Performance Tracking and Feedback

A reader writes: I’ve just had the strangest interview experience. After the hiring manager and I introduced ourselves, she opened by asking, “Have you read our action plan?” I had not. I pivoted and replied that I’d read a couple other documents which are prominently linked on the company’s website, especially the one titled “’24-’27 Plan.” She indicated that was an outdated document, and that she was glad to know I hadn’t read it, as it would inform our interview moving forward. Okay. She mentioned the action plan later in the interview, and I indicated I was looking forward to reading it and was sorry to have missed it. Towards the end, she asked if I had any quest…

A reader writes: I wonder if you could offer your perspective on something I’ve been wondering about for a long time now. When I was 16 years old, I got my first job. The culture was one that I now recognize as abusive, and teen employees were regularly taken advantage of in some awful ways. At the time, though, it was my only experience with the professional world, and I assumed that much of it was normal. I had excellent attendance and was always on time, but on one particular day, I was extremely sick — could-not-get-out-of-bed sick. (I would later find out I had scarlet fever, so extremely contagious and potentially dangerous.) I was scheduled to work that day, so…

A reader writes: I run a small business that supplies a product to major companies. To keep the details anonymous, let’s say that we supply garments to a few mid-tier clothing retailers that you can buy in the mall. The problem is that one of my employees two levels down (he reports to someone who reports to me), Dave, behaves as though we’re making clothing for Gucci or Prada. This causes enormous production headaches. It means everything moves much more slowly through his department, because he is extremely conscientious about quality. That is admirable, but it results in things like being short with our subcontractors because they have not produced the products to his…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Should you put fan fiction on your resume? I saw someone online saying that they write fan fiction at Ao3 and so on their resume they put “independent fiction writer” or “independent online publishing project” without explaining what they write or that it’s at Ao3. They say that if you’re asked about it in an interview, you can answer with, “I prefer to keep my personal creative work separate from my professional identity, but I’ve used it as a way to improve my writing, editing, and consistency over time.” This seems like a really bad idea to me, but is it? Yes, it’s a bad idea. If you prefer to keep your personal cr…

A reader writes: I started at my company about five years ago after being laid off from my previous company due to Covid. Once I started here, I was shocked to discover that one of my old friends (Susan) who I was very close to in college (which I had graduated from 10 years prior) worked at the same company in a different building on the company’s campus. I reached out to her briefly on Teams just to say, “Oh wow, I had no idea you worked here. If you’re ever near my building, pop by and say hey and maybe we could grab a coffee.” She responded warmly and we had one brief conversation in my office, and that was the last time I saw her for months. We were in different de…

If you’re the boss, finding the right gifts for your employees can be fraught with questions: How much do you spend? Should you spend the same amount of money on each person? And if you don’t know someone well, how do you make sure they like the gift while still keeping it professional? For the record: managers don’t have to give their staff members gifts, but it’s a nice gesture if you want to do it, and in some offices it’s expected. (Although here is your obligatory reminder that because of the power dynamics involved, gifts at work should flow down, not up. Managers should never expect or encourage gifts from employees.) A while back, New York Magazine asked me to p…

I’m off today so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2020. A reader writes: I’m the executive assistant for a small company. I’m the direct support for the VP of human resources, “Dave,” who is very charismatic and likable and a generally nice guy. He’s also very good looking. However, he’s very professional with great business boundaries. I enjoy working with him. Two managers in particular, “Karen” and “Nancy,” need to meet with him all the time. All. The. Time. Their departments aren’t undergoing any HR issues, they don’t have any staffing needs, and they’re not hiring or firing anybody right now. They call to schedule multiple m…

A reader writes: I have been managing a corporate team for a little under a year, and I’ve gotten to know them all over the last few months. One employee, Sally, is smart, quiet, and a hard worker. However, when I talk to her, I started noticing that I was getting a lot of silence and a glazed look back. I tried a few different ways to ask questions and have a conversation over the months, but nothing has led to a change in her demeanor. At one point, I was wondering if she was high at work, since she seemed to me to be so checked out during conversation. Then a few months ago, I learned about the Gen Z stare – and I think that’s what I’ve been encountering! Sally is Ge…

A reader writes: I recently took a new job in my same industry and city. In my new role, I’ll have a team of eight reporting to me in various capacities and functions. During the interview process, I got a brief read-out of the team and a high level talent assessment. Nothing stood out as an issue. On my first day, I met the team reporting to me. One of the people on the team is someone that worked for me before and who I terminated for cause due to performance at my previous company. What do I communicate to my management team and/or HR about this situation? It feels weird to say nothing because ultimately, this could be a management issue — I’m sure this employee does…

