Performance Tracking and Feedback

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Last week we discussed final F-you’s to jobs or bosses you hated, and here are 18 of the best stories you shared. (Caveat: appearing on this list is not an endorsement of said behavior in every case! Stories are shared primarily for entertainment value.) 1. The revenge A legal secretary at the Big Law firm I worked at knew she was going to be fired, so the day before she went into a bunch of partners emails and sent their wives evidence of infidelity, printed out confidential employee evaluations/communications about bonuses/pay and left them in everyone’s desk, and then cleaned out the swag closet (…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Our board volunteer makes everyone’s jobs harder I was recently made the chair of the board for a local community service group. The board receives money each year to buy supplies for community service events, but being on the board is a volunteer position (no one is getting paid). Basically, anyone who wants to be on the board can be because we really need the extra help. Historically, people have only been asked to step down if there is an ethical concern. The parent organization that provides funds does not provide rules or guidance on staffing, …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I work in the five-person office of a large pre-school. My colleague, Amy, keeps a five-gallon fish tank near her desk with between two and four fish in it. The tank is in full view of the office door and the lobby beyond. The fish are important to the school; when our young students are overwhelmed and need to calm down, the office fish are often their first stop with their teachers, and “saying hi” is often enough to stop a crying jag. The kids love watching the brightly colored fish, who all have fun names, and Amy loves them, too. She takes great care of the fish, arranging feedin…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: What do you owe a company when you accept a position? Is it ever okay to leave a good job only a few weeks after starting? I worked for a decade in an industry I loved, then burned out hard and left for a better-paying sector. For the past 18 months, I’ve been contracting part-time with a successful startup, doing work that’s similar but less engaging (to me). Since I started here, I’ve made it clear that I’d love to come on as a full-time employee, and for a long time they’ve been saying it’ll happen. My interest is really about the good pay and benefits, since I’ve found this job m…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I own/manage a business, let’s say a retail heath care equipment supply company that is located in a larger health care campus. I have multiple employees, and for a six-hour shift they get two 15-minute breaks. It isn’t intense or overly physically exhausting work, but I realize it is nice to step away for a few minutes. No problems until a few weeks ago when I hired “Deleana.” She looked great on paper so I hired her. Come to find out she is a smoker. Recently we had a meeting about her ongoing tardiness from breaks and the possibility of disciplinary action, up to and including ter…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Should I say something about past allegations against a colleague? I started a new position about six months ago, working with partner organizations across the state on community projects. On a recent call, I was surprised to see someone I’ll call Brad. I knew Brad from my time teaching in a different city, where he was an activist in the reproductive health rights space. A few years ago, Brad had to leave that work and relocate after being accused of grooming minors. Two friends who work in that space told me about it at the time. Now, Brad is wo…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I’m writing to you because I believe what happened to me today (literally 30 minutes ago) is a lesson to be learned — though I’m struggling to identify exactly what that lesson is. For the past eight months, I’ve been working for a small company, and I absolutely love my job. In fact, since starting here, I’ve grown to love it even more. My manager (the CEO) told me that I would be receiving a promotion, but I decided to wait until everything was officially confirmed in writing before getting too excited. That day finally arrived, and I received an email with my promotion letter. Ho…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I’m wondering whether a good boss should ever show impatience. One of my employees, Jane, does a good job. I’ve given her a lot of (well-deserved) praise in public and private, and she’s said she’s happy in her work. However, she made a serious error the other day and when I brought it up with her, she shrugged and said it couldn’t be helped. I confess that my tone got impatient and I said something like, “No, we need to fix this because otherwise X.” I wasn’t shouting or otherwise being a jerk, but I definitely sounded impatient. I could see she was surprised, probably because I am…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I started a new job about four months ago in a team of six people in a mid-sized company, and my five immediate coworkers have been nothing but nice and helpful. They answer all of my questions, take lots of time to explain stuff, include me in lunch plans, go out of their way to make sure I have the equipment I need, etc. We spend one week per month in the office and work from home the rest of the time. There is a group chat for just our team and our manager where we discuss work, but also post the occasional funny meme, talk about our weekends, just normal stuff. The thing is that …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Is swiping on a coworker on a dating app grounds for an HR meeting? Asking for a friend: They absent-mindedly swiped on a coworker in a dating app (whom they asked out once two years earlier). Said coworker was uncomfortable with that and went to HR, and they all had a sit-down about leaving said coworker alone. I am all for not harassing people you work with romantically, but I am also conflicted — is swiping right on a coworker on Bumble or Tinder grounds for an HR intervention? They are both on a dating app, after all — a place where you are op…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Over the years, we’ve heard about people who chose some pretty odd hills to die on — people who became so strongly committed to a minor fight that they lost all sight of logic and decorum. To wit: “Our break room has a giant whiteboard calendar in it. Last year the company sent us a new one and asked us to start using it at the first of this year. Not really sure why … the other was perfectly usable and there was no differing info on it, but hey, whatever! The new calendar is slightly smaller than the previous one – as in the previous calendar was 36×48 inches and the new one is 32×44 inches. The woma…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Remember the letter-writer whose coworkers had way more money than her but constantly expected her to shell out cash for meals and gifts? Here’s the update. Thanks for posting my letter and for your advice a while back. I have a somewhat unsatisfying update. The gift-giving has slowed down considerably, presumably because the federal workplace isn’t exactly festive at the moment. However, the original issue recently showed up in a different form. Our office admin offered to put together (what I understood to be) a no-host happy hour as a send-off event for a colleague who recently got DOGE’d. (Note: …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I work at a fairly large international company with several offices and remote workers all over the country. I manage a team of three graphic designers. My position and team are all new; previously all design work was outsourced. I was hired to put together a team and bring design in-house. I did all of the work in the beginning, and added additional designers one at a time. I am exempt, and my team are all non-exempt. Now that the team is running well, I’m finding myself without much to do. I meet with my boss biweekly to relay the status of our projects, new clients, vendor issues,…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. My boss embarrassed me at a department meeting My company is being bought out for a larger organization. Our jobs will no longer exist in four months. We’ve been encouraged to review the job postings and apply to jobs for which we might qualify. I reviewed the postings and selected two to apply for — one that would be very easy for me to move to as it’s tasks I already complete daily. The other was a stretch position, something that I’ve done but haven’t dabbled much in while at my current organization. I got an interview for the stretch job and, wh…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. 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. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. 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: Real Americans, by Rachel Khong. This is an epic family saga told in three generations: a pair of scientists who fled China’s Cultural Revolution, their daughter, and the son she has in America with the wealthy heir to a pharmaceutical company, whose business is intertwined with her parents in ways she learns of only later. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. View the full a…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I found weird “detox” propaganda in the office kitchen I work at a small nonprofit of under 30 employees and we share one small kitchen. Articles relevant to our field or other interesting items are often left in the center of the table for us to read. I walked into the kitchen the other day and found a seven-page printout about “superhuman brain shakes.” I looked into the group that published it and the doctor behind it, and what I found did not sit well with me. The guy talks about “detoxification” and peddles supplements, all while vilifying pre…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I work at a small creative business with about 25 employees, Our structure is pretty flat, and there is no traditional HR or processes that come with working at larger organizations. There are three main departments. I run one, and my coworker who I am writing about, Maggie, runs one of the others. A small thing has become a big issue: While we all have open calendars to make scheduling easier, Maggie refuses to make her calendar open and keeps it entirely private. In addition, her calendar is often entirely booked with meetings, showing no open times to add anything. As a result, i…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I’ve got an employee who had a weird encounter with another employee. It wasn’t harassment but it’s made her feel uncomfortable whenever he’s around. She doesn’t want to make a complaint though. Is there anything we can do if there’s no complaint made? 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. Other questions I’m answering there today include: Telling employees to stop taking guidance from coworker…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Last week we talked about weird hills to die on — people who became so strongly committed to a minor fight that they lost all sight of logic and decorum — and here are 10 of my favorite stories you shared. 1. The newsletter Our Fortune 500 company hosted a weekend company-wide softball tourney, which was won by a team led by a guy known around the office as Hothead. Monday morning arrives and the company-wide daily email goes out with important company announcements. One of the items included was the results of the previous weekend’s softball tourney. Hothead was livid about the fact that it include…

