Performance Tracking and Feedback

Last week we talked about office thefts, and here are some of my favorite stories you shared. 1. The bike My coworker and I both biked to work fairly often. One day, my coworker didn’t bike but I did. My coworker left the office before I did and stole my bike, because he forgot he didn’t bike and just grabbed a bike and left. The funniest part is that said coworker is nearly a foot taller than me, so his bike is much larger, and also a different color. He made it all the way home before realizing that (1) there was already a bike in his home, (2) he had car keys in his pocket, and (3) the bike he had was not his, it was mine. (He brought it back the next day, and apolo…

A reader writes: I’ve been at my company for five years and enjoy my job. The work is in line with what I want to do long-term, I’m getting great experience, the people I work with are nice, and my boss is easy to work for and has mentored me in ways I’ve never received at a job before. All things considered, I’m pretty happy here. However, about a year ago, my boss brought up the possibility of a promotion. There’s no natural role for me to move into (the next position up is hers, and she’s not going anywhere), but she proposed creating a job where I’d take on more responsibility for some pieces of running the department, including things like training new hires and re…

A reader writes: I recently accepted a new job where I will be managing a newly created team. I have been a manager before, but this new job will be a new challenge. The team I am managing has been tasked with leading a culture change in the company. The company has had many employees leave. In some cases, they left without another job lined up or took a job somewhere else with less pay or a lower title. Most gave little or no notice and left on poor terms. It’s been a problem for a long time, but things have been getting worse recently. Some former employees did agree to exit interviews but all of the ones who left over the problems had the same complaints: * Parents …

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Dealing with a spider phobia on work calls I work from home 100% of the time. I also am deeply afraid of spiders (as well as most creatures with six or more legs). I normally do not encounter creatures with six or more legs due to living in a big city, but unfortunately I still get the occasional unwanted visitor. I’ve worked very hard over the years on getting my fear reactions under control, but if I get surprised and the spider is within close range, I often can’t help but let out a short scream or yell. Thankfully this has only happened once while on a call, and it was an informal call with one of my coworker budd…

Remember the letter-writer asking how to manage someone with poorly controlled ADHD? Here’s the update. I found your response very helpful and I’m working my way through all the comments as well. The situation was already resolved by the time this was published, but it’s helpful to reflect back on what I could have done better, and hopefully others will learn from this too! It’s fascinating to see the commenters weighing in on the importance of accommodations vs personal responsibility. I’m also learning a lot about the uniqueness of ADHD coping methods, not only that different people find different approaches helpful, but also that the same person will need different a…

Whenever a new generation ages into the work world, the sky always seems to be falling, accompanied by much hand-wringing from their elders. We were told millennials were overly entitled participation-trophy-chasers, and Gen X were disaffected slackers. In my experience, this is usually BS. Most of the complaints about any new generation at work are simply about young people. It’s about their inexperience, not their generation. But Gen Z might actually be grappling with a different set of challenges, because of both the pandemic and the move to remote work just as they’re establishing their careers. My column at Slate today explores whether there’s anything to that — and…

A reader writes: I’m enjoying my current job, which is a pleasant surprise to me, considering how many awful workplaces are out there. Of course it’s not perfect, but by and large the management seems to be healthy, which is one of the biggest things I was looking for. It might seem so good in comparison to my most significant prior experience with authority and leadership, which was in my family of origin and was controlling, fear-based, and abusive in various ways. I had only recently moved out of my parents’ home when I started this job, so in addition to learning the ropes of the “official” workplace for the first time, I was also (and am still) learning the ropes o…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Manager husband is cheating with a much younger employee A very dear friend of mine has recently learned that her husband/partner of 10 years has been cheating on her. They work together, in different departments but with some overlap, and everyone at work knew that they were married with children. Her husband is 31 years old and a manager, the affair partner is 20-21 and a junior staff member on his team. He has been scheduling them on late shifts together in order to facilitate the affair. He has decided to continue the relationship with the affair partner rather than pursue marriage counselling or reconciliation. M…

It’s Memorial Day! The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on anything you want to talk about. The post Memorial Day open thread 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 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…

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 – May 23, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. Should I tell my job I’m going to quit if they don’t deal with my horrible coworker? I’ve been at this job for over 15 years. My coworker, Sally, has been here for less than three. She has questioned my experience and knowledge from the start, despite my seniority, but it got worse in late 2024. Among other things, she has slept at her desk every day since I started noticing it last year (not exaggerating). She talks down to everyone she works with, but especially me. She has made awful comments about people’s bodies and talks about her own bodily functions far more than is appropriate. My schedule was changed so I wo…

A reader writes: I’m the president of a small grassroots not-for-profit board and I have plenty of virtual meetings with other board members, volunteers, community partners, and staff for one reason or another. I’m wondering if you have any suggested language for when people no-show for meetings. It’s a relatively minor issue, but it happens often enough to be pretty irritating. I’m not necessarily asking for language about setting expectations for attending meetings in general, but words to use in the immediate aftermath: when I don’t know what happened and so I’m partially worried but also annoyed. I try to give the benefit of the doubt, so I’ll send things like, “Mis…

It’s mid-year updates season! If you’ve had your question answered here in the past, please email me an update and let us know how your situation turned out. Did you take the advice? Did you not take the advice? What happened? How’s your situation now? (Don’t post your updates here though; email them to me.) Your update doesn’t have to be positive or big to be worth submitting. We want to hear them all, even if you don’t think yours is that interesting. And if there’s anyone you especially want to hear an update from, mention it here and I’ll reach out to those people directly. The post where are you now? (a call for updates) appeared first on Ask a Manager. View th…

