc), a lego orchid, etc. It’s certainly not professional looking at all

    11. Aggretsuko*

      Rainbow everything, my cube is basically tropical. Lego flowers. Trophies I found abandoned in the office. Toys to use in training as a fidget (eventually). A stuffie that’s the office mascot. A bingo card of what goes wrong at work.

    12. tr6-woundwort*

      I have some very tastefully arranged scale models (Gundams with the weapons removed, and airplanes), along with an orchid. It’s a great conversation piece.

    13. CanadianHR*

      I have a couple 3D printed fidget dragons, some Bluey figurines from my favourite episodes I’ve watched with my daughter, and our IT Manager just 3D printed me a “House Hippo” (If you’re Canadian and over 35 you should know what that is!). I really should get my own 3D printer so I can make my own little toys :).

    14. Frieda*

      My home office is in my finished attic, which is large and we use for a few purposes, including some storage. I have some seasonal holiday decor that I collect and I display some of it in my office rather than put it in storage year-round, and in November and December I have a full-on decorated Christmas tree in my office.

    15. Elizabeth West*

      I have a little teeny green plastic monster that was supposed to be a cable end protector, but it doesn’t fit on my phone charger cable. The desk has a shelf on the left, and I put my laptop on a stand underneath it. I use the monster to prop my laptop open under the shelf on my desk so it doesn’t shut off. :)

    17. Annie*

      I have a stuffed Baby Yoda, a cast iron airplane (from one that I have worked on)y, a few Funko Pops, and some dragon book ends that I got in China.

    18. Dasein9 (he/him)*

      Walnuts to feed the birds so they come to the window more, along with fidgets and hand care products (which are essentially fidgets with good consequences).

    19. Retired Fed*

      At the beginning of COVID it was two dogs and a cat; at the end it was two dogs and two (different) cats. One of the cats was very good about end-of-workday cuddles to get me off the computer.

    21. 52girl*

      A squishy Ron Weasley pen. I got him as a gift, and he makes a nice fidget/stress ball. And he’s always smiling which is just nice.

    22. T(oo)M(uch)I(dentifiable)I(nfo)*

      In my home office I have a cat tree (current one actually looks like a tree) right behind me and a curtain with a botanical print across the closet doorway (which has to remain open because the litter box is in there), so that’s the background when I’m on camera. People love it. In my office I have a tapestry with a lovely garden scene and several plants with grow lights that are my on-camera background, along with lots of nature/birds/butterflies/cats scattered around the walls (including awesome cat door toppers and hinge toppers – never knew those were things). Oh, and lots of fidget toys.

    23. Christine*

      Fun question! I have a pencil eraser in the shape of a gigantic nose and the sharpener is behind two gigantic nostrils. It was sold in a two-pack and I gave the other to my co-worker’s kid; she loves it!

    25. migrating coconuts*

      I am a department head with 10 people that report to me. That being said, I have a stuffed triceratops, scottie dog wall clock, a tchotchke of a t-rex in front of his red christmas tree, a flock of pencils with wooly sheep on the eraser end, a magnetic white board with very non traditional magnets and a voodoo doll complete with pins of a certain orange person (this one is the most popular with my people, who have permission to rearrange as they see fit) And this is besides the normal plants, pictures etc. You spend most of your life working, your space should be something you feel good in.

    26. Don't make me come over there*

      I have a heating pad on the floor so the cat doesn’t insist on trying to sit on my lap all day (I’d love it if it weren’t such an ergonomic disaster).

    27. Molly the cat*

      This is more on the practical side, but I have a “DeskBoard Buddy” (desk organizer where the top surface is a glass whiteboard). It works a lot better for me than sticky notes!

      Plus I can put it on my laptop keyboard so it’s not a problem when the cats walk on it. I like my bluetooth keyboard better anyway, and it’s easier to grab and move out of the way.

    28. Broken scones*

      Cool question! I’m looking to make my work desk more fun too. So far, I have a midnight sky gaming mat for my keyboard and mouse and I have some 3D printed figurines hanging out underneath my computer monitor: some articulated dragons, a devil ducky…and I have a Pop Mart figurine I want to bring in from home.

    29. StrayMom*

      I have a Red Panda stuffed animal/pencil pouch, and I’m thinking of getting a kitty perch to attach to my desk for the days that Binx wants to sit in on some of my meetings. Otherwise he tries to sit on my keyboard and sometimes he presses the lock key and I have to log back in. There are worse problems to have!

    30. Fluff*

      Sisou dragon stuffy that is bendable. Sisou changes her perch frequently. Some webex nerds like to hunt for the dragon.

      A small otter stand up pencil case.

      Many fidgets. Some look really cool and like they are something techy for the tech part of my job. But they are not techy. Just techy cool looking fidgets. One is a very movable borg looking mini cube thing.

      A pen stand. Heavy and could be a fidget. Sometimes, a pen is chosen.

      A pencil / pen holder that is a dude laying on his back with the writing utensils in his belly (no blood, more cartoony).

      mini Godzilla. He might have a crush on Sisou.

    31. Isopod lover*

      Recently I got a bunch of new isopod colonies and several of them live on my desk. Highly recommend it! I love checking up on them throughout the day :)

    32. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      I have lamps so I don’t have to turn on the overhead light. One is a salt lamp.

      Behind me I have a bookcase and a bunch of small art prints propped up on it because I haven’t gotten around to hanging them. They’re mostly bike-themed. Bookcase is one with cubes so I can organize by categories and mix in some awards and chotchkes. I don’t look at it much but it’s nice to know it’s there.

      I have a Paul Klee fidget toy I got on a business trip and plan to add to that collection over time with things from other trips. I also have a very smooth small stone I can hold in one hand and play with; it’s especially calming.

      Sometimes I have a bag of knitting, especially during long meetings I need to listen to. That keeps me from going off into other tabs and spaces and makes me a better listener.

      Coasters for my water bottle and coffee, one on each side.

      A nice smooth pad to cover the desk surface that my mouse runs well on–not just a mouse pad because those are too small.

      A raised bed for my cat with a scratching post so he can curl up there and look out the window at the bird feeders, and a skinny table under the window that he can walk on and that gives me a spot to set papers away from the desk that mostly holds a laptop and two big monitors on stands.

      Below the desk I have a pad that has a raised bump meant to encourage me to shift my feet around when I’m standing, since you can end up not moving much when you stand just as much as when you sit. This doesn’t work all that well, which is on me.

      I’ll post this as a separate question too: I could use art hanging ideas from others who have a sit-stand desk. I usually follow the art hanging guidance that has to do with how the painting aligns with standing eye level, but my eye level changes when my desk height does. If I hang things up so the desk and monitors don’t block them when I’m standing they’re super high when I’m sitting. I also need to pull my desk away so the cables etc. don’t hit the frames, which then means a greater chance of something falling off the back (especially because I have a cat). What are others doing?

  4. AnonForThis*

    This is a niche question, but I recently made the switch to marketing from a communications-related field. Anyone done something similar? What did you find to be the biggest challenge with getting used to looking at things through a marketing lens vs comms?

    1. It's Me. Hi.*

      I am not directly in this field, so please take with as many grains of salt or ignore me altogether, but in my org right now, we are trying to focus our marketing more on outcomes and not just the feature. For example, instead of saying our organization represents the most widget makers in the world, we would say “participating with our organization gets you access to more experts in the field to help you further your career.” I feel like as a comms person, you are well positioned to make those connections? Good luck!

    2. Yikes*

      I work in comms and my partner works in marketing, so we discuss overlap/differences a lot! I think a big one is that marketing allows you to control so much (ad creation, budget for placements, etc.) and comms is a lot of laying the groundwork and hoping for the best. You can write the best pitch or launch the best page, but you can’t control what people choose to report on or engage with. That’s part of the magic when you’re successful, but it can be frustrating when you aren’t!

    3. Miette*

      I do both marketing and communications, depending on the company/client need (they are typically smaller so I wear a lot of hats), so hopefully this will help!

      I think possibly the biggest difference is understanding who the audience is and tailoring what you create/write/message to them and not some larger community that might include the media, policy makers, and the general public. If your company has done persona work, you should study that so you can put yourself into the target’s shoes when writing. If there are no personas to study, you should be able to put that together by interviewing a few sales, technical sales, and/or implementation/installation folks (basically different customer-facing roles, for a full picture). (Also, this assumes a B2B approach which is my primary frame of reference, but any consumer products company worth its salt will have reams of persona data–check with the ad agency).

      Know that language is going to differ to your target audience as well: your mileage (and marketing guidelines lol) may vary, but you generally want to focus on “you” language instead of “we.” “Save time” instead of “Our Widget 3000 employs state of the art Flibberty-Floo processors.”

      Another biggie, for me, is to understand the goals of whatever it is you’re working on. I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked to do a thing, and when I ask “what’s the goal for this? What outcome do we expect?” I am met with a blank stare. If people can’t articulate it, how are you supposed to create a program/campaign/piece that will get it done?

      Finally, I think to be successful–or to keep your sanity–you need to have a basically helpful approach. I managed marketing teams for two decades, and I always encouraged my teams to think of marketing as an internal service bureau with the sales/product management/ customer service teams as our customer as well. I’ve worked a lot of places where there is an almost adversarial relationship between sales and marketing and it was never productive. At other places I’ve worked, the comms team was so far removed from it all I wondered if they knew they were working at the same company.

      Good luck!

      One more thing: marketing is a LOT more about analytics these days, so be ready for that. You can change a digital campaign on a dime to chase good results or try to mitigate bad ones, so keep your eye on your metrics as much as you can.

  5. asloan*

    Any tips for morale with a frequently absent boss? My last two bosses in a row have been older women who are starting to look at retirement but not quite ready yet. My current boss, I don’t think she’s worked a full week since I started. I get it – she’s dealing with her own elderly parents and probably also feels like she’s already put in her time and has earned the flexibility. It honestly doesn’t cause me a ton of issues on our work tasks, it’s just hard for my morale knowing she’s off *again* and I don’t have a fraction of her leave (it’s earned by seniority and she’s been here a long time – just like my last boss. I was at a previous role for 4 years and this role for 4 months. I will never earn these seniority-levels of leave which are grandfathered in). It shouldn’t bother me and I know should keep my eyes on my own paper. But any tips to do so?

    1. Ann O'Nemity*

      I have a very hands-off manager. Like yours, she takes a lot of leave, and when she is working, her focus tends to be on areas outside of my role. She gives me a lot of autonomy, which I do appreciate especially compared to micromanagement, but I often find myself missing clear guidance on priorities, meaningful feedback, and someone to advocate for me.

      What’s helped me is setting up regular check-ins, sending email updates to stay visible, finding a mentor, and learning to advocate for myself.

      As for the inequity with leave and the overall unfairness of the situation, I don’t have a perfect solution. It really comes down to weighing the pros and cons of working under a manager like this. It may be worth exploring other opportunities. But if you decide to stay, own that decision and try to focus on the positives. Remind yourself why you’re choosing to stay, and let that help you stop sweating the parts that aren’t ideal.

      1. asloan*

        Yeah she’s extremely hands off and that does give me a lot of autonomy. But I’m also kind of bored in this role and wish she would engage with me more on interesting projects. She tends to keep those to herself since I’m “so new.” Hopefully it will change over time if I can build her trust. Unfortunately I don’t typically do super well with a lack of structure and followup, particularly when I know she’s not even in today so there’s no way it will matter if I finish X boring thing or Y boring thing before the end of the day.

        2. Houndmom*

          Not being disrespectful but as someone closer to your manager’s age than yours, can I give you some food for thought?

          1. Boring things have to be done. So if you don’t do them, I have to. Your role may have been created so I am not stuck doing those things.
          2. Trust is built by doing the boring things. If you don’t do those things well, it is hard for me to justify giving you the more interesting work.
          Not saying this is your situation but it may be worth a conversation with your manager.

    2. Beth**

      Would it help to reframe by realising that you boss (almost certainly) didn’t design the leave system? But there’s no reason she shouldn’t take advantage of leave offered to her: it’s part of her compensation. She’s also probably earning more money than you (most bosses earn more than their reports), which is the main part of her compensation. Presumably that bothers you less because it’s less visible? If the way she’s using her leave has a negative impact on you, that’s something you can address with her, but I don’t think it’s fair to ask her to give up part of her compensation just because the system that has allocated it to her (that neither of you can change) is unfair.

      1. Mad Harry Crewe*

        Well, there’s a difference between being mad at Boss for the amount of leave Boss has; vs being annoyed/frustrated by the Situation, which is that Boss has worlds more leave than OP does. I don’t get the impression that OP is upset *with Boss* – just frustrated by the whole situation.

        Bosses get paid more to take on more responsibility. That’s fair enough. Some people get paid more because they bring in more money, some people get paid more because they work horrible hours or are on call a lot – all of these things are transactive in nature.

        Everybody is people, and people need and deserve to take time off work. Especially in the situation where OP will *never* be able to access the amount of PTO that Boss has, because their employer has become stingier, it’s pretty understandable that OP would feel frustration seeing Boss enjoy this degree of freedom with her time.

    3. Hyaline*

      I don’t know, I think it is totally understandable to look at the massive amounts of leave conferred by seniority and the great amount of flexibility some people have and feel…all the things. It’s ok to look those feels in the face and say “Ok, I’m a little jealous” or “man, it’s frustrating that I had do burn a bunch of PTO on stupid stuff” and etc. That’s…ok!

      It IS ok to address, however, if there are elements of her absence that are affecting you. You say you’re bored in your follow up and that the lack of structure (is this from her being gone, mostly?) is a problem for you. I feel like part of the frustration here is that you want her to notice that you’re competent and build her trust, earning you more interesting work, but…how is she going to see that if she’s never there? Maybe you’re also someone who needs regular feedback, or needs some kudos once in a while, and when the boss isn’t there, that’s not happening. Or maybe you’re feeling unmoored and just really would like more guidance–even a little micromanaging! I might spend some time mulling on that and consider what improvements/changes would make work better for you–what would be less boring, how to implement more structure–and what you need from her. She may not take any less leave, but if, for example, she could commit to a daily email check-in or a weekly meeting or posting a shared doc where you note where you’re at on projects or she can give asynchronous feedback, you might feel less annoyed.

    4. Quinalla*

      Unless it is affecting your ability to get work done, I would try to think much less about it. When you do think about it, imagine her out dealing with her elderly parents or out doing work related things that she can’t do in the office – it might be some of the latter and you aren’t aware.

      As far as earning more PTO, you can 100% try and negotiate for more PTO when either you get a new job or when looking for a raise. I got more PTO at my current job as after 14 years experience, no way was a starting over at 2 weeks or even 2-5 year 3 weeks, I wanted more than I currently had and I got it. You won’t always get it, but it is negotiable.

    5. Applecore*

      Following, new manager is showing signs of being pretty hands-off and I’ve never been ‘the entire team’ before, so I need to keep positively motivated!

    6. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      I don’t know if it helps, but having dealt with aging parents it’s not time off, it’s time on. She’s working two full-time jobs, one you’re associated with and one that means dealing with the needs of people she used to rely on who now rely on her. While she’s doing that second job she’s worrying about the one you’re working with.

      This doesn’t fix the difference in your amounts of accrued leave. If you can, set down the “never” in your thinking. You don’t know what the future holds. My mom, who’s been dead for years now, would call this “borrowing trouble.” You’re adding to your mental stress by layering on future worries related to an entire career path you haven’t traveled yet.

      If you can focus on the things you do need from her in the time she’s in the office, there’s a lot of good advice in other comments about asking for what you need. That’s more than fair.

  6. Sunflower*

    What resources are there if you want to get better at speaking with intention and communications overall? I have a very bad habit of rambling and giving too much information up front (I think I do this to try to show I’ve done my homework). I also think I speak a bit too casually and would like to train myself to speak with more intention, make sure my words have meaning etc. Not sure if Toastmasters is still popular or the right solution for this.

    PS- I asked last week about books for women navigating office dynamics, etc. These were super helpful and I’m diving into them now!

    1. Another Kristin*

      Sounds weird but I suggest taking an improv comedy class. You will get really good at saying what you mean, because you need to communicate it to your scene partner. It’s also a fun hobby and a nice way to make new friends.

      2. tentative turtle*

        100%! Years ago, a friend thought it would be fun for me to do improv and found me a Groupon for a class. I loved the fun and free-spiritedness of it. But I was surprised that doing improv also helped with my rambling problem. I think it’s because the improv exercises forced me to be really present and focused on the other person.

        I also did Toastmasters around this same time, and that helped more when I had to give formal presentations. What I found interesting about that experience was the very direct feedback. Like I had no idea I cluck my tongue when I’m nervous, gah! Sometimes the feedback was hard to take, but as they said in the club, better to get feedback in that safe space rather than out in the world.

        On a side note, I just started watching Vanessa Van Edwards’s YouTube videos where she talks about evidence-based ways to improve communication skills. She also has a couple of books. It’s been eye-opening seeing the very actionable ways to become a better communicator. I always kind of felt resigned to not being great at talking because I’m not naturallly good at it, but she’s very encouraging that everyone can be good at communicating if they know the strategies.

    2. Toxic Workplace Survivor*

      I have some of those tendencies myself and have found it really helpful to remember that when you’re in a professional environment, it’s important to adapt some of your own natural communication style to something that meets the needs of the situation. Think of it like code-switching if that helps. If it’s your boss, you can tailor more specifically to her own style. If it’s a presentation or a team meeting, you do want to be more matter-of-fact because the time of everyone else is at stake.

      My main goal in many meetings over the years has been to hold my tongue, since I am naturally inclined to jump in with my thoughts and no one wants to hear all of them when we’ve got a lot to get through. It has taken me years of practice but it’s been worthwhile. I find these days I’m better at knowing when it is a good time for me to interject because I save it for the more important moments instead of wasting my quota of comments too soon.

    3. Random Academic Cog*

      I checked out a couple of Toastmaster’s groups and wasn’t impressed. I know some people had very positive experiences there, but what I witnessed was a complete lack of direct, constructive criticism. If the only takeaway is “positive support” I fail to see how anyone will get better. Most of the speakers really sucked and the one bit of constructive criticism I attempted was immediately smothered.

      2. Kay*

        I think this is very dependent on the group. I had a very good experience with one in my area.

        If you don’t get a group that gives good critiques, you can still use it for the “on the fly” so to speak requirements of public speaking, film yourself doing it, and do your own review later. This will give you both the forced public speaking aspect (which in my opinion practice is the only way to get better here), and your own ability to reflect on how you feel about that performance.

    4. Venus*

      Toastmasters continues to be a good option, though like everything it depends on whether you have an active one near you. I haven’t done it in years yet a family member joined a couple years and has a really strong, active group. If you’re open to it then I’d suggest finding ones that are near you and trying them out once.

      1. Percy Weasley*

        Seconding Venus’s suggestion here. If you want to try this, probably what would serve you best is an active club that has at least a few experienced speakers to learn from.

        1. former toastmaster*

          Toastmasters can be helpful but it has a very specific structure that can feel borderline culty at times. I was involved for a few years. I occasionally visited other clubs, ours was more casual, which I preferred, but others were more strict, etc. Some folks may do better in larger or smaller clubs, too. If you have multiple clubs near you, or online, feel free to try a few to see which one fits you better. The group dynamics can vary among clubs too, like some are full of super-serious folks that aspire to be paid professional speakers or give TED talks, some are more beginner focused and some are more mixed.
          I had a positive experience, clubs are generally friendly to vistors unless they’re listed as closed groups on the site. For example, some clubs are only for people that work at a specific company.

    5. Chauncy Gardener*

      I’ve had a great experience with my local Toastmaster’s group, but I’ve heard they can vary by location. But well worth a try!

    6. Kay*

      Try listening to other people! TED talks are great because it’s a subject matter expert with a time limit, so every word counts. The Moth is a podcast I listen to with short stories. Political speeches work too, depending on the politician. Also just practicing. Write down a goal for the week and see how it goes. Things like “I will convey one main point when talking to my boss” or “I will trust Boss to ask a follow up question instead of overwhelming her with everything.”

  7. Sunflower*

    What resources are there if you want to get better at speaking with intention and communications overall? I have a very bad habit of rambling and giving too much information up front (I think I do this to try to show I’ve done my homework). I also think I speak a bit too casually and would like to train myself to speak with more intention, make sure my words have meaning etc. Not sure if Toastmasters is still popular or the right solution for this.

    PS- I asked last week about books for women navigating office dynamics, etc. These were super helpful and I’m diving into them now!

    1. Tio*

      My employee has this issue, and we did send him to Toastmasters and he thought it helped. What also helped was doing a new system of bullet point notes for him – helped him remember the point he was trying to make without getting lost in the explanation/side talk – just like you he’s got a brilliant wealth of knowledge but struggles to remember that not everyone needs to know these things.

    2. Great Frogs of Literature*

      One thing I’ve encouraged junior employees to do, which seems to help, is to ask themselves, “What information/context does this person need to be able to answer my question?” and then try to present that information coherently, along with the question. In our context that can include things like:
      – What Jira item is this for?
      – What system are you working on?
      – What is your overall goal?
      – What strategy are you attempting to apply to attain that goal?
      – If you’ve tried things or done research already, what is it?
      – If something isn’t working, what are you doing that leads to the problem, and how does the problem manifest (error messages, etc)?

        1. Bike Walk Bake Books*

          Another one I like: Before you speak, THINK. Is what I’m about to say
          True
          Helpful
          Informative
          Necessary
          Kind

    3. Percy Weasley*

      You might find it useful to check out a few Toastmasters clubs in your area. If you choose to investigate this option, look for a club that has at least a few more experienced speakers who can provide some quality guidance.

    4. Snacks*

      I often write out my talking points ahead of a project-status-update meeting. I think it helps.

      “How to Win Friends and Influence People” is very old, but still useful, in my opinion!

    5. Lee the SQL*

      I took a class from speak by design called leadership communication agility, that talked about different roles you can have in a conversation, and how to structure what you say based on that. Forex if you are the owner of a task you want to convey objective, current position, task and your ask to the people you are talking to. I don’t know how much it costs or anything as it was embedded in a weeklong set of sessions, but it was really useful, and there may be versions of the notes available if you search for them

    6. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      Someone in the comments a while back talked about right-sizing communications so you’d think about whether they need just a teacup or a whole horse trough. Maybe that will help shape the overall amount of information you deliver.

      I’ve been listening to podcasts from the NeuroLeadership Institute founded by David Rock, author of Your Brain at Work. He talks about leaving a gap for people to have their own insights and other concepts around adult learning. These might be worth exploring for when you want to create a learning space for whatever you’re communicating.

  8. Tio*

    The new tariffs have absolutely ground me down. We’re now at a point where for example 10% of your product value gets applied one duty percentage, and 90% gets a different one, and our system was not built to handle this kind of bananas accounting (My IT guy when I explained to him what I needed out of the system: “Why are they doing this?”) Meanwhile our entry bond (insurance basically) is going to hit cap and need a replacement, and we’re bleeding money because we get no turnaround time to change our sourcing. Things literally just changed overnight, so if you had something moving toward the port and expected to pay one rate, surprise, now its double.

    I love my company and I love my career but this is the worst stress and burnout I have felt since a coworker work-stalked me to try and cover his terrible work.

    1. Tradd*

      Ugh, I know what you mean about that awful, awful, steel/aluminum split value thing between steel/aluminum content and NON-content. Makes for so much more work. The stress is horrid. Cash flow because of the increased duties is a problem. We’re getting more importers on their own statement and moving others to our monthly statement (foreign IOR), but current, long term customers with 30 day payment terms and suddenly higher duties just don’t get why we need payment for their duties before I can submit the clearance. We’re talking tens of thousands in duties, when it was maybe a few thousand previous.

      1. Clisby*

        I know this sounds weird, but I think about you every time I see a headline about a tariff change. (WWTD?)

        Until all this recent tariff mayhem, I didn’t even know customs broker was a job. Within the past few months, one of the major newspapers (WSJ? NYT? WaPo?) did an article about a customs broker down on the border with Mexico – it was fascinating.

        1. Tradd*

          WSJ and it talked about the licensing exam, which is very difficult, as Tio can confirm. Low pass rate. I have friends I recently saw after a long time and the first time they told me was “we think of you every time we’re on the couch watching the news.”

        2. goddessoftransitory*

          I do too! The recent upheavals at our port due to tariffs made me want to take Tradd out for drinks. Lots of drinks.

        3. Ontariariario*

          I’m the same, I think of Tradd and Tio often!

          I knew customs broker was a job but didn’t know that a politician could change everything so randomly. So much for international agreements!

        4. Tio*

          Logistics in general used to be called “The Invisible Industry” because yeah, you see trucks pulling up to stores, but no average person before the pandemic was thinking about ports and shipping rates and everything it encompasses. Then suddenly we’re in the new all the time!

    2. Busy Middle Manager*

      It’s been a nightmare. I thought it would be over by now but next week marks month four.

      This is my worst period trading, worse than the 2020 and 2022 crashes. At least those made sense and there were criteria for where things would or should turn around.

      Now? I count seven big tariff headlines in seven business days leading up to now. And to make matters worse, they’re unscheduled. Same way you can have a shipment en route, I can enter a trade based on ten things being bearish and suddenly a tweet comes out reversing a decision made two hours ago, and I lose money for no good reason.

      1. Tio*

        The pandemic was terrible but we didn’t lose anywhere NEAR as much money as we are now. It’s ridiculous. No one can plan for anything!!

    3. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      People who don’t understand running a business – and I definitely include the Muskrat in this – tend to drastically underestimate how much effect major changes in regulations can have and how much time is needed to implement them properly.

      1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

        Of course, if the intent is for the Muskrat and other Trump cronies to buy up vast swathes of US businesses at firesale prices, then they may not be as ignorant as we think.

        1. Tio*

          I’m pretty sure they’re aware of it – I suspect that they just want the money and don’t particularly care about the downstream costs if they can say we made $XX billion in tariff revenue.

      2. Margaret Cavendish*

        >>how much effect major changes in regulations can have and how much time is needed to implement them properly.

        It’s my job to explain this to government for my particular industry. It’s been a wild ride the past few months, as our (non-US) government likes to announce major regulatory changes out of the blue on social media, just as T*ump does. Stakeholder consultation? Who needs it? That just slows everything down, amirite???

  9. Anno*

    I keep getting notifications that a coworker is viewing my LinkedIn profile. Normally I’d shrug it off, but this is happening 4-5 times a week and it’s been going on for at least a month so it’s getting a little unnerving. Should I say anything or continue to ignore it?

    1. asloan*

      I would just say something unless they’re weird and I don’t want to get into it with them. Just ask what’s up.

    2. Beth**

      As per another recent thread, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the person has been viewing your profile multiple times. Sometimes LinkedIn just sends the same update multiple times. I would just ignore it.

    4. Texas Teacher*

      I think there was a similar letter earlier this week. A lot of the responses concluded that LinkedIn can be very weird and it’s likely nothing nefarious on the part of your coworker, particularly if there’s nothing else in your interactions that are a problem. Can you change your settings to not get those notifications?

    5. MB*

      I feel like I saw a response from Alison recently suggesting that it could be that the url for your profile is auto-populating when they type in LinkedIn on their browser.

    6. Busy Middle Manager*

      If you’re older, you may just have a cool job history and people want to check it out. Used to have a customer I admit I checked a few times, because they worked at all of the cool companies in my area, and some of the ones that went through mergers so no longer exist, and they had a lot of detail, and I just found it interesting to read.

      If you’re not like that, I’d check if your profile is completely accurate. Don’t shoot the messenger here. But I’ve definitely worked with people who added in extra computer programs or took credit for work they tangentially touched, on Linkedin. I had coworkers go to another coworker’s profile and ask why they have python on it when they obfuscate every question on python and avoid python-related tasks like the plague. Stuff like that. I’d just make sure there’s nothing giving the wrong impression.

    7. WellRed*

      Someone shared a FB post of mine. I’ve since revived multiple notifications over several days that he shared the post.

    8. Zona the Great*

      Ignore. More than likely, when she types http://www.L, it probably preloads with your page since she visited it recently and now that’s how she gets into LI.

    9. Quinalla*

      I don’t understand the concern here? Even if they are actually going to your profile that often, which they probably aren’t as linked-in updates are not always done correctly and may have an old link or be accidently clicking on you or clicking on you to see who you are linked to and try to gain connections – why does it matter? Genuinely curious. I would care one bit if someone from my own company or network was looking at my profile as it just doesn’t matter.

    10. Chauncy Gardener*

      It may be that you were the last person they viewed before closing LI and now every time they open LI it’s to your profile?

      1. Karo*

        Ooo or if they’re playing those new LinkedIn games – they just start typing linkedin.com and it autopopulated your profile for some reason and now it thinks you’re the only reason they’re on LI at all.

    11. Kay*

      I have to use an online translator often. Every time I go to type in the address, it autopopulates a word a searched goodness knows how long ago. I assure you, I have not looked up this word every day for the past I don’t know how long, but I have used the site that many times. Apply this to LinkedIn and worry no more.

  10. Notthebestleader*

    I inadvertently became the lead on a project that I fear I’m not leading successfully. I have flagged to my boss that I don’t have experience with this subject area, and that my preference is to work in another area. Solutions were lightly discussed but never came to fruition. I thought I was doing okay, but it’s become clear that I’m taking on too much and missing the bigger picture. Where I should be stepping up to manage, I’m instead spending my time doing too much because the timelines are really short. It’s coming to ahead with more senior folks finally stepping in, but overall I’m anxious and not sleeping well, feeling like I’m not up to it. Should I talk to my boss about this (we have a great relationship)? And if so, how can I do it acknowledging that while I want to learn, ultimately I’m concerned I’m not the right fit?

    1. Great Frogs of Literature*

      You should definitely talk to your boss!

      Exactly how depends on your personal style and your relationship with your boss, but I might consider something like this:

      “I wanted to follow up on our earlier discussions about Big Project. I expressed concerns that I’m not knowledgeable in X, Y, and Z, and we talked about possible methods for dealing with that, but none of them were actually implemented. I feel like I’m digging too deeply into the details and missing big stuff because I don’t have enough background to judge what’s important. I’m feeling really stressed, and this is affecting my effectiveness in this role, and my time outside of work. This is rapidly becoming untenable for me — how can we fix this?”

    2. Toxic Workplace Survivor*

      In case this helps with some of the anxiety, I have a mini success story from a similar “failure.” A number of years back I was given an extra work project that I suspected at the time was too much to add to my current workload, but it was sold to me as a career changer. It was a cyclical thing that always seemed to have a major deadline when I was snowed under with other stuff. I did it for about eight months and it wasn’t working for anyone. Eventually I had an awful conversation with my bosses and we all agreed it needed to come off my plate.

      It was pretty awful in the moment! BUT I was much more successful in the role after the workload was more realistic, and I went on to have a strong relationship with both the bosses. Sometimes these things end up working out after the fact. Being realistic with your manager as soon as possible is the best way forward, and keep pushing if they don’t hear you the first time or two.

    3. bananners*

      To answer your questions, yes, talk to your boss! You may not get out of it, but I do have a success story even if you don’t.

      I was in the same place about seven years ago. My boss encouraged (forced) me to be in charge of a project I didn’t really want to be in charge of, I wasn’t an SME or even close to being well versed in the area, and I didn’t have an established relationship with the very large project team who had interpersonal issues of their own. I hated just about every second of it and felt completely out of my league 95% of the time. I told my boss several times throughout the process that I felt that way and he would just smile and say I was doing fine. I ended up finding a very responsive project team member with background in the subject of the project and going to him for the things for which I was unable to pick up the slack. We finished the project and won an award for our accomplishments.

      I cannot underscore enough how much I hated working on that project, but in hindsight, I could see (and can still see) how much it influenced my career trajectory. It was the first time I had led a project where the fallback couldn’t be me doing the work, and we did it successfully. I [begrudgingly] learned an absolute ton from that project and was brought on to lead bigger and more impactful projects. Now I am not afraid of owning where I am deficient at but also know that sometimes I just have to push through the deficiencies and fight for the outcome we need.

      1. Notthebestleader*

        OP here – and thank you for this. This hit the nail on the head of where I am, especially it being the first project where me doing the work can’t be the fallback. Thanks so much for your reply. It helped me get through yesterday and get to a much better place.

      2. Firefighter (Metaphorical)*

        Also here to say that “the first project where the fallback couldn’t be me doing the work” absolutely lit a lightbulb in my head. Oof. Thank you.

    4. Venus*

      This is exactly what a good boss should help with! They can have conversations with you about the big picture and how you can get there, or if that isn’t possible then how to prioritize. I’ve had some problems with projects and sought out really helpful advice from managers. It felt like more of a mentorship situation in that I was asking for advice on how to deal with the situation.

    5. Pumpkinn*

      I would definitely go to your boss! You don’t even have to give up the whole thing. Have a clear idea of which parts you can manage and which are drowning you.
      If nothing comes to fruition again, go over your bosses head if needed. To wherever makes sense for you, but just say this was a stretch project for you, and if they want deadlines hit you’re going to need support

  11. Beth**

    Mainly looking for confirmation that this is as ridiculous as it seems…

    My employer has a strange way of doing human resource budgets. We have a headcount cap and a separate numeric budget. We can’t exceed either one.

    After a decade+ of sub-inflationary pay increases, we are persistently in a state where we meet headcount but have headroom on the numeric budget. My grandboss, who is the level responsible for budget, deals with this by what he calls “enriching the grade mix” — essentially replacing junior people who leave with more senior people.

    How this works in practice: say we have llama groomers, senior llama groomers, managers and senior managers. When a llama groomer or senior llama groomer leaves, we replace them with an additional manager or senior manager. We still have the same number of llamas to groom, so what happens in practice is that the new manager winds up doing llama groomer or senior llama groomer work but getting paid a manager/senior manager salary. While obviously it’s nice to get more money, the newly hired people (who are always internal for manager/senior manager level roles) quickly get disillusioned with having to do lower level work. Our employee survey scores are significantly lower for manager level staff than anyone else.

    We recently had a new manager join us from another area of the team, say alpaca grooming. She and I had coffee earlier this week and she expressed concerns that her best senior llama groomer just got a promotion and the team is getting a new manager who won’t be working on the stuff the senior llama groomer was working on. Her senior manager has told her that she will just have to do with work of the senior llama groomer. She said that in alpaca grooming, they don’t have the same problem and after 8 years as a manager, she wasn’t expecting to have do go back to doing llama grooming work.

    The conversation made me remember that this has come up before, but things keep getting worse because of the budget situation. We have a staff survey going on at the moment, and I deliberately answered the questions slightly worse than what I actually think to make a point. I also raised it with my manager who shrugged and said that people shouldn’t be annoyed because at least they’re getting more money.

    1. Alex*

      Why can’t they just give everyone a bigger raise? Then maybe not so many people would need replacing in the first place.

      1. Beth**

        If the budget worked like this, my grand-boss would definitely do it. Unfortunately, the budget for raises is entirely separate.

      2. Another Kristin*

        Big institutions usually manage pay increases centrally – like, here is the COL increase everyone gets across the board, here is the maximum performance increase you can get, for a total maximum increase (in my organization this year, is was like 3.88 percent). You can’t give anyone a bigger raise than the max unless you regrade the position – like, it’s a Grade 4 position, which has a certain salary range, and you successfully argue to central HR that it should be a Grade 5, because changing salary bands usually puts you into the analogous position in the new band, which means a raise of 8 or 10 percent or something like that. Only because you’ve regraded all your llama groomers to grade 5, the alpaca and chinchilla groomers, who have analogous job duties but are still grade 4, need to be regraded too. Maybe the alpaca team DOESN’T have the same mismatch between headcount cap and numeric budget, and you’ve created a ginormous headache for that manager.

