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July 9th, 2025: TONIGHT at The Beguiling: it's a FANTASTIC FOUR #1 signing! I'll be there from 4-6 and hopefully I will see YOU there too! – Ryan | ||
askamanager_feedIt’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Very kind security guard is driving me insane
My legal nonprofit shares a building with 3-4 other organizations. We lease 50% of the building (spread across three floors), and the rest split the remaining space. Building management recently hired a new security guard with an odd habit: he will sometimes stand directly next to the entrance door, and hit the automatic door button when someone approaches.
I assume he views this as being courteous/opening the door for people. The problem is that the automatic door opener is VERY slow, and once the button is pushed you have to wait for the door to open (it can’t be pulled open manually to speed up the process). It is driving me insane! I am often rushing in and out of the building to court, and when he does this I have to stand and wait to go through the door. I have had to stand outside in the rain, or in the blazing 90 degree sun, as we both watch the door slowly creak open.
I’ve explained to the guard that I appreciate the gesture, but that it actually slows things down quite a lot and I’d prefer to just open the door on my own. He smiled and said “yeah, okay,” but this has had no effect. If he sees me approaching, he will sometimes rush to hit the door button before I can get to the door. Is there anything else I can do to put a stop to this? Is there a way to be more assertive, without being rude to a very kind man?
I was wondering if his management might have instructed him to open the door for people and he feels he can’t overrule that, but you said he only does it sometimes … so that may not be the case.
In any case, since you’ve asked him to stop and he’s continued to do it anyway, you could try asking him once more. If last time you framed it more as “you don’t need to do this,” try framing it as “please do not do this” — it’s a subtle but real difference. Sometimes people take “you don’t need to do X” as “don’t feel obligated to do X if you’d rather not” and you need to spell out more clearly that you actively want them to stop doing X. So: “I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear last time, but please do not open the door for me. It makes it take a lot longer to enter since the automatic opener is so slow.”
If that doesn’t work, talk to the building management — not to get him in trouble, but framed as “I think he intends to be helpful, but it’s making things much less convenient, could you ask him to stop?”
2. Reheating fish in the office microwave
I’m somewhat new to an office job, and I may have other similar jobs in the future.
You’ve mentioned before that offices can have policies against strong-smelling foods as long as they are enforced appropriately and equally. I also know that when people do not clean up after themselves, the eventual smell that comes from rotting food or dirty dishes is bad regardless of what the food was, and that you can largely eliminate bad smells by just cleaning up after yourself.
The people in my office are good about doing their own dishes, but I’ve heard horror stories from relatives over the years about their workplace lunch rooms. I’ve worked in other non-office settings where people leave takeout food and drink containers sitting around for days. Ew.
So, here’s my question: If someone heated up fish for lunch but was prompt about cleaning up, would that really be so bad? Bacon is extremely popular in most of the US, but also has a strong smell that I personally find repulsive (and probably, so do some vegetarians and vegans, but I rarely hear anyone cautioned against heating up bacon in the office microwave).
It’s a fair question! What smells we consider gross is very culturally influenced, and for whatever reason we as a culture seem to have decided that the smell of cooked bacon is more palatable than the smell of cooked fish.
With fish, the issue is the smell that emanates from it while cooking, and cleaning up promptly wouldn’t affect that. When you microwave fish, the blast of high heat intensifies the fishy odor (this is science!), in a way that American culture tends to find especially unpleasant.
3. Coworker is upset that I talked to her manager about her leaving me half-finished work
I was out of work (scheduled PTO) this last Friday and the person assigned to cover my work left a bunch of half finished tasks for me to do this coming Monday. This has been a reoccurring issue and nicely speaking with her one on one never changed anything.
I reached out to her supervisor and politely asked how to proceed with working on these half done tasks as I didn’t have the info to do them. Her supervisor simply forwarded my email and a lukewarm message about not leaving half done work.
Coworker then emailed me several consecutive times passive-aggressively telling me I should have spoken with her directly to absolve the issue. What do I do now? Do I engage with her directly or continue to deflect to her supervisor?
“Hi! I’ve tried to talk with you about it in the past, but since it’s continued to be an issue I wanted to loop in Jane to see if we can figure out a way to solve it. If you and I can handle it directly ourselves and ensure it doesn’t keep happening when I’m out, that’s great with me — I just want to get it solved.”
Also, the next time you’re going to be out and your coworker is assigned to cover for you, talk to her manager ahead of time and ask if she can proactively make sure your coworker doesn’t do the same thing again.
4. I was the only one stuck working on the 4th of July
I’m writing to you on the 4th of July. My industry’s standard is to work holidays. A few days ago, my team got a surprise notice that our work wasn’t needed, and we could have the holiday.
My supervisor, Craig, told us as a group that he would offer our services to an earlier team, but that my coworkers and I were otherwise free. In these situations, the earlier team’s supervisor almost always tells us we’re good to sign off for the day.
To my surprise, when I clocked in virtually this morning to check, the shift supervisor, Dana, said that I would be working a full day for her team last-minute. I wasn’t thrilled, but what’s really upset me is that I was the only person from my team who ended up working at all. When I followed up with Dana, she said Craig had only offered my services, and that he explicitly told her I was the only person available to work today and that my colleagues Sarah and Mike were not available.
I’m not sure why this would be: last-minute holidays are non-existent in my industry, and my coworkers said as recently as yesterday that they were scheduled for today. I have a positive working relationship with Craig, and thought of him as pretty fair before this, but I know he’s closer to these other coworkers by virtue of knowing them longer.
Am I right to be upset? Is it appropriate to follow up with Craig and ask what happened, or should I let this go? How should I address it? I tend to keep my nose down and not question my supervisor, but I’m pretty upset about being given a holiday, just to have it taken away last-minute.
It’s possible that there’s more to this than you know, like that Sarah and Mike got sick or had last-minute emergencies or had some other legitimate reason for not being available and that by the time Craig talked to Dana that morning, you were indeed the only person who could work.
Regardless, it’s reasonable to ask Craig about it. Just don’t be confrontational; go into the conversation assuming there might be something reasonable you don’t know about, not that you were intentionally screwed over. For example: “Can I ask you about what happened on the 4th of July? I had thought Sarah, Mike, and I were all available to other teams if needed, like normally happens on holidays, but then Dana said she was told I was the only person available that day. Did something change in how we’re handling holidays?”
5. Should I opt out of having my resume screened by AI?
I recently saw this disclaimer (copied below) on a job I was applying for. There was a box to check to opt out of having your resume reviewed by AI, but I decided not to check it because I didn’t want to potentially ding myself, but I’m curious if you or your readers have any experience with how opting out might impact an application.
“This employer may use an artificial intelligence algorithm to provide an initial comparison of an applicant’s education, experience, and skills against the education, experience and skill requirements in the job description. This analysis produces a Profile Relevancy score, which is intended to be one of many factors that a potential employer will review in making its interview decisions; there are no cut off scores and all applications are visible to employers. The Profile Relevancy score for applicants who opt out will be listed as ‘Not Available.’”
They’re offering to let you opt out because some jurisdictions require that companies using AI in screening notify applicants and allow them to opt out from it (and more states are considering similar laws). No score isn’t the same as a low score, and opting out is unlikely to ding you (at least for now).
