This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
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 wanted to know how much they could pet their cat on video calls? Here’s the update.
The cats are doing great! And so am I, pretty much. I got promoted recently, and my manager was a big reason why; she went to bat for me and sang my praises, both to me and the higher-ups.
When I wrote in, I was stressed in general because my boss was giving me lots of nitpicky negative feedback and no positive feedback, so I was concerned about my performance / hypervigilant about other things I might be doing wrong. I realized recently that (a) she and I are both fairly neurodivergent; (b) what I thought was needless micromanaging was in fact subtle advice for how to behave when I’m in a higher position — she has said since then that she’s preparing me for a management role; (c) although she rarely gives positive feedback on a day-to-day basis, whenever I ask how I’m doing / meet for a performance evaluation, she effusively praises my strengths / how I’ve grown / how I’m valuable, and says how grateful she is to have me on her team; (d) she is always respectful in her behavior; and (e) she is very open to critical feedback herself, thanks me for it, and modifies her behavior based on it.
As I’ve been understanding more about what she wants from me and putting it into practice, the “nitpicking” has lessened dramatically. Ironically, having instant critical feedback on a day-to-day basis and rock-solid support during performance evaluations, has allowed me to lower my defenses and relax a lot!
Your nuanced advice regarding cat interactions has allowed me to not worry about it anymore. I try to keep my cats off-camera as much as possible, so I don’t forget and kiss them on the head, but luckily most of my meetings are with my tiny team and are camera-free. I think if I’m ever in a more important meeting with with my camera on and Babka decides it’s lap time, I’ll probably need to turn off video / mute while I lock her in another room, because she is Persistent and has Many Feelings. Now that I’m more confident, once in a while I’ll turn my camera on briefly so that my tiny team can see Babka on my shoulder — but then again, my boss loves cats and often has whole conversations with her cat while she’s in meetings with us. 🙂 And I know She Would Tell Me if she wanted me to change!
the cats in question
