Performance Tracking and Feedback

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day. Remember the letter-writer whose CEO was demanding everyone return to the office but people didn’t want to — and they were a manager stuck in the middle? Here’s the update. Just a few months after my letter was published … my team imploded. My boss decided after 10 years of service to leave the company to focus on his family, and due to the terrible state my industry is in right now, my team of 12 is now just three, including me. Losing…

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Remember the letter-writer who was the chair of a board and had one board volunteer making everyone’s jobs harder because of his struggles with technology? Here’s the update. I found your advice and the advice in the comments very helpful. To start, I wanted to clear up something that that came up in the comments: this is not a 501(c) organization, though we do volunteer work for them. I fudged some of the details to make my story less recognizable, but this is actually an employer-sponsored affinity group. So no, there is …

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers. There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day. 1. My team received a suspicious text — and we wonder if our boss sent it as a way to secretly gain info It was reassuring to hear from you and the readers that I wasn’t being paranoid about the text. Unfortunately, the truth behind the mystery text remains unknown, though the official story is that it was “legit.” Shortly after your response, my manager ended up addressing the team, sayi…

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives. 1. My manager set up a secret email address using my name I work at a community college. All regular employees at the college are assigned email addresses that begin with our last name. My email, for example, is LastName_FirstName_MiddleInitial@collegename.edu. In Outlook, if someone sends an email to a non-existent address, they will receive an “undeliverable” auto-reply. Several people have tried to email me using an incorrect email format (FirstNameLastName@collegename.edu). The incorrect email format doesn’t conform with the college email, so I a…

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Remember the letter-writer whose new boss told them not to take all their PTO each year? Here’s the update. I appreciated your advice, as well as the commentary from the reader community. Your reply was spot on to how I felt as well — vacation time was part of my compensation package, and them backtracking verbally after agreeing to it in an official offer that I signed felt very, very wrong. I had also declined another offer to take this one, so I felt betrayed in a sense with a bait and switch. I was so incredibly thankfu…

It’s probably the most frustrating part of job searching: you have an interview that seemed to go great, you nailed every question and felt rapport with you interviewer, they seemed impressed and said they’d be in touch soon, and then … silence. Do you follow up with them? Did you wait for them to get in touch? Will you ever hear back? What happened? At New York Magazine, I wrote about what to do when an interview goes great but then you don’t hear anything. You can read it here. The post why haven’t I heard back after my interview? appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Remember the letter-writer whose new employee felt excluded on a well-meaning but cliquey team? Here’s the update. I had actually done some of the things you suggested when Anya joined (e.g., organizing a Teams call before she started so she could ask me questions and briefly meet the rest of the team before she started, having a team lunch in the staff cafeteria on her first day with us in the office, setting up coffee meetings with each member of the team in her first couple of weeks, designating an official buddy in anoth…

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Remember the letter-writer whose employees were being cruel to a gross coworker? Here’s the update. I fear this won’t be a very satisfying update. As I sat at my desk and read your email asking about an update, I took a few moments to look up from my screen and across the office to watch Meredith. Within those few seconds, I saw her pick a scab off her face and eat it. So yeah. I had my first conversation with Meredith months ago. Our job is one that exposes us to food, biological material, and chemicals, so at the sugges…

A reader writes: I have a few employees who have told us they do not celebrate birthdays, but they do sit to eat the lunch the company buys for the birthday person and then leave when it’s time to sing “happy birthday.” (One of them asks for cake after everyone goes back to work.) These same employees say they do not observe holidays and do not attend parties (like the employee Christmas party), but they say they can receive the Christmas bonus that the company gives out. Would the company be in the wrong not to invite them to the lunch or give them a monetary Christmas bonus since we are trying to comply with their religious beliefs? Yes, the company would be 100% in…

A reader writes: I’m looking for advice on how to pursue a new job discreetly, particularly when the interview process requires multiple rounds and my current workplace has very little flexibility. I’ve been with my current employer for 10 years. I started here before I even graduated from college, and I’ve grown tremendously. It’s a well-regarded organization with a prestigious name, and I genuinely believe they care about their people. That said, it’s time for me to leave. I’m no longer challenged, the work doesn’t excite me, and at my site things are fairly old school: no work from home, less vacation than many other employers, no flex hours, and we pay for our own …

A reader writes: For many years, my boss has given flowers to all his assistants for Valentine’s Day. But he has the same two assistants for several years. Both are retired professionals who decided to go back to work, and both originally were married. Now one of them is a widow and he was told by other members of the management team that he couldn’t give her flowers because she was single, but it was okay if he still sent the other assistant flowers. This seems out of place and it made the widowed assistant feel awful. Is this okay? No, it is not okay in any way. Your boss is being a bit of ass, but the people who gave him this guidance are the bigger problem. First…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Should I speak up about a management failure as I’m leaving? I’m a former teacher who resigned to take on a couple of lower key and much less stressful jobs. One of them is as an assistant at an after-school science club for pre-teens run by a nonprofit. It appealed because I could bring my skills and interact with kids (which I miss) but I had little responsibility or admin hassle. I am supposed to rock up and find everything planned and resourced. I’m a “pair of hands” for the session (and am paid accordingly!). But the course leader, Meg, is in her first job out of college and not equipped to do the job, so I have …