That said, I’m not so sure it’s any different from the automated systems some companies have been using to process applications for years now. I’d be much more inclined to opt out of an actual interview with AI (which is a thing that is starting to happen in this dystopian hellhole).
The post very kind security guard is driving me insane, reheating fish in the office microwave, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.
slacktivist_feedaskamanager_feedA reader writes:
I am in a niche entertainment field and have a fairly high-profile job within that field. This means that what I do or say online is relatively visible and, for better or worse, carries some weight, at least in my very small area.
Lately, some of my colleagues have taken to posting their thoughts about all the *waves hands helplessly* going on in our country (U.S.) right now. I post every once in a while about something, but I choose those posts carefully and strongly limit what I choose to put on social media. I do work in my community for causes I care about, and I go to protests when I can, but I am not very public about a lot of my personal views online.
Lately, though, many people in my field, including colleagues with jobs that have comparable or higher visibility, have begun to publicly excoriate those of us who have chosen to be more selective with our social media presence. They say that we have a platform and therefore a responsibility to speak out, as we will be listened to more than others and our words will carry more weight. They say that people who don’t choose to do this are valuing their own careers more than our moral responsibility to speak out, that we “will not be forgiven” and history will look poorly on us. These declarations are usually followed by hundreds of likes and comments praising the poster’s bravery and expressing disappointment and disgust with people who are not courageous enough to do the same. Some comments are from people I work with, as well as contractors I have hired. I have not been specifically named, but I can only assume as someone who is selective with my social media that I am among them.
In my view, there is a performative aspect to all this, as well as a lack of nuanced thinking regarding people’s work situations. In my case, while I am in a position of relative power in my field, I do not have safeguards on my job. I make just enough money to live modestly but comfortably, and everything I do reflects on my organization. My contract is not long-term. I can, in fact, be fired if I do something that my board feels reflects badly enough on the organization to warrant it. I think this is actually way more common than people understand, and I feel that it is really easy to look at people like me, assume my career and living situation is totally safe, and that I am a coward for not posting frequently on social media about various causes. The reality though is that if I lose my job, I would lose my home. And in my field, where jobs are scarce, I couldn’t just interview for another. So while I do speak out to the extent I feel comfortable, I do also consider my livelihood in the process.
I guess my question is whether this makes sense, or if I have my priorities skewed. I do recognize that there is another side to this coin; being raised Jewish, I know deeply the consequences of not speaking out until it’s too late. Am I being one of those people? How do you balance speaking out against injustice with the very real dangers of losing one’s job and being in a compromised situation? Or is this exactly the kind of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place?
I do think there’s a moral obligation to speak up if what’s happening around you is wrong and you are positioned to act against it.
But if anyone is arguing that posting on social media is at the top of the list of most important actions someone could take, that’s absurd. So is the belief that if you’re not posting on social media, you must not be doing anything else that matters (including things that matter a lot more than posting on social media).
And yes, posting on social media can come across as performative … and will often only reach an echo chamber of people who already share your views anyway. The effort it takes to do that is pretty damn low, particularly compared to the effort it takes to do things that are likely to have much more of an impact, like lobbying legislators, organizing/attending protests, writing letters to the editor, speaking at town halls, participating in rapid response networks, helping voters get to the polls, showing up at school board and city council meetings, volunteering with groups that provide legal aid, health care, and food assistance, and on and on.
In fact, if you look at the organizations spearheading resistance movements right now, posting on social media appears at the top of exactly none of the many lists of things they’re ask people to do to help (for that matter, it doesn’t appear anywhere on most of them).
And that’s before we get into the issues you mentioned of people needing to make their own decisions about what they safely can and can’t do without jeopardizing their ability to support themselves and their families.
I’m not trying to discourage anyone from posting on social media if that’s what they feel called to do. We need people speaking up in all venues and in ways that they’re inspired by and well positioned to do. But I’d take 10 Oskar Schindlers or Irena Sendlers over 10,000 prolific posters on Twitter.
Ultimately, everyone needs to take their own moral inventory and decide if they’re doing enough and if they will regret in the future not doing more. But no one deserves to be excoriated for staying out of it on social media.
The post my colleagues are upset that we’re not “speaking truth to power” on social media appeared first on Ask a Manager.
askamanager_feedA reader writes:
I am retiring after 35 years with my company. I was fed up after seeing others get promoted or hired in above my pay without the same experience.
I gave them 10 weeks’ notice because no one else can really do my job. I do have a coworker who does similar work part of the time, but only for about a third of their work. Plus, while that person has been working with me for the past four years, they have never really taken it seriously and learned everything they should have.
Now that it’s close to my last day, my colleagues – mostly coworkers, but also my manager – are asking if they can contact me after my last day to ask questions about the projects that I’ve been the one responsible for up until now. I don’t want them to. I want to leave and make a clean break.
A complicating factor is that I’m friendly with some of these coworkers, both in real life and on social media, which makes me think I’ll have a hard time not answering them. Really, I’d like to block everyone’s numbers after I leave, but that seems so rude.
Any advice on how to handle this? A former coworker who retired three years ago still gets questions and I don’t want that!
You can read my answer to this letter at New York Magazine today. Head over there to read it.
The post do I have to answer questions from my company after I leave? appeared first on Ask a Manager.
askamanager_feedA reader writes:
I’ve been working at a university library for a little over a year now and have had a hard time making friends. Shortly after I started, I befriended a coworker, “Morgan,” who is also relatively new, and it has been nice getting to know them and commiserating about how hard it is to make friends in a new city and workplace.
Over the course of our friendship, Morgan has opened up more and more about the interpersonal problems they’ve had with our colleagues. They describe scenarios where collaborative projects get stalled because other stakeholders stop communicating with them, coworkers they were getting lunch with on a weekly basis suddenly stop responding to chats, and other frustrations with navigating bureaucracy that interferes with their work. It’s hard to tell if Morgan is becoming increasingly disgruntled or if they are now very comfortable with telling me their unfiltered feelings.
I’ve also had to navigate some fairly horrendous problems as a new employee, so it’s been nice to have a coworker who understands and sympathizes with our (somewhat) dysfunctional workplace culture. Morgan has made it very clear to me that they are only here for the time being and have already decided that this is not the city they would like to stay in long-term. Personally, I want to retire here and have worked very hard to improve my situation. It feels very different for me today than it did a year ago, which is why it’s become increasingly difficult to navigate Morgan’s constant negativity.
Morgan can be a lot of fun to talk to, but they’re in an increasingly bad mental space at work. They frequently come to my office to gripe for an hour or two in spite of how busy I am; I’m always actively working and trying to concentrate when they pop into my office. To my fault, they ask if it’s a good time to chat and I always say yes because they’ve been so hurt by our coworkers pulling away and I’m afraid of upsetting them. On top of this, they’ve become increasingly argumentative with me when they’re looking to talk. Again, I would say this is my fault because they are looking to vent and I’m always trying to provide solutions, so I think it’s taken as invalidating Morgan’s feelings.
Morgan is in such a bad mental space at work that seemingly any type of feedback or dialogue that they disagree with comes off as an attack. One of the issues they’ve had with multiple colleagues is that they invalidate Morgan’s feelings. Morgan has described situations where they complained about something to a colleague and rather than agreeing with and consoling Morgan, they essentially said to look on the bright side. For example, Morgan was upset about a change made to their office and the coworker responded with, “At least you have your own office.” Morgan has many examples of conversations like this and cites it as a workplace culture issue. In addition, Morgan holds on to comments like this (that took place months and months ago) and often refers back to them as examples of how bad things are. At this point, I am very afraid of upsetting Morgan because I like them, and their hyper-sensitivity is a bit triggering in light of all the reparative work I’ve done for my position and unit.
