Performance Tracking and Feedback

A reader writes: My father is terminally ill with cancer. I was clear when I disclosed his diagnosis to my boss that I did not want to tell anyone else at work and didn’t want to talk about it. I try to maintain a surface-level friendly relationship with my boss, but I have observed him being really bothered by other people’s boundaries if they are not the boundaries he would choose for himself. He seems to feel entitled to know his employees’ personal business, and he’s not someone I want to share my most personal business with. In our weekly calls (I work remote), he continues to ask me about my dad, including detailed questions about his diagnosis and treatment. It …

A reader writes: We recently hired a nursing mother with the understanding that she would be taking time to pump three times a day for about a year. She is being paid for the time used to pump. She was provided a comfortable private space in which to do so and she logs the time as “general overhead” on her timesheets (unbillable); it comes to about 90 minutes per day. We’re just now, a few months in, realizing how quickly this time adds up – in the last billing period (five weeks) it was nearly 40 hours! Is there a tactful, legal way to ask her to make up some of this time (50%?) so that we get more billable hours from her? Ou company is pro-family, but having done the …

It’s hard to get real-world information about what jobs pay. Online salary websites are often inaccurate, and people can get weird when you ask them directly. So to take some of the mystery out of salaries, it’s the annual Ask a Manager salary survey. Fill out the form below to anonymously share your salary and other relevant info. (Do not leave your info in the comments section! If you can’t see the survey questions, try this link instead.) When you’re done, you can view all the responses in a sortable spreadsheet. Loading… The post how much money do you make? appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I work with my spouse, and it’s affecting me at work My spouse (“Sam”) and I work in an agency that is a smaller arm of a large national corporation. Sam began working here five years ago, made close friendships with others in the program, and has an extremely good professional reputation. Three years ago, I was hired out of graduate school for the agency site associated with Sam’s program. It is likely I was interviewed because of their success in the field. At the time I was hired, I discussed with my manager that I would not work directly with my spouse for many reasons, including ethics and work-life balance. This…

A reader writes: I’d like advice for keeping your sanity when acting as someone’s PTO back-up. I had a former coworker who I was paired with for many of our responsibilities. When she took time off, she would set her Teams message to “do not disturb” for two days prior to going on PTO and two days after returning. This would add an extra four days to the time I had to cover for her because no one could get ahold of her and I was the default. However, when I took time off and she received a request for me, she would just tell them, “You will have to wait until Jane is back.” Nothing happened when I tried to talk my manager about it. A current coworker just puts my name …

A reader writes: I oversee a medium-sized department who are all required to be on-site, although we were remote for quite a while following the pandemic. My staff is pushing very hard for hybrid working, and while I am open to it, I have concerns. In the past, when that the majority of our team worked from home, some of the staff really excelled at it, while others were frankly awful. Literally, the staff who were excellent outperformed the worst by a factor of ten to one. Unfortunately, the lower performers didn’t always recognize that they were not being productive. The culture in my organization is very much one of equity, and I am trying to balance that with the k…

Remember the letter last month from the person asking how their office could hire people who wouldn’t be uncomfortable with their culture and quickly leave? Among other things, they mentioned a cardboard cut-out coworker (Robert), a celebrity death betting pool where winners would get an extra day off, and a lunchtime discussion of whether aliens can have orgasms. The letter-writer provided more info after response, and agreed I could share it and respond here: Thank you for responding to my letter. After reading the response and comments, I realized that the alien orgasm example drew more attention than I expected, even though I had meant it as one particularly bad exam…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My boss isn’t doing her job and things are falling apart I work for an accounting firm where I am the only full-time employee to my boss, Katie. She inherited the business from her father and is within a few years of retiring. I am looking to leave this job this year but until I am able to, I am having trouble dealing with a lot of issues she is having. We are in the middle of tax season and she is falling so far behind on processing tax returns. Many clients have called to ask the status of their return, and I have had to stretch the truth of their status so they do not get upset at me. I always inform my boss when t…

This 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: Whidbey, by T Kira Madden. Three women connected to one man navigate the aftermath of sexual assault. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – April 4-5, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

It’s the Friday open thread! The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers. * If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer. The post open thread – April 3, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. Should my boss message me before calling on Teams? My boss recently called me very early in the morning (7:50 am) through Teams without notice. I was working already; I got online at 7 (my work hours are 7 am – 4 pm) but it bothered me and got me a little anxious. I let it go as a missed call and wrote to her immediately after saying that I was ready now. Was that okay or is it okay for her to call without messaging me first to ask if I’m available? Or just because she’s the boss is accepted? The fact that was so early caught me by surprise, because she’s usually online later, but I think it would have bothered me reg…

A reader writes: I’m a relatively new manager, and I’m still finding my footing when it comes to shifting from being an individual contributor to overseeing a team. One thing I struggle with is knowing when it’s appropriate to delegate tasks to my team versus doing them myself. I manage a communications team of four at a university. When my manager assigns me work — things like drafting communications on a specific topic or reviewing copy from another department — I’m never sure whether she expects me to do it personally or for me to assign it to someone on my team. I feel like she is expecting me to delegate them: these tasks fall squarely within my team’s remit, and I…

Here are three updates from past letter-writers. 1. My boss made me verify that I’m really exercising (first update) A happy update. Today we had our spring quarterly all-staff meeting, where HR announced the return of the flex-time exercise program. Two changes were made to the program: 1. Structure around verification requests, include who may request verification and why. (Only your direct manager may initiate the request, which must be routed through human resources.) 2. A “exercise program log” is now the only document that we must produce for a verification request. This is a spreadsheet provided by HR that we can complete electronically or by hand, and simply i…

