doitninetimes

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/04/i-received-a-job-offer-and-it-was-a-scam.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=29342

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader shares this story:

I recently received what I believe to be a scam job offer. It seemed too good to be true, and I should have realized it was a scam, especially since I don’t remember applying for the position at the company that supposedly offered it to me. The most obvious red flag was that it seemed too good to be true, and the text in the email was clearly copied and pasted from a template. Still, in the excitement of the moment, I almost fell for it.

Here’s how it went down:

First email: A seemingly legitimate email from someone within the organization asked me to reply “yes” if I was interested in being considered for the position. I replied “yes,” as I have been applying for jobs almost daily for the past three weeks. It’s possible that I applied for this position and simply forgot. Given the large number of applicants applying for jobs through LinkedIn, I can understand the need for email verification. The name of the emailer and the email address appeared to be real enough, but the emailer did not list a phone number or job title, just an address (which was listed below his name and is a real address for a corporation in Wisconsin). I googled the company, and they are a legitimate organization involved in energy infrastructure. However, the emailer’s name and email address returned no search results. I then googled the emailer’s name by itself and found real people on LinkedIn with similar names, but none of them were employed by the company the emailer claimed to be working for. I reached out to these people on LinkedIn to ask if they had ever worked for the company, and those who replied said no.

Second email: I received a job screening questionnaire that was way too generic to be legitimate. There was also a deadline to return the questionnaire by a certain time on the day of receipt. It took me a while to answer the questions, but I made the deadline. I also noticed that the emails sent by the emailer were usually during evening/early morning hours in the United States — certainly, non-standard workday hours for a recruiter, unless they work a third shift. I should have noticed this sooner, but I was still overly thrilled to have been offered a seemingly legitimate job, so I didn’t pay attention to the timing.

Third email: After sending in the questionnaire before the deadline, I received an email during those non-working hours telling me that I had “got the job.” However, rather than offering me a salaried position, they said it would be hourly pay with weekly disbursements. This was the first red flag I noticed, as the questionnaire had listed the position as salaried, and now it was hourly. The next step was for me to forward my phone number, physical address, and full name to an HR email address, which would supposedly begin the hiring process, and I would start training immediately. The second red flag was that the email’s text was clearly a copy-paste job — too many spaces between phrases, inconsistent font, capitalization of certain words, and still no job title or phone number for the mysterious emailer. The language also seemed unprofessional for someone working at a company involved in energy infrastructure. The third red flag came when the emailer mentioned that the company would be sending me a check for work expenses and equipment. Having worked in higher education for almost 20 years, I know that reimbursement and expense processes are never that simple, especially when done over email!

I was about to reply with the details requested, but I couldn’t shake the “it’s all too good to be true” feeling, especially since I had never communicated with the emailer in person, over the phone, or via Zoom. I still didn’t know their position at the company or how to contact them other than by email. I’ve never been offered a job this quickly or this easily. It just couldn’t be real.

So, I replied to the third email with the following:

Just a few questions before I confirm or deny the position offered:
What is your official position at the company?
There is no phone number listed with your email — could you please provide one so I can call you?
Please provide the phone number for a human resources representative so I can verify the details you’ve provided.

No response as of yet.

I even called the corporate headquarters of the company they said they were from and spoke with the head of human resources, and they had no clue who the person was and no record of anybody by that name working there or at any office, and asked me to forward the emails to them so they can investigate for fraud.

I now understand how this happened: I have a website that hosts my professional portfolio, resume, and projects. I also list this email address as a contact, so it wouldn’t be hard for someone to craft a scam email based on the information available on my website. I was almost fooled, but it was the small inconsistencies in the text that eventually led me to question the legitimacy of this “job offer.”

The most embarrassing part of it all is that I almost fell for it. It was the small things that really added up that made me really question if it was legitimate.

Me again. A couple more red flags to note, as well:

• If that initial email literally just asked you to reply with “yes” … that’s weird and not typical for hiring. Something like “please let us know if you’re still interested,” sure. But “send back the word ‘yes'” is pretty spammy.
• Offering you the job without a single interview or giving either side a chance to actually talk to each other: huge red flag. It can happen in some pretty narrow circumstances, but it’s incredibly rare for professional jobs.

