am I supposed to thank my boss for paying me? by Alison Green on July 31, 2023 A reader writes: I’ve just had a mid-year profit share conversation with my boss (who majority owns the company, and note that we do not bring out the best in each other so perhaps this is just interpersonal friction) where he told me what my payment would be. This is an established, formal profit share […] Read the full article →
how much transparency does a manager owe employees in an internal hiring process? by Alison Green on July 26, 2023 A reader writes: I recently went through a hiring process for a promotion within my department. The interview phase has been over for five weeks, and I suspect that another colleague, Micah, was unofficially offered the role — and unofficially accepted it — about four weeks ago, but due to what’s been described as HR […] Read the full article →
how to professionally say “I told you so” by Alison Green on July 18, 2023 A reader writes: I work at a small-ish company in a creative industry that has a lot of issues with changing/inconsistent expectations and management that isn’t in the habit of really listening to employee feedback. My direct manager and grandboss also have a habit of saying one thing in team trainings and then doing the […] Read the full article →
my boss wants to hire us out for our “unique talents and skills” that have nothing to do with our jobs by Alison Green on July 18, 2023 A reader writes: I am self-employed. But I also have one teeny, tiny job (2-5 hours a week) working in a secretarial-adjacent position for another small business. It’s someone I’ve known and they have a great mission, and I work from home so I thought it would be some nice side money. I am highly […] Read the full article →
my boss says she has the right to come by my house unannounced by Alison Green on July 17, 2023 A reader writes: My supervisor and I both work hybrid schedules and she lives in the same neighborhood as me. Recently we were on a work call and she said, “You know, I almost just popped by to talk about this in person with you at your house.” She went on to say it is […] Read the full article →
my boss’s boss forced us to do a “grievance circle” targeting our manager by Alison Green on June 28, 2023 A reader writes: I have a question for you about a scenario that happened several years ago, but still sort of haunts me. I work in the medical setting, under a new manager, Jane, and a relatively well-established director, John, who has a reputation for pushing shortcomings off onto other individuals. There was some friction […] Read the full article →
my boss won’t do anything about my slacker coworker by Alison Green on June 13, 2023 A reader writes: My colleague “Andrew” and I work in a specialized department for a mid-sized company (about 150 employees), each of us covering one half of the company with no overlap. We both work remotely while the teams we support are on-site in offices across our region, so we rely heavily on Microsoft Teams […] Read the full article →
my “hybrid” team is using me as their way to not go to the office at all by Alison Green on June 5, 2023 A reader writes: When the pandemic began, I was the member of my team who volunteered to go to the office to check the mail and do tasks that could not be done at home since I live alone, live closest to the office, tend to have the most tasks that cannot be done remotely, […] Read the full article →
my manager tracks us all with Google Alerts by Alison Green on May 17, 2023 A reader writes: My team manager has set up Google Alerts for every one on her team, so that she receives notifications whenever our names appear in the news. She uses the alerts to then post messages on our team’s internal group chat, things like “Break a leg to Jorge, whose improv team has a […] Read the full article →
my boss keeps asking me to do things that aggravate our community partners by Alison Green on April 26, 2023 A reader writes: I started working for a nonprofit last year. I work with our community partners a lot, and our director, “Fergus,’ likes to ask me to ask them for things without telling me they already said no. He’d tell you that he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t take no for an answer. […] Read the full article →