Ask a Manager

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My company wants me to Photoshop our customers I am in my early 30’s and have floated from job to job my whole life. I finally have a career that I love, pays well, and offers room to grow. Part of my job consists of […]

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My atheist coworker hassles me about my religion I’m a recent hire in a new job. I’m also a practicing Catholic. I consider my faith private, but not really some deep dark secret or anything. I did tell my supervisor because I may request leave […]

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Am I old-fashioned about lateness? I feel it is non-negotiable that — except for cases of emergency, sick kids, traffic jams — employees should be at work on time the vast majority of days. This means getting to work about 10 minutes early in time […]

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker had an affair with my boyfriend I became very close friends with a coworker. We work extremely closely, every single day, and that moved into a friendship outside of work too. In the spring, I found out that she had been seeing my […]

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My replacement doesn’t want me to stop helping him I had a job for 10 years that was heavy with responsibility, 24/7 weekends and evenings. I kept to my responsibilities when I was going through chemotherapy for breast cancer. Now that I am cancer-free, I […]

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Our staff doesn’t acknowledge the ways we’re trying to make them feel appreciated I am a partner at a small (15-person) organization that has transitioned to remote work relatively easily since COVID. But, like lots of companies, one of our challenges has been finding ways […]

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I don’t want to be friends with my coworker I work in a bookshop. It’s the sort of place that hires pretty much only graduates, and an obsessive interest in reading is an absolute must — for a retail job, it’s much more of a […]

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My boss criticizes people publicly and is often wrong Norma, our boss, has a habit of speaking rather harshly to employees, including myself, often without fully understanding the situation. The other day, she loudly and publicly berated me for perceived errors on a document, saying, […]

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. What should we do for the holidays this year? I’m the boss’s wife. I also, a little bit, work for the company. In addition to the small number of things I do, I’m responsible for the annual holiday party. Every year, we throw a big […]

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Does it look bad to send a job application during work hours? I’ve been at my current company for three years now and have been looking to change jobs off and on pretty much since day one. Sometimes the desire to leave gets so bad […]