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 coworker interrupts me with questions she could answer herself My coworker and I used to work in the same extremely toxic workplace. We leaned on each other, commiserated, and when I told her I was done, she pointed me in the direction of a job she knew would be better. I moved to the new job and after six months, she took a job here as well. The onboarding process here isn’t the best. We were each assigned a mentor, but largely we need to figure out how to do our work ..read more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: For the last nine months, I’ve been doing a (paid) internship at a foundation that is aimed at recent graduates looking to enter the nonprofit world. It’s been a great experience, both in the kind of work I am doing and the people I am working with. I’ve also consistently gotten great feedback, to the point where my boss has said multiple times that she’d like me to return to work for them once I have the necessary degree. However, while looking at our internal phone registry, I recently discovered that my ..read more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Here are three updates from past letter-writers. 1. Random people use our lactation room for breaks and lunch (#3 at the link) I really appreciated seeing your response and those of the commenters. It helped me feel validated and affirmed for me that I was not being overly entitled or too demanding in my attempts to resolve the issue. I did eventually take the matter to HR. Starting this week, the room is to be closed and locked by default. The other lactating mother and I were given keys (as was suggested by several commen ..read more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Let’s talk about business trip mishaps. Maybe you were booked for a 26-hour series of flights for a trip that should have only taken 11 hours, or maybe your boss told you to camp in a tent while traveling for work, or maybe you had to share a hotel room with a coworker who screams in her sleep. Why not turn your misery into our entertainment by telling us your business trip horror stories in the comments? You may also like: I shared a room with a coworker on a work trip, and their respirator kept me awake all week my cowork ..read more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Hiring manager assaulted a police officer I’m interviewing for a role that I’m excited about, but caught something odd when googling the hiring manager’s name to find their LinkedIn profile. 15 years ago, when the hiring manager was in college, they were arrested for assault and battery on a police officer while presumably drunk. I know people, especially college students, do regrettable things sometimes, and from all other indications it seems like this person is a well-r ..read more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I manage “Mandy” and have needed to give her feedback a few times on the same topic. Think something like, “When you present a proposal, you need to avoid vague explanations of the client problem your proposal addresses and include detailed, quantified specifics of its impacts on the client.” I usually then go into an explanation of why it’s important to do this. But I think I get too long-winded, because Mandy always gets very quiet and just says “OK,” without asking questions, almost as if she’s being lec ..read more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Remember the letter-writer whose employee retired, but then wouldn’t leave, even after she had been replaced? Here’s the update. To summarize what happened after my letter was published: 1. Boss reminded Fiona to work part-time only. 2. Fiona complied reluctantly, blaming Sally (her replacement) for this arrangement. 3. Fiona gradually increased her own working hours back to full-time. When asking other coworkers for their work failed, she made extra tasks like creating unnecessary reports or copying documents by hand writi ..read more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Last week was the annual Ask a Manager salary survey, which as of this writing received more than 12,000 responses. This week, let’s compare paid time off. Fill out the form below to anonymously share how much paid time off you get, in the context of your field and other relevant factors. (Do not leave your info in the comments section! If you can’t see the survey questions, try this link instead.) When you’re done, you can view all the responses in a sortable spreadsheet. Loading… You may also like: everything you need to ..read more

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 intern was working two full-time jobs I work at a nonprofit and manage our internship program. I handle the administrative side of things, while our program teams handle the day-to-day/substantive work assignments and management. I received a message from one of those teams this morning sharing that, through social media, they found out one of our paid interns has had another full-time internship this semester on top of her classes. She did not share this with us previ ..read more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: A buddy of mine just quit her job, and her boss, a truly evil person, countered with a raise and a promotion. My friend refused, of course, because, truly evil person. But it got me thinking, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen bosses offer too little too late to save a stellar employee, and I wonder why. Why don’t bosses preemptively think that if they don’t treat their best people well that those people will depart for someone who will? Why do they think that making such an offer only after the employee g ..read more