        Anyway, this isn’t necessarily an ideal system, but it’s how paybands are often organized and centrally enforced. Without controls like this, in an organization with a headcount in the 10s of thousands, there’s nothing stopping some random exec from hiring their wastrel son and giving him a 50% raise every year.

    2. whimbrel*

      >enriching the grade mix

      This is only tangential to your question and I’m not asking you to dox yourself but is yours a resource extraction based company? I’m mining-adjacent and I’d be extremely surprised to see a phrase like that being used outside of mining.

      Back on topic, that sounds like a ridiculously complex way to handle HR budgeting and I can see why people at the senior llama groomer level who haven’t had the opportunity for a manager-level position might be annoyed that others are getting manager pay for non-manager work.

      1. Beth**

        It’s financial services, but we’ll take a good metaphor anywhere we can find one :)

    3. ThreeSeagrass*

      I would worry that this would lead to some unequal situations, where someone at the manager level is getting paid much more to do essentially the same work as a “llama groomer.” And I could see why this would be extremely disheartening for the managers – I’m not one to turn up my nose at more money, but I would also be frustrated if I was not being given tasks at the expected level I was hired to fill.

    4. Cedrus Libani*

      If I understood the situation, you have enough money to hire senior llama groomers at market rate or perhaps above. You’re just obliged to give them an inflated manager-level title, because the pay band for the “senior llama groomer” title is enough for a junior groomer at best. Is there a way that you can hire externally for people who actually want to groom llamas all day, or at least make it more clear to internal hires that “llama managers” spend most of their time in the llama barns rather than managing humans?

    5. Firefighter (Metaphorical)*

      Yes, this is bananapants! I’m in a very hierarchical sector (higher education) and my life is spent fighting to make sure people do the work that is appropriate for their role. The very thought of this situation where title/pay is manager but actual work is SME makes my teeth hurt.

  12. Toxic Waste*

    I work in an extremely toxic work environment. We are currently short staffed due to two people leaving (more people are looking to leave so things will only get worse.) My boss has asked me to help with some projects that she needs completed. I’m trying my best, but she is very volatile and it’s very uncomfortable.

    Does anyone have any scripts or things to say when a boss acts this way? I have thought about saying something to her, but am not sure if I should or if it would just tick her off even more.

    1. Ella Minnow Pea*

      Can you be more specific about how she’s behaving? E.g. curt or blunt versus outright abusive.

    2. Pam Adams*

      There’s nothing you can say to make your boss less toxic. Start planning to leave yourself.
      “Grey rock” may help you in the short run.

    3. Coping, Just*

      I’m in a similar boat. My advice would be to try to work out whether your boss is well regarded in your company. If not, there might be hope of her being sacked.

      If she is definitely staying, you need to decide if the job is worth dealing with her. Is the pay / conditions / interesting work / something worth it, on balance? If so, write the reason on a post it and view it regularly. If not, update your CV!

      In terms of dealing with her, there’s a few options. I reckon that saying something would probably make things worse but you should keep a log of the issues. Would it be worth trying to get ahead of the problem? Emailing a plan and an update against the plan (so you don’t need to speak to her) or looping in someone else for questions where there is a genuine choice?

    4. Hyaline*

      I think a lot of this depends on what you mean by “acts this way” and what her reactions tend to be. If she’s just kind of short and blunt, it might be best just to grit your teeth and ignore it. But if by “volatile” you mean she shouts or curses or is otherwise unacceptably aggressive, you *should* be able to just calmly say “Please do not raise your voice to me” or “I do not appreciate being cursed at” or whatever. However, someone who flies off the handle might not react well to that, and in a toxic work environment, do you have any backup? Would other management have your back? Is HR functional? You can try just calmly reiterating “Do not speak to me that way” kinds of statements, but I’m not optimistic about it accomplishing much if the rest of the org is a mess.

      Your best bet may be to follow those coworkers of yours out the door if you can.

  13. Rat Racer*

    I’m a mid-career professional whose title for the past 10 out of 15 years has been something akin to “Chief of Staff.” That title can mean anything, but for me, it’s meant that I’m a like a swiss army knife in the pocket of an executive, and while I can do anything quickly (analytics, communications, organizational development, project management) I never have a cohesive portfolio of responsibilities. It’s also meant that I’m perpetually an individual contributor; once at a fortune 50 company, I managed two people, but it doesn’t really make sense to have a whole team responsible for ad hoc projects and fire drills. So the problem is that I feel a little stuck, and I can’t figure out how to advance my career. Has anyone else been in this kind of role, and did you figure out how to specialize in something and parlay it into something that you managed permanently? Or should I get used to the idea this kind of job is what it is, and since I enjoy it, I should just make peace with being a “jack of all trades and master of none.”

    1. MsM*

      How much of your work involves strategic planning? I don’t know about other fields, but that’s where most of the nonprofit jack of all trades I know tend to end up, and some of those positions can be very high up.

      1. Rat Racer*

        It depends on what kind of work constitutes strategic planning. I would say that about 50-60% of my job right now qualifies, but it’s for one executive in one department. To make that work into a full-time, it would need to be across multiple departments, which sounds to me like something of a “herding cats” job. I don’t love project management, to be honest — I can do it, but I’m in my happiest place when I’m creating analytical tools and then extracting insights and converting them to story. But you’re right that the strategic planning road is the most obvious one for someone in my position. This is good food for thought.

        1. MsM*

          I mean, there are definitely places that have whole data analysis teams, if you decide you want to lean into that more exclusively and present your other skills as evidence of your ability to interpret the information with the appropriate context.

    2. Golden*

      Not me, but a close colleague sounds a lot like you including the Chief of Staff roles. Her eventual goal is to become a Chief Operating Officer. I’m not exactly sure what those do day to day, but at my previous company that role oversaw legal, HR, and IT. My colleague got an MBA in pursuit of her goal, but I’m not sure if that’s required or if it’s a common career path for former Chiefs of Staff. Just something to consider!

    3. Chauncy Gardener*

      Oh geez, I would LOVE to have this job!
      Been a CFO at startups for a long time, but I adore the ad hoc aspects of my job the best.

    4. Strive to Excel*

      To me that sounds similar to a very highly trained admin or EA position. Your job is to support people to do what they need, on an ad-hoc basis. I know the general job description of an EA involves a lot more administrative & scheduling support, but the job niche seems similar.

      It sounds like what you specialize in *is* high-pressure low-deadline ad-hoc project work. It sounds like you enjoy it. I’d guess your best path for career enhancement is to do it for increasingly big fish, but that’s really up to you.

    5. Joielle*

      I have been in that type of role and I left because I wanted to go back to practicing law – but if I had stayed, the paths would have been Executive Director of my small government agency, or Assistant Commissioner if I wanted to move to a larger agency doing related work. Or, I could have tried for Chief of Staff at a large agency – that’s actually a really high up title in some places.

    6. PX*

      I would say the first question is what advancement means to you. Managing people? more money? more power? more autonomy? once you know that it will probably be easier to figure out what comes next.

      there are also a few chief of staff communities so would recommend joining a couple and maybe seeing what others experience is and what growth looks like to them (though as someone said, often COO is a next step if you want to move up)

  14. Productivity Pigeon*

    I have been out of a job for over a year because I just can’t make myself apply.

    I lost my job as a management consultant during COVID after six months of medical leave for burnout. And it’s like I’ve lost all belief in myself and my ability to work.

    1. It's Me. Hi.*

      Are you talking to someone? On any meds, if you’ve been diagnosed with depression or similar? That’s what this sounds like to me, having experienced depression most of my life and this sounds like when I’m off my meds. If this is inappropriate, I sincerely apologize. I don’t want you to suffer if you don’t have to. You are worthy, you matter, you belong. We need to figure out to get your brain on that train too.

    2. Tea Monk*

      Supportive vibes. I can’t make myself apply either. I am going to therapy and trying to use different techniques to make the process less intimidating (break it into bits!, get a reward!)

      1. Dita*

        Along with “break it into bits,” I always find the first step is the hardest … and that acknowledging that helps. So eventually I turned “ugh I’m so useless I can’t even complete this application” into “it’s okay that this is hard” into “screw it I’ll just send something out.” So once it got to that point, I could tally it for myself, feel a little bit better about having done something, and have a slightly less tortured version of the same process next time. Good luck!

    3. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      How are you able to pay the bills? If you have a partner who can support both of you financially, can you ask them if you could take say a year’s break from any thought of work, while you work with a therapist?

    4. feline outerwear catalog*

      When I was unemployed, I signed up for free industry webinars. Some were better than others, but it made me feel like I was attending a “meeting”, I sometimes got to interact with other participants, and learned some new things. It was a nice break from job hunting. Feel free to try that if it would be helpful, and good luck with your search.

    5. Recruiters*

      Working with recruiters has worked really well for me in the past. I hate applying for jobs and am terrible at selling myself. Having a person who calls me up and says, “I want to submit you for this job,” and then tells me everything they know about the company, and then goes back to the company and pitches why I would be a good fit has solved so many problems for me. It cuts out half the work of the process. You can just focus on researching the companies and preparing for interviews. And having someone else who believes in you and your resume is a huge boost to the ego. This works best if you have a specific industry that you are looking for jobs in because a lot of recruiters will specialize in specifics roles or industries.

  15. Do Wah Diddy*

    Should I ask the internal recruiter if I’m still being considered for a job?

    When I applied to two jobs at this company as an external candidate, I got one rejection the next day and an interview request for the other within two days. So I don’t know why the status of my application for an internal job I applied to five weeks ago is still “in progress.” I dread opening/looking at my work email because getting a generic rejection for a job I was excited about is really going to feel terrible.

    Is there a professional way to reach out to the recruiter? I feel like I’ll come across as desperate or stupid since I’m essentially wondering, “Are you waiting until you hire someone to reject everyone else?” I don’t know if I should withdraw so I can stop worrying about it. (There hasn’t been any other internal jobs I could apply to, so I haven’t been able to “move on” and forget about it like with a full job search.)

    1. Bbbbbbbbb*

      You can just reach out and ask if there is an updated timeline for hiring/you’re still really interested in the role. That’s it.

  16. Alex*

    Work distribution on my team has been skewing more and more unfair, with me becoming responsible–or de facto responsible–for so much more than my coworkers, both of whom have been there longer than I have been. Last week I nearly lost my mind at them when they tried to shirk more responsibilities and I ended up having to sit with one of them and literally walk her through it as she pretended to be clueless in hopes I would just do it myself.

    I’d brought it up with my direct manager, who acknowledged that my understanding of what I was supposed to be assigned was correct, but didn’t seem to get that when my coworkers just…didn’t….I ended up getting stuck with all kinds of extra work. Because people KNOW that my coworkers are unresponsive and so they just ask me first, because it is easy. I probably should have been more explicit that my coworkers were the ones dropping the ball, but I really hate tattling on people and struggled with saying “Jane just does everything poorly and so no one will ask her take anything on.”

    I finally brought this up to a more senior manager, whom I happened to be meeting with anyway, saying that the scope of my assigned tasks has been expanding and things just keep boomeranging back to me even when they shouldn’t logically belong to me as tasks. She took me very seriously and now I’m nervous about my complaints making it back to my coworkers. One of them does NOT take criticism well and will for sure hold a grudge against me forever. She is already a pretty difficult person.

    Any words of advice or encouragement here? I hate throwing them under the bus but also I feel so resentful that everything has been falling on me.

    1. Tio*

      They’re walking out into the road in front of the bus – you’re not throwing them under it. And I know it’s hard, but you really do need to stop helping them the way you are.

      Some tricks:
      “Hey, I’m swamped and can’t help right now, but you should ask (useless coworker #2) I hear they’re good at that.”

      Once they’ve run through useless coworkers: *copy boss* “Ok, still swamped right now, so if Larry and Curly can’t help perhaps boss can reassign – boss can you assist Moe with this task?”
      That one works best if your boss understands your workload, and won’t just say “Hey OP can you just help them?”

      1. Alex*

        I have been doing this! Or trying to. The problem is they play dumb and say “Oh, I don’t know how to do this.” and are generally so difficult or unresponsive that people give up trying to get stuff out of them.

        Or in the case that put me over the edge last week, in a meeting where they were expecting me to take on [task that really belonged to useless coworker], I said “Useless coworker, I assume you have the best info on this since it is YOUR PROJECT. Also, I don’t have time this week for it,” Useless coworker professed she didn’t understand and couldn’t help. Grudgingly, second-most-useless coworker offered to talk it through with her. Days later, we are in a meeting and useless coworker asks me if the task had been taken care of. I reminded them that they were supposed to have done it. They acted surprised and said “Oh so now you are giving us your work!” I then had to spend the next 15 minute reminding them of the entire task. They pretended we did not have the conversation 3 days before. It was infuriating.

        1. Insufficiently Festive Unicorn*

          Oh, that’s the game? Time to send follow-up emails after Every. Single. Meeting.

          “My take-away from this meeting is that UC1, you are taking point on Project FOO, as it is your project, while I am working on my project FIE. The action items we’ve been assigned are: UC1, x and y. UC2, v and w. Me, a and b.”

          Had someone who told management that “nobody told her” something I’d told her 2 days earlier. Later she complained that I sent emails for everything when we could “just talk” and I cheerfully replied “Oh, but I think you misheard me, so I want to make sure there’s no confusion anymore.”

            1. goddessoftransitory*

              Document, document, document.

              They WILL pull these shenanigans for as long as they can get away with it.

              1. Cinn*

                Agree, document everything. Also (though word of caution that this might create more work short term for you if you can’t get your boss to do it) I would suggest to your boss that youe team needs proper documentation of training on software/procedures/whatever is applicable so that you also have documentation about what each member of your team can do. That way when they pull the “but I don’t know how” BS there’s documentation to prove them wrong.

            2. Mad Scientist*

              Just want to add (as someone who has been through a very similar situation), sending the follow-up email is really about CYA more than for their benefit. I dealt with a coworker like this who simply ignored my written instructions / action items. Sending things in writing did not get him to do the work. What it DID do, however, was make it very clear to management that he did receive clear instructions but simply chose to ignore them. Basically, it took away his ability to make excuses. So you may need to accept that sending these follow-up emails won’t fix the problem but it might help your manager see the problem and realize they need to do something about it.

              Also, don’t beat yourself up for being helpful and taking care of requests that your coworkers *should* be picking up. I know the advice on here is always to “let them fail” and act like it’s not your problem, but it’s not always that simple, especially when these requests are coming from other people. Ultimately, it’s good for your reputation if people recognize that you’re the go-to person for these things and your coworkers are useless. It’s not sustainable for you to be overworked long-term, but it’s valid to not take the “let them fail” approach, especially when it would affect more than just your coworkers. You can let your coworkers fail, sure, but I understand not wanting to let a project fail because that could reflect poorly on you too, not just your coworkers.

              Good luck! I know how much this situation sucks and sorry you’re going through it.

              1. WS*

                Yes, they’re looking for the easiest path. Right now it’s getting OP to do the work for them. The harder OP makes it for them to do this, the more they will try something different and then it’s not on OP anymore.

        2. Great Frogs of Literature*

          Treat it as a workload/capacity problem! “Hi Boss, I’m taking on all the ABC tasks because Larry and Curly don’t know how to do them, and I wind up with more work than I can reasonably handle. I don’t have time to do the work and also train Larry and Curly — but also there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything myself, either. How do you want me to handle this?”

          If you think your boss is likely to tell you to just say no to people, ask for a defined list of tasks that you can tell people you can’t deal with (and who to direct those people to), or come prepared with the 70-hour-a-week list of work that you’re trying to fit into your 40-hour week, and get your boss to identify which things aren’t a priority.

          If you can’t make your boss prioritize… well, the way I fixed that problem was to find a different job with a different boss.

        3. A Significant Tree*

          In the moment, when one of the UCs says they don’t understand or know how to do something that is clearly their job, you could cheerfully recommend they ask Boss for [remedial] training.

          Also, the way I read it, it sounds like your manager isn’t in the room for these meetings but they need to start showing up. Weaponized incompetence needs to be dealt with at the manager level, so I’d push to make them experience it more first-hand.

    2. Pam Adams*

      They’ve been throwing you under the bus all this time. Make it your manager’s problem.

      “Sorry, I’m busy. Talk to Manager about that “

    3. Insufficiently Festive Unicorn*

      I’ve been through an office grudgeholder and I’ve been through someone who didn’t want to do their work, so…

      There’s no way to stop the office grudge holder from finding a reason – any reason, valid or not – to hold a grudge. And it sounds like this one is *already* making your job more difficult so seriously, what do you have to lose? That’s how I looked at it. She couldn’t do anything *more* to me than she was already doing, so I wasn’t going to go out of my way to try to not set her off.

      The one who didn’t do the work got a detailed, illustrated manual of every step of the process they were trying to avoid. Every. Single. Step. With big red arrows pointing to “click here and put this information into this field.” Then the next time he claimed he “didn’t know how to do it” I referred him to the document. When he said he lost it, I sent it again. And posted the document publicly in a shared drive and told everyone in the office it was available for their use. It eventually became clear to him that I wasn’t going to do his work for him but I was going to go well out of my way to make his life difficult every time he tried to weasel out.

      The great part about emailing the stuff to him was being able to copy management.

      One important warning to this approach – always, always, always make your tone pleasant and helpful. “Hey, office, I’ve always had difficulty with this task, so I’ve made it easy for everyone. Just see this!” “Oh, I’m so sorry you couldn’t find the copy. Do we need to call IT to check your computer? Well, until they do, here’s another copy. If it happens again, I can send a new one whenever you need it. No trouble at all.”

    4. goddessoftransitory*

      She’s a difficult person no matter what, right? And right now that means you’re doing her work. The other option is that she’s difficult but you are not stuck doing her work. She can hold all the grudges she wants, in her little red wagon of Not Fair, but that isn’t your problem.

      You will never make her happy, and some people have to get under those bus wheels to grasp things like “I actually have to do my job.” From the sound of it, she would have no problem doing the same to you no matter what, right?

    5. Quinalla*

      Make this consistently your manager’s problem. And if they are going to pretend to forget things and act like they don’t know how to do things they do know how to do, take it all very seriously. First, make a paper trail of EVERYTHING and refer back to it when they “forget”. When they say they don’t know how to do something or don’t have time, reply and CC your manager asking for more staff or more training for coworker. Just keep putting it in front of your boss.

      I understand the not wanting to tattle instinct and when dealing with reasonable people, yeah we can all give each other some grace and not bring every little problem to the boss, but these two are being entirely unreasonable and trying to dump work on you. Don’t let them get away with this BS!

    6. Chauncy Gardener*

      Just say “no, I don’t have the bandwidth.” They don’t know how to do it? Not your problem, tell them to speak with their manager. Make this the manager’s problem!

    7. EvilQueenRegina*

      Based on details of your post we don’t work together, but I can relate to this with my one no-worker. “Jackie” started last year and was trained at the time, but once she was let loose on her own she appears to do nothing – very often either myself or my coworkers “Vanessa” and “Taissa” would end up stepping in on her assigned tasks even though we shouldn’t have to. At the time, our then-manager “Jeff” had a lot of direct reports and not enough time to notice, he was aware that tasks were getting done but possibly not that Jackie wasn’t doing anything.

      There’s a really noticeable difference with this year’s new starters “Ben” and “Misty” – they’re fantastic, they pay attention when they’re being trained and are picking it up, they want to learn on the job by actually doing it, and if they don’t understand anything they’re not shy about asking. Jackie continued doing the bare minimum for months. Our grandboss “Shauna” has noticed, and she and our current manager “Natalie” have tried to address it. Jackie claimed not to know how to do a lot of the tasks, so it’s been suggested that she sit in while Ben and Misty are being trained, time will tell.

      Sometimes I ask myself how far should any of us be helpful and pick up Jackie’s slack as opposed to leaving it to let her fail (sometimes, we genuinely don’t have time to do it, or something else has to fall through the cracks in order for it to get done). There’s arguments for and against both.

      But your no-workers are throwing themselves under the bus, not you doing it to them.

    8. Brevity*

      This may be more confrontational than you want to be, but in the next staff meeting, when Dumbo A predictably says, “I don’t know now to do that,” you could legitimately reply by looking her in the eye and firmly saying, “Dumbo, you have been here for X years. You were assigned this project X months ago. Why DON’T you know how to do it? What have you been doing, on work time, instead of learning how to do it?”

      Then dead silence.

      Yes, she’ll whine and sputter and blame it all on you, but you can then move along as if nothing happened. Cope with the fallout, if any, later. It seems like it’s worth a shot.

  17. asloan*

    I have really noticed at my current job that I’m not “sharp” like others in my department are. I don’t remember dates and amounts and details off the top of my head. I have to look them up to be confident. I feel like this is a really big deal? My boss and grandboss are very sharp people with great memories who answer questions off the cuff that I would *never* be able to. I realize people just have different brains, and also to be honest I’m not enamored of my current job/role which obviously doesn’t help. Is it worth practicing to get a little better, or should I just keep following my current plan which is to make sure I have really good up-to-date spreadsheets and consult them? Or like try a brain supplement or something …

    1. The Bobs*

      Some of this may develop over time. For example, maybe an important date is easier for your boss to remember because they’ve had to talk about repeatedly with other people (like for planning an event) whereas you only had to hear about it once in a calendar invite.

      It’s okay to look things up. Everyone does. Try to review any super important information related to your job. The rest will come with time

      1. asloan*

        I will say they’ve both been here for a billion years and I’m new, so I hope that’s part of it. Certainly with names of contacts, etc. But even in past roles, after several years I’m not usually able to confidently recall whether a contract was $100K for 5 months or $150K for 10 months without checking something. I’m definitely jealous of people who have the ability to recall numbers better than I do.

        1. Jay (no, the other one)*

          I’ve been the most senior person at work for a while now, both in age and time worked in this field. I tell all my junior staff that I absolutely do not care what information they can carry in their heads. If I ask a factual question it’s simply to avoid telling them something they already know and I will not remember if they knew it or not. I am far more interested in their reasoning ability and how the find and assess the quality of information. This was true 40 years ago when “looking it up” meant finding a source on paper and it’s even more true now that pretty much all the information we need is accessible through our phones. I want them to spend their time learning the stuff that can’t be looked up, not memorizing stuff they can find in a few seconds.

        2. Nicki Name*

          I’m good at remembering numbers but that’s the sort of thing I’d want to check anyway before answering! It’s entirely possible that people who answer confidently are misremembering confidently sometimes.

    2. RagingADHD*

      I’m not sure how you would practice this without putting yourself in a position to spout wrong answers, which is much worse.

      I always respond quickly to inquiries, but with a placeholder comment about “let me look that up to make sure” or words to that effect. It has never been a problem.

      Of course, it always comes across as a bonus if you can offer additional information and / or follow up action as a result of looking it up, like “that contract was $150K for 10 months, and it will be coming due on X, so we should start preparing (whatever needs doing) next month. I’ve put a reminder on the calendar.”

      That way you’re continually demonstrating that the extra few minutes you spent looking it up had concrete value.

    3. Look up*

      My boss memorizes everything, but he has almost 30 years at company to get to that point. I had 3 years for half of the knowledge.

      At that point, I do not even try anymore to remember. And I am absolutely fine with that!
      A well maintained notebook/spreadsheet is impressive as well. You just have to make the impression you have everything under control.

    4. Desert Rat*

      My situation may be slightly different than yours because I have diagnosed ADHD, but my mantra is “if I don’t write it down, it doesn’t exist”. I cannot remember things off the top of my head. And my job involves organizing hundreds of tiny details, which compounds the issue. I carry my notebook with me everywhere and if people need an immediate answer from me, I look it up for them on the spot. I’m not expected to know everything at the drop of a hat, but I am expected to be organized enough to find the information quickly when necessary.

      I totally understand how you feel, but I think as long as you can provide the answers people need, you’re doing ok.

    5. Pam Adams*

      For many of us, it’s just how our brains work. Things stick in my head-sadly, not names. I don’t expect others to work/be this way.

    6. Hyaline*

      Keep in mind those folks may well be wrong some of the time, and further, they may have no problem with that. Those off-the-cuff answers may be right most of the time, or some of the time, or rarely…but some people are very good at being very confident in tossing information out there.

      I’d take someone saying “The meeting is next Friday, but I need to check the time” or “The Widgetomizer 5000 sold well, but I’d have to look up actual numbers” over wrong info anytime. So if you’re going to develop any skills, I’d make it the skill of framing “I don’t know” as information you can provide in a positive way.

    7. Quinalla*

      Sounds like they are spending more time with the dates/details or more time memorizing them. Are you sure they are actually correct? Just because someone answers confidently does not mean they are remembering correctly :P

      There are folks who seem to be better at remembering details than others. I have never thought of it as being sharp, just better are remembering those kinds of details /shrug

      There are ways to improve your memorization, but I’m not sure it’s a worthwhile pursuit. I’d focus on what YOU are good at.

    8. Irish Teacher.*

      Are others behaving like it’s a big deal? If not, it genuinely may not be. I am “sharp” in this sense. It’s just the way my mind works but I am well aware that other people’s minds work differently and I certainly wouldn’t think any less of anybody who looked stuff up.

    9. Reba*

      Eh, I don’t have a great memory and I don’t always know my right from my left, but I have other talents I bring to the team.

    10. Don’t put metal in the science oven*

      I take & carry notes for details. I am confident that I’m smart so I’ve always just owned the note taking. I believe & have said that memorizing those types of details just clutters up my brain bc that’s how I’m wired. Everyone has always accepted this and it’s been fine. I just refer to my notes & all is well

  18. It's Me. Hi.*

    Are there any office gathering-social-fun-activities that folks don’t hate these days? Would love to hear what’s working…

    1. Alex*

      My office goes volunteering together. It’s hard to complain about doing something good in the world, and it’s a nice way to spend time with coworkers in a non-work setting. We’ve volunteered at the food bank and stuff like that. We do these activities during the work day so that people’s schedules aren’t disrupted.

      1. Alex*

        I’ll also add that they are optional. In fact, they are opt-IN. You have to sign up to go.

      2. Elizabeth West*

        We did this at Exjob — painted some kitchens in apartments for families whose kids are getting cancer treatment. It was a lot of fun.

    5. WantonSeedStitch*

      I find that the less structure is involved, the more people enjoy it. We like just hanging out and eating and chatting. We also did a scavenger hunt once that was a blast (we are on staff at a university, and the scavenger hunt was to find neat stuff on campus). I feel like those work best on a college campus or in an urban environment where there’s a lot of stuff within walking distance. We did a museum tour once that was great, too.

      1. allathian*

        Yeah, absolutely. That’s why I like lunches, you just show up and eat.

        But you have to know your coworkers, no activity’s going to work for everyone. My team likes them because the restaurants near my office are very good about catering to different dietary requirements, we don’t comment on each other’s portions, and nobody has any issues about eating in front of other people.

        Our break room has a puzzle table that’s very popular.

    6. WellRed*

      We do an occasional in office group lunch. We enjoy it because we all like eac other.

    7. Rara Avis*

      Three times a year we have optional dinner parties. Just food and conversation, although the third also has a DJ and games and a Photo Booth. One is for the whole family, one just employees, the third plus-one.

      1. Mad Scientist*

        Ah, trivia and bowling, my two least favorite activities on earth. (No shade! You do you! I’d just be so bummed out if these were the main activities my coworkers liked to do for team building.)

    9. Margali*

      My office is very food-driven, so popular things have been: pizza lunches, a tamale food-truck, smoothies from Jamba Juice, super-fancy donuts from a local shop. People hang out and chat while in line for food and while nibbling.

    10. ThreeSeagrass*

      Optional catered lunch if you have a social group – I really appreciate when my work feeds us and I like talking with my coworkers. Though that might not be the dynamic in your office.

    11. Charlotte Lucas*

      Our top leadership does an ice cream social once a year. Totally voluntary, and it’s all served by upper management. During a 2-3 hour block of time, anyone who wants to can go, get some ice cream (nondairy options are available) and toppings, then hang out with coworkers or chat with leadership.

      While I can’t stand my direct manager, I love our top leadership team.

    12. Quinalla*

      Our are rare, maybe once a quarter, more like twice a year. So even if we aren’t doing anything exciting, just getting together for happy hour or a meal, it’s great to see everyone and talk. And I wouldn’t want to do this all the time, but once a year we usually have a get together that includes families and I really enjoy that too.

      I know some folks have done bowling or volleyball and had fun and also playing board games or going to a sportsball game.

    13. bay scamp*

      I am no help probably because I really enjoyed having an ornament exchange for the 2023 holiday season/was sad that we didn’t have one last winter. But I am well aware of why Christmas or Christmas-ish celebrations are not looked upon favorably here, hence also being aware this is no help! I don’t go to church (so it took awhile to understand why an ornament exchange at work is problematic) but I have the Bob Ross ornament I got in that exchange displayed year-round! The other things done at work gatherings, contests like Taylor Swift lip-syncs, cake-flipping, or chaotic versions of ring toss, don’t really appeal to me.

    15. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      Not an office thing exactly–a professional organization gathering that draws people from the office and from others. I recruited a committee and just organized the first gathering in my geographic area for an association that holds all its other events too far away for us to get to. We had a networking event at a bar with a panel of fantastic speakers. People loved it and we had a sell-out crowd. This did involve buying a ticket, which is a way of getting people to commit so they’re more likely to show up plus it helped cover costs. We’re going to do it again on a regular basis. The next one will be a site visit of some kind, maybe a walking tour, with speakers to talk about what we’re seeing.

      Snacks + beverages + interesting topic for the win. I honestly mostly wouldn’t give up my after-work time just to hang out in a bar–not my thing, usually. Having a broad topic that brings people together makes it worth the time for me–we know we have something to talk about but we’re not all from the same organization so it isn’t work gossip.

  19. AlexandrinaVictoria*

    I was at my former job for 11.5 years. During that time my evaluations were always meets or exceeds expectations. Eight months ago I got a new manager, hired from outside the company. They immediately decided I was a problem employee, set me up to fail and last week fired me. What on earth do I say in upcoming interviews about why I left the job after such a long run??

    1. asloan*

      It should be way easier to say you’re looking for new challenges, the standard line, after 11 years! It’s actually worse if you’re let go just a few months/years in and have to try and use that. If you can point to one thing that your confident is different between your old job and the thing you’re applying to, like “more focus on X” or “less focus on Y” that is generally the best. Employers want to believe you’re enamored of their role anyway.

    2. 1,000 Snails in a Lady Skin*

      Yep agreed with the other commenter. There’s no reason you actually have to address it!
      “Been at the company a long time, looking for new opportunities” is a perfectly acceptable answer!
      As a hiring manager who asks this question in interviews, most answers are neutral and that’s ok, I’m only looking for red flags. You’d be surprised at the number of people who are willing to badmouth a boss and you DON’T want to be that person! It only ever makes the candidate look bad, no matter how bad the boss actually was! At least for me, this question is really a “gimme” / free space to weed out unprofessionalism.

      1. Bbbbbbbbb*

        BUT in the application, LW will have to say terminated vs laid off so there will need to be a prepared statement to address this.

        2. Kimmy Schmidt*

          A lot of application systems don’t ask why you left your last job, just what it was and the dates.

        3. Bast*

          “During the past year, we had a shift in upper management and the culture of the company changed/company experienced some changes?” (or similar). With 8 solid years of employment, a sudden management shift would be explanation enough for me.

        4. Comma Queen*

          “I did the job successfully for 10.5 years. When leadership changed last fall, they had a different vision for what this role should be and ultimately decided I wasn’t the right fit.”

          If it’s part of a conversation, continue with how the skills and focus before the change are aligned to the job you’re applying for.

    3. WantonSeedStitch*

      I might say something about how your job changed after the new manager came in, and how after those changes, it was not a good fit for you anymore.

      1. I'd too*

        I’d put it like that as well. The new manager had different ideas of the org structure/responsibilities/was restructuring and you were let go.

      2. Elizabeth West*

        That’s almost exactly what I said after TechJob –after my old boss left and we merged with another department, the job completely changed; it wasn’t a fit any longer. It was the truth and nobody ever questioned it.

    4. Taketombo*

      Apply for unemployment insurance. They can contest or not (most companies won’t).

      I was fired after a long run of being a top reformer (from a company I later learned had a reputation for doing that) which they claimed was for cause – it was not – and they did not contest my unemployment.

      I simply said something like “In January, my annual review was glowing, and then in March [company] fired me. They claimed it was for [reason] but didn’t contest my UI, so I think it was for convenience.”

      I was selective in my job search and had multiple offers within 2 months. It can be horribly demoralizing to go from someone who sees themselves as “the best” to “was fired.” It’s ok to wallow for a bit, but you weren’t fired for not being the best – you were set up and fired for political reasons.

      Fired for cause generally means specific things, and is usually grounds for not paying UI. I’d try to get UI first.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        Yeah, don’t sleep on UI, @AlexandrinaVictoria*. There’s usually a waiting week.

        1. feline outerwear catalog*

          ymmv but in my state, the unemployment office told me they only count being fired for cause for a huge, egregious, problem, like embezzling money

  20. talos*

    Low stakes question:

    I regularly eat lunch with my teammates. Obviously, we have conversations. This was great when I was on a team of 12, because there were always different people to talk to and new topics.

    However, rather severe attrition has brought us to…3 people regularly in the office. The problem: we’re out of things to say to each other! Like, “how are your kids”, last weekend, next weekend, recent/upcoming travel, work topics that somehow didn’t get discussed in meetings, and what shows people are watching/books they are reading sometimes doesn’t get us to Friday. And so on Friday we just stare blankly at each other for half an hour.

    What are some other good “water cooler topics”?

    1. Chaos Coordinator*

      One group of folks I lunch with uses almost ice breaker-y topics. As long as it’s something that can generate some convo, it can work. We talked for 30 minutes last week when someone asked “What is the best form of potato?”

      1. WantonSeedStitch*

        Love the potato one. It reminds me of Serious Eats’s annual “Starch Madness” event.

    2. Admin of Sys*

      Spin off into hypotheticals – you talked about upcoming travel, have a conversation about everyone’s dream vacation. Or if you talk about houses, talk about dream houses, or zillow insanities or such. “Gosh, I wish I had the time for , what about you – if you had all the free time you ever wanted, what hobby would you pick up?”

    3. ElectricGal*

      We had a new-ish employees lunch the other day, and some good icebreaker-y questions are
      – What’s a goal that you’re working on right now (professional or personal)?
      -Last concert/show you attended?
      -Favorite restaurant? Why?

    4. Analytical Tree Hugger*

      Maybe lean into it? For example, instead of needing to talk, do your interests overlap enough to listen to music, the radio, or a podcast together over lunch? Might be a nice to get to mentally check out for a bit.

      1. talos*

        Oh, that’d be so easy, except we eat in a busy cafeteria with a couple hundred seats, so listening to stuff wouldn’t fly!

      2. PostalMixup*

        My previous job I was one of three employees and we did a lot of chit-chatting during work (in a lab, so you can be productive with your hands while also having conversations). We spent a lot of lunch time reading together (separate books), which never felt awkward though that might be a personality thing that’s not universal. I find as an introvert that doing separate things together can be very nice.

