advice about your coworkers

Need advice about your coworkers? Here are answers to questions from dealing with a coworker who sings all day, to interrupters, to credit-stealers, and much more.

new manager keeps pushing hard for me to be his friend

A reader writes: I have a situation that is annoying me with a new manager at our sister company, George. He was hired with no notice into the role that I had been promised would be my career progression within the company. I have spent the last five months training him on the basics and […]

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office kitchen wars are back

With many companies bringing people back to the office at least part-time, office kitchens wars are back! Today at Slate, I wrote about workplace kitchen aggravations — the take-out food from months ago left rotting in the fridge, the politics of who gets stuck cleaning up after others (and who doesn’t), the brazen thefts of […]

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my younger coworker keeps making ageist comments to me

A reader writes: I am an older worker doing very well in my executive position in a small think tank. Apart from the director and myself, the other staff are in their 20s and 30s. One staff member in particular continually makes both oblique and direct references to age. For example, she said one day […]

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I resent our new hires for setting better work-life boundaries than our company normally has

A reader writes: I am part of a team in a high-pressure industry at a company known for demanding a lot but paying very well in exchange for availability, etc. We purport to provide near-constant availability to our clients, but it’s unclear whether this near-constant availability expectation extends to individual employees for their teams (depends […]

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my boyfriend’s manager told me I could date someone better

A reader writes: My boyfriend, “Joe,” and I work in different divisions for the same company and for the last two years it’s been wonderful. That is … until two days ago when I was blindsided by my boyfriend’s new supervisor. Joe had the day off so he asked me to grab his phone charger […]

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why does my coworker hate me?

A reader writes: I am a brand new graduate who started at a consulting firm last January. I’ve been there for about a year, and I have positive relationships with my coworkers. I am fairly quiet at work because I’m new, I am still learning from my colleagues and assessing the work environment. My coworkers […]

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