One more detail about Morgan that I think plays a factor is their odor. Morgan has a strong mildewy smell wherever they go. The odor fills a room and I can often tell if they’ve recently been in a space because of the smell. I believe Morgan maintains good hygiene practices, but that they are unaware of the fact that a lot of their clothing has developed a pungent mildew odor. Depending on how strongly they smell, it can be very difficult to spend extended periods of time with them. I’ve avoided spending time with them outside of work, like inviting them to my home, because the smell is so off-putting and am wondering if it has contributed to their interactions with coworkers.
How do I take a step back with Morgan without further inciting them?
I don’t think “without further inciting Morgan” is the right goal! The right goal is to treat everyone reasonably and respectfully while not letting them trample your boundaries or your time and energy.
It seems like you’re navigating your friendship with Morgan from a position of fear more than anything else — fear of inciting them, upsetting them, or making them feel challenged (to the point that you’re spending one to two hours at a time letting them vent when you’re supposed to be focused on your work).
Obviously it’s good to avoid upsetting people when you can, but when someone is going to be upset by your completely reasonable behavior, that’s on them, not on you. You like Morgan, but the relationship relies on you tiptoeing around to avoid setting them off by … doing your job? Being honest about where you see things differently?
Interestingly, at the same time that you’re prioritizing Morgan’s feelings above your own needs, you’re actually not treating them very respectfully! You’re misleading them about what you think and secretly resenting the time you’re spending with them, without setting the boundaries that could allow you to actually enjoy your time talking with them. Imagine if the roles were reversed; you’d probably be a bit mortified if you found out that someone you thought was a friend was secretly frustrated with you but continued to let you go on obliviously doing the things that were annoying them. I want to stress that I’m not saying that to blame you — you’re already blaming yourself far more than you should be — but to point out that your current framework for the relationship isn’t serving either of you well.
It’s probably worth digging into how you’ve gotten here (in particular, whether you have a pattern of people-pleasing tendencies that subvert your own needs), but let’s talk practical steps.
First and foremost, stop telling Morgan you’re available to talk when you’re actually busy. Morgan is asking if it’s a good time to talk! Take advantage of that and respond honestly: “Actually, no, I’m on deadline right now” … “I’m swamped today, hopefully later this week!” … “Sorry, can’t, need to focus on what I’m working on” … etc. These are all very normal things to say in an office. If you’ve literally never set those boundaries with Morgan before, you might feel a little awkward about it at first, but — again — these are normal things to say while you’re working. If it helps steel your resolve, remind yourself that at some point your boss or other colleagues are likely to notice you spending one to two hours at a time socializing instead of working and it’s not going to look good.
If Morgan is upset that you’re not as available anymore, that’s okay. You’re at work to work. If it helps, you can say something to explain it — like “I’ve realized I’m spending way too much time socializing and I’m worried my boss is noticing,” “I’m slammed lately, can’t spend as much time talking as I used to,” “I’m finding it rough to spend so much time on the negative parts of working here; for my own mental health, I can’t spend so much time complaining,” or whatever you’re comfortable saying.
If Morgan has feelings about you setting boundaries on your time, that’s something they’ll need to work out on their own. You don’t need to apologize or feel bad for needing to focus on your job or putting limits on your own emotional energy.
It sounds like you’re worried that if you set these boundaries, Morgan will lump you in with everyone else who has “invalidated their feelings” (by having a different perspective than they do) or who has pulled away from them. And they might! You can’t control that. But you’re not doing them any favors by handling them with kid gloves. Behave reasonably, expect other people to respond reasonably, and if they don’t, accept that that’s theirs to work through. It’s not your responsibility to insulate Morgan or anyone else from reasonable actions.
Last, the odor! Mildew is actually one of the easiest odors to address because it’s less personal than trying to address body odor. For whatever reason, “Oh, I think that coat might smell mildewy” tends to feel less like a personal critique. Any chance you’re up for mentioning it? It’s not your job to do that with someone who has already demonstrated they’re prone to feeling attacked — but it would be a kindness if you’re willing to.
The post how do I step back from a friendship with an intensely negative and argumentative coworker? appeared first on Ask a Manager.
askamanager_feedIt’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My coworker makes loud sound effects all the time
At what point is something a legitimate distraction rather than a pet peeve? At my job we have an open concept office and only managers have offices while everyone else sits in the open space with little privacy, meaning everyone can hear everyone.
Our receptionist makes loud … sound effects all the time. For example, every yawn is a FULL BODY experience complete with a cartoonish exaggerated yawn/yell. When she gets frustrated that her computer is running slowly, she lets out a groan/whine. (I cannot think of a better way to describe this other than the sound little kid makes when they don’t get their way.) This is not constant by any means, but the yawn thing is several times a day and every time it sends my blood pressure rising.
Is this something that I can reasonably say something to her about? Often after a particularly loud yawn/yell, I will ask her if she is okay. Normally she will just say yes, she is okay, just tired. Is it too much to ask that bodily sounds be kept to a minimum? This seems not to bother others as much as it does me and miraculously doesn’t happen as much when the big bosses are around.
You could try: “I’m sorry to ask, but is there any way you can keep those noises down? I jump every time you do that.”
There was also this resolution from someone with a similar problem.
And a general PSA for everyone: if coworkers are asking if you’re okay whenever you make a particular noise and this happens repeatedly, there’s a good chance they’re hinting that they’d like you to stop.
2. My coworker decided to stick me with all our weekend event work
My coworker and I make up a two-person team that manages community programs for our county. Overall the job has a great work-life balance but over a 3-4 month season we have 5-6 weekend events with long hours. It’s pretty tiring but our boss gives us time off before or after these events to rest.
A few months ago, my coworker shared that she felt like the event work wasn’t being evenly split. I privately felt this was unfair, but I worked with her to make things more balanced. She also admitted that she was getting a lot of burn-out from an optional but job-related class. She had actually wanted us to take the class together but I said that it would be too much with the events.
A few days before our last event of the season, she told me she “didn’t want to do it” and that she wasn’t going to do long event hours anymore. Our supervisor, without involving me, told her that not working overtime at events was fine. At this event we had a miscommunication and she thought we would only be at the event on Saturday. The schedule ended up being a four-hour Saturday shift for her and I worked long days Friday/Saturday/Sunday.
As far as I know, she doesn’t have a disability or familial reason. She is capable but drained. We both have anxiety/mental health things so I want to be respectful, but I am also exhausted and becoming resentful. The job otherwise has great work-life balance, and I feel that the event schedule is a stressful but manageable part of the job.
I feel like she managed her time poorly with her optional class and didn’t prioritize the mandatory parts of the job. Plus, her expectation that we would only be at one day of a two-day event is, to me, a sub-standard job. I sense she feels she is setting up a boundary and I’m not respecting it and creating a bad work environment. But I feel abandoned and like she isn’t committed to the job, and that it’s disrespectful to think a few long event days is unreasonable in an otherwise good workplace.
How do I tell to my supervisor that it is unrealistic for my coworker to not work overtime for events? How do I tell my coworker that this isn’t an unreasonable schedule and I can’t do this by myself?