You’d like to think you can trust the people you work around, but in reality office thefts are surprisingly common. From the coworker who stole someone’s spicy food and got sick (and the epic update), to the manager who stole someone’s family heirloom, to the boss who stole an employee’s iPad, to the boss who kept stealing lunches, office thieving happens more than you’d expect. And some of the thefts are shockingly petty: • “I have a Bath and Body eucalyptus (mini) hand sanitizer next to my computer. Turns out someone has used it up, then refilled it with water so it wouldn’t look like it was used. It costs a buck.” • “I had someone steal my pyrex dish once. They dum…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Junior staff ask me for recommendations I can’t give without reservations I work with a number of support positions filled mostly by recent grads. Although they support my role, they are part of a different company and I have no supervisory role over them. A high percentage of them eventually want to go back to school to do my job and I get asked to fill out recommendation forms a few times a year. Sometimes this is an amazing part of my job — I get to pay forward all the help that I received. But I’m struggling with what to do when my opinion of someone’s work isn’t so glowing. To not mince words, the support staff s…

A reader writes: I am the HR person for a small nonprofit which offers many different services to the public. We have one team in particular which has always been difficult to manage and has not really gotten along with any manager they have had. We’ve most recently brought in a new manager for this team who does tend to do things quite differently than any of the other managers (current or former). Let’s call her Barbara. Barbara is a go-getter with a strong personality and is very focused on making rapid changes to many of the current or older practices and processes which she feels will better serve the public. Upper management is generally supportive of these change…

Remember the letter-writer whose breastfeeding coworker wouldn’t stop talking about her boobs? Here’s the update. It has been about a year since I wrote in. While the talk about breastfeeding specifically decreased about eight months in, my coworker’s seemingly endless need for attention and validation was unceasing. It got to the point where only about three people in the office were engaging with her at all unless they absolutely had to. She then shifted tactics, approaching people with questions that were superficially work related, then immediately re-centering the conversation to either boast about her chosen path to martyrdom, garner excessive praise for her child’…

A reader writes: I am looking for some advice on how to deal with my manager. I have worked in this organization for about three years, and my manager, Mark, started a few months before me. Out of all of the managers I’ve ever had, he is by far the kindest and most flexible (he’s very hands-off). After a few months, I realized he is not great at his job. Over the past three years, more and more of his job responsibilities have been put onto my plate. I am supposed to be in a more technical role, but I end up dedicating a lot of my time to managing, due to him … not managing. Some examples: * Interns: We have a small team of interns — 6-10 in any given year. When I firs…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My manager gets anxious about how I manage my time even though I never miss deadlines My supervisor often assigns me projects well in advance of when they’re due. The problem is, she quickly gets anxious after assigning me work and mentions it repeatedly and hovers around my desk to check my progress on it. She doesn’t ask about it; she just watches what I’m doing and gets increasingly irritated and anxious if I’m not dropping everything to do the task she assigned. For example, at this beginning of this week she assigned me a project of the sort I’ve completed many times in the past. I know exactly how long it takes …

A reader writes: I have a coworker, Fred, who once told me the best work advice an older coworker gave him was “don’t be good at a job you don’t want.” In our three years working together, Fred has really shown he’s taken this advice to heart — unfortunately, at the expense of his team and myself. He often avoids doing entire parts of his job, leaving the rest of us to pick up the slack. Fred and I report to the same boss and work in a small R&D team at a larger company that makes widgets. The job generally entails designing, optimizing, and testing new widget designs and widget-making processes. Each team member, assigned by my boss, owns one part of the widget-mak…

A reader writes: I’m managing a department of eight people and two of them won’t speak to each other. I’m new to my position and it took me a couple of months to figure out that they weren’t talking. They literally won’t speak to each other. If we have a meeting, they won’t participate if the other person is in the room, unless I address a question directly to one of them. I’ve been managing them for three months, but from what I can gather it’s been like this for at least two years. There seem to be a couple of other people in the department who are on one person’s side or the other, and it is affecting the department’s work. Everyone who has been with the company fo…

A reader writes: A couple of weeks ago, I gave my employee, Rita, negative feedback on her behavior. It wasn’t what she was saying; it was how she was saying it. She was speaking rapidly and in a panicked but unwarranted manner. She was high-strung and scattered, and I felt interrogated. She accepted my feedback professionally, apologized, and showed subsequent improvement. Two days ago, a coworker texted me a link to a blog about people with disabilities and asked, “This you?” Rita has a regular column on a blog about her disability, ADHD. I knew she had an ADA accommodation, but that’s all. She wrote her latest column about our interaction. She accurately described e…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Candidate lied to us in their interview I was recently involved in interviews for a promotion in my department. We interviewed three internal candidates, so we were familiar with each candidate’s work. The interview team consisted the hiring manager (Fran), Fran’s boss (Tom), and me. I report to Fran, as would the newly promoted employee. One of the candidates blatantly lied about their past performance. For example, they said that they are in regular contact with an important client, but Tom knows that is not the case. Additionally, this employee’s work is lower quality than we would expect from the successful candi…

A reader writes: We received and validated some complaints about language used by a member of my team — off-color jokes, insensitive comments, etc. I agreed with HR that this did not rise to the level of a formal warning, but we would have a documented sit-down with the associate to explain it wasn’t acceptable and should not happen again, and further instances would have escalating consequences. Before this, the employee was a high performer without issues. HR scheduled the meeting on Friday for the following Monday with a very generic subject line and said that she wished to discuss “communication” and included my manager in the invite as a courtesy (she is aware of t…