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: Three Days in June, by Anne Tyler. The night before a woman’s daughter is getting married, her ex shows up on her doorstep with no place to stay (and a cat). The story is the day before the wedding, the day of, and the day afterwards, and it’s charming and cozy and ended too soon. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. 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: Greta & Valdin, by Rebecca K. Reilly. Greta and Valdin are siblings and roommates, one dealing with his break-up with a much older man, and one trying to figure out love and her career. It’s also about their large Maori-Russian-Catalonian family, and about struggling to find your way, and it’s funny. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Eloise is 20 years old (!) and was living in a shelter cage, but now she has a house of her own. 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: I See You’ve Called In Dead, by John Kenney. An obituary writer publishes his own obituary after drinking too much one night, then he learns his newspaper can’t fire him because their systems now list him as dead. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. 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: Every Tom, Dick & Harry, by Elinor Lipman. Yay for a new Elinor Lipman, who I believe is the Jane Austen of our time. A woman is hired to handle the estate sale of her small town’s brothel/B&B. There’s intergenerational friendship, a romance with the chief of police, family drama, a high school reunion, and much more. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. View the full …

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: Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson. After loving Liz Moore’s Long Bright River, I wanted more literary fiction mysteries where the character development gets as much attention as the plot. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. the “terrified of humans” pair … curled up in my lap 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: Piglet, by Lottie Hazell. After her fiance confesses a betrayal two weeks before their wedding, a woman becomes inexplicably ravenous. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. 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 Safekeep, by Yael van der Wouden. When her brother’s girlfriend comes to stay with her in the Netherlands, a woman’s post-war life is upended. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. 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: Perfume and Pain, by Anna Dorn. A cancelled writer searches for inspiration and develops a surprising relationship with her new neighbor. Funny and smart. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. 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: Rental House, by Weike Wang. After the daughter of Chinese immigrants and the son of a white, working class family marry, they grapple with their relationship with each other and both sets of parents over the course of a summer vacation. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. 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: God of the Woods, by Liz Moore. A teenager disappears from the summer camp her family owns, 14 years after her older brother similarly disappeared. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. 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: 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 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 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 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 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: 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 post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I would really love your opinion on how we handled this hiring process — and on the subsequent fallout. I work for a public library that has a very large volunteer base and a small paid staff. When we have a job opening, which is rare, volunteers are welcome to apply. We traditionally grant them a phone interview (i.e., they make the first cut) as a courtesy, though that is not official policy. A few volunteers have been hired over the years, most recently about three years ago. One volunteer, Stephanie, has applied twice (two years apart) and made it to an in-person interview (seco…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. Today we have two letters, one question. The first: I’m a fed in a (relatively) safe job in a (relatively) safe agency, and while I’m hoping to stay, I am keeping an eye out for other opportunities. But as someone who went straight from academia to the federal government, I realized I don’t know where to look beyond places like LinkedIn or Indeed. I’m sure many job categories have their own niche places to look for job announcements, but how do you find out about them? Maybe people who are looking could say their desired job category in the comments and ot…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. What to do about a terrible workplace when you can’t leave I know it’s often the case that the best thing to do in a terrible work setting is to start looking for another job. I’m wondering if you have any advice for circumstances where you really can’t do that, or at least aren’t willing to accept the consequences of doing so. I’m a PhD student in a psychology program. As part of the program we have to spend a certain amount of time providing services through our departmental clinic. This is non-optional for the program, so the only way around this…

If you’re getting ready to quit your job, you’re probably thinking a lot about how to tell your boss and your team that you’re leaving. But before you give anyone a heads-up, there are some things you need to do first. At New York Magazine today, I’ve got a checklist of 10 items to take care of before you quit. You can read it here. The post what to do before you quit your job: a checklist appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. For the Thursday “ask the readers,” what’s a secret about your field that would surprise outsiders to hear? Spill the beans in the comment section. (Make sure to specify your industry!) View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: Over the past year, I’ve been applying for jobs and have been invited for some interviews. I’ve noticed that a few of the places that I’ve applied to responded to my application by requesting a pre-recorded video interview. I’m really put off by this practice. I would need to find the time to review the questions, write out sufficiently detailed answers to each question, then find a place to film myself answering each question. It feels imbalanced to expect this much effort to create what is basically a detailed video essay, when I haven’t even been given the chance to have an actual…

Remember the person whose company accountant was nitpicking his travel expenses to the point of responding to a $12 Chipotle tab with,”Ordering extra guacamole is wasteful of member dues”? Or the weeks-long battle about the purchase of a $10 calculator? Or the admin who wouldn’t give anyone a new pen unless you turned in your old, used-up pen first? And then there were these: • • • • I have had two different colleagues in two different jobs repeatedly change their signature blocks within hours of their boss being out of the office. One of them would change his signature block to “Acting Deputy Spokesperson” every time his boss took even an afternoon off to…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Most people try to make a good impression when they start a new job. Others … do not or, perhaps, cannot. Think, for example, of the new hire who was already badmouthing the business on Twitter, the employee plotting a coup on her second day, and the new hire who brought their mom to orientation. And then there were these: • • • • I was asked to see if I could find the brand new student worker who was supposed to be staffing a front line desk, as everyone who walked past noticed no one was sitting there. I happened to go around the desk — and discovered her sitting underneath the desk, ab…