    5. Funko Pops Day*

      My spouse and I bought “the hygge game” midpandemic when we had absolutely run out of things to talk about after 18 months alone in a house with a baby. It’s basically a deck of cards with low key conversation topics; each card has 3 questions and you can read them all, pick just one (or draw another card). We found it helpful to have A Thing we were referring to rather than having to always come up with our own questions on the spot.

      Also, would your coworkers be up for something like “Wednesday is podcast day” that you all listen to together that day. Things like “What’s it like to be” or “Hidden Brain” or “99% invisible” are often good conversation sparks but don’t swerve too far into things that could be contentious in the office or “ugh I really don’t want to think about politics”

      2. Hyaline*

        Yes! There are a few of these–you can search “conversation cards” or “tabletop conversation starters” and find a ton!

    6. JustMyImagination*

      If you all enjoy reading, would you be up for a book club? You can even take turns picking in case you all like different genres.

      1. Quinalla*

        I would love this, but if a whole book is too daunting, maybe read an article (something from your industry or something that you all like) and discuss on Friday? Or all do a rewatch of a show together? Or play a simple card game while you eat?

    7. Mad Scientist*

      If you don’t want to stick to just conversation, I’ve seen some of the break rooms in my building set up puzzles or similar activities people can casually work on together while they eat lunch.

  21. Poppin' in for this*

    I am a newspaper reporter who is expecting an offer letter for a technical writing/design job next week (engineering company). I have been job searching because of abysmal pay, non-existent benefits, no room for advancement, limited PTO (2 weeks max) and crazy hours – nights, weekends, frequent 7-day weeks. The new job would pay about 22% more, good benefits, PTO, 9-5. The problem is I truly love my work, am quite good at it and have built enormous connections and influence. A sticking point is that my new commute would be almost an hour; I could deal but it would be a change from my 2-minute commute, ability to get errands, etc. done close to home. I am feeling conflicted as to whether I should leave. FWIW I am 57 (!), married with grown kids, no grandkids, so limited responsibilities there. AAM folks are so smart – your advice?

    1. Alex*

      Don’t leave something you love unless you have to. That is a very different job, and that commute is going to take 10 hours from your week, plus all the time saved running an errand here and there.

      If you can do without the money, stick with what you enjoy.

    2. whimbrel*

      Think of it like a sabbatical from your journalism work? It’s not like those connections and such will evaporate overnight, and if you frame it as ‘I’m going to try something new for a year’ it could give you the space to really dig into the new position with the backup plan of going back after a year.

    3. Llama Llama*

      Regarding the commute, I would factor that into your work time calculation and compare that to your current job. How does that total stack up against your current 7 days a week total.

      1. RLC*

        Also factor in the cost of the longer commute. How might that expense stack up against the higher pay? For example, if you drive your own car the additional daily mileage could significantly increase the cost of your auto insurance (in addition to fuel, maintenance, wear and tear etc). Speaking as an employee who was forced to move from job a five minute walk from my home to one with a 70 mile a day round trip, it adds up quickly.

    4. Mockingjay*

      I’m 61, career tech writer in engineering R&D. Go for it. Tech writing has more in common with journalism than you think. You’ll be researching a lot of stuff, verifying sources (sound familiar?), vetting data, and proofing before you print (okay, these days we PDF everything). Even more fun, you’ll likely have the opportunity to support different projects. Each time I change projects, I get to learn something new. It keeps my brain very happy and young.

      As for the commute, podcasts and audiobooks are your best friends to ride along with.

      Let us know what you decide to do. Good luck!

    5. Friday Person*

      If you do go for it, any chance your new job might be open to your keeping your toe in journalism as a freelancer on topics overlapping with the role? Corporate tolerance for that obviously varies a lot, but there are some places that wouldn’t mind, particularly if it helps you further establish yourself publicly as a prominent expert in the field.

    6. TX Lizard*

      Don’t have much advice, just saying hi as a technical writer in engineering with a ~1.5 to 2 hour round trip commute! If you do take the job, download Libby for audiobooks and protect your wrists! The typing+driving have had a synergistic effect on mine.
      Honestly the commute vs. pay and benefits would be the biggest factors for me. How much would that extra 22% and good benefits mean to you? Good benefits are definitely attractive. An hour commute (not sure if you mean one way or round trip) can take its toll, but it is definitely doable.

    7. Hyaline*

      So, first–with an hour commute, start thinking of it as 8-6! I might chart out the differences in time and consider what matters more to you–having firm weekends and a firm end to the day and more leave, or having more time at home on either end of the commute.

      You’re 57 and you love your work now–what is your plan for the next 5, 10, 15 years? Are you intending to retire in roughly a decade? Or are you thinking earlier retirement? I ask because it kind of reframes how you see the next few years of work–riding out to the retirement horizon, or paving the way for a new career? You’re in a good position in a lot of ways because this move would be on YOUR terms–you like your current work and don’t indicate that it’s unstable in any way. So what move do you want to make? Strong finish in the final years before retirement, waypost on the way to a new career, or foothold in a new career? And then how does changing jobs fit that vision?

      If the work itself is a major factor in changing–you worry you won’t like the work as much in the new job–is there an opportunity to ask more questions, talk to someone currently in the job, maybe even shadow or do a site visit? Getting a better sense of “what did you spend the last two weeks working on? What was your day-to-day like?” from someone doing a job like you will have could be really illuminating and possibly reassuring.

      I might be in the minority, but unless finances are a concern in any way, the fairly small salary bump IMO shouldn’t be a major factor. It’s enough that it’s not a strike against moving, but it’s not so much that it would sway me–unless I needed that money!

    8. Quinalla*

      An hour commute (if you are driving) is a no-go for me. If you are taking a train, that’s different as you can read, etc. I’ve done a one hour commute for 2 summers and it was terrible. Would never do it again. That said, maybe it would still be a lot less time then you work now? I would still recommend keep looking, but might be worth it if it really is a lot less time including the commute time.

      22% pay raise is fine but maybe not that much if your pay sucks now. Good benefits can be worth a lot and PTO is worth a lot to me too, is it good or just a little better than your crap 2 weeks?

    9. Frieda*

      I have a 45 minute commute each way and I honestly don’t mind it. Caveat that the road is good and it’s highway speeds most of the way – bad roads or very slow traffic might be a different story. I listen to a lot of podcasts.

      IMO more money as you’re moving toward the last segment of your career is smart, and it sounds like it would be a more predictable schedule which might totally offset the commute.

    10. Cheap ass rolling with it*

      You started looking for a reason!

      I would take the new job. You get your weekends back. It sounds like you were working more hours at your current job, even if you include the commute.

  22. Delivery Pizza*

    I’m being sent to a conference where networking is expected. I’m terrible at small talk, so I asked my boss for an “elevator pitch” script that could help me ease into conversations with new people. She looked at me like I was crazy and said to just talk to the people. I am not diagnosed, but pretty sure I have autism, and scripts are really important to me in new situations — how can I figure out how to approach this (either talking to my boss or talking to people at the conferences)?

    1. Insert Pun Here*

      Instead of having a script of statements to make, develop some scripts for questions you might ask people. This will vary by industry but here are some ideas:
      “Hey, did I see you at xyz presentation? What did you think about (whatever thing)?”
      “Oh, you work for [whatever corp]? I love [something they make/do] — do you get to work on that?”
      “Hey, any chance you’ve made it to the exhibit hall? I saw in the program that xyz corp is going to be there—I really hope they brought a demo of [whatever cool thing]!”
      People generally respond well to (polite, appropriate) questions—because it gives them a “task” (answer the question) and that then opens up more conversational avenues.

      2. Academic Physics*

        Some other opening scripts I’ve used are

        “Did you get a chance to see the plenary with XX? I really loved YY about it…”
        “Any talks you are excited for today?”
        “What is your company excited about right now? My company is really excited to… ”
        “Your question at that talk was so great! Are you in that field?”

        In addition to the normal opening salvo of, if I’m talking to someone random just to talk my general approach is while smiling, make a small observation about what’s going on.

        Something along the lines of “I hope I’m in the right line for [the food, coffee, a talk]. Is that what you are waiting for?” — “It’s my first time at this conference and I can’t believe how large it is! Is it always so large?” “I appreciate whoever chose the color scheme, it’s so fun!”

    2. 1,000 Snails in a Lady Skin*

      Can you ask other people at your company who’ve been to this conference before or similar conferences? I also love scripts and was given a bunch by my company but they’re pretty industry-specific.

      Here’s some tips that may or may not work for you depending on the type of conference and level of attendees:

      Qs about the conference are a good icebreaker:
      – how’s the conference going for you so far?
      – what panels have you enjoyed the most? what’s the most interesting panel you’ve seen? what panels are you looking forward to?

      When in doubt, ask Qs about the person you’re talking to! Everyone loves to talk about themselves:
      – where are you from? how long have you worked at X company?
      – can you tell me more about your role? what’s your favorite part of working at X company / your role?
      – what projects do you have coming up that you’re excited about? (may not work depending on the level of confidentiality in your field but this works in my field!)

      1. Tio*

        What has worked well for me recently is to look up some specific industry news so you can use it like the weather – Man, new regulations on the duck feeding are really strict, huh? How’s that affecting you?

        1. JustaTech*

          I have actually used the weather when I was at a loss and it wasn’t obvious what organization other folks were from (standing in the coffee line or during “happy hour”) – but only when the weather was actually remarkable (“that thunder was incredible, we couldn’t hear the speaker in our last session!”).

    3. No Tribble At All*

      Do you have a coworker (or non-work friend) you could bounce ideas off of? I’ve heard that Inigo Montoya’s quip is a great networking statement:
      (1) “hello, my name is Inigo Montoya” — say your name and your company/field
      (2) “you killed my father” — say how you and the other person overlap. This might be a shared industry, a background, an interest in your subfield.
      (3) “prepare to die!” — the action you want to happen. Usually this is a topic of conversation, but sometimes it’s exchanging business cards. Sometimes the other person is looking for something from you.

      For example, here’s what I did at the last conference. I’d see a booth from an organization I recognized, or one with advertisements that were relevant, and just walk up to them.
      (1) Intro –“Hi, I’m Tribble, I’m an engineer on the USS Enterprise.”
      (2) Shared interest — “I see your company makes dilithum crystals. We use dilithium in our warp core.”
      (3) Action — “Could you tell me more about your crystal processing? We’ve always looking for new dilithum suppliers, but our requirements are pretty stringent.” (here my goal is to find out if they reach a certain level of purity in their crystals)

      It’s helpful to think about goals ahead of time, either for your company or for your personal career. Is your company hiring, and are there open positions in your department? Print out the job descriptions ahead of time so you can talk about it. “We’re looking for a Senior Transporter Systems engineer, if you know anyone who’s interested!” If you’re interested in a specific topic generally, “I’d love to learn more about Klingon warp cores” or “Can you tell me about the Master’s program at the Vulcan Academy of Science?” Is your company looking for new vendors? And it’s fine if you don’t know these things — just listen to the spiel and take the brochures.

      Finally, practice walking away. “Well, it was nice to meet you. Thanks for telling me about your deflector shields. I’ll see you around.”

      Networking is always a bit stilted, to be honest. You’re trying to find out of someone is helpful to you without saying straight up “ok but does your stuff actually work”.

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        I’ve seen the Inigo Montoya as a networker thing in a meme, but the way you’ve explained it here is EXCELLENT, well done. :)

    4. Goddess47*

      You can always fall back on the “What session are you looking forward to?” and/or “What session did you like today?” types of questions. You can talk about the keynote (keep any bad thoughts to yourself, if you really disliked something) or any of the social activities.

      Or think about why you are going to this conference. “I’m here to learn about X and can’t get to all the sessions I’d like to attend. Do you have any recommendations?” Why are you going and work that into the conversation.

      And have some fun!

    5. Spreadsheet Queen*

      IMO, a company should provide on its internal website a brief “elevator pitch” about what the company does! (I have totally asked for this at places I have worked!) Most of my positions, I know what contracts we have and what contracts we’re bidding, but that isn’t the same as knowing what we DO. It always feels like I’m coming up with a pretty disjointed a little of x, and some y, and I know we support z agency. I mean, sure, I can read our capabilities briefing, but that’s not a 1 or 2 minute thing that hits our true core. You want something that hits what your company does in a way that’s true, enough information so that another company has an idea if they might want to partner with you, or that an individual might want to apply for a job with you, but not so much that you bore people, and definitely not revealing information you’re not supposed to.

      You don’t have to be autistic or awkward or whatever for this to be a nice thing to have about your company. Anyone who goes to meetings or conferences or anyone who likes their company would benefit from a short easily remembered “script” about it. That’s not at all weird to ask for and you are not crazy.

    6. Anon Scientist*

      My most successful networking has been because there was a genuinely interesting conversation that someone and I had which organically set the stage for us to do something in the future.
      For example, I gave a presentation about my main area of interest (let’s say the benefits of braiding for llama and alpaca hair growth). Afterward, someone came up to me and said, basically, I work with camels and I think braiding would actually lead to hair loss for them, which wasn’t something anyone working on camelid braids would have ever expected to be true; based on that discussion, we wound up collaborating on a multi-year project on the differences between hair growth in llamas and camels, plus she gave an invited talk at my llama grooming lab and I served on the advisory board for her Department of Camelid Studies. We didn’t do it because we were “networking” but because we were both really, genuinely interested in camelid hair growth and styling, and had a conversation about it that made other future interactions make sense.

    7. Hyaline*

      So, I’d pivot your thinking from “elevator pitch” to “icebreakers” as your opening lines–you’re not pitching yourself, you’re saying hi and connecting. Icebreakers can still be scripted to some extent, but think of them more like a grab bag of quick topics you can pull out when you’re sharing a table or sitting next to someone. The conference itself is a great starting point:
      *Have you been to this conference before?
      *Did you enjoy the panel on XYZ?
      *I’m looking forward to the ABC speaker–anything you’re looking forward to?
      *What do you think of the hotel?

      You may want to develop a quick intro to yourself and why you’re there/your company, but again–less of a pitch, more of a quick point of connection. (I love the Inigo Does Networking meme broken down above!) It might feel daunting, but the part where you fill in the blanks with connections/overlap is what makes it work so well, and you can’t really script it completely in advance. For your part, you can practice and get comfortable with the “Hello my name is” part, which can be a little more script-y–“Hey, I saw you in the hoofcare seminar! I’m Hyaline, with the Centaur Consortium of Northeastern Narnia–we’re a small nonprofit connecting centaurs with volunteer opportunities requiring sentient, talking animals.”

  23. ThatGirl*

    LinkedIn is full of bad advice so I ignore most of it, but one thing I’ve seen a few times is “after you apply, reach out to the hiring manager!” And..,,does that work for anyone? Just doing that blindly where you have no connection? Seems like it would annoy most people.

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

        yes. all our phone calls go directly through the front desk, This includes our director and assistant director. There have been a few times where people have reached out and it’s really annoying. Especially if they haven’t even spoken to the hiring team yet. Like I can understand if you’ve set up a phone interview or in person interview and need to speak to someone about logistics or something came up and you need to change the time. But “I applied last week and haven’t heard anything back yet” is annoying

    3. Bbbbbbbbb*

      Bad bad idea. If you make it past ATS (the AI software) and they want you, they will know how to find you.

    4. CompetitiveSalary*

      LinkedIn is full of potentially AI generated junk these days.

      The advice on reaching out to the hiring manager has been around for a long time. The corollary is to reach out to potential team members. I and a few other folks receive messages from job seekers from time to time for a specific opening. We usually just delete the message from people we don’t know.

      Once upon a time, less messages were generated automatically. People actually read the messages.

      1. ThatGirl*

        Yeah, I see a lot of junk and a lot of people thinking they are going to become influencers. Sadly, it’s still the best option I have for virtual networking and job leads, even though half the job ads also seem to be junk.

      1. ThatGirl*

        It’s “gumption!” I guess, I dunno. To stand out. I agree it’s a bad idea though.

    6. Sherm*

      I too would be annoyed. It would seem to me that the applicant was trying to circumvent the application process — and using up my time in doing so.

    7. Toxic Workplace Survivor*

      I’ve been known to do a pre-screening call with a potential candidate if they asked me for more info about the job in a general way AND they had already applied and their resume was decent. As a hiring manager, it can be a nudge to take longer than 15 seconds looking at an application. I don’t mind it.

      You have to actually be a decent candidate though (70%+ of the qualifications), otherwise I don’t recommend it.

    9. WantonSeedStitch*

      No. If an applicant I didn’t know personally reached out to me after applying, I’d be annoyed, and I’d tell them, “I don’t really start my role in this process until HR receives your application and conducts a phone screen. You should wait to hear from them.”

    10. Kay*

      You are more likely to get your resume sent to the trash bin if I were the hiring manager. I expect you to understand the professional norm of you apply, I’m aware you are interested, if I am interested I will contact you. If you give me reason to think you don’t understand that, I assure you I have plenty of applicants who haven’t demonstrated they missed that lesson. I understand it sounds harsh, but if it is a competetive position I have to narrow things down by the smallest of things.

      Now if you apply and don’t hear anything, I won’t fault you for sending ONE email to say, I applied for the llama groomer position and its been “X’ amount of time, I haven’t heard anything, the job description is still up, I’m still very interested in the position because of “reasons” and would love to talk further if the opportunity is stiill available. Keep in mind – this is the only follow up you can send. If I receive another follow up before I have responded its again to the trash bin.

  24. Mrs. Smith*

    Not me, my spouse. Husband works in the design and production field and his work computer is not adequate to the task – woefully out of date, slow processing speed, can barely run the software he needs to do his job. He’s made this very clear to his immediate boss (who can’t really do anything about it) and the firm’s owner, who seems to think he’s complaining about nothing and can solve this by just closing some tabs. So this week he’s being raked over the coals for being slow and feels like his job is in jeopardy for something totally beyond his control. I told him to suggest to the owner they get the computer he needs, track his stats for a solid week after it arrives, and then compare how fast he fulfills orders against his previous stats in order to prove it’s the machine, not the man. But I feel like there’s no winning this one – the owner is almost self-defeatingly frugal and just won’t spend a buck even if it has a clear and immediate benefit. He needs to get out, right, and hand his Commodore 64 over to the next sucker who can try to design titanium teapots in an AutoCAD program on it?

    2. Admin of Sys*

      Can he track the slowness now? Have solid timestamps – set up a spreadsheet with things like
      7a opened cad
      7:15a it finished loading, and I opened the project
      7:25 I worked on the project for 20m
      7:45 I saved the project
      7:55 save finished, I opened project 2

      And then summarize it with the time he spent waiting on the computer vs his salary vs the cost of a new computer. If he has ‘hard’ numbers that show they could pay for the computer in 2 weeks, maybe the purse strings will loosen a bit.
      (though if the new computer does not increase his speed of return, things might go very badly)

      1. cmdrspacebabe*

        I had to do this to an IT rep once and it’s still one of my funniest work memories. When I told him it started lagging so hard every afternoon that it took me a full 15 minutes to get it to restart, he visibly rolled his eyes, clearly assuming I was exaggerating. Then, we sat there together, for 15 full minutes. About 7 minutes in, he turns to me, wide-eyed, and says “….this is every day?”

        that’s what it said on the ticket, my guy

        1. Analytical Tree Hugger*

          In my headcanon, you responded by giving him a Chesire Cat grin and cheerfully said, “8 minutes to go…” and then turned back to the screen.

          But seconding the timetracking idea (on paper, doesn’t sound like the computer could handle this).

          The first idea, “Find a new job” is the best solution, even if he has golden handcuffs (seems unlikely) since a better deal is probably out there.

        2. Nightengale*

          I tried to get our IT people to log in with me in the morning to see that my computer was crashing out and taking 10 minutes to load up our work programs every morning and they shrugged and said, well that’s the time everyone is clocking in.

          We work in a hospital. Fortunately I’m in an outpatient setting where waiting 10 minutes for my EHR to start working isn’t life threatening but that is a LONG time to sit at work every morning unable to look at the schedule, chart or pull up messages.

      2. Manchmal*

        Another way might be to record his screen for 10 min showing how slow it is to respond.

    3. Rick Tq*

      Would it make any difference for your husband to show the owner the minimum and recommended specs from the CAD vendor? I will bet his computer is close to or below the minimum line.

      It might also help to have a price for system with the recommended configuration in hand too.

    4. WellRed*

      Is there an IT department he can get involved. It might help for them to say, he’s used up all his GB, and that software program really should be on OS or higher.

    5. Spreadsheet Queen*

      Wow! When I told my boss that my processing was overheating my computer and it was just shutting off when I was in the middle of things, I got put in for a new computer with better processing power.

      (Granted even with the new computer, I still occasionally had some lagging in Excel, but it was still SO MUCH BETTER!)

      But yeah, I guess he can track the problems with actual number of how slow it is, or how many times per day it crashes and what saved work gets lost or corrupted during the crashes, and how long it takes things to “fire up” again, that it legit takes 3+ minutes every time he saves (which is often because of crashing) and so on.

      Otherwise, yep, time to look for a new job where he will probably work fewer hours because things go much faster when your equipment works.

    6. Snacks*

      It sounds like you hit the nail on the head:
      “the owner is self-defeatingly frugal.”

      I’m so sorry your husband is in this situation! I agree with job searching.

      1. Mrs. Smith*

        Thanks everyone – spouse confirms current machine is out of compliance for the software he uses (which is not actually CAD but if I name it, it will doxx him.) In more cheerful news, he did put in an application for a job at a similar rate of just-okay pay but with more satisfying and interesting work closer to home, so maybe that will be my update on another Friday!

    7. goddessoftransitory*

      Yep, there’s no dealing with the penny wise/pound foolish mindset, honestly. I don’t know what issues his boss has but clearly they are affecting the business in general.

      Husband, unfortunately, should start looking now. If he wants to check back in in a year to see how fast the business collapsed when the fifteen people who cycled in and out after him quit in frustration, hey, none of us are saints, but he can’t make the owner care more about the job than he does.

    8. east bay witch*

      This sounds exactly like the owner of the planning and design firm I worked for.
      There’s no fixing this.
      Yes, your husband needs to get out. Preferably yesterday, but since that’s not possibe, now. Now! And when he interviews, he needs to ask all potential employers about the tech they use.

    9. Kay*

      After he tries all the time tracking stuff and it doesn’t work – can his very very large cup of water spill on his equipment (not the equipment he is using to search for a new job of course)??

  25. Anonymous for this*

    If you are leaving a team (and manager) and joining another one (and moving to a new manager) and you write to your manager: “I will miss working with you and the team” and the only reply you get “good luck with your new role” – does that mean that your past manager didn’t like working with you? Or am I reading too much into it?

    1. asloan*

      Eh, go with your gut on the overall relationship, not from this one exchange. Some people are more awkward in writing and they may not have put much thought into this.

    3. spcepickle*

      You are reading to much into it – when people off my team leave for whatever reason, I want to be happy for them. They got a promotion or found a better fit – yay! So telling them good luck in your new position is me making sure I am not guilting them for leaving and hoping the leap works out. If I wrote a long email about how vital you were to the team and we are all going to be sad now that you are gone I think it would make leaving a job even harder for most people.

  26. Joan*

    Last week I found out that the manager of an adjacent team (a team of four individual contributors, three of whom have left for other jobs at our company, starting seven months ago) really wants to hire someone who is will become available in January 2026.
    We have interviewed eight finalists for jobs on this team and hired no one yet. And where I work, finalist interviews involve at least 4 meetings, 1 presentation, 2 meals, a huge number of current staff. (Not the process to get to the finalist round — that IS the finalist round, a full day)
    So not only is our department understaffed — we are also wasting a ton of time on interviews that come to nothing.

    1. Anonymask*

      Ugh, frustrating! As both the team in question and the candidates. Is there a specific reason they aren’t filling the position now (soon) since all the interviews are pretty much done? (I’m assuming budget, but please correct me if I’m wrong.)

      1. Joan*

        Leaders say that the budget is not an issue. So I didn’t understand why none of the perfectly acceptable (it seems to me) candidates have been hired. So now I am wondering if the hiring manager wants to leave to positions open until her preferred candidate fially becomes available.

    2. I see you Doris Burke*

      Do you mean that the manager is waiting for a specific candidate, who won’t be avaialble until Jan ’26, or that the position itself won’t be open until then?

  27. merp*

    What to do if you’re the favorite?

    For reasons I myself cannot comprehend, I have ended up in a position where my manager treats me considerably better than many of my coworkers, and I’m wondering if this is a “red flag” that I should have an exit strategy, in case I suddenly become NOT the favorite. I truly like and get along with all of my coworkers, so it’s starting to feel like I’m “playing both sides” and it feels icky.

    For background, I moved abroad a few years ago and I’m still struggling with the local language – my boss speaks to me in English, but speaks with everyone else in the local language so I don’t fully understand their interactions that I overhear – I just have to go on what they tell me and what I can deduce from observations. I started about 6 months ago and he started his current management position only 4 months before me – before this, he was in a pretty standard job for the industry, without any management duties. But he has some niche skills and has a fantastic track record, so he was courted by our company into becoming the head for two departments, one of which was completely new and focused on his niche, so he’s had a lot of stress wearing those two hats. Then a few months later a C-Suite exec left suddenly, and because her job was closely related to his niche, he’s essentially been given her job as well, so even more stress. I work in the new-to-the-company department, which is his baby. But my two other coworkers in that department who joined before me and who have been very productive and motivated still clash with him for some reason. One coworker in particular has it the worst: she has reported being yelled at on multiple occasions and petty grudge holding from him, while the other seems to get along with him superficially, but does kind of just avoid him and does his own thing. I personally witnessed one yelling incident early on with someone else from another department. And while of course even one incident of yelling is unacceptable, thankfully nothing even close to that has happened since then (at least that I can tell). Still, his closest coworkers in his other department say even though he’s stopped yelling, he’s often terse and dismissive with them. However with me, he has been pretty close to a great boss! He’s been a little unavailable at times, but always tries to make time for me. He’s been understanding of some problems I’ve had with childcare and been patient and understanding with my ADD and it’s neurospicy quirks, and he’s made a point of developing some of my professional interests, even if they clash with his own priorities. I don’t know why I get the kinder, gentler boss! I am pretty go-with-the-flow, friendly and warm (compared to the slightly more brusque locals), so maybe he just appreciates someone who doesn’t argue with him as much and is a good representative of the department. I’m also a little afraid there’s a Westerner-on-a-pedestal thing going on, but that seems to be more with other people in the company and less with him. I’m prone to imposter syndrome too, so my barometer could be way off here and maybe I’m simply a good, thoughtful worker and he just appreciates that. But either way, I’m worried his previous behavior with others is more than just first-year jitters in a new, high-stress job and that once my “novelty” wears off, I’ll get burned too. Is it a terrible idea to just…. ask him what gives with everyone else? He is pretty buttoned up compared to everyone else (gossiping is a national sport here), but people tend to be quite blunt here, so if the situation allows, it might not even be that audacious of a question to ask.

    1. asloan*

      Yeah I dealt with this. I truly feel that my old boss picked one scapegoat employee in every cohort. It was awful to watch and did change my perspective on that boss / workplace over time. I did start looking for a new role and ultimately left even though I was (so far) the “favorite.”

    2. anonforthis*

      I’ve been in this situation as well, though without the language barrier aspect – great boss to me, so bad to others that they were ultimately ousted. I think it’s smart not to lean on that favouritism and to be sure you’re also making a strong impression on other folks – otherwise, if he ever does get the boot, the people who are left might not know your value and assume you were just succeeding as his favourite. Build your own reputation away from him as much as you can, otherwise too much of it will be tied to his behaviour. I think that language barrier aspect might actually be a bit of a risk there – if you’re effectively isolated from a lot of conversations, you’re probably going to have a harder time doing that.

      It does mean, to a point, taking advantage of some of the stuff he’s offering you – like professional development opportunities. If there’s any way you can share those with your colleagues as well, that might help keep him from isolating you too much. “X would be great for this, can I bring her in?” “I bet Y would get a lot out of this workshop, actually – maybe he could go and take notes for us!”

      I wouldn’t really bother addressing his behaviour with others, though, beyond going out of your way to speak well of your colleagues to him (compliment their work, point out their contributions and reasons you enjoy working with them, etc.) Asking him directly could be risky and it sounds like you don’t have quite enough detail to present a clear picture of what you’re seeing (not to mention it’s above your pay grade). If a lot of this is also stuff you’ve heard from others, it could end up with them getting thrown under the bus as well – if he doesn’t know he’s got a bad reputation and he finds out from you, that could be pretty awkward.

      1. Ruffles*

        Great advice above.

        I was a favourite for a while, and I simply thought my boss was an ok boss. Over time it dawned on me that other people were being treated badly. I started directing a few appropriate, public compliments to the person who was being treated the worst, and my boss started to view me less favourably. I am now one of the people being treated badly, and I watch the new “favourites” being treated very well.

        So, yes:
        – build your work relationships outside of the relationship with your boss.
        – be careful – your boss is unreasonable even if you haven’t experienced that yet.
        – do capitalise on the current benefits you’re receiving, and don’t feel guilty. As long as you treat everyone else ethically (without making yourself a target for your boss!!), you can take advantage of professional support while it’s there.
        – have a longer term, background Plan B in case you’ll come to need it, for a future that does not involve having this boss.

      2. merp*

        Thanks for this – yeah I’ve already been “hype woman” for my other coworkers, with variable success. And for the one coworker who has it the worst, even though he’s getting better with her, she’s already at “BEC” status with him and I don’t think there’s much to be done to fix things, so I’ve offered her contacts in my network and a glowing recommendation should she decide to look for another job.

        I think your recommendation to build up my own reputation beyond his is excellent – I’m getting the impression he’s trying to mold me into a protege of sorts, which would be fine if he was the only one in my reporting line. But on reflection, I’ve definitely neglected the other part of my reporting line – in all fairness, there’s almost no job to be done there – it’s just an administrative connection really. But I could definitely get in more casual face-time with them – it’s just been hard to find reasons to wander over to their department, in addition to the language barriers.

      3. Joron Twiner*

        I’ve been in a very similar situation, including the language difference aspect. I speak the local language too, but the department head was much kinder to me in English than to others in the local language. He had a different vibe in general when he spoke in English vs. local language.

        My speculation is that English is the international language of business, I’m from a wealthy and powerful country that demands international respect and has a lot of soft power to seem “cool” as well. So I got all the respect and kindness, while his subordinates got the boot. I can’t say for sure that’s why of course…

        I agree with everything written here. Improve your language skills and build relationships with your other coworkers as best you can to secure your own position long term. Try to share the goodness with everyone else on the team, but don’t try to engage with it directly–especially if you can’t understand what they’re saying, wading into it will only make it worse.

    3. My Brain is Exploding*

      Are you a woman and the others are not? Or a man and the others are not? Or do you think your nationality v that of your coworkers may be in play here?

      1. My Brain is Exploding*

        whoops I see that I missed part of y our post as I am reading on a new-to-me tiny device, Sigh.

    4. Analytical Tree Hugger*

      Some great advice I’ve seen about one person treating one person well and others terribly (in a dating context, but seems generally applicable): “You’re not special, you’re next.”

      So, yes, job searching is a good idea. While you’re here, *if* you want to play the political game, you could try to influence your boss to treat everyone well, but that risks accelerating your deterioration into being “out”.

      1. Stay out of it*

        I think this is really a bit more complicated because of Westerner/Foreigner/Gender thing (I assume you are a woman because of the childcare issues mentioned).
        That does not mean it would save OP, or that it is the only reason she succeeded, but it might be a shield or cushion in some aspect.
        OP, I’d try to speak well of your coworkers where possible, build my own network and stay out of the rest unless you have a really good understanding on the dynamics at play, whether the conflicts in your office are cultural, personal or simple office politics.
        And just because local people are blunt, it doesn’t mean you as an outsider would get an honest answer.

        1. merp*

          Great point about blunt vs honest. I think it’s a matter of curiosity/wanting everyone to get along, but also a bit of residual dysfunction from last job with a bad boss and wanting desperately to fix it.

    5. Elsewise*

      I can’t speak to the international business side, which is definitely relevant, but as far as being the favorite in general, I have some experience.

      First, don’t borrow trouble. It’s entirely possible your boss needs a scapegoat and a favorite and if someone new and shiny comes along you’ll become the new scapegoat, but it’s also possible your boss genuinely likes you! If they’ve decided you’re good, act like that’s true and they’re more likely to keep to the assumption.

      Second, don’t try to play both sides if you’re not good at office politics. Just play your own side. When your coworkers vent to you about your boss, sympathize but don’t buy in. Instead of “yeah, he’s horrible” or “I think he’s great!” just say “wow, that sounds really hard. Are you doing okay?” If they ask you how he treats you or why you’re the favorite, be honest. I’ve found that “I don’t know, he seems to like me. I try to do X and Y. I’m sorry that he’s been so tough on you, though” tends to break through a lot of the ice that can form between coworkers when there’s favoritism. Make it clear that you don’t condone unacceptable behaviors like yelling, but don’t try to pretend that you’re having a different experience than you are.

      And finally, if you can, use your position to support your coworkers. I was in a position where I was the clear favorite and my closest work friend was the least favorite. Whenever we talked about a project together, I made sure to bring it up to the rest of the team as “Jane and I” having had an idea. I would make a point of mentioning to my boss if she helped me with something. My boss saw me as a good coworker who works well with others, my coworker saw me as trying to help her, and it also put my boss in the position of having to recognize some of their least favorite employee’s successes, because it was coming from their superstar.

      It’s an uncomfortable position to be in, but remember that it’s good for your career, and you can use it to support your colleagues!

      1. merp*

        Those are solid tips about how to support coworkers without signing on to their viewpoint entirely. It’s a hard needle to thread! It’s even more hard because I tend to be an empathetic person and I truly do see both sides’ points, but because of the power difference I can’t help but empathize more with my coworkers because they have a lot more to lose.

    6. Analise*

      So I had a situation that was somewhat similar on the surface. I had a coworker who said or boss was curt and sometimes frustrated with her. I had never seen that behavior from him. My coworker had a performance issue and when she talked about it with me, she always had reasons why she couldn’t incorporate my possible solutions. Then I was in a meeting with both of them, watched her bring up an issue she was having and dismiss every possible solution she was offered. I saw our boss get frustrated with her. With the language barrier going on, maybe others are having issues and really not handling them well. Not that yelling over a work issue is ever OK! But maybe it really is not that you’re the favorite but that you’re doing your work well and not making excuses / dismissing all suggestions for improvement / etc.
      I don’t know how you can figure that out for sure though with the language barrier.

  28. The Bobs*

    Advice on how to deal with a seriously grating coworker?

    My coworker acts like she’s a manager (but is not) and does various other things to make herself the center of attention like talk over people in meetings, repeat what others said, if someone gets a cool project then she complains until she gets one too, etc.

    She apparently does work very hard, she’s also super annoying and lashes out at people. How do y’all handle these people???

    1. Make it bold and make it red*

      Sometimes it helps to reframe it – is what your coworker doing affecting your tasks, workflow, relationships, etc, or is she just annoying? Do you have any managerial responsibilities over her or her work products? If those answers are no… this is not your circus, these are not your monkeys. Just be glad you aren’t her and carry on with your work.

      If her behavior is impacting your ability to do your job (other than straining your eyes from rolling them so hard), then you can try intervening – when she talks over people, tactfully call it out and support the person being interrupted, etc. That might help you feel better if you’re trying to do something about it!

    2. Toxic Workplace Survivor*

      Love the username! On the meetings one, I find having one or more people on your side in a meeting can make a massive difference with any kind of pushback, including having a colleague like the one you describe.