You shouldn’t be in a position of needing to convince or cajole your coworker to split the work evenly. Instead, you should talk with your boss and say you’re not able to take on more than your half of the weekend event hours, that the last event where your coworker worked four hours and you worked long hours three days in a row was exhausting and unsustainable, and it’s not something you can do going forward.
If you’re nervous about drawing that boundary, realize that it was apparently very easy for your coworker to make a much bigger demand and have it accepted!
It sounds like this might be less of an issue next season, if your coworker’s class is over — but either way it’s reasonable for you to raise it now and say this division of labor won’t work for you.
3. What is it appropriate for HR to tell emergency contacts?
Your column about the person whose coworker had a heart attack at work reminded me of an event at my workplace many, many years ago.
A coworker experienced a grand mal seizure at her desk, which was located in a row of desks in an open-plan space. The seizure lasted several minutes (someone had the foresight to time it) and she was unconscious for several minutes after. Of course, we called 911 and notified HR. HR notified her parents, who lived locally and were listed as her emergency contacts.
The coworker regained consciousness before the EMTs arrived, but she was disoriented and didn’t comprehend when the HR rep told her about the seizure and that her parents would meet her at the hospital.
Flash forward to later: she was livid that the company had contacted her parents. I think her rationale was that emergency contacts are supposed to be informed something is wrong and that they need to help, but it’s inappropriate to give the contacts medical information (in this case, the seizure).
She left the company shortly after. I don’t know why or what transpired with HR (rightfully so).
Was she correct that emergency contacts shouldn’t be advised of the nature of a medical incident? It seems unreasonable, but what does the law say? (We’re in the U.S., if that’s matters.)
U.S. law doesn’t prevent employers from sharing medical info with an emergency contact (unless the employer happens to be a health care provider, in which case HIPAA would likely be in effect — but HIPAA doesn’t apply to most non-health-care employers).
In many cases there’s no way to contact an emergency contact without explaining a bit about what’s going on. And really, just saying “she’s being taken to the hospital and you should meet her there” would be far more alarming in a lot of situations than just explaining the basics.
In general, people should assume that if they have an emergency at work and their emergency contact is contacted, info about what happened may be provided. If someone doesn’t want that, they need to say it explicitly at the time when they provide the contact info (“please do not release details about any medical situation to X; contact them only for ABC”).
4. Should I use one of my few personal days to travel for an interview when I might not get the job?
I have been interviewing for a position that is mostly remote but would require some travel to a central office a few times each year. My interviewers told me that they would like to bring finalists out to this location to meet the staff in person. I have very few personal days in my current position and don’t love the idea of using one (or maybe even two) of them to travel for an interview if I’m among a few finalists and there’s still a good chance I won’t actually get the position. I would only have 1-2 days left after that until next summer, which would make things difficult this coming year if I had to stay at my job.
At the same time, I don’t want to make it seem like I’m not as committed as other candidates, and I worry that even if the organization accommodated my position, they might still end up going with someone else just because of the merits of these in-person interactions. I will find out if I made it to this round in a couple of weeks and am feeling nervous about what to do if I am invited to continue. What do you think?
If you’re seriously interested in the position, you probably need to take the day(s) off to travel there. It’s still pretty common for employers to want to meet candidates, particularly finalists, in person before hiring them, and declining to do it is likely to put you at a disadvantage unless you’re already head-and-shoulders above the other finalists. That said, you could definitely ask for a date where you’d only need to take one day off rather than two (like by doing it on a Monday or a Friday so your travel day is on the weekend).
5. We’re supposed to complete our self-evaluations on our own time
Just got this notice from HR: “Annual reviews season is upon us! This is a friendly reminder to please complete your self-evaluation form in the Intranet on your own time by August 1.”
I’ve never been asked to do my self-eval off the clock in any other position. This is my first review season with this organization. The request to do this on my time gives me major ick.
If you’re non-exempt, this is illegal; they have to pay you for the time.
If you’re exempt and aren’t paid for overtime, there’s less of a distinction in terms of pay, but you could still ask your boss why you’re being told to do a work task on non-work time.
The post receptionist makes loud sound effects all the time, coworker is sticking me with all the weekend work, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.
slacktivist_feedfanhackers_feedI debated writing this post, because I tend to assume everyone knows Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics - but then again, it’s not often cited as a classic fan studies text, though it absolutely is, and a key. Not only is it a fantastic theoretical and practical explainer of the art form of comics in general - and so is a crucial text to comics fandom, as well as all kind of fan art - but I think it is useful for fandom broadly because of its description of storytelling technique and, even more specifically, its understanding of identification.
McCloud argues (for example on the page below the cut) that readers identify more strongly with a more roughly-sketched face - in its most basic form, a smiley face - than with a fully-fleshed out, realistic or photorealistic portrait. In other words, we all see ourselves in a smiley face - or, for example - in somebody simply drawn like Charlie Brown - whereas if we see a very specifically drawn person, McCloud says we see the other–another, one who is not-me.
I believe this and I think it has a couple of interesting implications for fandom.
Interesting Implication the First: There is a way in which fan art tends to create a kind of quick, cartoonish iconography for popular fannish characters that can–not rival, it’s not a competition!–but provide a very different kind of fannish pleasure than a very realistically drawn image. To be an old, and draw on an old fannish frames of reference like Stargate Atlantis, there is a way in which John Sheppard is represented by a particular flip of upswept messy black hair that makes him - (hear me out!) - look different from actor Joe Flanagan; similarly, Rodney McKay is characterized by his sandy brown hair, heart shaped <strike>ass</strike> face, and slash of a mouth. See chkc’s wonderful chibi McShep below:
Chibi Mcshep - 2010-05-02 - Uniform (0 words) by chkc
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Characters: John Sheppard, Rodney McKay
Additional Tags: Fanart, Chibi
Summary:
John smooches Rodney while in uniform.
I would argue that a fanartist working in a mode like this makes Sheppard more rather than less real–in a way, the further Sheppard gets from Flanagan, the realer he is, and the closer he is to the John Sheppard who took up a lot of real estate in my mind for a while there. Who is NOT Joe Flanigan, and who can disappear for me if he looks too much LIKE Joe Flanigan. (Similarly: Han Solo is not Harrison Ford! Misha is not Cas! Etc. ) YMMV of course, and certainly there is wonderful realistic art, but I think that fan art serves a lot of different purposes, and there’s something wonderful about more iconographic art…
Next week: Interesting Implication the Second!
askamanager_feedA reader writes:
A few times in the last few months, I think I have heard someone crying in the bathroom at my office. I don’t want to invade their privacy, but also don’t want to leave them to suffer or think that nobody cares.
It’s a large enough company that I don’t know and can’t guess who it is (it could be different people each time!), but there’s a fair chance I would recognize them by sight. For a lot of people it’s their first job out of college, it’s very demanding work, and there’s a lot of burnout. I have been there a long time, and I did almost get fired once, so if this coworker is crying about a work thing I might have good perspective to offer them.
If it happens again, should I say anything? “Hey, are you okay? Want to talk about it?” Or bring them a cup of water? Or just pretend nothing is happening?
I think, “Hey, are you okay? Can I help?” would be the perfect thing to say. So would bringing them some water and just knocking and letting them know you’re setting it outside the stall for them.