A reader writes: I used my company credit card for personal expenses over a long period (so, definitely not accidental purchases). I assumed it was somewhat frowned upon, but thought it was fine as long as I paid it off on time on my own dime. The balance amount over the months has ranged from $1,000 – $4,000. I did not realize it was a violation of agreements until I neglected to pay the balance for one month. (Before that, I had been paying off the full balance every month.) I did end up satisfying the balance, but obviously that invited scrutiny into how I have been using the card and they went back and looked at the history of transactions. HR set up a call with me…

A reader writes: Earlier this year, an employee of mine suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. He was excellent at his job and extremely well-liked by the rest of our department. His partner also works here. We are currently interviewing for someone to fill the now-empty role. At what point (if ever) is it appropriate to relay any of this to the candidates? So far, no one has asked why the job is open. While folks in the department are wonderful people, I have no idea whether any leftover resentment, awkwardness, or other weirdness may happen when our new person starts their job. There is some interaction between this position and the partner’s position, so I’d like to …

Last week, we talked about workplace romance gone either wrong or right, and here are 12 of my favorite stories you shared. 1. The emergency deployments The company I worked for occasionally had to respond to statewide emergencies (think every two years). When these happened, you had to go work in a different location and fill roles for the emergency. So a team lead on emergency could just be a support staffer at their day job or a middle line manager could become the states liaison with the feds. Somehow this change in location and status made people lose their minds. The sudden power made the person “sexy”: coworkers (often married) would begin affairs with this perso…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Should I tell people at the company we just acquired what they’re in for? A few years ago, I started at a small company which within a year of me joining was acquired by a massive international company based on the opposite coast. At the time, my boss and the now (forcibly) retired owner were told that we would still be able to be largely independent, with more support for the work we do currently. It wasn’t until all the paperwork was signed, sealed, and delivered that everyone realized this couldn’t be further from the truth. Staff and offices we were promised wouldn’t be touched have been gutted. Our workload has a…

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I live in a lovely touristy small city with a university. It’s a great place to live, with lots of services and things to do for its size. I have a job in my field which I still enjoy in some ways, but I’ve been in it for 10 years and am terribly bored. I’ve really pushed the boundaries of my position and am feeling so stuck. I’ve been actively applying in town for three years. It’s rare that positions come up, and when they do, they are inundated with candidates. Our city is known for having a “scenery tax” and having wildly educated baristas. So in the past year, I’ve started applying to positions in diffe…

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers. 1. How common is swearing at work? (#2 at the link) I always thought that if you answered a question for me, I would engage with the commentariat and also send in an update! But when I saw the post was up, I was experiencing severe pregnancy-induced anxiety … and promptly avoided the site for around a year. Today I went and looked at the published post for the very first time. (And I felt like the responses from everyone were actually quite lovely, so I don’t know what I was an…

A reader writes: I’ve become very good friends both in and out of work with a small group of colleagues (four total). This question is about one of them, Samantha. Samantha has always been a bit dry and sarcastic in her sense of humor. Over the past several months, however, she has become increasingly, well, mean. Samantha is shockingly blunt in meetings, often pulls faces that show her keen displeasure, and has been condescending (in person and in emails) to support staff. While she is sometimes right in her complaints, her delivery is frankly atrocious. While everyone complains about work, she seems to really hate it here. At the same time, though, we work in a niche…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My boss did a racist impression of a coworker I’m on a small, mostly autonomous support team in a medium-sized company. We had company-wide training yesterday. My coworker Amy couldn’t attend in person because of a winter storm/flight situation. Amy is black, and the other three of us are white. My team, and many others, went to a hotel bar after the training. After several beers, my boss Fergus quoted Amy — in poor English, with a thick, fake African (think: Nigerian) accent. Amy has a bit of a (South African) accent and is self conscious about it, which Fergus knows, and has no issues with English. It went over like…

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 20, 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. We fostered and then quickly adopted Laurie in 2020, during the first week of the pandemic. He hid behind some books on a bookcase for three days, but he relaxed once he discovered there were other cats in the house. It turned out he loved other cats. We had named him after the neighbor boy from Little Women before realizing that, just like his namesake, he yearned to be part of a big family. Fortunately, he was! He was an aggressive cuddler; he loved being in my lap, but his favorite thing in the world wa…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Employee was upset they had to use PTO for bereavement leave A few years ago, I worked at a large nonprofit that had generous PTO, but no other “buckets” of time. Sick, vacation, family care, all time off fell under PTO. One of my reports was caring for a terminally ill relative. Our working relationship was a bit tense as I was having productivity issues from this person, but I tried to separate those conversations and be supportive and offered them any time off they needed (though minimal to none was taken that I can remember.) Unfortunately, the family member passed. I told them to take all the time they needed. I …

A reader writes: I am about to make my first hire. We posted the job a couple of days ago. The job is semi-specialized work with specific qualifications. The job description clearly says cover letter and resume. Of the many applications I’ve received, one, maybe two, indicate that they’ve read the application before applying. The others appear to be following a job search plan that is along the lines of “throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks” – ranging from generic cover letters that don’t mention either the name of the employer or the job itself (if there’s a cover letter) to resumes that show nothing in the form of meeting requirements. Is this really a com…

A reader writes: I’m hiring for some new roles in my team and this has generated some excitement from internal folks looking to grow in their careers. That’s great! I’m always happy to meet with internal people before they submit resumes/go through the formal interview process, it’s very much a part of our team culture. However, twice now, different internal candidates have scheduled a one-on-one with me during a time when I already have a meeting and am showing as booked! This has kind of thrown me for a loop (do they not know how to use our extremely basic common scheduling software? do they think I’m booked for fun and will reschedule for them?) and honestly given me…