      If you and a work buddy can agree that this person talks over someone in meetings or repeats others’ points, you can kind of tag team it with a “Thanks, X, but I was hoping Y could finish their response” or “Right, X, I think Z mentioned that earlier, it is a good idea.” This sounds more Machiavellian than it actually is, it can feel pretty organic in the moment. It’s just helpful to feel like you aren’t alone in being irked and when the pushback comes from more than one person, it often lands much better and encourages others to do the saem.

  29. MsM*

    I already shared on the job search thread, but happy update on the friend who got put on a suspicious PIP: after just a few carefully targeted applications and a successful round of interviews, they’ve found a new role that fits their skillset perfectly, at double their prior salary. The exec we suspect was behind the decision to push them out asked if they could stay more than two weeks, which gave us both a good laugh.

  30. Diatryma*

    Forgive me if this has been followed up on; I haven’t been able to read the open threads in a few weeks.

    Did the person who was going to stand out by sending a paper resume ever post an update?

    1. asloan*

      I want to hear from the person who had to walk out of a tariff job after being treated badly. Hope they’re doing okay and having good luck finding something new.

  31. It's Marie - Not Maria*

    Is anyone else tired of the pundits and dimfluencers yelling about “AI is rejecting your resume?” I know myself and my Recruiter review EVERY resume we receive, and most of my HR network does the same. And then the scammers, promising to make your resume “AI Compliant” and “it will beat the AI.”

    I’m just done with hearing and seeing this!

    1. Joan*

      Where I work, the recruiter (or maybe the computer system they use) reviews resumes and holds some of them back from the hiring manager unless the hiring manager makes a fuss. And yes, sometimes the held-back resumes are a potential good fit. I don’t know if the recruiters are using AI to make these de facto rejections or not.

    2. A Simple Narwhal*

      I think it’s just a really hard market, and a lot of people are getting discouraged at being automatically/immediately rejected or just plain ghosted from jobs that they’re qualified for, whether that’s by a computer program or a person.

      Regardless, there’s always been snake-oil salesmen claiming to have a cure all for whatever ails you, and it sucks that they take advantage of desperate people. It used to be gimmicks like printing your resume on a cake, now it’s AI nonsense. I don’t disagree that it’s annoying though! However I don’t imagine every company everywhere has a qualified human closely reviewing every cover letter and resume, there is some kernel of truth to having to beat the machine sometimes.

    3. Analytical Tree Hugger*

      Yes and it’s just replacing “ATS” for “AI”, since the BS claims are just swapping out the sizzling term of the time.

    4. spcepickle*

      Agreed – Our application system askes a few questions when you apply. They are things like – How many years of experience do have doing X – none, 1-2, 2-5, 5-10, 10+. My jobs all require people to work nights. So we ask – Are you willing and available to work nights – yes or no.
      We then filter applications based on your answers and the hiring manager only sees applicants who meet the base qualifications based on how the applicant themselves answer the questions.
      The only way to “trick the system” is to say you have the qualifications we clearly spell out in the job posting. After that it is me reading your cover letter and judging people who did not bother to change the info from a template the downloaded. (The number of people who have a cover letter that lists sample dot com as their personal website is very high).

    5. An Australian in London*

      I was on the hiring committee for a new Chair for a Board I’m on. We posted the Job on LinkedIn (but with Easy Apply disabled). We received 46 applications, and all of us read every one.

      A friend was hiring for a mid-level Software Engineer. They posted it on LinkedIn, also with Easy Apply disabled. Within 15 minutes of posting it there were over 80 applications. After two hours it was over 300 applications. After 24 hours it was well over 1000 applications. Their assessment was that 95% of applications were not by humans, and over 95% of those were not in the slightest qualified. For example “must be physically located in the UK and have right to work in the UK. There is no visa sponsorship for this position.” was met with hundreds of applications from overseas applicants with no right to work in the UK.

      The problem seems to be platforms such as LinkedIn, Seek, Indeed, etc. They make money from spamming the hirer and refusing to apply filters. I can well imagine anyone drowning under 1000s of low-quality applications is unable and unwilling to read each one.

    6. PX*

      Eh, theres a lawsuit against Workday currently which had enough merit to proceed to trial claiming that it uses either AI or its own algorithms to reject candidates without any human input or review.

      I’ve seen some companies add disclaimers to their application pages stating that CVs are initially reviewed by AI. So while you and your industry might still be reviewing things manually, this definitely isn’t the case everywhere.

  32. CraftyLibrarian*

    Asking for my new high school graduate 18 year old: they’re in community college, and want to get a part-time job. The problem is that they have an as-yet-undiagnosed joint pain/fatigue crap going on which means they can’t reliably guarantee they can be on their feet standing for an hours-long shift, which knocks out most entry-level retail type jobs, which is the only thing I know of to suggest. Libraries would be perfect, but none of the ones near us are hiring (I am a public librarian, so I have an in). They’re working some with the community college career center, but are pretty frustrated. Does anyone have any suggestions on keywords or job boards or something to look for??

    1. asloan*

      I did online tutoring and that was remote. You review papers, help with citation, offer mini coaching sessions. It’s minimum wage but very flexible. I did it through Princeton Review but I believe there are others. You have to pass a test.

      1. Hatchet*

        Tutor dot com is the one I’m familiar with (but I think that’s the one that’s offered through the Princeton Review). Looks like they have a quick link with information about applying to be a tutor!

    2. Kimmy Schmidt*

      Hotel front desk, receptionist, call center, data entry, apartment doorman, tutoring?
      There are a number of customer service positions that can be done remotely – Amazon, CVS, Apple, and Home Depot all show up in my area. Keywords include chat support, client services, customer service representative, member service, customer care, and support specialist.
      Aldi also allows their employees to sit, if there’s one near you.

    3. DataGirl*

      My kiddo who has an invisible handicap found working at a hotel front desk went well for her. It may vary by the hotel but a good one will have chairs for the desk staff to sit, at least when there aren’t customers.

    4. Em from CT*

      I worked in state parks for many years, and while this isn’t prime hiring season for the summer jobs (that’s usually a little earlier in the spring) I still see a lot of postings for seasonal positions still, at least where I am in New England. A lot of those seasonal jobs might be more active (lawn mowing, lifeguarding) but many of the are sedentary (the folks who staff the entrance booths at parks sit for long periods, and there are often some additional support positions for admin/clerical help supporting the various programs.

    5. Alex*

      Any kind of business with a front-desk type situation, like a gym, spa, hotel, or even reception at medical offices, physical therapist offices, that kind of thing. I know high schoolers who have done those kinds of jobs.

      Or maybe a call center? They are known for being horrible jobs but at least it is seated.
      Could there possibly be jobs at the college they could do? I worked at my college when in college. Many of them are just “sit around and wait for someone to need you” type things.

    6. cmdrspa*

      I worked at a movie theater as a teen, and I had a few colleagues with difficulty walking/standing who would handle the more stationary roles, like box office or taking tickets at the door. They just gave them chairs – tall ones so they’d still be around eye level with guests.

      1. Alex*

        Yes, my local movie theater employs someone who uses a service dog and a chair to take tickets. Perfect job for them, and I get to see a doggie! (Of course I can’t pet it but…)

    7. Make it bold and make it red*

      Someone mentioned tutoring which could be a great option!

      Are there student employment opportunities at the community college itself? There should be jobs in most, if not all, the different admin departments.

      1. CraftyLibrarian*

        I totally thought there would be, but they’re not seeming to find anything, which I find baffling. I’m trying to coach a little without being too hands-on, ya know? :)

    8. Snacks*

      Adding a few ideas:
      *Cashiers at Aldi often sit on stools.
      *Some factory work (such as electronics assembly) is seated, although I think it’s more often a full-time job.
      *I’d also check local temp agencies.

    9. summersun*

      My first office job (I was ~19 and had only worked in retail before that) was very part-time receptionist in an educational setting. I mainly sat playing solitaire on the computer (it was the 90s) but also answered the phone, directed people coming in to take classes, and did some other simple office tasks.

      I’ve also worked in a call center, which was miserable, but it was sitting down and I don’t think it required much previous experience because they did train us quite thoroughly.

    10. Goldfeesh*

      When it comes to grocery/retail I believe Aldi is the only one that lets their cashiers sit at the register. However, I don’t know how much stocking a cashier is expected to do at Aldi.

    11. AcadLibrarian*

      Does the community college library hire students? I’m in tech services and we hire students to do things like copy cataloging and that’s a desk job.

    12. Charlotte Lucas*

      Are there any larger healthcare facilities near you? Appointment schedulers (who also handle check-ins) are always seated in my experience.

      Front desk/reception work overall is usually seated in general.

      I worked one summer in a bindery, and we sat most of the day. (We were putting together packets.) So I second that some manufacturing work is seated.

      What is he interested in? That could help guide you.

    13. I see you Doris Burke*

      Can they drive/do they have a car? They could always do a Doordash/Uber etc sort of job

    14. Cicada*

      Fellow person with undiagnosed fatigue/joint pain! Sorry they have to deal with this as well. Both my community college and the four-year university I attended were hiring for student jobs. I was able to get a job in my university’s student life department and work part-time as a customer service rep. They were very accommodating to my class schedules and usually at the beginning of the semester, they’d ask for my course schedule and we’d create a fixed schedule based around my availability. The college will likely have front desk positions for student advising centers, tutoring centers, etc.

      This might not be helpful if the college’s career center has already pointed them to the job postings or if there just aren’t many available. I definitely recommend office/admin jobs, I’ve bounced around several since graduating high school. I will come back if I think of anything more!!

      1. Cicada*

        Oops, just saw your earlier reply in the thread that they haven’t found anything at the college. Sorry about that!

        1. CraftyLibrarian*

          No worries! I still appreciate all the thoughts/experiences! I’m just soooo baffled that there aren’t any on campus jobs available.

    15. Analise*

      Has your 18-year-old checked at the tutoring centers on campus? Our community college has both a tutoring center and a math tutoring center. They like to hire early in the student’s degree so they have a quarter to train them and then they’ll still have more quarters to work there before they graduate.

      Also, all the colleges near us hire students through Handshake, so your student can check online there for jobs.

      If you’re campus has TRIO, they may hire tutors. Our community college TRIO doesn’t, but other colleges told us to check with them for jobs. They may not be paying jobs on Handshake.

      There are also bulletin boards around campus with job postings, especially security (which can include dispatch) and they pay well.

      (I would stop in at the tutoring centers and ask, not just check Handshake for those. Plus, that may help your student be more comfortable there if they need tutoring in the future. My daughter just does her homework at the tutoring center, whether she thinks she’ll need help or not, so help is right there if she needs it.)

      Just some ideas in case your student hasn’t looked in these places on campus yet.

  33. CompetitiveSalary*

    The terms “competitive salary” and “voted best workplaces” on job descriptions irked me because the words are empty to me after talking to people around the town.

    On “competitive salary”: The well-paid employers do not say they offer “competitive salary”. People know those companies pay well. Those who use this term may back up their claim by citing a benchmark.

    On “voted best workplaces”: The organizations to survey the workplaces may be a pay-to-play one. The good workplaces do not pay those organizations so that they could put a badge on their career site.

    Any other gimmicks from recruitment?

    1. Anonymask*

      Yeah, “voted best place to work [CITY]” is often a bought award. Where I work, they pay at least $15k per year to apply to be considered (and then I think more to grease some wheels, but I’m only solid on that first payment so take that into consideration).

      Which is frustrating because many people who actually work here would say it’s not great. Benefits are mid. Company culture is “like a family” and has been described as “a cult” by outsiders (I agree, I’ve been trying to apply and leave). Salaries are not competitive (I had to fight to get a salary in line with industry and area amounts, and even then I still fell short of it; I had to do a second round of fighting to get to the bottom 10% of industry/area amounts, so we’re woefully underpaid except for the C-suite) or transparent.

      Other gimmicks I’ve seen in ads that make me go “ehhhh”:
      – When they say something along the lines of paying wages based on the employee’s worth to the company instead of listing a range
      – “unlimited PTO”
      – “we’re a hybrid workforce” (because there is 25-50% travel, not because you can work from home)
      – when listing benefits, they emphasize fun perks instead of what they actually offer (ex: “we have catered lunches every week!” which okay fine I guess, but do you have dental?)

      1. CompetitiveSalary*

        $15k just to be considered is “pay-t0-play” for sure. What are the organizations who take the money to research on “The Best Workplaces”?

        AAM has written about many gimmicks from job seekers. I’d be interested to hear gimmicks from companies.

    2. Charlotte Lucas*

      I worked somewhere that “won” a “Most Ethical Companies” award. Since a very well-known show company I refuse to buy from was on the list, big red flag!

      The company was in a regulated industry, so they had to be ethical in certain areas, or they would be in legal trouble. However, at the time, I could give you a long list of its unethical behavior.

      The list has since gotten longer.

    3. Long time reader*

      Ha!!! I remember having a good laugh when a former employer ended up on a “best places to work list” not long after they laid off a bunch of people, did massive salary cuts for those remaining (over 25%), and then fixed
      forced everyone back into the office just a couple of months into the pandemic. Apparently the bar for “best employer” is really low!!

      1. CompetitiveSalary*

        The bar for money is high. Many, if not all, of those “best of” lists are pay-to-play.

  34. Higher-ed Jessica*

    This is both a work and non-work question, but I’ve found the AAM fanbase pretty useful at analyzing the nuances of communication and the different ways people from different backgrounds perceive them. Do you see the response “K” as different from “OK”? I’m thinking in a text-messaging context, which is the only place I’ve seen it. I know it’s short for “OK,” but is “K” conveying a different vibe?

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        Generally, to me, too. Except when I know my director is in a meeting and only has her phone to communicate with. Because I need an answer, and she’s letting me move forward.

        I do comms work that sometimes need an Immediate Answer, so YMMV. And she only does it in very specific circumstances.

    3. 1,000 Snails in a Lady Skin*

      K is definitely more casual than OK.
      OK is more casual than “OK, thanks” or “OK, sounds good” or “OK, got it”
      In the middle is “k, sounds good” or “k thanks”

      Basically – K is the shortest, laziest version.
      Depending on the audience and the work culture, it might be fine? I have a very close relationship with one of my peers at work where K is fine, but I would never say K to my boss or grandboss or in a group slack with other people I work less closely with.

    4. Kimmy Schmidt*

      Maybe because it’s sort of been meme-ified, but “K” absolutely conveys a different response to me. It feels rude, like I’m only worth one letter of your time? Totally illogical when OK is only one letter more, but what can I say. I personally also try to limit OK by changing around my response – got it, thanks, sounds good, will do, agreed, all right.

    5. Cosmic Crisp*

      In my social world, “K” is definitely a short and irritated or even sarcastic response, like rolling your eyes and disengaging from a conversation. I wouldn’t necessarily apply that norm to work, though- people have such different communication norms that I’ve learned never to take my instinctive reading of tone from text messaging at work.

    6. I'm A Little Teapot*

      I only use “k” in response to a specific category of email. The managing partner sends out random emails (not relevant info) and does expect a response. Even though he doesn’t necessary state that he expects a response. He will send emails with just “k” to indicate he read something, so I do it to him. Otherwise, I don’t use it at work and rarely outside work.

    7. So Tired Of God's Specialest Princesses*

      Here’s my general reading:

      Okay: correct, normal, acceptance/agreement.
      Ok/OK: incorrect, probably normal, could be slightly more curt, probably acceptance/agreement but eyeball the context
      K: passive aggressive or disinterested.

    8. Friday Person*

      IMO this is extremely dependent on the individual. I know plenty of folks who use/interpret “K” tersely, myself included, but I also know people who clearly do not use it that way, so I tend to mentally file that info away along with other communication quirks (say, does/does not use lack of exclamation points as a sign of irritation)

    9. Pay no attention...*

      K is about the level of “read” IMO. They are simply acknowledging that they received the text/email — they neither agree nor disagree.

      Okay or OK is more like an answer to a question or affirmation of a plan. “We are going to meet for dinner at 7:30.” “What do you think of having dinner at 7:30?” — “ok/okay”

        1. Mad Harry Crewe*

          I write kk to my friends, and very occasionally at work, and I mean a chipper little noise of agreement.

    11. Double A*

      K = I am annoyed with you
      Ok = I am possibly annoyed with you
      K! Ok! or Okay! = I actually mean this is okay

    12. Goldfeesh*

      I don’t know why, but K makes me grit my teeth.

      Another word that irks me is Kindly. Like, “Could you kindly x, y, z?” For some reason I just wan to say, “No, no, I can’t.”

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        That to me is like a “friendly reminder.” It feels as friendly as calling someone you don’t know “Pal.”

      2. Mad Harry Crewe*

        I work with a lot of folks in India in my current role, and they use it a lot. As far as I can tell, it’s a request softener, like please. “Kindly submit a request and we will take care of it” instead of American English “Please submit a request…” (or just “Submit a request” – which is concise, but I know we can come across as very abrupt to folks elsewhere, thanks to the AAM commentariat).

    13. Bast*

      This reminds me of the “is thumbs up passive aggressive” discussion, and I have to say it depends. I tend to read a tone into “K” I’ll admit, but there are some people who always say “K.” If that’s how they always respond to everything that would require an OK type of response, then I try not to read into it. If I feel like it’s outside of the norm for them and they are a person who is given to being passive aggressive… I might read a little more into it.

    14. Chauncy Gardener*

      I feel like “K” is fairly terse and not the best in a professional exchange.
      I prefer “OK, will do” “Will do” “OK, thanks!”

    15. WantonSeedStitch*

      To me, “K” as a response can be one of two things: 1) someone hit send before they realized they didn’t actually hit the O properly, or 2) they are making a point that they are being as terse as it is humanly possible to be while still responding, and that there is a LOT of stuff they AREN’T saying but they ARE thinking. And they want you to know that.

    16. Kay*

      Unfortunately context is key here too. I will sometimes use K if the situation requires it (my phone is misbehaving, I’m short on time, I don’t have my glasses, my phone is misbehaving, I’m walking, I’m at a stoplight, I’m in a meeting, I’m on the phone, Siri is being an expletive), or I can also use it when I’m thoroughly irritated, don’t like the person, think the directive is ridiculous, pissed off and barely holding it on, etc (I will typically use plausable deniablility unless its severe enough to burn capital on though). So, context, sorry but you gotta know your audience and be able to read the room.

      If I have the time necessary for the longer response and don’t take any issue with the discussion at hand I would never use K.

    17. Dumpster Fire*

      Not answering the question, but “K” always used to (18-20 years ago) annoy me, back in the days when you’d get charged a quarter per text, sent or received. “Oh come on, this is costing me money! You can send more than one letter!”

    18. Higher-ed Jessica*

      Thanks to everyone who replied to this! I have one person in my life who sometimes uses it, and it has always given me a negative feeling. I feel like there was enough of a consensus here for me to conclude I’m not crazy.

      But I also really appreciate the people who pointed out that there might be circumstantial reasons to send a terse text, and that people use abbreviations in different ways and everyone isn’t necessarily always communicating the same thing by it.

      1. karstmama*

        my husband and i use just ‘k’ relatively frequently and i don’t read it as terse, but just as an acknowledgement of what was just said. i don’t think i’d use it at work and it might read more annoyed in that context. always the context, huh? :)

  35. Anon for this*

    I have been in my current role for 2 years but am looking for a new job. There are many reasons but chief among them is that I was diagnosed with a fairly serious heart condition about 6 months ago. My condition is stable and my life isn’t hugely impacted by symptoms, yet. But, my current job is very chaotic and I have a very exposed, fairly stressful role that I highly dislike. So, I’ve made the decision to move on to something more stable and less stressful as soon as I can find it.

    My main question is, how do I frame my reason for wanting to leave my current job? For every job I apply to, I identify some reason that I’m particularly interested in that role or place to tell interviewers (for example, I am interested in returning to X field, I love doing X strategic work). When I got this job, I had been in my prior role for like 8 years so no need one questioned when I said that I was ready for a new challenge. I’m worried that I won’t have a good answer if interviewers continue to push at my reasoning for leaving. Any advice?

    1. Goddess47*

      Lean into the stress aspect of your current position? “I do like my current job but the stress is more than I want to handle. So I’m looking for options.” And more than you *want* to handle and not more than you *can* handle makes it sound like a choice you are making.

      Or, that the current job isn’t a bad ‘fit’ for you but you’re looking for something better. Again, you’re making a deliberate choice…

      Good luck!

    2. cmdrspacebabe*

      By ‘exposed’, do you mean like, ‘visible to the public’? That could be a reason in itself. “More stable and less stressful” is pretty valid already, though. “I’ve learned a lot in my current role, but it can be pretty chaotic for X reasons, and I’m finding I miss the stability I had in previous roles. That’s part of why I’m interested in [new kind of work] – it has a lot of the elements I excel at, with a structure that suits my style a little better.”

    3. MigraineMonth*

      “I’m looking for something less chaotic and stressful than my current role.”

    4. Say hello to my little kitty*

      Focus on the new, what you are looking for in the new job. Don’t mention health things.

      I’ve never had an interviewer push me on my reason for leaving. I don’t think I’d want to work there if they did.

      1. Kay*

        I think this is a bit unfair. If you give a reason for leaving that might present itself in the current position I’m absolutely going to push to make sure the job is a good fit. Maybe we are! More often than not when I’ve pushed it turns out that the same reason the person is leaving their job, well, they are going to find that issue with this new job too. While I’ve sometimes suspected the true reason is “my boss sucks” I can only go on what you give me, so if another candidate doesn’t give me pause, I’ll go with them. This is why I always recommend providing an answer that is true to your reasoning and won’t discount your candidacy in the new position.

        In this case – the OP needs to suss out the stress level and exposure to make sure their needs match what the job is going to be. So whether that is, I am looking for a role that doesn’t directly deal with angry customers/is no more than 40 hours per week/doesn’t have short tight deadlines/whatever stressor it is, well, finding that out up front is part of what making sure the job works for you entails. No one wants to have to job hunt because expectations didn’t align.

  36. Emmie*

    I have my first skip level meeting with my grand boss. He is very hierarchical, very British, and hates personal talk. He is smart, but new to the industry. He lacks foundational knowledge on the business. I would like to have a good working relationship with him. What advice do you have for me? What topics should I cover?

    1. Goddess47*

      Ask him what parts of *his* job he likes. What does he look forward to at work? If you have even a faint interest, ask him what kinds of skills you would have to develop to have his job some day? Or what do you need to learn to step up into your boss’ position?

      Especially if he’s focused on hierarchy, use that to suss out what he’s looking for in employees to move up to the next rank.

      Be prepared with an answer to ‘what can I do for you?’ if he asks it. It can be general or something big, but having an answer means you know where you want to go. If it’s big, you can phrase it like a ‘wish list’ item… a conference, expensive training, etc… but it should be something that helps you advance.

      And relax. If he hates small talk, it may be because he doesn’t think he’s good at it. Be ready with your own softball question… is there something personal in his office that you can admire or ask questions about…

      Good luck!

      1. Desk Outer Space*

        If I’m interpreting ‘very British’ correctly, then I’d change the tone of some of these questions.
        It’s not always considered attractive in the UK to talk directly about your ambition for yourself. So, stay away from “what skills do I need to develop to have your job (or boss’s job) on day?”, and instead you could ask Chauncey Gardner’s question below about what decisions the boss thinks made the most difference to his professional growth. That’s keeping it more impersonal, and not referencing your own career ambition.
        Frame your aims as more “how can I grow and contribute to the company/sector” rather than “how can I advance in my career”.

        Also, if he’s a certain kind of ‘very British’, he will not like personal talk. So he does not want to talk much about things he likes or looks forward to. Or about something aesthically nice in his office. He may feel perfectly fine making a one-sentence, polite answer to these questions, but then the topic is closed.

        I have had to teach myself that a certain type of person in the UK (not all, just a certain type) emphatically does not want to connect, and finds it uncomfortable when I try to connect even lightly. But if I stick to the facts related to our shared working goals, and am quietly friendly and polite, the encounter will go fine.

        1. Emmie*

          Thank you for this. His career has taken him between the IS and UK, but he is originally born in the UK and attended boarding school somewhere in the country. He said he hates small talk. It is a different dynamic than what I am know. I do not understand his humor either. But I’d like to be culturally sensitive also.

    2. Chauncy Gardener*

      Be prepared to succinctly discuss what your job is. Be prepared to discuss any challenges (in a very politic way) and recent highlights/successes. Ask him about his career path and what he thinks made the most difference in his professional growth.
      Good luck!

    3. The teapots are on fire*

      If he doesn’t like chitchat and is pretty hierarchical, and he’s not familiar with your job, maybe be prepared to talk about your day today, your typical goals, or where you fit into your department and ask him if any of these would be helpful for you to review with him.

  37. tr6-woundwort*

    Here’s a lighter question for my curiosity: For those who use Teams/Zoom in their offices, is it considered rude in your office culture to call someone without warning; i.e, without sending a message first asking if they’re available for a quick call?

    A stakeholder did this to me repeatedly a while back, and myself and most of my team found it rude. Then I found myself questioning why it felt rude? In my previous job I had a desk phone – I didn’t have that kind of reaction when my coworkers rang me. I suppose nowadays in the Teams space, since you have messaging easily available there’s not a lot of excuse to ask beforehand instead of likely startling someone in the middle of their workday? There’s a couple of exceptions that don’t feel as rude to me – for instance, if it’s a person you know well, or they’re calling you to pull you onto a high-priority meeting that is under way.

    I’m interested to see if others feel the same way or if they perceive this differently – I’m guessing industry/domain also plays a big role here (I’m on a very introverted data team vs. something like sales).

    1. CTT*

      BigLaw lawyer and not at all rude in my office culture. It’s understood that if it’s not a good time, I won’t answer and will follow up later if they leave a message.

    2. Beth**

      In my workplace, the norm is to message someone before you call them on Teams. The only exception would be someone outside the organisation where it’s harder to send an informal message.

    3. Another IT sales guy*

      It depends. If I have frequent contact with the person I will probably just call them directly. If I rarely call I will ping them in Teams Chat to see if they are free.

      I’m in server-grade system sales and our company is mixed. I’m 100% remote but we have some people that are 100% in-office.

    4. Pepperminty*

      Very rude and not the done thing where I am. It’s not like a phone because it actually comes up on your screen and disrupts your work.

    5. because of when i was born*

      No, I’m the same way. People aren’t video calling me on Teams, but we do HAVE Teams, which I vastly prefer as a first-line option.

      In general, I consider the most polite option to be the least intrusive option available–if I’m able to send a Teams message, even just to ask if this is a good time for a call, then I will. I’ll skip right to calling if it’s a true “everything is on fire” emergency, but that’s not often. When that does happen, I either know the other party will understand the level of urgency or start off with some version of “sorry to spring this on you”.

      I understand that my preferences are not everyone’s, and I’m out of step with most office cultures in my field (nonprofits). I’m not saying everyone who defaults to calling is rude. I know they’re not, but I need to manually override the part of my brain that jumps to “how dare they?” every time my phone rings unexpectedly.

    6. DataGirl*

      Very rude. But I find calling anyone for any reason other than an emergency rude; it’s inserting yourself into someone’s time and space without their permission.

      1. Rags*

        Can you expand on this? I’m struggling with the “without their permission” part of this statement because I think of answering the phone as the permission. Unless you’re in a role where every call must be answered immediately, you have the option to not answer.

        1. allathian*

          I can’t not answer (or reject) a ringing phone/Teams call and find it very disruptive. In my org people message first.

    7. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      I don’t know that we have a consistent norm, but I always message first before calling and definitely appreciate when people message me first. I don’t get calls very often and most of the folks who do call me know me well enough to know that I’d prefer the heads up first.

    8. ElectricGal*

      I’m in the engineering consulting space, and calling w/o notice depends a lot on the age of the person calling me, in general. Most people send a message first, but I wouldn’t be particularly bothered.

      There’s definitely no instant-answer expectation though – many people are doing deep-focus work. (Unless the person contacting you is on the client side or in the middle of a known crisis)

    9. Antigone*

      There is one person in my management chain who does this, and it’s startling to me, when it’s out of step with what anyone else in the org does – but yes, I’ve decided to see it basically like a phone call in earlier years, where you *might* get a pre-call “hey are you available?” check-in via email or instant message but often not.

      It’s mildly annoying but not anything I think I can or should address with a skip-level manager. But I wouldn’t do it to someone else unless it were extremely time-sensitive and I’d already tried a quick Teams check-in without success.

    10. Parcae*

      An IM first is definitely the norm on my team, but I’ve had colleagues from other teams call without warning before, so I don’t think it’s universal. I guess I’d say I find a message beforehand to be more thoughtful, but a regular old phone call is still unobjectionable professional behavior.

      An unannounced video call, meanwhile, I would find rude. Since most of us currently work remotely (full-time RTO starts next month; RIP), there’s not much of an expectation to be camera ready.

    11. bananners*

      I prefer a heads up but I will accept a call without notice. I don’t call without notice. I don’t think there is an established norm at my org, but we are a pretty large/diverse group.

    12. ruthling*

      it’s not common where I work, but a couple people have done this. I don’t consider it rude, exactly, but it can be awkward and if it’s not urgent, I’d rather they didn’t. At least the system tells you if someone is offline or in a meeting (but not if they’re in deep focus or eating while reading something) which is better than randomly calling my work cell phone, which people also do.

    13. Teapot Translator*

      Not considered rude in my office, but I do message sone colleagues to know if this a good time. Others, I just call. Others do the same to me (just call or ping me beforehand).

    14. Anon for This Story*

      One time I was in the shower during the workday and my Teams started ringing. I jumped out and answered it with video off. At least… it said my video was off. The person who I was talking to kept looking anywhere but the screen.

      This was five years ago and to this day I still wonder if my camera was on and they could see me full frontal.

    15. Elizabeth West*

      I’m still new enough that I’m not sure if it’s considered rude here, but I HATE when people do this.

      1) If I’m working from home, I don’t keep my headset on when I don’t have any meetings, so it takes a second to engage it.
      2) If I have a question and I email or Teams-chat it, I prefer a written answer that I can refer back to.
      3) If someone calls me out of the blue, my ND brain has to switch gears and it doesn’t like that.

      I will always answer it if it’s my manager or a PM but I would rather they just answered my chat post, argggh.

    16. Wordybird*

      I find it rude, yes, but there are definitely people at my company who loooooooooove discussing something on Teams. The sales team spend most of their days on calls with vendors and/or each other so they are always ready to “hop on a call” at the last-minute so they can spend 5 minutes telling me something that could be a 30-second email. I am a PM so I need to be aware of what’s happening but I don’t actually decide any parameters of the project so I find the discussion calls rude and a timesuck as well. Oooh, let me listen to 2-3 people discuss a key part of the project and then send all of us a follow-up email about what they discussed, anyways.

    17. Time-dependent*

      It depends. If it is a low stakes question that is quickly answered – no problem. If it takes more time, if I needed to mentally reframe – then yes, ask if it is okay (I do as well). Maybe I just need 15 more minutes to finish something and then I have all the time that is required!

    18. Bast*

      No, in any of my workplaces (law offices). I will say that my current office is so small that sometimes people just walk down the hall to “have a quick chat” (it’s never that quick). Sometimes they use our Teams equivalent and sometimes they just call. It depends.

    19. Random Academic Cog*

      I don’t think it’s rude – but I’m someone who will just go track someone down in person vs continuing a long email thread. If they aren’t available, they don’t have to answer.

    20. JustaTech*

      I personally think it’s rude to not at least give a quick heads up, but that’s because I know that I will need a moment (at least!) to get my headset on before I can answer, as will 90% of my coworkers, so to me it feels polite to ask if now is a good time.
      But I’m in a technical role in a biotech, so we also don’t spend much time on calls that aren’t scheduled meetings.

      1. Lee the SQL*

        I agree, i want an IM first because otherwise I likely won’t have my earbuds connected before your call stops ringing.

    21. tr6-woundwort*

      Thanks for the responses and datapoints, everyone! It’s really interesting to see how this varies across different workplaces.

    22. RagingADHD*

      I wouldn’t say it’s rude, but it isn’t done all that frequently in my company because we are primarily in person and people may not be at their desk, or they may have someone in their office for an unscheduled discussion. The “available” light doesn’t switch from green to yellow until you’re idle for 10 or 15 minutes. So it’s just not very practical.

      It does happen occasionally, but it doesn’t bother me. I either pick up or I don’t.

      We still have regular phones as well, so ping/chat or a phone call are the usual ways of doing a quick check in if you just want to ask something that doesn’t need a whole prescheduled meeting.

    23. Milo*

      If my status is green, I’d rather you just called than do the “is now a good time/yes/call” rigamarole. We’re mostly on site and it’s also totally normal to walk up to someone in person and just start talking, too. Or to call someone’s cell at any time if you can’t find them.

    24. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      I just called someone via Teams without pinging him first and realized belatedly that I should have sent the heads-up. That would have given him time to mentally shift gears from what he was thinking about to our call. Our brains have a very real lag in shifting topics.

      That’s something the new technology enables us to do, similar to texting a friend to find out if they have time to talk.

      I don’t think it was rude on my part. I do think it was less helpful than a preparatory ping would have been. They can choose whether they get screen alerts and whether they’re open to incoming calls so they can manage their availability.

  38. noncommitally anonymous*

    I think I mentioned I did a first-round interview for my former boss’ position a couple weeks ago. There was one sort of weird comment that my grand-boss made that is taking up far too much of my brain.

    I asked Alison’s best question (what differentiates good from great in this job?), and my grand-boss responded, “I would have to tell you that privately.” That almost sounds like he was being creepy, but, knowing him, that is 100% not the case. Still, it’s an odd comment.

    There have been other slightly strange things, like listing me with a modified version of my former boss’ title in a program, and, yesterday, in our biweekly operations meeting, the grand-boss urging me to contact and get to know a higher-up in the organization. (Turns out, I already knew and had worked with the higher-up in question.)

    Yes, I’m overthinking it!

    1. I see you Doris Burke*

      It sounds like maybe he didn’t really know how to answer the question, so he came out with something very awkward.

      1. TX Lizard*

        Or the real answer was that being great at this job means being able to manage a difficult emoyee who was also on the call

    2. Ms. Norbury*

      I agree it’s an odd comment, but maybe the context explains it? Was there anyone else taking part in the conversation, or were you in a non-private space?

      1. Teal Tshirt*

        Perhaps he meant “off the record”, as in he wouldn’t want the answer to be known at the office.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Yeah, my money is on it being something confidential that can’t be shared in front of others or he wants to be “off the record”. Maybe he was frustrated by the way your former boss did things and wants to discuss that without feeding the rumor mill. Maybe there’s a current peer of yours that will need to be managed out.

          Given the change in title and the recommendation to get to know a higher-up, maybe there’s an upcoming reorg or merger that will alter the role but that he can’t talk about yet. Or maybe the grand-boss is retiring. If grand-boss were to leave the organization, would the new position be reporting to that higher-up?

          1. Noncommittally anonymous*

            This is a distinct possibility. In the new role I would be the manager of two of my current peers. They could both use some more performance management, which I have not been doing, since it’s not my place. Former boss had higher priorities getting the group up and running. I had even alluded to this in a previous answer. Hmmm! Something to think about.

  39. UP*

    I’m in a role where I have to do a lot of managing up. I’m exhausted. I’m the learning and development person on the team and my senior leadership wants me to create a training about leadership expectations. However, they have NOT created: a department vision, their expectations, the goals of the org, etc. I asked for their guidance and SME, but they flip it back to me with “Just tell me what you need me to say.”

