updates: the bereavement gift, the free advice, and more

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 definitely not take it personally.

I haven’t heard back from the boss — not that I’d expect to — but now that some time has passed and the bereavement fog has lifted and I’m seeing straight again, I’ve been hoping to run into them to say hi and thanks again in person. But I haven’t seen them in the office at all, since — now I come to think of it — February.

I have since learnt that they’ve taken a year’s sabbatical. We have a new interim CEO now, who I haven’t met.

Remember how I said that my colleagues are a bit prone to gossip? It turns out that the boss is in a long-running and acrimonious dispute with another senior employee, with accusations going both ways about each other’s conduct, and mediation has been unsuccessful. About the time the boss sent me that odd email about the bereavement gift, they’d also contacted a few others, including people from client organizations who’d had contact with them, asking for comments about their working relationship, as evidence in support of their case in the dispute.

I’m “officially” not supposed to know this. A colleague sort of blurted it out one break time, when — despite my “oh dear, so sorry, but let’s not” responses — once they started, couldn’t stop. I’m staying very, very neutral and professional when I’m in the office and avoiding the kitchen and informal spaces where most of the gossip happens. But the atmosphere is kind of sad and strained.

Thanks again for responding to my letter, Alison, and to everyone who commented, and for all the good advice.

2. How to ask people who want free advice to pay me for it (#4 at the link)

I received an email from a former manager after they had received a major violation because they missed a massive piece of work from my former position. I actually don’t know how it was missed. In that email, two other managers were copied — my former boss and a person who was covering some of my former work, but who I had screened out for an opportunity due to lack of experience. They sent this email to my new work email, and I had to notify my manager because it was now public record. I used some of your wording to tell them I could request permission to do a short-term contract and could send them my anticipated rates, or they would need to handle this without me. There was some legal liability involved, and I no longer had authority to advise them; I would have wanted to protect myself from any legal implications under a contract as well. I never performed my job for free before, so continuing to answer questions and navigate them through enforcement wasn’t something I was going to do.

When I brought up a contract and payment, I never heard from them after that. Although I am glad I don’t have to untangle the mess, I was disappointed that I didn’t even hear anything over a year, given that we had a positive work relationship. No keeping in touch even just to be pleasant, it was crickets.

Overall I am glad I am off the hook and I have a way to respond to other requests in the future. My “new” job has been going well, and I am glad to have a large team instead of drowning in work and managing chaos. I also replaced a toxic manager who was terrorizing my team, and overall everyone seems happy with my more laid-back style.

3. How to interpret new daily meetings with my boss (#3 at the link)

My daily 1-on-1s with my boss continued for about a month, and then priorities in our company shifted and my boss couldn’t sustain the time and they just kind of petered out. While we were still meeting daily, I did try to take the advice of using the time to my advantage. I tried to step things up myself — not just projecting confidence but showing more evidence of my work and strategic thinking — and I do think that helped reassure him and make things feel less tense, and make me feel like I was getting something out of the meetings as well.

I never asked point-blank about why the meetings were happening, but looking back, it does seem like there was more going on affecting my boss than I was aware of. I was so focused on the why me of it that I didn’t recognize about how much had been changing for him as well, and how he probably felt under additional pressure and scrutiny at that time and was probably using these meetings to pass on some of that to me (not maliciously but probably just to, in a roundabout way, get some support himself).

After a few months, I had an opportunity to switch divisions and step into a role starting to manage some junior folks, which I’m really enjoying! I’m trying to be really clear in my communication with them so I don’t pass on anxiety and ambiguity myself going forward, but I also have a little more appreciation now for the stresses of being responsible for other people’s successes.

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