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. I worked for my mom and now she won’t stop bugging me with work questions Five years ago, I was offered a job at the company my mom had been working at for 20+ years. At the time, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my career and I needed the insurance and a higher wage, so I accepted the offer despite my knowing it was ultimately going to be a bad situation. Unfortunately, I stayed for five years in the horrible working conditions. One of which was working directly for my mom all five years. During my five years at that company, I took it upon…

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…

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 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 – December 26, 2025 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 wondering whether to suggest that their employee rethink her career path? (They were having to outsource a large report she should have been responsible for because of the quality of her work.) Here’s the update. Mindy is still with our organization, but possibly not for much longer. We ended up not outsourcing the report, but I had several conversations with her over the course of this year about her growth with the organization, as she’d requested a promotion to a senior manager role — a position…

Earlier this month, we talked about corporate gifts that went terribly wrong. You shared so many outrageous stories that I had to split my favorites into two parts. Part one was here, and here’s part two. 1. The fire hazard After college I spent some time temping for a cargo airline. When someone had been with the company for five years, they were given a little glass globe paperweight. Part of my job was sending them out – a lot of the company’s employees were pilots and flight crew, so they didn’t come in to an office, and we mailed the gifts to their homes. After a while we got an email from one of the pilots. He had placed his globe on his desk by the window and wa…

A reader writes: I moved to a new state a year ago and, in the effort to find community, I joined a grassroots nonprofit as a volunteer coordinator (as a volunteer, not for my job). Since I’ve joined, we’ve had transparency issues with the board. Every few months, someone would either join or drop off the board, and volunteers wouldn’t hear about it until a week or two after the fact. We also never had the organization’s bylaws or constitution available to volunteers, and no matter how many of us explained why we needed this, select board members would always give excuses as to why we couldn’t. At one point, they finally posted them, but when the website went through a …

I’m off today. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives. 1. Customers talk about our sizes This question is for my coworker, Jess. We both work at a women’s plus-size clothing retailer (national chain) in the midwest. I do wear some clothes from here, but to most, I probably do not look like the average plus-size person. Jess is a little larger than myself. This is unfortunately relevant because customers try to relate to Jess in such ways like “Oh! You have a big butt you can help me [pick out something that would look good with my own big butt]” or “Oh, you get it with how big your hips are!” or the most co…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I can’t shake my crush on a former coworker I try not to view my coworkers as romantic prospects for the obvious reasons (women come to work to advance their careers, not to cater to the romantic whims of their coworkers!). As a woman in my 20s, I’ve experienced a few sexual overtures at work and in public, and I certainly don’t want to impose my own romantic demands on a fellow young woman who simply wants to do her job. However, I can’t shake my crush on a former coworker, “Diana.” Over the summer, I worked seasonally on the same large team as Diana. (She does year-round, part-time work for this employer.) While we …

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker accidentally linked her nudes to our team Photoshop account My coworker was using our team’s Photoshop account for a personal project (which our manager is aware of and okay with) and somehow she accidentally linked her phone camera roll to the account so all of her personal photos were visible on the team account. This might have been a nonissue, but my coworker has numerous sexually explicit photos on her phone that were then linked to Photoshop without her knowledge. The way she found out about this was our manager calling her after hours and letting her know she needed to unlink her phone photos immedia…

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…

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 – November 28, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day. A reader writes: My company’s offices are entirely open plan, with the exception of a few fish-bowl style, glass-walled conference rooms. There aren’t even dividers between desks, just one big room, so everyone can see everything that’s happening. Unfortunately, we have had to terminate a few people over the last year, typically for not meeting performance goals (as opposed to misconduct or misbehavior). Typically, the terminated employee gets the news in a conference room and is escorted out by their manager, which has had varying levels of success. There was one situation where t…

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day. A reader writes: I have a newer employee who isn’t doing well. She has another job that I think she works at while on breaks, and I believe it’s causing distractions (and long lunch hours). She’s never actually told me about it but her cell phone voicemail is set for it. Do I bring up the other job when I am discussing her mediocre performance with her? I answer this question — and three others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here. Oth…

It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager and 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 employer who laid them off and then wanted them to sign an indemnification (#2 at the link)? Here’s the update. Your advice was incredibly helpful. My previous manager continued to send me multiple followup texts regarding the indemnification that felt very guilt-tripping (reminding me they could not proceed with the critical business operation unless I signed and agreed). I did not reply to any of the tex…

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. Coworkers are leaving love notes for each other I recently started working in a high-end retail setting selling a luxury item. The team that I’m working with seems really great for the most part, except for this one young couple who can’t seem to keep their private lives out of the workplace. It’s not enough that everyone knows that they’re dating; one of them has begun taping small love notes to cash registers that are shared between 5-6 of us, in full view of our customers. Now in fairness, the notes are usually pretty short and subtle (“Happy T…