    However… I can’t. I am not senior leadership. I can’t just read their minds.

    What’s a professional way to push back on this?

    If I get no traction, how do I document this so I can address any potentially bad feedback I might get since I might have to just make my best guess? I can’t cancel the training.

    I planned this thing months in advance and still have not received their input. I have to keep managing up but I feel like I’m set up to fail.

    1. Teal Tshirt*

      Could you make a “form” that shows the elements? This would expose that you have done your part (decide structure, target group, channel, format etc.) and now need to fill in the content of the course: learning objective, questions for the post-learning quiz that show people learned whatever-it-is, main points to cover, company-specific examples (anecdotes) for each, etc.
      Pointing to the empty fields of your form and filling them in together (they talk, you type) during a meeting might work. Good luck, it must be frustrating!

      1. Not a Real Giraffe*

        I want to emphasize the last suggestion “(they talk, you type)” here! I’ve been in these positions before and have found it helpful to schedule a meeting with senior leadership (30 mins or less) where I ask them questions that I need answers to, let them blather on in no concrete fashion while I take excessive notes, and then turn what they’ve said into a written plan. Once I put that written plan in writing, it’s easier for them to mark it up with edits or clarification, but I think a lot of people just get stuck in putting ideas down onto paper and worrying about it being “perfect” right out of the gate.

    2. MigraineMonth*

      With the *major* caveat that I’ve never tried this and it could backfire: I’ve seen advice before that some people are much better at *correcting* than answering questions. So “when is the release date?” gets no response, but “we’re releasing the new product on July 1st” gets the immediate correction, “No, you can’t say that, we’re not releasing until August 2nd.”

      You could try creating a training based on your wild guesses, and make sure someone in leadership reviews and corrects it? I’m sorry, your job sounds exhausting.

  40. Enbious*

    My company has been paying for a Canva account which we use mainly for making internal newsletters. In light of funding issues (ugh) this is one of the things we’re planning to cut. Does anyone have any suggestions for alternative (and importantly, free) sites we can use for simple document design?

    2. bananners*

      But Canva pro is so cheap!! If my company told me they were done paying for it, I’d pay for it out of pocket. Although for internal newsletters, I’d just use the free version.

    3. Owl*

      Since you mention funding instead of budget, does that mean you’re a non-profit? Non-profits can get the pro Canva version for free.

    4. Working for the Weekend*

      If you already have an Adobe subscription for other parts of the Creative Suite, then Adobe Express would be a similar option. Fewer templates but if your uses are straightforward, it will likely work.

    6. skadhu*

      I believe the Affinity suite of products (Photo, Designer, Publisher) are free for nonprofits. See affinity dot serif dot com. They may be more complex than you need but I find them to be excellent programs

      I was a professional graphic designer and after retiring I started to use Affinity instead of Adobe products because the latter has such high-priced subscriptions—Affinity charges a very reasonable one-time payment for a universal licence that allows you to use the product on Mac/Windows computers and iOS. (You have to purchase the product again when they come out with a whole new version if you want it, but the price overall is very low). While they do not use a subscription model now, a caveat that they were purchased by Canva so that could change in the future.

  41. Ann Perkins*

    Does anyone have advice for going from being a peer to a manager? I’ve been promoted, and my current peers will report to me going forward. There is one in particular who I think is having a hard time with it but tends to sit quietly and stony-faced and it’s hard to read her. I have good relationships with the rest of them so hoping for a smooth transition there.

    1. Goddess47*

      I’m thinking Alison would say to tackle it gently but head on. Have a one-on-one with this person (and all the rest of your people!) and don’t accuse her of anything but ask how it’s going and see what happens.

      If there’s no overt dissent from her and she’s doing her work, all you can do is be patient. Focus on whether the work – is it done properly and on time?

      And treat everyone the same. You’re now the boss and not anyone’s friend. That will go a long ways in letting *you* succeed. Think of it as a new job with new people.

      Good luck!

  42. My job application, did it go through?*

    I applied for a job Wednesday with the applications due tonight at midnight.

    The online portal system (Dayforce) confirmed my submission and provided a confirmation number.

    However I never received a confirmation email afterwards. I emailed the general HR email address Wednesday evening and let them know of this…. attaching the confirmation as well as my cover letter and resume.

    I do have a VPN on my computer and wonder of that contributed?

    At this point is there anything else I can do?

    2. Cordelia*

      You got a confirmation number, why are you expecting a separate email? Your application was received and acknowledged. Now you wait…

    3. EJ*

      Did the posting say that HR would contact you personally to confirm receipt? Because in most cases I would not expect anything other than the auto-confirmation from the applications portal.

    4. Elizabeth West*

      You should be good, if you got a confirmation number. While many systems do send an auto-generated email, not all of them do. Sometimes all you get is a page that says “Thank you for applying” or it takes you back to the profile page where it shows your applications and says “Applied” or “Submitted.”

      I would only do send an email if it didn’t load or there were some other snafu. I don’t think you need to do any more.

    5. fhqwhgads*

      Unless the page that displayed the confirmation number indicated you should also receive an email, I don’t think there’s reason to expect an email afterward.

  43. Frustrated*

    Question: How can I stop feeling like I have to compete with my coworkers?

    Context: Our team was short-staffed for years. As a result, I’ve had the workload of at least 2-3 people (which I haven’t minded). I’ve also worked really hard in those years to pick up extra duties as needed, as well as small projects when I can. (Note: The projects are not assigned. Just things I do to help the department as a whole.)

    But now we have more people, some of whom actually do good work. And, honestly, it irritates me. Now there are other people picking up extra duties as needed. Other people who also do small projects (that sometimes overlap with ones I’ve done/am doing).

    It has left me feeling resentful and territorial, and like I now have to compete with these people. I know it is impacting the way I interact with the team (which is to say, I try not to and limit it to the absolute minimum). It’s also impacting my attitude towards work. I find myself irritated and complaining about work, and my coworkers, a lot.

    Any advice?

    1. Friday Person*

      Good for you on recognizing the dynamic! Can you figure out one area/type of project where you can take ownership and become the go-to expert, and then try to get more comfortable focusing on that and relinquishing the other stuff to your colleagues?

      1. Frustrated*

        So, historically, I have been (and still am) the go-to expert on several areas. Which I think is where I’m getting frustrated because other people are now encroaching on those areas. And I’m not sure how to communicate that, hey, this is *my* area of expertise in a way that fits with team norms.

        1. Goldfeesh*

          But isn’t it good to have more people with areas of expertise? What if you won the lottery tomorrow and quit on the spot- there are people who’d keep the place from collapsing without you.

    2. cmdrspacebabe*

      I’ve noticed this sometimes as well – I’ve had a big workload, and then when I did get stuff taken off my plate, didn’t really know how to deal with it, or kept thinking “What??? That should have been mine!!”

      I think part of it was a stress response – I was used to having to juggle so many things and being the only one who knows where they’re at, but I suddenly didn’t have all the details anymore and it felt pretty destabilizing sometimes. If that’s an element, isolating from the team can make it worse because you wind up getting more surprises and feeling like you’ve lost even more relevance. How’s your team’s overall communication and project tracking? Are you able to easily see what your coworkers are doing and where it’s at? Are files and priority areas clearly assigned, or have the new people been popping up ad-hoc and things are kind of jumbled up? Not having clarity on what’s still ‘yours’ could be pretty frustrating in this context.

      It also gets to be a bit of an identity thing – you are The One Who Gets Things Done, and when other people show up and also start doing things, it affects your perception of your own place in the organization. I think it’s pretty normal for that to feel kind of threatening or demotivating. Do you have particular specialties you can highlight as your subject matter expertise, and make yourself the go-to on those things? Maybe you can parley your identity into “The One Who Gets THIS Thing Done The Best”.

      1. Frustrated*

        I think you’ve summed up the issue I’m having nicely.

        I feel resentful that I have more help now. I didn’t ask for help. I don’t want help. And I was kind of spoiled by not really having to work with anyone directly for a few years, because it gave me more control/ownership in several areas. And I absolutely have the reaction of “that should have been mine,” along with negative, not-productive feelings that I logically recognize as wrong/unprofessional but have no outlet for.

        I can’t speak too much as to how communication is. We’re scattered throughout the building, so for most of us the only way of contact is email/phone. We also don’t track projects; they’re not an expected part of our work and just things we (individually) brainstorm and work on in downtime. We each know our assigned coverage areas, but some of the others do help each other when needed.

        As I mentioned to another user, I have for a long time been the go-to person for many areas, any of which could easily be my specialty. All of which are now being encroached on by others. And I’m not sure how to assert myself in a specific area because that really isn’t a thing we do here, and I don’t think it would work with team norms.

        1. cmdrspacebabe*

          I feel you so hard on that ‘control/ownership’. I have a priority area that was my own personal baby for years, then suddenly became way more visible… which meant way more people involved, way more scrutiny, more complex processes, etc etc. It’s rough! I do miss just pushing all the buttons myself.
          How recent was the change? If the new folks are still new enough that things haven’t settled down, maybe it will improve with time as they get more comfortable as well? With that kind of scattered structure you describe, it must be hard to feel like you’re part of a cohesive team – I think that would make me more likely to feel hostile towards the new coworkers.

          One other thing that comes to mind, though it may or may not be relevant/helpful – you didn’t want or feel you needed help, but is it possible the organization noticed how much you were doing and realized they’d be absolutely screwed if you ever left? :-) because I have also been there lol. At one point I had so much ownership of so many things that if I dropped off the map, a lot of projects would have been seriously impacted, and if they’d fully lost access to me they would have lost a lot of irreplaceable information. I used to see that as a good thing – making myself indispensable – but I’ve kinda pushed myself to reframe that idea/identity, since it’s a very bad way to run an organization and can backfire on you hard if your capacity ever drops (health crisis, family emergency, whatever). I don’t know if that’s an element to your resentment at all, but looking at it from their perspective, “OP is doing All The Things” would have been a risk on their end even if it wasn’t an issue for you. I wonder from that ‘didn’t want or need’ phrasing if on some level you saw it as a criticism or an indication that they didn’t think you could really handle it all long-term, when it could just as much have been a compliment – ‘holy shit, OP is doing the work of 4 people and if they leave we’re toast’.

    3. RagingADHD*

      Have you spent some time considering what it is you feel like you’re competing with them for? In other words, what would “winning” the competition look like, and what are you “losing” if your new coworkers do well? Acting on those goals practically might help alleviate this general sense of competition.

      For example, are you hoping for advancement and believe they might get chosen for a promotion over you? If so, maybe talk to your boss about advancement opportunities.

      Is it more about the emotional stakes of feeling indispensable or getting approval from your boss? Maybe you need more frequent check-ins with your boss to get confirmation that you’re doing a good job and setting your priorities correctly. Or maybe you’re getting a “spidey sense” that your job isn’t secure and you need to get your resume out.

    4. Mad Harry Crewe*

      Sounds like you need a casual touch-base standup type meeting, on roughly the same timescale as these projects (say, weekly). One, it will give you more face time (or voice time) with your colleagues, which will probably help. Two, you’ll be more in the loop about what your team is doing and able to chip in info if it’s relevant. “Oh, Tony, there’s some history to the alpaca filing system. Can we sync up before you get too much farther?”

      You’ll still need to be careful that you’re not taking everything over or shutting your colleagues down. But since you’re already aware of this dynamic, I think creating an opportunity to know what’s going on and share your knowledge could do a lot to alleviate feeling like you’re losing control.

    5. Competing for what?*

      I would think hard what you are competing for.
      Is it job security (“I’m the only person who knows how to do that, so they can’t fire me!),
      Is it recognition (“I’m only doing a good job if it is clear that I am swamped”),
      Is it control (“It’s my processes!”),
      Is it conflict-avoidance (“Now I have to discuss with others how to handle things and I don’t like it.”),
      Is it an internal belief (“You only are in control of you are doing it alone.”)
      and so on.

      I can only speak for the other side. To have a colleague who is territorial and won’t share information is bad. It really sours the relationship and dimishes respect, even if you are absolutely brilliant.
      And, you might be in the wrong about how much in control you seem to be. It just is _not_ possible to do the job of 2 to 3 persons (assuming a 40h schedule for those jobs) with additional minor projects, and have constant high quality output in the retailed detail. You are not only working, but also eating, sleeping and doing laundry.

  44. Chloe*

    Appreciate any opinions on when to give notice in this situation! I started my current job with an effective date of June 24, 2024. The company gave me a relocation package and signing bonus. I don’t like the job/manager and want to leave as soon as I can without being subject to relocation/bonus clawback.

    I found a new job and my start date will be July 11 (which was as far as I could negotiate to push it out). I would like to have as much time off between jobs as possible.

    Do I need to wait until after June 24, 2025 to give my notice and not be subject to any possibility of having to repay relocation/bonus? Or could I give my notice now, with an effective date of June 25? Others who have left recently gave around a month of notice. I’ve never seen anyone escorted out immediately when giving their notice, but the wording of the relocation agreement makes me a little leery, since it’s a large sum of money (to me) at stake.

    Relevant portion of relocation contract:
    In consideration of XYZ’s direct payment of allowances and/or reimbursement of expenses associated with your relocation, you agree that you will be required to repay to XYZ all lump sum payments, reimbursements, recurring allowances, third party payments, and any tax gross-up amounts for Relocation Expenses if within 12 months after the effective date of your transfer or hire:

    -You terminate employment voluntarily
    -You are involuntarily terminated for a reason other than a reduction in work force

    1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      I’d wait were I you. As I read the situation, and your employment being at will, you could give notice on June 23rd and be terminated for no reason at all the same day, be within the 12 months, and the company assert you owe the clawback. If you wait until June 25th, your one year anniversary has passed and the clawback is moot. I wouldn’t say a word before June 25th.

      If it’s not the full two weeks, c’est la vie. Notice is, after all, a courtesy and intended to preserve any goodwill for references afterwards. If it’s that bad and you’re not relying on a reference in the future, an abridged notice notice will have a diminished impact on you.

      1. Chloe*

        You’re right and I’ll just wait til the 25th. Ugh- was hoping for 2 weeks in between jobs rather than just a couple days. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they will squawk about the July 4 holiday falling within the 2 week-ish notice, and I can use that as an opening to say I’m also fine terminating my employment immediately (I will not need a reference from them in the future).

    2. Sloanicota*

      Not your question but jeez I hope they’re flexible on that last one if an employee tried hard and it just didn’t work out through no fault of their own. There’s a lot of ways to get separated that aren’t a RIF. I can’t imagine firing someone *and* demanding they pay ME back for the privilege. That seems ripe for abuse.

    3. Tio*

      I would just wait. June 24 to July 11th looks to be enough time for a two week notice, so I wouldn’t risk it.

    4. Alex*

      Definitely wait.

      Give your notice on June 25, and tell them your last day is July 3. They can’t force you to give 2 weeks’ notice–it is just a courtesy, not an absolute, and if you have been there only a year there’s probably not gobs of stuff you need to do to turn over your work.

    5. Bee*

      I would also wait – IANAL but I do negotiate contracts for a living and I would 100% say giving notice constitutes “terminat[ing] employment.” Sorry!!

  45. Bunny Girl*

    Hey everyone! I had a question. I am in the very beginning phases of starting a small business. It’s not something I ever want to do full time. It’s related to my main career but in a very distant sort of way. At the same time, I am also launching my main career and am currently job hunting because I’ll be done with graduate school very soon. My question is – do hiring managers/companies see candidates owning side businesses as an asset or a problem? On one hand it’s something I’d like to bring up because I think it shows a lot of skill and commitment, but on the other hand, I feel like some might think it poses a problem. Any thoughts from small business owners who also have a main thing going on?

    1. Sloanicota*

      Sadly I think it’s likely to be viewed as a distraction once they realize you plan to continue the side business during your employment. It’s a good thing to have on your resume to cover any gaps and *can* show initiative / a broader skillset, but not always. Also, for some employers any side job is an automatic no-go, it’s been 50/50 where I’ve worked if they’ll even “permit” you to have other sources of income, which I always thought was odd.

      1. Bunny Girl*

        Yeah I totally get that! I didn’t know if it would show more get up and go or just paint me as someone who might not be available all the time.

    2. bananners*

      I think it depends on how you portray it. I got a job offer specifically because I had a side gig. It was a soft funded position and the hiring manager felt better that I had an additional source of income in the event the grant funding wasn’t renewed.

      In my cover letter and during the interview I addressed that it wasn’t a full time thing and how my business complemented the job I was applying for vs. detracting.

    3. WellRed*

      I wouldn’t add it because it’s only in the beginning stages. You have no accomplishments yet to show from it. Think if it this way: writing a novel also shows skills and commitment but you wouldn’t add it to your resume that you are writing one.

      1. Bunny Girl*

        It’s actually something I’ve been doing for a while so I do have accomplishments to show from it. I’m just making it more “formal” and adding more services to what I offer to make it more of a business.

    4. Kay*

      List it exactly the same way as you would if your were currently working and looking for a new job. Expect specualtion on whether you can pivot from doing your own thing to taking orders from someone else. Also be prepared to provide some kind of explanation that sufficiently conveys this side gig won’t get in the way of your new job (whether you need to portray that as “I’m looking for something more stable” or “I’ve decided I really want to focus on llama grooming for your fabulous company” to “I only want to do this side gig between midnight and 1pm on Saturdays I’m not working for you?, you’ll have to gauge that and respond accordingly, within your comfort level).

  46. Cookies for Breakfast*

    I was casually job searching a year ago, then decided to put that on hold for a few work and personal reasons. Well, I just had the sort of week that made me regret it. After a restructure that promised we’d have clearer priorities and smoother processes, the level of bureaucracy needed to make anything happen hasn’t changed one bit, and we’re still in the same old situation of having work given and taken away out of the blue every time senior managers meet. My boss sounds apologetic and aware that it’s an organisational problem in one breath, then in the next breath he’s all but ready to hold our team responsible for the mess, which frustrates me to no end.

    So here I am, browsing jobs on LinkedIn. I just noticed that the manager who hired me at this company (my best manager ever – working with them was a big selling point for me during the interview) is now working for a very large, household-name organisation that seems to be constantly hiring in my field.

    I haven’t spoken to them in quite some time. I’m no good at networking, and didn’t quite know how to keep up the relationship on a personal level, as we are both very private people. I’d like to work with them again, if an opportunity comes up – which I hope is mutual. But even some basic intel on whether their workplace has roles I might be a fit for would be useful at this stage (the organisation is huge and there are several teams that hire for my role). They only started there earlier this year though, so I also wonder if the timing is right.

    Have others been in a similar situation before? What might be good to say to someone I haven’t spoken to in a long time, when there’s no specific vacancy to ask for a referral?

    1. WellRed*

      You say what you said above after greeting them nicely. “I always enjoyed working with you and would love to do so again if the opportunity arises.”

    2. Toxic Workplace Survivor*

      I would reach out and ask them for coffee or an after work drink. If it’s possible to meet in person, I find the “let’s catch up/also by the bye I’m on the market” is less awkward because they will naturally be interested in what you’re up to.

      I have had these kinds of informational meetings with former colleagues 5 or more years out, whether because I’m looking or because I want other info about industry stuff/potential hires and if you had a good working relationship, it’s generally a positive thing for everyone to catch up a little.

      A phone call or video meeting are decent backups; I had a phone call with a former colleague recently because I wanted their advice on a work problem and we couldn’t make it work in person. It was still hugely helpful. Sometimes it helps to normalize these kinds of interactions in your brain; even if it’s new for you that doesn’t mean it is out of the ordinary in general.

    3. EMP*

      When I started a job search last year I literally reached out on Linkedin to some people I hadn’t interacted with in 8 years and/or who I only knew from networking once in school. I was pleasantly surprised by how many people cheerfully answered a polite “hey, I’m starting to look for my next opportunity and I saw you’re working at Cool Company. I’ve been looking at their Teapot division and I was wondering if you knew of any roles opening up soon”.
      The nice thing about LinkedIn is it’s a work site for work, and at least in my experience being up front about that is acceptable.

  47. Busy Middle Manager*

    For those languishing in your job hunt and being told the market is good and feeling gaslit, here is some data from this week:

    When it comes to job creation, the “breakeven employment growth estimate” is 153K jobs. We just supposedly created 139K jobs in May, however, we’ve been relentlessly revising these reports down for years at this point. Google “Nonfarm Payroll Employment: Revisions between over-the-month estimates, 2025” if you want all numbers.

    We got told the March 2025 job market was hot and 228K jobs were created. Then it got revised down to 185K jobs. Today the March number was revised down 120K. A -52% drop. It boggles my mind as a former data analyst, how they can consistently be so wrong. I would’ve been fired being so off every month.

    ADP, which uses actual data and not surveys, says 37K jobs were created in May while BLS says 139K were created.

    Either report shows business/professional services down and most new jobs in healthcare and hospitality. The hospitality ones always get revised down hard though

    So if you’re sending out dozens of resumes and not getting a response, it’s not you

    1. Sloanicota*

      Also a huge surge of people entering the market due to Federal layoffs (at least in my market/area). So even if there were good job creation numbers they’d need to be higher than the people looking for work.

      1. Busy Middle Manager*

        Well you can fix the data by shrinking the labor force, now the unemployment rate is the same! The total labor force supposedly spiked in April then is down to where it was in March, with the labor force participation rate being slightly down again. Masterclass in lying with statistics. I just don’t understand why. Reporting actual truthful numbers would’ve given either the past or current administration the fodder it needed to push for rate cuts, which would help with the national debt but also encourage companies to hire for real again

        1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

          I feel like much of the unemployment rate manipulation is about propping up consumer confidence, which in turn props up aggregate demand.

          If the nominal UE rate went from 5% to 20% overnight, the “natural” reaction in many if not most households would be to pare back spending, which can be a self-fulfilling recessionary pressure. It’d also put downward pressure on wages with the same reaction.

          1. Kimmy Schmidt*

            Exactly this. The unemployment rate is not for the unemployed; it’s for shareholders.

    2. Jan Levinson Gould*

      I wish the job creation stats only reported on fulltime jobs with benefits. I always figure (rightly or wrongly) that the majority of the jobs “created” are low-wage without benefits and / or parttime.

  48. Explain it to me like I'm 5*

    Looking for some advice on how to get an employee to give more/better detail when reaching out about a problem. They’re pretty new to the corporate world (but it’s not their first corporate job) and it is taking so much time and effort to get context from them.

    It’s almost like that exercise that some elementary classes do where you describe how to make a PB&J sandwich to someone who has never made one before.

    This person will say “The crunchy peanut butter is in the jar.” which opens up questions like:
    Are you expecting it to be in the jar?
    Is it meant to be crunchy?
    Should it be almond butter instead?
    Do you need help with which tools to use to spread the peanut butter onto the bread?

    These are all questions that they know we’ve asked before when they’ve brought a problem to us but I just can’t get them to give that information up front. I do think it’s tied to a lack of being able to troubleshoot, which we’ve also been working on together.

    Should I try to focus on the troubleshooting skills first and maybe the context will come with it since they’ll know what questions they would need to ask to arrive at an answer? Both my boss and me are wasting time just trying to get the right information to be able to help them move forward.

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Huge pet peeve, I feel it. “It didn’t work.” What didn’t work? What do you mean it didn’t work? Is it your whole computer or a specific piece of software? What part of it didn’t work? Are you able to log in? Are you able to open a worklist? Are you able to open the case off the worklist? What were you doing when it stopped working? Did it have an error message anywhere on the screen? (And then it turns out that the issue is that she needs to replace the batteries on her wireless keyboard :P )

      Try something like “Please include enough context in your description of the problem that the reader could follow the steps and replicate it. This includes any applicable error text or message, but also details about what was happening when the problem came up, including (but not limited to) what application you were in, what you were specifically trying to do, what screen you were on, what button you clicked that caused the problem to come up, and what you have already tried to resolve the problem.”

    2. Parcae*

      Are you asking for more context up front? What I mean is, instead of launching into specific questions (“Is it meant to be crunchy?”), is your first reply something like “I’m not sure I understand your question. Can you give me more context?” That puts the work of figuring out what info you need back on the person who should have done it in the first place. It will take longer (especially at first!) but they clearly need the practice.

      1. Academic Physics*

        Another question I ask students that might work here is “what have you tried”.

  49. DataWonk*

    I’ve had a series of finding a junior coworker telling white lies, namely in they say they did one test or another, but don’t actually. It only impacts my work in that I have to “re-do” it, but this takes less than 5 minutes, and only happens like once a quarter.

    My bigger concern is if they are cutting corners elsewhere, and if I should tell our boss.

    e.g. we updated some code last Friday, and I mentioned that we need to run a test. They said “sure, I’m on it” and said it ran with no problems. I checked the logs Monday for some other metadata like how long it took, and couldn’t find it. I brought it up with Coworker and they said “that’s weird, I definitely ran it.” All signs pointed to it not being run…I didn’t know what else to say so I just re-ran it myself.

    I am not sure if I should bring this up to anyone, or how.

    1. RagingADHD*

      If it has happened in a similar way more than once, I would consider what would have to be wrong in the system in order for the logs to be incorrect. I would think it would have to be something pretty serious, wouldn’t it?

      If so, it’s worth mentioning to the coworker – “Look, I’m not trying to put you on the spot here, but there have been several instances lately when you said you ran tests, but the test didn’t show up in the log. If the log is wrong, that means we have a problem with (whatever), and that’s a very big deal. Is there any chance you could have been mistaken about running the test, because otherwise I need to escalate this problem.”

      You’re giving them an out to save face, and also putting them on notice that lies are not sustainable.

      If they double down, then notify your manager that this is going on, and that you’ll need to escalate the issue. It will either be shown that there is in fact a systemic problem with the logs, or your manager will know they need to address the lying.

      1. Mad Scientist*

        This advice is spot-on and reminds me of an old AAM post from years ago, something about a coworker falsifying edits?

      2. Cassie*

        Adding on to this – maybe ask them to walk through the process of running the tests? Perhaps the coworker thinks they’re doing something but they’re talking about something else or the test isn’t actually running.

        I have a similar situation with a coworker who is the timekeeper for the dept. They say that everyone has submitted timesheets for the past few months, but on my report, there are a few people here and there who have not submitted a timesheet. I think my coworker is looking at a different report and doesn’t realize that that report shows only the status of active timesheets (e.g. saved, submitted, approved by supervisor, etc) and DOES NOT show an entry if the employee has not opened up the timesheet.

    2. Sloanicota*

      Hmm. I guess it’s not something I’d flag to my boss at this point since it sounds like there’s uncertainty and hopefully the boss has systems to identify stuff that’s not getting done (?). But I would try to ensure these “white lies” aren’t effective for the employee when dealing with me. So walk over there and ask them to show you how they’re running the test because you’re not seeing it in the system. Stand there while they do it, don’t take it off their plate for them without a word.

    3. Rick Tq*

      Lying about completing a test isn’t a white lie, it is LIE. Bring it up to your Boss and bring as much documentation as you can about their dishonesty.

      Your company should terminate them immediately, you can’t trust any report from them is truthful.

      1. A Significant Tree*

        Agree with this – it’s one thing if the coworker says they’ll run a test and they forget, and then given the opportunity, they tell you they forgot. It might even be excusable one time. But the coworker is straight up lying that they did something that there’s no evidence of, apparently repeatedly.

        If they’re repeatedly not doing pieces of their job and lying about it, your boss needs to know. It sounds like it’s not frequent or that big a deal effort-wise so it can be just an FYI thing, but it needs to be on their radar in the event this is more than just one small task being ignored.

    4. An Australian in London*

      I had a colleague a few years ago who was fired instantly for exactly this.

      The company’s perspective was that it was timesheet fraud: they were telling us they had completed work that they did not do.

      In this particular instance it was not detected until post-deployment when we started getting complaints that a software package was broken. I asked colleague how it had worked when they ran their tests. “I couldn’t get it to run.”

      I’m not sure I can convey what an issue this was. They told us they’d tested it – but hadn’t. They’d run into fatal errors – and told us it passed all tests.

      They were gone the next day.

  50. Danish*

    Curious how people feel about recorded meetings!

    I am of two minds on them: for one, as someone with adhd/memory issues, and as someone who loves to take really comprehensive notes, I love the idea of being able to go back to past meetings as a reminder of what was said, especially if any kind of instructions are being given. It comforts my brain to think that information is not lost forever/avoiding the awkwardness of “i can remember when exactly you gave me this information but not what the information was”.

    On the other, I have noticed that it makes people way less willing to speculate, or brainstorm, or just generally chat freely – which to me is one of the benefits of having live meetings with colleagues. In the context of instructions, I think it also pressures people to be more Instructional than is always called for, like they are Giving A Training if its going to be recorded, adding a lot of prep time and pressure when its not needed.

    Plus just as a general person I cringe at the idea of every conversation being recorded. I’ve been in heated meetings, and silly meetings, or meetings where someone said something out of turn but it was kindly ignored – and the idea of those moments being recorded forever and viewable by people who werent there just sits oddly in my brain as a negative.

    1. De Minimis*

      I don’t notice it anymore. A lot of people record them at my job. I used to record one on one trainings [especially when we were all remote] but it would get a little weird sometimes when people forgot it was recorded…all these weird tangents saved for posterity!

      1. private*

        I cringe, too. Can the presenter include the critical information in slides, which would be available in the future? Is the presenter genuinely comfortable recording? Is there someone who could review the information with you later?

    2. I see you Doris Burke*

      Completely fine with it – I barely notice them anymore . Personally I’m surprised that people act differently if a meeting is being recorded – in reality how often are they listened to anyway?

      1. the cat's pajamas*

        I hate it. It’s not just people at the company that can listen to them, they are on the servers of Zoom/Microsoft/Whoever. I’m not a fan of my face and voice being out there to be fed into some AI model for them to use without my consent or get deepfakes of me if they get hacked.

        I’ve been to non-work events for a hobby group where we record the main presentation, but not the chat before and after so folks can speak freely without being recorded. Maybe something like that would work?

        Also, if something needs to be a training, just record a sisters separate video for it that’s not a meeting. It’s easier for viewers to not have to scroll through all the banter.

    3. Xennial student*

      This question came up for our club meetings and I was opposed mainly because I felt it would make some people, myself included, more self-conscious and less likely to contribute to the discussion. But also because the younger students who were in favor wanted the recordings as an option for not coming to meetings. I get that there are scheduling conflicts, but I also worried that the Gen Z students confuse partcipating with consuming media. For our club to be successful, we need people to be engaged and show up. We did offer a live Zoom option and comprehensive meeting minutes so members could stay up-to-date.

  51. Jessen*

    This is more of a gripe than anything else, honestly.

    So I just got laid off from my government healthcare contracting job for reasons that I presume anyone who has read the news lately can figure out. I have a brand new degree in cybersecurity I was hoping to put to use. Only SO MANY of the job openings in my area are other government work, and most require a higher level security clearance.

    I’m transgender. I believe it’s been made very clear recently what the current powers that be think of that. I don’t want to be a test case for trying to go through the clearance process as a trans person. Even if it worked I don’t fancy waiting around for someone in the administration to decide to just yank it for…reasons.

    But it is so so frustrating trying to find something else in the greater DC area sometimes! I had wanted to stay with government work, preferably research support where I am now.

    1. Anon for this*

      I’m a queer poly person with multiple partners who’s worked as a sex worker when unable to get enough work in my day job career.

      I’ve been told by people who do the vetting for security clearances that none of this disqualifies me. It helps that I’m very out as poly and somewhat out as queer. It’s not great (from their point of view) that I’m not at all out as a former sex worker and very much would not want that known in my professional circles, because that means I’m potentially a blackmail risk and might agree to breach security to keep it quiet.

      That’s what they’re looking for: people under severe financial strain or with secrets they are determined to keep secret. I’m not actually sure if I’d be granted a clearance. I’d probably have to come to terms with the news eventually getting out and having a plan for if/when it eventually does.

      1. Jessen*

        To be perfectly honest – if this were a year ago, or in anything resembling normal times, I’d believe you. But a few weeks ago I saw our trans people being told they’re kicked out of the military for no other reason than their gender identity. You’re making a logical argument, but I’ve been seeing bigotry win out over logic so much lately that I don’t want to take that bet.

        1. Still anon for this*

          No-one gets to define for you what is a safe space. I’m sorry, I think that’s partly what I was (wrongly) doing.

          You’re right, of course. At best I am describing how it is supposed to work when performed by competent qualified professionals being held to objective standards and having reasons to fear the consequences of doing otherwise.

          And even if the security vetting was done professionally that doesn’t mean that hiring decisions will be.

          I’m sorry for your situation.

    2. Cosmic Crisp*

      Yeah, a lot of the cybersecurity workforce is military or military-adjacent, especially in that area! As a young nonbinary person in the field, I get it. If you decide to look at other fields, consider finance or banking (lots of digital money to protect and regulators to please). Many of my coworkers are ex-military but very kind to me and don’t need to be corrected on my pronouns.

    4. Say hello to my little kitty*

      I’m sorry to hear that you got laid off, that sucks. I hope things turn around for you soon.

    5. Chauncy Gardener*

      I have a very high security clearance (not trans FYI) and from what I know about the process, you being trans shouldn’t make a bit of difference no matter what administration we have in place. Go for it and good luck!

  52. 52girl*

    At what point would you tell your boss you were dealing with personal stuff if it was affecting your work? And how would approach it?

    I’ve been pretty distracted the past month and missing some things, nothing huge, and I’m not even sure if my boss has noticed.

    1. Sloanicota*

      If it was low level and I thought the personal stuff would pass, I probably wouldn’t mention it if I thought the boss hadn’t noticed. Most employees have ups and downs over time and it’s fine. If I thought the personal stuff was getting worse/likely to last a lot longer, I might proactively flag it now as a heads-up for down the road *if* my boss was reasonable and not likely to hold it against me.

      1. 52girl*

        Thanks, yeah I think I’m at if he mentions my work I’ll let him know or I’ll wait a bit. I expect the stuff is going to last for some more months, so I might just wait and let him know if/when I actually do need some real flexibility. He is a reasonable person, thankfully. I’m just also kind of a private person.

    2. spcepickle*

      Depends on how good your boss is. My boss is terrible, and telling him would not change how he talked to me or understood my work. My second in command however is amazing and we have a great working relationship. I would tell him if a bad headache was throwing off my afternoon.
      I agree that if you think the stuff is going to get bigger or you think it might cause you miss something big flagging it for your boss or other team members you trust can be useful. I would tell them some vague – hey I have got some personal stuff going on that is really throwing me off, and my head is not fully at work. I expect it will clear up in (give a time frame) or I am working through it and hope to be fully present soon. Basically acknowledge the issue but assure them it is short term.

    3. Chauncy Gardener*

      If my boss is decent, I would say something sooner rather than later, just as an FYI
      “Hey boss, just FYI, I’m dealing with xyz right now and feel like I’m not always at the top of my game in case you notice”

  53. Well Now...*

    A thank you to all the letter writers and the great advice and information here at AAM.
    We had a work situation that came up and it exactly mirrored a letter posted this week. So much so we were asking our teammates if anyone wrote it. It turns out I’m the only reader–until this week.

    So, the situation isn’t illegal. It’s still not best practice. That gives us a good framework to express our concerns.

    1. Say hello to my little kitty*

      I tell my co-workers to read AAM too. Good thing we’ve got that llama analogy going on!