Some people will just want to be left alone, but a lot of people will appreciate someone noticing and being kind. And really, having someone clearly notice that you’re crying in the bathroom but just ignoring you could feel pretty terrible. It could also feel like a relief, in some situations and for some people. But of the two possibilities, “no one even cares what’s happening, even though I’m obviously upset” is a worse feeling than “agh, I wish they had pretended they couldn’t hear me.”
Obviously, don’t be pushy about it and if the person gives clear signs that they want to be left alone, respect that right away and give them privacy. But it’s kind to check on them.
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askamanager_feedA reader writes:
I am currently in the process of hiring for a position that I would consider just above entry level. It is a role in an operations department that supports an organization in a very “glamorous” industry.
Today we interviewed a great candidate who has the right education, experience, and personality to be a real success. Unfortunately, in answer to our question about career aspirations, she answered that she hoped to use the position to get a foot in the door to the more “glamorous” side of what we do. It’s great she was honest, and if that’s what she truly wants then I wish her all the very best. But … while it’s not impossible, it’s definitely a one in a million shot for her. Her education and experience mean that she’s highly unlikely to ever even get an interview, let alone land a position. In 25 years in the industry, I’ve seen it happen only once, by what I can only call stealth, if not outright deception, and frankly that was not a success. To top it off, working with us isn’t going to give her the type of experience or leg up she obviously thinks it will.
I fully intend to let her know that if that’s what she truly wants this isn’t the role for her, but is there any value in explaining that her likelihood of success in her goal is so small, and that people with far more education and experience than her are struggling to find even entry-level roles in that side of the industry? Would I just be crushing her dreams for no reason?
I answer this question — and two others — 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.
Other questions I’m answering there today include:
The post should I tell a candidate her career aspirations are unrealistic? appeared first on Ask a Manager.
askamanager_feedA reader writes:
For the purposes of anonymity, let’s say I work at a penguin sanctuary. It is primarily a research facility, people love penguins, and we love teaching people about them, so we do tours. Generally, we only do tours for school groups or other educational groups. Tours also take a back seat to the actual research and the welfare of the penguins. Part of my job is to coordinate the tours and decide for any tour request if we can accommodate the group or not based on the availability and needs of the researchers and penguins.
About four years ago, a senior researcher, Wakeen, was fired for, among other things, sexual harassment. He is not allowed to visit our facility without express permission from our executive director. He does try to visit semi-regularly or otherwise stay involved in our work, annoyingly. (It’s been four years, dude, find another hobby.)
Recently, Wakeen requested tours on behalf of an organization that provides outdoor recreation opportunities for disadvantaged urban kids. Let’s call the organization OutdoorKidz. Wakeen does not work for OutdoorKidz, but I don’t know what his relationship with them is exactly. Normally, we would be delighted to try and accommodate tours for a group like this. However, we had to turn the group down for this summer. I didn’t want to tell Wakeen that I was denying his request because I’m not willing to subject my staff to him, so I told him that we could not accommodate his request on the dates he wanted. Which was true! He sent his request two weeks before the requested dates during a time of year that we get the most requests and can do the least amount of tours due to nesting season.
My boss would like me to reach out to OutdoorKidz directly and let them know that, basically, we will have a much easier time accommodating their requests if Wakeen is not involved. I am struggling to figure out the best way to do that. Part of me thinks I should be straight up with them that Wakeen is banned from our facility, so they should not ask him to book their tours or have him accompany them on the tours. Part of me thinks I should leave Wakeen out of it entirely. If I tell them that we need dates farther in advance and that they can just coordinate with me directly, maybe they’ll cut out Wakeen on their own. Since I don’t know what Wakeen’s relationship is to this group, I’m not sure how direct I can be. What’s my best option here?
Piece that I am not sure is relevant or not: OutdoorKidz is a religious organization. I hate to prejudge people I don’t know, but I know there is a tendency within some in this religion to “forgive” sexual harassers who have “repented.” I’m afraid that they won’t take that piece seriously. I, personally, don’t care if Wakeen has repented or changed or not. His past actions traumatized women here and I will not subject them to his presence.
My first thought was for you to simply tell Wakeen that due to his history with the facility, you can’t accommodate tour requests from him and someone else from OutdoorKidz will need to coordinate the visit … but I’m worried that that will just lead to the group never visiting, because Wakeen won’t want to admit the situation to them.
My second thought was whether you could tell him the visit request needs to be submitted by an official employee of OutdoorKidz, since he doesn’t appear to be one … but that’s just skirting the issue.
My third thought is that you should reach out to OutdoorKidz directly, say you weren’t able to accommodate Wakeen’s request because it was so last-minute but that you’d love to host the group in the future, and would they like to coordinate directly with you to arrange it? But that risks them saying yes and then kicking it back to Wakeen to coordinate.
Given all that, if you want to host this group and you want to leave Wakeen out of it, I think your boss is right. Contact OutdoorKidz and say Wakeen contacted you about arranging a visit and you’d love to host their group but Wakeen is a former employee of the sanctuary who unfortunately is no longer permitted at the facility, so is there someone else there you can coordinate with? You don’t need to explain why he’s no longer permitted there; they can draw whatever conclusions they want, and you’ll have gotten the essential info to them (would love to host them, needs to be coordinated by someone else).
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July 7th, 2025: FUN FACT: you can tell a gun from a spacegun by carefully observing their "bang bang" / "pew pew" dichotomy. TONIGHT at The Beguiling: it's a FANTASTIC FOUR #1 signing! I'll be there from 4-6 and hopefully I will see YOU there too! And then on Saturday it's a FANTASTIC FOUR #1 signing in Clearwater Florida when I come to Emerald City Comics! – Ryan | ||
askamanager_feedIt’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My peer keeps acting like my manager or mentor — but I’m better at my job than she is
I’m a junior attorney. One of my colleagues, Fergusa, has the same title as me and started around the same time, but came into the role with a few more years of legal experience, so she is in a slightly higher pay band. Other people with our title have anywhere from 1-10 years of experience.
Fergusa and I have a decent relationship, but when she is feeling insecure or having a hard time in either her work or personal life, she takes it out on me. Sometimes, that means she treats me like her legal assistant instead of her peer. I want to be a team player, and I’m happy to put things in the mail or do similar tasks when she needs extra help. But she often does this even when I’m slammed at work and it makes no sense for her to farm it out to me. For example, I recently spent hours in an emergency hearing, and when I got out, she had sent me a long email explaining how I should do a menial task — something that isn’t normally my responsibility and would have been easier and faster for her to handle herself. After a few days or weeks of requests like this, if I push back at all, she’ll take a new tack: she’ll start giving me tons of advice I didn’t ask for, or ask me to take on large and interesting projects with very short notice, under the guise of it being good for my “development” as a “new” lawyer. Sometimes I take on those projects, and sometimes I tell her I can’t do it.
No matter what, the through-line seems to be that she has decided I am her junior, and she flips between seeing herself as a mentor or just as someone who can take the tasks she doesn’t want to do. But she isn’t my supervisor, and I don’t want her to be my mentor. Frankly, I get glowing performance reviews and I’m really good at my job, whereas I know she’s been coached for poor performance. She’s a smart person and a hard worker, but she doesn’t take feedback well and lets her ego get in the way of her work.