Thanks for sharing this!

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/04/i-received-a-job-offer-and-it-was-a-scam.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=29342

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/04/my-boss-says-my-salary-research-is-wrong-because-our-benefits-are-so-great-calling-out-sick-for-flight-anxiety-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=29401

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My boss says my salary research is wrong because our benefits are so great

I recently received a promotion with a significant increase in job responsibilities and found myself negotiating salary for the first time in my career. My state requires salary ranges to be posted with job descriptions, so I have a good idea what other companies in our industry are offering for my role and my years of experience, and I asked for a similar amount, about 10% higher than what I was offered. My manager wanted to know how I came up with the new number, so I pointed out these job postings. She responded that the total compensation I was being offered, including benefits, was already equivalent to the amount I was asking for, so there was no need to increase the offered salary amount.

I understand where she’s coming from; we have very generous benefits, including regular bonuses and multiple reimbursement programs for a variety of qualified expenses, and total compensation is a way to quantify those extra dollars. But in my mind, these benefits are not the same as guaranteed pay. Bonuses are dependent on the company’s profits, and I won’t receive the reimbursement funds unless I incur the relevant expenses. Not to mention that the market rates I’m researching are base salary and I don’t have any way of knowing what the dollar value of another company’s benefits would be for a more equivalent comparison.

Is this normal to consider total compensation when negotiating a salary? Am I too focused on the base salary number? I generally consider benefits as more of a happiness boost than a monetary boost (and this is the first time I’ve had benefits that result in me receiving cash payouts), so maybe I need to adjust my mindset. But I feel like my manager is using the company’s benefits package to justify giving me a salary that is below market rate. I’m wondering how I can approach this better at my next salary review.

Ha, no, the value of your benefits package isn’t supposed to be used like that. Your boss is comparing salary plus benefits at your current company to salary alone at another; it’s apples and oranges (or cash and scones?). For all we know, the other companies’ benefits packages could be the same or better than your company’s is! It sure is convenient for her to use that to swat away the comparisons, but it’s not at all accurate to do that.

Bonuses could be an exception to that if your bonuses are extremely reliable (although still not ideal for the reasons you point out), but “we reimburse a lot of expenses that you may or may not incur”? No.

The next time this comes up, you could say, “I appreciate our benefits, but ultimately salary is the most important piece of compensation for me, and that’s what I’m focused on.” You could add, “I can’t include the value of our benefits package without comparing it to the value of theirs.” (And really, she’s practically begging you to go out and learn more about what the competition is offering.)

Related:
can I include the value of my benefits when I talk about my current salary?

2. Can you call out sick for flight anxiety?

This is a hypothetical, but it almost happened. I just had a weekend social obligation in another city that required two flights each way. (These were domestic flights within the U.S.; my local airport doesn’t have direct connections to the destination city.)

At the gate for the first flight back home, I was feeling very anxious about the flight and almost bailed to rent a car and drive back. If I had done this, I would’ve had to miss one day of work.

Ironically, that flight ended up being super smooth. But if I had gone with my idea, would I have legitimately been able to call out with a sick day, on the grounds that flight anxiety is anxiety and therefore a mental illness?

In theory, in a perfect world where everyone understands anxiety and there’s no stigma around mental health? Sure. It should qualify.

In this world, though, the wiser move in a lot of organizations would have been to just say your travel arrangements got messed up, you were having to rent a car to get back, and you’d need to use an additional day of vacation to do it.

3. My boss won’t let me send client reports until he reads them, but he never reads them

My boss is generally fantastic and supports my professional growth and allows me flexibility in working hours and leeway to manage my clients as best I see fit. However, he has one frustrating area of micromanagement that is causing me workflow issues and I don’t know how to move forward.

Our organization’s clients receive quarterly reports on the performance of their products, which I spend about a day each quarter compiling. My boss insists on seeing the reports before I send them to clients. This is despite me never having an error that needs correcting in the five years I’ve worked here.