  54. Daydreaming*

    I have a BA in English, and I have worked in marketing/comms/PR for well over a decade. I currently manage a couple writers at a niche marketing firm.

    We use AI heavily which bothers me on a creative level and morally. (This is a decision from leadership, and I have voiced concerns to no avail.) I’ve also realized how much I personally dislike social media and being bombarded with marketing emails. So I feel conflicted about the work I do. I certainly don’t enjoy it, but I like having a paycheck and flexibility.

    Is it time to move to a totally different field? Does anyone have any suggestions for a new line of work that might be a good fit for someone with my background.

    1. WellRed*

      No advice but I’m a journalist and learned that due to google AI changes, we will have to “optimize” online articles going forward so we won’t lose all our traffic. Hate it hate it hate it. Could you move more into command away from marketing?

    2. jjax*

      A switch in the kind of business, not the work itself, may work for addressing the concerns you have! Non-profits, NGOs, and other “working for a cause” kinds of businesses could greatly benefit from the skills you have, and may provide environments that align more closely with your personal values. And in interviewing for these places, you could ask questions about their use of AI and what their goals are.

      I can’t offer much in the way of advice for switching fields entirely, but wanted to offer this as an option in case it appeals to you.

    3. Maestra*

      Maybe marketing for an independent/private school? I work at a New England boarding school and we have a healthy MarComm department. The school needs to brand itself to prospective students, current families, and alums, so there’s all sorts of different projects. There’s a lot of social media work too. However, because we’re a school, I think they really still value doing the work yourself and not using AI.

  55. Fluffy Fish*

    Office bully situation. They’re pretty equal opportunity awful to everyone (internal people, external people, the public), but they also really really hate me.

    Which is weird af for an adult but whatevs – not everyone has to like me and I don’t particularly care other than to the extent that it affects my work.

    Anyhoo, the latest and greatest is they’ve demanded they be copied on all requests to their staff and she is going to cc my manager on everything to me. They are in charge of the admin support function, so this is nothing crazy or complicated.

    I really want to be like…no. If your staff can’t order a pencil without your awareness then they can loop you in. Similarly, no, you don’t need to cc my boss for so many reasons but mostly that I am a competent professional. I will loop in my boss as needed.

    Any ideas on how I can professionally push back here?

    1. Rick Tq*

      Follow the bully’s demand so your management can see how ridiculous they are behaving… And keep a copy of their email available.

      If you get push back from your management chain just forward the initial email back to them and respond that this is Bully’s process, not mine..

      1. Fluffy Fish*

        The bully didn’t make the request in writing or to me – it went to my boss over a phone call.

        My direct manager is fully aware of the issues with this person and has tried to get things addressed. Unfortunately they aren’t the kind of person to simply tell the bully no.

        Upper management (including bully’s manager) is aware and allegedly addressing things – but I’ve seen zero changes other than the bully now trying to change the narrative that they aren’t mean they’re just misunderstood.

        Frankly, I’m tired of being someone’s punching bag and passively twiddling my thumbs waiting for someone to do something. And of being the bigger person.

        I really don’t simply want to go along with this.

        1. Mad Harry Crewe*

          Well, if the bully is allowed to bully…. are you allowed to just forget that you got that request?

          “Ah, apologies. Moving too fast, you know how it is. I’ll make sure to include you on the next one.” (You won’t.)

          For CCing your boss – you can’t stop the bully from sending emails how they want. I think there are two ways to go:
          – Option 1 (safer, satisfying if you can see it in the right light) = leave your boss the f*ck on. Boss doesn’t want to put the kibbosh on this jerk? Fine, you made your inbox, now lie in it. Allowing it to be Boss’s problem may push them to take some action.
          – Option 2 (pretty aggressive but not unprofessional at the outset, may get shut down if the bully successfully complains) = Every time this happens, move your boss to BCC. “Hi Draculetta, thanks for checking in about the llama report, here’s the answer to your question. (Moving Elaine to BCC to save her inbox.)”

    2. MigraineMonth*

      Hmm. I understand that this person is an ass, but I’m not sure this is the line in the sand worth defending. If the bully wants to cc your boss on everything, that’s their prerogative and doesn’t actually stop you from doing your job. If your boss doesn’t like it then your boss can tell them to knock it off. As for cc’ing them on requests to their staff, that’s also not, on its face, unreasonable.

      I know it’s frustrating to have to be “the reasonable one” when someone is targeting you, but I’d save my pushback for when the bully’s interference affects your work or crosses a line of acceptable behavior.

      1. Fluffy Fish*

        I do wish my boss would say no, do not cc me, but I’m not sure she will.

        I promise you it is absolutely unreasonable for her to be cc’d on every request. You just have to trust me on that.

        I also hear you, but I am looking to push back not continue to be a doormat.

        1. Elizabeth West*

          Any chance your boss and their boss/upper management are cooperating on addressing it? If they’re setting them up for termination, you may not see any changes; they may just one day be gone.

          Doing it might give them something to add to the list — “In addition to these other issues, Glassbowl McAsshole has been inserting themselves in Fish’s work; see Exhibit D, unnecessary CCs.”

          So it’s not really being a doormat, it’s helping them dig their own grave, heh heh.

          1. Fluffy Fish*

            The way our org works I don’t forsee a firing but they can retire soonish so I’m hoping there will be enough “stop doing that” from upper management to encourage them this is no longer a place they enjoy working.

            Someone else brought it up and yes, I do think that I need to document this type of thing where I can. They try not to put things in writing which makes it harder to visibly show a pattern of behavior. I also am personally a fairly passive non-confrontational person (aka bully magnet), so my tendency is to roll my eyes and carry on. But that has allowed or at least hasn’t helped the situation as well.

            I think I’m leaning towards following up with their request with an email to ensure I completely understood the request so I can follow through.

      2. Tio*

        Same. This is not the hill to die on here. CCing someone takes a minute portion of time and effort, and could be seen as petty to complain about in a lot of lights – and people like this WILL find those lights. Find a better issue to make a complaint with

        1. Fluffy Fish*

          Thanks but I’m specifically asking for ways to push back. I’m also not asking for ways to complain.

          There’s a lot of context and behavior that I’m not getting into – this isn’t a minor issue, this is a continued escalation.

          1. Rick Tq*

            Do you have enough political capital (and management support) to go full on Malicious Compliance on her? I’d start with following up EVERY verbal interaction with an ‘As we discussed today at 10AM…..’ email to both your management chains.

            1. Fluffy Fish*

              I actually do. And I was contemplating doing that with this request – so that it’s in writing. A lot of the challenge I think with addressing the behavior is as all bullies are they excel at leveraging plausible deniability.

              Others have documentation, but a lot of what’s directed my way isn’t in email for example.

              1. the cat's pajamas*

                Then you can document it. “Per our conversation at 10:00am this morning, i I’m doing xyz as requested…”

                Even if this doesn’t work for your situation, start documenting for your own notes. After a while, there might be a pattern. Sometimes in cases like this, the one with documentation wins if it gets escalated to your boss or HR.

                I don’t like secretly recording people, but if you’re in the US in a place with one party only consent laws, that could be an option to consider.

      3. Zona the Great*

        I assume Ass will then demand that FF also CCs boss in their response back to Ass. I would take extreme pleasure in not doing it no matter how much Ass demanded and let Ass work themselves into a frothy lather (a term I stole from someone here just yesterday) sending boss what you refused to copy boss on.

    3. RagingADHD*

      I feel like more transparency is usually a good thing in petty situations, so I’d cc everybody everything all the time, with “per Veruca’s request” in the first line.

      But if you don’t want to do that, you could just … not do what she asked? There’s no reason you have to overtly push back on something, it just feeds the dynamic. Better to starve it.

      1. Fluffy Fish*

        It would be hilarious if I started ccing her manager but I think that’s a little too far.

        I don’t hate the idea of adding a line to the bottom: ccing Person Who THinks This is Middle School per their request.

        I did consider simply not doing it and “forgetting” if it comes up. I think it’s definitely on the table.

        This person is challenging because nothing deters them. I have had to lead meetings they’ve been in where they attack everything said, where I simply ignore and press on. Doesn’t phase them.

        1. RagingADHD*

          If you’re looking to phase them, you are letting them drag you into a fictional conflict they made up and set the terms of engagement. If they don’t actually have any power over you, there’s no reason you have to cede it to them.

          It’s not about whether you phase them or not. It’s about getting your own goals accomplished. If you need to address their behavior in meetings as being disruptive, the professional thing to do is tell them to schedule time with you 1:1 to discuss their concerns.

          1. Fluffy Fish*

            I’m not looking to “phase” them. Many bullies get the wind out of their sails when people don’t engage. The other kind usually back down when their behavior is addressed. This person is neither. The point I was trying to make is the traditional tactics do nothing.

            I appreciate your help but I’m getting frustrated with people interpreting this situation from their own angle. For example a private 1:1 with this person is absolutely never going to happen for many reasons.

            I am only looking for ways to professionally push back on her demand.

            1. RagingADHD*

              Nobody has any other angle to interpret anything through.

              This is the nature of crowdsourcing.

              Getting feedback you don’t want to hear can also be useful, as it can clarify what you really want to do. Or it can confirm that you really are doing the gest you can in a complicated situation and there is no satisfying solution.

          1. Fluffy Fish*

            So tempting. So so so tempting. One of the hardest things about bullies Ive realized it not stooping quite to their level.

            I might make more in person requests from now on though ;)

    4. Fluffy Fish*

      Note: I am specifically asking for ideas to push back. I am not interested in advice to “let it go”.

      I promise you I am more aware of the larger picture here than you can get from the intentionally limited information I provided.

      Good lord, now I know how LW must feel when people dont take them at their word.

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        Without the additional context you’re choosing not to share, it sounds like you are picking a really weird hill to die on, because in most situations, “Prunella is going to start cc’ing my boss” is a “roll your eyes and let it go” situation, not a fight that is worth picking.

        But also, I straight up can’t think of context that would make “NO PRUNELLA YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO CC MY BOSS EVEN THOUGH MY BOSS DOESN’T GIVE A HANG” a fight to pick that is worth the effort, time, and capital. So… if you’re going to limit the information, you’re going to get responses that only take into consideration the limited information available. People were taking you at your word, you just don’t like the suggestions.

        1. Mad Scientist*

          I very much agree, especially with your last sentence. I feel like this happens often when people ask a question and don’t like the answers they’re getting. They will insist that the question was misunderstood, even if it wasn’t.

      2. Zona the Great*

        Unfortunately, when you ask strangers for advice, you only get to take it or leave it. There’s no sense in arguing with people about the advice they gave. We don’t know you and we won’t be impacted by whatever decision you make so it really doesn’t make any sense to push back on people who offered advice you solicited for even if it isn’t what you wanted. Take it or leave it.

        1. Fluffy Fish*

          Removed. Please do not ask for advice here and then be snarky when people offer it, even if they don’t perfectly understand what you’re looking for. – Alison

          1. Fluffy Fish*

            Apologies, it certainly wasn’t meant snarky. I know tone doesn’t always translate. I don’t remember exactly what I wrote, but what I was trying to get at is I dont’ think its a fair assessment to tell people they have to take what’s given. I am allowed to request certain advice. No one can make people do anything but people want to be helpful and disregarding what someone is saying isn’t helpful.

            1. Ask a Manager* Post author

              Understood, but in the two comments I removed you were coming across as arguing with people because you don’t like/agree with their advice. When you ask for advice on how to do X, it’s always possible that people will say “I don’t think X is a goal that will serve you because (reasons) and a better way to look at it is Y.” They might be wrong! But as the advice asker, all you can really do is to try to explain where you’re coming from and see if that changes their take, and to check your own communication because — especially if multiple people are giving you answers that feel off to you — it can be because of the way you initially conveyed the problem (which is super common; it’s hard to convey nuanced situations in just a few paragraphs).

              I’m hijacking your post a bit to make this point because it’s something I see happen here from time to time and I strongly believe it’s outside the spirit of these open threads and wanted to explain a little about why.

              1. Mad Scientist*

                Thank you for taking the time for a little bit of extra moderation in this case!

            2. Mad Scientist*

              They didn’t say you have to take what’s given. They said take it or leave it. Slight but important difference!

      3. MigraineMonth*

        I am 100% taking you at your word that your coworker is a bully who is targeting. I believe you that this is one more escalation in a long line of aggressions, and that what the coworker is doing/asking of you is ridiculous. It really sounds like they’re an ass who is constantly needling you, trying to get under your skin, and force you into an unprofessional/emotional overreaction.

        All I’m saying is that you’re giving them a lot of power over you, if you feel like you need to “push back” on a minor irritant like overuse of cc’ing or else you’ll be a “doormat”. You’re letting this bully live rent-free in your head. From what you’ve said, they’re a small, miserable person playing petty power games that have already come around to bite them, if upper management is aware of the problems with them. You said they’re desperately trying to cast themselves as the misunderstood victim; why give them ammunition?

        They want you to get down in the mud with them; it’s not weak or “doormat” behavior to stand well back with an internal smirk while they sink.

        1. Fluffy Fish*

          I feel like I should have used a different phrase than push-back. I think there is a space between say filing a formal complaint over ccing and letting someone do whatever they want without impunity. I’m looking for things that fall in the middle space.

          I tend to be non-confrontational and there’s a lot of things that have happened that in hindsight I wish I said or did something other than just take it.

          I think from what some others have given I’m leaning towards following up this verbal request with an email (ha) for confirmation purposes which also allows me to comply and document for my own purposes. Pretty sure it will annoy them which is just an added bonus.

      4. RagingADHD*

        If you are bound and determined to poke the bear instead of ignoring it, you can always say, “I don’t think all this cc’ing is necessary.”

        But a) you can’t actually control whether they keep cc’ing your boss. If your boss doesn’t want to get these emails, they can say so themselves.

        And b) as the manager of their team, they are actually in charge of the process for routing requests for their team, and if they for some reason want to be cc’ed on all requests, you are only going to make yourself look unreasonable by overtly refusing to follow the new procedure they’ve set up. You can still ignore the request in practice if that helps you for some reason, but stating “no, I will not cc you” makes you look like the problem.

        There just isn’t much “pushback” to do here. You’re probably better off picking a different battle (like your example of them being disruptive in meetings – there are a lot more options there).

      5. Mad Scientist*

        I mean this kindly, but this is honestly sounding like when I used to ask my therapist about what I thought was a simple problem, expecting a straightforward solution, and she would respond saying that it wasn’t actually the right question to be asking and that it wasn’t the right thing to focus on. Sometimes the advice you ask for isn’t actually the advice you need.

        And since you mentioned relating to LWs on this site because of this, people do often write in about one question and the advice is to focus on a different question instead. It’s super common!

  56. Elsewise*

    Picking the brains of the hivemind. Has anyone pursued an accommodation at work for long covid? How did it go? Was it helpful for you?

    I have long covid, and the fatigue is killing me. I can manage (barely) to get through a work day as long as I’m working remote, take a nap during my lunch break, and take another nap immediately after work. I can’t cook dinner or really function outside of that, but I can manage work. The issue is, my workplace loves in-person meetings that are three to five hours long. I have one in a few weeks that’s seven hours! The last three hour meeting, my boss forgot to book a conference room, so we wound up with seven people wedged into a small, uncomfortably hot office. (Of course, I was the only one wearing a mask the whole time.) It took me two days to recover.

    I want to ask to be exempted from these long in-person meetings, or allowed to attend virtually. My boss is new, but seems like she’ll be supportive. But I’m nervous because while my organization is generally pretty good about employees, there’s not a whole lot of disability support. And because I’ve never known anyone who asked for an accommodation, here or elsewhere, who remained at their workplace for more than a year. I’m the primary income-earner in my household and really can’t afford to get laid off if this brands me as a troublemaker. (Yes, I’m aware disability discrimination is illegal. I’m also aware that it happens, and that I don’t have the energy to fight a court case.)

    Any experiences?

    1. Mad Harry Crewe*

      I don’t have any suggestions but a small ray of hope – recent study on a potential treatment. Link in reply, or you can look up the study under: Epipharyngeal Abrasive Therapy (EAT) Has Potential as a Novel Method for Long COVID Treatment

  57. Snacks*

    I’m looking for inspiration for workday snacks and breakfasts! I prefer things that are shelf-stable or easy :)

    Thank you!

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Easy: Turkey (or other deli meat of choice) sandwich on a bagel. Quick to put together, won’t get funky if it takes you a while to eat it.
      Shelf-stable: Those packets of cracker sandwiches – my favorites are the ones that are peanut butter on cheese crackers, but they have other kinds too.

    2. Pam Adams*

      I like instant oatmeal- usually the flavored kind. I keep some mixed dried fruit and chopped nuts handy to throw in.

    3. Cosmic Crisp*

      I have a sweet tooth, and I find chocolate-covered nuts are tasty and satisfying. I usually get them from nuts.com along with a bag of their honey sesame sticks for something salty.

      1. a few ideas*

        I’m planning to try overnight oats. In the cooler months I like steel-cut oats (boil water, let rest overnight, finish in the morning).

        My current go-to snack is no-bake granola bars: oats, PB, maple syrup and mix-ins.

        1. the cat's pajamas*

          Seconded. In the summer months, I throw some frozen berries on top of my overnight oats right before I leave for work. I use a small thermos jar so they both help keep it cold and don’t fully thaw. I like the really cold semi frozen berries when it’s hot. If you don’t, then just add them the night before and they will thaw in the fridge. They will still be cold but not frozen.

    5. Zona the Great*

      I need dopamine hits throughout the day and I’m also very orally fixated. I like to have a jar of pickles at work to spike my dopamine as well as spicy things. For breakfast I like to bring overnight oats made only with applesauce (this makes the texture so so lovely rather than gaggy) and I add berries when I get to work. I am a volume eater and need a fully filling meal rather than snacks. I have cup noodles in bulk at work and I add a blob of peanut butter, Trader Joe’s chili onion crisp, and hot sauce. This is so damn satisfying and the spice is another dopamine hit for me.

    6. Elizabeth West*

      I’m a big fan of trail mix bars. I keep some in my desk cabinet, along with tea bags. I buy them at home too, so it’s easy to throw a couple in my backpack along with some clementines or an apple.

  58. Rochelle*

    I am writing a cover letter for a fitness job that I’m applying to, following being laid off from my longtime career last week. I am not in the best shape, but I want to spin that into positive messaging because I sincerely am dedicated to improving my health. I feel like this would be a big hurtle, so I dedicated about half of the cover letter to align with their mission.

    I hope this is in the right spot, but can someone tell me if this pushes it too conversational? Would you hire me if I was applying to a job at a fitness company?

    Dear Hiring Committee,
    I am writing to express my interest in the Customer Success Coordinator position at {Censored}. Before I launch into my professional qualifications, I wanted to tell a story about who I am – someone who is rediscovering the grit and resiliency to change my life.

    I won’t beat around the bush; I have let myself get to a position with my health that I am not proud of. There is no excuse for it, but it’s true. I got comfortable with not being at my healthiest, just as I got comfortable at a job that didn’t value my contributions. I made excuses for why this was okay, but it wasn’t. Last week, I was let go from a job I loved without any fanfare. This blow led me to realize I had been idling in my life for a while.

    Since then, I have dedicated myself to seeking better for myself. I have invested in exercise equipment, replaced my high-calorie treats, and devoted an hour a day to moving and feeling better about myself. This new drive is passionate, it’s invested in the future, and it follows {Censored}’s philosophy of seeking self-betterment – not for the gram and not for others. For myself.

    As a communications professional with over 10 years of experience in the field, I believe I am the perfect fit for a role with your company. In the past, I’ve helped organize charity events for {Censored}, specifically our involvement with {Censored}. Working with a grassroots network of gamers and streamers, I developed compelling content across email, social media, and web platforms that strengthened donor retention and boosted year-over-year participation. Collaborating with a passionate online community gave me firsthand insight into the power of mission-driven communications—and the importance of empathy and creativity in every message.

    Thank you for considering my application. I would be honored to bring my energy and experience to your team and support {Censored}.

    Kindly,
    Rochelle

    1. TX Lizard*

      Honestly, I think it is too focused on your personal journey, and not enough on what you bring professionally. It also feels like divulging a bit too much (at least for my boundaries). I would want to know a lot more about the work you describe in the second to last paragraph, and less about the personal side, especially since the two don’t seem very connected. I think if you are going to discuss your personal journey, you have to very clearly draw the connection to your professional work and what you bring to the table. Otherwise it feels like you are just talking about why you want the job, not why they should want you. Best of luck, I hope you get the job!

    2. call me wheels*

      I’m not a hiring manager or very experienced at work so take my words with a big grain of salt, but I think the part about your personal health isn’t very helpful and you would do better to focus on your good results in your profession. It’s bringing quite a lot of personal emotion to a professional situation, and also if I’m reading it correctly you only decided last week that you’re going to try improve your fitness? So you haven’t made much progress yet and don’t have anything to actually prove your alignment with them. If that is the sort of thing they care about, I don’t think what you’ve done will be enough to sway them, and if they don’t care about it then you’re losing out on space you could be selling your specific work skills better.

      I hope this isn’t too discouraging and you’ll do well in your applications!

    3. Anon with Emotions*

      I work in comms. Gently, you are overindexing on your personal journey and underindexing on the skills you bring to the table. Your fourth para should be your second, and your second and third should be at the bottom and way condensed. Best of luck!

    4. Reba*

      I think talking about your newfound/rediscovered passion for exercise would be very relevant and indicate your motivation for the career change. But the self-flagellation about your weight was uncomfortable to read, and overly personal. Of five paragraphs here two are about your feelings about your body. Delete the whole second graph and much of the third. Good luck with your search!

    5. Kay*

      Kindly, the business wants to hire the best fit for their needs, not yours. I could go into more detail but I don’t think that would be helpful to you, but please trust me when I say I venehmently stand behind saying DO NOT SEND THIS.

  59. Fluffy Fish*

    The bully didn’t make the request in writing or to me – it went to my boss over a phone call.

    My direct manager is fully aware of the issues with this person and has tried to get things addressed. Unfortunately they aren’t the kind of person to simply tell the bully no.

    Upper management (including bully’s manager) is aware and allegedly addressing things – but I’ve seen zero changes other than the bully now trying to change the narrative that they aren’t mean they’re just misunderstood.

    Frankly, I’m tired of being someone’s punching bag and passively twiddling my thumbs waiting for someone to do something. And of being the bigger person.

    I really don’t simply want to go along with this.

  60. InternetIntorvert*

    I have a low stakes question for this Friday afternoon – I recently started a new position in a new organization for the first time in 25 years. The culture is quite different than what I’m accustomed to and the CEO who hired me has worked with me before and wants to bring a culture similar to where I came from.

    The culture in my new org is stiff and inflexible. We want to help people let their guard down and build trust and work collaboratively. My communication style has always been on the casual and friendly side of professional. Here, people still open their emails with, “Dear, so-and-so,” which isn’t how I communicate and isn’t conducive to developing comradery, which is an important ingredient to build trust and collaboration. I’m used to managing large teams with some amount of diversity. I might open emails with, “Hi Team!” or “Hey gang” or similar, depending on the situation. Individual emails are usually, “Hi Steve – hope you’re having a good day. I need your help with something….” or “Hey Joanne – thanks so much for [that thing you did] — let’s talk about next steps when you have a sec.” Obviously, its always contextual and every circumstance might call for a slightly different approach.

    The problem in my my new role is that I now have a team of just two people who are both female and I’m male. Their former boss of many years was female. The two team members have worked in silos for a long time and seem to want to keep it that way. One way I’m trying to change that is my using more group emails (for those asking, yes, I do send them both emails and each will reply only to me, then I’ll reply and re-add the other – it’s a silly game, but I have stated it several times that I prefer to keep the email chain in tact so that we’re all equally informed and too please do the same unless something truly needs to be private.).

    I’m struggling with my openings! I don’t like “Hi team” in this case because that feels silly with only two people. I’ve never liked, “Hi ladies” even when I’ve seen that from other females to a group of all females (I have equal disdain for, “Hi gentlemen”). “Hey guys” feels ok to me, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t agree. I’ve been using, “Hi Joanne and Stephanie” but that just doesn’t land the same as it does when it’s just one person.

    Any suggestions? (Like I said, low stakes question, but one that is interesting to my overthinking brain.)

    1. Pam Adams*

      I try to use Folks or Team, as gender-neutral.

      since it’s 2 people, maybe you could use names? ‘Hi Stella and Raquel’

    3. Double A*

      You could just start the email with “Hello!” but I kind of like using both their names. Also a team can definitely be just two people, so I think you’re overthinking that one and team is just fine.

    4. Snacks*

      “Hi all”
      “Hi Joanne and Stephanie”
      “Hey teapot team”
      “Good morning”

      I agree, “ladies” lands weirdly. I don’t like it!

    5. cmdrspacebabe*

      I usually use “folks” or “all”! I think you’re right to stay away from the gendered terms – if you get into the habit of using them, it’ll also be harder to correct if your team expands or you speak to larger groups.

    6. Dasein9 (he/him)*

      I’d stick with “Hi Joanne and Stephanie” and also refer to both of them in the emails when you want the chain to be collaborative, like so: “Hi Joanne and Stephanie, I wanted to get both y’all’s input on this issue. . . . ”

      That would reinforce the collaboration you’re aiming for.

    7. Los Pollos Hermanos*

      I would say “hi team” — I’ve done that often even with very small teams. Also helps foster a sense of partnership, collaboration etc.

    8. De Minimis*

      I struggle with opening email salutations a lot. I usually stick with “Good morning”/”Good afternoon” if I’m emailing multiple people.

      1. Daphne Moon*

        I’ve thought better of ‘Morning gentlemen’ for the same reason, much as I like archaic forms in business correspondence (‘I propose to give myself the the satisfaction of waiting on you at your office on Tuesday next at 10am, yr obt servt’, etc: colonisation aside, unfortunately I’m not at work to entertain myself).
        To answer the question: For the situation here (or the other two members of a committee or etc), I say ‘Hi both’, or ‘Hi all’ for more than two -‘team’ feels sports-coachy to say. ‘Dear both’/’Dear all’ if it’s more formal.
        I use ‘Hi/Dear Joanne and Stephanie’ if I want them to clock that I’m including the other one (eg they don’t often/necessarily work together, I’m introducing them, etc).

    10. Samwise*

      Hello Jane and Joan,
      (Your message here).

      Thanks! Or Let me know if you have questions Or Let’s discuss at our weekly meeting Or …

      Bob

  61. business owner changing to employee*

    I’m doing a late in life career change from being a small (very small) business owner for 20 years to a new field where most work is done as employees. As a result, I’m searching for my first full time job in a few decades.
    I’m new to the field, with a newly minted masters in the field, so I’m looking at entry level roles and I’m fine with entry level salaries.
    As a hiring manager, what kind of answers would you hope to get for “tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a (coworker, boss, etc)?” when I’ve mostly been a solo practitioner, occasionally with an assistant or one employee?
    So far I’ve been answering with my experiences serving on the local professional organization, when I had occasional conflicts with fellow committee members, the board president, etc. about how things should be done.
    In a recent interview, I did discuss a time when I had and resolved an issue with the board president, but the interviewer stopped me and said she wanted to hear about a conflict with my BOSS.
    I haven’t had a boss since I worked as an on-campus janitor in my undergrad years in the late 90s, and I don’t remember any conflicts! He was a really great boss and we got along well. Even when we needed correcting – and we were college students, so it happened – he was kind, but firm.
    So how should I answer those “tell me about a time” questions if I’ve not experienced what they are asking about?
    And any other tips for how I can convince a hiring manager that my work history is not an obstacle to being a good employee?

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      The board president story should’ve been fine, that interviewer was being weird.

      1. Dasein9 (he/him)*

        Agreed! You could also say, “I haven’t had a boss in a long time, but here’s how I deal with conflict more broadly; it would certainly apply to how I will interact with my boss.”

    2. spcepickle*

      Agreed the board president was out of line. I guess if you served clients they were kind of your boss. But as someone who always asks conflict questions in my interviews your example about the local organizations was good – I just want to know how you handle professional conflict, which is a exactly what you did.

    3. Kay*

      Well, I would look at this as a disagreement with a client. While they aren’t your boss exactly, they kind of are since they pay you right?

      Unless the board position was paid, I wouldn’t count volunteering as being on the same level, but if that truly is the best circumstance I would have simply said something like “I’ve been my own boss for 20+ years and this seemed to be the best example, but there was a time when I had a disagreement with a client, would you like me to expand on that?”.

      That being said – I would probably have left enough of the identifying details out of the story to keep it usable. You can still tailor that response to fit without giving it all away. It should be easy enough to say “There was a time when I thought we should implement X program this way, but was told it needed to be done differently. While I explained my reasoning to ensure the organization wasn’t moving forward without pertinent information, it was determined the other route was the best choice at the time and I worked to successfully implement the program.”

  62. Diana the Huntress*

    Perhaps you could share stories of when new technology changes went weird at your company?

    Most of us have been paperless since the pandemic, although a few oldsters were hanging onto their paper. June 2 was the date to be totally paperless. The office ran out of paper the last week of May. The oldsters brought their own paper. Reams and teams. Printer access was taken away on June 2, but somehow one of the oldsters figured out how to get access again for a few days. Finally the printers were removed. The oldsters did NOT want to give up their paper! It was so funny watching this.

    1. Bast*

      At Old Job, we switched our case management software from Tried and True to Brand New. Brand New program had only been around for about a year and was still working out the kinks. Office manager got all excited about new software, had to have it, had to have it, even though the old thing worked just fine and frankly, wasn’t that outdated at all. Soooo we switched to Brand New and in the conversation process, lost thousands of documents. We were a completely paperless office, so these documents did not exist anywhere else. The people at Brand New essentially shrugged their shoulders and said “too bad, so sad” and didn’t have a clue what to do. It was terrible. Brand New also had a lot of little glitches that would be annoying and impede work, but the deleted documents was the biggest problem that impacted the whole office.

    2. One foot in sea*

      Wow. As someone you’d call an “oldster”, this is pretty rude. I print most things because I comprehend better when I read on paper and write notes in the margins. I am aware that I can read a document and make notes with comments, but my brain doesn’t work as well. I also am more efficient when working with paper because there isn’t a fun world immediately at my finger tips if I click away the window I’m working in. So yeah, if someone took away my printer and my paper, I would be hearing “I want you to take away tools that help you do your job efficiently and effectively”. I wouldn’t bother looking for a printer though, I’d be looking for a new job where I was valued for my contributions, not my lack of paper use.

      1. Diana the Huntress*

        Given the fact the oldsters are in fact all pushing 75, it is correct to call them that. They don’t get to make the decisions for an over 500 employee company. They were doing things like printing many page documents out then scanning them in, rather than printing to PDF. They weren’t printing as a method to absorb info better. They were using it as a way to avoid paperless processes they should have started using ages ago.

        1. One foot in sea*

          And oldsters is still rude. I hope you are less condescending to them in person.

        2. Anon attorney*

          there are clearly some inefficiencies in what your colleagues were doing, but the way you refer to them is unnecessarily dismissive.

          I’m much younger than them and a digital native and I would push back too if you told me no paper at all ever.

          maybe think about having some respect for different working styles and giving the ageism a rest?

      2. commenter 24902*

        I have times where I need a printed out document too. There may be a reason a fully paperless office makes sense but I agree with “oldster” that there are times where it’s just a different working style and a pretty reasonable yvmv situation to want a working printer for certain tasks.

        I’m 39.

    3. Might Be Spam*

      I still have unopened reams of paper from a box I bought 20 years ago. My supply has actually increased because people keep giving me their extra paper. I’ll probably end up donating it to a nearby church or school.

    4. Mad Scientist*

      100% paperless office policies are so impractical. My previous job tried to do this, and they wouldn’t even supply notepads for people to take notes by hand. My job involved field work, and I couldn’t always just pull out my computer and take notes digitally when I was standing in a river or something. It was very obviously about them being cheap while pretending it was about sustainability.

      There are still very valid reasons for people to be using hard copies.

  63. Negotiations*

    I need advice about how to talk to my management about my role and how honest to be about what I’m willing to leave over when I’m very nervous about leaving but it’s not off the table.

    I was moved from a role I loved to one that I am not happy with. Due to this and other big changes at my organization that have been overall negative, I’ve been considering leaving. However, it’s scary to leave because what I would leave for is a much more freelance/piecework income, plus helping with my husband’s business. Potentially high reward, but much riskier, and this news about health insurance costs on the ACA likely doubling if the budget bills pass is making me pause. I have good pay and benefits that I carry for our family; the plan was to get an ACA plan if I left this job, but those are suddenly looking much less stable, though I’m in California so maybe it’s a bit better.

    In thinking about next year (there’s a lot of reshuffling at the start of every school year), I can see the role that I would be happier in within the organization. I am going to meet with people who make these decisions and talk about what I want. How open should I be that if they don’t work with me to make me happier, they could lose me? I know a good manager will read between the lines of a request, but I don’t feel like they think they could lose me. I’m pretty sure they take for granted that I’ll be back and just do whatever job they give me.

    I have previously been an appreciated member of the team; I got a raise that I requested earlier this year and they stated they valued me, but in general I don’t really trust leadership to grok that they might lose people because of choices they’re making.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      It sounds like there’s an opening in a role you want? I’d start by going for that and making it clear that you’re really excited about it.

      If it seems they aren’t willing to move you, I think you need to be clear on whether or not you really are ready to leave over this, given the uncertainty around health insurance. If you really are ready to walk, you can say something like, “My current role isn’t working for me; I’d really like to transfer to this new role.”

      If they’re still surprised by a resignation after that, that’s on them.

    2. Brevity*

      It doesn’t sound like you have the leave the job immediately. Maybe sit with the idea some more? Think about ways you could shore up the health insurance angle?

      Also, if your workplace is as much a hotbed of gossip as most places, I wonder if you could use that to your advantage — as in, casually speaking with a coworker, in front of other coworkers, about how all the non-work stuff is going, and letting it drop that sometimes you think about maybe leaving the organization.

      That might accomplish nothing, or it may backfire, so if you don’t want to do that, then don’t. But it could lead to a constructive conversation around, “I’m not happy in current role; the role I want is X,” without veering into ultimatum territory.

  64. Fly on The Wall*

    What is the best way to find part time professional work? Remote and pays well (think $30-50 an hour USD)

    I am skilled in continuous improvement and project management. I have an opportunity to work part time for an organization I love but would need something else to supplement it as I would leave a well-paid full time (toxic culture) job.

    3. Chauncy Gardener*

      Try temp agencies and recruiting firms in your field. I’ve had good luck with those.

  65. A question about hiring*

    I’ve just started to be involved in hiring, and I’m in an area where a lot of applicants have a professional web presence beyond just LinkedIn. I’m wondering how other people in this kind of situation feel about applicants whose web presence is very focused around a different area of the industry – like, let’s say that they’re applying for a llama-grooming job, and it’s not just that their background is in dog-grooming, but that their website talks about how they love dog-grooming because they specifically are a huge dog person, and in particular they love working with individual owners to realize their vision of dog beauty, with a focus on giving dogs fancy haircuts and dyeing their fur fun colors. Meanwhile, we’re just contracting with llama farmers to keep their animals clean; we have a lot of llamas to get through and it’s not a very creative process.

