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 five updates from past letter-writers.
There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.
1. My boss says I need to socialize more with my team
I was able to comment the day that the article was posted and gave some additional details: I am a woman, I am also the youngest person on my team by about 20 years (I am mid-30’s), and my manager just went through a contentious divorce. I didn’t think much of it until other people in the comments were telling me to err on the side of caution when it came to my manager’s feedback given that it seems like he just wanted to spend more time with me, and not necessarily that my team doesn’t know me, especially given that he wants me to be sociable late at night.
I went through two more meetings with my manager where he kept saying that he feels as though the team doesn’t know me, but would not give direct feedback even when I asked. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I had two conventions I attended with my teammates (that my manager did not attend due to other conflicts) and I was able to hold some space to tell them that I had received feedback that it feels like people don’t know me and that I’m always available if people have any questions or if they’d like to talk. The response was a resounding: “What are you even talking about? We know you very well and we enjoy working with you!” from every single person on my team.
When I brought this back to my manager, he hemmed and hawed and wouldn’t talk to me more about it even when I asked where the feedback was coming from given that I received the exact opposite feedback from my teammates.
About two weeks ago, there was a major restructuring in my department and — surprise — my manager is no longer with the company. My suspicion is that there was much more going on than just this issue.
On the bright side, I got to meet my new interim manager. He and I have actually worked together previously at a different company and we worked very well together, and he seems eager to actually manage instead of trying to police people’s time outside of working hours. He has even put me in charge of an upcoming work dinner, and I have scheduled it from 5-7 PM with absolutely zero obligation for people to hang out after 7 PM unless they’d like to.
2. My boss is mad that I communicate better than she does (#4 at the link)
Thanks so much for answering my letter, I really appreciated the reality check and your advice along with that of the commenters, and I do have an update to share.
I tried to clarify some of this in the comments, but here’s some background that people were asking for. My manager (Jane) and I are both middle-age women, we’ve worked together for years, and she knows I don’t want her position. The last time it was open, I was encouraged to apply and declined. I don’t want to “manage” exclusively, I like keeping my hands in the work more than just doing projections, reporting, etc.
On to the update. After reading your advice, I began using your wording with people asking about decisions and answers. Most caught on pretty quickly that things had changed, but my reputation didn’t seem to take any hit, thankfully. I also set up a meeting with my grandboss (Laura). Not wanting to completely blow up my relationships, I didn’t give Laura the full context of the comments, but I did tell her I had been told to talk less in meetings and was coflicted becuase it seemed that she was aksing questions and wanting me to contribute, while Jane had explicitly told me that I needed to talk less. I pointed out that I was also trying to involve Jane in meeting more (deferring to her when asked questions) and had even been IM’ing Jane in meetings with questions and thoughts so she could share instead of me. Laura was baffled and said she’d noticed I had been much quieter recently and she had been wanting to reach out and check on me. She offered to talk to Jane for me if I wasn’t comfortable, but in the end we decided I would try to get clarification again on the direction.
And I did…only to be told it was all a “miscommunication” and “misunderstanding” and I should just keep doing what I was doing and everything was fine (???). I tried to go back to normal and was then overruled by Jane on a couple of issues that seemed simple but greatly impacted my team’s workflow and morale. Eventually she reversed course but it was always presented as her idea to make improvements that were really just changing things back to the procedures I had set up originally. It was frustrating to say the least.
Throughout all of this, I was considering a lot of the questions asked by the commenters, and thought about what I really wanted to get out of my job and if I had hit the limits of what I could do within my org. While I had grown and expanded my job beyond what the intial description was, there really was no room for growth without moving into a more “hands-off” role than what I wanted, and even if I went that route it would be a long time coming. While I loved many things about my company and my team, I decided I needed to look around and see if there was something that might be better for me. And there was! I’m happy to say that I’m starting this week at a new job focused on training beginning teapot lid makers, with less responsibility, more money, better benefits, and what seems so far to be a very supportive manager!
3. My coworker refuses to talk to us and management won’t do anything (#2 at the link)
I originally wrote in mid-June, looking for advice and/or a reality check about Ann blanking out the majority of the team. After your reply and the advice/comments from the comment section, I did manage to mostly live with it. About a month later our district manager was around and Ann and her friend asked to speak with her, privately. The DM, thankfully, decided that she needed to actually hear all sides of the situation, and launched a full investigation into what was going on.
Beginning in late July and running into early August, everyone in the store was pulled in for one-on-one meetings with the DM and the regional manager. In my own meeting I mentioned Sam citing Ann and Friend as a reason for his leaving, and a couple of incidents that had happened with me. After the round of meetings and another couple weeks of behind-the-scenes coordination, we had a few Big Staff Meetings with our store manager, district manager, and regional manager, giving a literally-scripted talk on behaving professionally and being nice to each other. Ann and Friend did improve for a while after this, beginning directly after the DM launched her investigation and lasting for about two weeks after those Staff Meetings. When they returned to their previous habits, the rest of the staff rolled our eyes and moved on.
In the past few weeks, though, Ann and Friend have become more and more attached at the seams. This has included things like Ann and Friend being assigned to work different sections of the store and Friend proceeds to ignore the assignment and go help Ann for the day. Sometimes, that means they’ve been scheduled for separate lunch times, and they’ll ignore the schedule and proceed to take their lunch together. And just under a week ago, when Ann was assigned a different lunch than Friend, Ann seems to have decided that she wasn’t interested in taking her lunch if she didn’t have Friend nearby. She proceeded to clock out for her lunch break and return to work during that time. One of our shift leads discovered this and pulled Ann into a disciplinary conversation about not breaking labor laws. During the course of that conversation the shift lead ended up pulling in the District Manager via speakerphone, and based on what Ann was saying and what had already been happening, District Manager made the decision to let Ann go from the company.
We’re hoping that without Ann there, Friend will be a reasonable coworker, but it is early days to tell for that. We’ve also heard that we won’t be hiring to replace Ann, so it’s not an ideal situation, but it’s still nice to go into work without wondering if I’ll be ignored today.
4. I lied to get out of a non-compete, and now it’s coming back to haunt me
A day or so after I wrote to you, the organization I had lied to canceled my interview. HR said they had chosen another candidate, and that was that. I didn’t ask any questions because it seemed unwise to poke that bear. I suppose I got exactly the consequences I deserved: no second chance with that specific employer. And that’s OK with me. I can accept that I did something dishonest and crappy, I can accept the (possible, but unproven) consequences of the dishonest, crappy thing I did, and I can also accept that not being interviewed for a position is not a career-ending event.
As penance, I came clean to both my parents about The Lie. Fortunately, they didn’t care: they were incredulous that my former employer had made me sign a non-compete at all, especially as the underling I was at the time. My mom made a mom joke along the lines of “It’s a good thing I didn’t drop dead. If I had you would have felt really guilty,” which was absolutely warranted.
Since my letter, I’ve entered clinical research, a much bigger field with many more employers and jobs. This would be all sunshine and roses except three people from my old organization, all of whom were aware of The Lie, work at my new organization, so I’m still waiting for the past to catch up with me. If and when I face those consequences I suppose I’ll have to accept them too.
5. Joint retirement party (#5 at the link)
The staff arranging the retirement party decided to ask the retirees what they wanted as you suggested and they decided a joint party was a good idea. The wife had nothing to do with it. Itl turned out to be a fun evening for all.
