Performance Tracking and Feedback

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 office has a wall of shame with the names of people who are late or out sick My workplace has recently instituted a “wall of shame,” where the names of everyone who called in sick or was tardy are posted above the computer where employees clock in. The rumor mill has it that this is supposed to help us with our “accountability,” although no announcement has been made on the matter – it just appeared one day. My managers have some problems, but are generally pretty reasonable people when I approach them. How can I suggest this public shaming is a…

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 5, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

A reader writes: I hired a promising junior employee who seemed polite and reasonable during his interview. However, now that he is my employee, he constantly condescends to me and says things that come across in a belittling way. Here are some examples: Me: “Bob, I was going to train you on how to do X today.” Bob, with a dismissive laugh: “Yeah, I was wondering when you were going to get to that.” Me: “Bob, has anyone shown you how to do Y yet?” Bob, with a dismissive laugh and a shrug: “How hard can it be?” Me: “I just noticed an issue with the X documentation and wanted to make sure I corrected that so you have the right information.” Bob, with a dismissive lau…

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 partner was angry about how she handled harassment at work? Here’s the update. Addressing the domestic violence situation: following my post, we took more than a month away from each other. I stayed in our flat, he stayed with a friend and we had zero contact during this time. About 40 days in, my partner came home (as agreed), but he works away a lot so he booked jobs to be away Mon-Fri for four weeks 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. There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day. Remember the letter-writer asking how to live down a reputation for being “extra”? Here’s the update. Thank you so much for publishing my letter a year ago. I really appreciated your advice and the kind responses in the comments. Looking back, I was in a dark place emotionally and a toxic work environment when I wrote. I don’t think I really recognized how anxious and unhappy I was until I was beyond it. Believe it or not, I’ve remaine…

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 five updates from past letter-writers. There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day. 1. My boss is a jerk — how do I deal with her? (first update) I’m the person who wrote in years ago about my jerk boss (and, if I recall correctly, I initially balked when you called her a jerk!). I had previously provided an update about taking a new job and how grateful I was for your advice and the support of the community. As a quick update, I’m still at that new company and over the y…

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 friend hired them but wasn’t paying what they had agreed on? Here’s the update. I’m happy to say that the outcome of the conversation with my now former boss was positive and I didn’t expect it to end as well as it did. Thank you, Alison, and everyone who provided helpful feedback. I respectfully brought up with my friend what she was thinking to do in terms of the summer when the days were longer and I…

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. Men are gross in our non-gendered bathrooms (#3 at the link) The bathrooms in our building continue to be a source of mirth and disbelief. As well as continued seat-up, shake-it-all-about behavior, there’s been the (female) facilities manager who refused to accept that “all gender” means sanitary bins should be available in all stalls (“men don’t want to look at those”), and building-wide reminders to use the supplied brushes to remove anything you might leave clinging to t…

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. Nameplate drama I work for a very large company. My department is small and very specialized. The rest of company either doesn’t know we exist or, if they do, doesn’t understand what we do. My department has been the “stepchild” of the company. There have been growth and leadership changes that affected morale for many years. There’s a lack of role clarity, communication, overstepping of management boundaries, no policies or procedures, reactiveness, finger pointing, etc. We have one long-term employee, Jan, who is known for being rude and sarcast…

It’s the final round of the Worst Boss of 2025 voting. We’ve narrowed the pool from eight nominees to two (see results from the first round and second round). The two finalists go head-to-head below. A Frightful Face-Off – The Nominees: the CEO keeps asking young male employees to try her breast milk my company makes summer interns wear bikinis If the voting isn’t showing up for you, you can also vote directly here. The post vote for the worst boss of 2025: the finals 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. Here are four updates from past letter-writers. 1. My office has a wall of shame with the names of people who are late or out sick We had a Very Ballsy coworker bring it up in a staff meeting, demanding to know whether they preferred we infect all the people, children, and families we worked with every day in order to avoid being shamed for our own illness. (Yes, this was a preschool/daycare.) She also pointedly asked why *management* who called out sick or were otherwise not present were not included on the list. They did …

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 boss was pushing them to fundraise from their family and friends and tap their personal network for prizes for raffles? Here’s the update. In the months during which my boss was pressuring me to solicit gifts, I managed to procure exactly one in-kind gift from a local business I frequent, and I was so awkward doing it. There’s a local yarn shop that I frequent, so I intended to ask the owner for a donati…

A reader writes: Two years ago, I began managing Craig, who had been doing the same tasks day in and out for a decade. He hadn’t adapted to new technology, best practices, or industry trends. My first order of business was to coach him and challenge him to grow and learn. For more than a year, we built up a great trajectory. People saw how much his work improved and commented on it frequently, and said he seemed revitalized in many ways. His progress gave me a lot of hope that he could become good at the modern demands of his role. Then about six months ago, Craig suddenly reverted to his old patterns. It was as if the prior year of progress got completely wiped out. On…