The issue is that he is swamped and it takes him forever to get round to checking and approving the reports. Currently, he hasn’t yet looked at my 2024 Q4 reports, and the Q1 reports for 2025 are now also waiting for him to check. When I finish a report, I email him with a link to where it’s saved. I remind him about checking the reports at least twice a week in our standing meetings, and he says he’ll do it that day but gets distracted by more urgent priorities and the client reports get pushed to the bottom of the pile. My clients have been asking for the 2024 Q4 reports for a couple months now and I have been giving them vague promises of “soon.”

Telling clients that the reports are ready but I’m not allowed to send them until I get my manager’s approval makes me sound incompetent. However, being months late sending the reports also seems unprofessional. Every time I finish the quarterly reports, I ask if I can send them to clients, and every time he says “I want to do a quick read-through” and then sits on the reports for months. Do you have any advice on how I could do things differently to get a quicker response? Going to his boss feels like a nuclear option as they’re very senior. I don’t want to stop doing the reports as the clients like them and I find it a useful exercise to see how the products are performing. I just want to send them out reasonably soon after the quarter ends!

Have you laid out for your boss that clients keep asking for the reports and you’re concerned it looks bad to keep delaying and then never send them? If not, do that! And then say, “Since I’ve never had an error in the reports in the five years you’ve been looking them over, could our system be that you’ll have a week to look them over, but then I’ll send them at that point if I haven’t heard back from you? I could give you a heads-up the day before. Otherwise they’re not getting to clients in enough time for them to be useful, and I worry we’re making ourselves look bad by delaying them when people keep asking for them.”

If he doesn’t like that, could you pull the latest report out in your standing meeting and ask him to go over it with you right then and there so you can put it to bed?

4. I flamed out at my last job, but there were mitigating circumstances — can I apply again?

I worked for two years at one of the largest and best employers in my field. During my first year, I did well: received good feedback from managers, got good reviews, had my contract renewed for a second year. During my second year, things took a turn: I struggled, got assigned a new manager in case that would help, was put on a PIP, and ultimately let go.

The thing is, there were mitigating circumstances. Starting right at the year mark, I had a series of crises: three pregnancy losses, a surgery, and then a flare-up of a chronic condition so severe that I had to take leave to get treatment. Needless to say, this drastically impacted my work performance, and though my bosses knew what was going on and gave me some grace, I wasn’t able to do enough to mitigate the damage, and they let me go.

The good news is, I did get treatment — and what’s more, got an actual diagnosis (which I’d never had before) and got medicated, also for the first time. The difference is night and day. I didn’t realize how much my chronic condition had been impacting my work performance until suddenly it wasn’t any more. In my new job, I’m excelling again, and it feels easy in a way it never has before.

I’d like to apply for a role with this org again. I know from reading your site that the phrasing “had some health challenges that have since been dealt with” can go a long way towards explaining resume gaps. But as I understand it, that’s usually done in interviews. Is there a similar way to professionally bring up this situation in my cover letter as a way of basically saying, “Yes, I know my records show I was let go, but the situation was very circumstantial and truly won’t happen again”? Having been a hiring manager, I understand not wanting to take a risk on a candidate with a poor internal record, but as an applicant, I’d love to be considered for the role given that I’m now in a very different life situation and the difficult circumstances are unlikely to happen again.

It’s pretty hard to apply at an organization that fired you for poor performance (despite the mitigating circumstances!) so I wouldn’t rely on a cold application and an explanation in your cover letter. Instead, can you get in touch with your last manager there and share the situation? You don’t need to get into private health details but a general description of what happened, that it’s now resolved, and how well you’ve been doing since might go a long way. You can then say you’d love to come back but understand the previous situation might be an obstacle to that, and do they have any advice on whether, given the circumstances, there might be a way to be considered again? They might or might not be able to help, but that’s going to give you a better shot than just applying cold will do (and that manager will definitely be asked about you at some point if you did get considered, so you might as well talk with them and get them briefed ahead of time anyway). Good luck!

5. Employer wants to photocopy my Social Security card

As part of a starting a recent job, I went through the usual onboarding processes. I’m aware the purpose of the I-9 form is to verify eligibility to work in the United States. My understanding is, and always has been, that presenting these ID’s is sufficient to meet the requirements of the I-9.

