Performance Tracking and Feedback

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…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. CEO shared family trip photos after announcing budget cuts We just had a company-wide town hall, and the CEO — whom I’ve always known to be even-tempered and generally reasonable — kicked things off by sharing a recap and photos of his recent Disney World trip with 20 family members. This comes shortly after we were told about budget cuts, no bonuses, and rising health insurance costs that are eating into our modest merit increases. Needless to say, vacations aren’t exactly top of mind for most of us right now. Was this tone-deaf? Or am I overreacti…

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. My client “befriended” me and now isn’t paying for my work I am a self-employed home manager. I gained a new client via referral a few months ago. She is very nice and friendly, and I am a friendly “relationship building” type of professional. This has served me well in getting and keeping clients and in sales previously. I admit, I do struggle with crossing the line — oversharing too much personal info, experiences, etc. — and with this particular client, it has backfired. After working with her for a few weeks, I offered to help with one task at no charge to help her out during a very difficult time in her personal …

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. Clients apologize to my boss for snapping at me I am a receptionist/admin in a two-person office. I understand fully that it is my job to be the front line dealing with clients both in person and on the phone. However, I’m baffled by this thing that has happened several times in the three years I’ve been in this job, and happened again last week most egregiously. A client will snap at me over a policy I cannot change/have zero control over. They will storm out in a huff. Then later, they will call, I’ll answer the phone, they’ll ask to speak to my boss (Jane), and then once I transfer the call, they apologize to her f…

A reader writes: A friend of mine got a job in property management and wasn’t told about the dress code until a couple months in. It is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. The highlights: * Women can only shop at Ann Taylor. They are given $700 twice a year for a clothing allowance, but $700 only gets you two suits and two shirts. * They have to wear certain color combinations on certain days, which means you can’t just buy those two suits and rotate them every other day. * Women have to wear heels. Property management involves some desk work but a whole lot of walking around, so you have to run around inside, outside, and up and down stairs in heels. Can th…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. At a time when many Americans are struggling with rising costs of living, too many corporate executives are making it clear that they have no idea what life is like for their employees. We regularly hear accounts at AAM of out-of-touch executives who have alienated large portions of their workforce – often via clueless displays of wealth at the exact same time that they’re laying off employees, increasing health insurance costs, or otherwise squeezing their workers. At Slate today, I share some shocking examples of this, and talk about how it hurts both employers and employees. You can read it here. …