I’m not afraid to tell her that I don’t have the bandwidth to take on whatever work she’s decided should be my responsibility. The thing that bothers me is her attitude and continued insistence — even after working together for three years — that she can impose some sort of hierarchical relationship on me when it suits her. My boss knows that there’s been a little tension in the past, but this all feels too unimportant to bring it to him, and anyway, I don’t know what I’d be asking for — “Can you tell Fergusa to think about me differently?” Should I just keep doing what I’m doing and try not to take it personally? Or is there any way to have a bigger conversation about this dynamic without blowing things up?
Would your boss have your back if you started flatly declining all the legal assistant type work Fergusa tries to assign you? If so, I’d stop accepting any of it, even when you have time to do it — since if some of the time you agree to mail things for her or otherwise do her clerical work, you’re reinforcing that it’s appropriate for her to ask. If you think your boss would support you in declining, decline! From now on if she tries to send you that stuff, say, “I know I’ve been willing to help with this sort of thing in the past, but I won’t be able to keep helping with it because of my own workload.” Or just say no every time and see if she eventually gets the point.
It may or may not be worth addressing the larger pattern by saying something like, “I’ve noticed we’ve fallen into a dynamic where you ask me to do admin work or offer mentoring. We’re in the same job and my understanding is that we should be relating as peers, so I’d rather you not assign me work like that.”
2. Marketing team keeps replacing my writing with bad ChatGPT copy
I work at a small-ish nonprofit. My job involves a variety of tasks including research, supporting customers, hosting events, and creating content (articles and promotion). Our marketing department has eyes on any blog posts and anything promotional before it is published.
Lately, they just delete all my copy and replace it with copy that has been “optimized for SEO.” I am almost sure they are just entering my copy into ChatGPT with a prompt about SEO. I frequently have to update the copy to accurately reflect what we are promoting and even what we actually do at the company. I also hate the way this copy reads. It is full of generic and cliche language. You know, the type of writing that really doesn’t say anything and definitely doesn’t sound authentic. I have generally been accepting their edits because I cannot argue the effectiveness of SEO and trying to get clicks as compared to sounding like an actual human.
However, I’m beginning to get irritated because this is a waste of my time. I enjoy writing and spend time trying to find a phrase that captures what I want to convey without sounding too cliche. I hate having my name listed as the author of articles full of bad writing or signing my name to emails so obviously written by AI. I want to push back, but it sounds accusatory since they’ve never told me they’re using ChatGPT and I worry I will come across as naive for not understanding SEO. Is this the world we are in now? Are we all just writing for computers instead of for humans?
No, it’s not the world we’re in now; if they’re replacing good copy with bad copy, they’re just bad at their jobs. Try pointing out that their replacement copy is frequently inaccurate, and point out specific places it’s become less engaging. Tell them you want to produce what they want and ask if they can tell you what you can do differently on your side to produce copy they’ll accept. If that doesn’t move the needle, talk to your own boss, show examples of how Marketing has edited your copy in ways that make it worse, and ask for advice.
3. Company asked if I feel what happens in my life is because of fate
A few years ago, I applied for a technical/professional position at a company with mostly blue-collar, close-to-minimum-wage employees, many of whom have historically been non-native English speakers and ethnic minorities.
The company is Canadian but has expanded rapidly in the U.S. by buying many smaller American companies, which may be why they asked a question I’m not sure is legal in the U.S.
As part of the hiring process, I had to fill out the same application that the hourly workers complete. There were many questions that required answers selected from agree strongly/agree/neither agree nor disagree/disagree/disagree strongly. One of the statements that required agreement/disagreement was “I feel that what happens in my life is because of fate.”
I know that many people in lower socioeconomic strata feel shut out of meaningful participation in systems that affect them and feel that they are not in control of their circumstances and that “fate” rather than self-determination dictates their lives. My question is whether this question is legal, given that it could serve as a proxy for race/class?
Another (American) company in the same industry that lists appearance requirements for employment (hair must be kept above the collar, no visible tattoos, etc.) also indicates that both male and female employees “must have a full set of teeth,” which I cannot imagine can be legal.
I withdrew my candidacy with the Canadian company because I was offered a job in an area I really wanted to work in, but I still wonder about the legality of questions/requirements that screen out anyone who isn’t at least middle class.
That question is legal. In order for it to be illegal, you’d need to show pretty conclusively that people’s answers correlate with race and it has a disparate impact in screening out some races versus others. I’m not sure it does!
The hair length and tattoo policies are also legal, but the requirement for a full set of teeth is not, unless the job was for, like, teeth models or candy apple testers or something where having all your teeth was a bona fide occupational qualification.
Related:
is it OK for job postings to require a “clean-cut appearance”?
4. My employer wouldn’t let me use FMLA leave, even though I qualified for it
This is a situation that happened with a previous employer, but I’ve learned recently that it’s affecting a current employee.
When I was hired, I was told by the recruiter that employees received “four weeks of leave,” which seemed pretty sweet to me. In reality, after I started working, I found out that those four weeks broke down into two weeks of vacation, one week of sick leave, and one week of what the company calls extended sick leave. Extended sick leave was to be used for absences of three days or more and required a doctor’s note. Both forms of sick leave carried over each year, and healthy long-term employees had hefty extended sick leave balances because any illnesses they had were no more than two days.
After several years at this company, I needed surgery that would have me out of the office for four weeks. I knew that FMLA is unpaid leave, but employers can require employees to exhaust any paid leave they have while using FMLA. So, it was reassuring to have enough extended sick leave in the bank to cover my four weeks’ leave and still have my vacation time left. So, I asked the HR department for the paperwork to submit a request for leave under FMLA.
That’s when things got weird. HR refused to provide me with FMLA paperwork, saying I didn’t need FMLA because I would be using extended sick leave. I said that wasn’t how FMLA works. FMLA provides job-protected but unpaid time; sick leave (or any other form of paid leave available to the employee) is how a person can get paid while they are on what would otherwise be unpaid leave. My HR rep and her supervisor both told me that the company considers its extended sick leave to be job-protected and that the company would never terminate anyone for using it. I responded that company policies don’t have the force of law, and I wanted to use FMLA. (Frankly, at that point, with that employer, for a variety of reasons, I wouldn’t have trusted my immediate supervisor as far as I could throw her and wanted to cover myself.)
I ended up downloading standard government FMLA forms online, had my doctor’s office complete them, and handed them to my HR rep. Let’s just say that she did not receive them with grace and commented negatively on my lack of trust for the company and its policies. “Not a team player” was one of the phrases I remember. I never received any acknowledgement or approval of my FMLA application. My surgery and recovery were uneventful, and I returned to work in four weeks. HR, however, never got over this incident and I had some continued challenges dealing with them until I finally left.
Please reassure me that what I experienced was wrong. I’ve heard from someone that HR is continuing to actively and effectively discourage people from applying for leave under FMLA.
You are right and they were wrong.
It’s great that the company considers its extended sick leave to be job-protected but — as you pointed out — that doesn’t have the force of law and FMLA does, and it’s entirely reasonable to want to be sure you have legal protection in place. What’s more, an employer cannot legally stop an eligible employee from using FMLA; it’s illegal to deny it if the person qualifies under the law. The Department of Labor spells that out very clearly.