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 who was inheriting an employee who causes chaos wherever they go? Here’s the update. Thank you so much for taking my question several months ago about having a “chaos employee” forced upon my department. I have an update and a feeling there will likely be a more dramatic addition some years down the road. I ended up talking my department out of taking on Pat! We dodged the bullet! I didn’t mention to my super…

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 three updates from past letter-writers. 1. My boss sent me a bereavement gift, then demanded to know how I felt when I received it Your advice and everyone’s comments really helped me get some perspective on the issue. I took your advice and sent a brief thank-you to the boss for the bereavement gift, saying I hoped my colleagues had passed on my appreciation at the time. I decided to treat the weird tone of the boss’s initial email as likely ChatGPT / Autocomplete / Inbox-wrangling-fatigue strangeness and definite…

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. I think my disastrous ex-employee is co-opting queer identity Where do I begin. I followed the advice and said nothing, generally kept my distance. Pam sowed chaos “leading” the LBGTQ+ group. She created what an ex-member described as a sexualized atmosphere, including a pinup photo of her in an event announcement. A lot of members left. A young employee, Mary, very publicly accused P…

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 three updates from past letter-writers. There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day. 1. Our office didn’t have bathrooms or water, but they wouldn’t send us home (#3 at the link) After your response was published, I reported the incident through our anonymous compliance network, who forwarded it to employee health, not HR. I got a lukewarm response, something about management being in contact with HR the whole day, but it never addressed why we all felt like we were being…

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 three updates from past letter-writers. 1. Employee keeps working unpaid overtime and lies about it (#5 at the link) When I had a stern talk to Pam warning her she would be fired for any further unapproved overtime, she wrote an email to say she was suing us. This bizarre announcement prompted me to start poking around as you advised. I discovered Pam had been stealing cash from work. It explained a lot about her eagerness to do overtime. She was outraged when confronted. Pam declared that she was innocent before g…

A reader writes: The team I manage is very small. I am the youngest there and sometimes feel insecure about being the boss. Today in a meeting, a long-term employee who’s been here 15 years (much longer than me) announced that he would take steps to solve a certain issue. The issue needs to be addressed, his solution is good, and I appreciate him taking initiative. Nevertheless, I am not sure how to react to him just pointing out that he will handle something without speaking to me beforehand. How should I proceed? I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and so…

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 manager posted a “wall of shame” of people who didn’t volunteer to work more? Here’s the update. I wrote in a few years ago about a new supervisor and her approach to mandated “voluntary” overtime as a registered nurse in a hospital. Since then, that supervisor has stepped back into a staff nursing role and she’s happier for it. We’re still friends so I’m also happy about that! She’s a great nurse who tried a new role that wasn’t right for her. A new supervisor was hired from outside. She was…

A couple of years ago, someone shared what I consider to be the best holiday date story of all time, and it must be shared here again. Enjoy: When I was fresh out of college, a dude in my social circle invited me to his fancy work Christmas party. He was a teacher, so I’d kind of assumed I was there as friend to act as a buffer between well-intentioned female colleagues who wanted to set him up with one another, with their daughters, etc. I was wrong! This invitation to a work Christmas party was meant to be the first date of a magical relationship between two people destined to be together. Why a magical relationship? When I opened the door, he said he’d hope we’d have …

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 federal employee wondering whether to stick it out or leave (#3 at the link)? Here’s the update. Here’s a bit of an update from one of the federal employees who wrote in back in January. Not much has changed on my end, although it’s been a long year. I’ve gotten a resume completed, which at least is a step closer than I’ve been in over a decade to looking for another job, and have looked around, but haven’t found anything that would work for my situation. Right now is a lousy time to be looking for work; everyth…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Internship offered me a special project but now I can’t get any answers about it I’m a college student who recently finished a remote internship at a prominent company in a fairly niche field (the company has maybe 10-15 full-time employees). My main task was fairly generic — think setting up a filing system or similar — but I also got a lot of experience in the actual field. Towards the latter end of it, I had a great talk with the CEO about what I wanted out of the internship, and what was really exciting was that he said that he thought a good next step for me would be designing an accessory for one of their product…

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 boss keeps rotting food in our shared office I just started a new job, which I was thrilled to get and have really been enjoying so far. I share an office with one person, who is my immediate supervisor and is training me. He’s been training me well and he’s a really nice guy, but there’s one big problem: when he brings lunch to work, he doesn’t take his leftovers home. As a result, there are at least five or six large Tupperware containers under his desk, containing food in various stages of decay. The smell is, as you might imagine, pretty int…

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 who turned down a bait-and-switch job offer and the firm started blowing up his phone? Here’s the update. I wish I had a wild update, or a satisfying update, but here is what ended up happening in my saga with the strange contractor who tried to change the pay rate and then assaulted me with endless texts and calls. I wrote to the woman who seemed to be the highest-ranking officer at the subcontractor and sai…