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 mentee was fired for using a vulgar term I work in a regulated industry and there are specific education and license requirements to work here. My company has a mentorship program for those who are new to the industry. I am one of those with the highest non-management title at my company, and my manager encouraged me sign up for the program. I was assigned an entry-level employee from my company, “Wendy.” I thought things were going well. Wendy was bright and on the ball. But Wendy was let go from her job and I’m wondering if I should have done …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I feel bananas asking this, but could you give me a read on how/whether people still use phones in office/remote office work in 2025? I have a fully remote, customer-focused job for a tiny organization, and no one on my team will use phones. I have the most customer interactions and am willing to answer my phone if one calls, but I wind up getting calls for everyone on my team, because none of my colleagues will pick up their phones or even return voicemails. At most, they will email and agree to schedule a Zoom, but mainly they just ignore calls entirely. I don’t mind helping out, …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: In the past year or two, quite a few people (typically middle-aged men) have been reaching out to me via LinkedIn (I am a 20-something woman) trying to recruit me. While I do have a lot of experience, I’m wondering if it’s odd that some of these professionals are reaching out to me, as I am under the impression it should be the other way around. They are the ones with the experience and connections while I’m the one building my network. My settings are set to the “not seeking a job” setting, and it’s clear on my profile that I am currently employed, and yet I still receive these fairl…

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…

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…