5. Can you negotiate severance when you’re accepting a job offer?
My husband was let go this week from his salaried job. He was not let go for any ethical or legal reasons, just a lot of restructuring and the company wanting to bring in a high-profile person to take over much of his work, yada yada yada. He had never been on a PIP and his annual reviews were average. I believe his company has been fair but not generous with his severance package; the only time I have ever involuntarily left a job was when my former employer went bankrupt and I showed up to locked doors and an email one day, so I have no frame of reference with what is normal. We are in the U.S. and have filed all the necessary paperwork for assistance.
My question is, is there ever opportunity to negotiate a severance, and when should it be done? Obviously a terminated employee has no power after let go, but would inquiring during the interviewing or onboarding process be sending the wrong message? Or is this just a situation where you should be grateful for anything you receive? Are there specific legal requirements employers have to meet?
You can sometimes negotiate the amount of severance you’re given when you’re let go, but it depends on the circumstances. If the employer is worried you have any kind of cause for legal action (like that they laid you off right after you asked to take FMLA, for example, or they mishandled your sexual harassment complaint last year), they are often willing to negotiate severance, in exchange for you signing a general release of claims. That can be true even if they don’t think you’d win a lawsuit; they may decide it will be easier and faster to pay severance rather than having to fight a legal battle. You might also be able to negotiate more severance in other cases too, like if you moved for the job and they laid you off two months later. But if there’s nothing like that in play, then you don’t really have any leverage.
But negotiating for severance as part of a job offer isn’t a thing for most jobs; that would require an employment contract, and most employees in the U.S. don’t have employment contracts. There are some exceptions to that, and it’s possible that you could negotiate it if you were particularly senior or had particularly in-demand skills (especially as part of agreeing to leave a secure job for a less secure venture), but it’s not something that’s on the table for most people.
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otw_news_feedThe OTW Board will be holding its next public meeting from midnight to 1 a.m. UTC on July 20 (what time is that for me?).
This meeting will be held in the Board Discord server. The server will have a team of moderators, a set of rules (including question rules), and community guidelines. The server will remain open even after the meeting, but the channels for meeting and asking questions will be read-only. Board will be posting replies to questions that do not get addressed during the scheduled meeting two weeks after the meeting in the server’s #questions-answers channel.
The agenda will include:
Prior to this meeting, there is an opportunity to ask questions in advance to be answered as part of the meeting. This allows anyone who wishes to ask the Board questions, whether they will be able to attend the meeting live or not. (The Board will also accept questions during the meeting.)
Questions submitted to this Google Form will be accepted up to three days before the meeting begins or until 50 questions have been submitted. At that point, the form will be turned off. You need to be logged in to a Google account to submit a question. In the future, these rules may be amended to adjust as needed. Further information will be available in the OTW Board Discord server.
ao3_news_feed
Open Doors has nearly finished importing FictionAlley, a Harry Potter archive. With approximately 29,000 works imported so far, it is Open Doors' largest import yet. You can check out all imported works at the FictionAlley collection. Unclaimed works are currently locked to logged-in AO3 users only, but per Open Doors' agreement with the FictionAlley archivist, they will be unlocked 30 days after the import is fully completed.
All FictionAlley creators should have received one or more emails with links to claim, orphan, delete their works, or prevent the import of any additional works of theirs in the future. If you were a creator and did not receive this email, please contact Open Doors for assistance. You can also contact Open Doors if you would like to prevent future imports of your Harry Potter works specifically.
Open Doors has two other Harry Potter archives currently in their queue: HarryPotterFanFiction.com and MuggleNet Fan Fiction. If your email address has changed since you were a member of either archive, or you would like Open Doors not to import your works, please contact Open Doors. Please refer to the import announcements for a full list of how Open Doors can assist you with either import.
Accessibility, Design & Technology (AD&T) coordinated with Board and Volunteers & Recruiting to formally decommission the Quality Assurance & Testing (QA&T) subcommittee—thank you to everyone who has served on QA&T over the years. Quality assurance and testing of AO3's code will continue under the oversight of AD&T's new QA Supervisor role. AD&T's latest releases have focused on various bug fixes, code clean-up, and monitoring improvements: check out the release notes. Also, Systems has installed some new Elasticsearch servers and repurposed the old ones as application servers! \o/
Open Doors announced the import of Absolution – The Inugrrrl Memorial, an InuYasha fanfiction memorial archive.
In May, Support received 3,177 tickets, while Policy & Abuse (PAC) received 3,763 tickets—a nearly 40% increase which is likely due to PAC's recent TOS spotlight series. PAC worked with Legal and Communications' News Post Moderation subcommittee to review over 1,700 comments across seven posts, with more than 400 comments receiving a reply. PAC will also be recruiting soon, so look out for the upcoming recruitment post!
In June, Tag Wrangling neared completion of phase two of three of their committee-wide guideline discussions on fandom metatags. They also launched a new procedure which streamlines creation of new "No Fandom" canonical tags, which are canonical tags not specific to any particular fandom. The committee plans to post announcements periodically detailing new tags, including one in a few weeks.
In May, Tag Wrangling handled over 610,000 tags, or over 1,200 tags per wrangling volunteer.
Fanlore's Annual Bingo was a huge success! \o/ 25 participants completed at least one bingo, and 16 got a total blackout. Thanks to everyone who took part!
In July, Fanlore is running a themed month—Fandom in Color—which celebrates characters of color, the contributions of fans of color, and more! Check out their social media (Bluesky and Tumblr) for page spotlights throughout the month.
Communications is now overseeing the OTW's Convention Outreach division, which was previously run by Development & Membership. If you have inquiries regarding OTW's convention presence, Communications can be reached through their contact form on the OTW website.
TWC is finalizing their upcoming general issue of Transformative Works and Cultures, volume 46, which will be published on September 15. They are still accepting submissions for their Latin American Fandoms special issue until January 1, 2026.
Elections announced the 2025 Election candidates; this year's election is contested, with three candidates running for two open seats in this year's election. Their platforms are available on the Elections website. Communications has been coordinating public posts, while Translation is working on translating candidates' platforms.
2025's OTW Board Election will take place on August 15-18. OTW Members who plan to nominate a proxy should contact Elections by August 6. Specific dates for Q&A and Candidate Chats will be made available on the 2025 Election Timeline page.
Development & Membership has been checking membership for Board candidates and donors who want to vote in this year's election, while Finance has begun preparing for the 2024 audit.
Board uploaded minutes from the April 2025 Board public meeting to the OTW website. They also approved two new Finance Bookkeepers, held check-in meetings with Legal and the Paid Staff Transition Lead, and continued to work with the Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup. The Board Assistants Team's work also continues on several projects, including the Procurement Policy and Board Discord Server Guidelines revamp.
Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for two committees—Tag Wrangling and Support—and two subcommittees—News Post Moderation and Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution—this month.
From May 19 to June 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 147 new requests and completed 139, leaving them with 53 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below).
