Performance Tracking and Feedback

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: Dearly Departed, by Elinor Lipman. After the unexpected death of her mother, single mom returns to her small hometown and realized life there was different than she’d previously understood. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – May 17-18, 2025 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…

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 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: What Is Wrong With You? by Paul Rudnick. Both funny and poignant, it follows a motley cast of characters (including a former TV action star, a fired book editor, and a dentist in mourning) as they prepare to attend the wedding of one of their exes to a famous tech billionaire. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – November 1-2, 2025 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: Grace & Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon, by Matthew Norman. After being recently widowed, a mom raising two young kids meets a man who recently lost his wife, and they slowly start to rebuild their lives. It is charming and legitimately funny and there’s a lot of Baltimore in it, and I loved it. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – November 15-16, 2025 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: 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…

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: Ladies in Waiting: Jane Austen’s Unsung Characters, by Adriana Trigiani and more. A bunch of well-known authors, including my personal favorite Elinor Lipman, reimagine the lives of some of Jane Austen’s minor characters, including Mary Bennett, Georgiana Darcy, Caroline Bingley, and Miss Bates. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – November 29-30, 2025 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: Nobody’s Girl, by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. It’s an account of the author’s abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell (including abuse that simply took another form after she escaped them), and it’s absolutely harrowing. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – November 8-9, 2025 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 Sisters Weiss, by Naomi Ragen. The daughter of a strict ultra-Orthodox Jewish family rebels against the expectations of her parents and community, to mixed results. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – October 11-12, 2025 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: Land of Milk and Honey, by C Pam Zhang. With food supplies disappearing after an environmental disaster, a chef escapes to a job in the Italian Alps to cook in a closed oasis for the world’s elite. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – October 18-19, 2025 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: Everything Here Is Under Control, by Emily Adrian. Two estranged friends reunite when one is breaking under the strain of new motherhood. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – October 25-26, 2025 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: Great Big Beautiful Life, by Emily Henry. Two very different writers — one an outgoing celebrity journalist and one a Pulitzer-Prize-winning curmudgeon — compete to write the biography of a once-famous tabloid princess who long ago dropped out of sight. Not my favorite Emily Henry, but everything she writes is so entertaining that it’s still worth recommending. She’s an ideal author for when you want fluff that’s still smart and well-written. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a co…

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: Sisters of Fortune, by Esther Chehebar, who’s been called “a Jewish Jane Austen.” Three sisters in the insular Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn try to figure out their relationships to men and to each other, as one begins to question her engagement. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – September 13-14, 2025 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: Sister Wife, by Christine Brown Woolley. I don’t know what made me pick this up but once I did, I couldn’t put it down. Written by one of the (former!) three sister wives from TLC’s reality show about a polygamous marriage, it’s absolutely fascinating. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – September 20-21, 2025 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: Single, Carefree, Mellow, by Katherine Heiny. I don’t normally like short stories but I will read everything Katherine Heiny writes and these short stories are just as funny and smart about love and relationships as her longer books. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – September 27-28, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My well-intentioned coworker keeps commenting on my phone calls I sit in a bank of cubicles with a young colleague in his first ever job. He’s very sweet and well-intentioned, but his efforts at making conversation are making me a little uncomfortable. For context, I am about two levels above him in our hierarchy, but he’s in a completely different business group and our work has no overlap whatsoever. I do not know anyone else on his team — we sit in an “miscellaneous overflow” section of the office (which is not ideal, but not currently changeable). Every day, he comments on how many meetings I have and what my sche…

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…

Growing up, we pick up all kinds of lessons from our families about work, often without even realizing it. You might have learned from your parents to view all managers adversarially, or that gumption is essential to getting ahead, or that you should keep your head down and never speak up about problems or to be excessively deferential, or that messing up was unforgivable … or maybe there are things you wish you had learned from your parents but didn’t. Let’s discuss in the comments. What lessons about work did you learn (or not learn) from your family, and how did those affect your career? The post what did you learn from your parents about work? appeared first on Ask …

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: Would you consider an Ask the Readers on what people wish they’d known when they first became managers? I’ve just stepped into my first leadership role, moving from being a highly regarded individual contributor (who task managed teams for different projects) to actually managing a small department and wow, it’s a much bigger shift than I expected. I’d love to hear what helped others get over that hump, what made things easier, what surprised them, and what they wish they’d known earlier. Bonus points for advice on: • Managing people who’ve been on the team for years but weren’t hired for this role despite…

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…

A reader writes: I’m fairly new to the workforce (~3 years) and, between a time-limited paid fellowship and moving cities for grad school, I’ve changed jobs a couple of times. My current role is the first time I’ve been eligible to apply for a new role within my same organization, and while the job market makes me suspect that hordes of qualified people will be jumping on this posting, I’m optimistic about my chances. The organization would definitely prefer to hire internally if they can. I’ve already been cross-trained on some of the functions of this new role, and I know I can talk intelligently about my approach to the work in an interview. But what do I do when th…

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I currently work in the private sector, but lately I’ve been feeling dissatisfied with the thought of spending my whole career working just to increase shareholder value. My employer and many other companies in my field have demonstrated zero loyalty or investment in employees, with multiple rounds of layoffs and limited-to-no raises or professional development opportunities. The one good thing about my job is that the benefits and work-life balance are pretty good. Recently, I’ve applied for a few project-based jobs for nonprofits using my existing skillset. These positions would work on specific, mission-b…

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…

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…