Recently, I was asked to provide a photocopy of my Social Security card. The HR person was vague when questioned, only saying, “For company security reasons.” They apparently keep a filing cabinet with these. This is questionable to me and possibly a security risk. Is it legal for a company to request and keep photocopies of sensitive documents such as these?

Yes, it’s legal and not uncommon. Many employers keep copies so that if they’re ever audited, they can show that they did in fact check your documents and record the information correctly. The government’s guidance to employers on this says, “You may make copies (or electronic images) of the documentation you reviewed, but must return original documentation to the employee. If you make copies, they should be made consistently for all new hires and reverified employees, regardless of national origin, citizenship, or immigration status, or you may violate anti-discrimination laws.” They’re also required to keep the copies as secure as the I-9 itself.

For what it’s worth, a photocopy of your Social Security card doesn’t really make you more vulnerable to identity theft than the I-9 itself does, since an identity thief only needs your card number, not an image of the actual card (and that number gets recorded on the I-9).

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/04/my-boss-says-my-salary-research-is-wrong-because-our-benefits-are-so-great-calling-out-sick-for-flight-anxiety-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=29401

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/04/should-i-interview-candidates-who-show-up-without-an-appointment.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=29231

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader asks:

My small business has had a recurring discussion regarding taking meetings with job seekers when we don’t have an open position. Someone will reach out, either by stopping by our office without an appointment or just sending an inquiry by email, and ask if they can meet with someone. In the past, we have taken these meetings as sort of informal interviews. From what I recall, we’ve never made a hire from these meetings when there’s no existing connection to our company or staff.

Over the last few years, I’ve discouraged these meetings. They just take up time for our team when we don’t have an opening, and I also feel they can be misleading if we’re not clear enough that we don’t have a position. I’m more inclined to take these meetings if (1) the person has a connection to a current employee who gives a positive recommendation, and (2) we do have an idea of a need on our team that the candidate could be a good fit for. Otherwise, I’d prefer to say thanks for their interest in our company, and we’ll reach out should we have an open position that might be a good fit.

I’ve had an inquiry recently from a woman who sent her resume and asked to meet even if we don’t have an opening to learn more about our company and how she can contribute. She’s sent a couple of emails and dropped by without an appointment. I told her we don’t have an opening and that I’d reach out if we do in the future. She followed up with a second email, again asking to meet. She does not have a connection to any of our existing staff, and it seems a bit presumptuous to ask a stranger to take time out of their workday essentially as a favor for some career advice. I’m really curious what your thoughts are on this topic.

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/04/should-i-interview-candidates-who-show-up-without-an-appointment.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=29231

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/04/boss-leads-terrible-meetings-old-manager-is-undermining-our-new-manager-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=29387

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My boss leads the worst staff meetings ever

Every month my boss leads an all-staff meeting, and it is awful. Normally he is a pretty good boss, and I enjoy working with him. But this meeting is regularly 1.5-2 hours long and largely irrelevant to half the staff because it is mostly geared towards one team (out of 4). My boss also tries to make these meetings “fun” by asking people for personal pictures — at one meeting he showed pictures for 45 minutes before even getting to the business/informational part, during the height of our busy season. I manage a team of 10 people and regularly receive feedback from them that they find the meetings tedious and uninformative and my boss only gives out praise to one team (not my team).

I have tried speaking with him about this, mostly related to the personal photos part, which I feel can get off the rails towards inappropriate. That went nowhere so I dropped it since I understand that it’s impossible to make a meeting relevant to every employee.

But recently other managers came to me with similar issues, and we decided to push back together. Another manager and I asked him for a meeting and presented some of the feedback we had received from our teams. We asked him to keep the meeting to an hour, present important information first, spread praise evenly between teams, and allow employees to opt out of the “fun” parts by having picture/story-sharing at the end. These changes would make a huge difference to most of the staff.