    How much weight would you give that in the applications process? I don’t want to be too harsh about it, because I’ve been in the position of applying to any animal-grooming job that would have me regardless of how I felt about the type of animal, and frankly llamas were not my first choice either (although I never had a website talking about how much I love some other animal). And it’s a tough market out there and there are probably a lot of people who just desperately need jobs, and I don’t want to demand that they perform adequate llama enthusiasm in order to not starve when they’re probably perfectly capable of doing the work. But at the same time, I don’t really want to be working with someone who’s phoning it in because they’re bored by the uncreative llama work and resent that they’re not working with dogs.

    What do you think?

    1. MigraineMonth*

      I think it’s something to explore during an interview, but I wouldn’t assume that someone who loves giving dogs fancy haircuts would be bored/resentful to do uncreative work with llamas. Even if they really love dying dogs pretty colors, they may very well have ways to continue doing so in their own time. (I’m assuming? Unless you need to be licensed/working under a company to do so.)

      A lot of people (myself included) have uncreative jobs to earn money and creative hobbies where they spend it. In fact, a lot of people recommend *against* pursuing your passion/hobby as a career, since it usually doesn’t pay well and there’s a huge difference between knitting a fun shawl and knitting 40 identical shawls for sale.

      1. OP*

        A lot of people (myself included) have uncreative jobs to earn money and creative hobbies where they spend it.

        I’m one of those people too, but I’m talking about people’s professional websites or social media accounts that they link to from their resumes! I’m not googling them to find their personal Facebook accounts and assuming they won’t like the job because they talk about how fulfilling their personal knitting hobby is. This is specifically people who are going out of their way to express “the reason that I want to be in this career is because I love doing [thing they would not get to do at this company].”

        But it is true that you can freelance on the side of a full-time job and many people in this industry do, including me.

        1. Toxic Workplace Survivor*

          I agree you can try to screen for it in the interview process, especially when laying out the terms of the position you’re trying for. If someone loves dog grooming and it’s why they got into the field, that doesn’t mean they have no other experience or wouldn’t be able to pivot.

          In my mind it would be an asterisk of something to follow up on but it doesn’t tell me anything about whether they’re a good fit for the role unless there are other concerns – like they’ve previously bad mouthed competitors or other bad online behavior.

        2. Mad Harry Crewe*

          Also remember that those personal websites are a marketing tool. I don’t know if these applicants are freelancing based on their personal sites, or if dog grooming is the hot thing in your field right now, but in either case, it could make good business sense for them to highlight their dog grooming experience and excitement, even though they may be perfectly happy doing something else.

          They (hopefully) read the job description of your position and decided to apply. Ask about it in the first interview, but don’t assume that their interests are as shallow as their marketing buzz.

  66. I don’t know*

    This is a mix of business and personal. I volunteer at my 13 year olds school a few hours a month. In my opinion teachers do not get enough support, this is the least I can do.

    Again this is volunteer but over the years I’ve built a nice professional network (as well as social) with other parents and even some of the teachers and school staff. In fact the last time I switched jobs an art teacher gave me a lead through her sisters home decore business (I work as an architect).

    My son and I planned some home made gifts for year end for the teachers. We were going to to make homemade cookies, decorate some tins for the cookie and sew a pencil case for the teachers. I sew for a hobby business, my son decided how he wanted the pencil case to look and helped me but the supplies, I’ll do the sewing…the pencil case is because there is a running joke in the school how the teachers always loose their pens and pencils

    Given that my network is blurred professional, volunteering, social and as a parent… is this year end gift too juvenile? Should I just stick to the traditional gift cards? I want the gift to mean something for these amazing teachers!

    1. Pam Adams*

      Add the gift card, and a personal letter. Detail how your son took the lead/contributed, particularly if you can tie it to what he gained from the past year’s schooling

    2. M2*

      Do gift cards. My BIL and SIL are/were both teachers and they would not eat any food given from a student or a parent. You do not know what is in it and it could be dangerous. They always appreciated the gesture, but said they never ate food. They also got a ton of coffee mugs and ornaments etc so didn’t need anymore.

      Most classes do a class gift where you raise money and give the teachers a gift card. I think the handmade pencil cases are a nice idea, but I would not give any kind of food. Personally I do gift cards. Teachers don’t make enough and usually a Target card or something helps a lot. A nice handwritten note is also kind. I once gave my son’s extra teacher a coffee gift card in the middle of the year just because and she was so appreciative. She said she loved fancy coffee, but she could not afford to get it as much as she wanted.

      1. State Employee*

        Hubby is a school employee (not a teacher, but every kid in his building knows who he is, and greet him like he’s a rock star when they see him in real life). He eats ALL the cookies. Loves anything his kids give him, from the I choo-choose you (or whatever Lisa’s valentine to Ralphie said!) valentines to birthday cupcakes. He truly believes it’s the thought that counts, and loves anything his kids do.

    3. MigraineMonth*

      It’s a gift from your son to his teachers based on a joke he shares with them. That’s lovely and meaningful, and who cares if a gift *chosen by a child* is “juvenile”!

      The only thing I’d change is–assuming he’s old enough to do so safely–let your son help you with the sewing. It’s a great skill to learn and will make the gift even more personal.

    4. Elizabeth West*

      I might skip the food for reasons M2 gave, but the pencil case is a great idea!

    5. Irish Teacher.*

      Honestly, as a teacher, the idea of a gift based on an in-joke is just amazing.

      It might be different where you are, but quite frankly, I am a bit uncomfortable with gift cards – I got one last year from a student and while it was a really nice thing for him and his family to do, it felt a little bit much. Perhaps because you can see how much is spent and I know many of my students have parents earning a good deal less than I do.

      One of the nicest things I ever got from students was from a student who brought in selection boxes at Christmas for all his teachers. It wasn’t the selection box so much as that he and I and another student in the class (this was a group of 3 students I had for resource) liked murder mysteries and so we had been reading murder mysteries and writing murder mysteries and so on. So they hid the selection box and put a code thing with clues on the board and said “we’ve got a mystery for you, Miss” when I came into the classroom.

      The other gifts I’ve loved have been little things like a friendship bracelet a student with dyslexia made while I was scribing an exam for her and then gave to me and a random gift out of a cereal packet a kid gave me.

      But the things I value most of all is letters or cards with personal messages.

    6. Rara Avis*

      Teacher here, and I would love any of the above. I do eat homemade cookies my kids bring to me, and have never had a problem. (No allergies.) the pencil case sounds super fun!

    7. AJB*

      As a teacher, I think that gift is so sweet! Some teachers will say they don’t eat homemade treats, but if I know the parent fairly well and trust them, I will. It sounds like you have a good enough relationship with these teachers that the homemade treats will be well received.

  67. maybesocks*

    Have you heard of this: I need to swallow the frog.

    It’s what my sister and I say to each other. It helps me acknowledge how unpleasant and difficult it will be for me and that I need to do it now to get it over with. I can manage only one or maybe two frogs in a day.

    1. Chicago Anon*

      It’s from one of the standard books about time management. I don’t remember if it’s 7 Habits or Getting Stuff Done or maybe somebody else, but the idea is that you eat the frog first and then it’s over with.

      I prefer to work up to the hard tasks, but you do you!

    2. Nicki Name*

      There’s a quote attributed to Mark Twain: “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”

  68. TheatreLighting*

    Trying again this week –
    I am currently a theatre lighting designer.
    I would like to find a full-time job not in theatre.

    The best jump seems to be to architectural lighting.
    Are there any architects here who can speak to 1) what I should hilight in my resume (theatre resumes are really different from ‘normal’ resumes) and 2) if it’s gonna be a deal-breaker that I don’t use Revit?

    Thank you!

      1. TheatreLighting*

        I’ve thought about it, but I wasn’t sure if there are roles just for the lighting team in museums! Totally open to suggestions for where to look for that kind of role, as well. :) And what I’d need to hilight in my experience/resume to be a good candidate!

        1. Jay (no, the other one)*

          There are exhibit teams and they usually have a lighting designer, especially in bigger museums. I’d check the museum associations for specific types of museums and see if they have job boards.

          1. Rook*

            There are also lighting designers who work for exhibit design firms. In addition to the goals that I imagine a theatrical lighting designer has, museum lighting designers have to plan to minimize damage to artifacts and to look good in photos visitors might post to social media (especially avoiding glare and hotspots).

            Good lighting is SO important for exhibits!

  69. GoogleDriver*

    Okay, maybe this is not a big deal but it’s driving me nuts and I need a second opinion. I feel like whenever I open a file in our Google Drive, I see my bosses’ icon pop up in the right corner shortly after. Sometimes I have no idea how she even knows what document I’m working on. I feel weirdly surveilled. Is there some setting in Drive if you’re an admin that notifies you if anyone edits any document and immediately gives you the option of dropping in? Is there a way she’s not actually there and it’s just some kind of automated setting? This just happened and I didn’t even think she was working today. I would like to ask her about it but honestly not sure what wording to use.

    1. ThreeSeagrass*

      I think there is a way that you can get notified if anyone adds or removes text from a Google Doc, so that would feel kind of surveillance-y if she was doing that. Or maybe she’s just always on all documents but it doesn’t show up right away for you? (though I feel like the icon will gray out after a user is inactive for a while, so the “she just has all the tabs open at all times” theory is probably not a good one). Does it happen even if you don’t make any changes to the document?

      1. GoogleDriver*

        Not usually, although at least once I swear I opened a random document that I had created and saw her pop in a few minutes later. More typically I’ll make an edit to the document, and she’ll pop up but never say anything or make any edits. As you say, sometimes she was greyed out and I’m not worried about that, but not infrequently she WAS greyed out, then I made an edit, and then she suddenly pops up full color. Doesn’t she have anything else to do?? Does she not realize I can see her?

    2. Paper Pusher Master*

      Yes, there is a setting in Drive that tells me instantly when anyone is editing a document I shared.

    3. ichthys*

      Your boss might not even be looking at the document but could simply have it open in her browser. I experience the same thing with colleagues, and their icons sometimes pop on and off on days I know they’re not working, or at times when I know they’re not at their computers. I think there is sometimes a delay in showing others’ icons in a Google doc (which is why it seems like she’s hopping into the doc shortly after you open it), and I also think people neglect to close their browser tabs.

  70. Meep*

    I am slowly looking for a job right now, but with the state of… everything… even my highly in demand field is having issues with hiring. So! any advice on how to keep slogging through on a job that doesn’t respect you? I know, I know, but sometimes you just need to hear it.

    Right now I have our servers after we lost the office (we didn’t get a renewal because we were seen as a liability when we went on furlough and one of our employees told them everyone was fired -insert facepalm- which is honestly fair… same employee found out we were kicked out of the office and had to tell the president… its a mess… but anyway….) because the president didn’t want to take them. This means, I am essentially incurring the cost of keeping them running.

    I also found out recently that I am the only one who hasn’t gotten a raise and for some very, very stupid reasons… (Apparently they earned their raises doing engineering services despite me also doing engineering services and being praised for it??) Which hurts as I have been there for 8 years (never acknowledged) and am the longest serving employee.

    Obviously, I need to get out, but I am also a new mother in engineering, so it has been a bit harder to do that as well. And frankly, I would much rather cuddle my child who appreciates me than continue to save this company’s butt.

    So how do you keep focused when working remotely when you really don’t want to?

    1. Cookie Monster*

      I know this doesn’t completely answer your question, but can you talk to your supervisor about why you were the only one not getting a raise even though you were exceling at the same tasks the other engineers got raises for? If you already did, what did they say? I would start there when figuring out what motivates me.

      1. Meep*

        He will give some bullshit line about how we don’t have money. I mean we don’t. See the furloughed portion. But then he gave extra bonuses to people because they were contractors and apparently needed help doing their taxes despite being contractors for 3+ years….

        The main problem is he sees me as some sort of work project to mentor so I need all this guidance and no amount of explaining to him I know what I am doing will help. We literally spent a meeting on Tuesday where he was giving me advice for a presentation and it didn’t seem to phase him that all that advice he gave me? Already implemented.

        It is like talking to a wall.

        1. Cookie Monster*

          In a case like this, I focus on what happens if I DON’T do my job. What are the negative consequences for me? What am I trying to avoid happening in the future (ex.: not paying my bills, etc.)?

    2. An Australian In London*

      Serious question: What happens if you shut these servers off?

      One of the many beautiful ideas I’ve learned from AAM is: Why do you care more about the company than its owners do?

      1. Meep*

        They would be up a creek without a paddle without access to their source code, actually. At least until they found somewhere else to store it.

        Truthfully, the company is kind of hobbling along on its last leg. I took the servers (and $10,000+ worth of equipment he just wanted to throw away) to protect it for the founder, who has left the company since it is his life’s work. I still have respect for the founder. I am just fed up with being taken for granted.

        1. IT guy*

          Is there an admin person that can send you some prepaid (or COD) shipping labels for the servers? If the company isn’t paying your power bill as a business expense to you (not taxable income) I’d consider putting them back in the shipping boxes (I hope you kept) and sending them back to HQ.

        2. Mad Harry Crewe*

          The founder doesn’t own them anymore, though – right? He left the company. That’s no longer his code or his machines.

          Are you expecting that you’ll just be allowed to keep the servers if the company goes under? I’m just very curious what the plan is, here.

          If your goal is to get them out of your house – raise it as an urgent issue that you’re incurring significant expense and need the servers out of your house by [$date in the near future]. Remind them a few times leading up to your deadline. End of day on $date, pull the plug.

        3. I Have RBF*

          So, if you shut the servers off, they will still have the data, just not be accessible to anyone else. If I were stuck holding the servers of somewhere I worked that was jacking me around, I would:
          A. Back up those servers to a separate hard drive, maybe twice
          B. Turn off the network (ifdown), and see who screams
          C. If A has no screaming, power down the servers

          Keep the backup for the founder.

          Tell the current management that you have been working without a raise for 8 years, and they aren’t even covering your cost to keep those servers running (power and HVAC). Ask them where they want them shipped (you keep the backups) and for the cost of shipping. If they want their source code, they need to pay to run the servers, or pay to have them shipped to where they run them.

          Find a new job. The current owners of the company are abusing your diligence and conscientiousness.

          I’ve worked for asshole startups. This sounds like a nightmare, with lots of mansplaining and economic abuse. Get out.

    3. Rick Tq*

      Turn the servers off and pack them and the $10k of company equipment you took home up to be shipped back to where ever the company tells you to ship them. There are too many issues having them run at your home beyond the cost for power and cooling.

      Among others are you even allowed to have business systems by your ISP on a personal account???

  71. An Australian In London*

    UK readers may be interested to learn that HMRC (tax office) has quietly announced that they will start paying USA-style whistleblower bounties for reports that lead to reclaiming unpaid tax. Exact details are still unclear but it is expected to be 25% of the tax obtained through the tip-off.

    Not, alas, any penalties on that missing tax, nor any purely procedural fines. But still, a tip-off that recovered £90k tax from a company for each of 500 employees = £45M tax recovered = £11.25M for the whistleblower. That might be enough to never have to work again – since I assume whistleblowing of this magnitude would mean never being able to work again.

  72. ThreeSeagrass*

    I commented in the open thread last Friday regarding my complicated feelings about being on an (academic/higher ed) search committee to hire the person who is going to supervise me and how one of the candidates is my current supervisor who has been doing the role as an interim for more than two years.

    Well…we finished up interviews and things are going well. Or so I thought, until I got some concerning feedback from someone I trust about one of the external candidates. They were apparently a nightmare at one of their previous institutions, which this person had direct experience with. Commenters last week pointed out that higher ed is rife with people who can make themselves sound very good and reasonable on paper, but are actually terrible to work for. Now I’m working through what I should do with this information (meeting with HR later). We have a very regimented search process and do reference letters instead of reference checks – this is definitely one case where I wish we could actually TALK to references.

    My current supervisor is looking better and better. They will never be one for big strategic thinking (which I wish they were), but I have worked for/with them in some capacity for more than a decade and I have never once known them to be toxic in any way. This is rare in academia, right? We should be holding onto this person for dear life? I’m feeling like I’d rather have a steady supervisor rather than someone with a grand vision, especially given the climate in higher ed right now. I also like them a great deal on a personal level, so I have to be aware how that might be skewing my perspective, but I was reflecting on all the time I’ve worked with them this week and find it really remarkable that they have been truly kind the whole time.

    1. The Green Lawintern*

      FWIW, someone with grand strategic vision is only valuable if they can stay long enough to implement – and not drive everyone else out while doing so. We had a similar situation at my job where a changemaker was brought in, leadership totally hyped them up, the works. The company terminated them after a couple years because there were just too many complaints about how they treated people. I can’t recall one thing that they did besides create endless headaches for HR.

    2. Jeneral*

      In my limited experience in a higher-ed adjacent environment, I think you’re smart to be skeptical of someone with a grand vision. It’s all too common for people to come in selling grand, innovative plans, win tons of praise and possibly bring disruption to those below them/on the front lines, and then just . . . not. They leave/fold/have a scandal/fire people/change a bunch of words but don’t actually fix any problems. I would share what you’ve learned within whatever the parameters are for doing that at your institution, and hope for the best.

  73. Cookie Monster*

    I’ve been at my job for 20 years. For about 15 years, it was just one thing with a normal title. About 5 years, it became kind of a hybrid role with completely different responsibilities. But unfortunately, I didn’t get a title change until about 2 years ago. How do I show on my resume that I actually have 5 years experience with these extra duties when, based on the title change, it looks like only 2?

    1. HR Exec Popping In*

      Just put the new job title for the entire time you had the new responsibilities. You can add a note that your title changed during this period from X to Y. This happens and isn’t a big deal.

  74. Fed for now*

    Hi – a quick update on the story of fabricated references. The company was made aware and is handling it internally. I’m hoping extra attention on quality will help with some of their more traditional areas of sloppiness! We’re working on the regulator side to come up with some kind of policy for what to do in these situations, since this is the first time we’ve caught it but probably not the first time it’s happened.

    I had to laugh at the parallels with the very recent high-profile instance of fabricated references in a government-released document. Disappointing but not surprising that they chose the “no big deal” path of dealing with it, characterizing it as “formatting issues” rather than fictionalized science.

  75. Applesauced*

    My company does summer Fridays – if you don’t have meetings you can leave at 1 pm on Fridays. Great.

    I have a standing meeting scheduled on Friday afternoons.

    I requested a Friday off and arranged coverage.

    Our office manager responded “yes but you do have to take some meetings on Fridays in the summer”

    I asked for ONE Friday. Does it suck that my summer Fridays start later than the rest of the office yes, but I’m going to the meetings EVERY other time (not biweekly, but every time other than this one)

    Am I nuts to be a bit irked at her comment?

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      That’s … weird. Presumably you’d have done the exact same thing if it was winter? You’re not asking to move the meetings every week so you can dip out early, you are taking a single day off and arranging coverage for yourself while you’re gone.

    2. I see you Doris Burke*

      Depending on how big the meeting is, can it be scheduled for earlier in the day, or on a different day? Presumably the others want to take advantage of Summer Fridays also?

    3. Mad Harry Crewe*

      You’re not nuts, that’s a weird comment.

      What’s the office manager like normally? Is this a good relationship and good colleague who maybe just misunderstood? Is this someone who assumes the worst by default? Is this someone who rubs you wrong in other ways, and this is just salt on the wound? How much influence does this person actually have over your life?

      If they were *your* manager, or someone whose opinion matters, I might borrow some Alison language: “Boss, I wanted to check in about your comment last week, I’m worried you misunderstood – I’m taking vacation on $date, specifically, that wasn’t a request for every Friday. Has something happened to make you worry that I would start regularly skipping the Llama recap meeting?”

      If this is just a person who rubs you wrong, I would do your best to get it out of your system and then take a deep breath and let it go.

    4. Cookie Monster*

      No, you’re not nuts. How long have you been there? Is this your first summer there?

    5. Brevity*

      I’m going to err on the side of compassion and guess that maybe Office Manager has had some really bad experiences, in which, when she *didn’t* remind someone of what they should have known already, she got hauled over the coals for it. In other words, it’s nothing about you, she’s just in CYA mode.

  76. Hey Nonny Annony*

    Question for other managers (especially middle managers): During performance review cycles, is it normal for your manager to read through all your reviews for your reports in full detail and provide you with the text that they want you to say instead?

    Background: I’m a director of a department and a manager of managers. I’ve been getting great feedback and reviews on my (and my team’s) performance for years now, though very little from my manager. My team has grown and thrived through some very difficult times at the company.

    When we moved to a new company-wide performance review process, it included some time at the end for departments to do some high-level comparisons and make sure that the final ratings were fair. This makes sense to me, and I came to the meeting prepared to go over the final scores, justify them, make my case for promotions, etc.

    Instead of the high-level rating review, my manager insisted that I:
    * collect and provide the full text of all feedback I wrote for my own reports, and that my managerial reports had written
    * review all of the above in a meeting with me
    * dictated changes for me and my managers to make to our feedback, usually in a more critical/negative direction that I did not agree with

    And I mean literally dictating exact wording — it was made clear that I had to type in and save the changes as we went. Accompanied with comments like “No, that’s wrong. The message you’re giving to X should be Y”. I’d estimate that I had to substantially change my feedback, messaging, and/or ratings to at least half of my reports, and then became a relay messenger between my manager and my managerial reports doing the same.

    Though I’ve been successful with it for almost 6 years now, this is my first managerial and leadership position, all under the same manager. I don’t have much to compare this with, so I’m hoping that folks here can give me some much-needed outside perspective. Thanks!

    (Long time reader, first time poster, hoping that I haven’t provided too much detail and outed myself!)

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      I did performance reviews for three years, and while I got some guidance along the lines of the whole “aim for ~70% meets expectations” nonsense, my director NEVER second-guessed me on the actual text of what I was putting in for my evaluations of my direct reports. I don’t think she ever even asked to see them before I submitted them. (They were going to her anyway as a next step, but.)

    2. I Have RBF*

      That sounds awfully micromanagerish. You aren’t a dictaphone, FFS. Plus, you’ll probably need to tell those reports that the feedback did not come from you.

      IOTW, yes, it’s weird.

    3. Cookie Monster*

      Yes, that’s very weird and not normal. Was their feedback even accurate? Would they really know your direct reports’ performances in such detail like that, more than you would? I find that hard to believe. Is there company-wide pressure to not give so much positive feedback to avoid paying a certain amount of raises?

    4. Chauncy Gardener*

      I have NEVER had my manager do this at any job. I’ve been C level for a while now and I’ve never done that to any of my managers.
      This is really weird IMHO

  77. Parakeet*

    If I see a job ad for a temporary consultancy, and it says “[nonprofit] does not specify the number of hours for this consultancy, but does expect the availability of the consultant to provide needed one-on-one support, as confirmed by the Operations manager” and the total payment is definitely less than full-time, what should I assume (if anything) about compatibility with my existing full-time job? International staff, so no presumption of everyone having the same core hours to consider.

    (whether it would be considered conflict of interest is a separate question that would be for my org’s HR to answer)

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      I don’t know that I’d assume anything from just that – if they need immediate response in the middle of your normal workday as a requirement, obviously it’s not terribly compatible, but if all the needed 1:1 support can be done asynchronously or in the middle of the night, then maybe it might work? More details needed to be able to make assumptions :)

  78. Lost Teapot*

    I’m a mid-career professional with a strong background in mission-driven work, and I’m currently job searching, but I’m feeling completely lost. I’ve applied to dozens of roles that seem like a great fit, tailored my resume and cover letters, and followed up when appropriate. I’m proud of my experience and the impact I’ve had, but this process is wearing me down and making me question my direction.

    Hey Hive mind!
    Lately, I’ve noticed a pattern where I can usually make it to a first-round interview, but then I either don’t move forward or lose out as a finalist. It’s hard to know whether that means I’m doing something wrong in interviews or just coming up short in a competitive pool.

    I know job searches can take time, but I’m starting to feel unsure whether I’m aiming at the right types of roles or if there’s something I’m missing that’s holding me back. How can I tell whether it’s just a tough market or if I need to rethink my approach? And how do I stay grounded and motivated when everything feels so uncertain?

    1. Say hello to my little kitty*

      It’s a tough market!

      It’s good that you’re self-assessing – that will help you going forward. Can you get an objective second pair of eyes on your job search data, someone who can help you assess what you’ve done so far and assist with a strategy going forward?

  79. tenor eleven*

    I am making a pride bulletin board for the youth services section of our library and want to fill it in with encouraging post-it notes a kiddo can take with them. If you would like to write your own note of encouragement (basically, what would you say to your younger self), please feel free to reply and I may use it on our bulletin board. Many thanks. <3

    1. I Have RBF*

      “Bad stuff isn’t forever.”
      “Even when it seems no one likes you, someone does.”
      “You decide who you are, no one else.”
      “What seems larger than life now will be small in the future.”
      “Sometimes you just have to consider the source, and shrug.”
      “Someone out there believes in you.”
      “Go ahead and love yourself. You’re worth it.”
      “Consider this note a hug.”
      “It’s okay to change up who you are, if it’s your choice.”
      “Tell the haters to go jump in a lake.”
      “You can look in a mirror and like what you see. Try it.”
      “What others call you doesn’t dictate who you are. You do.”
      “High school is not adult life, fortunately.”
      “The best revenge is living well.”
      “Find your people. They’re out there.”
      “Look toward the future, not the past.”

      I wasn’t out in high school. Instead, I was ADHD (unmedicated), fat, socially awkward, and smarter than most of my class. I hated high school, and my peers acted like they hated me.

      College and beyond opened up my world.

    2. Chronic*

      “Your people are out there.”
      “Your future self is so proud of you right now.”

    3. futureself*

      “Your future friends will be so happy to know you.”
      “You can make a change in the world for the better.”
      “The world is better for you being here.”

  80. Llama Wrangler*

    This is a little bit of a vent and a little bit of an ask for support. I have a junior team member who I find frustrating at times – he is nominally the lead on a project that I collaborate with him on, but he does not take full ownership of the process, and often makes errors that slow us down. (For example, he’ll repeatedly ask me questions because he doesn’t go back to look at documentation and/or fails to document for himself when I give him an answer. He also said “we need to follow up with this person on X” and when I asked why our tracker said it was a different person we needed to follow up with, he said he had just copied the wrong name.) One of his roles for this project is to manage the project plan / timeline document, which he has been struggling to do – things are messy, out of order, and duplicated, and while me and my other colleague have both given him suggestions about how to get it into shape, he says he hasn’t had time to do it.

    This brings us to the issue at hand. Someone doing work on this project asked if a task I had asked her to do could get added to the timeline document, so that she has a record of it (including for future years). I asked junior colleague via our chat system if he could add it (since he maintains it and since it’s a mess). He replied saying “My internet connection is down at the moment – I only have access to chat – can you add that item to the standing meeting agenda?” Thinking he was confused about what I asked him to do, I said “No worries, I’ll forward you the request as an email so you can do it when you’re back online – it needs to go in the timeline, not the agenda.”

    His response was pretty terse – “Don’t send it as an email. We all have editing access, please add it yourself.” (And – I had already sent it as an email and moved on to one of the many other things on other projects I need to do.)

    What is the best way to respond here? We are at a moment of high stress and things moving rapidly, and the tone of his message seems pretty annoyed. I am also very annoyed at him! But I would like to try to smooth things over and clarify what our working roles are so that we can move through the remaining weeks of this project with as little tension as possible.

    1. Llama Wrangler*

      (I will add – uncharacteristically terse! This is not generally how he or we communicate via chat tools. If anything he’s generally overly friendly and chatty)

    2. Wellie*

      First, I don’t think owning the project plan is a responsibility that should go to a junior employee. But since that’s what you’ve done, let’s deal with your question.

      I would let the tone go since you say it is uncharacteristic. I think you need to address the message, which is that you should do it yourself.If you can walk down to his desk and talk to him, do that. If your remote or whatever, then give him a call. I think you need to spell out with ownership of the plan means and also the importance of the plan. It is not some thing he does when he has time, it needs to be one of the top items in his priority list.The reason you don’t just do it yourself is that he is the owner and the owner keeps it up to date when he gets input. It is not a group effort, it is his effort. You don’t need to get all HAM on him, but you should be fairly explicit in spelling out what ownership means.

      When you are both clear on what his responsibility is as owner of the project plan, then you might want to circle back to his tone. You can just say something like, “You were pretty terse there. It was uncharacteristic for you, is everything OK?” Hopefully everything is OK and he responds with some thing like oh yeah I just wanted to reply real quick or some garbage like that. And then you have a talk about how terseness of that nature comes across as annoyance and giving an annoyed direction to someone, anyone, is going to damage the relationship and make it more difficult to work with them.

      1. Llama Wrangler*

        Thanks! This is all very helpful. I should clarify – I am not his manager, I am just in a more senior role. Our department head was the one who made the call of him being point on this; she is also involved in this project. His manager is not involved in this project but is involved in many other projects that this one relates to. Anything that would change about the expectation setting given that?

        1. Mad Scientist*

          I’m not the person you’re replying to, but I do think that changes things! Is his manager aware of the issues? Or has his manager asked you for any feedback about how things have been going with this coworker leading the project? I think this would be useful info for his manager to know, but as for what feedback to give your coworker directly, that part is trickier. Are you in a mentorship type of role? Personally, I’d feel a little weird giving unsolicited feedback about tone / professionalism to a coworker, but that’s just me. You can absolutely give him feedback about the project management part though. Could you respond to his chat message (if it was recent) and just say something like “adding this sort of information is typically the PM’s responsibility”

        2. Wellie*

          Two questions:

          Are you matrixed?
          What’s your project role with respect to his? Ie, where are you both in the project org chart: reporting or horizontal?

          1. Llama Wrangler*

            I appreciate your response but I don’t know what these questions mean! Probably because I work at a nonprofit where “project management” is much more ad hoc than the corporate world…

            1. Dovima*

              Matrixed means that there are line managers, and there are project managers, and they are separate groups of people. Project managers have no supervisory authority, but they are in charge of project work. Line managers have no project authority, but they handle all the supervisory stuff. So your project manager(s) give you your day to day tasks, and your line manager handles your long term career planning, reviews, and any discipline that comes up. So a project manager can have people who report to multiple line managers on their team, and a line manager can have direct reports farmed out to multiple projects.
              It muddles the authority a bit as senior people act as leads who have project authority even if they are not managers.

        3. linger*

          As his manager is not involved in this project, is it possible his manager is assigning him work ignoring the existence of this project? That is something that could cause terseness.

  81. teapots?*

    I’m a mid-career professional with a strong background in mission-driven work, and I’m currently job searching, but I’m feeling completely lost. I’ve applied to dozens of roles that seem like a great fit, tailored my resume and cover letters, and followed up when appropriate. I’m proud of my experience and the impact I’ve had, but this process is wearing me down and making me question my direction.

    Lately, I’ve noticed a pattern where I can usually make it to a first-round interview, but then I either don’t move forward or lose out as a finalist. It’s hard to know whether that means I’m doing something wrong in interviews or just coming up short in a competitive pool.

    I know job searches can take time, but I’m starting to feel unsure whether I’m aiming at the right types of roles or if there’s something I’m missing that’s holding me back. How can I tell whether it’s just a tough market or if I need to rethink my approach? And how do I stay grounded and motivated when everything feels so uncertain?

    1. Fluffy Fish*

      its really hard to know unfortunately.

      you left out how you feel the interviews have gone. have you felt like you did really well? what’s the vibe you’re getting from interviewers? are there questions that have tripped you up? has there been times afterwards you thought, i should’ve said this instead or forgot about this?

      might sound silly but maybe journaling a little after the interviews while everything is fresh in your head might help you see if there’s a pattern?

      im sorry i know its tough and demoralizing

    2. Chauncy Gardener*

      It’s super that you’re getting interviews!
      Do you have a good friend whose professionalism you trust who you could do a mock interview with to see if they notice anything? Have you received any feedback from your interviewers?
      I agree with Fluffy Fish to try to see if there were questions that tripped you up etc.
      If you’re making it to final rounds, that’s a super good sign, IMHO.
      Good luck! You will land eventually!

  82. Ranira*

    What’s the best thing to say in a cover letter if you don’t have much to show for a period of unemployment?

    My husband was laid off over a year ago and has spent the intervening time mostly relaxing and doing things around the house while trying to find a new job. How can he best explain this period? We do have young children but they’ve been in daycare. He started taking classes but only very recently.

    Any way to describe this that doesn’t make him sound lazy or out-of-touch? (he’s not!)

    1. Nicki Name*

      If he’s been job-searching this whole time, I don’t think you need to look for a way to explain it away. He was laid off, he’s been looking for a new opportunity since then. Sometimes it takes a long time.

      1. Academic Physics*

        I’ve also heard the phrase ‘family obligations’ used, if that’s helpful? I could argue that taking care of oneself is a way to take care of the family, but ymmv. But I agree with you Nicki, looking for a new opportunity seems like a reasonable enough explanation to me!

    2. HR Exec Popping In*

      He has been focused on his job search and keeping his skills up to date with personal development. Note: personal development is broader than taking classes and can include reading, networking, etc.

    3. Another former fed*

      Taking time to recharge? I feel like I’ve seen a fair number of posts on LinkedIn with people saying this, and it sounds fine to me.

      Or maybe both – “taking some time to recharge as well as job-searching.”

  83. Hedgehug*

    I landed a new job moving from low-paying non-profit, to double my salary in corporate finance.
    This will be a big environment change for me and the team has expressed how supportive they will be, etc. But I’ve never worked in such high level before and am nervous. I had to google what “c-suite” means and am having Princess Diaries-esque feelings with how fancy the office tower is and getting my brain around accepting that I’ll be getting fancy equipment.
    Any advice for navigating corporate norms would be appreciated! I’ll be working in admin.

    1. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      Almost everything you see in TV and movies is at best wildly exaggerated, and at worst flat-out wrong.

      You are probably used to a decision-by-consensus culture in non-profits; this will not be the case in your new job. Authority and responsibility are distributed hierarchically – you will be able to decide some things, your boss will be able to decide more things. If your boss overrules your decision, you go with it. Unless it’s part of your job description, or you are asked directly, refrain from acting as devil’s advocate.

      Also – it’s not fancy equipment, it’s functional equipment. It’s not a treat, it’s just a tool to do your job.

    2. HR Exec Popping In*

      When I moved from non-profit to a corporation it was the little things that were the biggest culture shift. I found non-profits to be more levelistic and political. And it was odd to me to be able to order any type of pen I wanted. So many things seemed so wasteful and luxurious. Otherwise, the work tended to be more specialized. At the non-profit I had broader responsibilities – basically do whatever we need you to do as nobody else was around to do it. In the corporate world jobs are more defined with clearer lines of responsibilities.

      But at the end of the day, people are people and work is work. Just remember to tell yourself that you are qualified even if you have different experiences. No need for imposter syndrome! Just because your new co-workers have more corporate experience doesn’t mean they are better than you are!

    3. Chauncy Gardener*

      I recommend going into this in deep observer mode. Really watch what and how people do and say. Try to observe the norms of your particular office. Every company has their own culture and you need to figure out what your company’s culture is. Pretend you’re an anthropologist for a few months while you figure this out. Notice how people dress and how they speak with each other. Observe behavior between the hierarchical layers and within them and notice any differences.
      Good luck!

  84. M313*

    Anybody have any recommendations for low stress jobs that don’t require a lot of specialized training? I feel like I had a “final straw” moment at my current job, and now that I’ve admitted to myself I’m unhappy with it (so fed up with working 12-14 hour days on the regular, playing catchup over the weekends, and still feeling like I’m not doing enough because there’s just so MUCH work ). I have no kids or spouse and live with my parents, so I have the luxury of doing something low paying for a year or so while I deal with the burnout. I really don’t think I can bring myself to leave without anything lined up, and I’m just so, so tired.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      Damn, that sounds really rough. You also sound a lot me like when I hit burnout. Is it possible to take a long vacation where you completely unplug before you try to figure out what to do next? I actually quit with nothing else lined up, and it was 2-3 months before I recovered enough to start applying to full-time jobs. It did get better, though; at some point the fog and chronic fatigue lifted, and I hope the same happens for you.

