Performance Tracking and Feedback

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. 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: Blob: A Love Story, by Maggie Su. After a woman takes home a blob she finds in an alley, it grows into her ideal man. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. View the full article

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 End of Romance, by Lily Meyer. After an abusive marriage, a grad student vows to avoid romance, then promptly meets two men who challenge that resolve. I struggled with whether to recommend this because by the last 20% of the book, I was supremely frustrated by the protagonist’s choices, but I really liked the first 80%. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – March 14-15, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. Vie…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. 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 Rachel Incident, by Caroline O’Donoghue. A best friendship is upended when one of the friends begins an affair with a married professor. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. View the full article

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: This Is Not About Us, by Allegra Goodman. An estrangement between two sisters over apple cake affects three generations of a family over decades. Each chapter explores a different family member, but all the stories are interconnected. I loved it. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – March 21-22, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. 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: Real Americans, by Rachel Khong. This is an epic family saga told in three generations: a pair of scientists who fled China’s Cultural Revolution, their daughter, and the son she has in America with the wealthy heir to a pharmaceutical company, whose business is intertwined with her parents in ways she learns of only later. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. View the full 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: Lake Effect, by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney. When two neighbors have an affair, the effects reverberate on their families, and particularly their children, for years. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – March 28-29, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. 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: Show Don’t Tell, by Curtis Sittenfeld. I will read anything Curtis Sittenfeld writes, including short stories, which normal frustrate me for being … short. As she has moved into middle age, so have many of her characters, including one story that revisits the protagonist from her novel Prep. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use that link. View the full article

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: Lost Lambs, by Madeline Cash. As their parents’ marriage unravels, their three teenage daughters each get into different sorts of trouble. Funny and a pleasure to read. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – March 7-8, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. 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 Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett. The Queen of England stumbles into a mobile library and develops a love of reading, which upends her life as the monarch. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. View the full article

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: Three Junes, by Julia Glass. The story of three generations of a Scottish family, across three summers. It’s about the expectations and obligations of family, as well as marriage, love, and loss. One of my favorite books of all time. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – May 10-11, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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: Leonard and Hungry Paul, by Ronan Hession. Two men living with their parents meander through their lives being kind, fundamentally decent people. Not a lot happens! But it is very quiet and charming. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – May 16-17, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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: Dearly Departed, by Elinor Lipman. After the unexpected death of her mother, single mom returns to her small hometown and realized life there was different than she’d previously understood. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – May 17-18, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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: Famesick, by Lena Dunham. The incredibly talented creator of HBO’s Girls writes about how fame devoured her as she was increasingly losing a battle with chronic illness. I love Girls (as well as her amazing adaptation of Catherine Called Birdy) and, while I haven’t always rooted for Lena’s choices, this book blew me away and I’m glad I read it. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – May 2-3, 2026 appeared first on Ask…

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 Love Elixir of Augusta Stern, by Lynda Cohen Loigman. A retired pharmacist moves to a retirement community in Florida, where she reconnects with a man from her past. The story alternates between their relationship in the present day and what happened between them when they were growing up in Brooklyn in the 1920s. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – May 24-25, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the fu…

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: Back After This, by Linda Holmes. A podcast producer who’s been wanting to host her own show gets offered the chance to do it … but she has to agree to let the show be about her dating life and to work with a relationship coach and influencer, of whom she’s highly skeptical. It’s smart and funny, and I looked forward to reading it every night and was sad when it was over. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – May 3-…

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 Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club, by Helen Simonson. Kicked out of her job after the men returned from World War I, a penniless woman working as a lady’s companion encounters a women’s’ motorcycle club and a changing world. Very charming, as all of her books are. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – May 9-10, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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: What Is Wrong With You? by Paul Rudnick. Both funny and poignant, it follows a motley cast of characters (including a former TV action star, a fired book editor, and a dentist in mourning) as they prepare to attend the wedding of one of their exes to a famous tech billionaire. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – November 1-2, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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: Grace & Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon, by Matthew Norman. After being recently widowed, a mom raising two young kids meets a man who recently lost his wife, and they slowly start to rebuild their lives. It is charming and legitimately funny and there’s a lot of Baltimore in it, and I loved it. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – November 15-16, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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: Wreck, by Catherine Newman. A woman in middle age has a delightful family, a mysterious rash, and a preoccupation with a local train accident. The family is the same one from Newman’s earlier novel, Sandwich, but this book is 10 times funnier, and you don’t need to have read the first one to enjoy this one. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – November 22-23, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full arti…

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: Ladies in Waiting: Jane Austen’s Unsung Characters, by Adriana Trigiani and more. A bunch of well-known authors, including my personal favorite Elinor Lipman, reimagine the lives of some of Jane Austen’s minor characters, including Mary Bennett, Georgiana Darcy, Caroline Bingley, and Miss Bates. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – November 29-30, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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: Nobody’s Girl, by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. It’s an account of the author’s abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell (including abuse that simply took another form after she escaped them), and it’s absolutely harrowing. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – November 8-9, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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 Sisters Weiss, by Naomi Ragen. The daughter of a strict ultra-Orthodox Jewish family rebels against the expectations of her parents and community, to mixed results. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – October 11-12, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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: Land of Milk and Honey, by C Pam Zhang. With food supplies disappearing after an environmental disaster, a chef escapes to a job in the Italian Alps to cook in a closed oasis for the world’s elite. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – October 18-19, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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: Everything Here Is Under Control, by Emily Adrian. Two estranged friends reunite when one is breaking under the strain of new motherhood. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – October 25-26, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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: Great Big Beautiful Life, by Emily Henry. Two very different writers — one an outgoing celebrity journalist and one a Pulitzer-Prize-winning curmudgeon — compete to write the biography of a once-famous tabloid princess who long ago dropped out of sight. Not my favorite Emily Henry, but everything she writes is so entertaining that it’s still worth recommending. She’s an ideal author for when you want fluff that’s still smart and well-written. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a co…