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 post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Coworker asks someone to get him food from the cafeteria every day I work as a consultant for a company and have an older male colleague (in his late 40s) who has mobility issues due to his weight. He sits almost all day and arrives very early before anyone else arrives. He cannot walk more than a few feet without pain and asks me (or another colleague) to grab meals for him at the cafeteria almost daily. He gives people money for his food, which is always junk food, and is very apologetic and appreciative. Most people, including myself, bring pack…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Coworker cheated in our virtual Jeopardy tournament A couple years ago, just for fun, a coworker started a virtual Jeopardy tournament which anyone in the company could participate in. It was the usual setup: three contestants (with cameras on), the coworker hosting, and an audience tuned in once a week. One contestant, “Kurt,” was the reigning champion. The man could not be beat. Until, after a few weeks, there was some speculation that Kurt was not abiding by the honor system and had Google up on his screen. The theory was finally confirmed when there was a question about an obscure national bird. After a pause with…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker doesn’t want to report our boss for harassment Recently a coworker shared information with me about some pretty egregious sexual comments our mutual boss made. My personal feeling is that she needs to share this with HR and/or our company leadership team (we are a small startup with less than 50 employees, going to leadership would be fine). She has said she’ll consider it but she just needed to tell someone. Then she asked that I tell no one. I want to tell our HR anyway because there should be an investigation and/or consequences. Wha…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker reacts out loud when reading about politics I work at a front desk position at a cultural institution, and usually there is a lot of down time at my job. I love this aspect of the job and usually spend several hours a day reading. There are almost always two people on staff, so there are a few different people I will work alongside for the entire day. One of my coworkers verbally reacts to a lot of things that they are looking at during this otherwise quiet time. This person will laugh abruptly and very loudly, or will make comments into the silence like “oh wow” or “ew, that’s horrible.” Sometimes these r…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Coworker keeps giving me praise I don’t deserve When I got my current job a year ago, I filled a specific niche that they really needed. For the first few months, I was making a ton of new content for the organization, and making edits to existing content. Some of this was honestly low-effort, but because no one knew anything about my field, I was getting high praise for just about anything. Then after those months, requests for new content trickled down and I only had to make edits every once in a blue moon, so I shifted to doing more administrati…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Fire one employee, both employees, or no one? I am an assistant manager at a chain restaurant. There are two employees who should be fired due to violating our call-out policy, which is two NCNS (no call, no show) in a row is automatic termination and if you can’t make your shift you need to call the store with at least three hours notice. Both employees have violated this in different ways. Adam gives three hours notice sometimes but calls out at least once a week, and dictates his schedule to us instead of us scheduling him as we need him. He refuses to call and opts to text out, but is never a NCNS. He is generally…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker is making our friend break-up really weird I have a coworker who I was friends with outside of work for about a year. Due to various issues inside and outside of work (complaining about coworkers over Teams, asking the same basic questions over and over, not doing any bare-minimum problem-solving before asking for help, expecting a lot of emotional support while not providing it back, and just a lot of emotional immaturity), I ended our friendship last July with no possibility of being friends again. We’re in the same department and have…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker keeps a wall of embarrassing photos of former coworkers I started a new job at a start-up a few months ago and one of my coworkers, who I work closely with, has a wall next to his desk where he has pinned up half a dozen enlarged photos of everyone who has left the company recently. He finds an old school photo, or them in a costume, or with braces, whatever he thinks is funny. As soon as someone puts in their two weeks, their photo goes up on the wall. He recently got told by HR to take the photos down after someone complained. Everyon…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker leaves her teenager in our office while she’s gone I will preface this by saying I work in a toxic environment with an an extremely toxic boss, so I know some of what’s going on isn’t normal. My coworker, Felicia, brings her teenage daughter to work. This is technically against company policy, but it’s not a fight I want to have with my boss. Recently, though, Felicia has been leaving her daughter in the office while going off campus to meetings, lunch, etc. This means my other coworker, Carrie, and I have to watch over the daughter — make sure she’s signed into a computer, answer any questions, grab her l…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker masturbates in the men’s bathroom There is a guy in my office who will go into one of the stalls in the men’s bathroom for 20-30 minutes at a time. I have had the bad luck of entering a stall next to him and hearing audible masturbation noises. I think he does this every day we work in-office because I swear it’s happened 5-6 times. A coworker I’m close with has confirmed hearing it as well, so I know I am not going crazy. I have also seen this guy come out of the bathroom with headphones on, looking at something on his phone, so after r…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker spends so long in the bathroom that I’m stuck with all the work Can anything realistically be done about a coworker who spends ages in the bathroom? We work in a cafeteria in four-hour shifts where there’s only one hour we serve food. It’s two people on our shift, me and Fergus. He’s in the bathroom for at least 15-20 minutes, sometimes twice a shift. He does sometimes wait until it’s slow, but sometimes he takes so long it goes into when we’re busy. Like yesterday he went at 5:25, and at 5:45 I got fed up and yelled his name. He finally came back. Lunch starts at 6 and we actually start making it at 5:30…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: My office is next to a person who swears a lot during the work day. I assume it’s frustration with his computer, but a least a couple times an hour I’ll hear an onslaught of expletives coming from his desk. It’s pretty disconcerting to hear and it’s also really distracting. Otherwise, he’s a great person to work with but I’m not sure how to approach this. What should I do? 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 sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can re…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Coworker who (probably) has a crush keeps hanging out at my desk I was hoping I could get your advice on dealing with a coworker who won’t leave me alone (“Greg”) and is making me increasingly uncomfortable. I’m a woman in my 20s and Greg is a decade older than me. He asked me out a few months ago and I rejected him, and he hasn’t asked me out since. We are under the same organization and our work overlaps somewhat. Greg works in another building and frequently comes over to mine. While he says he has meetings in my building, he will often come to my desk and sit next to me to chat. He starts awkward, banal conversati…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker’s anxiety becomes my problem I have a coworker, “Lily,” who reports to my manager and has been at the company for two years, with our team for four months. She and I are both pretty new to the workforce (we are 25 years old), so I would appreciate some advice on handling this situation in a mature and sensitive way. Lily does great work — she’s diligent, detail-oriented, and on top of all our tasks. However, she seems very anxious all the time, and her anxiety can feel overwhelming. She has a tendency to talk very fast without making ey…

A reader writes: I often bake for my office. I just bring in the baked goods and leave them in the kitchen. I don’t solicit compliments and I don’t directly offer them to people, either. The only compliment I need is seeing an empty tray at the end of the day. I don’t even know who tried the baked goods and I don’t seek to find out. The baked goods generally go over well and I get thank-you’s and compliments, but I also get a handful of people coming over to thank me for bringing in baked goods but explaining that they can’t eat them for whatever reason — allergies, diet, whatever. This bothers me a lot and I don’t know if I’m justified. A generous reading is that they…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. People are bouncing on yoga balls during Zoom calls I’m at an all-remote company. Zooms are our go-to. In the Zooms I organize, I prefer videos off and most people know that. (So I don’t have to do my hair or get distracted, and it just drains me so much!) Obviously I make exceptions where called for. But I’m at the mercy of others when I join their meetings, and a lot of them have videos on as a default. And a few of my coworkers have recently started bouncing on yoga balls and walking on walking pads throughout their meetings. This makes me feel …

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…

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 bringing kids to work but keeping it a secret from our boss I work in a small, open concept office and I am having issues with my coworker bringing children to work. My coworker “Sansa” has a grandchild the same age as the son of another one of my coworkers, “Arya.” The boys are best friends and they attended the same (all-day) preschool. There were several times over the course of the summer that the boys were present in the office, sometimes for the entire day, between times when their summer camps was not in session and my boss was…