Unfortunately, this feedback was not well received, and the fallout has been rough. My boss told me that he spoke to other employees and they “love” the meetings and get a lot out of them (I assume this is from the team who regularly gets praise). He also said he wants the meetings to be about “culture” and not information because we are fully remote and don’t see each other often. He essentially blamed me and my team for not finding the meetings relevant. He suggested that I train them to share more in the meetings. I told him I am not willing to force people to share personal pictures/stories and that while culture is important, the most we can require from an employee is to be respectful and helpful. I was dismissed until we could go over this again.

At this point I don’t hold any hope he will change the meetings, but I would like him to understand I’m not going to force my team to participate beyond attending. I’m at a loss on what to do.

The changes you asked for were very reasonable!

But he doesn’t agree with you, and it doesn’t sound like he’s going to. This might just be what you’re stuck with (as it sounds like you’ve concluded, too).

However — you said “other managers,” plural, came to you with similar concerns, but it was just you and one other who met with your boss about this. If there are managers who haven’t yet addressed it with him directly, you should push them to. It’s possible that if he keeps hearing it from others, it’ll eventually get through.

But as for getting him to understand that you won’t force your team to participate beyond attending: is there any reason to assume he’s going to keep making an issue out of that? It sounds like he suggested they participate more, you said you won’t require that, and it ended there. I wouldn’t assume that part is going to keep coming up (especially since he didn’t raise it himself until you broached it).

2. Our old manager is constantly undermining our new manager

About a year ago, our manager (Veronica) moved to an adjacent department, and someone on our team was promoted to manager (Jane). Jane has a lot of very relevant experience and took the job mostly because nobody else wanted it, although she is qualified.

Veronica was an excellent manager and really helped improve our department. During the transition period, she still attended and ran all of our meetings. Well, a year later she is still doing that. If Jane says anything, Veronica immediately discredits what she says and/or speaks over her. I would say 30-50% of our meetings is Jane trying to get a word in and Veronica shutting her down or trying to make her look incompetent. At this point, the meetings are infuriating to attend and are completely unproductive.

If Jane goes on vacation, Veronica takes over even though we have a very competent assistant manager. She posts unnecessary announcements, meddles in our work, and speaks poorly about Jane during meetings. We also get emails from Veronica contradicting what Jane has told us to do. My coworker was once specifically told in writing to do something X way even if Jane tells her otherwise. The majority of the team has commiserated about how crazy this all is.

Jane is aware and is fed up. She thinks it’s ridiculous and embarrassing, but she is close to retirement so I think she’s just not up for fighting. She did recently mention that she had thought of bringing it up to their boss but isn’t sure how to approach the conversation. (They report to the same boss, who seems approachable although I have not had much one-to-one interaction with him.)

Is there anything I can do? If Veronica gives me direction contradicting what Jane says, I go to Jane, but other than that I am not sure what else can improve our crappy working environment.

Encourage Jane to bring it up with her boss! What you’re describing is ridiculous, and if her boss is at all decent, he’d want to know it’s going on so he can either intervene himself or coach Jane is how to shut it down. In fact, if he eventually does hear about it through sources other than Jane, he might be alarmed that she never told him it was happening.

You could also encourage Jane to tell Veronica that while she appreciated her help during the transition, she’s going to be running her team’s meetings herself now, thinks it’s causing confusion to have them both there, and will let her know if she ever needs to pull her in as a resource, but otherwise prefers to handle it independently from here. Ideally she’d also tell Veronica to stop trying to fill in for her when she’s out — that she has an assistant manager who will be running things, and she doesn’t want Veronica stepping on the assistant manager’s toes or undermining that person with the team.

But Jane really needs to tackle this herself; having someone else (you) alert her boss to the situation would risk reinforcing that the approach she’s taken thus far has been too passive.

3. Giving feedback as a project lead, not a manager

I am a project lead on a large team. I work on one specific project myself, and if anyone else on the team is also working on it, I’m involved and review their work. I have no managerial authority over them, and level-wise am either equal or slightly more senior. I have no problems giving feedback relating to the work itself, but I’m struggling to figure out how I should handle feedback that I think would normally come from a manager.

For example, people frequently come to me with problems without putting in any effort to fix it themselves first. If I was their direct manager, I’d have no problem pushing back on what they’ve tried first or directly setting the expectation that they should try to fix the problem before coming to me, but that seems maybe heavy-handed to do as just a project lead?