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I am looking for advice on managing ADHD at work, but the caveat is that I’m still nursing a baby, so most medication is off the table and when I do stop (hopefully soon – he’s over a year old and I’m actively working on weaning), I know it may take me months to find something that works. So I am really looking for non-medication strategies in the meantime. I recently got diagnosed with ADHD (in my late thirties) after having my second child and going off the executive functioning cliff deep end (thanks, hormones!). I’ve always had symptoms and have nearly always managed okay enough, but after coming back to…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I saw my coworker’s pregnancy announcement on TikTok I was just scrolling TikTok, and a video from “someone you may know” popped up. It is a coworker of mine, whose number is in my phone because we sit near each other and sometimes need to coordinate watering plants and such. It turns out she’s a somewhat well-known content creator in a pretty wholesome and innocuous genre. The video I landed on was especially well liked, because she used it to announce her pregnancy. I’m very happy for her and would like to congratulate her! However, I don’t know if she would think it’s weird that I watched her video. I’m a man who s…

A reader writes: I have a new employee, Joe, who has been with me about six months. The headline is that he’s pretty terrible. He lacks knowledge, his work is slow and often wrong, he lacks attention to detail, shows no sense of urgency, ownership or understanding of priority, and requires constant hand-holding to even get close to completing tasks. There’s a lot to unpack about him but the short story is: I made a big hiring mistake and I know separately that I need to address it. This letter isn’t quite about that though. Recently, a distant relative of Joe’s wife’s passed away. That’s sad. He was sending me constant (and unnecessary) updates about it. We have a super…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Is it OK to compliment coworkers’ nails or haircuts? I believe that comments on people’s bodies are totally inappropriate at work, and in life in general. But if someone has changed their hair or has some cute nails (I myself do not do these cute things but notice them), is commenting on them in the same category as body stuff? Technically it is part of their body, but it doesn’t seem as bad to be “oh the magenta highlights are cool” or whatever. Should I stop commenting on haircuts and nail design? One school of thought is that it’s fine to comment on things that are obviously a deliberate choice — like a shirt or a …

This 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: The Uncoupling, by Meg Wolitzer. After the local high school performs Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata, in which women decide to deny men sex in order to pressure them to end a war, the town’s local women pick up the habit themselves. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – February 28-March 1, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

It’s the Friday open thread! The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers. * If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer. The post open thread – February 27, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. Intern won’t stop giving unsolicited “corrections” We’ve been dealing with a troublesome intern. He keeps giving senior members of the staff unsolicited advice, corrections, and “tips” about everything from life lessons to ways for everyone to do their work. He’s been told many times that it’s inappropriate and that other members of the staff are uncomfortable with it but he keeps doing it. How, as a manager, can I deal with this situation without making it difficult for the intern? I’m afraid I will shatter his self-esteem as it’s seems fragile despite the over-confidence. You’re not doing him any favors by dancing a…

A reader writes: I’m a 32-year-old professional on a niche team for a large corporation and have been in my role for four years. When I was interviewing, I was living in City A, a low-cost-of-living city that I really disliked. When I took my current job, they were clear that they allow my role to be performed from anywhere in the U.S., and I was hired at a salary consistent with my experience and then-geographic location. About five months after starting, I moved to City B, a much-higher-cost-of-living city. My director told me that while my move was no problem logistically, I would not receive a pay increase for relocating, as the move was my initiative and the compa…

A reader writes: I oversee a public-facing department at a nonprofit. One of our long-time program managers is an oversharer. This includes on social media, where she has in the recent past criticized two of our sponsors in long Facebook posts, which included phrases like “Corporation X needs to get their crap together.” These were criticisms based on her personal experiences, not related to work (think complaining about the customer service at Corp X when she was shopping there). Yesterday, she followed up with more complaining during a program meeting that included clients. I know she is connected to many of our volunteers and clients, as well as colleagues, on social…

In the comments on a recent post, someone mentioned that a boss once sent them home because they’d forgotten to wear a belt that day (“I wasn’t showing butt cleavage, but he wasn’t having it.”) Someone else mentioned a boss who expected people to rise whenever he entered the office (?!). Let’s discuss managers and offices with weirdly outdated expectations who appear to be from a far-off era. The post let’s discuss throwback bosses: managers with outdated work expectations appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

A reader writes: I work for a company of about 40 employees that says they “don’t give raises.” It’s in a field that is traditionally freelance, so having a full-time salaried position with benefits while doing this work is slightly unusual, but not unheard of. When asked, management says explicitly that because of how well we’re compensated, they don’t do raises. The salary range is $80-95K — on the high-ish end for our field but not wildly above what freelancers in our field can earn. The hourly rates of freelancers tend to increase $5 every 2-3 years. My question is how bananas is this and do you have any suggestions for how we can push back? I was shocked when I he…

A reader writes: I supervise two employees, Charlie and Lucy, and share a third, Linus. Lucy has strong weeks and weaker weeks, overall fine, but needs regular reminders and is far from perfect. Charlie is new but a really solid employee. He has been having some personal issues that were affecting some of his reliability at work — coming in late and falling asleep. (He would stay late to compensate, and I have zero concerns with the quality of his work.) He and I have met about it a couple of times and we had discussed some possible aids and solutions. Overall, I believed it would be a fairly temporary issue, so I had given him some slack. HR was aware of it, and I ha…