      I don’t think it will be hard to find a less stressful job than what you have now, but something to think about: what does “low stress” mean to you? Is it just the number of hours that are the problem? The outsize workload? The expected connectivity? Deadline pressure? Having to deal with customers/the public/workplace politics? Would WFH be a benefit or detriment?

      1. M313*

        Thank you for the well wishes. I could probably take a week or two, but no more, and I dread to think of the mess I’d return to. I’d pretty much have to quit to get multiple months off, and I just don’t think I could ever bring myself to do that. I was unemployed for a really long time during the Great Recession, and it was the only time I was more miserable than I am now. I’m terrified of that happening again.

        As for what “low stress” means for me specifically, the crazy hours and workload are the number one thing. I can’t express how much I’d like to have some time and energy for my hobbies and stuff . Beyond that, I would really want to NOT be in a supervisory role anymore and be able to focus on one task at a time, rather than constantly be juggling several at once. Ideally I would want a job where I’m usually left alone by my boss so long as I’m working okay and don’t have to deal with the public, but I don’t feel like I need ideal, just something that doesn’t leave me feeling perpetually overwhelmed and used up.

    2. Cookie Monster*

      Can you look for administrative assistance jobs? Depending on the industry, they can be very 9-5 and low stress (says me, an administrative assistant for 20 years in the marketing industry).

      Note: this is not the same as an executive assistant, which pays a lot more but can be much more demanding.

    3. Analise*

      What are you interested in doing, or what do you think you would like to do? My daughter loves stocking shelves at Walmart (and lost 20 pounds her first month just from moving all day at work), but I think I would hate it and be in so much pain by the end of the day that I wouldn’t last long before needing to quit.

      Are you looking for something in an office? Do you think you would like retail? Working at YMCA summer camps over the summer? Lifeguarding?

      Maybe look at a job site and just put in your location, not a job type, and see what comes up that seems like something you might enjoy?

  85. Academic Physics*

    I have a very rickety car, and my office has some wicked large speed bumps in the parking lot I need to take slowly. Today someone tried to run me off the parking lot into the wall because I went so slowly in front of them.

    Any advice? I’m not sure if I can go faster over the speed bumps. I do have everything recorded on my cars camera, should I be reviewing that to make sure I at least know the license plate of the person who tried to hit me?

    2. Fluffy Fish*

      Is the parking lot just for your employer or is it a shared space? Any chance your office has a security guard you can bring the tag of the aggressive driver to?

      You shouldn’t have to deal with that at all of course, but it the vein of controlling what we can control, if everyone kind of comes in at the same time, is there any room for you to tweak your schedule even by 5-10 minutes so you are not coming/going at peak.

      1. Academic Physics*

        Thank you for your advice and questions!

        Just my employer, but it is possible it was a student, parent, etc. I can see if I can send the video along to our parking services I suppose? It shows that they drove through a stop sign in the parking lot, and then speed up to go around me as I was already in the lane and got very close. It’s so strange reviewing it how banal it looks, vs how it felt! Driving is so strange.

        And I love the idea of trying to go a bit off peak, but the worst thing is I was already 2 hours past peak times!

        1. Fluffy Fish*

          I’d definitely check in with the parking services and also it sounds like this might be a college? If that’s the case if there’s some kind of campus safety office they might help as well.

    3. Driver*

      If you got it all on camera with a visible license plate you might even be able to take it to the police. Whether they choose to be helpful or not is up to them, but someone driving dangerously is technically under their jurisdiction.

  86. Another former fed*

    I just accepted a job offer after almost 5 months of unemployment!!!! And it’s even in my (very narrow) specialty field, which I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find at all. I’m excited, relieved, and also kind of numb – like it hasn’t really sunk in yet.

    For all the job seekers & especially the displaced feds out there – don’t lose hope!

  87. lurkyloo*

    Does anyone have any suggestions for a relatively painless introductions icebreaker for a hybrid meeting? I’m good with providing low-key, accessible ones for in-person, but suck at hybrid, and the horrifying ones I’m finding by googling… I’m giving you stinkeye, Slido #22!! I thought I’d ask in here.
    We’ve gone through a giant re-org and are meeting our new sister team in a couple of weeks, but not everyone can be in person for it.

    1. Fluffy Fish*

      I abhor ice breakers but I’ll throw out the fairly innocuous one I just experienced which was pair up with someone and tell 1) what you do without using your job title and 2) your favorite ice cream flavor. Obviously there will be no pairing for virtual. But most people had fun with it as best I could tell. I didn’t hate the what do you do without your job title either. It kind of served to explain better for those of us with non-descriptive job titles and was interesting to see how people view their work.

      Whatever you decide can you also prep people for it? Let them know you in advice will be going around an introducing yourself with 1. Your name 2. What you do without using your job title and 3. Your favorite ice cream flavor. And also how (alphabetical order, each team manager will announce their team member).

      1. lurkyloo*

        I too dislike them for the most part. Had it been in person, I was going to do something similar to what you wrote about. But…hybrid…challenging.
        And absolutely will warn people. I’d hate to be the one to spring it on someone with a deathly fear of speaking in crowds!!

    2. Hyaline*

      Does it have to be a chatty icebreaker or can you post a poll or that kind of thing?

    3. Long time reader*

      One of the best ice breakers my team has ever done was “what’s your super power and what’s your kryptonite?” We could have gone on for hours! And it was fun because some people’s superpowers were other people’s kryptonite, such as mental math. It led to lots of discussion!

    4. rosa*

      We had fun lately with “how would you describe your job to a five year old?”

      I spend lots of time on the computer asking people if their boss can come do homework/play with my boss lol

  88. Acronyms Are Life (AAL)*

    Onsite government contractor supporting a government office developing a complex product. As an onsite contractor, I’m imbedded into the government team, so my day to day is managed by my government supervisors. Most people are responsible for managing the production of their widget to support the product; so they have a tight scope and can more easily determine work prioritization, I support all aspects of the product from initial concept of each widget, to construction of each widget, to handing the full product to the user and giving them user instructions to ensure safe operation. Also, due to the deferred resignation, we’ve lost a not insignificant number of people, my teammate who did a lot of our workload just left (there was four of us, she did, I would say 35%, I did 35%, and the other two did the remaining 30%). I am now doing about 60% of the work and am a bit overwhelmed with the workload, and with the fact that there are a lot of ‘number 1 priorities’. I’ve tried making lists, but it just seems like the list itself becomes an item on the list for a task to update it. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m in that loop that I stress myself out because there is so much to do that it’s difficult to get work done, which just makes me have even more work since nothing is getting done. I do have weekly check-ins with management, but I know they’re equally underwater with other people in the group that have left and having to pick up the slack where needed.

    1. Any recommendations on how to better keep track of work and figure out how to prioritize, and get work done? (Note, my government agency has a no AI policy; it’s sensitive info, and we can only use the government issued systems under the Microsoft office umbrella).

    2. How do I discuss issues with my management without being a drag on them or seem like I’m just whining? They’re really supportive and are more of the ‘just do what you can, no one can fault you if you’re trying’ mentality. They get we have way more work than people everywhere in the office.

    1. Say hello to my little kitty*

      Can you use Microsoft Planner, which is essentially a kanban board. You could do a brain dump to get all the tasks on it, then sort according to how you want to organize the board’s swim lanes.

  89. E. Chauvelin*

    Does the general rule not to tell your boss if you’re job hunting still apply if you’re pretty sure your boss is also job hunting in a field you’re thinking about moving into?

    To keep it brief and vague, our upper level management has made some major decisions lately that are hard to explain for reasons other than trying to drive people to quit. We aren’t a federal agency, and these decisions are all internal, but it’s as if our executives looked at DOGE and said “That’s a great idea, we should do that, too.” They’ve also taken away the power the department level managers would normally have over their own departments to mitigate these changes, if their discretion says that they can still accomplish what they need to while giving some grace to their employees.

    I’m willing to leave over this if it goes on long enough that I find another job while these changes are still in place, but my field has very few employers in the area and next to no jobs that can be done remotely, so I’d probably have to change fields and it could be a slow process involving getting some additional certificates or acredations. In the last week I’ve seen my boss carrying around a book about learning one of the fields I was considering. (He also believes that the theory that upper management wants to reduce staff by driving people to quit has merit.)

    So…. can I ask him about the book and suggest it’s also something I’m thinking about? He’s a good boss, if hamstrung by decisions at the executive level at this moment. If he gets out before I do, and he probably will, having management experience that can transfer, he’s someone I’d like to have keeping an eye out for positions that might be appropriate for me, and he always gives me glowing reviews.

    1. Say hello to my little kitty*

      If it were me, I wouldn’t tell him. Good idea to keep him in your network, though, and you can always discuss that thing he’s learning that you cant to learn too. Why not form a study group?

  90. Pay no attention...*

    Sort of an update and also hoping for suggestions again. Back in April I posted in the Friday Open Thread about a woman I work with that seems to be struggling with cognitive decline; she’s in her early 60s I think. She used to be sharp as a tack — very detail-oriented and a rockstar at multitasking several big projects at once, etc.

    Things are maybe worse? We have a university ticket system for pretty much all of the service departments on campus — IT, facilities, procurement, security, enrollment data — we all use the same online system, including my MarCom department. I’ve emailed her the direct link pretty much every week for years now and I just resigned myself to that fact—it’s annoying but not impossible to keep doing. Something new today… she keeps submitting tickets with other departments, but meant for me. Of course I don’t get any notification until the other department transfers the ticket to me, usually several days later if they do it at all instead of just close the ticket. I again reminded her of the link, and also how to navigate to it in case she looses the link, and she just sort of went — “they should call your department [name that we haven’t used in years that honestly never made sense anyway*]. How am I supposed to remember that your department changed names? Was that ever announced?” Let’s just say, my department name is obvious to what we do, but even if she couldn’t remember, why would she submit a ticket for a totally different department that couldn’t possibly be mine. I think she’s doing it on purpose, maybe to make a point or force a change she doesn’t like(?).

    *So a side note in case: My university was, in the past, silly at naming departments normal rational names…for example facilities department might have been called Physical Campus Management and Effectiveness. We were called something similarly long and silly that normal orgs would call the MarCom team. That was done away with when a new university president took over several years ago. We are all named what we do now.

  91. c*

    Managers: What systems do you use to keep track of what you have assigned to your team members and what conversations you have had with them?

    I have managed one direct report for years, and we’re both glad to have recently expanded our team. But I realize I had become so comfortable with my original person that I became pretty lax on my organizational systems. What everyday practices do you use that help you keep conversations and tasks organized?

    1. Milo*

      I would love advice here as well. But, I will say:

      –projects are covered in biweekly one-on-ones/team meetings (one week I do 1x1s, next week same time we all need together) so I can keep following up that way. all my “recurring meeting” notes are in OneNote so I try to jot down everything I want to talk about next time throughout the weeks and then circle back to previous topics. this keeps me from peppering my team with ideas at random and not following up, which is a terrible habit of mine.
      –if it’s a shorter task I ask via email and set a reminder flag for a week or whatever is needed; when they reply to the email that they finished the task I mark complete. (Works well for the “whoever gets here first” tasks I send to the whole team as well.)
      –super short tasks I request via Teams, those are the ones that can get lost in the shuffle if it was just a bad day to get to those weird piddly things

      My boss loves giant Excel sheets with a column for project name, a column for responsible person, a description column, a status column, and then one column per week for ongoing updates, but I really dislike it and every time she’s suggested it for one of my cross functional teams I sort of nod noncommittally and move on. For cross functional projects I would rather utilize the endless weekly reply-all email. Which can be clunky! But at least I know everybody had eyes on it.

    2. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      First note: You’re right to think about this now! My team grew very rapidly. Systems that worked when only 3 of us had to do everything so we all had it in our heads didn’t scale well when we grew 4x in two years. Discuss with everyone involved and settle on common file storage and naming protocols, what kind of comms practices you’ll all use for updates on progress and completion, other things that you then write down so as new people come in you can orient them to the structures and systems.

      Similar practices as Milo here. I’m not very adept with OneNote but a coworker recommended it and I’ve been using it for a running thread of notes from each 1/1, and topical notes on other things I don’t want to forget. When we have a 1/1 I can scroll back to the notes from the previous meeting and check whether I want to ask about anything.

      I don’t really “track” very many things. My team is awesome and they get things done. They’re great about email replies that let me know something is handed off or complete. They know not to cc me on every step of the way; I trust them to know when I need to be looped in.

      I use a pretty detailed email folder structure so I can find things faster than with search that yields extraneous results because certain keywords are in everything. In Outlook moving the first email into a folder and setting it to file all subsequent replies in the same place cuts down on that element of the work. Filing emails on new projects gives me another prompt to follow up if I need to. I set flags as reminders on emails but that doesn’t really work that well for me.

      I keep a running agenda document for meetings with my direct reports. Any of us can add an agenda item. During the meeting we take notes there so we can check back. We boldface deadlines and the name of whoever owns the item. I do something similar with all-staff meetings.

      The final piece is that the two primary work teams have their own approaches to tracking their major work and I have access. One uses a Gantt chart spreadsheet of major tasks (no micro details). The other keeps a running list of tasks with deadlines and checks on the most pressing ones in their team meetings. That’s more like what your boss does but they aren’t turning it into The Diary Of How We Did This with a column for every week.

      I’ve recently started an Excel task list just for me to track my own stuff. Not with one column per week–good lord that would stretch on forever for some of my projects. It’s a running list where I can add things that are due further out than the weekly lists I put together on giant post-its that I keep on my desk because I need the visual reminder. Remains to be seen whether this task list is genuinely useful. I suppose I could use OneNote for that too but this is a tighter format to review at a glance and I can sort on due date or something else. I don’t want to learn any new project management software.

    3. c*

      Thank you for these ideas! I’m going to be more dilligent about my running documents with notes and updates for 1:1s. I do these regularly, but they’re scattered in multiple documents right now. I loooove a Gantt chart, but the reaction when I share them with others is that I’m being a bit extra – so maybe I’ll just keep that to myself for now!

  92. dumpster fire management*

    I’ve been at this nonprofit for over three years, and the place has turned into a complete dumpster fire. The managers are paranoid, petty, and obsessed with their own personal fights and they openly drink during meetings and work events like it’s a frat party. Meanwhile, the mission and members we’re supposed to serve get totally ignored. It feels like working inside a reality TV meltdown, and honestly, it’s exhausting and demoralizing. I want to do my job and support our mission, but their behavior makes it really hard. How do I set boundaries or push back without making things worse or risking retaliation?

    1. Strive to Excel*

      Your bosses are drinking alcohol at not-for-profit staff meetings. Rational behavior has been left so far behind it’s no longer visible. There is no way to set boundaries with people like this because they will not respect it.

      If your industry or board has any sort of anonymous tipline, use it. Especially if you have any major donors. Otherwise, it’s time to leave because this sucks and will not improve.

      I’m sorry.

      1. Pay no attention...*

        I agree. Time to find a new job. If the mission or members are something you are passionate about, you can apply at a similar non-profit to put your time and effort into. Don’t waste time and effort at this one if the entire management is this bad.

    2. Brevity*

      Building on what Strive to Excel has said, go directly to the board. I wouldn’t do it alone — surely there are coworkers who hate this behavior too? Get together with all of them, make a plan, set up an appointment with at least the Board Chair, if not more members, and go from there.

    3. Kay*

      Step one: make an escape plan. The workplace is full of bees, and you are likely to get stung. Are you really making a difference right now? Step two: if you want to stay, get really good at the “uh huh, I agree… well, anyway, I gotta get back to work” brush off. Take pride in being the opposite of your most irritating coworker. Step three: get a camera crew in and make millions off of your personal The Office spinoff show. Or is it more similar to Tiger King?

    4. Chauncy Gardener*

      Your bosses suck and aren’t going to change. Please start looking for a new job.

  93. Misophonia Woes*

    Anyone else work in an office environment where people seem to be eating all day long?

    I’m not talking about the occasional granola bar or piece of candy. I get it, people need to snack, often for medical reasons. But this is like… constant sounds of opening and closing Tupperware, forks scraping on glass, etc. All day every day. I think it’s only one or maybe two people doing this because the sounds always seem to come from the same area. But that makes it more confusing. If it’s just one or two people, how are they spending so much of their day eating?

    Normally I’d think my annoyance was just because of my misophonia, but I actually don’t think that’s the issue this time. I think I’m just finding it hard to wrap my mind around how someone could spend so much time eating during the work day every day. It’s hard not to wonder if any work is actually getting done over there when all I hear is Tupperware opening and closing all the time! It also feels like people might have gotten a little too used to working from home, and now that they’re back in the office, they’re oblivious to the fact that there are other people around them.

    I know I need to find a way to just get over this and not be a snack scrooge, but damn. I’m genuinely surprised by the seemingly endless appetite in that one cluster of cubicles…

    1. WellRed*

      I think it’s the misophonia making you hyper aware of all the eating. It would drive me crazy too.

      1. Misophonia Woes*

        It’s definitely a contributing factor! I do really wish people would just go to the break room if they’re going to be eating a whole meal outside of lunch time. But at the same time, I think they do it at their desks so they can pretend they’re working…

        I’ve worked in several different office environments but this is the first time I’ve encountered nonstop eating. In the past, most people have stuck to lunch time and maybe a snack or two throughout the day. So I was really wondering if this is normal at other places or if I somehow landed in the hungriest office on earth?

        1. StarryStarryNight*

          Your reaction is so out of proportion (people „pretend they‘re working“?? What kind of assumption is that?) that I‘d advise taking a step back and interrogating why this bothers you so much. To me, what you‘re describing is utterly normal for any open-plan office.

    2. RagingADHD*

      With respect, I get repetitive sounds being annoying, but how much or how often your coworkers eat is so, so, so much not your business that I would suggest you may have some issues to unpack around policing people’s food.

      That is really not a healthy or balanced attitude at all.

      It is also extremely strange and presumptuous to assume your coworkers are “pretending” to work just because you heard a tupperware? If they weren’t getting their work done, their manager would have noticed already. And it would be their manager’s issue to deal with, not yours.

      Many open threads have suggestions for noise-cancelling headphones. It sounds like they may help you concentrate better on your own work.

      1. 653-CXK*

        +1.

        Some people have to eat because their meeting is usually at their lunch hour, or that they need to take medicine and having something in their stomach is necessary for the medicine to work, or that they’re working on an intense project and taking a lunch hour is not possible. (I work from home, and I’m guilty of fressing any chance I get ;-) )

        Yes, I’ve had to get noise cancelling headphones for other reasons, but it’s ideal in this instance.

        1. Chauncy Gardener*

          This! I snack all day long because I never get a chance to actually eat a proper lunch. I work while I eat. I don’t “pretend” to work. I can use excel/check email/etc while I chew quite well. I just can’t eat when I’m in meetings, obviously, and I’m in a lot of meetings.

      2. Banana Pyjamas*

        Agreed. Also if someone does eat that much, it’s probably medical. All the people I’ve met who eat that often are insulin resistant or diabetic, and one had a different metabolic disorder. Either way, it’s not OPs business.

  94. Um Eww*

    So weird situation but I just found out that my boss cheated on his wife! I found this out because a client (we are a nonprofit supporting young adults) said that he told her (um???) while he was drunk at an after work get together (gross!) My boss is at least 15 years older than her and also this is part of a concerning pattern of drinking. I am super grossed out. what should I do? I need to say something but we don’t have real HR (nonprofit)

    1. RagingADHD*

      Where is your boss in the hierarchy? Getting sloppy drunk and oversharing personal details with clients needs to go over his head to whoever is the next higher person, even if that’s the Board.

    2. WellRed*

      With the caveat that I’m not a nonprofit person, I wonder if this is board worthy? Or is there someone higher up than your boss?

    3. Kay*

      Go over his head to somebody you trust will handle it well. Anyone who has a track record of being diplomatic yet firm. Ask them not to tell your boss it was you. If the drinking is a pattern, you have plausible deniability. When you talk to the higher up person, emphasize how it affects the business. A client told you your boss is out of line!! Don’t focus on the affair, focus on the perception issues. Try to keep a professional tone.

  95. Lady Dedlock*

    I have a good problem for once! I just got promoted, and I’m curious what the etiquette is for announcing it on LinkedIn these days. Is it best to just add the new position? say a sentence or two about it? Say something more substantial, with particular thanks to people who supported me along the way?

    1. Say hello to my little kitty*

      I don’t know the answer to this question, but CONGRATS! That’s great news. Best wishes for your success.

    2. lion*

      When I got promoted last year, I added the new position to LinkedIn and put up a short post the same day. It said something like “I’m excited to shared I’ve been promoted to ABC position”. I didn’t publicly thank anyone in the post, but I did do so in person. Congrats!

  96. Expelliarmus*

    I’ve been having issues accessing AAM on Safari today, using both my Macbook and my iPhone. However, Chrome has been working just fine. Alison, is this something you are working on? And did anyone else have this issue before trying out the site in another browser?

      1. problem report*

        Oh good!! Also, I just noticed you have an official problem report form now, I will use that next time instead of the old moderated comment method. :)

  97. Lurker variable*

    I recently (<6 months) started a new job and it’s already clear that it’s not for me. I was told it was mostly X with a little Y, and turns out it’s almost entirely Y. I think the hiring manager really means it to be mostly X because that would benefit the company, but senior management has different ideas. I was planning to start looking around the year mark because I like the hiring manager and don’t want to burn a bridge with her, but saw a posting for a role that exactly what I’m looking for so am going to apply.

    What should I do with my current job and CV? Do I include it? I have some accomplishments but obviously limited. Do I leave it off? My previous employer had a lot of layoffs that were public knowledge so a new hiring manager may assume I was laid off. I know there’s a bias towards candidates who are currently employed but feel that neither one is a great option given the amount of time I’ve been in my current role. The open role looks like exactly what I want so I want to at least try for it.

    1. Kay*

      I was just involved in a hiring process, and we hired somebody with a one-year employment. She starts next week, so no idea how she will turn out yet, but I’m confident. She put her one-year on her resume, but didn’t talk much about it during the interview. We didn’t ask her why her time was so short, but it didn’t really matter to us- her other experience plus her interview skills made her the obvious choice. In your case, I would put it on the resume and have a bland but positive script prepared in case somebody asks.

    2. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      I’d definitely keep the job on my resume. You have a perfectly good explanation for your cover letter which ties in nicely with explaining why you want this job in X:
      “I was hired for X with a little Y, but the job is almost entirely Y”
      You have your accomplishments in X at your previous job(s) so one short job with just a couple in Y doesn’t matter.

      Much better to be employed when applying even when you haven’t been there long. Also better imo than giving the impression you were not sufficiently valuable to keep during a RIF.

    3. M2*

      I would put it on some resumes and leave it off on others to see what might get your more traction. For the one you are really interested in I would leave it on.

      Be ready to be asked either about the gap or the 6 month role. There are some good scripts already from replies or on this website.

      As a hiring manager I would ask and I think all good hiring managers either ask about gaps or short stints. It doesn’t need to be a big deal, sometimes people take off, sometimes laid off, sometimes not right fit. When I do ask more involved questions is when I see multiple gaps or short roles in a row (not including during height of Covid).

      People are understanding. Some hiring managers might not even ask and assume you were laid off and took the first role that you got and are now looking for a better fit. Totally understandable. Good luck!!

  98. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    Also, if you get an interview it could be really awkward if they ask what you’ve been doing since you were laid off and you then have to reply that actually you have a job – makes it sound like you are hiding something sketchy, on a PIP or worse.

  99. Sal*

    I’m organizing outings for this year’s summer interns (all 21+) and one suggestion was to do a screening of or an outing to a movie that is rated R and has some extremely nsfw references/scenes. At the same time, the movie is A, a masterpiece and B, deftly addresses many issues that come up in our work (race relations, American history, the justice system). (Yes, I am talking about “Sinners”.) I am trying to figure out if whether sponsoring an optional outing to a movie with strong nsfw elements could open us up to legal liability for gender based harassment for hostile work environment. Anyone have any thoughts?

    2. Loreli*

      Bad idea. Just because the interns are all over 21 doesn’t mean they would want to see that movie. Or if they were ok with that movie, they would be ok watching it with a bunch of coworkers and people they had never met before.

    4. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      This sounds like a bad idea for a different reason: It’s a horror movie and not everyone loves those. I wouldn’t have wanted to show a bunch of work colleagues how I deal with horror by watching it through my hands whether or not it included useful political commentary.

      Older threads have discussed the many pitfalls of teambuilding exercises that don’t genuinely include everyone–activities that require physical strength or a willingness to engage with heights or confined spaces, for example. So many bad ideas. You might read through some of those for additional context.

      In my workplace, which has a structured approach to (paid!) internships, intern activities aren’t social outings. They’re site visits, time with another office learning what they do, meeting people–centered on work, happening during work hours, adding to their skill set in a way that’s more fun than looking at a computer screen.

      I took my team to a museum featuring an exhibit on the effects of work our agency was involved in. No interns at the time but we would have invited them if we’d had any. The exhibit highlighted and explained racist redlining and its effects on historically thriving neighborhoods that were devastated, with information people could absorb at their own pace or choose to skip right past to go to other exhibits. (I have an awesome team and they read all the things.) Yes, that’s more didactic than a movie, but also, less blood.

      1. Clisby*

        Yeah, I loved “Sinners”, but would never have considered trying to strong-arm a bunch of interns (or anybody) to go see it. If my 23-year-old son hadn’t recommended it so highly, my husband and I wouldn’t have gone to see it (husband loved it, too.)

        I realize it’s optional, but when you’re an intern and your work organizes an outing for interns, how “optional” will it seem?

    5. mreasy*

      I don’t think the issue is liability – it’s just really gory! Not something you can assume the whole group will be into.

  100. Hanging art over a sit-stand desk*

    I could use art hanging ideas from others who have a sit-stand desk. I usually follow the art hanging guidance that has to do with how the painting aligns with standing eye level, but of course my eye level changes when my desk height does. If I hang things up so the desk and monitors don’t block them when I’m standing then they’re super high when I’m sitting (and super high in general; I have two monitors on risers).

    I also need to pull my desk away so the cables etc. don’t hit the frames, which then means a greater chance of something falling off the back (especially because I have a cat).

    What are others doing? I’ve thought about some kind of flat textile piece but that isn’t really what I want to look at here.

    1. Enough*

      Why not 2 rows? One for each height? Or something large enough that there is interest at both heights? Or some combination?

  101. Banana Pyjamas*

    Back at the end of 2023 I lost my job, and my employer told multiple lies in the termination letter. I actually posted about it at the time. Importantly one item was true, but had been previously addressed with a verbal warning that I had to acknowledge I received.

    Given that:
    A. One item was true
    B. The state law and courts are incredibly pro-employer. It’s rare for employment cases to be ruled in an employee’s favor.
    C. No attorneys within 100 miles offer free consultation. Losing my job meant we are now a low income family.
    D. The HR department has a neutral reference policy.

    I decided not to pursue anything in court. I figured knowing the truth had to be enough. I went back to school, and am currently studying a field that would allow me to easily get higher level jobs in my field. Even though I have higher level experience, it’s becoming common for degrees to be required.

    I learned this week that the state law:
    A. Allows employers to release your termination letter to potential future employers. In fact, it’s recommended for written references.
    B. Expressly prohibits employers from misrepresenting you to potential future employers.

    I’m terrified that my grand boss lying in my termination letter could cause real harm and prevent me from finding future work. At worst I fear it could bar me from my field completely. Since the letter is mostly a misrepresentation my husband thinks it may be worth considering finding money for a lawyer.

    I do have two references from that job, my skip-level boss and a co-worker. My skip-level boss actually resigned because of my termination. They did return to the company, but a different division. My immediate supervisor was not a reference because he’d only been there a few months.

    I thought maybe I should see if I could get my former skip-level to speak to HR, since they are back with the company.

    I’m trying to decide:
    A. If I am Catastrophizing.
    B. What action I should take, if any

    1. Cookie Monster*

      Some ideas: a) can you do a free consultation with a lawyer over zoom? b) yes, definitely talk to the former skip-level boss, even if it’s just to ask for his advice, get his take on the culture there now, etc. Who knows? Maybe there’s someone new in HR that he trusts to do the right thing.

      Also, the one that lied in your termination letter – is he known in your industry as a liar or just not trustworthy or unprofessional? If so, that could help, too.

      1. Banana Pyjamas*

        I don’t think the person who lied is necessarily well-known broadly, but they are well connected with a few key players in the state, and one of their connections was a national board member for an industry professional development organization. The person is known as a grouchy old person (someone else’s words), competitive, and from a corporate background (we’re in government). Unfortunately these traits are the code words people use to dismiss their previous bad behavior, which included some pretty serious workplace bullying that prevented other employees from progressing l. If I’d known the extent of this person’s previous actions, I absolutely would not have taken the job.

        Notably, this person was treating me so badly before becoming the grand boss, that three other employees reported them to management without my knowledge. Nothing ever escalated to HR though, and to my knowledge everything stopped at the previous grand boss. They were originally my immediate supervisor, but I was moved under someone else because of how they were treating me.

        The real lesson here is when your boss hates you, quit.

    2. ABC123*

      Do termination letters normally say the exact reasons? I thought they usually just say something like “Your last date of employment will be X. Turn in your equipment by that time. Here is how you apply for COBRA”

      Also if your grand boss was so upset by your termination that he resigned why couldn’t he just block the termination instead?

      1. Banana Pyjamas*

        Having never previously been terminated, I’m not sure what termination letters usually say, but mine does list the reasons for termination.

        The grand boss is the one that terminated me, and the skip-level resigned. Skip-level was not in a position to block the termination because grand boss did not discuss it with skip-level or my immediate supervisor. Skip-level has been extremely apologetic and feels a lot of guilt over the situation.

  102. Marble*

    hi everyone! I haven’t checked these threads in a bit so not sure if something similar has been discussed – a lot of bigger companies where I live are increasing the number of in-office days for hybrid employees. Mine, on the other hand, has decided that everyone who does my job doesn’t have a required number of in-office days anymore and can be almost fully remote/wfh.
    I’m not upset about it, but it seems a little TOO much like good news for me to believe that there’s no other shoe to drop. Has anyone had experience with being moved from hybrid to fully remote and then SOMETHING happens that ends up being more beneficial for the company than the employees?

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      It’s either to save money, or to retain / attract employees if your job is difficult to fill.

      It could be your employer wants to reduce office space to save money on real estate, also possibly on utilities if they don’t pay a stipend for this.
      However, when FinalJob did this – several times with different groups – it was to see how if fully remote was ok for these jobs before offshoring to a much lower wage country. If your job is almost fully remote and not 100%, then this is much less likely than the other 2 main possibilities.

  103. Mimmy*

    Resume help needed!! (It’s late in the thread so hopefully someone sees this…)

    Last year, I was promoted at my job. It wasn’t a true position change; rather, it was an expansion of duties. Do I just put the two titles, then list all duties (truncated for anonymity), as below, or do I separate the two titles and list relevant duties?
    Note: Info in Italics are just my comments and not meant for the resume.

    Instructional Aide – March, 2017 to August, 2024
    Instructor – August, 2024 to present
    -Teapot instruction (this duty crosses both titles)
    -Group instruction on topic X (this duty expanded after the promotion)
    -Student project coordination (this is a completely new duty

    By the way, as a state job, the promotion (which I had to apply for) started as provisional; now, they want to make it permanent, and I have to file for the permanency by the end of this month. Essentially, I’m re-applying for my own job.

    1. MJ*

      I would list it the way you show, but with the newer position listed first, followed by the original role.

      Also just to note, Alison strongly recommends listing accomplishments rather than duties. So, for example, “Coordinated xx student projects”

  104. A picture says a thousand words*

    I have a convoluted question to throw out there for the AAM crowd. A few months ago, one of the supervisors at my job asked me and some other people for a group selfie to send to a former colleague who at the time had left for another job (their new job was better and they left on good terms from my workplace). I didn’t want to be in the group selfie but felt awkward saying no to a supervisor. I also felt uncomfortable because one of the people in the photo was bullying me at the time… cut to now and I noticed that this same photo was now on that supervisor’s bulletin board behind their desk. The bully no longer works at my job and this supervisor has since been informed of my negative interactions with them. I felt upset and angry by the photo, esp bc it was never shared with me at any point and bc this supervisor knows about my then situation with the individual who bullied me. The photo also makes it seem like we are all friends, and is not the case. I know I have a right to my feelings, but is this something I can bring up with the supervisor or do I simply roll my eyes at the weirdness and move on?

    1. Cookie Monster*

      How often do you see the photo? Are you at their desk multiple times a day?

      Unfortunately, I don’t think you can say anything unless you know you have a really great relationship with them and you know, without a doubt, that they would get it and absolutely remove it without a problem. Otherwise, I think you just have to roll your eyes and move on.

      1. A picture says a thousand words*

        I have to pass their desk a few times a week to access the staff printer/copy machine so I do see their bulletin board with some frequency. Tbh I have had conversations previously with this supervisor on some missteps (jokes or actions that I know weren’t meant with bad intentions but did not land at all) and I’m fine with talking to them about it. I guess this is just a weird case and I should let it go. Thanks for your input!

    2. Rick Tq*

      The supervisor didn’t post the picture at you, and the bully is gone. Time to move on and stop letting the bully continue to take up space in your head.

      1. A picture says a thousand words*

        I’m not certain what the supervisor’s intentions are, but I find it distasteful to have that photo up because I’m not in their department and it’s the only staff photo up on their board amidst family photos. Yes, the bully is gone but unfortunately this supervisor has bully tendencies too. Whether this is “directed” at me or just a clumsy attempt at bonding isn’t really clear. Thank you for your input though! I’ll do my best to shrug this off.

  105. Bogue*

    I work in an open office bullpen-type setup. Everyone works in the office full -time. A year and a half ago we got a new middle manager, which is a position that didn’t exist before. A few months ago they started insisting that each of us on the team make an announcement when we take lunch, either via Slack message to the group chat or verbally.

    Does anyone else’s office require this? It feels militant and also is annoying to get 5 messages a day, every day, regarding lunch announcements when it’s quite obvious they’re on their freaking half hour lunch. I wish I/we had pushed back in the beginning and now it feels too late.

    1. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      Good grief no. If we’re going to be away at an unusual time someone might let others know, but that would be by setting their status in Teams, not by sending everyone an extraneous message. They might message their supervisor individually, but none of the supervisors in my group is a micromanager who would require this.

      1. Bogue*

        Hmm considering trying this. I’ve never set an away message in Team. It wouldn’t trigger an auto-reply in Outlook if someone sent an email, right? Would just show on my Teams status/have the red circle?

        1. Bike Walk Bake Books*

          Exactly. It doesn’t have to be “away”. It can be “do not disturb I mean it for reals” or “working on that thing due tomorrow but OK to ping me” or “walking my dog, back in 20”. Whatever you want to say.

  106. Put the Blame on Edamame*

    Our useless CEO just quit with a message in which he raved about how AI would be bigger than the Internet and he was so happy he set our company up for success using it (laid off a load of people). Hope the door hits him where the good lord split him. And for the LLM industry bubble to crash.

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