Another example is having to remind people multiple times to do tasks that I’ve already reminded them to do. Again, if I were their direct manager I’d have no issue addressing the pattern, but that feels like overstepping when I’m not their manager.

Am I off-base in thinking these are things I shouldn’t handle myself? And if not, would these types of things fall into the “not my business” bucket or the “escalate to manager” bucket?

You can definitely push back when people come to you with problems they haven’t tried to solve themselves first, even though you’re not their manager! One low-key way is to ask, every time, “What have you tried so far?” If you ask that every time, most people will figure out pretty quickly that they’re supposed to be doing that … and if they don’t, it’s okay to say, “I’m always happy to help when you get stuck but I want you to learn this stuff, so try to ____ (check the training materials/check the documentation/look at how we did it in the past/whatever makes sense here) first, and then if you’re still not sure, come to me at that point.”

But having to remind people to do things is “escalate to manager” territory; that’s a performance issue that their manager should be aware of. However, before you do that, try saying, “I’ve noticed I’ve been having to remind you of tasks, which I shouldn’t be the one tracking. Can you come up with a system to make sure you catch all that stuff on your end first?” Then if it keeps happening, talk to your boss about it (at which point you can say that you’ve specifically flagged it, but to no avail).

4. Do I have to sign a non-disparagement agreement?

I work at a nonprofit that has been taken over by an appointee of the new administration, but I am not a federal employee. Our staff is being slashed, with employees who are excellent at their jobs and vital to basic operations being let go. The new administration is completely non-transparent — I am more likely to hear about staffing changes in the news than through internal channels, and they have otherwise been dishonest in both internal and external communications, particularly in regard to finances. I think it is only a matter of time before I am also axed.

Most employees being let go been required to sign non-disparagement agreements. I plan to fully disparage the new administration if let go, even if it means not getting severance. If I am called into HR to be fired or otherwise given notice, what options do I have? What consequences should I expect if I refuse to sign? Any advice to keep my wits about me in the moment?

It’s very typical to be asked to sign a non-disparagement agreement in return for severance (along with a general release of any legal claims). The thinking is they don’t want to give you money they don’t need to give you if won’t agree not to badmouth them in the future. It’s a way for them to extract some advantage from the severance agreement for themselves.

You can decline to sign, but it will almost certainly mean you don’t get severance. There aren’t really other consequences, though! You can simply say, “I’m not comfortable agreeing not to speak publicly about what’s happening, so I won’t be signing.” (Or you can be even vaguer and say you’re not comfortable signing without specifying why, or say nothing at all and see if they even ask.) It’s unlikely to be a big deal; they’ll just make sure you understand that you won’t be receive severance if you don’t sign, you’ll confirm that you understand that, and that should be that.

It’s possible they’ll think you’re not signing because you plan to sue for something, and if they have any reason to think you have fodder for that (such as a plausible discrimination claim), they might offer you more severance to try to incentivize you to sign. Or they might not; just know that’s possible and don’t be thrown off if they do.

You can also ask for time to look over the agreement and think about it; that’s normal, and they won’t pressure you to sign on the spot.

Disparage away!

5. Is it OK to say my coworker is on maternity leave?

Many of my coworkers are currently out on maternity or paternity leave. When I follow up on outstanding/ongoing work on their behalf, I state in the email that the other person is out for a few months and I will be helping them out. This inevitably elicits the response, “I hope they are okay.” Is it okay for me to specify that they are out on maternity or paternity leave? Or is that an invasion of privacy?

Obviously, the people they work with most often and the people in our department know why they are out, but due to the nature of the job, we are in touch with many people on a semi-regular or an infrequent basis.

Generally most people are comfortable with it being known they’re on parental leave, but it’s not impossible that someone might prefer it not be shared. One way to know for sure is to check their out-of-office message. If it’s stated in there, it’s definitely okay for you to share that information too. Otherwise, if you’re unsure you can always check with their manager — “is it okay for me to share with clients and others that Jane is on maternity leave, when explaining why I’m stepping in to handle something?”