As of June 22, 2025, the OTW has 944 volunteers. \o/
New Committee Chairs/Leads: 2 Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Heads
New AD&T Volunteers: 1 QA Supervisor
New Communications Volunteers: 2 Convention Specialists and 3 TikTok Moderators
New Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: Mossie, Vihi, and 1 other News Post Moderator
New Fanlore Volunteers: 90PercentHuman, Hobgirl, Sparrow, and 1 other Policy & Admin Volunteer
New Finance Volunteers: Scott and 1 other Bookkeeper
New Open Doors Volunteers: Bette, devinwolfi, Kelpie, korry, November_Clouds, Pat Zarzecka, scattered_coreopsis, Starlings and 6 other Import Assistants
New Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Volunteers: 1 Goal Supervisor; megidola and 1 other Volunteer
New Support Volunteers: 2 Chair Assistants
New Translation Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Manager; Adri Jaimes, Lia404, ttom1323, and 5 other Translators
New User Response Translation Volunteers: Felipe and friki (Translators)
Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: Nary (Support) and 2 QA&T Leads
Departing AD&T QA&T Volunteers: runt and 1 other QA&T Testing Volunteer
Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: Leja, Evolcahra, and 1 other Editor
Departing Communications Volunteers: 1 TikTok Lead
Departing Development & Membership Volunteers: 1 Convention Specialist
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Policy & Admin Volunteer
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 2 Import Assistants and 1 Technical Volunteer
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Support Volunteers: Sandra 002 (Volunteer)
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: ladydragona (Supervisor); Daniailís, MFY11EP, Barbara Thomas, and 3 other Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Manager; Mirjam, DaisyJane, DanielUL, and 6 other Translators
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
otw_news_feedOpen Doors has nearly finished importing FictionAlley, a Harry Potter archive. With approximately 29,000 works imported so far, it is Open Doors’ largest import yet. You can check out all imported works at the FictionAlley collection. Unclaimed works are currently locked to logged-in AO3 users only, but per Open Doors’ agreement with the FictionAlley archivist, they will be unlocked 30 days after the import is fully completed.
All FictionAlley creators should have received one or more emails with links to claim, orphan, delete their works, or prevent the import of any additional works of theirs in the future. If you were a creator and did not receive this email, please contact Open Doors for assistance. You can also contact Open Doors if you would like to prevent future imports of your Harry Potter works specifically.
Open Doors has two other Harry Potter archives currently in their queue: HarryPotterFanFiction.com and MuggleNet Fan Fiction. If your email address has changed since you were a member of either archive, or you would like Open Doors not to import your works, please contact Open Doors. Please refer to the import announcements for a full list of how Open Doors can assist you with either import.
Accessibility, Design & Technology (AD&T) coordinated with Board and Volunteers & Recruiting to formally decommission the Quality Assurance & Testing (QA&T) subcommittee—thank you to everyone who has served on QA&T over the years. Quality assurance and testing of AO3’s code will continue under the oversight of AD&T’s new QA Supervisor role. AD&T’s latest releases have focused on various bug fixes, code clean-up, and monitoring improvements: check out the release notes. Also, Systems has installed some new Elasticsearch servers and repurposed the old ones as application servers! \o/
Open Doors announced the import of Absolution – The Inugrrrl Memorial, an InuYasha fanfiction memorial archive.
In May, Support received 3,177 tickets, while Policy & Abuse (PAC) received 3,763 tickets—a nearly 40% increase which is likely due to PAC’s recent TOS spotlight series. PAC worked with Legal and Communications’ News Post Moderation subcommittee to review over 1,700 comments across seven posts, with more than 400 comments receiving a reply. PAC will also be recruiting soon, so look out for the upcoming recruitment post!
In June, Tag Wrangling neared completion of phase two of three of their committee-wide guideline discussions on fandom metatags. They also launched a new procedure which streamlines creation of new “No Fandom” canonical tags, which are canonical tags not specific to any particular fandom. The committee plans to post announcements periodically detailing new tags, including one in a few weeks.
In May, Tag Wrangling handled over 610,000 tags, or over 1,200 tags per wrangling volunteer.
Fanlore’s Annual Bingo was a huge success! \o/ 25 participants completed at least one bingo, and 16 got a total blackout. Thanks to everyone who took part!
In July, Fanlore is running a themed month—Fandom in Color—which celebrates characters of color, the contributions of fans of color, and more! Check out their social media (Bluesky and Tumblr) for page spotlights throughout the month.
Communications is now overseeing the OTW’s Convention Outreach division, which was previously run by Development & Membership. If you have inquiries regarding OTW’s convention presence, Communications can be reached through their contact form on the OTW website.
TWC is finalizing their upcoming general issue of Transformative Works and Cultures, volume 46, which will be published on September 15. They are still accepting submissions for their Latin American Fandoms special issue until January 1, 2026.
Elections announced the 2025 Election candidates; this year’s election is contested, with three candidates running for two open seats in this year’s election. Their platforms are available on the Elections website. Communications has been coordinating public posts, while Translation is working on translating candidates’ platforms.
2025’s OTW Board Election will take place on August 15-18. OTW Members who plan to nominate a proxy should contact Elections by August 6. Specific dates for Q&A and Candidate Chats will be made available on the 2025 Election Timeline page.
Development & Membership has been checking membership for Board candidates and donors who want to vote in this year’s election, while Finance has begun preparing for the 2024 audit.
Board uploaded minutes from the April 2025 Board public meeting to the OTW website. They also approved two new Finance Bookkeepers, held check-in meetings with Legal and the Paid Staff Transition Lead, and continued to work with the Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup. The Board Assistants Team’s work also continues on several projects, including the Procurement Policy and Board Discord Server Guidelines revamp.
Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for two committees—Tag Wrangling and Support—and two subcommittees—News Post Moderation and Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution—this month.
From May 19 to June 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 147 new requests and completed 139, leaving them with 53 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below).
As of June 22, 2025, the OTW has 944 volunteers. \o/
New Committee Chairs/Leads: 2 Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Heads
New AD&T Volunteers: 1 QA Supervisor
New Communications Volunteers: 2 Convention Specialists and 3 TikTok Moderators
New Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: Mossie, Vihi, and 1 other News Post Moderator
New Fanlore Volunteers: 90PercentHuman, Hobgirl, Sparrow, and 1 other Policy & Admin Volunteer
New Finance Volunteers: Scott and 1 other Bookkeeper
New Open Doors Volunteers: Bette, devinwolfi, Kelpie, korry, November_Clouds, Pat Zarzecka, scattered_coreopsis, Starlings and 6 other Import Assistants
New Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Volunteers: 1 Goal Supervisor; megidola and 1 other Volunteer
New Support Volunteers: 2 Chair Assistants
New Translation Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Manager; Adri Jaimes, Lia404, ttom1323, and 5 other Translators
New User Response Translation Volunteers: Felipe and friki (Translators)
Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: Nary (Support) and 2 QA&T Leads
Departing AD&T QA&T Volunteers: runt and 1 other QA&T Testing Volunteer
Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: Leja, Evolcahra, and 1 other Editor
Departing Communications Volunteers: 1 TikTok Lead
Departing Development & Membership Volunteers: 1 Convention Specialist
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Policy & Admin Volunteer
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: 2 Import Assistants and 1 Technical Volunteer
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Support Volunteers: Sandra 002 (Volunteer)
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: ladydragona (Supervisor); Daniailís, MFY11EP, Barbara Thomas, and 3 other Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Manager; Mirjam, DaisyJane, DanielUL, and 6 other Translators
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.
askamanager_feedThis comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand.
Here are the rules for the weekend posts.
Book recommendation of the week: Far and Away, by Amy Poeppel. A family in Dallas and a family in Berlin swap homes for the summer, then find their lives intertwining in unexpected ways. Funny and sweet, and I am already missing many of these characters. (Amazon, Bookshop)
* I earn a commission if you use those links.
The post weekend open thread – July 5-6, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager.
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