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/04/boss-leads-terrible-meetings-old-manager-is-undermining-our-new-manager-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=29387

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/04/my-coworkers-constant-babbling-is-drowning-me-in-info-and-my-boss-wont-help.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=29384

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I’m an admin in a small office, with a centrally located desk. One of my coworkers, Miranda, literally never stops talking. I counted for a while and she averages two major interruptions per hour, mostly extended monologues about personal minutiae, intimate relationship problems, or absolute and total nonsense.

Basically, her entire internal monologue is externalized at all times. She announces everything she’s doing. She tells me long stories about how she managed things like “loaning her bike to someone” or “changing the exact location of her keys” that follow the entire storyline of the item through all its moves over a period of 24 hours.

She is utterly oblivious to both subtle and direct feedback about this. For example:
Me, doing math: “Sorry I can’t talk right now I have to focus on this.”
Miranda: “Yeah, I know, I’m just going to go to the store because I’m out of groceries and last week my friend came over and ate all my salad and since there’s no salad at the store ever…”

My boss knows this is a problem, and I know his inaction is a problem. I wear headphones a lot, which sucks because I’m also a receptionist.

One of the consequences of this situation is that among all the nonsense are relevant work facts, but because of Miranda’s processes they are only concrete facts 10% of the time and the other 90% they are “in process” work facts, so the details are all subject to change.

My short-term memory cannot function under these conditions. I have ADHD and focusing on my own job is hard enough. It is functionally impossible for me to also absorb this waterfall of constant information, sort through it in real time for the bits that might someday be important to me, record those, and move forward with any kind of larger understanding. It would be an entire job, like one of those movie jobs where a harried assistant follows some crazy magazine editor around managing their constant changes of mind. That’s not my job, I have a job, she does not need an assistant, I am needed elsewhere.

I told my boss recently that given the status quo, I can commit to writing down important information during meetings and keeping my operating system updated with the finalized schedules I’m given, but that I am not able to mentally track any of this, ever. He’ll ask me to remember things from within the week (what day was X going to happen?) and I can’t, not because I’m generally bad at that but because I am constantly overloaded by so much content that it’s impossible to maintain any kind of cognitive clarity. I was told 900 details yesterday and 890 of them were irrelevant nonsense so the 10 good ones randomly mixed in did not stick. Since I can not stop the deluge of mind-numbing, banal storytimes, constantly listening to her entire verbal process is incredibly derailing, and the best I can do is try to work around it is by purging my entire brain at the end of every day in order to live a life of relative sanity. Want info to stop flowing off of me like water off a duck’s back? Get her under control.

Is this a reasonable boundary I’m drawing? It’s an unreasonable situation, I’m actively job hunting, and while I very much like working with my manager I’m aware that he should be doing more about this than he is. Given that he’s unwilling or unable to actually manage Miranda (because as you can guess, her time management skills are appalling and her productivity is often shockingly low), am I doing the right things?

It’s a reasonable boundary to draw, but whether that matters depends on how your boss responded when you laid it out. If he agreed it’s reasonable — and will continue to deem it reasonable the next time you can’t answer a question due to Miranda overload — then sure, maybe this is the best way for you to manage the situation since he won’t manage it himself. But his continued agreement will be key, so you’ll have to see how that plays out.

Meanwhile, though, do your job duties require you to frequently interact with Miranda? If not, would your boss be willing to tell her that she cannot interrupt you during the day, period? Maybe he’s not willing to coach her through how to streamline her communications but would be willing to give her a blanket “you must leave LetterWriter alone.”

If he’s not, do you feel like you have the capital and standing in your workplace (including the backing of your boss if Miranda gets upset) to tell her that yourself — to say, essentially, “I cannot do my job when you come by to talk to me, so you cannot come by anymore”? And to immediately cut her off when she does with, “I can’t work while you’re here, so I need you to leave so I can finish this”?

Ideally, you’d get comfortable being really assertive about cutting her off, in ways that would feel rude if you were doing them to anyone else but which are warranted with her. I’m talking about things like holding up your hand in a visual “stop” motion and saying, “I need you to stop talking because I have to focus on something else” or bluntly saying, ““I need you to stop talking and leave my desk.” Again, that’s going to feel rude, because it would be with someone who wasn’t being so inappropriate themselves.

Consider, too, whether a big-picture conversation with Miranda could help. For example: “I can’t get my job done when you keep coming over to talk to me. It’s making it impossible for me to get my work done, so from now on I need you to send me anything work-related in an email so that I can process it later. That’s the only way I can get my job done.”

Otherwise, though, keep wearing your headphones and when she shows up at your desk to talk, say “can’t talk right now” and just keep working and ignoring her. That’s going to be hard to do! It’s going to feel impolite. It’s also probably your only option.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/04/my-coworkers-constant-babbling-is-drowning-me-in-info-and-my-boss-wont-help.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=29384

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/04/my-incompetent-boss-cant-handle-that-i-wont-be-his-friend.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=29383

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I have a manager who you would deem unfixable, and I’m currently job hunting so I can put him behind me.

In the meantime, I’d love your advice on how to handle this very emotionally draining situation. It has been two years of trying to fix him and I’ve exhausted every avenue, including seeking help from his manager. He’s not changing and I know that; he is very much out of his depth in the role, has poor professional instincts, and is emotionally juvenile.

Last year, he blew up at me after I tried to reopen a conversation about my concerns regarding his shortcomings (obviously not phrased like that lol) and, after realizing that buying me a sweet treat wasn’t going to paper over my ongoing concerns started spiraling out because I was no longer being as chatty or friendly with him as before. I have to make clear that I was still being scrupulously professional and polite – just not being buddy-buddy. He started sending me two or three emotionally charged emails a week explaining how he was overwhelmed at work, was doing his best, and that asking for anymore was too much and also trying to apologize but not apologize for his behavior. This ended in me going to his boss and her putting a stop to the emails, but not addressing any of the substantive issues regarding his overall competency.

Fast forward to this year and his shortcomings are even more pronounced, despite his promises to do better. Fine, whatever. My way of dealing with my (overwhelming, disabling) anger toward him and his victim complex is to be scrupulously professional and polite. However, because of his poor professional boundaries, he can’t stand that I’m not being warm towards him and keeps trying to ask if I have any concerns (despite knowing what the concerns are) and pushing me to be friendly toward him. I then feel very awkward and guilty for choosing to establish sound professional boundaries. The long, rambling emails are beginning to start up again too. It’s a punishing, stupid emotional cycle.

Help! I think I need reassurance that what I’m doing is not bad, that I’m not responsible for the awkwardness of the situation. Do you have any other insights to share?

I want to know more about what “scrupulously professional and polite” looks like, because there are different ways to implement that. There’s an obviously frosty version (one that strongly conveys “I am speaking to you only because it’s required for my job but I do so with zero warmth toward you as a person”) and there’s a version that … well, doesn’t make that quite so clear. Where are you on that spectrum?

It would be understandable if you’re more on the chilly side of that continuum, given all you described, but that doesn’t mean it would be wise — particularly with a manager who you know will spiral from it. If you are being frosty or frosty-adjacent … well, you’re allowed to, but it’s probably going to make your work life harder for however long you remain there.

You don’t need to engage much beyond work and basic pleasantries, but you should at least appear to speak to him with a reasonable amount of human warmth and good will. A good litmus test is whether an outside observer watching you interact would know you disliked him, or whether they’d find your side of the interaction utterly unremarkable.

But if you’re confident that you’re getting that balance right, then here is the reassurance you requested that you’re behaving reasonably and you are not responsible for the awkwardness of the situation.

I do wonder if there’s any value in saying, “I get the sense that you want us to have a chattier relationship, so I want to be up-front that I need to just focus on work when I’m at work. It’s not personal and you don’t need to apologize for anything; it’s just what I need to balance my life right now.” It might not make a huge impact, but maybe that would give him something to calm his mind when he starts to panic about why you’re not available to him in the way he seems to want.

Otherwise, though, tell his boss that the long, rambling emails she shut down earlier have starter back up and ask if she can squelch them again.

That question about the balance is really key, though.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/04/my-incompetent-boss-cant-handle-that-i-wont-be-his-friend.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=29383